The Prison of the Gods

Prologue
The flames roared around him, bright orange and white, screaming up into the sky in a bright scarlet circle of infernos. The man in black watched them climb high up the inside of the black mountain. He was sitting in a circle of jagged rocks, surrounded by a fierce ring of flames. The man was huge, well over seven feet tall, wearing a heavily scorched and torn blue pinstripe suit and red tie. He had a very muscular build, like the ultimate bodybuilder, and he had shoulder-length black hair and a gray-and-black beard. His eyes were stormy blue, a brilliant electric shade that burned with pride. Upon his wrists and ankles were golden chains, almost six inches thick, connected to huge golden chains that snaked up into the flames to an invisible source.

The man was Zeus, the God of the Sky and the King of Olympus, the chiefest and greatest of the Olympian Gods. And he was chained down like a pathetic little dog. It was unbelievably, that he had been tricked so efficiently. He could imagine such a thing happening to Hades, and especially Poseidon - they could both be complete fools in the best of times. They could be the biggest fools in all of Olympus, even when there were impetuous hotheads like Ares and stubborn firehearts like Demeter. Where were they? Where were his brothers, why weren't they racing to save their brother and their king? More importantly, and he had been asking himself the precise same question over and over....How on earth had he fallen into this infernal old trap?

The flames suddenly pulsed and a giant man, taller than Zeus, strode through, back straight, powerful limbs moving confidently, approaching Zeus with a casually slow pace. The man was just as muscular as Zeus, and he was also bearded, but the similarities stopped dead in their tracks at that point. This man's beard and hair were both bushy and red, like the finest red wine in history (The kind that would make Dionysus himself weep with pride). His eyes were flaming gold, like miniature suns, and his skin was glowing the colour of molten metal. He was wearing golden Greek armour the very colour of the sun, only somehow brighter and far more intense than Zeus could endure. The man removed his helmet and his red hair writhed in the volcanic atmosphere of the world around him.

"Good day to you, dear nephew," greeted the man in a deep and powerful voice, "it has been far, far too long."

"Hyperion!" gasped Zeus, "So you're behind this! What is the meaning of this, this...outrage?" Hyperion threw back his head and laughed uproariously.

"Still so pompous, nephew Zeus." he sneered, coldly, "You were always the same, even as a child. I may not have noticed who you were, Kronos may not have, until you slipped that poison into our drinks and freed your brothers and sisters. But you were always the same, after that. Always pompous, always supreme, always believing you were better than anyone else."

"Like you believed any better," Zeus snarled, coldly.

"We didn't have to." Hyperion growled, his wiry, scarlet lips curling in a smile of derision, "We were superior...even when you fought us, it was by luck. It was by pure misfortune on our part...it will not happen again!"

"It has happened again, though, hasn't it? You were transformed into a sapling!" Zeus sneered. Hyperion's body exploded with violent flames and his eyes frothed with rage at the insult. At the same time, Zeus recoiled as the golden chains burned intensely on his wrists and heat stabbed into his head, preventing him from comprehending how to defend against the incredible pain.

"You would do well to remember what happens if the ant insults the boot, Zeus." hissed Hyperion, his voice suddenly turning icy with rage, "You cannot use your powers with those chains, Zeus. You recognize those chains. We have used them before, to chain the Hekatonkheires and the Cyclopes, in the days of our triumph. You remember them. You remember your brothers in chains. You remember the Underworld as it used to be. You remember...Kampe!" Zeus shivered at the memory of Kampe, the most terrible monster in all of Tartarus. If Zeus could dream of relief, that dream would be when he destroyed that infernal monstrosity with his freshly-forged Master Bolt.

"What do you want with me, Hyperion?" demanded Zeus, "What do you want with me? You know my brothers will be here soon. Poseidon is powerful and wise, in his own small way. Hades is powerful and smart, in his own smaller way. They will find me!" Hyperion roared with laughter at this, shaking his head.

"Let them try!" he cackled, derisively, "They will never find me, and thus never find you. They cannot find us, anyway, Zeus. I know the way this game is played, no one better. The Gods cannot interfere. The demigods can. And, if any puny child of yours or your brothers, sisters, sons and daughters, dares to cross swords with me." Hyperion reached into his fiery belt and ripped out a long, thin sword that had a blade of painfully glowing golden metal. The point of the blade sparkled with power, and the weapon itself sang with every move it made, "then I will make them wish that they had never been fated to draw their swords against Hyperion, the Lord of Light!"

Experimentally spinning the sword in his wrist, Hyperion turned and then exploded in a burst of golden light, vanishing from where he stood in an instant. Even Zeus was compelled to look away from the bright light as Hyperion vanished. With the Titan gone, Zeus bowed his head. He could just sense that the Lord of Light had become more powerful. His energy was thrashing around him like a heat haze. He knew that, with these chains, he would be unable to use his powers and unable to cry for help properly.

For the first time since his battle with the monster Typhon, Zeus realized precisely what it was like to know fear. To know helplessness. To know....defeat.