The scythe of Olympus
Disclaimer: I own nothing
"So what question are you going to ask me first now that you have the opportunity?"
"Why did you do it? I want the real answer, not the one you told me and everyone else back then but the real one, we both know the one you gave back then was just an excuse. If you truly wanted your rule to last for all of eternity you would have killed us instead of swallowing us."
Looking at Zeus while he is talking I notice he is getting angry, but there is also something else that I can't place on his face, For the sake of both me and Kronos, I hope this doesn't result in him getting angry enough to decide to remove the problem permanently by vaporizing me. While I was reassured he didn't blame me I don't know if that will be enough to hold him back. Feeling Kronos send me a feeling of reassurance I hear him start responding to the most loaded question I have ever heard.
"Going straight for the thick of it, are we?"
"We deserve some answers after all this time, father."
Looking at the source of the new voice containing nothing but spite I see Hera looking at the scythe holding Kronos with straight hatred on her face and in addition to that the same thing I can't place on Zeus's face is also on hers.
"I agree with you, my daughter, I assume your siblings who are currently not in the room are watching this conversation through some other means?"
"They are"
"Good, I don't like explaining myself twice. The first reason I didn't end your life back when you were born had to do with the prophecy, I didn't know what would happen if I went against such a major one and what the fates would do to correct the changes I made. Back then they had far more power than they do today."
Looking at the two in front of me and the one next to me I see them reacting in much the same way, they all look like they are starting to understand it.
"The second is that I did not know how your mother would have reacted to me killing you. Swallowing you left you alive and didn't make her see the corpses of her children like killing you would have. And even then, I am still your father, there was and still is a part of me that regrets acting like I did because of my paranoia."
Looking at Zeus and Hera in front of me I see the thing I can't place getting more prominent. looking to the side of me I see Hestia with an almost blank look on her face.
"And at last is that I am a deity of the harvest and time. Both of those rely heavily on something I tried to go against in my quest to stay in power, cycles. Whether consciously or unconsciously I tried to break the one thing I am most attached to. And it was that attachment to cycles that made me unable to stop the cycle I had started when I overthrew my father. Just as had overthrown my father, you were destined to overthrow me. Maybe if I would have let it happen peacefully, I wouldn't be stuck in this sorry state, but my paranoia wouldn't let that happen."
Looking at Zeus I can finally place what I saw earlier, something I know all too well, a sadness of what could have been if things just went differently. Even if they truly hate him, there will always be a part of them that wishes for that happy timeline. Just like I wish that the things that happened to me never happened and that most people also wish things were different. I guess even a god can feel like that. While they may be called gods, I guess they are not truly what most people think of as gods. They are neither omnipotent nor omnipresent. They are just beings with far greater power than humans but still ruled by their emotions.
"So would that answer your question, my son?"
"You may leave Virgil." I hear Zeus say so quickly he almost cuts off Kronos's sentence.
Before I can get up to leave as commanded, I hear Kronos start to speak up again.
"Now that we have at least discussed that, I would like to talk about the little charade you have put up for my host today. While you may have fooled him, I am not that easy to manipulate. While you may think you have nothing in common with me, you are still my son, and the one that inherited the most from me at that."
Before I can even get a word in I hear Kronos mentally tell me to not say a word and to wait until he is finished talking. While agreeing to this I start to get even more anxious than I was before the council and during the talk he just had with Zeus.
"I have to commend you on how masterfully you used your sister's power and Virgil's own lack of knowledge and preconceptions against him. Truly, it was something I could have seen myself do when I was still young."
While starting to panic even more I feel both Kronos and Hestia assure me through the sacred gear and the ability she used on me earlier respectively. While digesting what Kronos just said I start freaking out due to the insinuation of the fact that Hestia has done something to me.
Looking over at Hestia I see her look away from me. Looking back at Zeus and Hera I see them getting angrier and even a bit annoyed if I'm reading them correctly.
"Using her abilities as a goddess of the hearth to push a bit of divinity into my host to read his emotions while disguising it as something to help him calm down and to put his guard down, well done. And even beyond that choosing her to be accompanied by both Artemis and Pan who both have a connection to my domains even if it's minor to try to maximize the chances of putting his guard down as much as possible before you tried to gather as much information from him as possible."
