I think I may have been a bit hasty, trying to crush his head instead of shooting him, but anger can make a man do things, and when that anger comes from said man's love for his child, all bets are off.
"Hello there."
I didn't know where the others where, and frankly, given the current situation, I didn't care. All I knew was that a sociopath strong enough to kill Superman with his bare hands was holding Garfield and had an entire army of shadows backing him up, as we stood in some kind of oversized, heated anvil somewhere in the depths of Tartarus. Rachel was right besides me, glaring at our enemy, her hands covered in the darkness of her magic, and her eyes having a faint but noticeable red glow in them.
There he stood, looking at us from the center of the plateau, with a growing army of shrieking shades forming up behind him... and holding Garfield with one arm.
"Release him!"
"Why? I'm not doing anything to him." Indeed he wasn't, simply holding Garfield by the scruff of his shirt, and indeed I didn't give a damn he wasn't doing anything to him. "Besides, I've always wanted to meet the Red in person. Never thought somebody would link it to a child of all things."
"Let him go. Now."
"Why? So you and your lover can have a clean shot at me?" He tutted. He was right: had Garfield been any farther, I'd have shot his head off with the gauss cannon. "I may be a son of Kronos, but I can see something for what it is, and you pose a threat to my plans... and life, and I want to keep the latter as long as I can.
"Your plans?" Rachel asked. She too wanted to take Garfield from him, but also saw the wisdom to find out more about what he had planned to do. "And where are the others?
"Would either of you believe me if I said I merely wanted to meet Trigon's daughter and her guardian in the flesh, and say hello to Hippolyta, maybe even visit Zeus with sword in hand? In fact, I wasn't even mad at my brother at first, I deserved what I got." Even though he had a helmet on, I knew his face furrowed in rage. "At least until it became clear I wouldn't be getting out, ever."
"What did you expect by betraying the man who was kind enough to free you from your father's innards and taking the Titan's side? Your own brother?"
"At least being forced to live in Erebus and rule over the dead for the rest of eternity, not being trapped and tortured in Tartarus with no way to get out and nothing but the damned dead and the Titans to keep me company!" Hades ranted as his eyes glowed red, his army mimicking him, before calming down. "Ah, I forgot about your companions. I left them at the entrance: you are more than a match for me each, the last thing I want is to fight you alongside that giant treemaker of yours. He reminds me too much of my grandmother"
The Titans. Right, we were in their prison, and yet something was wrong. Granted, I didn't know where exactly we where, but... "Where are the Titans?"
"I detect only one source of Olympian divine essence." Vega replied after a quick scan. Quick fact for the uneducated: Olympians and Titans were more or less the same thing; the Great War was essentially a divine civil war.
"Oh, them? They killed themselves and used their deaths to free me, so that at least one of us could take revenge on Olympus, and because they just gave up in life." Hades said nonchalantly. "Even then, I needed outside help to actually open the gate. Fortunately, a certain wizard was willing to do anything to get what he wanted and, well, beggars can't be choosers, and I only needed blood."
"How do you know who we are?" I asked. He was still an Olympian, and a powerful one: with enough flattering or even just talking, he might get distracted, allowing us to take Garfield from him.
He smirked "Tartarus and Hell might not be the same thing, but they have a similar purpose, and some of the damned can get... what do they call it these days... ah, right, 'rerouted' from their appointed prisons." He then turned to Rachel. "Plus, your father is a rather powerful man, one I'd rather not anger... yet."
Did he have something planned with Rachel? Had he made a deal with Trigon? Or was he thinking about spitting him?
"Besides, your little stunt brought me back to square zero, or whatever they call it. I'll need a new, even stronger sacrifice to get out." Then, he turned Garfield to look into his eyes. "And what do you know, the personification of the Red is literally in my hands. A Force of Nature in the palm of my hand..."
Rachel was the first to react, sending a blast of black thunder that attacked Hades from behind. It made him stumble, but he didn't release Garfield, and when he recovered, he replied in kind by launching a fireball at her. Not knowing if she could block it, I jumped in front of her and stopped it... and screamed.
