The Last Dance

Ascension of the Fallen: Chapter 28

"What is the meaning of this?"

Kronos hefted his scythe over his shoulder. His father, and his grandfather stood in front of him.

"The Olympians will win this war, son," Ouranos said, smug, emphasizing the word 'son'.

The primordial of the heavens and sky, arcs of not electricity, but true lightning flashing between his fingertips. Zeus stood beside him, his power dwarfed by the two immortals that faced each other.

"Zeus, do you realize what you are doing? Ouranos is trying to backstab you! At this moment, the primordials are fighting to take over this planet!" Kronos shouted. The calm composure and façade that the Mad Titan used to have was nowhere to be seen.

The god of lightning and the skies didn't reply. Ouranos seemed to be giving him power, and that was all Zeus of Olympus needed.

Kronos thinned his lips.

"Dread it," Ouranos stepped forward, hurling a bolt of lightning.

Kronos deflected it with his scythe.

"Run from it," a current of lightning struck his scythe, slithering along it, and ignoring its magical properties. Kronos was forced to stop it with a burst of titanly energy, sending it into the ground.

"Destiny arrives all the same," Ouranos grinned.

"Not necessarily."

There was an overly powerful burst of energy, and Kronos stepped back, watching. The energy signature was different. It was more reminiscent to his own, actually.

A man with a white beard touched down next to him. And Kronos knew it was Chronos, the protogenos of time.

"You took Zeus away from me with your dirty little trick, huh?" Chronos laughed without any mirth in his voice.

"It's interesting how you took this long to catch up, Chronos. Perhaps time is catching up with you. Oh, the irony," Ouranos chuckled, "Did the others truly keep you that long?"

"Unfortunately, yes. It took me a while before I was able to come here. Using Erebus, Gaia, and Pontus, huh? Fortunately, we were able to defeat your little trio. They are in slumber, you know?"

And then, the primordial of time glanced next to him, seeing the titan of time.

"The silver tongued Kronos," Chronos noted neutrally.

Kronos gulped. Chronos the primordial did not seem to like him very much.

Chronos sighed, "I suppose we need to fight together. Go. Fight Zeus. I will keep Ouranos occupied until then."

A bifurcating bolt of lightning forced them to separate and jump away.

Kronos went for Zeus, but the crafty god stuck to Ouranos' side, aware that he would lose almost immediately.

Chronos bolted forward, already trying to ensnare the powerful Ouranos in his strands of time. Ouranos slashed them away with a katana, emitting arcs of electricity.

The god uppercut with a fist, but Kronos deflected it with the flat of his scythe, before slamming the pommel into Zeus' stomach.

Meanwhile, Chronos locked his symbol of power, his staff, with Ouranos' sword. Or, he tried to.

Ouranos allowed the staff to slide along the length of his sword, and he slammed his knee into Chronos' stomach. The primordial of time, having not fought close range combat in so long, was unprepared.

He tried to weave more strands to slow Ouranos, but he came to a realizataion.

He was out of shape.

Ouranos broke through all the strands, kicking at Chronos' head. Chronos frantically ducked, only to realize it was a fake. A knee slammed into his head, bursting the lightning into him, and Ouranos managed to slice Chronos before he could get away.

Kronos was dominating the fight. Zeus furiously backpedaled and tried to drop under Kronos' scythe, but it just barely scratched his neck. The king of the gods howled in pure agony, as part of his very soul was being cut with that scratch.

Ouranos jumped in, blasting powerful, white lightning from his fingertips that pushed Kronos back. The titan of time spun his scythe, but he was pushed back with a grunt nevertheless.

His katana came crashing down, arcs of ethereal lightning sparking and latching onto Kronos, if not for the primordial of time intervening.

Chronos' staff slammed into Ouranos' side, catapulting him away. Ouranos grunted, turning to face his new attacker.

Kronos once again turned to face the king of the gods. And so, the fight went on.

Ouranos always tried to interfere with the fight between Kronos and Zeus, but Chronos managed to succeed in keeping him off Kronos.

Kronos smashed his scythe into Zeus' defenses, using brute force. Again, and again, his scythe would bite into Zeus' flesh, earning howls of agony from the god of lightning. Again, and again, each time, bit by bit. Any elemental attacks that the god of lightning and the skies sent towards Kronos were deflected by the scythe, or by the strands of time that Kronos expertly weaved.

"Ouranos is using you," Kronos stated coldly, "Wake up to reality."

He raised his scythe again, but the god was wise to the trick this time, and blasted himself away with lightning.

"I am the King of the Gods! He bows to me!"

"You are delusional," Kronos snorted.

Zeus' face turned purple in rage, and he screamed, calling down bolts of lightning from the skies above Mount Olympus.

