Chapter Fourteen: Zeus

  Laurence and his brothers ventured into Israel, leaving The Six Guns begins. The Six Guns went in the opposite direction, towards Cairo to wait. While Laurence and the others searched Israel for Ares, The Six Guns arrived in Cairo and talked. "It's good to see my home's still standing tall" Rose says. "I've always kinda worried about Cairo...".

  "Should we go visit the hideout by the pyramids?" Finn suggests.

  "Why?" Rose asks.

  "A blast from the past" Finn says. "Take a good look where you came from... and think about how much you've grown since then".

  "Yeah... I spent a lot of time in that hideout..." Rose says.

  "We should go see if it's still there" Siran says. "Reflect on how far you've come. Even though it was such a hard time back then, we've all grown so much since then... don't you think?".

  "Take a good look at what you've survived" Zia says to herself as she thinks, "and see how much you've grown. That seems really nice. I haven't been to Pilloa in a long time either, other than when we drove past there to go to Vega...".

  "Think we should go check it out?" Finn asks.

  Rose thinks for a moment, then nods her head. "Yeah!" She says. "Let's go see the hideout!".

  And so, the crew went to the Great Pyramid of Giza and found the old rebel hideout empty. It looked just as it did many years ago, just as they left it. They stayed inside of the hideout, talking about nostalgic things, as Laurence and his brothers keep searching Israel. Eventually, Laurence and the others found Ares near a large police station. Laurence sneaks up behind Ares, and grabs onto his arm, and the two suddenly vanish. Laurence reappears just outside of the city, where nobody will find them. As the two began to talk, Laurence's brothers also teleported to Laurence's location. Laurence pins Ares to the ground and holds him captive immediately. "Long time no see, Ares" he says with a cheerful voice.

  "Well, well..." Ares says. "If it isn't Loki and the three stooges". Ares looks at Todd, then Manny, then Aaron as he says "Thor! I see you're still standing... unfortunately. Meili, I thought you were supposed to be dead! Didn't Loki kill you a long time ago? And Yngvi, you rascal! I've never liked you. As a matter of fact, I've never liked any of you". Finally, Ares looks at Laurence and says "And finally, Loki. I thought you were supposed to be locked up... chained by the innards of your own son, Fenrir".

  "Yeah, well" Laurence says, "you know me. Loki; son of Odin, master of trickery".

  "Do you still call yourself that after your son killed your father?" Ares asks.

  "Do you still think you Olympians actually matter after your precious Zeus turned against Chronos?" Loki asks.

  "You stay out of this" Ares says, "like your kind has always done. You bunch of lazy, useless, sacks of shit!".

  "We don't participate in your wars!" Loki yells. "And there's no reason you need to be anywhere but back in Valhalla, where we belong! Away from the humans, keeping them from being involved!".

  "Since when do gods concern themselves with the minds of humans?" Ares asks. Loki was silent for a second, then Ares asks "Are you taking their side!? You're a god! What good would helping the humans ever amount to!?".

  "Our concern has always been for the natural order of life itself" Loki says as he grits his teeth. "I'm sorry you can't see that".

  "I'm sorry too" Ares says with a short smile. That smile then turns into a chuckle, then loud laughter. "I'm sorry you're such a damned fool! What we're doing is for the best of the natural order of life!".

  "What are you doing, exactly!?" Meili asks.

Ares chuckles some more and says "Eris has already claimed the shards of another universe. The humans set it up for her too. It was too easy".

"Claimed... the shards?" Yngvi asks. "But if the shards are all completely removed from one of the split parallel universes, then!-".

"It collapses..." Ares says. "Cease to exist, as its time and space itself is removed".

"Then you're planning on bringing them all to one place, or removing all of them completely?" Thor asks.

"What do you think?" Ares says with a smile. "Look around you... the humans can't see it, but Endoindustria already surrounds this planet... a perfect catalyst for putting all of the split universes back together again. Back to the way it should be. One single universe".

Loki freezes, still holding Ares against the ground. "You..." He says. "You absolute piece of shit! That's not the agreement! All gods were meant to leave the multiple universes in the hands of the humans!".

"And look what they've brought!" Ares says. "Humans are nothing but a liability! They're flawed, and the worse things in existence!".

"That's where you're wrong" Thor says as he reaches into a black portal and takes out his hammer, Mjolnir. "Humans are flawed. Humans bring about many misfortunes and wars... but humans are also the sole reason that any universe grows as beautiful as they are. Humans push to keep nature and it's many gifts to adapt and become better. Humans come together when the time comes. Humans are the only reason any world has a chance of surviving". Thor raises his hammer into the air and dark clouds begin to form in the sky above them. "Repent now, and maybe you'll live" he says.

"I'll only repent that which I regret" Ares says as he stares into Thor's eyes. Suddenly, Dolos appears and uses a wave of dark energy to push Loki off of Ares. Ares stands up and plants a flaming fist into Thor's stomach, then a shockwave send Thor flying onto his back.

"Hey, was it supposed to be cloudy today?" Blake asks as he stands outside of the hideout.

"I didn't see any clouds before we got here" Mikoto says.

"Maybe there's a tropical storm or something starting to form" Robin says from inside of the hideout.

"Yeah... but" Blake says, "don't clouds if that degree seem a little too sudden?".

"Where is it coming from?" Haru asks. "There could just be a storm coming from the sea north of here".

"You- uh... might wanna check this out" Blake says as he points at the clouds coming from the northeast. "Because it kinda seems like... it's coming from somewhere near the Endo-Stream".

"What!?" Siran asks as he jumps to his feet. The crew goes outside and sees giant black clouds, and lightning constantly striking down, one after another.