"Slayer!"
Pain. The first thing here that actually burned me. When the smoke cleared, one of my arms was burned down to the muscle, but the skin was already growing back
Nonetheless, this was enough for Hades to slam into my dazzled self, sending us both into the ground. "So, you can be hurt, just like any Olymian? Does that mean you can die?!"
In response, I slammed my fist in his gut. It did nothing than make him cough and sputter blood, but it was enough for me: he could bleed too, he could die too. Unfortunately, that realization mean he could use the desperation of a living being threatened to fight harder.
He punched me once, twice, in the head, his attacks carrying enough power to actually crack the faceplate. I was happy to return the favor, however; better yet, him lasting so long meant I could actually apply my... 'knowledge' of pankration on him. Hades, as strong as he was, was unable to stop me from digging my hand into his belly and ripping his intestines, prompting a cry of agony from the god. I even tried to strangle him with them, but he was growing restless.
"Motherfucker!"
Even with his living guts hanging from his torso, and one arm smashed beyond repair, he was still more than able to fight back, ripping my helmet open and headbutting me.
Behind us, Rachel fought off the spirit army with all her anger, screaming as she blasted shades by the hundreds; those who managed to get close didn't seem to realize she was strong enough to kill them with ther bare hands. But for every shadow she destroyed, a hundred would take its place, and given the nature of Tartarus I wasn't sure if she was actually killing them.
Hades, growing impatient, angry and desperate, turned into mist and punched Rachel in the back, throwing her into the sea of dead before grabbing Garfield by the head.
"I should have done this the moment I got a hold on you!"
This fucker wanted to kill my son. He tried to kill Rachel. He tried to kill me. Tried to finish what he had started three thousand years ago out of petty spite for his family, sink the world into an spiral of darkness and death.
He had to die.
I called the heavy cannon and, before Hades could react, shot him in the head with a Precision Bolt. Enough kinetic energy to pierce a modern tank did nothing but stun him, but I already knew it wouldn't kill him. It also made him drop Garfield, who was promptly grabbed by Rachel. Hades recovered just as quickly, pulled out a sword from his belly, and charged at me.
Knowing most of my guns would only wound him, and the one that could kill him would be a gamble with the others so close, I met him head on, and our brawl continued.
He was strong, again, the second strongest Olympian, to the point only Zeus matched him, the rest having to gang up on him to have a chance in beating him. Again, that made him the most powerful thing I had faced here. Which, again, after tiring ourselves out, we ended up mostly brawling on the ground while Rachel did her best to fight off the shades without giving in into Trigon's influence. I could feel that darkness try to seep in, try to get her go all out on Tartarus.
"Alright, I have to admit, I might have understimated you two!" He snarled as he tried to choke me. By that time I had pulled his helmet off, revealing his normal human head before a blast from Rachel forced him to assume his 'real' form. Strange to consider that rat-like thing his real self and his human skin his glamour given everything and the fact he was just as vain as his family aside from his nephew.
From the corner of my eye I saw as Rachel, teeth clenched in a snarl, her eyes red, and body shifting slowly but clearly (two familiar glows forming on her forehead, her teeth and nails growing longer and sharper), did her best to kill the shades while keeping a crying Garfield against her chest.
"When I'm done with you, your family will be next!" That snarl only served to make me angrier, which was bad for him, but it did nothing to help. "I will turn nature upon itself, and go after Olympus!
Sure, I could kill Hades on the long run, but Rachel couldn't fight his army and protect Garfield from the shades at the same time, not without making things worse for the universe. Again, of my weapons could help in our fights: Hades was too strong for most of them to kill him quickly, and the shades were both endless and returning, which meant that if I focused in a section of the swarm the other would be free.
Which left me with one option to end it all quickly: the BFG.
