The days dragged on.
Poseidon's absence lingered like an infection beneath the skin—itching, burning, unrelenting. Every dawn that passed without news scraped another layer off my patience. My sisters grew pale with worry. Hestia had taken to pacing the northern walkways. Hera watched the sea from the western parapets like it might spit him out if she stared long enough. Even Demeter stopped nagging me about the Underworld's gardens.
Mother… she didn't say much. Just sat by the hearth, muttering prayers in a language older than the stones we stood on. A quiet despair. I hated seeing it in her eyes.
Zeus? He played at apathy, lounging across cushions like a spoiled lion, but I could see the nerves in the way his jaw clenched. He hadn't left Olympus since Poseidon departed. Didn't offer to search. He wasn't fooling anyone. Not me.
As for me?
I buried myself in distractions—inventory lists, schematics, supply scrolls. The forge's new design. Emergency evacuation routes. Reaper rotations. I was building useless things just to keep my mind from cracking. My shadows constantly flicker around me, anxious without reason. Or maybe with all the reason in the world.
I was halfway through scribbling out new subterranean storage layouts when I heard it.
A voice—familiar and loathed—broke through the heavy silence of the morning air.
"Hades! Oh Haaadeeesss!" The call echoed up the cliffside like a challenge, dark and cutting. "Come out, little king. We have unfinished business, you and I."
My quill froze. I closed my eyes.
That voice.
I stood without a word.
"Hades?" Hestia asked quietly.
"Stay inside," I said. "All of you."
Zeus frowned from across the hall. "What is it?"
"None of your concern." I didn't look at him. My eyes were already on the door. "Do not follow. I mean it."
Demeter reached toward me, then hesitated. I gave her a faint smile and stepped into the shadows.
The world dissolved in cold ink and reformed at the base of the mountain in a breath.
I reappeared on solid rock—gray, broken terrain still charred from Hyperion's last tantrum. The air crackled faintly, a storm building at the edges. In front of me stood a figure that hadn't changed in the slightest since our last encounter.
Iapetus.
He looked exactly how I had last seen him, same hairstyle, same clothes and armor.
"Well," I said, brushing ash from my sleeve. "You've aged worse than I expected."
He smirked. "Still hiding behind robes and riddles, I see."
"I've graduated to sarcasm," I said. "Cuts deeper than most blades."
Iapetus took a few steps forward, each one causing a small quake in the earth. "It's been some time."
"It has," I agreed. "Let's skip the pleasantries. I doubt you came to catch up."
He nodded. "Very well. I was sent by Cronus to offer you… leniency."
I raised an eyebrow. "Leniency?"
"Spare the bloodshed," he said. "Surrender now, and you, your siblings, and even Rhea will be spared. You'll be allowed to live under the new regime. Perhaps even serve—"
"Stop." My voice was cold, sharp. "You should've led with the joke."
"You always were the dramatic one." His tone hardened. "But I mean it. Cronus is being generous."
"Cronus isn't generous," I said. "He is afraid. And if he sent you with an offer of mercy, then he's terrified."
Iapetus frowned. "Oceanus—"
"Has made his choice," I cut in. "Yes, I've heard."
I didn't mention how that betrayal dug at me. Oceanus had always been distant, neutral, quiet in his judgment. He was supposed to be above this war. Above Cronus' madness.
Iapetus tilted his head. "Poseidon gave him quite the fight, I heard."
"Where is he?" I asked.
The Titan's expression didn't flicker.
"You don't know, do you?" I said, my jaw tightening. "Or you do and won't tell me."
He remained silent.
That did it.
I raised my hand, and the bident snapped into it with a shimmer of shadow. "Then we're done talking."
Iapetus sighed. "So be it."
He summoned his lance—the metal was gleaming in the light.
"Don't do this," I said. "Walk away."
"I told Cronus I'd give you a chance," Iapetus said, raising the lance. "He was a fool to believe you'd take it. I, however, am not."
I shifted into stance, my shadows coiling along my arms, my lone eye blazing as I stared at him down.
"Then you already know how this ends," I murmured.
The wind stilled.
Silence.
Then he charged.
The wind screamed as his lance met my bident with a crash loud enough to rattle the sky.
I dug my heels into the stone and grunted, our weapons locked in a storm of divine force. My bident hummed with tension, vibrating in my palms as I twisted and deflected his next thrust, the tip of his lance barely missing my shoulder. A thin ripple of air followed its arc—razor sharp and searing.
He was fast.
Too fast.
I leapt backward, letting momentum carry me up onto a jagged stone pillar. My robes fluttered like smoke around me as I landed, shadows coiling eagerly at my feet.