Wait, so all this time they have been monitoring my emotions to see if I was telling the truth and to see how I would react to everything that was happening? And gathering information? Suddenly getting the urge to laugh I hold it back as I recount all the important gods and goddesses I met in such a short time. How could I have been so fucking stupid as to think that they would have come to meet me just for me and my sacred gear. I'm still just a fucking human, even if I hold a proverbial nuke in my hands. But I guess that makes it even more logical that they would try to gain as much information as possible from me as they could.
"Then to use Hecate to analyze his magic levels and put more monitoring spells on him to make sure you would know if he ever tried to hide anything from you or even dared to lie to you. And then to use Iris to get some personal information about him and to gather the amount of knowledge he possesses about our pantheon, truly I couldn't have done it any better with this short of a deadline and the multitude of other things that have made this even harder for you. Iris was always a good actress, seeing her play with my host and wrap him around her finger was quite amusing after an eternity of not having any entertainment." I hear Kronos say with a really amused tone.
I should have expected that. Someone as old and powerful as Iris wouldn't have given me a second thought even with the sacred gear I have. I couldn't even talk to Kronos 5 minutes ago. What possessed me to be so fucking conceited and prideful to think I would even stand a snowball's chance in hell.
Before I can start spiraling down in my usual self-depreciation, I feel the ability Hestia used on me to monitor me assure me. I don't really know how to feel about this, she has calmed me down and been nothing but kind to me but on the other hand, she has been monitoring me without my knowledge a minute into knowing her.
No, I shouldn't blame her, I would have done the exact same thing in her situation. To expect a different treatment is just stupid. But before I can keep thinking about how stupid I've been for the last hour or so I hear Kronos ask me something out loud so everyone can hear him.
"Now that you know the truth Virgil, do you still honestly wish to serve my children? To follow their whims, to follow every command, to be nothing but a tool for them to use and abuse as they see fit?" He asks of me out loud in the most serious tone I've heard of him yet.
I quickly look around to see if I'm allowed to think for a moment and am glad to see Hestia give me a small nod.
Before I can even think about it for more than a second I stop. I need to stop lying to myself, to dilute my thoughts even more than I've been doing for the past 21 years.
I've always been searching for something to truly dedicate myself to for as long as I remember. To have something to live for, to not have to dread every day of my miserable life slaving away at college knowing I will never amount to anything. To wake up every day disappointed that I didn't die in my sleep.
"I see you have found your answer, Virgil, I will respect your answer for now. All I hope is that you will not come to regret it later on. To serve something for eternity is something you can not even imagine as you are now. Humans while quite capable are not able to truly now how long eternity truly is'" I hear Kronos say in my mind.
"I know I will not regret this, even if it results in my meaningless death only a day from now on, I will know that I have at least lived a single as something more, someone that will not be a meaningless face in the crowd anymore," I respond in kind.
Finally looking up again I start to speak and notice that for the first time in a long time I'm not hesitating on what I am going to say or if I'm going to say something I will regret later on.
"Lord Zeus, Lord Kronos, Lady Hera, Lady Hestia, I have made my decision. The things that Lord Kronos revealed just now change nothing for me. I wish to serve Olympus as much as I can. Whether that be as someone part of it or as a mere tool. The fact that you have given me the chance to truly be part of something that matters is something I could never pay you back for, the chance to be something more, even if it ends up only being a chance I something worth more than anything I could give you."
This is my only opportunity to be something more, I'm too old and fucked up too many times to be any off my other childhood dreams that have always stayed with me. So now that I get the chance to be the oldest and biggest of them all, a warrior and a hero, I will not hesitate to take it even if it ends up costing me everything.
Looking at their faces I see both Zeus and Hera looking quite surprised. As I look to the side I see Hestia smile at me softly. This sight, even if I die right now it will have been worth everything. To have someone be proud of me, to even have gained the slightest bit of recognition from her will have been worth everything.
Seeing Zeus compose himself quickly he starts talking to me again, this time in a tone that is a lot less angry and filled with a slight bit of fondness.
