Deus Ex Gabrielle : The Author's Cut

"Shakti?"
"Yes Arminestra, Great Mother of Peace?"
"Get your hand off my butt."

- Deleted scene from "Between the Lines"

"This is pointless!" Apollo spat in disgust before standing up and stalking away from Gabrielle's body. The glow around his hands began to fade as soon they were removed from her body, and his expression grew more sour with each step away from Gabrielle's prone form. "I can't find anything wrong with her. This is just too boring anyway..." Grimacing at the expression on Artemis' face, he fled, "Later!" teleporting away in a spray of sparkling golden light, followed an eyeblink later by his son, who had the minimal grace to mumble an apology for their failure to cure the girl before he vanished.

Xena opened her mouth to say something, but remained mute when a deep rumble of thunder momentarily deafened them. Hercules looked up, but the cloudless sky held no answers.

The rumble of thunder rolled over them again as Hercules watched and listened in dismay. The sound grew steadily in volume even as the sky darkened overhead.

Flickers of bluish light briefly illuminated the bellies of the dark thunderheads congealing high above them, but the momentary spots of light were swiftly reabsorbed into the shadowy depths of the cloud cover. Soon, the assembled watchers were concealed in a pool of darkness, the shadow created by the clouds covering the entire group and blotting out the sun.

The mortals in the group watched the awesome display of divine power with uncertainty, the immortals with rather less so - they knew full well what the thunderheads heralded. As the sky darkened overhead - much too swiftly to be natural - worry began to gnaw at their - both mortal and immortal - bellies. Something was happening... and even those who did not know what it was could tell that it was going to be something big.

A single shaft of lightning crashed to earth, followed by another before the reverberations of the first had faded, and then two more, the unholy roar rocking those gathered in the clearing as bolt after bolt cleft the air. The shock as nature's fury was unleashed shook the ground and sent the frightened mortals falling to their knees, unable to maintain their footing in the wake of the buffeting.

The pyrotechnics paused momentarily, and the clouds seemed to gather themselves together into a smaller, darker ball. The gods exchanged knowing looks before backing away from the center of the clearing, the mortals joining them after a heartbeat's pause.

From the center of the heavy, swollen black cloud, the largest shaft of lightning yet seen erupted, the electricity glowing an eye-searing blue-white and filling the air with the nose-burning stench of ozone. For a moment, the glowing shaft hung before them, connecting the clouds to the ground like a glowing tether...

...and then secondary bolts began to rain down, electricity flickering across the surface of the swollen lump of clouds before flashing down in jagged streaks of raw energy to join with the original shaft of lightning, the power growing and melding together with each strike, forming a gleaming ball of luminous energy that hovered in the center of the clearing. The sharp retorts of the thunder echoed across the countryside as each bolt emitted a staccato crack as the air heated and expanded as it was forced out of the lightning's path Each bolt that fell contributed its substance to the gathering, swelling the energy ball with ever more power.

Shielding his eyes, Hercules watched the power gather itself together. The glowing electricity hovering before them began to swell impossibly, distorting into a humanoid shape as still more lightning flickered down to add its energy to that of the form sculpting itself from the raw power.

With a final explosion of unleashed energy that shook the earth with its intensity, the lightning storm ceased, the clouds dissipated, and the glow from the ball of energy began to fade away. With a crackle of miniature lightning bolts, the glow winked out, leaving the smug figure of Zeus, the king of the gods, standing in their midst.

Zeus exuded confidence to the point of arrogance. His power and majesty wreathed him more impressively than any royal robe possibly could, lending him a presence far more imposing than the simple chiton he wore. Yet even that mundane garment, which looked so simple in style and construction, reinforced his presence in its own subtle, almost subliminal way. Its coloration was so white and pure that the human eye utterly refused to focus upon its weft, while the weave - if indeed one was hidden within the unearthly fabric of the cloth - was so fine as to be invisible, making the garb hang and drape itself around his body like a solidified cloud.

The subtle reminders of who and what he was could be just as effective in reinforcing his position as even the fiercest lightning storm, Zeus knew - and he was not above using either technique to maintain his position. Looking about the gathering of his relatives and sundry mortals, the king of the gods simply sniffed, saying nothing as every eye was focused upon him, their attention riveted despite themselves.

