"Hecate!" Omphale called, dodging the whip Hercules allowed her to escape. The lash of it split her throne.
Hercules made eye contact with the queen, waiting for her to realize that she was so defenseless despite her magic that she ought to start groveling before things got worse. He didn't know how long he could hold himself back, but he knew Dionysus would only encourage him the worse he got.
If Dionysus so wished, Herc would wake up an hour after decimating the whole room, but thankfully, most innocent parties had already fled the room.
"Behave yourself!" Hecate announced and thus became the focal point of his ire.
"You don't get to tell me how to behave. This is what you wanted, right?" He wrapped the whip into a loop while he approached Hecate.
"You have run amok! How dare you dismiss the authority of your mistress?"
"I don't have a mistress. I have a wife, and you have perpetrated an unforgivable crime against her."
"Speaking of unforgivable crimes, that's why you're here! You murdered Prince Megarion!"
"Did I?" Hercules folded his arms. "How about you listen to my witness?"
Dionysus appeared close enough behind Hecate that she was sandwiched between the hero and his brother.
"We can administer divine Justice right here," a woman said as she emerged from the crowd. All three deities looked her way in confusion until her disguise melted off to reveal Athena. "I've seen enough, I believe, but I want to hear the arguments."
Hercules's heart lightened. If Athena were involved, not only would he get his hearing, but she would punish Hecate appropriately.
"You're too biased," Hecate accused.
"We all know you, that's why." Hera joined Athena, and then Zeus, Apollo, and Aphrodite appeared as well.
"Listen, I personally helped put this couple together, so, yeah! I'm a little biased!" Aphrodite exclaimed.
Hercules smiled at her in gratitude for helping him get past Meg's walls, but his smile faded at the thought he may never see her again.
"Hecate claims you murdered someone? That is a serious claim… you would have to be punished for that," Zeus said.
"I've seen your punishments; you don't really enforce them," Hecate said. "That's why my punishment is already in play!"
"I just want my wife back, and she kept moving away each time I found her. The only reason we're here is I didn't kill an Empousa she put right in front of me to kill."
"You didn't kill a monster?" Zeus asked.
"She turned my wife into that monster so she could trick me into killing her."
The other deities eyed Hecate with contempt.
"Ever since you gods took your eyes off of her because somehow this issue wasn't important enough, Hecate has been harassing and tricking and torturing us, and it has to stop now! I was with her for such a short time, and I let her down… You promised I could live with her, and then we were separated, and there's nothing I can do…"
"Everything I've done is legal by the laws of the Underworld!" Hecate snapped. "It's outside Olympian jurisdiction, and you're interfering in my domain!"
"We were blind to an uprising Hades planned for decades because we didn't interfere in the Underworld before," Zeus said. "I made a contract with my brother so that he would run that territory without much oversight. You're not my brother. You're a Titan! We stripped you of your powers and demoted your status, so any power you've seized is illegitimate."
"Au contraire!" Hecate waved an over-long finger at Zeus. "I was always second in line, and Hades is never coming back. So how do you plan to replace me?"
"We're willing to let you stay the queen if you'll let my son's wife go," Zeus said without letting anyone else offer input.
"We are?" Chorused the other gods.
"Sure! What else are we supposed to do?"
"We can't reward her for this, and she probably wouldn't even give me the real Meg," Hercules snarled and turned to Hecate. "If you take Megara from me, I'll have no reason to stay on earth. I'm a full god. I outrank you. Meg's not around to talk me into being diplomatic about it, either. Get the picture?"
"Your brat is threatening me, Zeus. Is this how you raise your mongrels?" She stroked the muzzles of her two winged dogs.
"I didn't raise him. Your predecessor saw to that. I will not allow you to deprive the next generation of their father, too."
"Her," Hercules said, feeling ill. "She told me it's a girl."
"Well, maybe she's better off without a father who murdered her uncle!" With a flourish of her hand, Hecate revealed a blue-tinged Megarion, who looked a bit disheveled, but he wasn't a shade.
He held something in his hands… It looked like a puppet.
"Hail, Olympus," Megarion bowed. "I was at the bottom of the mountain and watched a couple of imps pretend to be me. That's why Hercules is innocent. All of this happened earlier tonight, or I think it was the same night?" He smiled and shrugged. "Time is so strange in the Underworld. It's no wonder my sister didn't reach out to me when she was down there. But now I can summon her whenever I want." He held the puppet aloft, revealing that it was a perfect miniature of Megara as he'd met her.
"What are you doing?" Hecate reached for the puppet, but it was too late.
The caged and bloodied Empousa appeared, her neck chained to the bars at the ceiling of the cage. She was so tired she was taking a nap on crossed paws.
"Meg!" Hercules called to her and opened the bars, abandoning the whip.