"In that case, I will grant you this magic circle on behalf of all of Olympus."
Watching as he conjures up an elaborate magic circle with 12 symbols lining the outside I recognize as the symbols of the council with Zeus's symbol being on top.
"This circle will show that you are part of Olympus and are loyal to the council and myself while also serving as a key into Olympus itself. It will in addition help you with casting magic."
"It will also grant the council the ability to always know your location in addition to being able to tell if you are telling the truth or hiding something easier." I hear Hera tell me while looking at Zeus.
Noticing the scythe holding Kronos disappear and receiving the hint I think he is giving to me I get off the couch and go onto one knee in a sort of bow in front of Zeus with one hand held up to receive the magic circle. I feel the magic circle touch my hand and assimilate into my body. It is kind of a warm feeling similar to the ability Hestia used on me.
"Focus on that feeling and guide it through your body into your hand and imagine the circle appearing on top of it." I hear Kronos tell me inside my head.
Doing exactly as he tells me I start to worry as the circle is not appearing. But before I can get angry or disappointed, I hear Kronos speak up again.
"Don't force your magic, you are not yet able to truly control it, right now you are only able to slightly guide it due to the help of both me and the magic circle you have just received."
Calming myself down and imagining my magic as a stream that goes throughout my body and guiding it towards my hand instead of just focusing on trying to get the magic to appear in my hand I see the circle appear and smile slightly.
"Good, now that we have affirmed your loyalty and given you the magic circle, it is time for you to leave. I have many things to contemplate from our discussion." I hear Zeus say in the commanding tone I've gotten a bit used to from him.
Getting up from my bow and standing, I nod toward lord Zeus and walk towards the door. Noticing Hestia standing up as well and following me to the door as I try to open it, trying to hide the fact that it's taking all my strength to even move it a little. Why is this door so fucking heavy?
"Because the doors here are made to withstand the rage of my children." I suddenly hear Kronos say to me in my mind.
Deciding I've struggled enough I step to the side and let Hestia open it, who I now realize has been watching me with a little smile the entire time.
As we walk through the halls in silence, I make sure I don't repeat my mistake and let her open the doors and walk ahead of me. Deciding to finally ask the question that has been on my mind for a while.
"Where are we going lady Hestia?" I think we are going to her temple which I saw while walking to the throne room, but it can't hurt to be certain.
"You don't have Lady Hestia, Virgil. I permitted you to use just my name earlier. But as to your question, I'm leading you to my temple so I can show you the room I'm letting you stay in. Besides that, I do want to sincerely apologize for my part of what happened today." She tells me in the gentle tone I've come to expect from her.
"I see, thank you for allowing me to continue using just your name. I was unsure if it was part of trying to make me easier to manipulate or not. But besides that, I do not blame you or anyone else, Hestia. I would have tried to do something similar if I was in your position."
Continuing to walk next to her while admiring the beauty of this place. While the silence is a bit awkward, I don't know what to talk about to her so I remain silent.
Eventually arriving at what I think is her temple, due to the large symbol of a hearth with a flame on top of it. The building looks like almost all of the others around here, with large white pillars and ancient Greek architecture.
Entering a sort of reception area, instead of going forward through the large doors that I assume lead to the main temple we take a left and enter a staircase going down. Walking down 3 sets of spiral stairs we arrive at a hallway when she turns towards me and starts speaking.
"I will grant you the room that is directly on our right. You are free to use it for as long as you want to. While I would have liked to talk a bit more and have shown you more of my temple, I have urgent matters to attend to. Feel free to relax a bit in your room, I've made sure food will be delivered to it in a few minutes. There are also clothes for you in the closet so feel free to freshen up. I will have someone get you tomorrow morning to explain my brother's plan for you in detail." She tells me as I open the door to my new room and watch as she walks away.
Walking in and looking at the room I notice a large fireplace burning directly in front of me and look to the right to see a king-sized bed together with a large closet and a door which I assume leads to the bathroom. Looking over at the other side and seeing a table with a few chairs a bookcase and a couple of stylized chests.
