26th October 2012
22:29 GMT -5
Richard edges away as I move to stand at the front of the team's semicircle huddle. My environmental shield is still
expanded, but it's not quite the roaring house fire that it was a few moments ago.
"This is Zeus.
"
I connect my ring to the hologram projector and bring up an image of the avatar Zeus used when he met
Helena Sandsmark. Between her photographs of the trip and the ship's security cameras I had more than enough to create a three dimensional model.
"He's King of the Olympians, a pantheon of gods worshipped by the inhabitants of one small and insignificant island in the Aegean Sea, and a handful of weirdoes in other places. When encountered like
this, he's fairly weak.
"
Noriel frowns. "Weak?"
"To be precise, mildly superhuman strength and endurance, and some ability to manipulate electricity. Everyone here with their normal equipment could take him down. That is because gods can't maintain strong avatars in the material world for long without a great deal of effort and assistance, and Zeus doesn't have enough worshippers to pull it off.
"
I pause.
"It occurs to me just now that while most of you know about why I-.
" I make eye contact with Zatanna and
not Robert.
"Why
we went after Nabu, we never really discussed the methodology.
How we went about working out how to fight a high-end arcane life form. The first stage isn't much different to a more mundane target: find out everything you can about them. Find people who know things about them, and have reason to do them harm. Find people with relevant skills and work out how to bind them to your cause. When we had our first meeting about dealing with Nabu, I asked if we were willing to make common cause with Klarion.
"
That gets a quiet-
"Dude."
-from Wallace.
"We decided that it wasn't even worth considering. And we decided it
that evening. Who are Zeus's enemies?
"
Raquel straightens slightly. "The Titans, right? Cronus, and… Whoever."
"I doubt that anyone in Tartarus likes him very much. Or Tartarus itself. Several Titans, gods and demigods ended up down there at the end of the Titanomachy. And I don't know of enough reliably unbiased sources to want to base my decisions on them. Oceanus was wrecking the Atlantic rim because Orm did something to him. Helios has-
" I glance at Kon's dull glow.
"-been nothing but helpful. Did the Olympians serve anyone else by defeating Cronus, or did they just want to avoid being consumed? Don't know.
"
Kaldur nods. "We will need to find out."
Donna nods. "I'll go. Cronus is more likely to speak with me than with anyone else."
"Would Lord Hades let you in?
"
"I'll just tell him that I want to speak to Diana."
"Which is a problem. Diana's not stupid enough to believe that my reaction to this situation will be anything less than total apoplexy. If any of us start walking up to the prisoners in Tartarus for a chat, she's not going to be happy.
"
"Um!" New Kara raises her right hand. "We should just
ask Zeus to stop being a poopy head!"
"We did that to Nabu just before the fight started. And though I agree that Zeus should be given a chance to stand down before direct violent action is taken, asking him before we've finished planning our attack just abandons any sort of element of surprise.
"
Garth nods. "Would it shame him into allowing Wonder Woman to leave Tartarus if we conclusively demonstrated that the Titans don't have any sort of escape plan?"
"They've been down there for about seven thousand years. I'd be amazed if they think about anything
other than escaping. I
did learn from Hades that Zeus is the one stopping them from being considered for parole, so there's that.
"
"Are we..?" Artemis looks around. "Are we talking about killing a god?"
"Killing a god is perfectly possible. Killing an avatar isn't hard, and the core consciousness is just a mass of magical energy. I'd rather avoid it though; tearing something like that apart would radiate huge amounts of raw magic out into the Earth's thaumosphere. The issue is that if you
don't have a way to kill someone you want to apprehend, then you probably don't have any way to threaten them.
"
"I'm gunna need bigger arrows."
"You'd need arcane batteries like the ones we used to drain Nabu, but that probably wouldn't be an efficient approach. With Nabu, we only had to drain what was in his helmet at any one time to erase his mind. With Zeus, you'd have to drain the entire being.
" I shake my head.
"It wouldn't be my choice, though it wouldn't hurt to look into it.
"
M'gann looks unhappy about the direction of things. "Are we really going to have to fight him?"
"Defeating him, whether that means killing him or just wounding him until he submits, removes his authority. As King, his right to issue orders to his followers is absolute and backed by force.
"
"Okay, but what if he wasn't king?"
"It's not an elected position. A god or demigod from the Hellenic mythos would have to beat him in a fight,
and convince the other gods to accept them. Of the ones
I know, Lord Hades is happy where he is and Hephaestus is physically crippled from
last time Zeus took issue with him. And Ploutos wouldn't want to unmask his avatar.
"
Ghia'ta perks up. "What about Hera?"
"If she hasn't gelded him in his sleep already, I doubt that she's up for a fight
now.
"
"Could she not prevail upon him to change his mind? Perhaps find him someone else to grant his attention?"
"You can certainly
ask her. As for other goddesses, I doubt it. Zeus has a bad track record for infidelity and while the Hellenic pantheon has seen a minor resurgence lately, he isn't one of the movers. The status isn't there and he isn't that appealing on a personal level.
"
Something occurs to Kon. "What about Athena? She's Mom's patron goddess."
"We should certainly talk to her. And to your grandmother; since her dodge failed I'd like the whole story. And
I need to get hold of Eris. Tempest, Aquagirl, Zatanna: any ideas what would actually happen if Zeus died?
"
Three shaking heads, and Canis is smiling in expectation. Probably a bad sign.
"Worth finding out in advance to see what we could do to mitigate it. Just in case.
"
"Paul…" Richard shakes his head. "Zeus hasn't killed anyone and he's not threatening to kill anyone. I think we should investigate what's going on, but-."
"Zeus might not be able to make a strong avatar, but he can create a storm ten miles across centred on Themyscira and fire lightning bolts until the bedrock melts without leaving his throne. People with superpowers
are a threat, and that's true for gods as well.
"
"Would he?"
"I don't think so, but I've never spoken to him directly and I'm not prepared to risk their lives on my beliefs. Now. Individual assignments.
"
