Chapter 7: Violent Victory

“Victory belongs to the most persevering.” Napoleon Bonaparte

Typhon trudged wearily through the darkened valleys of the Mortal Realm. He had only escaped the Underworld because of Hades’ mercy. The Chthonic King had made light work of the Monster King; with a word, Hades could have ended his life, yet the bargain of swearing by the River Styx had saved Typhon from being returned to the Underworld as a specter.

Nevertheless, he was unable to stop his mind from churning with the bitter thoughts of defeat. The strawberry from the Moirai sat in his hand. With each moment, the fruit felt heavier and heavier. With their gift, he might yet be victorious. Did he truly need it?

He wondered at that thought. No one crossed the Fates, but had they ever been ones to give gifts to anyone?

Did that really matter? He had to wonder. After all, Zeus nearly killed Echidna and their newborn pup. Zeus should have been unable to do that, or so Typhon thought. The god had been at his mercy for months. It might have been better to kill Zeus. That was the lesson from all of this.

He knew that Zeus was now aware of his wife and where she lived. With so much love for Echidna, the choice was no choice at all. He threw the strawberry into his mouth and swallowed it whole.

He could feel it doing something to him, but he could not be sure what.

With each step forward, a subtle drain started to work the magic of the Moirai and Zeus’ siphoning bolt. Like a slow poison seeping through his veins, it would infect every part of him until he was diminished into nothingness.

He did not know of those changes. How could he? He summoned a tower of light and returned himself to his wife. That was where his priority lay. Until morning anyway. When Typhon saw Helios in the sky, he would do battle with Zeus once more.

Only this time, he would ensure their next battle was their last.

Helios’ first rays of dawn came over the horizon. Zeus stood at the base of Mount Olympus waiting for his opponent. Typhon would come. The creature was an unrelenting force of nature. That made him predictable to Zeus.

Even if he did understand the beast, that did not stop Zeus’ heart from pounding in his chest. The organ threatened to burst out from the trepidation. This would be a pivotal moment in Olympus’ history. He had already battled the beast once. That defeat rang through his mind no matter how much he tried to suppress the memory.

Refusing to disappoint, Typhon appeared from the east. His more godlike form left Zeus uncomfortable. He almost preferred the more monstrous figure of the Typhon who bested him. To see the son of Tartarus clad in a white and gold tunic with a figure nearly identical to Zeus made the Thunderer flinch with discomfort...

When Typhon reached the base of the godly mountain, he locked eyes with Zeus.

“Are you ready, King of Olympus?” he asked. His thick, long black hair rustled in the breeze while his beard was unmoving.

A small moment of silence passed between them before Zeus replied. He understood what was at stake even if Typhon was not. The youngest son of Cronos and Rhea guessed that this was a matter of revenge, maybe even honor, for the glorified animal.

“Are you?” Zeus asked. He glared at the being, standing his own ground. Whatever the result of their last encounter, this event would be different.

Zeus stood with his flowing white hair flowing in the wind. He stood tall in his pride. His eyes never left his enemy. Metis’ divine essence afforded Zeus a confidence he might have lacked otherwise.

“There will be no prison this time, Thunderer,” Typhon warned.

“I would not expect that mercy, Monster,” Zeus replied.

The two acknowledged the level of stakes Zeus implied. Zeus offered it, and Typhon was more than willing to accept.

With a thunderous rumble, the two beings lunged at one another. Their arms locked in a clash that shook the very foundations of the world. Lightning danced off of Zeus’ flesh before radiating over them both in a symphony of wrathful strain.

Though powerful, Zeus could not move the beast, and despite being victorious over the god king, Typhon was unable to budge him. They strained giving all their might, but with all their circumstances, they were as equal as two beings could be.

Zeus refused to give even an iota of an inch. His very pride was at stake. He could not call himself king if he could not best Typhon. He had sent Cratus to recall the gods. What would happen to him if they returned and saw him bested once more? The humiliation alone would drive Zeus to the afterlife.

The deadlock between Zeus and Typhon held them both in place as both were showing signs of the persistence taking its individual toll. Zeus’ mind raced with its newfound wisdom. Strength alone would not secure him victory against a being who was likely stronger than him. That defeat continued to run through his mind. It was his motivator above all else.

