Chapter Three ~ Like A Hero of Old
Note: So I was going to wait until I finished chapter 5 to post this, but things have gotten a tad bit messy. Basically while writing the first bit of chapter five I became completely dissatisfied with the majority of the fourth chapter. So I did what we all do in that situation and completely scrapped it. Since then I have hit a bit of a roadblock toward the middle section of it. Basically, with his next trainer I am having a confusing time trying to figure out how they should interact. I know how I want their relationship to develop, but not so much how exactly I plan to go about it. Prophecy is on the table, simple wording of a centuries-old promise is another. I'm sure I will figure it out eventually. Sorry that this one is a bit shorter. Four was originally 5.2K but now with the rewrite who knows. Anyway, see you whenever I get time to finish part four.
Izuku watched on in horror as Hestia snapped with her free hand, and in an instant the two were engulfed in an orange and crimson tornado of fire. Both of them stood in the eye of the storm, the flames licking harmlessly across their clothing. But surprisingly they weren't as hot as he had worried they would be, instead it was like sitting before a warm fire on a cold winter day.
Then as soon as they had appeared they were snuffed out, flinging outward and dissipating harmlessly into the air.
"Welcome to Olympus, Izuku Midoriya." The goddess greeted warmly, directing his attention to their change in surroundings.
Around him stood an ornate city far beyond anything he had ever dreamed. The rugged carpet of his room had been replaced by a road of neatly spaced marble cobblestone. Decorative braziers lined the sidewalk, each a long twisted pillar of bronze ending in a beautiful basin carved with the likeness of mythical beast. Like an ancient form of lamp post.
A careful arrangement of gardens, markets, and temples dotted about around the roads that split off from this main one. Behind him, more of the city spilled out further down the mountain they seemingly stood atop, gardens and temples steadily being replaced by what looked to be more modest homes. Modest, but still architectural wonders built of marble and gold.
Golden tiles topped each building grand and small, shimmering under the soft glow of the moon and twinkling starlight. It was the most beautiful place he had ever seen.
"Th-this is really Olympus…" he looked about the city, coming to realize that a place so resplendent, so ethereal, could have only been crafted by divine hands. "That means…"
"Your doubts have been more than justified, young man, there is no reason to worry now." Hestia reassured him, seemingly reading his thoughts and given the sudden realization that she was a deity. Which means it was entirely possible she had heard his every thought up until this point.
She snapped her fingers once more, and for a moment he expected more fire, but instead the cold of the marble beneath his feet was gone. Glancing down, his cheeks reddened at the leather sandals covering his feet, his own crimson sneakers having been abandoned by the entrance to his home.
"Come," she ordered, tugging on his hand that was still embarrassingly clasped with her own, "my brother is quite ornery when he is kept waiting."
His eyes darted about the city in awe as he was dragged further toward the peak of the mountain. Here and there he saw beings that appeared human, but dotted amongst them were creatures he had only read about in myths.
Eventually they stopped, and his attention was brought to a great domed building resting alone at the very apex of the city. Grand doors of carved bronze sat before him, depicting a group of six deities striking down a great race of giants.
As the door swung open he became acutely aware of how small he was in this world.
One great ovular space spilled out before him. Walls were set with an array of reliefs done in various mixes of silver, marble, gold, and bronze. Great marble pillars cracked and repaired with gold supported an invisible ceiling colored with a beautiful stretch of sky.
Fourteen thrones of carved marble stood arrayed before him in a sort of U shape, each depicting stories related to the god sitting atop them with an inlay of gold. Men on the right, women on the left, an enormous hearth recessed into the center of the room separating the two sides. A large group of faces he had never seen before all swiveled to his direction at once.
A few stood out among them. Ares sat third on the right, still encased in his armor and staring at him with a wicked smile. Two seats over, past a man with winged feet and golden hair, sat Hephaestus who was tinkering with some small orb while occasionally glancing in his direction with a familiar look of excitement.
The dreaded pink succubus that was Aphrodite sat directly across from him. Izuku resisted the urge to look in her direction, even as she gave him a seductive bite of her lip and made a rather crude motion with her hand.
