He was not happy with how the situation turned out to be, especially because he was left in the dark about what had actually happened. All he knew, was that he was able to figure it out on his own. One, there was now some kind of barrier around the Underworld's territory and the second thing was, that he was unable to teleport on the Olympus, or at least outside of the barrier range.
And getting answers was also not easy, if not outright impossible. After Aphrodite activated this barrier, she raided his stock of Dionysus wine. He was aware that the woman had quite bad coping habits, mostly self-destructive, if extensive consumption of liquid, conscious altering substances, was anything to go by. Still, he needed her at least somewhat sober, to be able to learn, what exactly have she done.
Therefore, it left him with no other option, but to dilute the wine. What a shame, that he was forced to do it, ruining the perfect taste and one of few things, that could help an Olympian like him relax.
Needless to say, Aphrodite was not happy, once she realized that something nefarious was happening with the wine. And since he was the only other person present, and the actual culprit, all the blame and abuse fell on him.
"Aphrodite, you already drunk all the stock I had here. In fact, this way it lasted you longer," he tried to present the crime against wine, as a positive thing.
"Leave me alone," the woman said, throwing an empty cup at the wine offender.
"I would love to, but I sort of can't. You know, the barrier you've made, prevents that," it was hard not to be sarcastic at this point, diplomacy be damned.
Except the woman stayed silent, instead of answering him. He absolutely had no idea what was her problem. Not that it mattered, since she was already like this, he had to change his approach accordingly. As demeaning as it was, he could always play his "child" card, after all, Gaia, or Aphrodite as she was known nowadays, loved all of her children unless they were doing something idiotic. Luckily for him, he was a "good boy", at least Aphrodite perceived him as such, since he was a whole lot more subtle than his two idiotic brothers, in his endeavors.
"Sorry, about that Aphrodite, but I had no idea, that the Underworld had such a barrier. Not knowing what is going on and why you activated it, does make me worried," he said, his emotions unfiltered by the mask of a responsible adult.
"It's not a barrier. It's Tartarus," she shortly retorted.
"Tartarus as in Tartarus system? Where we send human souls for a hard reset?" he asked, since he did not exactly know, how could have Tartarus system create a pseudo-barrier around the Underworld's territory.
"System, huh? Tartarus is not a system. Tartarus is my brother, a Primordial. Or at least a corpse of one," she said.
"What? Explain?!" he was shocked.
Aphrodite procured a new cup out of thin air and pointed it towards an amphora, which Hades was sure was not there a moment ago. Not, that he wanted her to drink more, but as long as she was talkative he would oblige.
"Call here Persephone first, I don't want to explain things twice and she should know," the woman said when he was pouring her the wine.
"Persephone is not in the Underworld," he admitted
"Where is she?!" Aphrodite said with urgency and authority.
"Just do not be mad, alight? I send her to bring Arachne and Medusa to the Underworld," he said fearing, how she might react.
"Hades!" she hissed.
"No! Not like that! I'm not like my brothers. I sent Persephone to convince the two to work here in the Underworld. We had a lot of cases that needed manual handling lately. And quite frankly we needed help with handling them. So who better to help with it, than two uplifted humans? Also, it should help Persephone, forgive herself, for creating that non-functional uplifting formula, given Arachne and Medusa, retained their sanity," he explained.
"That is quite nice of you. Where are they now?" raising her eyebrow, she asked.
"The last place Orthrus location was reported from, was near the Helicarnassus, their overall direction seems to be following the coast southwards," he said.
"So they will probably soon leave the Olympus area. That is good," Aphrodite murmured sipping her wine.
"Can you tell me what happened?" he asked.
"Bad thing Hades. Really bad thing," she answered.
He did not like the explanation and recounting of events she told him. The wine did look a whole lot more tantalizing, now.
Talos was late, simple as that. The colossus that was moving at breakneck speeds and was known for never being late anywhere, at least she never noticed it to be late, was now delayed, which was not good.
There were two possible options. she could think about, why was Talos so tardy. Either it was doing its duty, removing pirates, thugs, and bandits, protecting the island of Crete, or Zeus noticed that something was not so quite right with his pass-time project and decided to involve himself. The second option would not be well conducive to her brother's continuous existence if his core was discovered.
And yes, there was also the almost impossible third option, of her brother Ares waking up early and doing something stupid, like fighting the colossus himself.
Now the dilemma was, whether she should go there or not. Best case, there would be no problem, just some humans getting killed, the worst case was Zeus's wrath directed at her. Or it would not have to be directed at her, she did have her illusionary magic after all. And, she already was able to trick the Golden Fleece, which according to Ares was supposedly stronger than Zeus.
