1st story:
Typhon reminds the helpless amnesiac Zeus about the history of their enmity.
Flashback:
Typhon is the last of the Titans, son of mother Earth and father Hell. In his birth form, he was the largest monster that ever lived. He was set upon the Olympians in revenge for the murder of his race. And he so terrified the gods that they fled to Egypt and hid as animals. All save Athena, who with cutting slights against the manhood of Zeus drove him into doing battle against Typhon, which Zeus ended only by dropping Mount Etna atop him and sealing him inside Tartarus with his brothers.
Present:
Olympus Group HQ top floor:
Yet here he is, returned, Typhon triumphs. To finish what he started. With Hera’s own weapon Continuum ®. And he asks Zeus, if he could not hide from him as a goat kid what makes him think he will show mercy to him as a human child?
Zeus is crying with rage at the murder of his wife Hera. Furious, he attacks as Typhon tells him now it is his turn.
In the depths of the building in Hephaestus’ forge, lightning strikes the petrified Athena and releases her. Crackling with power, she informs Hercules and Hephaestus that Zeus’ thunderbolt has flown into her hand and erased the insidious enchantment of Delphyne Gorgon. She is now Athena Panhellenios. Hercules realizes this would mean that both Hera and Zeus are dead!
Of course, tells him death god Thanatos, as before him rise the ghosts of Hera and Zeus, now happily reunited. For no lesser souls would he come in person to collect than the King and Queen of Heaven.
Hercules addresses his father but is told to be silent by Thanatos. In death, Hera and Zeus have been reunited in love. Allow them the dignity to make their descent to the underworld in peace! He disappears downwards with them as Hercules angrily shouts he warned Hera her alliance with Typhon would bring the gods nothing but misery.
He turns to the cowering Hephaestus, He knows the smithy god holds the only other key to the lift to Continuum ®. Hercules demands it. Typhon will pay for his crimes and you -- he turns to the smiling Amadeus and orders him to wipe that smile off his face. He’s about lost all patience!
Amadeus apologizes. He knows it’s selfish but he’s just relieved. He thought Thanatos came here for Hercules. He was afraid Herc was gonna die during this fight. Mollified, Hercules tells him that’s a ridiculous thing to fret over. Everybody dies. But not everybody lives. He suggests Amadeus stop worrying all the time. He won’t become a true hero unless he lives. Does he understand? He thinks so, Amadeus replies.
Athena joins them. She needs Hercules to get up to the Continuum ® chamber, shut the machine down and take out Typhon while she and Amadeus will protect his rear flanks. They must assist the heroes in the Paradeisos to defeat Olympus’ defenders!
Amadeus wants to go with Hercules, who tells him Athena s right. Thanatos is gone. The time for Amadeus to wring his hands at his side is over. Now the Avengers need his tactical skill. His birthright as a hero is calling. He must seize it! Okay, Amadeus agrees unhappily and runs to join the others.
Only Athena is left now, turning to the forgotten Amazon queen Delphyne, who is cowering in a hole. Manifesting her thunderbolt, Athena tells her it’s time to learn the first rule of deicide: Don’t miss! For attempting to assassinate Athena, she strips Delphyne of the throne to the amazons and imprisons her here in the bowels of Olympus until the end of time. That’s ten minutes from now, bitch, Delphyne retorts. She doesn’t care, she cries, looking at her reflection. She is once more cursed with her snakelike looks and so is every other Gorgon in the world. She failed her people! She doesn’t care what happens to her anymore!
Hercules reaches the Continuum ® chamber to find the corpse of Zeus. Sad, he cradles it, having to face his father’s death.
Typhon remarks that, though his father was small in stature, he probably died as more of a man than Hercules will. With a scream of rage, Hercules attacks him and hits the Titan with his adamantine mace. Typhon hits back in return.
Fighting, they both fall through the gateway in the Continuum ® chamber to land in another identical chamber. Typhon pulls Hercules up by his hair and tells him to look outside, to look at the glorious cosmos Hera has wrought. What makes it so glorious is that it’s free of gods, heroes and people! It’s pure! And in seconds, once the Continuum ® replicates their universe at 100 % of the quantum level their world of sin and everything on it will be instantly destroyed and he, Tyhon, shall be annihilated with it, his destiny task finally fulfilled.
He wants to take them back through the portal and have them die together. No! Hercules shouts and gouges his eyes. Free, he strikes him. In the name of Zeus, of all the Greeks and the countless billions Typhon seeks to slaughter, he dies now! Hercules strikes with all his strength.
Moments later, Typhon smashes him into the wall. As Typhon’s tunic has come off, Hercules sees what is beneath it: Athena’s Aegis armor, which turns the kinetic force of any attacker’s blow back on them. Typhon takes up Hercules’ mace. Adamantine, eh? He tries it out by smashing several of Hercules’ bones. Not much later, he decides Herc’s screams bore him. His skull next, he announces.
Hercules moans something. Last words, if he pleases, Typhon remarks, and be quick about it. Hercules asks him to come closer. Typhon does so, ordering him to get on with it. He just wants to say… swallow! Hercules shouts and sticks the bottle with water from the Lethe into Typhon’s mouth. Surprised, the Titan swallows and, a moment later, wonders what he is doing here. Who is he? He turns to the beaten Hercules asking what manner of pitiful creature he is. Just a dying fool, Hercules moans and asks him to end his pain.