A woman beside her with auburn hair jabbed the love goddess with her elbow. He met her silver eyes and nodded his thanks. She merely stared at him for a moment, studying him, then nodded in return, leaning backward in her seat, content to observe for now.
"This is the boy Izanagi chose? I had expected a warrior, should we not have the blonde one standing before us instead?" A man at the back of the room rumbled like thunder from his throne, first among the male seats.
Flowing silver hair fell to his shoulders and a braided beard of the same color fell to the center of his chest. Rough chiseled features carved out the shape of a man in the prime of his life, but bright cyan eyes that pulsed with lightning told of an age greater than Izuku could imagine.
Whereas most deities about them wore some form of armor of various materials, shapes, and coverage, the figure that now stared him down like an insect needing to be squashed wore but a simple white robe and golden bracers.
"Izanagi?" He asked Hestia, who still stood beside him. Interestingly, she was now staring the white haired man down like a mother ready to scold a child.
Ares laughed from his throne, "Part of us being allowed to be here was letting the old geezer choose our champion. Who'd you think you met on that beach?"
That strange old man with the spear had been Izanagi!? The creator god of shintoism!? That very same god that had offered to let him hold the jeweled spear that had literally created the islands of Japan!? Oh, he was going to pass out again.
"Steady yourself Izuku," Hestia offered gently, setting a hand on his shoulder to steady him, "and you will" she rounded on the white haired man, "respect the choice we have been given. Izanagi would not have picked him without reason."
"She is right you know," Another figure said, a man with a short salt and pepper beard one space over from the right of the first. Beautiful aquamarine armor covered his chest, a crown of driftwood rested upon his brow and silvering black hair. Displayed proudly in his hand was a great bronze trident.
Izuku knew him in an instant from that alone, Poseidon, god of the Seas.
"Izanagi is wise, and has known the hearts of his people far longer than we. I for one believe the young man seems a wise fit. I have watched him closely from my waves these the last two days, and he has worked diligently with little explanation."
"But we do not need a simple sheep," A haughty woman right beside who he now assumed to be Zeus, King of this Pantheon, stared down at him from behind bird-like features. A simple ringlet of gold rested atop her neatly braided hazel colored hair. Eyes of a similar brown, seeing little worth in the boy before her. "We need a warrior if we are to be successful."
"Then I say we make him a warrior," Ares interjected again, "the boy can take a hell of a beating for his size. Give me two months with him and I'll make a spartan outta him."
"That is up to the boy," a cold voice broke through from the back of the room. Izuku turned toward the origin and was met with the cold crimson eyes of hell itself.
The final man in the order of male gods sat atop a throne inlaid with onyx rather than old. Black robes hemmed in crimson covered his form. Atop it rested a simple armor of some blackened metal, littered with human bones. On his left armrest rested a helmet of the same metal crowned with silver spikes.
In his right hand rested an unfamiliar weapon. Silver and onyx metal coiled around one another in a long shaft ending in two spikes, one of each metal.
Short black hair was tied into a neat half-up bun, his pale face was dotted with ancient battle scars, and those blood soaked eyes stared down at Izuku intently. They appeared cold, calculating, but for some reason, Izuku found a great deal of care within them. Had he stepped forward on his behalf?
"I-I'm sorry I don't even know why I'm here…"
"HA! To fight the Titans, kid, what else!" Ares roared from his throne.
"Ares!"
Titans? Briefly he racked his brain for what little knowledge he possessed of Greek mythology. As far as he knew, the Titans had been a race of malevolent gods that ruled before the current pantheon. But they had been defeated, cast into a pit below even the underworld to be imprisoned for all time.
"No," The black armored god drew his attention once more with a shake of his head, "eternity is a long time, even for gods. They have returned with the help of an evil from these lands."
"Hence our presence here," the silver eyed woman finished for him. Sitting up in her seat again and watching Izuku carefully for his reaction.
The teen looked between the many gods, still confused beyond belief, "I-I don't know anything about that though! I just wanted to be a hero!'
A rumbling laugh echoed out from Poseidon, like the sound of waves crashing against the shore, "The very reason you are here, to be a hero to rival the Titans themselves."