She decided, that a quick look from the distance would not hurt. And if it was her brother doing something stupid, she would leave him to his own devices. After all, if he can be stupid, then he can take care of himself.
Except she was wrong on all accounts. None of the possibilities she thought of, was the one that was happening before her eyes. It was not bandits, despite some brigands fighting there, neither was Zeus tinkering with his hobby project, even if the colossus was lying flat on the ground, deactivated. Neither was Ares being stupid, regardless of her clearly detecting an Olympian near the colossus. So, what in the actual Tartarus was happening?
A few of the armored people evaporated into the mist of blood as something, she could barely follow with her sight, made its way through them towards the Olympian, who stood on the downed Talos. Not that she much cared about the rest of her kind, since she already betrayed them, but she still sort of cared for her brother, who was now just a defenseless core, very close to the place the unknown was striking at the barely dodging Olympian.
She did not like it, but at this point, she had to risk getting her brother's core before it got damaged as a casualty of the vicious fight. Or she could just leave her brother to his own devices.
"Damn it!" she cursed beneath her breath and rushed forward, making herself invisible to the enemy and possible onlookers.
If she could distract the monstrous attacker a bit, the other Olympian should be able to finish it even if their attacks were so slow. And, while both Olympian and attacker were distracted, she would recover Ares's core and disappear. Casting several illusions of the other Olympian around the attacker, did the thing. The monster stopped for a moment turning its head around in confusion, only for it to fall to its face immediately.
"Eris?" the Olympian, whose form she did not recognize asked.
There she was, the one who was tinkering with Talos, but also the one who saved him, Eris. Well, she did not really save him, since he recognized the body that Heracles was now using, as one of his inventions, and thus could easily disable it if he only had a bit of time to do so. And when Eris showed up and distracted the mechanical berserker with illusions, she just provided him with that little time he needed.
By doing so, she of course outed herself to be the person who did something with Talos. Which was great actually. Since she and Ares were other Olympians who were less than loyal to Zeus. It was not so hard to figure that out, given how Ares did not exactly suspect someone spying on him. Or more precisely, spying on Aphrodite, who Ares often visited to lull information out of her, when she was inebriated. This way he learned a whole lot more than he expected.
Thus he was not surprised, that Ares and Eris left Olympus for good. However, something must have happened to Ares, since his core was now embedded in Talos, in order for him to regenerate. Too bad the logs from Talos did not reveal to him how Ares got disembodied, he was sure that would be hilarious.
Either way, he now had to deal with the Olympian, who might have assisted him, but that assistance was mostly for Ares's sake. Yet given how her brother was, Eris could not be exactly enthusiastic about having to risk her own neck, for the idiot's sake, repeatedly.
And quick probing into the topic revealed as such. So, he offered her to go with him, having another Olympian as a support, would be beneficial for both of them. To which Eris could only agree, surprisingly without much of a convincing. She must have had enough of her brother's idiocy.
Now the question was, how to convince the people who came here with him that Eris was not a danger? Quite frankly Eris was one who was better at coming up with convincing stories on the spot. But at least he explained that his companions and the other people on Lemnos did not exactly like Athena, and Olympians in general.
With a bit of thought, Eris changed her appearance to that of a child, a similar age to his current body, explaining, that humans usually are easily swayed by "cute" looking things. And who would suspect a kid of something nefarious? He did have to agree to that, from his own experience so far. As for her backstory, she just plain out lied that she was imprisoned in the Talos and that Hephaestus. It's not like the different experiments that the Olympians did, did not spawn some weird things
Not that he minded, since there was a great bonus on top of it all! He managed to recover the Kronos core from Heracles's mechanical body. Oh, how much he wanted to get his hands on this thing!
Did they just leave him here? All alone?!
She was shocked when she learned, about the self-proclaimed child of Lady Arachne, suddenly growing up from a mere baby to a child, stating that his mother bestowed him a vision about a colossus that must be defeated.
She and her companion still had their doubts, but all of the new information, changed her plans only so little. Instead of having the troops from the island of Lemnos, bring the child to her directly, she would wait and see if the child was indeed blessed by Lady Arachne and defeated the colossus. After which the accompanying Lady Arachne's retainers would bring the boy to her, or witness possible lieres demise.
Then she learned that there was a fight on the island of Crete. Not much so with the fabled colossus, but rather a different kind of giant. Lady Arachne's retainers explained, that the attacker was some kind of metal monster wrapped in human skin, who even Lady Arachne had problems with. For a moment there, she was worried about the child, whether the boy was Lady Arachne's or not, but her companion made those worries go away.
