New and improved, Ginrius was able to keep up with the overspeeding Hermes, if only just. The speed freak still looked impatient as he waited for his trainee to arrive, which took no longer than a couple of moments later. This time he didn't require too much explanation; they were aboard Apollo's golden chariot and were on a cruise across the void of space.
Apollo and his vessel embodied the sun, while Artemis, Hecate, and the now defunct titan Selene modeled for the moon and its runway phases. Because of this, Apollo was blinding in his true form, and was not at all reserved for mortal eyes to behold. Conveniently, Ginrius saw him through divine sight now, which depicted him as an impressive young man of golden everything, from the full set of armor to the sharp, sunbeam curls he wore over his head.
Seeing Apollo at full regalia brought Ginrius back to the image of Zeus, who outshone everyone else on casual Friday—he must be quite the head-turner when he actually tried.
"Do you need to know why we're here?" fished the sun god, reeling him one absentminded godsmith.
"I have a decent guess, but I prefer to hear it from you first," Ginrius answered, surprised at his growth spurt of confidence. Apollo may not be among the big three, but he was not one to be trifled with either, not even on a bad day—pun intended, naturally.
"It's our turn to push back Chaos, while the night mistresses rest."
The chariot then dashed further into darkness, covering a side of the world in a short second. Ginrius looked down to see the earth's profile for the first time: a trianglular mass of air, land, and sea that floated in the nothingness. Through its fringes the ocean trickled out, down an abyss untraceable even by celestial vision. As they passed, the immediate sky lit up a vibrant sapphire, and a stream of fresh clouds marked their trail. "Look out for spillage and make sure they do not touch the earth." Apollo added as he drove.
Even with Hephaestus' knowledge, Ginrius understood little of this Chaos the sun god spoke of. He knew it to be the oldest of the primordial beings, even older than Gaea herself. He also knew that the gods steered clear of it. They poked it when it got too close to the world, but feared it enough to forego direct confrontations. Albeit the big bad foreshadowing, its true purpose eluded him somehow, as though there was more to it than generic villain casting. For now, he made do with sharing the familial enmity.
Hermes primed his caduceus for battle. "Are you ready, godsmith?" The day was turning out to be a first time for a lot of things, including the messenger's shortage of excitement—he looked terrified, and it bubbled out of his bravado.
"I'm not even sure what we're up against, but I'm feeling really hot for action today," Ginrius reprised, "I say bring it!"
"Remember, not a single drop must make it past us," reminded Apollo.
In a short while, Ginrius would come to regret his open challenge. He saw it first, something even darker than the void blotting out a group of stars to their right. When Apollo changed course to engage it, it writhed, moving wildly and growing in size, until it looked like a wall of darkness that blocked out the rest of the universe. The sun god then unleashed a barrage of fire arrows, causing it to shriek in agony, before retaliating with a rain of spikes.
"Watch your eye, godsmith," Hermes said before taking off, blitzing the stygian blades out of commission.
Ginrius on the other hand managed to smash a couple of attacks to their flank, which he deemed powerful enough to have derailed them if they hit. Waves and waves of the same attack pattern were launched at them, some coming from blind spots while others head on; between the three gods, however, not one strike was able to land.
The match concluded when Apollo nocked his most powerful arrow to boot, which streaked through the darkness like a comet on a starless night. The siege had stopped. For now. Chaos—or at least a portion of it—was warded off successfully.
But then Ginrius caught sight of something dark and miniscule, fast approaching the earth's boundary. Suspecting it to be a drip of chaos, he leapt out of the chariot and plummeted after it, readying his hammer for the strike.
Back in the chariot, Apollo stringed another arrow, only to have Hermes stop him. "Let's see if the boy could pull it off."
"What if he fails?" Apollo asked, worriedly at that.
"Then Ares would be very pleased."
As he approached the atmosphere, Ginrius felt the toll of reentry, rubbing off his skin and causing the air around him to catch fire. But it was minor inconvenience at best, for he wouldn't be the god of fire if he couldn't take some heat. In fact it even worked to his advantage, as the flames made his hammer strike ten times more powerful, destroying the chaos drip in a show-off display of overkill.
When the deed was done, Apollo was kind enough to Uber him back to the chariot, saving the world from another crater it didn't ask for. A round of applause was also in order.
"That was amazing, Ginrius," Hermes lauded him.
"I could have sho—" Apollo began, but the messenger god cut him off again.
"—well it looks like we're done with this assignment—we'll leave you to your work."
It felt like they we're out of there even before Hermes completed his farewell. Their quick transit back to Olympus still made Ginrius swoon a little, but he would pick it any day over full-time nausea.
Back in solid ground, the godsmith's first inquiry was still that of the void and the threat it imposed. "That thing that attacked us," he said in reflection, "Is it constantly trying to get in our world?"
Hermes' grim look proved as short lived as his many motions. He made sure to wear a god's grin before humoring his intern. "Yes—Chaos is as Chaos does—bring about pandemonium and destruction to creation. Now you know why the night goddesses and Apollo patrol the sky—now you know your most sacred duty as a god—and why we never let Ares join a perimeter check."
Ginrius saw the connection between wargod and chaos fetish. It was peanut butter and jam on a cosmic scale, a professional liaison set to erect immortal dynasties. It also made him sneer for some reason, even though the real life implications were nothing to scoff at. "Did chaos ever make it past you, guys?"
"Occasionally, yes, but when it really comes down to that, Zeus owns the sky and nothing gets past Him," said Hermes. "Which brings us to the next order of business: reporting to the king himself."
Upon hearing Zeus' name, Ginrius was struck by thunderbolt dread, something that not even Olympus' most wanted managed to visit upon him. He didn't want to admit it, but the idea of an overcharged, awkward ambiance, before the presence of he who stood above everything, proved scarier than the tendrils of oblivion.