The final pin remained. Roosevelt. Nicholas sat in his sanctuary, the Book of Probability floating before him. He gave the familiar command. "Show me the fate of Franklin Roosevelt"
The Book went still. The silver script, which usually flowed like water, hardened. It did not swirl. It did not reveal a path. It showed nothing. A perfect, silent void where a man's destiny would usually be.
Nicholas stared. He pushed his will against the Book, feeding it more faith. "Show me." The Book resisted, its pages trembling. A faint, golden light shimmered around the edges of the void on the page, the unmistakable signature of Zeus's direct power.
A cold understanding dawned on Nicholas. Zeus had noticed. The systematic culling of his children had not gone unseen.
The King of Olympus had grown suspicious. For his son, his chosen mortal instrument, he had created a specific, powerful protection.
He had walled off Roosevelt's fate from even divine scrutiny. The Book could not see a path because Zeus had ensured that there would be no path.
Fine. If destiny was closed, he would use brute force.
He turned the page. "Show me a monster that can kill him." The Book complied, showing an image of a multi-headed Hydra lurking in a swamp.
Nicholas used the Book to weave a tapestry of "coincidence." A failed land deal would force Roosevelt to inspect the issue in his role as the Governor of Louisiana. The path would lead him straight to the beast.
He watched through a scrying pool as Roosevelt's car approached the swamp. The Hydra emerged, its heads hissing. But before it could strike, a massive figure dropped from the sky.
He was a mountain of muscles, clad in a lion's skin. Hercules. The legendary hero punched once. A shockwave of pure force obliterated the Hydra, reducing it to golden dust. He merely gave an unimpressed look to the stunned Roosevelt before vanishing.
Nicholas was shocked at that development, but to verify if it was a coincidence, he tried again. A Medusa, placed as a curator in a museum Roosevelt was scheduled to visit.
Again, Hercules appeared, smashing the creature into dust with a single blow.
That was when he realised that Zeus had not just protected Roosevelt's fate. He had given him a personal bodyguard, a divine enforcer who responded to any supernatural threat.
He couldn't risk being left out of the feeding frenzy for the coming conflict.
The paranoia of Zeus was a fortress in itself, but Nick figured you don't become a divine king without a healthy dose of paranoia.
For weeks, Nicholas experimented. He tried different monsters, different locations, and different times of day. The result was always the same.
The moment a supernatural threat even came near Roosevelt, Hercules would appear and eliminate it with effortless, brutal efficiency.
The hero wasn't just strong; as the God of Heroes, he was attuned to any disturbance in the divine order around his charge. He was a perfect, unbreachable defence system.
Nicholas even attempted more subtle approaches. A poison derived from a mythical plant, administered by a bribed servant. The servant had a sudden change of heart and confessed everything to the police.
A "random" electrical fire in Roosevelt's hotel. A freak rainstorm put it out before it could spread. Each time, the Book showed the same golden interference subtly redirecting events.
Zeus's protection was comprehensive, affecting both the supernatural and the mundane worlds around his only remaining investment.
He was stumped. Every indirect method was blocked. Hercules was an insurmountable obstacle. The only way to kill Roosevelt was for Nicholas to go himself, to confront the hero and his target directly.
But that was madness. A direct fight with Hercules would reveal his power, his rebellion, to all of Olympus instantly.
It would risk everything he had built. Even with his enhanced abilities and artifacts, a confrontation with the legendary son of Zeus was a gamble he couldn't afford to take, well… not yet at least.
He sat on his throne for a long time, the paradise feeling less like a sanctuary and more like a cage. The final piece refused to fall. He could not move openly. He could not act through fate. He could not send monsters. He could not even orchestrate a simple accident.
For days, he paced the crystalline shores of his silver lake, his mind racing through possibilities and discarding them just as quickly. He studied every interaction he'd had with the Olympians, every hint of their psychology, their arrogance, their fears.
He thought of Athena's cold calculation, Zeus's towering pride, of their every story passed through history, both mundane and mystical. They saw mortals as pieces, but they were not infallible. They had patterns. They had blind spots.
There was only one path left. A path of shadows and misdirection. A plan that did not break the shield, but convinced the one holding it to lower it himself.
It was a risk, but a calculated one. It used the enemy's greatest strength, their own arrogance and predictable nature, against them.
The plan began to form a dark and beautiful piece of strategic manipulation that would turn their own power into a weapon against them.
A slow, cold smile finally touched his lips. It was brilliant. It was terrible. And it was the only way.
He reached out with his mind, his consciousness flowing through the pathways of faith he had built.
He found the minds of his inner circle: Marcus in the Speaker's office, Julian in the British Embassy, and his father, Jonathan, at the State Department. Their awareness sharpened as he connected, projecting a council meeting into the heart of his sanctuary.
Their astral forms appeared before his throne, their expressions grim. They knew the problem. They had felt his frustration over the past weeks.
"The direct path to our target is closed," Nicholas stated, his voice calm and final. "We cannot break the protections in place. Hercules is too powerful a guardian, and Zeus's will protects Roosevelt from any threat."
He paused, letting the frustration hang in the air before delivering the pivot. "So we will not break Hercules. We will recruit him."
He saw the shock on their projected faces.
"Think," Nicholas said, his gaze intense. "Hercules has the faith. He has the strength. He earned his godhood through his own hard work that even now resounds in the legends of Western Civilisation. So why is he not an Olympian? Why does he stand guard while Dionysus, the God of wine and madness, holds a throne?"
He leaned forward, his voice dropping. "It is because his domain is limited. Strength. Heroes. It is powerful, but it is not useful to the Olympians in the way Dionysus's domain is. Dionysus can direct mortal emotion, inspire worship, and shape culture. Hercules can punch monsters. He is ultimately a weapon, but he is not a ruler. He is relegated to being a guard because that is the most efficient use of his power in their eyes."
Nicholas let that truth sink in. "We will offer him what Olympus never has. We will offer him a way to expand his domain beyond mere strength. We will give him a path to become more than he is. And we will offer him a binding oath, sworn on the River Styx, for a true seat at our table. Not as a servant, but as a founding god of a new pantheon."
He looked at each of them. "The plan is simple. I will arrange a meeting. I will speak to Hercules himself. I will show him our strength, our vision. I will show him a future where he is not a weapon for others to wield, but a god whose domain spans the earth. If he accepts, Roosevelt falls, and we gain the ultimate warrior. If he refuses..." Nicholas's eyes grew cold.
"Well, we already have a way to flip the table. We have amassed enough faith to become powerful Gods, not enough to truly form a separate pantheon, but definitely enough to make them think twice of the consequences before attacking us."
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