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Nicholas watched. His soul sense stretched across the world, boosted by the authorities within his artifacts, his prescience drinking the chaotic flow of events. He felt the moment Zeus's rage broke.
It began with a sound. A crack of thunder that rolled across entire continents. The sky above the Atlantic Ocean darkened, not with clouds, but with the presence of a god.
Zeus appeared not as a man, but as a being of Air and Storm Clouds, a figure many kilometers tall. Lightning wreathed his form. His eyes were furious stars.
The sea beneath him boiled. A mountain of water rose, and from its peak emerged Poseidon. The Earth-Shaker was a giant of swirling ocean, his body made of tidal forces and deep-sea pressure. A trident of pure energy shimmered in his hand.
They did not speak. They fought.
A fist of storm cloud, large enough to crush a city, slammed into a wall of water the size of a mountain range.
The impact was a physical shockwave that circled the globe. Lightning, thick as skyscrapers, arced from Zeus, carving canyons of steam in the oceanic form of his brother.
Poseidon retaliated. Tendrils of water, each the bulk of a residential building, whipped from the sea. They wrapped around the storm-giant's limbs, pulling, trying to drag him into the depths.
Tornados of salt water and howling wind spiraled into the sky, meeting Zeus's own cyclones of pure air and electricity.
Their hand-to-hand combat was a cataclysm. Every blow shook the planet's crust. Earthquakes rumbled across fault lines.
Tsunamis, born from the displaced ocean, radiated outwards, swamping coastlines. The very air vibrated with their fury. They were forces of nature, unleashed and unbound.
Nicholas observed it all from his sanctuary, a silent spectator to the destruction. This was the power he sought to command, to control; their every blow was felt across the planet by any moderately sensitive mystic.
Then, other presences arrived. Figures of similar, immense scale. A woman of fire, carrying a feeling of home, her presence a calming warmth that soothed the raging skies.
A goddess of the harvest, her form made out of vines and green light, her power settling the trembling earth.
And a third presence, a cold shadow that fell across the battle. Hades. The Lord of the Underworld did not join the fight; his form was that of shimmering translucent ether wrapped in mist.
He simply watched, his silence more powerful than his brothers' fury. His presence was a reminder of the final destination of all things, a chill that even the storm and sea could not ignore.
The fight did not end quickly, but it ended. The storm receded. The sea calmed. The gigantic forms faded. An uneasy truce settled, brokered not by affection, but by cold necessity.
Nicholas understood why immediately; it was what he was planning for.
They could not afford a true schism. Not with Hades waiting in the wings, controlling the endless river of souls that was the ultimate source of their power.
To fight each other to exhaustion was to hand the keys of the cosmos to the god of the dead. Their alliance was fragile, a pact born out of necessity.
Yet he knew that it was only temporary. The Gods are very old, and they were known to hold grudges for centuries.
A familiar pressure touched Nicholas's mind. Athena. Her summons was sharp, urgent.
He again entered the Archives and was immediately transported to a war room on Olympus, not the grand throne room.
She was in her 6-meter-tall giant form donning her armor, but the grey light around her was suppressed. She looked subdued. The conflict had cost her.
"Come", she said, gesturing for him to sit down on a tiny chair across from her.
She looked at Nicholas, her misty eyes calculating, but the calculation now seemed more intense than before. "Roosevelt is gone. You are the only viable option. Zeus will support your bid for the presidency. You will have the full backing of Olympus. You will unite the mortal world under our banner. The war is coming, and we need a single, strong leader to face what stirs in the dark."
Nicholas let his face cycle from a mask of shock to realization and then finally to a solemn acceptance. "I understand. I will not fail."
He was quickly dismissed with his instructions before returning to his sanctuary and summoning his inner circle. Their astral forms appeared, tense, having felt the cosmic upheaval.
Nicholas smiled, and his voice carried a cold, hard triumph.
"Their house is divided," he stated. "They fought. The sky and the sea tried to destroy each other. The world shook from their rage."
He paused, letting the image of the god-war settle in their minds.
"And they were forced to stop," he continued. "Not because they wanted peace. But because a greater threat loomed. Hades. The King of the Dead holds the ultimate leverage, the souls that power them. They cannot fight each other without making themselves vulnerable to him. Their alliance is a cage of their own making. "
He looked at each of them. Marcus, Julian, Jonathan. "And now," he said, the words dripping with finality, "the King of Olympus is out of pawns; he has no other pieces to play. His chosen pawn is dead, his brother is covered with suspicion, and his other brother is a shadow over his throne. He has no choice and no time to think or meddle in our affairs. Too busy having to hold on to his own throne."
He let the information hang in the air between them.
"Zeus will now have no other option than to support me. His power will be the only push left that is necessary to force me into the White House. The very gods I am destroying will hand me the keys to their kingdom. They are so obsessed with maintaining their positions and playing their little games that they will empower the one person who can truly contend with them."
The irony was perfect. The plan had worked beyond his wildest hopes. He had not just removed an obstacle; he had destabilised the old order just enough for a rival to grow to rival it.
"The final phase begins now," Nicholas declared, his gaze sweeping over his loyalists. "We will accept their help. We will use their power. We will smile and nod as they place their crown upon my head. "
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