"Still fast for an old man," I muttered, spinning my bident once in my hand.
Iapetus grinned as he lowered his lance. "You've grown sharper, Hades. But I wonder—was that a compliment or a stall tactic?"
"Both."
I clenched my fist and the shadows obeyed, surging outward like a living tide. Dozens of strands lanced toward him, slicing through the air, morphing mid-flight into a swarm of butterflies—a swarm of Pipevine Swallowtails.
He narrowed his eyes. "What is this!?"
He moved.
With a blur of motion, Iapetus leapt into them, spinning his lance in tight, vicious arcs. Wind exploded in every direction as his spear sliced through shadow and light, dispersing the swarm into inky smoke. He slammed into the ground, crouched, eyes locked on me.
I was already in motion.
From beneath my robes, bone erupted—jagged, ivory spikes that coiled and reshaped themselves around my torso, crawling down my arms in slick, swift layers. I threw my hand forward and summoned a volley of bone darts—long, needle-like shards of femur and phalanx tipped with soul-forged venom.
They rained down like spears from heaven.
Iapetus whirled, deflecting most with his lance in a flurry of impossible precision. One caught his thigh, tearing a shallow cut across the flesh. He snarled and flicked it out with a twist of his weapon.
"You always did play dirty," he growled.
"I am the god of the dead," I said, stepping forward. "Clean fights were never in the job description."
With a single thought, my shadows burst outward again, forming arms—ten, twenty, more—each grasping at Iapetus like spectral limbs seeking vengeance. He dodged and spun, moving like a tempest as he cleaved through them, but each swing forced him to defend rather than attack.
And that was what I needed.
"Now," I hissed.
Bone surged up my spine, wrapping around my neck and limbs in an almost loving embrace. Plates clicked into place, overlapping in complex layers as the exoskeleton took shape—horned shoulders, clawed fingers, spined back. Draconic, monstrous, mine. From behind my ribs, a thick curl of bone slid up and fused into the helm resting in my hand.
The Helm of Darkness.
It morphed as it touched my power—its obsidian base folding back, creaking and stretching until the bone curled into a ram-skull shape. Horns curled outward and upward. Fangs jutted over my brow. Darkness leaked from beneath the eye sockets like smoke from a dying pyre.
And I vanished.
The world fell silent around me. Not even the wind dared disturb the veil of my helm's magic.
I circled Iapetus, cloaked in true invisibility. He turned in place, wary, sniffing at the air, his knuckles white around the haft of his spear.
"Cowardice," he muttered. "You never did like a real fight."
I appeared behind him, bident poised for a crushing blow—but his instincts were sharper than most. He twisted, lance whipping toward my side. I barely brought up a shield of bone in time, and his strike sent me tumbling across the rocks with the force of a hurricane.
I landed in a crouch, breath ragged.
With a scream, I hurled the bident. It split the air like a falling star, gleaming with shadows. Iapetus blocked with his lance, but I followed right behind it, emerging from his blind spot, driving a curved bone blade from my forearm toward his flank.
He pivoted, caught my wrist, and slammed his forehead into my helm.
The force sent sparks into my vision. My helm cracked—but held.
I shoved him off with a blast of shadow energy and fell back, panting.
"Still standing," I said, grinning through bloodied teeth.
He narrowed his gaze. "For now."
And then he charged.
He moved like a thunderclap.
His lance flashed in, again and again, blurring with impossible speed. I dodged left—too slow. It cut across my ribs. I blocked the next—too late. It struck my bident with such force that my arms rattled. The next pierced my shoulder armor, grazing the bone beneath.
I cried out and retaliated—bone spikes launching from my back like javelins.
He danced between them, impossibly agile.
I let the shadows rise—coating the battlefield in misty darkness, eyes appearing in the gloom like spirits watching from beyond.
Then I struck low, slamming the ground with my bident.
A surge of skeletal hands erupted from the earth, grasping at Iapetus' legs, his arms, his weapon. He roared in rage and began tearing free, but not before I charged again.
And I struck as hard as I could.
Bident met flesh.
A shallow cut—but it bled.
He ripped free with a scream and spun his lance in a devastating arc that caught me full in the chest, hurling me into a wall of crumbled rock.
Everything rang.
My ribs cracked beneath the armor. My vision blurred.
I stood, barely, bident dragging through the dirt.
"You're stronger than before," he said, panting now. "But not enough."
I spat blood. "I don't need to beat you. Just slow you down."
He sneered. "And then what?"
I simply smiled as the skies cracked open.
For a heartbeat, everything was silent—the kind of silence that comes before a storm or a scream.
And then the lightning came.