"What my brother means," Hestia soothed, shooting the sea god a stern look as she moved to prod at the hearth with a metal rod she had summoned from thin air, shifting the logs about to keep the fire at full strength, "Is we need a champion to aid us in defeating them once more."
"But why me? Why not just fight them again?" To be frank, he was terrified. Not only were his own gods real, but apparently so were the gods of other pantheons around the world. Now one of those very far-flung clans of deities were asking him to fight ancient gods on their behalf.
"There are rules, boy." Zeus rumbled as thunder echoed outside the throne room. His snarl told Izuku he had struck a nerve with the god-king. "Our ability to interfere with the mortal world is limited even in our own sphere of influence, here we might as well be mortals such as yourself."
"My father," the King snarled, "and his ilk are more loosely bound by these rules. They have already found champions from among the people of your island. They threaten to start a war that could reshape the face of the mortal realm."
"But what can I do!?" He startled himself with the anger found in his voice, but pressed on anyway, "I'm just a quirkless nobody. I can't do anything!"
"It was nobody that blinded the cyclops Polyphemus using wit alone." Another Goddess offered with an amused smile. A slightly more plump woman in a forest green robe. Soft sandy-blonde hair tied in a neat bun and green eyes filled with all the warmth of summer. "And it was a quirkless nobody that saved that delinquent boy with the explosions from a terrifying demise."
"Demeter is right. You have the makings of a great hero." Poseidon agreed, offering the boy an encouraging thumbs up.
"I…I can't, I'm not strong enough…" His eyes fell to the floor. The weight of his own uselessness crashed down on him once more. Gods sat before him, expecting a great and powerful hero to aid them in this time of need. But he had nothing to offer them. Even when standing before the very gods themselves he had nothing to offer.
A heavy sigh sounded out, drawing his attention back toward the golden throne of Zeus. Most of the anger had left his face, instead replaced by something Izuku could only describe as quiet acceptance. Apparently, the divine king had found something he liked within the boy before him.
Or at least something he had resigned himself to.
"Then this council shall be your strength," he declared. Some of the gods that had spoken on Izuku's half breaking into various looks of amusement. "Divine law forbids us from interfering directly. But there are no laws preventing us from offering our power to a champion."
"Whaddaya say, kid?" Ares grinned devilishly from his throne, "wanna be a hero?"
In that moment Izuku truly realized that his life would never be the same again.
"HA! KICK HIS ASS!"
Izuku was forced to duck under the crumpled door of a semi as it soared over him like a flaming missile of scrap metal and glass. Rising just in time to see an entire sentient washing machine hurtling toward him. He tucked and rolled, dodging out of the way of a blow that never even arrived.
Instead, a large mechanical hand came into frame a moment before impact, backhanding the automaton into one of its siblings—this one a fridge with four arms and a flamethrower installed in its ice-box. Both met in a small explosion and were blown back into a mound of trash behind them.
"YEAH! He's got you on the ropes, Heph!" Ares roared from what had become his armchair atop another mountain of scrap.
"You ain't seen nothing yet!" The forge god waved his mechanical arm and like an orchestra responding to their conductor another wave of appliances rose from their places about the beach, charging into battle with reckless abandon.
Two weeks ago Hephaestus had sadly declared that their two months together would be coming to an end soon enough. As such he had decided that their last day together would take the form of a small competition to see how far his charge had progressed in their time together.
Admittedly, years would not be enough time to pass on all the knowledge the god had accumulated over his immortal life, let alone a few short months. Nevertheless, Hephaestus was a god and defying logic ran deep in his immortal blood.
Not to say Izuku had mastered his teacher's domains, but it was safe to say he had far exceeded all expectations. The accumulation of his journey was made manifest by the scene playing out before him. Whereas Hephaestus seemed to be a practitioner of quantity over quality, in this particular case Izuku had chosen the exact opposite approach.
His godly teacher had assembled a veritable army of appliances to oppose him. Ranging from deranged self-detonating microwaves to dishwashers with silverware launchers and even the aforementioned flamethrower fridge — which Ares had found hilarious. They numbered around fifty in total if he had counted them correctly.
Izuku, according to Festus, had spent the whole week retrofitting the semi-chassis that he had seen half-buried in scrap his first day, before he had been pummeled by the god of meatheads.