By the report from Lady Arachne's retainers, she discovered, that the boy in the end managed to slay the colossus, he proclaimed to be sent after. Moreover, he also defeated the enemy, who possessed some troubles even for their lady.
And now, the boy along with a mysterious girl who appeared, when the giant was slain arrived on the island of Lesbos, as she ordered. After all, she still held her suspicion and thus decided to welcome both children with her own presence.
"What? Who are you," said the girl.
"Welcome to the island of Lebos, children. I am Cynane, the high priestess of Lady Arachne, and this. This is Nemesis, our lady's messenger," she explained herself and her companion.
His grandiose idea to take over Olympus was paying up almost immediately. He now possessed two vessels, in which he could commute with humans directly, and who were also well respected among the local population.
And on top of that, he obtained several "cores", which Gaia used to construct her creatures around. Given the nature of these "cores," it would be even easier to manipulate them in his image.
In total, he had four perfect cores, one undamaged, which would require some work from him to repurpose, and the last one was damaged, beyond what Gaia, in her diminished state, could repair. But that was not a problem for him.
Thus he decided, that the cores that once housed Gaia's creatures known as Zeus, Poseidon, Apollo, and Hermes, would be turned into his servants, just like the little being that he took from Gaia and who served him so much well.
Thinking of Gaia, made him feel anger. She was always one step ahead of him, no matter the subject. And now that she was so much diminished and should have groveled in front of him, she ran away. Worse, he could not discern where that little coward had run.
No matter, he would find her sooner or later. As she was now, Gaia could not flee this world, and once he took over the others, who came here along with Gaia, there would be no more hiding for her.
So much godly work to do.
Their adventure ended up being an absolute disaster. Everything, completely everything went wrong. And worst of all, it was his fault. Every decision he made, led to worse and worse disasters, than anything before.
Going on the island of Lemnos, resulted in their deaths. Playing heroes at the defense of Athens, caused Nike to be badly hurt. And trying to impress Medea? The very thing they were after in their quest, which was supposed to stay asleep, woke up and caused extensive damage comparable to a natural disaster.
That was why, when he saw, what Golden Fleece did to Nike, how much it destroyed the land and created new river deltas, he could only flee with his crew, not daring to look back, even for a brief moment.
In their fear, they sailed up the river, once the Golden Fleece, left the scene of destruction. How lucky they were that it ignored long enough, for them to sneak around it with a ship. The journey against the river current was solemn.
But the luck would not last them forever. Eventually, they reached a place where their ship could no longer sail. After all, it was meant to sail the seas, not mountains. Freezing mountains. None of them were even remotely dressed enough for such cold weather.
"Now what? Do we cross the mountains? Or do we go back? It's not like the thing would be waiting for us," said one young man.
"You really had to say it?!" he said.
"Well, sorry Jason, but we should be realistic, the chances that Golden Fleece is waiting for us, are minuscule!" replied the same person.
The bout of silence followed the young man's statement.
"Fine mountains it is! But you all know, that I'm right, you are just scared... As I am," the man hung his head, reading for a new ordeal of carrying their ship over the mountains.
In the weeks following the conquest of Olympus, she enjoyed very little of her Father's attention. but it was reasonable since they were now extremely busy. Her Father had to reign in, the newly acquired masses of faithful humans, while she was sent to complete one precise cut into nonbelievers, after another.
Because of this seeming business, she did not expect her Father to create more of her siblings, and not just the inferior ones, but her kind. In hindsight, she should have expected that her Father was capable of doing so. He was, after all, one true god of everything.
So she decided to welcome her new siblings and bring them up to speed, so they could all extol their Father together, while also being useful and not daring to disappoint their Father.
All four of her new siblings, Michael, Rafael, Gabriel, and Uriel were quite frankly, disappointing. At least to her, they were disappointing. Clearly, her Father, created them all in His image, more so than herself. And there was no fault in their inspiring aura either. They were all just kind of dumb. Not by their intellect, but rather the way they used it, making them more so idiotic, rather than conventional dumb.
But she would dare to say that to her Father. She could just not do so, since He was so much filled with joy by his new creations. And her four new siblings were able to sing praises to their Father even better than she was. She would not be jealous of that, after all, she had an edge over her four new siblings. Unlike them, she was actually capable. Although, she would probably have to pick up the slack, given her new siblings' demeanor, unless she decided to surprise her in this regard.
Her teacher's plan was probably not going as well as she expected. Lady Hecate said that they should expect some Olympians to appear, or at least heroes, sent by the Olympians. But so far none have come, even after some months have passed. Yet her teacher still remained patient, waiting for the opportunity.