A jagged, blinding spear of raw celestial fury split the heavens and slammed into Iapetus's chest, throwing him back a step, then another. A second bolt hit before he could recover, and then a third. Thunder boomed like war drums, shaking the air, the earth, the bones beneath my armor.
Iapetus staggered, half-bent, teeth bared in a furious snarl. His skin smoked and blackened where the lightning struck, his hair flared wildly around him like a lion's mane caught in the wind. He lifted his lance, snarling through gritted teeth—but the next bolt hit him straight in the face and threw him off his feet.
He hit the ground with a crash that echoed across the mountaintop.
"YEEEEE-HAAAAA!"
That voice was unmistakable.
Zeus descended through the smoke and sparks, laughing like an idiot and hurling another bolt as if he were trying to skewer a fish.
"Boom, baby!" he shouted, eyes gleaming like twin storms. "Now that's an entrance."
He landed beside me in a crack of ozone and kicked a loose stone toward Iapetus's limp form. "Sorry I'm late. Took me forever to convince the others not to follow me."
I spat out a mouthful of ichor, my head ringing from the earlier blows. My armor was cracked down the middle, and my exoskeleton was already dissolving into dust and bone fragments, flaking off with every breath.
"You really know how to make an entrance," I grunted, straightening with a painful groan. My bones cracked and popped audibly as my divine form slowly stitched itself back together. "I would've appreciated that twenty minutes ago."
"You looked like you were having fun," Zeus said with a wink. "Besides, I thought you wanted to fight your battles alone."
I shot him a glare. "There's a difference between fighting alone and getting skewered by the Titan of the West."
"Details, details." He shrugged.
We both turned to face Iapetus's broken form. The Titan lay sprawled in a crater of scorched stone, his golden armor dented and melted in places, his once-flawless skin now a mosaic of burns and bruises. His glaive had clattered out of reach, half-buried in rubble.
I raised my bident slowly, shadows coiling around it like eager serpents. "Shall we finish him?"
Zeus rolled his neck, lifting his thunderbolt. "Let's give him a little kiss goodni—"
Iapetus groaned.
We froze.
He didn't rise. Didn't move much at all, save for the twitch of one hand. But that groan was unmistakable.
Zeus and I stood in tense silence.
And then nothing.
No more movement. No stirring of divine power. The battlefield was still, save for the gentle hiss of evaporating rain from Zeus's lingering storm clouds above.
"…Is he unconscious?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
Zeus tilted his head. "I think he's unconscious."
I took a cautious step forward, bident still raised.
Iapetus didn't stir.
I frowned. "So we don't get to finish the dramatic team-up attack?"
"Looks like it." Zeus looked honestly disappointed. "I had a whole speech ready."
"I don't want to hear it."
"Oh, you would've loved it. Something about 'thunder and shadow uniting,' and me being the storm and you being the—"
"No."
Zeus sighed and flicked his wrist, letting the thunderbolt dissipate in a crackle of blue sparks. "Fine. Let's tie him up or something."
"Call the Hekatonkheires," I muttered, already mentally reaching out to Briarus through our psychic link. "And bring some Adamantine chains to tie up Iapetus."
As I turned away, I limped slightly—my body was healing, but I'd taken more damage than I cared to admit. My exoskeleton had cracked at the core, and there was a dull ache in my ribs that hadn't vanished. Still, I stood tall.
Zeus barked a laugh and walked over to Iapetus's body, nudging it with his foot.
"I can't believe he had the nerve to show up here. Alone."
A new voice answered him, deep and cold.
"He didn't."
Zeus turned, and I forced myself upright despite the pain shooting through my limbs.
From the shadows at the edge of the battlefield, four figures stepped forward.
Hyperion stood tall—armored in gold, with a helm that bore a halo that looked like a sun. He held his immense zweihänder in one hand, the blade burning as fire flickered and licked the metal.
Koios drew his silver curved sword. He carried a shield embossed with swirling constellations as his armor flashed on to his body.
Krios hefted a massive double-headed axe. His eyes were cold, as the ground trembled with every step he took.
Finally, Atlas strode forward, his muscles bulging beneath tattered robes. Adamantine gauntlets with knuckle spikes glimmered on his hands. Looking far too excited to beat the living shit out of some upstart gods.
Koios spoke first, his voice low and even. "Did you truly believe Iapetus would come alone?"
Krios cracked his neck. "One by one, you attack us, and your arrogance swells."
Hyperion's laughter was like sunlight on metal. "We are the pillars of the Earth. we are not going to go down quietly."
Zeus clenched his fist as he raised his thunderbolt. "You ready Hades?"
"Ready as I'll ever be." I muttered as I picked up my bident.