Kronos swiped his scythe across the area, quickly forming a golden shield of titanic energy, before any bolts could come through. However, Zeus had already finished his trick, and tackled him. He lost his scythe in the exchange, and the king of the gods was on top of him, straddling him.

Perhaps it had been millennia since he'd rolled around in the dirt and fought. But that didn't mean he didn't know how to throw a few punches.

Kronos punched upwards, brutally rocking Zeus' chin. Fists coated with the strands of time sped up his strikes, as he slammed and struck his hands into the god's stomach again and again, driving the wind out of the god of lightning and the skies.

He rolled over, now the one in the dominant position. The god of the skies and lightning blocked with his forearms, coating them with lightning, but Kronos only kept punching.

He elbowed Zeus in the face, before bringing his fist down on Zeus' throat, targeting the most vulnerable part of the body.

Zeus sent the most powerful bolt of lightning upwards. It slithered and struck with lightning speed, but Kronos accepted it, tanking it.

The king of the gods had made a fatal mistake. He had exposed his guard by trying to generate energy and attacking the titan.

The titan of time tanked it, gritting his teeth in pain as the discharge of the electricity ran through him. However, it was worth it, as his two hands now wrapped around Zeus' throat.

He squeezed. Brutally.

Zeus vainly kicked and tried to scream, but the titan of time kept his grip. His forearm muscles flexed as he squeezed, choking the life out of the god of the skies known as Zeus.

Little by little, he was crushing his throat and his windpipe.

Until a bolt of lightning embedded itself in his back.

The titan of time was sent flying, crashing through several buildings, until he finally came to a stop. He groaned, grunting, before getting up.

Kronos wiped his lips with the back of his hand, noting that there was a drop of blood.

Meanwhile, Chronos was on the backfoot, as he fought a powered up Zeus, king of the gods, and Ouranos, primordial of the sky and heavens.

He tried to set traps. He intricately weaved strands of time together to form traps that would keep any normal god in a time loop, or would cause them to move infinitely slowly. However, Ouranos was able to detect every single trap, and either directed the king of the gods around it, or dismantled it himself with blasts of lightning.

Chronos grit his teeth, furiously backpedaling. He avoided the major attacks of lightning, but lightning always chose the path of easiest resistance. Stray arcs of lightning would hit him sometimes, and he could do nothing but bear the grunt of them.

Eventually, he got close enough to sweep his staff under Zeus' feet, dropping him to the ground. With a well-placed strike to the shoulder area, Chronos managed to dislocate Zeus' shoulder, leaving the god screaming in pain. However, the cost was a powerful blast of lightning to his back. Chronos grunted loudly, feeling the skin of his back becoming absolutely fried.

He landed on his back, rolling to his feet. Kronos came to a stop beside him, and they shared a nod.

In sync, they stretched their arms out, weaving thousands of strands of time and beckoning them to their control. Ouranos and Zeus responded, generating and building up the most powerful beam of lightning that had ever been summoned.

The two immortals of time tightened their strings taut, sending a ripple effect throughout the area. At the same time, Ouranos and Zeus unleashed their beam.

However, they failed to understand one thing.

Time was intrinsically more powerful than the domain of the sky. Time was not tangible, time was all dictating, and all powerful. It was not elemental; it was a tier higher. If one put a wielder of time, and a wielder of lightning, who was equal in skill, intelligence, ability, and every aspect to the wielder of time, the wielder of time would win. Time was much, much more powerful than any elemental ability that one could possess.

This inherent aspect of domains, along with the fact that Kronos' and Chronos' combined power rivaled Zeus' and Ouranos', determined the fight.

As the thunder crashed and waged a futile war upon the unyielding strings of time, time won. It always did.

Time's strands tightened, until it was suffocating the lightning. There was a crescendo of intensity that kept building and building and building.

The golden strands mercilessly ripped through the bolts of lightning, bifurcating and rapidly spinning.

Time ripped through them with such force and power that Ouranos and Zeus were unable to resist it. The elemental aspect was unable to resist the power of time.

It bifurcated, striking the two of them. The only thing that prevented their flesh from tearing apart was the lightning shield that they had summoned.

The shockwave tore up the ground, threatening the very fabric of reality.

There was a coalescence of power above them with such electric potential that it fulminated, detonating and discharging the energy into light brighter than the very sun.

Ouranos and Zeus' lightning shield was blown away, and the strands of time dug into their flesh, before the aftermath of the blast caught up with them. Their bodies flopped limply in the air, as they were sent below the clouds.

Kronos turned to the primordial, ready to thank Chronos.

The primordial's eyes were glowing golden.

Chronos looked down at him.

"Don't thank me yet."

He took a step back nervously.

"Your hands are shaking, Mad Titan."

-----

In the mortal world, the destruction was astounding.