With a stray thought that gave him a new stratagem for the battle, Zeus made a split-second decision. He broke the grapple with a forceful shove that pushed Typhon stumbling backward. Pressing the advantage of an opponent on the backfoot, Zeus unleashed the full power of his divine lightning. Bolts crackled from every pore of his being, arcing over the entirety of his body to form a cocoon of electrical power. The air hummed from the storm he unleashed upon his person.

The discharging barrage staggered Typhon, paralyzing him where he stood.

From one advantage to another, Zeus seized the opportunity to charge forward with the quick might of a thunderbolt unleashed. Zeus threw his fist into Typhon’s stomach. The creature spat up what little saliva was in his mouth, leaving him unprepared for the combination attack Zeus hurled down upon him.

Blow after blow, Zeus struck with a precise force honed from the Great War. His fists hammered against Typhon’s mockery of a form with unyielding vengeance. Each contact was his retribution for being locked away. Each moment Zeus smashed against this being was a vindication of having to consume Metis. Each impact that reverberated from Typhon to the earth was evidence of the battle that Zeus had deserved.,

Like thunderbolts raining down from the heavens, Typhon crumbled from an inability to weather this storm. Typhon’s immense power seemed to have abandoned him. He found himself unable to defend himself, let alone retaliate in any meaningful manner, against the relentless assault of the King of Olympus.

Zeus pressed his advantage by grabbing Typhon by the hair and driving his fist into Typhon’s gut with all of the might afforded to him from his parentage and training. That blow, for all of its immensity, was so potent that Typhon fell to his knees.

The gift of the Moirai had worked too well. Typhon shook violent as, before his powerful enemy, he opened his maw and regurgitated all of stomach bile and the enchanted fruit. Only when the strawberry rolled in the fluids could Typhon see the small bits of voltage crackling over the surface.

He knew in that moment that he had been betrayed by the Moirai.

As his mind accepted the cursed nature of the fruit, Typhon’s rage overflowed. Every fiber of his being thrummed with an everlasting fury that would not be quelled until every injustice done to him was made right. With a guttural roar that forced Zeus to step back, Typhon no longer restrained himself. Why should he if his opponents were not half as honorable as him.

The son of Tartarus and Gaia surrendered to the seething maelstrom of fury. The wrathful intent consumed him from within working its way outward.

It was not slow nor was it fast. There was no blinding light. Piece by piece, Typhon’s form contorted from head to toe, transforming his once humanoid visage to a monstrous amalgamation of nightmare and malice.

Zeus might have used that moment to continue his advantage if he was not disgusted to the point of nausea.

The explosive transformation for Typhon’s feet was that of a writhing masses of red and green serpents. They coiled into a grotesque slithering form that was both an entire tail for Typhon while still very much being a multitude of snakes. His wings, which were once majestic and draconic since his birth, now bore the twisted semblance of an unholy fusion of feathers intermingling with sinew and hide. His torso became leathery and taut rather than the beautifully smooth skin he had as an apparition of a god.

From shoulder to wrist, his arms became a tapestry of scales. His hands had newly made fingers which were razor-sharp for the purpose of dealing in death. The tendrils and octopus tentacles that had once adorned his lower back erupted with a vengeful return.

His entire form was only that of silver and black. His face no longer bore features similar to Zeus. Instead, it became a twisted visage of some sort of ancient reptile. His teeth were bared in a feral snarl. His eyes burned for the destruction of Zeus, Mount Olympus, the Moirai, and any god that would stand in his way.

Typhon had become a harbinger of nightmarish chaos upon the world. He was not the mindless monster the gods of Olympus believed him to be. He had intended to be left alone. Then, he considered ruling their lands in place of their champion king. No longer would either of those options suffice. He would burn the lands to the ground, leaving nothing of the old order to be remembered.

He would transform Greece into a home for monsters forevermore.

A thousand storms would not have had as much destruction as the two opposing beings. Typhon towered over Zeus menacingly. The god was only a mere seven feet tall to Typhon’s one hundred feet.

The creature viewed Zeus as no more than a bee that could shock him. This battle only required that Typhon swat the problem away.

