Emperor of Heaven and earth.

A/N: I saw a few of you were happy that Aphrodite asked for a divorce, and I'm sad because it looked like you weren't paying attention to this. why would I spend so much time developing Aphrodite only for her to divorce Hephaestus?

sorry If that disappoints you.

........

"Hephaestus I think we  should get a divorce"

"Wha–wha–"

Hephaestus found himself unable to speak as he felt like he been struck by  a full powered punch from  Kratos, he mind was rattled and his body staggered back almost as if he was actually punched in the jaw. The shock of her words struck him deeply and he couldn't understand why.

'Did she lie to me? So  she didn't like me after all. of course, what did I expect, I should have known…'

His mind raced to conclusions as his mood began to sink down to  the depths much like  that one submarine that never returned back up however unlike the submarine he took a deep and sharp inhale taking in the abundant oxygen in the air calming himself down, jumping to conclusions was never good. With another deep breath he opened his mouth to speak.

"why?"

"because  I am whore, I don't deserve you, my past is different from yours and because of that we can't be together, you're clean and I'm dirty, I don't deserve you"

She reasoned, explaining to Hephaestus why she wanted the divorce, she believed this to be the right course of action for her and that Hephaestus should get someone better, Athena was better than her, She already had a friendship with Hephaestus and  is a chaste Goddess unlike her.

"Aphrodite, truthfully I would be lying to you if I said I didn't care about your past because I do and it does bother me. I've been doing my best to not think about it and ignored it but the past is what shapes us into who we are today, one might even argue that we are the sum of our past experiences…"

She nodded in agreement with him, with her head staring down at her feet, a feeling of the sadness  crept in from deep within her heart. She  didn't want this to happen but it was the right course of action, doing the right thing is often contrary to what you want but what you want doesn't  matter you do the right thing regardless, she can't be selfish and keep him from having a better wife than her.

 "That doesn't mean we can't change for the better."

"but I am a whore"

Hephaestus  walked closer to her, and  grasped her face caressing her right cheek he then  used his left hand  to raise her head by the chin forcing her to look up at him by raising her chin up ward. Their eyes met, hers filled with sadness regret and his filled with gentleness and  care.

"Then does that mean you want to be a whore forever?"

His question caused her thoughts to  pause as she processed them to  fully understand. She had expected him to simply agree with her proposal of divorce she hadn't expected a counter, did  she expect that from him because deep down  she didn't want to  change, was  she willing to change for Hephaestus?

"…No"

She answered his question, she was willing to change for him, she didn't want to stay to be a  whore, she wanted to be his wife and be  with him but how can she do that? How  can she leave her past behind and change for the better.

"Then the matter is simple, change occurs when one firsts rejects their current self and work towards their ideal self, when you do change the rumours won't be "she is such a whore"  but instead  "I can't believe she used to be a whore"  and then they'll change again  to "who dare accused such a woman of being a whore". The past may shape us but it doesn't define who we are that only happens once we die, because once we  die we can no longer change anything"

Hephaestus  stared at her eyes never breaking the eye contact, watching as her eyes became filled with tears that threatened to fall, his heart was pounding in elation and excitement, happy that his relationship with her can now move forward  he was certain that he no longer needs to hold himself back, all this time he has been waiting for a moment  like this. In all honestly while he did love her  he didn't want to invest too much of his feelings to her only for her to cheat on him and shatter his heart, so instead he kept them in but now he was sure he can love her without reservations and without fear.

His right hand glided down her face down to her shoulder  and down her torso to her waist, he pulled her closer to him removing any space between them, his left hand wiped the tears off her eyes before they fell and gently held her cheek.

The sadness written in her face was still present and despite the words he spoke to her, the feeling that she was a whore had not disappeared however she did feel better and she did feel that she  could change and become  better. Looking at Hephaestus now, looking at his face, his eyes, his lips, his cheeks, his nose, eyebrows and lashes all of those things that combined to make his face she couldn't help but admire them, infact she could say he looked much more handsome than she had initially thought, infact looking at him right now she could say he looked better than Zeus.

"Hephaestus"

Calling out his name as her feminine and soft hands were placed on both his cheeks and  feeling the warmth of his body temperature.

"Yes"

He  responded  to Her as his arm tightened the grasp on her waist and  was struck by a sudden protective feeling once he felt how delicate her Frame felt to  his arm.

"Do you love me?"

"of course"

He  answered without delay, his immediate answer should have made her elated and instead she was conflicted and confused, how could he admit to loving a whore like her? And her second question was, does she actually love him. As per her own definition of love she should simply have sex with him and move on but she didn't want to move on  but it is true that love isn't something eternal, Hera's situation with Zeus confirms this to Her but what is love, she asked Persephone that question but left before she could get the answer she wanted.

"then what is love?"

An unexpected  question from the Goddess of Love, one that Hephaestus wasn't sure he had an answer to.

...….

Screams of terror echoed throughout the land as the fires raged on, burning down houses and property and people, men held their swords, spears and battle axes on hand as they fought against other men who also carried weapons, nobody knew what was the  caused but for some reason a town meeting that was held to discuss various issues turned violent with all most no provocation. Everyone simply began to attack each other indiscriminately without warning, sure  the meeting might have been about a few touchy subjects like whether or not to abolish the act of pederasty  but by all means nobody should be upset by this but chaos ensued the moment the discussion had failed to come to a conclusion and now people who have known each other for years began to kill each other.