"I HEARD THAT PUNK!"
The green haired teen rolled his eyes.
Anyway, it had taken him pretty much the entire two-week grace period to get his magnum opis up to scratch. As such the affectionately named Optimus was packed full of every little dirty trick Festus had bothered to teach him. An arm that shifted into a wickedly sharp metal axe, which had just cleaved dryclops in half, to a not-so-legal machine gun he had fastened together from a few odds and ends.
"Your move kid."
He swiveled his attention from the glorious work of metal given life through no small amount of godly magic to the very giver of mechanical life himself. Hephaestus stood a few feet to his right, enlarged hammer swung over his bronze plated shoulder. The god's warm brown eyes shown with confidence, the victorious grin splitting his face showing how much he truly believed the match was his.
An explosion nearly rocked Izuku off his feet.
Turning back to the carnage a microwave had detonated just below Optimus' foot, sending the metal titan stumbling backwards where it tripped over the ever defiant corpse of dryclops. With a heavy thud it crashed into the sand below, hardly attempting to rise before the handful of remaining appliances rushed it.
"As I said," The forge god's grin widened at the obvious victory, "your move, kid."
His smile, however, fell flat as soon as Izuku met his grin with a smirk, "Checkmate."
"Checkmate?"
An engine roared from behind them in answer. The screech of tires against metal followed before, with another mighty roar, the cobalt blue frame of an Italian made motorcycle soared overhead. Arching far over them from the ramp of automaton corpses behind. It had hardly cleared their heads before it began to shift.
Metal folded in on itself, tires deflated, rolling into a pair of sleek legs. The frame separated, forming a feminine figure out of cobalt colored steel. A pair of glowing blue eyes stared down the appliance-army as both metal hands shifted into razor sharp blades.
Hephaestus watched on in horror as his machines were systematically dismembered. The sound of Ares' maniacal laughter and the spray of machine-oil adding to the scene.
"CHECKMATE! HA!" The god of war fist pumped the air.
"H-how? When!? I watched you work on that damn semi all week!"
It was not often a mortal could leave a god gasping in complete and utter confusion. Well, not as far as Izuku knew. So forgive him if he took a moment to memorize the wide-eyed look of a completely stumped god of blacksmiths.
"I had a bit of help," Izuku shrugged, "the overall design was mine, but Poseidon had seen me toying with them when he stopped by your workshop. So he offered the help of some smiths."
"THOSE DAMN CYCLOPS MADE THAT!?" The god sputtered, motioned to the metallic goddess of destruction that had just scrapped two months of work in under a minute.
"Just the internals and frame, I put it together. Ares gave me the blades."
Hephaestus blinked back his confusion before turning to the other deity with somehow even wider eyes. One brow raised in disbelief that Ares of all people had parted with weapons from his personal collection.
"What?" Ares half-smiled, "Kid asked for something sharp. I gave him something sharp." He offered his brother a not-so-innocent shrug.
"You cheated." The god rounded on him with an accusing finger.
"I think you said 'use whatever is available to you'," Izuku countered, "I just so happen to have a god of the seas available to me."
"Got you there Heffy."
"Shut up Ares." Hephaestus gave his brother the bird over his shoulder, eyes still locked with Izuku. Then, slowly, they narrowed. A conniving smile stretching across his forge-burned lips.
Suddenly Izuku felt like he had messed with the wrong god. As if knowing that look well enough, Ares melted into a pool of blood — which Hephaestus had told him previously was not a requirement, as the god could as easily just vanish. That said, Ares had never ran from his brother.
Oh no.
"Well I think your next trainer might just be your speed kid," his smirk widened, then he glanced toward the feminine motorcycle that was watching their interaction curiously. As he turned back Izuku felt his stomach sink.
He wouldn't dare.
"Especially after I tell her you modeled your motorbike after her."
He would dare.
It had taken quite a fair bit of apologies, and promised to share his schematics for Arcee—what he had named his motorcycle—to get Hephaestus to relent on his threats. Afterwards, the god lifted him up onto his shoulder and took him on a tour of the destruction. After a while he had gotten used to the little brother treatment, he really had no choice after two months of seeing the god seven days a week.
