God Mode: The Greatest Possession

by ZeroInfinity

1: The Gates of Dark Death

The Greatest Possession

Chapter 1: The Gates of Dark Death

*~~~~~*

“It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one's steps to the upper air - there's the rub, the task.” - Virgil

*~~~~~*

Michael was, in any sense of the term, a powerful man. He had killed hundreds of thousands of Hades’ residents, including some of the more exotic ones, such as cyclopes, queen harpies, blood minotaurs and even chaos mages. For most of his career, he had done so with two weapons; his trusty revolver and break-action shotgun. How, might you ask, could a mere mortal kill so many monsters with simply a revolver and a break-action shotgun?

Well sir, there’s a simple answer there. Michael was no mere mortal. He was a descendant of the Olympian gods, denied his true heritage after death, as he had not died in a ‘heroic’ enough manner. He’d found others in the same boat, though most gave up hope long ago.

Michael, however, had not. He fought tooth and nail, training for the day he would finally burst out of Hades, make his way across the world and beat his brother senseless for his needlessly silly death.

Michael did not have what could be called an honorable death, unless you were using sarcasm and happened to be a jackass. He had gotten utterly smashed with his friends one evening, bought a nice new bullet-proof vest, handed off his personal defense weapon, a shiny, relatively new Colt New Agent, to his brother and asked him to fire upon his person.

Unfortunately, his brother was even more drunk, knew less about guns than a dog and may or may not, depending on who you ask, be able to qualify for mental disability.

Nearly needless to say, his brother shot him in the head. Not a good way to go, but at least it was painless. Relatively, anyway, because it was so short.

Michael gripped his hand as the memory washed over him, and he carefully watched the river bank, oily black but with a sheen that was nearly alien in its intensity and patterns.

Michael had the luck, good or bad, to be accompanied by a Spirit Guide who occasionally chimed in, thought it was only rarely useful. “What are you even doing out here by the Styx?” he said, in his peculiar voice. “Charon won’t ferry you across, you know.”

Michael spoke, in a gruff voice, hoarse from years of shouting. “He won’t have to.” He left the words hanging ominously in the air, before a golden glow began to suffuse his body.

“Oh you’re really going to--” began the guide, before he was interrupted by Michael jumping into the River Styx headfirst and beginning to swim at a pace to put Olympic Gold-earners to shame. “Oh gods, he really just jumped in. Have fun with your permanent death!”

Michael, however, was not in the mood to let the Spirit Guide get him down. He had trained long and hard for this day. He would reactivate his connection to the gods, swim the Styx, fight past Cerberus and then back to his brother before shoving his rather large boot up his sibling’s posterior. Almost automatically, he nodded at Charon as he passed. Charon, who was ferrying a newcomer across, was not pleased. The newcomer looked greatly confused, and Charon just sighed and put his skull into his skeletal hand, as now he would have to explain the Olympians to the recently deceased.

Michael did not let that brief nod slow him down however, and swam the Styx at a lightning-fast pace. He knew that, if he made it to Cerberus, all would be well. He could feel his connection weakening as the gods set about the task of severing it, and though they were about halfway done he felt confident. He could barely see the shore on the horizon, but it was coming up fast and it would not be long before he reached it.

His only regret would be that he would have to face Cerberus without the connection there, though that did not make him helpless by any means. Some would even go so far as to say it just made him meaner.

Michael pulled ashore and shook himself off as the gold glow began to recede back into himself. “You actually swam the river Styx!?” bellowed the Spirit Guide. “Oh, I’m so delighted, I might get to see a non-hellish sun again!”

“And what makes you think I’ll take you with me?” said Michael, speaking quietly, but with steel lining his voice.

“Oh, you have no choice, don’t you see? I’m your Spirit Guide, I follow you wherever you go, even if that happens to be outside of Hades,” responded his Guide.

Michael grunted, padding along the shore to the great gates of Hades. They were fearsome things, wrought from metals whose names are long forgotten, designed to keep the most fearsome of beasts out and beasts well beyond fear in.

Fortunately for Michael, Olympians were never meant to be kept in.