In the time since I had awakened here, I had yet to use her, let alone fire her at full power, and for good reason: with no game limitating her Argent-fueled power, her full potency could be measured in the gigatons, but even at her lowest she could knock Clark out and singe him. If I fired it half-charge, it would kill Hades for sure and exterminate his army, but Garfield and Rachel would be caught in the blast.
Unless, of course, I was quick enough. It was a huge gamble, but I was running out of options... and one part, not a small one mind you, wanted me to see the beautiful green glow and carnage the BFG made... again.
Even though I had never seen it.
I sucker punched Hades with all my might and, as he recovered, pulled out the BFG, aimed it at him, fired it, and jumped over to Rachel and Garfield.
Needless to say, he never expected a weapon so advanced-looking and shiny to hurt him, let alone do what it did when it connected with his chest, in the few milliseconds his face wasn't consumed by the core of a star.
The moment the bolt exploded, I was already over Rachel and Garfield, my body covering theirs. The screams of the shades and the sound of their 'bodies' burning were soon replaced by what could only be best described as a combination of the worst hurricane ever recorded in human history and the surface of the sun. Indeed, the Praetor, my own body and a hastily raised barrier from Rachel were the only thing that saved them, and the last one only lasted for a few seconds.
"Don't move!"
Eventually, after what seemed an eternity, the storm died out, leaving us alone in... well, what remained of the plateau: the area inmedate to us had been vaporized, and the edge of said area in turn was molten slag.
"Was... was that...?" Rachel asked. She knew of the gun, seen what it could do, but to see the aftermath with her own eyes, well, opened her eyes about the damage it could do.
"Yes."
And then I remembered: Garfield!
Rachel, reading my thoughts, stood up
He was unharmed aside from a couple bruises and his torn shirt, but it wasn't that what worried me. His eyes were wide with terror, terror not all borne from Hades, and glistening with tears.
"Garfield." I did my best to wipe those tears away. After that, I embraced him with all the gentleness I could muster, even with the flush of adrenaline and Argent coursing through my veins. Then, I felt the soft arms of Rachel trying to clasp around the both of us, before... what was it called? Ah, yes, doing a Uno reverse card and swapping places with her. It was easier to do a three-man hug if the big guy was out.
We stood like that for a while, with only the silence of the now truly dead Tartarus and the faint echoes of the explosion in the distance.
And then we heard a groan behind us. Rachel and I turned around, ready to continue the fight, but then we saw there was no need.
Even after getting shot point-blank with one of gaming's most powerful and iconic weapons, even being at the epicenter of a green sun, Hades was still alive, a testament of his divine nature... but was very possibly wishing he hadn't: the intens heat of the plasma had fused his flesh with the armor. In fact, the only part of him intact was his head, only able to moan in agony because the blast had vaporized his lungs.
Which was fine by me: I didn't need to hear him scream, only watch as I stomped towards him, murder in my face.
"M-monster... What kind of... M-monster..."
Before he could finish, I cut his fucking head off with the doomblade. Said head flew away, leaving his now decapitated body to fall in front of me. His body then began to smoke, to burn, but rather than simply disappear it flowed into me.
I did not feel any stronger, and if I had, the change was negligible at best, but that didn't matter: by absorbing Hades' essence and adding it to my own, I had offically taken over his post as the greek god of the dead
"You know what this means, right?" Rachel asked as she healed me. I could heal by myself, but her magic sped up the proccess even further.
I really didn't. Zeus and the others trying to get revenge on me despite saving their bacon? The sobering fact I was now the king of an afterlife by right of conquest? Or that somebody I did NOT want to know would want answers? Maybe all of them? At that moment, I didn't care.
"Let's get out of here." I replied before grabbing my helmet. To my annoyance, the crack was still there.
And so, because VEGA couldn't, Rachel brought us... right in front of the rest of the League and the Kents. Saying that they, even John, were dumbfounded by what they had just seen would undersell it.
They all just... stared, as Hades' now normal head turned into golden dust, and said dust flew into me.
And then Pausanias said what they all, except John, were thinking.
"Are you... a god?"
It was time to face the crowd.