During that time Hephaestus had expressed how overjoyed he was that Izuku had managed to put together a automata to rival those that ran the forges of Olympus, regardless of if he had gotten help from Poseidon or not.
Here and there his friend pointed out a handful of mistakes he had made in his own machines by making them all so quickly. At points even explaining how his own works could be improved and asking Izuku for recommendations here and there.
When they returned to the only bots left standing Hephaestus carefully inspected the craftsmanship on both. Here and there he mentioned some minor improvements or complimented some small workaround. Even offering his help at crafting the parts for their final design.
When Arcee shifted back into her base form he offered an impressed whistle.
"I know you didn't find this anywhere on this beach," he patted the leather seat, looking it over as he nodded his appreciation of the machine.
Izuku shook his head, a not-so-innocent smile shifting his features as he scratched at the back of his head, "Actually the original chassis was buried on the other side of the beach. The tires I found lying around. But the frame was all cyclopean steel."
Hephaestus nodded; his metallic hand reached out, knocking on the frame a few times with the 'knuckle' of his index finger. After a few taps he bent down, leaning in and repeating his actions.
"Huh," he breathed, rising from his spot and looking over Izuku, impressed by the boy standing before him. It wasn't necessarily rare for Poseidon to favor a mortal or two, but parting with something like this was a bit uncalled-for. "I think old barnacle beard's got a soft spot for you, kid. Good job."
The waves of the beach crashed against the sand a bit harder than normal. Even Izuku knew that meant the god of the seas had heard the nickname. As far as the greenette could tell, he was not a fan.
"Here," Hephaestus unclasped his hammer from its loop at the waist of his leather skirt. Presenting the item to Izuku with a nod of approval.
Every now and then, on nights when his mother was working late, Hestia would pop in for a bit. Each time, despite Izuku's objections, she would cook a small meal for him, only making food for herself after he had declared he would not eat while she sat there without anything. His mother had instilled manners in him at the very least.
During these much-needed breaks—her cooking really was amazing—she would explain in detail some of the more important aspects of her pantheon and their history. Among these little lessons, when he had asked about the hammer that could change forms, he had been told the truth behind it.
This was his symbol of power.
Every god had one, and while they could exist without it, it represented a physical manifestation of their divine power. In a way, it was most comparable to their souls.
And this was Hephaestus'
"Go on," the god prodded, smiling down at the boy who had quickly become the little brother he had never known he wanted, "take it."
Izuku searched the eyes of his friend and mentor. Finding only the burning fire of a smith's determination, he relented. Reaching out he grasped the hilt of the hammer. Instantly he was filled with warmth.
Not the comforting warmth that Hestia exuded, or the burning rage that Ares called forth. It was like fire. It was the burning heat of a furnace, the beating of a hammer against steel, the hiss of a quenching basin. It was the burning fires of the forge, beating life into metal.
It filled him with the rigidity of iron, the malleability of gold. He could feel the raw power behind it flowing into his veins. Slowly the hammer dissolved into red-hot flakes of bronze.
"AH!"
A hiss of searing flesh filled the silence, screaming into his ears over the steady lapping of waves. His arm felt like it was on fire, as if molten steel was being pressed against his shoulder. Quickly he peeled back the sleeve of his shirt.
An inky black greek meander snaked its way across his sun-kissed skin, carving out a careful pattern around his upper arm. A similar pattern moving in the opposite direction just below it, leaving a small space between them.
When they finished looping back onto themselves, the burning stopped for a moment, then erupted once more as a final sigil burned out a space on the untouched skin between them; a simple imprint of an anvil with a hammer above it, raised for a blow that would never come.
"Huh, so that's what happens."
"YOU GAVE ME A TATTOO!?" Oh gods above have mercy, if the Titans didn't kill him, his mother sure as hell would.
Hephaestus shrugged, "To be honest me and Ares had a bet running on if it would've just blown your arms off or something."
"I could have died!?" Izuku raged, to be honest, that would have been preferable to what his mother was going to do when she saw his arm.
Then he blinked, rounding on the god with narrowed eyes, "Wait, did you win or lose the bet?"
Hephaestus shrugged.