"Now that's an entrance," Aphrodite, who had watched his appearance with an appreciative eye, murmured softly.

"Zeus," Hercules calmly greeted his father, attempting to appear unaffected by the display.

Xena was less than impressed, and showed her disdain for the god in her expression, but kept it from her voice. She wanted his assistance, but would seek it only on her own terms - and her neutral tone clearly conveyed that fact. "Are you here to help?" she asked, her voice casual, lacking any hint of respect, yet also free of the contempt she felt; in an odd way, she seemed almost to be addressing him as an equal.

"Hello, Xena," the king of the gods replied, ignoring the slight inherent in her tone. "It's nice to finally meet you."

"Are you here to help?" Xena repeated, her tone and expression not warming in the slightest, though her eyes narrowed dangerously.

"No," Zeus finally responded, after several timeless moments had dragged by as he studied the amazing blue of her eyes. "Why should I? It was Gabrielle's responsibility, after all, and it was her choice."

"Her choice?" Hercules interjected, unable to stand silently any longer. He counted off his points on the fingers of his hand, exaggerating the gestures to lend impact to his words. "Apollo kidnapped her - not her choice, she ate some ambrosia - by accident, not choice, and then you force her to remain as something she did not wish to be, yet you can still claim it was her choice?" He had been disappointed by his father many, many times in his life, but somehow he had never felt quite as ashamed of him as he did at that moment.

Xena's expression darkened. "Are you here to help?" she asked again. For an instant, her eyes seemed to glow with the power of her barely-suppressed rage and madness, but it gradually faded as her formidable will imposed control.

Zeus snorted at both their surprise and their obvious disdain of him. "What? Was that what you were thinking? You really thought I would just magically appear, wave my arms and suddenly everything you've messed up is fixed? That sounds like the plot of one of those stupid plays the Athenians churn out that my daughters dote on. This is reality, not some addled poet's drunken scrawlings. In case you hadn't noticed, the world doesn't work that way."

Seeing their disbelief and anger at his cavalier attitude, he continued on, gesturing pointedly at those most affected by his points as he did so. "Oh, I'm such an evil bastard..." He snorted indelicately, but it conveyed his point effectively.

"Remember when Psyche was going to marry Cupid? You were screaming at me - forbidding the union, telling me all the reasons why a mortal could not marry a god. Then - after your squabbles were finally resolved - by requiring her to become a goddess before she could join with him - you all then claimed anyone who was exposed to the inner workings of Olympus must become a goddess to preserve our power and prevent the leakage of any secrets. But now... when I ensure that someone who is actually worthy of joining us on Olympus will do so, and by the very rules that you demanded, all of you are still screaming. Have you even stopped to listen to yourselves? How could I be so heartless as to make this poor mortal child remain a goddess? Horrors! What a terrible fate..." he gasped melodramatically, his voice dripping with sarcasm as he clutched at his heart with both hands. "The laws are clear - the laws you yourselves helped write and voted to affirm.

"And let's not forget that you were just as vocal in your efforts to keep her as a god when you were attempting to claim Gabrielle for your own," he sneered mockingly, "Hmm, when was that... yesterday?" Zeus gathered their contempt and flung it back with interest, wholly unswayed by their disapproval. "Spare me your self-righteous indignation. Unlike you, there are valid reasons for my actions."

Turning on the silently watching divinities, he continued his tirade. "You may not remember where the mortals came from, but I don't have the luxury of ignorance. They are as they are for reasons, just as we are... and if you can't recall those reasons, you should limit yourself to playing with puppets," his voice echoed as he finished with a roar, "not the mortals. Did you even think about that before you started meddling?"

Spinning back to face the non-gods, he continued without pause, pointing his finger at Xena's breastplate, "Listen, Xena... I gave her every opportunity to claim an inheritance that most mortals would kill for, yet she spurned it, even though I gave her the chance to choose her own path on Olympus - a choice never before offered in the history of the world," he blithely ignored many of the details in the true chain of events as he continued to defend himself and his actions to the silently accusing circle of observers. "Again, I let her choose her own fate, letting her go on with her mad plan to remove her godhood... not interfering, even though she should have known it was doomed to fail."