Taking up his axe, Typhon remarks that, although he knows not why, it would be his great pleasure. When he comes close enough, Hercules grabs his mace and smashes Typhon in the face. Smashing him again and again, Hercules promises him the pleasure is all his.
With his foe dead, Hercules literally drags himself over to the console of Continuum ®, intent on shutting it down as it is moments from finishing replication.
That moment, Athena enters. Hercules is relieved and sheepishly asks for a bit of her assistance. Darkly, she replies she can’t do that. Impatiently, he states they have no time for her riddles. He has a broken leg and a broken arm and this accursed Continuum ® is nearly completed. He needs…
A new champion, Athena continues; one who will rise to vanquish the coming darkness Hercules’ strength will be useless against. Does she mean Amadeus? he asks. She assures him Amadeus knows nothing of this. He is completely blameless. He should know that. It’s all been her. She tricked Amadeus into thinking this is inevitable. Just as she persuaded Zeus to father a mortal champion upon the princess Alcmene. She tricked Hera to breast-feed Hercules outside the walls of Thebes and grant him invulnerability.
As she talks, the heroes finish off Hera’s forces.
Athena advised him in his completion of his twelve labors, Athena continues. She chose the part of the mind a long time ago. Without companion or children. But she doesn’t care what anyone says…
She steps out of the shadow, tears streaming down her face, she is his true mother! She has loved him more than anyone in her whole eternal life. That’s why this is the hardest thing she ever had to do.
She manifests a bolt of lightning. Two Princes of Power cannot exist simultaneously. He sees, Herc snarls. He and Amadeus, they are nothing but pawns to her… but they have to do something about Continuum ®. It’s almost complete. To play out her precious game, would Athena sacrifice an entire world? No, Athena replies and shatters the console with the lightning bolt. Just him. Farewell, my only son. I will always love you. Hercules screams her name as he is caught in the explosion.
The top floor of the Olympus Group building explodes and outside the heroes and Amadeus watch in horror. Amadeus turns around to ask Athena but she is no longer there.
The still webbed-up Spider-Man asks if they won. Wolverine frees him and orders him to haul ass upstairs pronto!
Using the lift, they travel upstairs. Hebe is the first to see the sight of Athena crying over Hercules’ ashes. She explains that Hercules knew that sealing the portal was the only way to stop the Quantum transfer into Continuum ®… and save their world. With nanoseconds left, he smashed it. She was too late. She got here with only enough time to see the blast. She tells Amadeus she’s sorry Hercules… It’s all right, he replies calmly. He knows. He’s dead.
2nd story:
Two beings wonder. Clearly only one can be the real goddess. Were they not both born of foam on the sea? the other muses. But to take the form of an Olympian is heresy, the first on points out. What if the god shirks divine duty? the second asks. Now listen closely, for these two women created a new myth for a new time.
Narration:
Venus angrily tells the woman in whose image she was made, the goddess Aphrodite, to leave her friends out of it and take it out on her. She thought Aphrodite was the goddess of love, but she guesses she learned too late!
Aphrodite orders her not to judge her. She has no obligation to a world that abandoned her and her kind. But she can still sway them all! She addresses Namora as “Atlantean” and orders her to collect her mates for her. Namora immediately obeys and grabs the Uranian and Jimmy Woo. The robot M-11 wants to intercede, but Venus asks him to stay back. This is her responsibility.
She fights the only way she can, with her greatest weapon, her siren song. Aphrodite scoffs and uses hers in return. Their songs come together like two living things. Each pushes her voice to new heights in response. All the beings in or under the Olympus Group building are pulled to it. How could they not be? A battle of hearts is waged below the Earth while in the tower above a battle for all existence. The song can be felt by the mortals on the streets, by all of the ancient kind, by the Agents of Atlas, and finally by the one who had never felt it herself – Aphrodite.
She strides towards Venus and kisses her. Crying, she thanks her. So profound, so sincere! She hasn’t known such feelings in eons! Venus was right about her. She hasn’t been the goddess of love for a very long time. She’s been the goddess of everything petty and vain ever since the Trojan War. The gods have nothing to blame but themselves for losing their flocks!
She loses the sash around her hip, her cestus, and ties it around Venus’ hips. Venus may already master the hearts of the mortals but with this cestus the Olympiad will acknowledge her status as the new goddess of love.
And all the creatures in the cavern kneel down, acknowledging Venus’ new status. But what will Aphrodite do? she asks. She’s going to leave her ivory tower and find a new way, she replies and teleports away.
Looks like V learned a trick from Jimmy, Ken remarks. Somewhere, a dragon is smiling, Jimmy agrees. Namora congratulates her too, telling her she will make a worthy goddess. Venus herself is unsure.
At this momentous point, there should have been a bacchanal, the narrator finishes. Yet as they all know, a funeral was what fate had planned that day instead, for their mightiest hero had fallen.
A horrified Namora joins the heroes to learn of Hercules’ death.
Somewhere, the creatures ask the satyr if they should honor Venus as an Olympian. Exactly as they would the highest of the high, comes the reply. This is what the fates have decreed. A new goddess for a new age. It now seems clear it was always ordained. He played a small part in that. He regretted what he did then, but how could he have done otherwise? She is Venus. Marked by the gods to bring peace and love to the world, with her agents at her side.