As such, Typhon surged forward with a primal roar. His enormous claws swiped with the force of gail. When Zeus easily jumped out of the way, Typhon flapped his wings only one time, and two new cyclones appeared from the simple effort.

Zeus flinched, trying to fly through the air. Avoiding both the creature and the elemental forces he controlled by moving would be no simple task. Unfortunately for him, Typhon’s brutal onslaught would not end. Octopus legs, tendrils, and massive claws rained down upon him.

Typhon landed one blow in that assault and brought Zeus down from the sky overwhelmingly. His more monstrous strength proved too much for the King of Olympus. When Zeus crashed into the ground, the monster saw his chance for retribution. He brought blow after blow down upon Zeus. His attacks nearly shook the very foundations of the earth.

Zeus never should have risked Typhon’s unbridled fury.

For a moment, Zeus found himself pinned beneath the relentless assault. The attacks hurt; he admitted that much, but something was off. Typhon was not nearly as strong as he used to be. He could not be sure as to how. Perhaps Typhon had been weakened by something or someone. Zeus had faint memories of Metis giving his siphoning bolt to someone, but he could not be sure of who. Then there was that. Perhaps Metis’ addition to his essence had empowered him enough to be greater than Typhon.

The weight of Typhon’s blows threatened to crush the world, but not the King of Olympus. There was a struggle against the attack, sure, but Zeus’s mind worked differently than before, and so did his body.

Typhon has his cyclones and his might, but Zeus was of the line of Ouranos, pure and true. His forebears controlled the heavens and time. He was not simply a conduit for thunder and lightning.

He was the ruler of the cosmos.

Summoning up the power within that came from the Great Progenitor, Zeus pushed his enemy’s appendages off of him with the elemental wind. The crackling of the storm brewing within the god would surely be more than the discarded monster could ever bring forth.

Above them both, the swirling rain clouds, streaks of electrical light struck Typhon from above. The very air seemed to make Zeus lighter as he floated up to the eye level of the monster. A small trickle of ichor leaked down the side of the god’s temple.

“That is the last blow you shall ever land upon me,” Zeus promised Typhon.

Typhon growled at Zeus. The spawn of Tartarus and Gaia did not care for Zeus’ arrogance, nor the fact that the god had closed the gap in their power differences.

The blows had once shattered this king against his godly mountain but only seemed to barely register on this newer version of the King of Olympus. The realization of his ineffectiveness sent a chill down Typhon’s back. Like him, Zeus would not be so easily vanquished.

With a roar of defiance to Zeus’ statement, Typhon unleashed the full extent of his monstrous might upon Zeus. His massive claws slashed through as his snakes lashed and tendrils snapped.

Zeus flitted through the air, dodging every strike and blow that came his way. Over and over, Typhon threw himself at Zeus to no avail. When the larger being paused to catch his breath, a blinding flash of light erupted from Zeus.

When Typhon overcame his blindness, he blinked repeatedly, seeing multiple copies of the lightning lord. He stared in bewildered confusion. There was no way the small god had such power. Each one shimmered with a radiant brilliance for a moment, making them like tiny fireflies in the sky.

Zeus laughed all the louder from all of his copies, making the noise echo over the mountainside. Typhon would not be made a fool by Zeus’ arcane trickery. He redoubled his efforts, unleashing a barrage of blows upon the shimmering forms of Zeus’s clones, each strike was more unrelenting than the last because of the mocking laugh of Zeus.

As the battle persisted, Zeus could see his opening. The beast was too blind to see the original in the background. While the monster wasted their energy, Zeus held out his outstretched hand.

From the mountain home of Typhon, the Master Lightning Bolt forged by the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires flew to its owner. There could be only one true wielder for such an artifact, and so when the weapon touched his fingertips, power (in its rawest form) reverberated through the king.

He channeled the might from the bolt before flinging the artifact into the heavens, so that Typhon could not take what was rightfully his. With the crackling aura over his body, Zeus charged at the behemoth.

The crash came as a shock for the monster. He tried to retaliate, but Zeus’ blows rained down with as much unrelenting force as Typhon had muster, but the beast had wasted his stamina fighting mirages. When a single blow might have struck Zeus, the king of the gods vanished from Typhon’s sight. He had thought he had simply disappeared.