"Should we go check it out?" Zia asks.

"It'll take a while to walk there" Alex says. "Think we can get a ride from anywhere around here?".

"I'm sure we can!" Rose says. "If we go back into town, we should be able to accommodate a van or truck".

"As long as it's large enough to carry all of us" Ying says.

"Then let's go" Siran says.

Meanwhile, Thor, Loki, Meili, and Yngvi strike over and over at Dolos and Ares. Dolos and Ares kept dodging each attack as the venture further southwest of Israel. Eventually, the six of them make it close to the large Endo-Stream just outside of Israel. "Give it up!" Thor shouts. "It's four against two! You have no chance! Surrender now and come with us!".

"You're right" Ares says as he dashed towards the gulch with the stream, "it is four against two. We should fix that".

Ares takes out his sword of fire and begins to hold the four brothers off for a couple seconds. "Keep them busy" Dolos says. "I'll move onto the next phase of the plan!".

"No!" Loki says as he charges at Dolos.

Suddenly, a wall of fire appears between Loki and Dolos. Loki slowly looks over at Ares, who has his sword pointed at his neck. "Going somewhere?" Ares asks.

"Tch" Loki scoffs, "you damned Olympians".

"Ares!" Thor shouts as he charges at Ares. "You will repent!". Thor swings his hammer at Ares, and Ares uses his sword to stop the hammer from hitting him. However, the force from the hammer throws Ares backwards, flying straight at the Endo-Stream. Before Ares landed in the stream, a feminine hand reached out from a black portal inside of the stream.

"Oh my" a female's voice says from inside the portal. "Haven't even arrived, yet, you still manage to drag me into another one of your pitiful wars". From out of the portal, a tall woman with dark blonde hair, a thin figure and an elegant white and gold dress, stepped onto the Earth. "Ares, you're still very careless".

"Save your criticisms for later, Eris" Ares says. "Do you have all of the shards?".

"Here and accounted for, brother" Eris says. "Dolos, where's father?".

"Working on that" Dolos says as the portal grows larger and starts to shine with a bright white light.

"Thor!" Yngvi shouts.

"On it, brother!" Thor shouts as he charges at Dolos. Dolos was too focused on the portal to react in time, and Thor struck him on the side of his head with his hammer, causing a thunderous roar with the impact. Dolos slammed into the side of the gulch, tunneling into the rock with his body. Thor pulls Dolos out of the rock and sets him on the ground, and then places his hammer on top of Dolos. With the hammer weighing down on Dolos's chest, Dolos was unable to breathe. Instead, Dolos tried to speak, but no sounds would come out of him. "Undo the seal, or I won't remove the hammer" Thor says.

Dolos smiles as he mouths the words "too... late". As Thor looks at the portal, an explosion from the portal went off. From out of the portal, a giant stepped out, with his shoulder and head towering over the rim of the gulch.

"The shards" his loud thunderous voice calls out as he looks down at Eris. "Where are they?".

"Father!" Eris says. "I have them here!". Eris holds out her hand, and millions of small glowing white lights form all around her. The giant holds out his hand, and all of the shard go towards him and then suddenly vanish.

"Father!" Ares calls out.

"No!" Thor yells.

"Zeus..." Loki says.

Zeus takes in a deep breath, then changes his own appearance. He changes to the size of a normal man, but all of his facial features remain the same. "So this is what the world looks like after so many thousands of years...".

"Zeus, you malevolent bastard!" Meili shouts. "Why are you trying to bring all of the different universes back together!?".

"I'm returning things back to how they should be" Zeus says.

"And in the process, you're going to use this world as a catalyst while also drawing power from Valhalla!?" Loki asks. "That's going to kill everything on this planet!".

"That is not a concern of mine..." Zeus says as he looks directly at Loki. "I'd love to stay and debate matters with you lower gods... but I have not the patience for your kind". Suddenly, Zeus, Ares, Dolos and Eris vanish in black smoke.

"No... no!" Loki shouts. "This just keeps getting worse and worse!".

Suddenly, The Six Guns show up at the top of the gulch. "Hey, Laurence!" Siran calls out. "What the hell just happened!?".

"We just saw some giant dude!" Finn yells. "And an explosion and some black stuff!".

"Laurence..." Siran shouts. "We're going to need an explanation right now!".

"Shit!" Loki exclaims.

The Six Guns meet with Loki's group at the bottom of the gulch. "What was all of that just now!?" Vivi asks.

"Things just went from bad to worse" Thor says as he picks up his hammer, blood still on one side of the hammer.

"I'm afraid he's right" Loki says. "And I don't think I can sugarcoat this... I'll be honest with you".

"You don't mean-" Yngvi begins to say.

"We have to tell them!" Loki interrupts. "If we're going to have their help fighting them off, they'll need to know what they're in for!". Loki looks right at Siran and says "Look... there is no organization. There never has been, as far as I know, if any such organization that uses god names as codenames. They're actual gods... Ares and Dolos... they're actually the real Ares and Dolos".

"And our names aren't Todd, Laurence, Aaron and Manny" Todd says. "We're Thor, Loki, Yngvi and Meili".

"What...?" Siran asks.

"We're not humans who've been to Valhalla" Loki says. "We're gods... from Valhalla... and we need your help fighting against Zeus, Ares, Dolos and Eris".

"There's more of them now!?" Zia asks. "You guys are gods too!?".

"Your world is currently screwed!" Loki yells. "Focus! There's a team of gods trying to collapse the multiverse right now! If you don't stop them, nobody will survive!".

"Hold on, this is too much" Siran says, then pauses. "What the actual hell is going on here!?".

"You might wanna sit down then" Loki says. "This explanation is going to take a while".