Megara raised her head in confusion, and her mouth opened as she looked up at him.
"I'm sorry I didn't recognize you the first time," Hercules said. He gripped the chain and snapped it in half. "I was so tired and confused, and I miss you so much, I wasn't thinking clearly." He knelt beside her and offered his arms.
Megara rested her chin on his hand and purred, but he couldn't blame her for being too tired for anything else.
The cage disappeared around them, and Hercules drew her closer. If Hecate was about to pull something, he wanted to protect Meg as long as he could.
"Oh, ew!" Aphrodite exclaimed. "Hecate, she used to be hot! You're not telling me that's–"
"She wouldn't behave and tried to escape," Hecate said.
"I went down to Hecate's sanctum and tried to retrieve her," Hercules said. "I knew she was going to block me, so I went in disguise as Dionysus. When I tried to leave the Underworld with her, I was allowed to leave, but she stayed. None of this is Meg's fault. I just wanted her back! And Hecate sent her minion," he pointed right at Medea, "to pretend she was Meg and trick me into picking her instead of the real one."
"You fell for it, too," Medea said.
"For about five minutes, you frigid–"
"Now, now, she's not the one on trial right now," Hecate said. "Megarion is confused… He's so newly dead, he doesn't remember what happened accurately."
"And when Hercules is proven guilty, he will belong to me," Omphale said.
"Why you?" Hercules asked.
"It happened in my kingdom," Omphale reminded him. "If you'd only agreed to take your punishment in the first place, this wouldn't have had to be so publicly embarrassing for you."
Megara stirred, "Let me up. This is about to get stupid."
"You can talk? Why didn't you talk in the cave?"
"Hecate changed the rules because I wasn't funny enough to mock if I couldn't talk back." Megara stretched her mismatched Empousa body, and Hercules shuddered.
"I'm going to fix you," he promised.
He wasn't sure because her monstrous face wasn't the right shape for it, but he thought he saw her smirk.
"Enough out of you," Hecate snapped at Megara. "You're being punished, monster! Remember your place!"
Megara shook herself, and what came out next was a series of growls.
"Then punish me, too," Hercules said. "I'm the one who went down there for her."
"Oh, we plan to punish you," Hecate said. "Omphale, why don't you remind us of your plans?"
Despite the throne Omphale had lost when Hercules snapped it in half, she looked just as proud as he'd ever seen her. "When Hercules is convicted and requires humbling, I will force him to wear my cast-off clothes and sit among my slave women. He will be put to work in the kitchens, and I will wear his armor."
"Good luck," Hercules muttered.
Megara made a strange, jagged, purring noise that was probably laughter.
"While he's not at work in the kitchens, I will teach him to serve me in other ways," Omphale said.
Megara's ears flicked back and forth as if that would help her taste the words better.
"What are you proposing you'll do to my son?" Zeus asked.
"Father! We don't need details because it's not going to happen!" Hercules cried.
"Don't worry, I have a detailed plan," Omphale said. "You'll be my pet, and I'll force you to disrobe whenever I want." She was getting excited just talking about it.
Hercules started to feel dizzy. "I'm married…"
"To that thing?" Omphale scoffed. "Ever since the start of your career, I've admired you from afar as the greatest hero. Now I finally get to own you, and you'll see that being the property of a queen will be so much more relaxing than slaving away as everyone's hero."
"So instead, I should slave away for you?" Hercules asked.
Megara shifted beside him, but Hecate raised a hand to stop her.
"You have to accept this as your punishment, as well," Hecate said. "Don't you dare make a move. Remember, I've given control of you to your brother. He wouldn't want you to be an unruly renegade."
"You heard her, Meg," Megarion said and raised the puppet. "I've got control now because I'm not dead. Hecate doesn't control you. Nobody does. This trial is over."
"No!" Omphale rushed forward. "I will own a hero! Medea gets a hero, so I need one, too! When I became a witch, part of the bargain was I could claim the greatest prize! I will humble you, hero, and you will spend your everyday groveling to me!" She raised her scepter, the caged lion suddenly making more sense.
Megara stepped between Hercules and Omphale, making a series of warning growls.
"You're just a stupid beast!" Omphale announced with a wave of her wand. "Who do you even think you are? I'm a gorgeous human, and you're nothing! Hecate, you know what? I want to chain her in my court and make her watch—"
Omphale would never speak again.
Nobody saw Megara move, but they heard the screams.
Omphale fell under the claws of the Empousa created by her mistress, and her wand rolled across the floor in a pool of her blood.
When Megara raised her head again, she had Omphale's lodged between her jaws. She cast one look at Hercules over her shoulder, then growled at Hecate and ran off through an open window with the queen's hair trailing along behind her.