Some of the other gods began to look discomfited, knowing there was more than a little truth underlying his tirade and his counter accusations, but Zeus ignored both them and their reactions as his lecture resumed. "The power wielded by the gods - even a new one such as Gabrielle was - is simply too potent for such an act to be performed on oneself. Gabrielle, despite the warnings conveyed by her first failures, self destructed her power on her very soul - literally. Is it any wonder that it was rent under that strain?"

That comment froze Hades, even as he was opening his mouth to protest his brother's unfair characterization of the actual sequence of events. Her soul... was rent? he thought in surprise.

Ignoring his brother's ongoing tirade, the god of the underworld's mind began to work furiously, pondering the possibilities that could be derived from the small kernel of information that Zeus had let slip. If Gabrielle's injury was spiritual in nature, rather than physical... That would explain the problems the gods were having in healing her, as well as explaining why she was reacting so oddly to their attempts at treatment - and, if they were lucky, it might just possibly offer a potential solution as well.

Although he was normally reserved and undemonstrative, Hades barely managed to refrain from slapping himself in the forehead. How could he have missed what now seemed so obvious... Well, obvious once it had been pointed out, anyway.

Hades contemplated the few available courses that remained open to him. Zeus' ranting faded from his ears as he concentrated solely on potential remedies for Gabrielle's condition. The god of the underworld knew better than anyone - after eons of experience in dealing with the dead, he should - the singularly delicate, albeit curiously durable, fabric that comprised the mortal soul.

Obviously, he realized, some portion of Gabrielle's soul remained within the shell that was her body. That much had to be true : otherwise it would have expired long since - not withstanding Hephaestus' machine - and the lack of a soul would have all but screamed to him and his sister, attuned as they were to the dead. The rest of her spirit, though... Therein lay the problem.

Mortal souls had a surprising number of destinations after death; given the karmic cycles, reincarnation, and the various underworlds that existed to handle their final dispositions, there were a startling number of metamorphoses and divisions that they had to undergo upon death before the newly refreshed soul could be reborn into its next mortal shell. At times the process could even confuse him, and he'd been dealing with it for millennia.

The Egyptians, with their distinction between the different parts of the soul - the "ba" and the "ka" - understood one facet of the process, and the Indians, with their knowledge of the karmic cycle and the continuity of the soul, grasped yet another, but no single human religion could begin to fully explain the entire process. It took the mind and objectivity of a god to fully comprehend the intricate beauty that was the true nature of the cycle of death and rebirth for mortals.

If Zeus was right, Gabrielle had interrupted that process, and the ramifications could be enormous, both for her and for the continuity of destiny. He had to act; even if he hadn't already been so inclined, he would have been compelled to do so. Not that it would be easy...

In Gabrielle's case, which he had to admit, was unique in his experience, the variables involved were many. Given her vast exposure to the world's peoples, beliefs, and gods (not to mention her own temporary divinity, besides), there were any number of potential dimensions where the missing piece of her soul could have gravitated. A few of them however, seemed to be the most likely, and focusing on those at least offered him a starting point for what portended to be a very long and complicated search.

Leaning over to his wife, he whispered, "Keep him busy," in her ear.

Persephone raised an eyebrow in mute question at her husband, her curiosity aroused. Seeing him nod silently in confirmation, she shrugged slightly, then nodded secretively to show her agreement. Even though she knew nothing of what her husband's plans actually were, she readily agreed to play along.

Zeus showed little sign of slowing down, let alone stopping, so keeping him wrapped up in his tirade seemed to be little problem. It might even be fun, she mused, and hiding her husband's disappearance likely wouldn't take much effort on her part : Zeus hadn't so much as looked towards either Hades or her since the start of his outburst.

Besides... Hades actually looked excited about something. It was all too rare that he took an interest in things other than his job and the underworld. She'd been telling him he needed to get out more for years, and if he was finally going to do it - even if it was by sneaking out from under Zeus' nose - that was definitely a good thing. Too often he was obsessed with his work, and even if it was an important job, it could be a real mood killer at times.

