Riordenverse, jump #255-257 (not a xianxia)

[Percy Jackson redux, jump #255]

Drawbacks: The Bad Ending, Sent Abroad, Wrath of Olympus, Unclaimed, Daddy Issues, Prank Target, House Rivalry, The Full Story, Monster Bait, Godly Scorn: Zeus (3200)

Camper, age 18

Olympus Twelve: Zeus (3000)

A Slip In Reality: Heracles (Free)
The Olden Ways (Free)
Godly Powers (Free)
Camp Training (Free)
The Gods Are Bros (2800)
Chosen Child (2500)
Skills of the Beast: Virility, Strength (2100)
Creature of Myth (1700)
Legends of the Beast (1100)
Monster Killer: Imperial Gold (Free)
Nectar and Ambrosia (1000)
Holding Up The Sky (400)
Canon Companion: Hecate (0)

>Hercules was loitering at his post, feeling bitter and bored. A lifetime of cursed madness and obligation had led to eternal servitude to gods he had long since lost all respect for. He wondered if that newfangled summer camp for demigods was better or worse than the neglect he remembered growing up, when the Mist itself rose up around him, blotting out the world
>A CHANGE IN THE SITUATION HAS BEEN CONFIRMED, said the Benefactor. A PROPOSAL FOR YOU, CHOSEN ONE. A SUGGESTION FOR YOU, ABANDONED ONE. IF YOU DESIRE GLORY, CHOOSE THIS RESSURECTION
>"Bwa? I. What?" asked Hercules
>I'M SORRY! THAT SOUNDED COOLER IN MY HEAD. IT'S JUST, THIS WHOLE SITUATION REMINDS ME OF-WELL NEVERMIND. WOULD YOU LIKE VENGEANCE ON THE GODS THAT USE AND ABUSE YOU?
>"Yes! Wait. How? Why is the Mist talking?!"
>BY CRUSHING THE GREATER HISTORY OF MAN, AND CONSTRUCTING GOD WITH YOUR OWN HANDS, SILLY!
>"I still have no idea what is even happening"
>UGH, I'M JUST GONNA DO THE THING. BRACE YOURSELF!

Not long later, I got thrown in Titan lockdown for being filthy fuckin' Olympian spawn. The most I could do was ask for a fair trial. The audacity amused the Titans in charge enough to go for it. That, and an ongoing shadow war they weren't keen on talking about.

(cont'd)

>Kronos: "Give me one good reason I shouldn't eat you"
>"Well for starters, you know what they say about kinslayers"

It was at this point with a little nudging from the 5th, that Heir of JUMPER kicked in. As I demonstrated my inherited power over time and the harvest, I explained that contrary to myth Kronos was, in fact, the father.

To his credit, Kronos didn't flinch while the other Titans were scratching their heads. He pretended it was all some test of character, claimed the inexplicable and totally-not-inspired-by-centuries-of-monster-hunting grudge monsters had for me was part of his plans and promptly welcomed me to the family. In private, I explained that wouldn't the loyalty of Zeus' scion be the ultimate one-up?

>Kronos: "Thin ice, kid. Listen, the situation with the giants is precarious-they don't like us, we don't like them and dad knows what Typhaon wants"
>"Yeah, about that. You're gonna wanna set up peace talks. I'm a good friend of Gaia even if she doesn't know it yet"
>Kronos: "Haven't you figured it out yet? The campers, Hermes' brats hounding you, the heroes. The Olympians are trying to break out of Hades! I can't deal with this shit AND risk another gigantomachy!"
>"Small potatoes. Apep's coming"
>Kronos: "The fuck's an Apep?"

And then, I explained to him what an Apep was.
And then, Kronos agreed to hold those peace talks.

Funny thing, in the PJ series Kronos is basically evilevilevil with zero redeeming qualities. But one of the lorebooks says he had inferiority issues from being the smallest Titan, and WAS a cool guy who initially rewarded the giants with freedom and his brothers after becmoing king. He did enjoy all the power, but got miserable none of his siblings visited him out of fear. The evil only really set in after sometime he became king.

I dealt with my daddy issues by going fishing with Kronos.
He still liked to act tough, but we both had fun.

(Cont'd)

After nearly a hundred attempted assassinations by vengeful monster descendants I also made good use of Therapy no Jutsu, and pulling my punches enough to wrestle the Nemean Lion or the Hydra into a tapout over and over again instead of lethal blows. Years later, when Medaka and I were arguing about friendly tournaments she'd point out that was basically what my monster rivalries boiled down into.

