Saint-Tropez, Côte d'Azur, France
She sat quietly on the bustling beach, gazing out at the Mediterranean Sea, sipping her glass of chilled Champagne. Around her, children laughed and played, women sunbathed (many of them topless), and men attempted to appear as if they weren't watching the women around them. This simply made her smile all the more as she closed her eyes and lolled her head back, feeling the natural warmth of the sun caressing her soft skin.
Her blood chilled momentarily as a cold, dark shadow fell across her midsection.
She squinted as she attempted to gaze up at the darkened face of her sudden visitor. "Is there something I can help you with, stranger?"
A deep, echoing chuckle answered as the figure lowered himself to be seated beside her and swept his hand out toward the Sea. "As a matter of fact, Scylla, I was just wondering if you would care to join me for a dip."
She chuckled herself, never able to withstand his humor. "Very funny, m'lord," she said, turning her attention back toward the Sea with a sigh that was at once rueful and wistful. "I never did thank you, did I?"
"There was no need," her visitor answered. "I understood your gratitude. Mobility has its advantages after all and you had been too long at sea."
"I can only assume by your showing up like this that it is time for me to fulfill my part of the bargain?"
He smiled. "Indeed. Your services are needed. Apparently, there are others who have risen to replace the Fallen."
She shook her head. "You'd think they'd have learned by now. Just from the observations I've made, I can tell you that this is no time or place for gods anymore."
"It is the way of things. So," he asked turning toward her again, "are you in or out?"
The nymph called Scylla smiled as she drained her glass of Champagne. "Well, after all you've done for me, Dark One, I don't see myself taking any other side in this whole debacle!"
Tartarus, The Underworld, Eighth Circle of Hell
While there was no sun in Hell, there was no shortage of heat. Even the hottest days along the Equator were no match for the sweltering hotbox that existed in the lower levels of the Underworld. For some, the punishments were worse than for others.
The Eighth Level of Hell, as described by the roving Italian Alighieri, was reserved for those guilty of the deliberate acts of fraudulent evil. Surely he had been guilty of his share. He had murdered travelers, shared the secrets of the gods, and even managed to make Thanatos stand in his stead in Hell. Each of these things was akin to a pen stroke of his own death sentence.
His burden was a heavy one to shoulder, but it was his alone to bear. He grunted as his muscles strained, every one of them aching as they had for millennia. His feet dug into the scorched earth under the weight of his tremendous load. Sweat drenched his naked form as the furs he wore between his shoulders and the heated stone began to slip. As he neared the top of the hill, his grunts became screams of agony as his furs slid, causing him to lose his grip on the large stone he had been shoving up the hill.
As he fell face first onto the ground and his boulder rolled onto the ground below, Sisyphus began to weep bitterly. The absurdity of it all, repeating the same actions over and over, doomed to repeat them for all eternity... it was beginning to be more than he was able to bear. A deep, rumbling voice interrupted his sorrow.
"A shame, to be sure," the dark figure noted. "Your predicament is an unfortunate one."
"What do you know of it?" Sisyphus snapped, pounding his fist on the dried up wasteland. "An eternity of meaningless torture... and to what end?!"
"You are clever, Sisyphus, but time ultimately has a way of catching up with us. You, in particular." The keeper of the sinister voice knelt beside the naked Sisyphus. "What if I were to tell you that I could put an end to your litany of repetition?"
For the first time, the tortured soul beheld his strange visitor. "Y-you?" he gasped, as a smile suddenly curled along his face. "Yes. Yes, I suppose you could."
"Don't get any ideas, sly one," the Dark One warned, pointing a finger at the man. "The gods who imprisoned you here are no more. I have seen this to be true. You are in my debt now. I have need of your cunning and skills to defeat those who have chosen to replace them. Know that anything I do can be undone just as easily."
"Understood," Sisyphus said, offering his hand to the Dark One, who hoisted him to his feet. "I am with you."
Mount Olympus
This was a place where gods had tread.
Now, there were only two feet visible on the surface of this once-majestic mount. As he walked around, he could barely contain his sorrow. Each image he saw only further cemented the pain he felt in his soul.
Apollo's mangled lyre.
Athena's mutilated helmet.
Artemis' broken bow.
Hephaestus' shattered hammer.
The remains of Poseidon's once-fearsome trident.
The shards of Zeus' thunderbolts.
These, in particular, caused the Cyclops Steropes great pain. He wiped the tears forming in his eye as he picked up the shards and ran them through his fingers like sand. As he did, his fingertips sparked with lightning, the piece of the puzzle he himself had added to Zeus' mighty bolts of justice.
"Master," he muttered to himself, "with everything that is within me, I swear that I will avenge your murder..."
"Will you?" came a deep, rumbling voice from the edge of the mountain. "Well, this should be an interesting encounter, then..."
"YOU!" Steropes screamed, his fingertips beginning to spark more violently. "You would dare desecrate this place with your presence?!"
The mysterious figure smiled. "My, and here I'd thought that my role in this had been significantly downplayed..."
"I was here," Steropes rumbled, "and I alone beheld what you did to our Pantheon!"
"A shame you did nothing to stop me," the stranger mused, both hands clasping something behind his back. "One must wonder if you wanted to at all."
Steropes fumed, a blast of pure lightning arcing from his fist toward the darkened figure before him. The energy seemed to hit a wall before connecting with the man, who simply laughed dismissively at the Cyclops. "Oh, you should know your abilities mean nothing to me." The mysterious man raised an eyebrow, mocking the beast. "One can't help but wonder why you didn't join with those who would replace your beloved gods like your brother Arges did..."
"Would that I could have," Steropes dismayed. "Would that they thought enough of me and my gift that I would have been included in such an assembly. Still, as long as they are dedicated to bringing you to justice, I will be amongst their ranks in spirit!"
"What a pity. And here I was hoping I might persuade you to join me against them..."
"You WHAT?!" Steropes boomed. "Why would I join YOU after all you've done?"
"Funny, your brother had quite the same reaction..." the dark man pulled his hands out from behind his back to reveal the decapitated head of another Cyclops.
"B-Brontes?!" Steropes' eye widened in horror as his brother's lifeless eye gazed back at him. His vision then narrowed in hatred as he looked back toward the Dark One. "What have you done to him, you monster?!"
"I asked him to kill your brother Arges and his new comrades and he had the audacity to refuse," the man said, swinging the head slightly as it rested in his grip. "I am offering you the same deal. Kill your brother Arges and, not only preserve your way of life, but give your brother Brontes his life back. You know I am capable of this."
Steropes gritted his teeth as the rage began to consume him. "Y-you..." he muttered, looking between the fiendish man and the disembodied head of his brother. "You are a monster..."
The Dark One smiled. "I know. And now you are my monster."