Smiling with ill-disguised pleasure, she surreptitiously edged in front of the space Hades occupied, shielding him and his surroundings from casual view. She felt her own mood begin to lift as she mulled the situation over. Her husband looked hopeful, so perhaps things weren't as dire as they appeared at first glance.

After seeing Persephone's slight nod of agreement to his instructions, Hades waited until Zeus was fully enraptured in his diatribe. Once he was confident that he wouldn't be noticed, Hades sank into the ground, suppressing the flash (and other side effects, less readily detectable by mortals) of his transport with considerable effort.

The search for Gabrielle's missing soul was on...

Despite the resurgence of his optimism, Hades was worried, and even a trifle nervous about his chances. While it was certainly true that he had been dealing with mortal souls since his inception as the God of the Underworld, many, many years before - almost since there were actually mortals in existence, in fact - his knowledge of mortal souls was not quite as encyclopedic as his position appeared to indicate. Indeed, his dealings with mortals were most often impersonal, even perfunctory. The process was even, to a large extent, automated. Most souls assigned themselves to their own reward or torment, with very little input needed from the god who putatively oversaw their final disposition. With only the barest casual glance he could tell what darkness stained a mortal's soul, and consign it to its appropriate fate on the spot.

Truthfully, he neither needed nor wanted to burden himself with too detailed an examination of the core of most mortals' souls. After the first century or so, it began to pall, and after millennia of it... It was a job, pure and simple. An important job, and one that he was quite devoted to, but a vocation just the same.

The brief examination he and his agents performed (usually as the dead souls were disembarking from Charon's barge, though on rare occasions he did travel to the mortal plane to pass judgement - it helped ease the congestion) before the souls headed for their final reward was more than enough for him, and was sufficient to gauge 99 percent of all mortals. The rare instances where he did have to delve in more detail into the core of mortals, that final one percent, simply reinforced his conviction that there was very little in mortals that he hadn't already seen.

The job being what it was, that was probably for the best; inclination and necessity were wedded quite nicely for him. It was, quite simply, the only practical way that his job could be accomplished : the volume of the dead to be processed was too great for his limited staff and resources to handle in any other way - even given the limited role he truly performed in the cycle of death and rebirth.

There was one saving grace, however, and it was this that allowed him to maintain a degree of optimism. Even if Hades wasn't quite as expert as one would think, he was still well-versed in mortal souls; admirably suited for the pursuit of Gabrielle's soul, some would say. Although he had closely examined only a tiny fraction of the souls sent to him, over the millennia of his tenure in the underworld he'd probed deeply into the souls of millions.

Of all the other gods, only his sister Celesta could potentially be deemed his peer in knowledge of mortal souls - and even she was inferior to him when it came to questions of the fabric of mortal souls : her job was only to get souls moving, not to spend time evaluating them (though her own inclinations sometimes caused her to tarry with especially interesting cases).

More, he was not without power.

A true son of Cronus and Rhea, he had powers in his own right, over and above those bestowed upon him by his office. Rarely used, and indeed somewhat suppressed by those powers bestowed by his helm and his office, they still existed, providing him with links to the world and the energies interconnecting its diverse elements. It lent him an insight that his more commonly known and more often utilized skills and powers simply could not begin to replicate. It was these natural, inborn, intrinsic powers that he relied heavily upon as he began his quest.

His godly senses reached out, every iota of his divine concentration focused upon a singular task : to locate the evanescent thread connecting the splintered fragment of Gabrielle's soul to the portion that remained within her body.

Bodiless, he hung between the dimensions, his self contained within a glimmering pattern of energy that was closer to a true representation of his divinity than the "human" shape he ordinarily wore. The pattern pulsed seemingly at random, tendrils of thought seeking anything that could provide him with a clue as to the location of Gabrielle's soul-fragment.

