Even Immortals Fear the Reaper: Chapter 0
The Origins of the God Slayer
I wish I could say it was all Zeus’ fault. It was his idiocy that led to the choices I made, but I can’t blame him for those choices. Even if those choices left me as something that never even existed before. The God Slayer is what they came to call me, though I do more than kill gods.
I was just a normal human, only a couple of millennia ago. I cursed the gods, and praised them when something was going right in my life. I was completely ignorant. And maybe that ignorance was my downfall.
Of course, my ignorance and innocence was shattered, the day I saw Zeus rape one of my best friends. And that was the first choice Zeus forced me to make. I pulled a spear from a statue nearby and thrust it right through that whore’s back. He stumbled and turned around to me, and then I took a lightning bolt straight through my heart.
Mostly everything was a flash in that moment. I could see the radiant mantle of power surrounding Zeus as the last thing before everything went to darkness. And then the darkness brightened as a woman stepped toward me. Not just any woman, I could feel a similar mantle of power radiating from her. But it was different, somehow.
I never would have guessed at first that the woman was the god of the dead. Hades had always been marked off as a man, and brother to Zeus. But she had no issue with telling me her name used to be Hel, and that she had been doing her duty for longer than Zeus had been commanding the gods. She seemed sad as she spoke, even though she smiled.
Hel’s face is something I will never forget, because after the introduction she said, “You have a choice before you now. Hera has already bestowed upon you a gift for stopping her husband once, and now comes my turn. You may be dead, but you died a hero’s death. Therefore you may spend the rest of your life in Elysium, chosen by some of the gods for defying Zeus when no others would.”
“Or, there is another option. Emerged when you proved Zeus has been abusing the powers of his mantle, and not keeping to his responsibilities. You may emerge from my realm, as the keeper of mantles. Something of a failsafe for when a god gets out of control with their power. It will not be an easy job, but Hera has already blessed you with a talent for seeing the mantles of power around the gods, as I’m sure you can see mine now.”
She was right. I could see something around her. But I didn’t know what it was, really. It felt good though, maybe because Hades had always been praised as someone who kept balance and did their job at all times.
“So, you may choose. The afterlife in Elysium, where everything you want will be given. Or a hard immortal life, as something special, a being who can oppose the gods and set them back on the correct path, or remove them entirely.”
I shook my head then. And told Hel the truth. “The greatest thing I want, is not something I will ever find in Elysium.”
“And what is that?”
“Justice to Zeus. And all the gods that have done what he still does.”
She smiled at me, and she seemed even more radiant than the god of thunder. Then she scooped me up, and dropped me into a river.
The process was repeated four times, until I had been drenched in the waters of each of the rivers in Hades. After each dunking, Hel explained them. I was dumped into the Archeron so I could cleanse the gods of those I touched, stripping the mantle straight from their souls. The Cocytus was next, so that I would never forget the pain and sorrow of those who suffered at the hands of gods when no one quelled them.
Then came the Phlegethon, so that I may scorch the immortal bodies of gods to mere ash, so long as they have not followed the vows and responsibilities given along with the power of their mantles. The Lethe came next, in which my soul and body were drenched so that I would be ready for the rebirth as an immortal being, and allow me to assume the identity of anyone I chose to become without forgetting who I am or was.
Finally when we stood over the river Styx, Hel spoke to me before she dropped me within it. “I must ask for an oath over this river. So that you will always be bound by it. You must agree to always do what you can to stop those in possession of a mantle of power from using their power without following their responsibilities. And that you will never reap a god or goddess when they are keeping to their duties.”
I agreed and she dropped me into the river. The Styx gave me the immunity I needed against the gods and goddesses she explained afterward.
When it was all done, I stood on the shore of the Styx with Hel and gazed at how awefilling her mantle was then. She had never strayed from her duties and it showed in the way her mantle was. She told me to pay close attention to that, for I am one of the few who could see the mantles of power and I could decipher much information from them, including who was not following the responsibilities they required.
Then she told me to go, follow the Styx and it would lead me to the center of my hatred. I did just that, and I found myself at the foot of Mount Olympus.
So I climbed.
It had to say something about my new immortal stamina that I didn’t even have trouble breathing by the time I reached the summit. I stepped through the halls of Olympus with ease, and passed countless gods and goddesses, many I could recognize from the mantles they had, but not all. There were some who made me think Olympus was more than just my gods at the time, just as Hades had been.
Even if I could not recognize Zeus’ mantle from seeing it before, it was clear who he was, despite the change of form. I stepped right up to his throne, with immortal beings eyeing me from all directions. I truly had stepped into the belly of the beast, but I stood as though I didn’t have sweat dripping off me from pure fear.
“And who are you to disturb me and my kin?” Zeus said, standing from his throne, but not coming down the steps.
I pointed to Zeus. “I have come to bring justice to you, Zeus.”
I knew Zeus wasn’t his real name from the moment I could observe his mantle again. But I didn’t care anymore. Especially when the moment I said it, he started laughing, and everyone around me joined in.
It was this moment, which made me truly realize just how much the gods had gotten out of control. Justice was a joke to them.
So I took the steps up the throne and stared down the king of gods. He puffed up his chest and grinned at me. He looked at me like I was nothing, like he hadn’t been the one to kill me for catching him in the middle of raping someone.
So I smiled back, with pure joy at my job as I placed my hand on Zeus’ chest and he gasped for air. Many other immortals around us backed away in sudden fear, while a few of the various gods of war were upon me within a moment. I was ripped from Zeus and thrown half-way down the throne room, but I was still smiling when I stood up, because I could feel Zeus’ mantle within me, ready to find someone else who could actually handle the duties of lightning and thunder.
Zeus pointed to me, gasping for breath as he barely croaked, “Kill her.”
None of them had realized I was immortal, or that Zeus no longer was. I took a cleave of a sword from Athena, the strike of a halberd from Ares, and the pierce of an arrow from Neith, or Artemis as she was called in those days. But when I didn’t even move, or feel the pain from their blows they each dropped their arms in shock, and when they did I stepped back toward Zeus, who was crawling away from me and onto his throne.
I looked down at Zeus and said, “Let all who stand before us now, be witness to the justice being done upon the immortal whom formerly carried the mantle of thunder and lightning. You have been seen and accused personally by me to have forgone your duties and use your power to seduce, rape, and kill innocent women.”
It was when I said personally that recognition finally flashed in his eyes, and he stumbled over his words. “But…I killed you…”
I nodded as I bent down to the cowering former king of gods and placed my hand upon his body for the last time. “Now let me return the favor.”
Zeus’ face caved in as ash by the time I turned around to face the remaining gods. It was the second image I would never get out of my head, for as long as I lived.
Many of the gods were stunned, for I had just done the impossible. Killing a god did not happen. Imprisonment, or removal of immortality could happen, but not death to a god. And I had a feeling I was one of the first people to ever see true fear strike the faces of hundreds of gods at once.
I waved my hand back at the dust that Zeus was, and told them all. “You have witnessed what happens when an immortal forsakes the duties and responsibilities that come along with the mantle of power they have been given.”
“So don’t you all have something to be doing?” And in moments there were only four immortals still around me.
One of the ones who remained had not actually been there earlier. Hel, or Hades clapped. “There could not have been a better revealing of your existence. Though, it seems many of the immortals have gone to call you the God Slayer. I find the name amusing, but you scared the wits out of so many, I will be surprised if anyone crosses you again.”
She was right, for at least a few hundred years.