Walking over and pulling out a chair and mentally asking Kronos if we are being watched and thankfully being told that no one is currently watching me.
The moment I hear no one is watching me I almost collapse due to the stress from the last hours. While I'm glad that my life is finally turning around, I still feel like this is the most stressed I've ever been in my life.
Feeling myself start to get lightheaded I take a couple of large breaths and try to calm down and stare at the large marble wall in front of me.
Suddenly snapping out of the trance I've been in when I hear a knock on the door I hear Kronos speak to me.
"That would be the food my daughter talked about, on another note you have been staring at that wall for 17 minutes now."
It's been that long? I guess I'm even more stressed than I thought I was.
Standing up and opening the door I see a beautiful brunette standing in front of me with a large plate of food in her hands. Noticing she is kind of uncomfortable and scared I quickly take the plate and watch her walk away as fast as she can.
Not blaming her a bit, I would've done the same thing if I needed to deliver food to a random guy wielding the boogeyman of your pantheon as a weapon.
Sitting down again with my plate and quickly eating it due to my hunger from having eaten nothing but an apple today.
After finishing my food and taking a shower cause god knows I needed it I go to lay down on the bed. May as well go to bed now to make sure I'm well rested tomorrow.
Rolling around in the bed trying to sleep for what feels like an hour and starting to get annoyed that I'm probably going to be tired as shit tomorrow I hear Kronos speak up.
"Get up and put on some clothes, if you are not going to be able to sleep you may as well use the time to do something useful instead of wasting both my time and yours trying to fall asleep."
Deciding it's probably for the best I grab a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt from the closet and also grab a pair of socks together with some boots and put all of it on.
Walking out of my room and retracing the way I came in to get outside I open the door and get flashbanged again by the bright light shining through Olympus as Kronos tells me to search for a place I could swing around a scythe without damaging anything.
After walking around for a while admiring the architecture and searching for a place and not finding it I decide to bite the bullet and go to ask someone.
Walking up to the first person I think would know a place like that, a guy wearing bronze armor with a spear and round shield standing guard on the street I'm currently on, and ask him as he turns to me with a disinterested look.
"hello sir, do you know of any place I could swing around a weapon without damaging anything or anyone?''
Watching as his disinterest goes away and instead turns to an approving smirk as he gives me directions to a large field that is often used for training and other activities.
As I go to walk towards to field I notice the guy walking away and hear Kronos snort and say.
"You do know that you just asked one of Ares's personal Spartans for a training field and that he is currently on his way to report this to Ares himself, right?"
"I'm going to get summoned by Ares later or at least some Spartans, aren't I?"
Continuing to walk as Kronos doesn't even bother to respond to me.
Finally reaching the field and walking towards the back of it where I'm the least exposed as Kronos gives me a few instructions.
"I want you to summon my scythe and start to practice with some basic swings. I want you to be at least comfortable enough with it to not hurt yourself with it before anything else happens."
As Kronos continues to give me instructions on how to properly hold the scythe and how to place my feet while I'm swinging it he tells me to swing the scythe from my upper right to the bottom with as much power as I can without throwing myself off balance.
Doing so and hearing him criticize my form before the swing is even complete I adjust according to his instruction and swing again, with him criticizing me again.
This pattern continues until he finds this one particular slash acceptable, as he tells me it will have to do for now and to now do the same slash but instead start from the upper left.
After going through a couple of these slashes and noticing that despite all this exercise I'm not getting tired, instead, it feels as if I've had a nap. As he speaks up and for the first time it's something else than a critique of my form with the scythe.
"Now that you are at least capable of not hurting yourself swinging my scythe around I will tell you about the abilities of it you have currently unlocked."
Sitting down on the grass as I listen to him speak to me out loud through the scythe.
"I am sure you have noticed that instead of getting tired you are regaining your energy instead. This is due one of the two main abilities of my scythe. As I am the titan of harvest the scythe has the ability to harvest anything it cuts, whether that be wheat, people or even the abundant energy in the air here. While you were practicing you were unconsciously using that ability to regain your spent energy and regain your stamina and reduce your tiredness. You did quite well for your first time despite not even knowing that you were doing it."