For a time there was nothing, and had he been a mortal he would have begun to feel despair. His task was even more difficult than he had anticipated : the detonation Gabrielle had created to sever her link to godhood had left incomprehensible flotsam and jetsam from a multitude of planar possibilities strewn about her and the local area, muddying his senses and making it near impossible to locate anything, let alone something as fleeting as the traces left by the passage of a decomposing partial spirit.

Since he was not a mortal however, he persisted in his task. The same single-mindedness that enabled Hades to perform his regular role in the universe was called into play for this impossible task, and because he did, he eventually noticed the trail.

It was a trail only in the loosest definition of the word, of course. Truly it was more an impression of passage, a faint hint of pale crimson thread leading through the murky aether and across the different dimensions of what passed for the local reality... but it did exist. A "tangible" track showing the path the shard of Gabrielle's soul had taken as it was thrown from its point of origin... It existed... and he could follow it.

To his surprise, as he followed the path Hades felt a faint stirring of gratitude in his heart towards his lecherous brother, despite his key role in shaping the current mess and his obstinate unwillingness to change his mind. Had Hades not had the clue provided by Zeus, he would never have thought to look for the faint indications of the soul's passage, and so would have completely missed Gabrielle's true injury - until her soul had decomposed entirely, consigning her to oblivion.

Hades was also grateful that he had arrived when he had, for even as he watched, the faint trail he followed continued to fade, diffusing into nothingness and making it even harder to detect.

For a time he simply continued on, heedless of the nuances that surrounded him as he strove not to lose the trail. Yet as he followed the path, and the trail grew fresher, the intensity of the track began to strengthen. He had found it in time, and his spirits were buoyed by that realization.

As the path became clearer, less concentration was needed to follow it, and Hades' mind began to wander. Contemplating the trail as he followed it, the lord of the underworld soon discovered that he was quite frankly amazed. Here, in this "space" between the planes of existence, the essence of all things was made manifest. He began to marvel as he followed the "footprints" Gabrielle's soul had left as it travelled. She was unique, and in this place, the truth of that literally glowed all around him.

Millions of souls had he seen in his tenure as the God of the Underworld, and millions more as he wandered his realms to ensure that things were running smoothly. From Tartarus, to the Elysian Fields, to the shades that wandered bodiless along the course of the Styx, and even amongst the things lurking in the strange realms along the borders, Hades had thought he had seen the full spectrum of the human soul. Now, he knew he had been wrong.

There was a quality to Gabrielle's spirit that defied sufficient logical explanation. It was not innocence : he'd seen saints aplenty, and spoken to countless who had died with their virginity and / or blood innocence intact, so he knew full well what the parameters of those characteristics were. No, this was something different.

Knowledge was echoed in the path he followed - too much knowledge for someone to be truly innocent. Knowledge of pain, and suffering; the evil that man could do, and that could be inflicted by the often indifferent seeming Fates. In this place of essences, he could feel her awareness of these facets of reality.

As he travelled along the path, he could feel himself resonating to the glow he followed, his soul pulsing with the shared experience. He loved Persephone with all his being, yet something in Gabrielle's essence - even this pale shadow left in the wake of her disintegrating soul fragment - drew him. He couldn't quantify it, or explain it, but he gladly followed it, reassured that this effort he was undertaking was indeed a worthy task.

Pausing as an eddy current swirled around him, he read the changed flavor of the trail. Something happened here.

Reading the residual energies of the event floating around him, Hades reached out with his mind and bent reality, fading into somewhere else.

"Ares is a god, Cyane," Terreis patiently attempted to explain Danaän reality to the Siberian Amazon. "You can't simply force him to release her."

"He's not my god," the other Amazon retorted, scowling ferociously. "And from what I could see, I'd be willing to bet anything you care to name that he's involved. He's probably in the middle of this disturbance up to his scrawny little neck."

Rolling her eyes, Terreis tried again. "Look, let's just go back to Eternity, find the priestesses, and have them contact Artemis. She's his sister... sort of; she'll be able to deal with him."

"I don't..." trailing off, the Siberian Amazon watched as a glowing dot appeared in the air before them. Backing off and drawing her sword, she watched it expand horizontally, forming a line, before swelling into a glowing blue doorway suspended in midair.

