Lords of the Underworld [malexmale]

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Sometimes I asked myself what life would have been like if I had never tried to save Zeus's life during the Titanomachy.

Would the balance have ruptured then? Had he begun to draw his power from the Source? Would I have hated myself if Zeus had died before he ever had the chance to turn against me? Who would have led the Olympians? Would we have lost to the Titans? Would the worlds have been any different?

It was times like that where being a god of time would have been a nice thing. I would be able to see what would have happened if my decisions had been made differently.

In the end, I knew it wouldn't matter. The decisions I made were because of the person I was. I wasn't cold enough to stand by while my brother was butchered by our father. I wasn't cold enough to let them fight on their own against one of the most dangerous group of gods in the worlds. No matter what I would have known, I probably would have saved Zeus either way and all those things would happen just as they were meant to happen. Because that's how the Fates worked. Everything happened for a reason.

I suffered for a reason. I became bitter for a reason. I was tested for a reason.

Was I the villain or was I the good guy?

I suppose it depended on what your definition of good and bad was.

Most days, I wanted to be the bad guy. Even though the bad guy always lost, he was feared and he was powerful and no one degraded him. The bad guy may not have come out on top, but he was never at the bottom either.

The good guy made people happy. The good guy suffered, but he went through it anyway so long as the people around them were happy and safe and alive. The good guy saved the worlds.

But what if the good guy didn't want to suffer? What if the good guy wanted something for himself? Did that make him the bad guy?

Good and bad. The world wasn't made of black and white.

Shades of gray.

Shades of gray...

"Ten," Zeus stated, leaning over top of me as I glared up at him with narrowed eyes, "You may choose any ten gods to join you in your battle against the Titans, but I will not be one of them. As a king, I am a pedestal of hope. They will need someone to sit above them to reassure them that nothing has changed. But you may choose ten gods, any aside from myself, to protect the realms." I said nothing, just watched him snatch his pants up and pull the zipper shut. He started to leave, then paused and looked over at me, disgusted.

"You're doing it again," He sneered, "Stop trying to be what you are not, Hades. You were born for this." Without another word, he left me laying there on the floor of the shed at he end of the hallway. I breathed out a long sigh of relief, savoring the cold loneliness of the room. I rolled onto my side, grimacing at the way my bones protested the movements. I felt blood soaking the inside of my legs, dripping from the corner of my mouth. I closed my eyes and sent the magic pulsing through my veins to heal the damage.

And this time, I actually knew how to heal the damage without causing myself further harm.

I pushed myself up to my feet, stumbled for a moment and caught myself against the wall. I stooped down carefully, picking up my pants and pausing to frown at the way they'd been torn. I didn't want to waste more magic in fixing them, but if I walked out there like this, they would instantly know what had happened and Zeus would do something worse as punishment. I repaired the pants, then carefully ran my hands along the inside of my legs to wipe up the blood. I wiped the blood on the inside of the pant legs of the jeans so that no one would see, then pulled the pants on carefully, zipping it up.