Meanwhile up high above the clouds, a man with a tanned skin and red eyes floated above, he focused his gaze down below with a toothy smile on his face. Ares was ecstatic as he watched the brutally occur in the city of Thebes it wasn't the only city that was experiencing such chaos, many cities such as Troy were in a similar frenzy of Chaos and Ares loved it. He could feel his strength increase by leaps and bounds he drew power from the violence that was occurring all over.

"you were always a disappointment"

Those words from the future he had witnessed rung in his ear and immaculately flipped his mood, he clenched his teeth and his smile disappeared,  his fists tightened as the anger bubbled up within his heart.

"I'll  show him, I'll make him acknowledge me"

He voiced, the thoughts of his father spurred a feeling of great emotions, Zeus always did favour  Athena above Ares infact to Zeus Are was nothing but second fiddle to Athena, nothing but a replacement God of war, this was the reason why Ares and Athena seemed to be always at odds and no matter what Ares tried or did, Zeus never spared him too much of a glance and his attention always at Athena. He was Sure Zeus thought he was incompetent nothing but a muscle brain and that Athena was better, Zeus didn't need to say that it was apparent to Ares, so he'll show him, he'll show his father that he's better and not only better than Athena but better than Zeus.

"You don't seem too pleased, and here I thought I had executed your plan perfectly"

A feminine voice rung out in the air, addressing Ares directly and putting extra emphasis on the word "your", hearing the voice, Ares simply turned to look to the side and saw the figure of a woman, wearing typical white toga and some jewellery on her fingers and neck, she had  golden blonde hair and clear cobalt blue eyes, her lipstick was blood red, her face was pleasing to look at and her fair skin promised a smooth touch, she was slim with modest breast but wide hips with a plump rump.

"no you executed the plan perfectly, I'm grateful for your help."

"good, I wanted to use all the pieces of the apple for maximum effects, you know take things to the extremes and bask in the chaos heh heh"

"we can't have Zeus finding out that the conflicts are not natural, you'll take the blame for that, I'll deny everything"

 "Sounds like your afraid of Zeus"

The woman was about a few meters  away from Ares but the words she uttered had him close the distance between them in a split second and  had his hand on her throat  ready to crush it, of course crushing her throat wouldn't kill her since she  wasn't human. But the act of grasping her throat implied he wanted to kill her.

"I'm not afraid, I am simply cautious"

Ares clarified As he tightened his grip on her throat, his words weren't filled with any rage nor did his face show it but He felt it, normally he wouldn't be afraid at all as a god there wouldn't be any true death for him as he can always reincarnate as long as conflict and war were existing  concepts, this was the same for other Gods as well, once their life span ended they die and become reincarnated in a 100 years or so, their death is not a true death  however Cronus's Scythe is a weapon capable of killing any god Regardless of who they are and how powerful, a swing was enough  and that's the death he feared,  no reincarnation, no nothing.

"Why don't you actually threaten me instead of massaging my neck, I'm not getting any sense of danger from  this"

Realizing who he was dealing with Ares let go of her neck, killing her meant angering her mother, Nyx  and by extension her whole family, crossing Nyx isn't something he wants to do Regardless of how powerful he'll  be getting in the near future, his increase in power will continue for as long as the conflict below continues.

"so are you going to wait until that these city conflicts grow into full fledged wars? The pieces  will cause the chaos to escalate  steadily so long as they remain on the  ground  that means you now can grow stronger near infinitely"

She put emphasis on the last part of the sentence and watched his eyes sparkle at such a prospect, she inwardly smiled but that smiled was quickly dashed by his words.

"no, once I've become strong enough take the pieces back, I can't have any Empire of both Gods and humans if the humans are all dead"

The Emperor of both the heavens and the earth was his grand plan, being merely the  king of  Olympus was too small for him, if he wishes to be greater than his father then he must have a greater Empire something beyond the imaginations of Zeus.

"Very well, just say the word once you determined you've gained enough strength"

Of course she will do no such thing, she's the titan of discord, it is but her duty to cause chaos and strife and should he kill her when she doesn't do as he says  more chaos will ensue as her  mother will not let such slight slide, she  may not be the most loved of her mother's children but Nyx does indeed love all her children.

"good,  go sit back and watch, your help is currently unneeded"

Without a single complaint, Eris disappeared from Ares's sight and went home, leaving  Ares to float in  the air by himself.

"now, in light of what's happening, let's see how I do as Emperor of the heavens and Earth."

Taking it out the oracle from within his pockets, he located the marble like ball with unhidden anticipation. Now that everything was going as he wanted he couldn't help himself but be curious of his future, he was certain that Athena and Hera had talked Hephaestus to joining their team, with Hephaestus on their side he felt compelled to look into the future to see his victory over Zeus, he didn't particularly like Hephaestus but he's willing to wait to settle his grudge.

Incidentally Chronos offered no words of caution when he  gave them the oracle, of course he didn't, that would be less fun if he did or so that would be his reasoning. Injecting  the oracle with his divinity he braced himself and peeked Into the future, a full five minutes went by without him moving from  his position and unfortunately once he came back his face had frowned deeply and he  was gnashing his teeth, the future he saw was not what  he wanted and the only thing he could say was a single name  that he shouted out in anger.

"HEPHAESTUS!!!!!"

His skin took a much darker complexion as he suddenly disappeared breaking the sound barrier multiple times as he did.

...

A/N: I feel like I delayed their battle long enough, also I Ares's motivation good enough? I feel I could have done better but I couldn't think of anything that fit Ares.

For those who don't know Pederasty was a practice in ancient Greece were young boys 12-18 would take a mentorship/ guidance from an older Man. However just like that catholic priest the young boy would be violated if their mentor is a perverse individual.