So that was why I didn't get tired. That will help training a lot, if I can just train with my scythe instead of sleeping, It will help me get stronger far faster.
"How long has it been anyways, it is quite hard to estimate the time without the sun moving."
"I see you have already realized one of the benefits of this ability. And to answer your question it has been five hours and 11 minutes since we started. You still have a couple of hours before you need to be back in your room and get ready for your summoning by my eldest since it is currently seven past one."
That's longer than I thought, but that does give me enough time to get fully rested by harvesting the energy in the air.
"In addition to this, my scythe also has the ability to manipulate time to an extent. I will not be teaching you to use this ability before I'm satisfied with your skill in wielding my scythe and your skill in harvesting anything that you cut."
Understanding the need to be able to handle the scythe skillfully and get better with it before I take on anything more to learn.
"I want you to focus on the blade of my scythe while you swing it, try to actively harvest the abundant magical energy in the air. It is far easier in places like this that are saturated with magical energy due to the amount of powerful beings living here. When you are somewhere that isn't saturated like this it will be far harder and give you less than you currently are."
Doing as he says and focusing on the blade while swinging it and imagining that instead of cutting through the air the blade is absorbing the air that it is coming into contact with.
After doing this for a while and feeling the amount of energy I'm getting slowly increase I start going through the different swing swings Kronos has taught me so far and start trying to chain them together instead of pausing in between them.
Slowly starting to create a pattern going from a diagonal downward slash to a horizontal one and ending in a vertical slash and then doing the same but switching my starting side from my right to my left.
As I do this Kronos occasionally gives me some advice to improve, mostly talking about my footwork and edge alignment. As this goes on, I still try to gather as much energy from the air as I can.
After a while, I start to throw in a few variations such as slamming the back of the handle towards the front after doing a slash and doing a few thrusts with the end of the scythe after a slash. Making sure I put as little time between a slash and a thrust or slam as I can.
As this goes on for a few hours I start to get the hang of how to use my sacred gear. While far from being a master after this little crash course I'm certain I won't cut my arm off while wielding it at the very least.
Eventually getting broken out of my training which doubles as sleep as Kronos starts talking to me.
"It is about time you returned to your room. I do not know the exact time my daughter will call on you so it is best to return early as to give you ample time to prepare yourself. It would not do to appear before her as you are right now."
"Thank you for the reminder lord Kronos," I say as I start to return to my room.
It takes a while to return due to the distance but the temple is thankfully easy to find due to it being quite big and close to the largest building here, the council chambers.
After taking a shower and on some black dress pants and a grey dress shirt. I start looking around my room waiting for me to be called.
Deciding to just read since I have nothing else to do I grab a book and open it to find I can't read it due to it being written in ancient Greek. Continuing to search the bookcase for a book written in English I eventually find one that is about current relations between factions. Might as well try to learn a bit about what I'm going to be dealing with later on.
After reading a bit and skipping ahead to the part about Olympus and the Greeks I find out that while Olympus is still considered a mid-tier faction, it has been weakening due to losing almost all of its worshippers and hades and a lot of the underworld gods distancing themselves from Olympus.
As I go to read more I hear a knock on the door and go to answer it, seeing the same brunette from before. Noticing that she is still afraid I decide to just get to the point but before I can she starts speaking.
"Lady Hestia has requested your presence in the main room of her temple."
Before I can even answer I see her turn around and walk away as fast as she possibly can just as before.
Putting back the book I'm still holding back in the bookcase and starting towards to main entrance of the temple that separates the part I'm staying in and the part in which I assume Hestia resides.
As I go to open the large door that leads to the main residence it opens from the inside and I watch as a Spartan similar to the one I met earlier walks out and looks at me with a stern expression and then proceeds to leave the temple.
So, it's been a while. procrastination is a bitch, also just barely getting through college isn't helping. But enough bitching from me about my life. Hope you guys are still interested in this dumpster fire I call a story. I'll try to update the fic sooner next time, won't be that hard. But anyways I hope you guys enjoyed it. Any reviews are appreciated, they helped a lot in the making of this chapter.
See you guys next time.