It helped that being neither giant nor Titan, nobody had dared free Typhon. I did, and as a fellow aspect of the natural order at least convinced him to stay away from everyone's property as part of the peace talks.

>Gaia: "I want MY kids to have all the cushy places!"
>Kronos: "I want MY siblings to have all the cushy places!"
>"Hear me out, there's this thing called Textures I can make for you guys. It's basically like an alternate layer of reality I can sort of...stack together simultaneously, so there'll be a parallel version of Earth where Titans rule completely and one where Giants rule completely. What do you guys say?"
>Gaia & Kronos: "That's dumb and we won't believe you until we see it, but holy us that would solve all our problems"

And so I did! Incidentally attracting the interest of Hecate, who had kind of been shunned for accepting a place with Olympus after sidelining in the Titanomachy. As has become tradition with every jump with a Hecate in it a shared interest in magic and forbidden things led to joining the ranks of the Titans in marriage.

There were still lots of kinks to work out. Having to refurbish the Ploy Kickshaw that transported giants from an island to a tunnel because they kept throwing it for funsies. Having to break up a fight between Medea and Medea after one slapped the other for being immature. But on the day the Master Bolt would've taken Hecate's life if I hadn't jumped in the way, everyone closed ranks to deal with the Olympian scum once and for all.

(Cont'd)

The Titans were aloof and callous, but a few years of security and prosperity had mellowed out many of them. In time, I persuaded them to make the Golden Age of humanity a reality as one further snub at Olympian incompetence; it wasn't as if they had much use for civilisation. The threat of it being taken away mobilised them faster than any king could-enough to let some mongrel attempt apotheosis.

The first step was simply to combine Greek and Egyptian magic. The instruction were written in the Book of Thoth, but having no patience I simply suborned magic directly with my 11 rings and convinced a friend to wish for it to happen.

The second required building a special magic lighthouse. The third, a trip to the underworld where efforts to stop the escape were ongoing. It was chaos; hordes of monsters and giants poured into the underworld and were slaughtered by an army of dead heroes, the gods behind them firing their deadliest weapons at the Titans who retaliated with natural disasters. They could well have fallen if SOMEONE hadn't helped the cyclopes build factory lines mass producing midgets made of divine metal that rammed into heroes and gods alike with the fury of 0.65 Daleks.

At the very sign of Zeus faltering, I rushed through the battlefield, gave Kronos the signal, and tackled him into a chokehold complete with chains from my own body. There was nothing dignified about it, anymore than the ambush he had laid for Typhon, and the furious crackle of primordial flame against divine thunder couldn't elevate that brutal struggle for survival. Time oozed between us and wracked everything into decay around us, as I unceremoniously wrestled him towards the portal back to the lighthouse.

"You OW will ARGH never HOOO be OUCH my son!" screamed the king of the gods as I broke limb after limb with a golden gavel.

I told him the feeling was mutual, as I heaved him onto the stone table. I told him he deserved this, as I brandished the sacrificial knife, and that we both knew this. I told him if he felt nothing about the suffering Hercules had lived through.

"My only regret was rewarding you at all!"

I told him I had decreed Hades and his family alone would be spared. He didn't answer, but there was something that might have been relief in a less callous deity. Which hardened anew when I told him I hadn't decided whether to end Hestia or not.

"And what of your wife, eh? Who am I kidding, a RACE TRAITOR like you cares nothing for the heartbreak you've inflicted on Hera!"

Hera? Hera, I laughed, leaning close. The same sister-wife who rebelled from your infidelity? The one you chained above the Void of Chaos? The one you threatened daily, to sever her chains and condemn her to oblivion? Is THAT the justice of the gods you're here to lecture me about, that spiteful familial dysfunction I could find in any fisherman's hovel? Do you even know, I asked, why I hate the Olympians alone among so many deities?

Because, I whispered, you're all so. Insufferably. Human.

You want to know what I think about my marraige to Hebe? I think it's a sham you set up I'll laugh over when the Titans rend the rest of you apart to never reform again, and I don't care if you and Hera thought it was gracious mercy. She was just another chain.

Zeus' face had crumpled. Defeat, or true guilt? His hand raised in contrition, or protest, or defiance-we'll never know. Because that was when the knife fell, I absorbed his essence and finally achieved divinity that wasn't inherited.

Zeus was right. I was a monster, and a kinslayer, and a paragon of hubris. I had handed the world over to monsters and worse, those kin to the Olympians.

All the more reason to be a better deity than he ever was.

>FIN