Time passed.
Not the kind that could be measured with sunrises or seasons. There was no sky, no sun, no ticking clocks within Kronos. Only the steady churn of his monstrous hunger, and the strange, timeless heartbeat of god-souls floating in darkness.
Our divinity had grown slowly. For some like Hestia and Demeter it swelled with quiet resilience. For Hera, it simmered cold and sharp, always restless, never still. Hades' soul surged forward with bitter determination, trying to understand the limits of his being.
But mine...Poseidon's...was different. The others noticed it. My power grew faster, deeper. The fusion had done something. That mortal half of methe soul that came from another world had brought with it something strange. An ability to change. To adapt.
They never spoke of it openly, but I could feel their unease growing.
Then, everything changed.
A great convulsion shook Kronos to his core. Not the subtle shifts we'd felt before, not the dull grinding of his unnatural digestion. This was a violent upheaval. A thunderclap echoed through the void, and in a rush of divine instinct, we all felt it: Zeus had come.
He was alive, free, outside. And with his emergence came chaos.
One moment we floated in our prison the next, the world turned upside down.
A wave of force surged through Kronos' stomach, and we were suddenly being hurled upward. It was not pleasant. It was like being vomited by a mountain, each of us torn from the dark, suffocating sludge and thrust into blinding air and heat and sensation.
And then... bodies.
We were no longer formless lights. We had flesh. We had presence.
We had been born again.
---
The world around us was vivid. The air smelled of pine, sea salt, and fire. We stood upon a rocky coast, waves crashing against a cliffside as Zeus our youngest brother, now fully grown stood nearby, chest heaving from the effort of our liberation.
My hand clenched instinctively, unfamiliar and yet fully mine. I looked down at my new form.
Tall. Lean, but with a powerful build. My skin was sun-kissed, my muscles corded with strength. My golden-blue hair flowed like the waves themselves, and oceanic markings shimmered faintly across my forearms and collarbone. My eyes, sea-green and deep, reflected a calm intensity. Like the tide: patient, but capable of sweeping away mountains.
I resembled Poseidon from Record of Ragnarok, but without the cruel smirk. My face was quieter, kinder. Less of a god of wrath, more of one who had carried the sea's sorrow.
I had become him. Or perhaps... we had become something new.
---
We retreated to the Isle of Crete, to the hidden cave where Rhea had raised Zeus in secret. It became our temporary sanctuary.
There, with a fire burning softly in the hearth and the sound of waves in the distance, the six of us Zeus, Hestia, Hera, Demeter, Hades, and I finally sat together, free.
We were a family. Scarred. Mismatched. But divine.
"We can't stay here forever," Hera said. "Kronos will know we're loose. The other Titans will rally to him."
Zeus nodded. "We don't have the numbers or strength yet. Not to face them head-on."
I leaned forward. "We need allies. Weapons. Manpower. And I know where we can get them."
Hestia blinked. "You're thinking of Tartarus."
I nodded. "The Cyclopes. The Hecatoncheires. Our uncles. Kronos imprisoned them. If we free them, they'll fight beside us."
Zeus hesitated. "That means going deep into Tartarus. The Warden still stands. The Kämpe. A monster even the Titans fear."
"I'll face her," I said.
They all looked at me.
"You?" Hera narrowed her eyes. "You think you can take the Warden alone?"
"No. I know I can."
---
Tartarus was worse than I imagined.
The air burned. The rocks bled. Screams echoed in every direction, some mortal, some ancient and far more monstrous. The underworld's deepest pit was alive with malice.
The Warden stood before the prison gates like a nightmare. She had the body of a woman at least from the waist up. Her skin was greenish and scaly, and she wore armor decorated with images of screaming faces. Her hair was a writhing mass of snakes. From the waist down, she had the body of a dragon, with a thick reptilian tail and four legs clawed like a tiger's. Her wings shimmered like a bat's, with veins of gold running through them. The Kämpe.
It saw us. Roared. Charged.
The others prepared to fight, but I stepped forward.
And I called to the river.
Not the river of water but of fire.
Phlegethon.
It answered.
Flames erupted from the stones. A great wave of liquid fire surged into my hands, bending to my will as if it knew me. I shaped it. Spun it. Wrapped it around the Warden.
She screamed as the inferno consumed her from the inside, her massive form thrashing against her own chains until she collapsed, blackened and broken.
Silence fell.
Even my siblings stared at me, eyes wide.
"You... controlled the Phlegethon," Hades whispered. "That's not supposed to be possible."
I exhaled slowly. "We should move."
They said nothing more. But I felt it. A shift. The others my family had seen the depth of what I'd become. What I was becoming. And it frightened them.
---
With the Warden defeated, we shattered the gates of the prison. The Cyclopes emerged first massive and crude, but thankful. The Hecatoncheires followed, a tangle of limbs and fury.
They knelt before us.
Zeus stepped forward. "We're going to war. Join us, and be free forever."
They roared their agreement.
The Cyclopes forged us weapons as thanks.
To Zeus, they gave the Master Bolt, a spear of storm and lightning that crackled with raw might.
To Hades, the Cap of Invisibility, which let him vanish into shadow and silence.
And also functional as a weapon of fear.
And to me...
A Trident.
Not just a weapon. A conduit. The moment I held it, I felt the sea. The entire sea. Every current. Every depth. It roared inside me. The Trident didn't grant power. It amplified what was already mine.
I could split the skies if I willed it. I could call tsunamis with a whisper.
And I knew it was only the beginning.
---
We returned to Crete. Around a fire once more, but different now.
Armed. Ready.
Zeus stood and traced a map into the dirt with his finger. "The Titans rule from Mount Othrys. If we take Olympus, we'll have height. Power. A symbol."
"It's a throne they never sat on," Hestia said. "Taking it would shake them."
Hera nodded. "It becomes our stronghold. We draw them into battle there. Force their hand."
"We strike fast," Hades said. "Before they rally. Before Kronos knows the full extent of what we've done."
Demeter looked at me. "And what about you, Poseidon?"
I looked out toward the sea. The waves were calm, but waiting.
"We take Olympus," I said. "Then we drown the age of Titans in their own fear."
And for the first time since we'd been freed, everyone everyone nodded.
War had come.
And we were ready.