What actually happened was Zeus harnessed his speed and might, and flew around the being at the velocity of light. He struck the being so hard and so fast that Typhon lost consciousness momentarily.

Zeus could see his victory. He pulled back as a woozy Typhon tried to attack, but Zeus charged ahead, lifting the beast into the air and pushed them both miles away from the mountain of the gods.

Without meaning to, Zeus drove so hard and so fast, the two traveled over six hundred miles before crashing hard into the eastern edge of some kind of island. The crater that formed was a sight to behold.

Zeus was ready to summon his bolt to his hand and end Typhon for the crime of harming Zeus, for forcing Zeus to kill Metis, for almost undoing his kingdom.

But then, a terrible realization struck Zeus. Having seen the Titans in the Underworld, if Zeus killed Typhon, he would be handing his brother another powerful servant. If not for that, Typhon would have been destroyed.

“Thank Chaos, monster,” Zeus declared. “I am showing you a mercy that you would not have shown me.”

The Greek gods had been summoned back to Greece by Cratus and his siblings. After Typhon’s raid of Olympus, they were not ready when they beheld the scene of Zeus battling Typhon into submission.

In the air, Zeus loomed over the immense monster. Zeus flew away underwater. When he returned, he gripped a colossal body of molten earth. With a thunderous crash, he hurled the body of rock through the air. Its sheer size and weight bore down upon Typhon. Zeus then channeled the thunder and lightning from the sky into his body before sealing the new mass of stone to the earth.

The echoing of Typhon’s “No!” rang through air. Once the bodies of earth were merged, his exclamation was no longer heard. Instead, the mountain bubbled up molten lava in place of the noise.

The other Greek gods watched in awe and disbelief as Zeus started to fall from the sky.

Hestia stood at the forefront of the assembly, pointing out the problem. “He’s falling!

While the others raced to catch Zeus, it was Hera who actually did something. She moved with her hands, harnessing the magic she had within. Zeus slowed before landing upon the ground like a feather.

Demeter watched from behind Zeus. She was the only other divine being not to move. She observed the battlefield with care. “What happened?” she breathed. “And... where is Metis?”

Hestia, Cratus, Bia, Nike, Zelus, and Epimetheus reached their king’s side and knew Olympus would survive. With Typhon’s fate sealed for all eternity, Zeus’ era was cemented in their hearts and minds.

The procession of gods returned to the height of Mount Olympus after affirming Zeus’ safety. They barely reached the city when the mood exploded into jubilant celebration because of Zeus’ victory over Typhon.

Regardless of the state of the godly city, a lavish feast was created for the occasion. Newly created tables groaned under the weight of mass of food and goblets of overflowing wine. Palaces were still in shambles after the first titanic battle between Zeus and Typhon. There was even some overgrowth from the months between the first battle and the second.

Music was in the air as the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne began a celebration. Lyres and flutes mingled as satyrs, including Pan, joined in on the revelry. Joyful laughter from the assembled started up as they joked about how they had mistakenly left in haste. One or two were making light of Typhon and how he was not truly so dangerous.

Dancing started for some without anyone meaning for it to. Fires blazed brightly as night began to fall, and Helios and Selene descended from the heavens. They regaled some of the gods who missed the ending of the battle with the bravery of their king.

Amidst the laughing and singing merriment, a small group of gods gathered in the inner chambers of Zeus’ palace. Hestia was ever the gentle spirit. Her curly, earthy-brown hair bounced was her most identifying feature among the gather contingent. She stood beside Demeter, who appeared concerned over recent events. Demeter was ever the most solemn sibling of the six traitorous children of Cronos. Her hair had a white-blonde quality to it.

Hera watched from the back, leaning on a pillar. Her eyes stared with keen interest Zeus and Poseidon conferred about the state of their injuries.

“Not to interrupt you two, but where is Metis? What has come of her?” Demeter asked, insistent. She was not one to minx words, and she would not be put off, not even by the likes of Zeus.

Zeus paused for a moment. “Typhon consumed her,” he answered. He seemed to hold back pain in his answer for all to see. This had the benefit of seeming sympathetic while also allowing the others to take in the news.