He walked slowly up to the large gates and to the giant, midnight black three headed dog. “Stay, boy” may not have been the best choice of words as Michael quickly found out, feeling himself swatted very hard into the jagged cave walls. He peeled himself off the wall, then pulled out his shotgun.

“That hurt,” he began, “but not as bad as I bet this’ll hurt,” he said, emptying the four barrels at Cerberus, one at the side heads and two at the middle. Were this a normal shotgun, Cerberus would just shake off the pellets, charge him and bite him in two. However, this was a shotgun upgraded by a genuine Olympian in genuine hellfire with genuine forgotten materials, and so was the ammo. This gave it just the edge it needed to pierce Cerberus’ skin with its fletchette rounds, and Cerberus gave a howl, as it had been a long time indeed since he had been hurt through his hide.

Cerberus, however, was not one to toy with such a deadly opponent, and he snapped up Michael in his powerful jaws. Michael, however, was prepared for such an eventuality, and quick drawed his revolver before firing it into one of Cerberus’ huge eyes. If you were a dramatic sap, you would say that the howl could be heard all the way in France, but Hades’s walls and gate were thick, so it was only most of Hades itself.

In pain, Cerberus dropped Michael unceremoniously and backed up, whimpering from a fatal shot to one head that seemed to have not even winded the Olympian. “Cerberus, I have no wish to drag this out,” he began. “Let me through and I’ll let you live to keep the others in.”

Cerberus thought about this. One the one hand, this stranger had more than enough power to actually render Cerberus temporarily dead, and he was unjustly imprisoned solely because of his heritage. While Cerberus was recovering, many evil creatures could escape. However, on the other hand, Cerberus’ mission was to let no one through, regardless of anything else.

Cerberus weighed it over in his mind before relenting, slowly padding away with a growl. He didn’t like it, but he didn’t have to to realize that this was for everyone’s best interest. He would simply request help to bring him back into Hades later. Little did he know, however, that the Gods already had a plan.

Michael walked to the gates of hell and opened them into a bright and sunny meadow, with birdsong in the distance.

“Well,” said Michael. “I’m out, but where the hell am I? Greece?”

*~~~~~*

Twilight Sparkle’s day, in comparison to Michael’s, had been positively boring. She had woken up, picked up her morning checklist, taken a shower, combed herself, ate breakfast, brushed her teeth and manned the library with Spike, her pet/assistant the dragon. She’d had a slow day at the library, and talked with her friends occasionally, but all in all it had been drab and dull in comparison.

Until she got the letter from Princess Celestia telling her that a creature had broken out of Hades.

Author's Note:

Whelp, there's the first chapter. One helluva way to kickstart the day, huh? I almost feel sorry for Twilight, and I *do* feel sorry for Rainbow Dash. Next chapter: Michael punches things.

Comments

[bonsey]

You don't go to Hades for dying "dishonorably", whatever that's supposed to mean. You're thinking of the Norse Niflheim, as Hades was hardly a place of torment. Tartarus was reserved for those who offended the gods by being cuntwads, like Sisyphus.

[Boyzilla]

2491119
Well, maybe in this fic's universe you do!

Must be horrible for all those who die 'dishonorably'

[ZeroInfinity]

2491119
Well, to put it simply, Bonsey, Hercules, one of the last fully realized Olympians, was a pain in the ass for everybody, so most gods just seem to find it better to send Olympic descendants to Hades. Also, God Mode lore is slightly different from the Greek gods. "Hello, welcome to Hades! That's Hell in a toga," is, if I recall, the absolute first line the Spirit Guide says when you boot up the game. That implies there is a "heaven in a toga", so to speak, and while yes, the Greek gods do all sorts of shit without ever feeling like they need to justify themselves, sending somebody to Tartarus for such a shit reason or sending somebody to Hades for no reason would probably not look good on their parts. So, while yes, in pure Greek mythos, you are correct, God Mode is not pure Greek mythos. In God Mode, Atlas was turned into statues in Hades to throw giant electrical/flaming balls at people. Unless I am sorely mistaken, I am pretty sure that Atlas, in pure Greek mythos, is still holding up the sky from the earth so it doesn't crush every living thing.