Chapter 1: Zeus’ Training

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.”

-- William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (1602), Act 2, Scene 5. Copyright © public domain.

It had been fifty years since Zeus had been slipped away from Olympus by Rhea and brought to Gaia. His power had been developing since that day.

Gaia fostered him, teaching him very nearly since his arrival. That was not entirely true. She did not start the lessons until she felt he was old enough to understand. That had taken a tremendous amount of patience from the Earth Primordial. She had seen the power he had at his command; she knew without a doubt that he would be effective in the arts of violence.

Thankfully, it was the earthly bedrock who had been bequeathed its enduring forbearance from the Primordial Queen, so she was up to the task of waiting for his body to mature.

Though he was fifty years old, he appeared to be in the latter years of his adolescence, just before reaching his true adulthood. If Gaia had a firm grasp about how the divine beings matured (and she should since she spawned the twelve Titans), it was entirely plausible that her grandson would soon be coming into his physical and magical maturity in the coming decades.

She was pulled from her thoughts when she heard the boom of thunder.

A violent, pulsing thunderstorm was forming around Gaia’s Island. Zeus lifted his hand and a lightning bolt flew as if to strike him. The energy pulsed down to him, but the crackling flash did not harm him. It came to him to show its reverence for his divine aura.

He captured the part of the storm that had come his way and threw that very same energy back at the sky. When that happened, the storm died before it could begin.

“Very good,” Gaia said, clapping her hands.

While on her island, Gaia assumed a smaller form of an eight-foot-tall adult female made of greenery. She was still made up of the earth, trees, and rocks, but in her more compact form, even Zeus could see that the primordial earth goddess was breathtakingly beautiful.

It certainly did not hurt matters that Zeus’ grandmother never wore clothes, so his young male mind could wander into more lascivious thoughts when she did not require his full attention. Like most divine beings, Gaia had the anatomy of her sex, which certainly hurt in the mind of Zeus. As one of the oldest divine beings, she was considered beautiful in every way, for what others considered appealing to the eye had been dictated by her very existence.

The distraction of his grandmother’s body might have given the lighting prince an erection if Gaia had not taken the tone that warned Zeus that she was going to be giving him a lecture.

“Zeus,” Gaia began as she had so many times before. “Where do you stand?”

“Upon your island, Mother Earth,” Zeus replied respectfully.

Gaia began encircling her grandson.

“That is a vaguery, young Zeus,” she said as a hint of a reprimand entered her voice. “What does that specifically mean?”

“This island, like most of the lands of Greece, is part of you,” he answered quickly.

His voice adopted the timbre of an obedient student searching for their instructor’s approval.

“And yet not apart of you,” he went on. Uncertainty entered his voice before he found his confidence once more. “This island is your body itself. When you become one with this island, you take your truer form of a Primordial of one hundred feet tall.”

“Better,” Gaia said with a nod. She never stopped her slow pacing trudge. “And what of your power? Your lightning?”

“It comes from the spark of divinity, bestowed upon us by Chaos. Some sparks are greater than others. With training, any being can master magic and power to become greater than others who have larger sparks.”

“And what if one has a greater spark and they battle one with a weaker spark?” Gaia inquired.

Zeus paused to make sure he answered the question correctly.

“If the one with a weaker spark cultivated their power, their connection to this world, they can overcome the one with the greater spark, especially if the one with the greater spark is lax in their study.”

“Very good,” Gaia praised with a nod and smile.

The Earth Primordial walked up to Zeus and kissed him softly on the cheek.

“Continue harnessing your power. I want you to be ready when your time comes to confront Cronos.”

“Yes, Grandmother,” Zeus said with a bow of his head.

While he did not outwardly react, there was a stirring in his stomach. From the thrill of battle to the fear of failure, he was impatient for the day the great work of battling his sire would come.

When Gaia disappeared, Zeus stood upright and returned to harnessing his power and began throwing his bolts of thunder and lightning at the sea and sky.

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Cronos stared out at his kingdoms. From Olympus to the seas to the plains and mountains and even to the Underworld itself, he ruled over all that he saw.

That did not mean he was above needing aid. The truth was he leaned on his brothers in a way his predecessor never would.

Crius and Hyperion were indispensable in the day to day functions of the land. Both helped guide Cronos’ ruling hand over Olympus, so as to march into the future with the best results.

Why, even Oceanus had made the sea run itself. After negotiating a peace between Cronos’ brother and the abomination of a ‘Primordial’ called Pontus, Cronos had never heard of a single issue with that portion of his domain.

Further still, the realm of Greece was filled with bison, cattle, horses, satyrs, fawns, naiad, dryads, and other nymphs.

Soon those humans will be made. Cronos was excited at that prospect of bipedal beings who were not divine. Having human mortals walking the earth to worship the Titans would be good for the world.

Cronos considered what that future would look like. This was merely a mental exercise though. For while he was the Titan of Time and could control the flow to the future (and even stop it in some cases), he could not peer into the future as the Sisters of Fate could.

Seeing his Titan Brothers, he wondered if Crius’ hands would ever heal. Cronos also marveled at Hyperion; with each day, the Titan of Light looked all the more magnificent. Cronos did not fear for the usurpation of his throne from his brothers. As the Fates told him, Cronos’ threat would come from a son, but Rhea had not born him a child since Zeus. With Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades within his belly, Cronos was unconcerned with the future.

In his heart, Cronos believed that he had mastered fate itself. Perhaps the Sisters’ prophecy had been real, but it was sorely out of date when it came to him.

In moments like this, when Hyperion and Crius visited, Cronos’ thoughts went to that of siblings and family. Those thoughts of tribal relations made him ponder the sons in his own stomach. How had his sons survived the realm of his belly?

After many years trapped in the gut of Cronos, both Poseidon and Hades gave in to their frustrations.

The two brought themselves to blows against one another. While they could not know that their powers were dampened by their father’s divine power weakening them, they still brought all of their efforts against one another.

The pulsating glow of divine energy from the godly sons illuminated the dim recesses of the belly, casting eerie shadows across the ancient walls.

Poseidon had a pair of striking blue eyes that shined like the sea. He stood proudly across from his gloomy brother. He had long black hair, a strong jawline, honed muscles, and he was covered in a fur pelt made from one of the deer that his father had eaten. Despite not having intimate knowledge of the world outside of his prison, he fashioned it like a skirt.

On the other side of the stomach stood Hades.

His eyes reflected the depths of darkness found in Cronos’ belly and made his brother’s hair look pale by comparison. His very demeanor exuded a solemn aura that would embody all of the power within death and darkness.

A gust of wind swirled around Poseidon and a chilling aura enveloped Hades in anticipation of what was to come.