Tsunamis, thousands of feet tall, crashed onto the world's shores. Storms coalesced, lightning bolts striking the Earth, even as the Earth itself shook and rumbled like a thing possessed. Entire cities were torn apart, buildings crashing on top of each other due to the seismic shockwaves that emanated from Earth's core.

The sharpening rain and howling wind and tornadoes destroyed any sense of ability that the mortals had.

They tried to seek shelter, but there was nowhere safe. Above, lightning rained down hellfire, and, below, the ground shook with numerous quakes, the fault lines being widened, entire ravines being opened.

Few mortals had given any thought to the existence of gods, spirits, and immortals before today. But now?

They didn't hesitate to join the masses in shouting wild praises to the gods in half-witted, confusing worship.

-----

Thunder crashed, lightning flashed, and the tracks splashed through mud. Rain poured down on them from the dark skies above, and bolts of darkness fell from the sky. High in the sky, a coalescence of golden energy expanded outward, bursting into existence.

It was a slaughter.

It was such a slaughter, that Thalia Grace thought she might have had to start worrying about how the demigods were faring against the monsters that rushed forth in grandiose numbers from the entrance of the Labryinth.

Demigods fell in great numbers, left and right. The weak died before her, and the strong resisted, shielding each other. Thalia quickly learned that only the most powerful demigods were able to survive in an all-out assault like this one.

Annabeth Chase was by her side, and they stuck close to the Hunters of Artemis for safety. There was safety not in numbers, but in numbers of powerful demigods.

Still, the Hunters of Artemis were running out of arrows.

The gods, Poseidon and Hades and many other Olympians, fought alongside them. For once, they weren't the pawns of the gods, but... an equal. An equal on the battlefield.

Great waves and armies of undead and storms and bursts of godly energy flashed and struck across the battlefield. Camp Half-Blood was reaved in half, already shredded down to its last wall.

But they'd kept going.

It got dark quickly and with the darkness a downpour of water quickly ensued, turning the dirt to mud and the fields to swamps. Most of the light they had to go by was the result of flashes of lightning periodically lighting up the fields, or the explosions from the giants and monsters that attacked them. Where before it was clear the battle was turning in Camp Half-Blood's favor with the addition of the gods, now it was... less clear.

The giants outnumbered the gods. They stomped their feet, killing demigods and the spirits that fought with them by the dozens. And there was nothing they could do.

Slowly, the giants and monsters had them cornered. They pincered them, the monsters pushing outward from inside the camp, and the giants from the outside of camp proceeding through the barrier.

They weren't supposed to be pincered so hard; the plan was to split the monsters and vanquish them before turning to face the giant. Still, they were in the middle, and being attacked on both sides.

But it had, and so they dealt with it.

But, they could not lose structure. They were pushed back, but, even amidst the haze and the confusion of the fighting, they retreated, forming a barrier.

They retreated to the main house, now no longer pincered and pinched.

The fighting continued like that. Thousands of roaring monsters, the dreadful sound of the silent undead, the slashing of swords and the twanging of arrows, thunder and lightning, mud and rain, the bolts of darkness that rained down from above, demigod and monster and god and giant.

But, they were losing. Thalia ducked under the swipe of a poisonous tail, severing it with a thurst of her spear. She was forced to retreat when two more monsters took its place, and she had to keep close to the formation.

It was hopeless. For every one monster they injured or killed, two more, freshly invigorated monsters filled its place, all the while the demigods had to keep fighting tirelessly. The situation was looking desperate, and Thalia could only pray they could hold out for as long as they could.

A beam as bright as the sun slammed into the center of the camp turned battlefield, disorienting the giants and the monsters alike.

Thalia squinted through the golden light, unable to see.

Suddenly, a burst of darkness came forth. It was faster than she had ever seen before, just a blur, that struck around the battlefield. Monsters and beasts were brutally reamed in half, giants were pushed back, and the sky was washed aflood with darkness.

The beam finally stopped, and Thalia grinned when she saw who came out.

Perseus, the god of time, darkness, and mountains.

AN: I know you all wanted an update, and I only just got time to write, so here's a chapter!

Again, I can't promise consistent updates, since my schedule is so cramped; for my other story, Never Change (I recommend you guys check that out by the way) I'm only able to update consistently because of prewritten content that serves as a "barrier" of sorts. That way, if I fall behind on schedule, there is never an update to miss. For Ascension of the Fallen (this story) on the other hand, I don't have that prewritten content to serve as a barrier, which is why updates are so inconsistent.

I hope this helps you guys understand, and please be a little patient with me. I will try my best to update, and this story is coming to a finish relatively soon.

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How'd you like this chapter? Review, comment, favorite, follow, vote, but only if you enjoyed! It helps motivate me to write more.

'til next time!

-thann3