CHAPTER 107: MAKING ZEUS REMEMBER

Ares rolled to the side just in time to avoid being crushed by Zeus’s lightning-cloaked fist. The impact shattered the marble beneath them, the floor splitting in jagged fractures where the god of war had stood moments earlier.

"Tell me we’re not just trying to beat him into submission," Hermes muttered, appearing beside Ares in a flicker of divine speed, his cloak of wind and shadow coiling around him.

"You got a better idea?" Ares growled, spinning his spear to knock away a crackling bolt of raw power that seared the air.

Hermes ducked behind the remains of a broken pillar. "Yeah. Try not fighting a war god like a war god."

"Then what? Ask him to tea?" Ares snapped, his eyes locked on Zeus, who loomed with thunder in his stride and fury in his gaze.

Zeus raised his hand again, a jagged bolt forming in his palm. "Your defiance only proves your weakness. Olympus must not fracture again. I will protect it—even from you."

Hermes’s voice dropped low. "He’s remembering... bits. Did you hear that? ’Again’."

Ares grunted. "He doesn’t even realize why he said it."

Hermes glanced at Aphrodite across the room, where she stood still, golden aura dim but steady, eyes locked on Zeus with something more than fear—recognition. "He’s being twisted. If we can keep his mind spinning, off balance, maybe... just maybe he’ll crack the shell."

"Distraction then," Ares said, gripping his spear tighter. "I can do that."

"No brute charges. Think like me for once."

Ares arched a brow. "That’s asking a lot."

But then Hermes blurred into motion, zigzagging across the ruined chamber, his daggers flashing not to kill, but to redirect. Each swipe of divine steel shimmered in the air, forcing Zeus to block, parry, shift. Hermes moved like a song—one Zeus had once known by heart but now found jarring and unfamiliar.

"Stop hiding behind riddles!" Zeus boomed, hurling a crackling thunderbolt that missed Hermes by a breath. The column behind him exploded in white fire.

"You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?" Hermes called as he ducked under another bolt. "You weren’t always like this. You used to laugh. You used to lead. Not command."

"Silence!" Zeus roared. His aura surged—lightning and storm clouds roaring across the room, but in that same moment, his footing faltered.

Ares saw the moment of imbalance and hurled his spear—not at Zeus—but at a beam above him. It shattered, stone and marble crashing down. Zeus instinctively stepped aside, avoiding the debris.

Right into Hermes’s trap.

The messenger god slammed his hands to Zeus’s chest, not with force, but with intention. Runes lit up, golden and humming, seeping into Zeus’s skin.

There was no pain—only resonance.

A pulse of forgotten memory.

Zeus reeled. His eyes flashed white, then dimmed for a heartbeat. Lightning crackled—but then stuttered. His breathing hitched. His gaze drifted, confused.

Aphrodite stepped forward slowly. "You said again," she said quietly. "What happened before, Zeus?"

The King of the Gods staggered back. "I... there was fire. A storm... no, I was the storm. Olympus was falling—why was it falling?"

He clutched his head. Golden sparks danced between his fingers as flashes of memory surged forward like waves crashing a dam.

A voice in his head—his own, twisted: "Only I can control them. Only I can prevent their betrayal."

A throne room in ruins. Halls darkened by war. Gods turning on gods. Screams—no, pleas.

And then... silence.

Zeus let out a strangled breath. "I started something. A war. To... stop the others. But it destroyed us."

Hermes nodded. "You tried to control what couldn’t be controlled. Your fear became our undoing."

Zeus’s body crackled with unstable energy. "Why... don’t I remember this? Why am I here, like this?"

Aphrodite’s voice was gentle, but firm. "Someone buried it. Buried you. And reshaped you into something you’re not. We need you to wake up, Zeus. Olympus is sick. And you’re the key to healing it."

Zeus looked at her. For the first time in what felt like an age, he didn’t radiate fury—only uncertainty.

But then—

"ENOUGH."

The voice echoed from nowhere and everywhere. Cold. Feminine. Calculated.

A shadow slithered across the walls, like ink in water, unseen by all but felt in the chill that swept the chamber.

Zeus’s eyes went wide. "She... she’s watching."

Hermes snapped his gaze upward. "Who?"

Zeus staggered, grabbing his head. "I can’t see her—just the voice. Always whispering. Always correcting. Making me forget."

Aphrodite stepped closer, golden light flaring protectively around her. "Hera."

Zeus shook his head. "No. Not just her. Something older. Beneath her words."

The storm flared once more—wild, unbalanced. Zeus turned, gaze wild again. "I can’t hold it. I can’t hold me!"

Hermes pulled Aphrodite back. "It’s working, but he’s unraveling."

Ares rolled his shoulder. "Then we either snap him out of it or knock him out cold."

"No!" Aphrodite shouted. "If we strike now, it might lock him deeper. We need to push the memories further."

Hermes was already moving again, whispering another spell as he blurred past Zeus, leaving a trail of shimmering runes in his wake—triggers, echoes of truths buried deep in the king’s fractured mind.

Zeus fell to one knee.

Lightning flickered.

Then—another memory hit.

Not of war—but of a promise.

A time when the gods stood united, when Olympus wasn’t a throne but a home. A moment—a laugh—shared with Hestia by the hearth. A shared drink with Dionysus. Watching over Athena’s birth, proud. A kiss placed on Hera’s hand not as a symbol of control, but of devotion.

A life.

Real.

True.

His eyes burned. "I remember..."

But then—his aura flared violently.

Chains of purple mist, slithering around his mind, tightening like a vice.

"No!" Zeus cried out. "She’s pulling me back!"

Aphrodite raised her hands. "We won’t let her."

Together, the three gods stepped forward again.

The chains around Zeus’s mind pulsed—violet tendrils of divine manipulation slithering through his thoughts, wrapping around memories like serpents. His body spasmed, lightning tearing across the chamber in wild arcs. Columns exploded, the floor cracked open, and the scent of ozone and smoke filled the air.

"Back!" Hermes shouted, grabbing Aphrodite and blinking them away just as a bolt scorched the ground where they’d stood.

Zeus knelt at the center of the storm, hands gripping his head, eyes flaring gold one moment, then purple the next. "I... am... Zeus!" he growled, but it sounded like a war cry strangled by a whisper not his own.

Ares readied his shield, crouching low behind it. "He’s slipping again."

"No," Aphrodite said softly, stepping forward. "He’s fighting."

Hermes glanced at her. "Are you sure about that? Because it looks like he’s about to fry us all."

Zeus suddenly slammed both fists into the ground. A shockwave erupted from him, divine force rippling outward like a tidal wave. The three gods were thrown back—Ares crashing through a wall, Hermes tumbling midair before catching himself, and Aphrodite skidding across the floor, her body glowing as her own aura struggled to keep her grounded.

Then came the voice again.

Low, quiet, but heard inside their minds.

"Stop resisting. You were perfect when silent."

Zeus roared in defiance, the sound so deep it made the air vibrate. He clawed at the chains of violet light that wrapped around his shoulders and head—tangible now, thick and pulsing with dark power. They hissed as his fingers gripped them, as if alive, resisting his every effort.

"I will not be a puppet!" he bellowed. "I am the King of Olympus! My will is mine!"

The chains dug deeper, stabbing into his temples like thorns. Zeus fell to one knee, sweat beading on his brow, lightning flickering erratically from his arms.

Hermes reappeared beside Aphrodite. "He’s close—whatever’s holding him is desperate."

"Then we give him one final push," she said. "If we remind him who he is—not as a king, but as a father, a brother, a man—he might just break free."

Ares limped forward from the rubble, his shoulder bleeding ichor. "Then say something useful. Because I don’t have another round in me."

Aphrodite approached Zeus slowly, her voice clear and calm, despite the chaos. "Zeus, listen to me. You are not a tyrant. You are not a weapon. You were once the one who united us. You cared, even when you failed to show it."

Zeus’s breathing was ragged. "I... don’t remember."

"You do," she insisted. "You remembered the hearth. Athena. Hera. Us. You led not because you were feared, but because we believed in you."

Hermes joined in, softer. "You were the first to raise Olympus after the Titans fell. You made this world. Not by force. But by vision."

Ares, grudgingly, stepped closer. "And you taught me how to hold back. Once."

Zeus trembled.

A flicker.

One of the chains cracked.

Then another.

His eyes snapped open—pure white, no longer tainted by the violet hue.

"No one controls Zeus!" he roared.

With a final, defiant cry, Zeus hurled the lightning in his chest upward, into the sky, forming a massive bolt that arced and split the heavens above. The entire chamber was flooded with blinding light.

The chains shattered—bursting into fragments of violet mist that sizzled and vanished as if fleeing the power now burning within him.

Silence fell.

Zeus collapsed to one knee, panting, the lightning around him dimming, fading into soft flickers along his skin.

The three gods stared, waiting—ready for whatever might come next.

Zeus looked up at them, clarity in his eyes for the first time.

"It’s... over," he said hoarsely.

Hermes approached, tentative. "Are you truly yourself?"

Zeus nodded slowly. "I think so. The fog is gone. I can feel the air again. My thoughts are mine."

Aphrodite reached out. "Who did this to you?"

Zeus hesitated.

"I... I don’t know," he said, shame flickering across his face. "There’s a voice, a presence... it guided me, whispered when I doubted. I thought it was Hera. It sounded like her. But now... I’m not sure."

Hermes frowned. "Then someone’s masking themselves."

Ares crossed his arms, his expression grim. "And it had enough power to control you. That’s no minor god."

"No," Zeus agreed, rising to his feet. "It was old. Ancient. I felt no love, no fury—only calculation. It didn’t want Olympus destroyed. It wanted it... bent."

"To what?" Aphrodite whispered.

"To its own order," Zeus replied. "And I was the enforcer."

He clenched his fists, then released them, as though still purging the last of the invisible strings.

"We were blind," he said, turning to the others. "All of us."

Hermes nodded. "Then it’s time we open our eyes."

Zeus looked at the ruin around them—walls cracked, divine fire still flickering on the floor. "I must restore what was lost. Not just Olympus. Ourselves."

Aphrodite stepped beside him. "And the Fates?"

Zeus paused. "They were sealed. I... I remember doing it. But not why."

"Then someone made you fear what they could reveal," Hermes said. "And whoever that is, it is still hiding."

Ares spat to the side. "Then we smoke them out. One by one."

Zeus nodded, but his gaze drifted upward—toward the heavens above Olympus. "We must tread carefully. Whoever they are, they’ve already outplayed the king of gods."

A long silence followed.

Then Aphrodite whispered, "We need each other now more than ever. No more secrets. No more pride."

Zeus turned to her, and—for the first time in centuries—he bowed his head. "Agreed."