"What..." Terreis began, then fell mute as a booted foot appeared from within the portal.

Hades stepped through the gateway with feigned casualness, automatically returning to his customary form as he entered the less esoteric dimension. His human appearance was once more covered from the neck down in elaborate plate armor, with armored gauntlets and a flowing cape completing his ensemble. A faint nimbus surrounded his hands as he glanced warily around; he wasn't quite sure where Gabrielle's trail had led, but it was always best to be prepared : some of the more exotic denizens of the outré realms could be dangerous to encounter - even for a god.

He stopped midstride as the gateway closed behind him, his eyes widening as he noted the armed figures of the two Amazons. Hades dissipated the energies he had readied, and forced himself to relax slightly. Human souls were never found where the truly dangerous things lurked - not for long anyway. "Ladies," he began.

"Hades," Terreis acknowledged, bending her head slightly in a gesture of respect, though not of subservience. He did not hold her allegiance, after all. He was still a god, though - not to mention Artemis' uncle - so she didn't want to be too impolite.

Smiling very slightly, Hades made a formal bow, the etiquette his wife had seen fit to instruct him (at length) in serving him well. "Forgive my intrusion, but could you tell me where I am?"

Terreis ignored Cyane's glowering presence and casually asked, "Don't you know?"

"Naturally, I could figure it out... I simply thought it would be more polite to ask." A corner of Hades' mouth turned up in what might have been a smile on a less somber face.

"You're in the Amazon Land of the Dead," Cyane scowled threateningly. "Why?"

"Cyane!" the Amazon princess scolded her companion. "Be nice." Turning back to the god of the underworld, she added, "My grumpy companion is right... if impolite." Turning a good-humoredly mocking half-smile to her companion, she added, "and though she is impolitic for asking, I freely admit to some curiosity of my own. This is not part of your domain so... Why are you here?"

I should have expected this, Hades told himself. A mortal's soul automatically seeks the place it should go after it's vessel has passed, and this place is without doubt the most likely to be Gabrielle's destiny... or it would have been if she had become truly mortal again, anyway.

Raising an eyebrow at the boldness of these dead mortals, he answered her question. "I meant no disrespect. I am seeking a..." he paused to find the proper phrasing. "There was a bit of a mixup and..." He paused again. How do I explain to two ignorant mortals the nature of the fragmentary shard of a soul left in the wake of the self-destruction of a new-made goddess? The answer of course, was to explain nothing. "Have you seen a woman pass through here... about so high?" he held his hand out to show Gabrielle's slightly diminutive stature.

Trading looks, the two Amazons shared a brief wordless communion. Cyane shrugged slightly, giving the Greek Amazon the lead.

Terreis paused before answering him. Hades wasn't exactly known to be overly friendly to mortals, but neither was he known for the casual evil of Hera or Ares. She had no wish to protect the war god, yet she also had no wish to embroil her heir in a feud between two gods. However, for a second of Greece's gods to appear here, perhaps there was some truth behind Cyane's rantings about a disturbance in the aether. "Why do you seek her?" she asked instead, gauging the effect of her words carefully.

"It's complicated," Hades sighed, running his gauntleted hand through his slightly thinning hair. "The part of her that passed this way wasn't her whole soul, merely a fragment. Unless I can restore her, her soul will... fade away. Dissolve into nothingness." Letting some measure of his growing frustration enter his voice, he asked again, "Have you seen her?"

The glimpse of his desperation clinched Terreis' decision. "Ares took Gabrielle, Hades. He didn't say anything, but," she paused as his expression hardened, "they vanished."

Hades nodded, his face settling into a mask of grim resolve. "Thank you." Turning from the two silent Amazons, he read the trace energies of Ares' workings - again, something that was easy to find, now that he knew to look for it - and vanished in a cascading sparkle of light to continue the pursuit.

Cyane turned to Terreis and muttered, "Your people's gods are really something, you know? I might have to look up the priestesses of Artemis after all this, see what she's like."

"I'll warn them you're coming," the princess quietly replied.

Cyane's grin was broad and faintly lecherous, but Terreis remained silent, refusing to be goaded into saying anything in response.

Frowning as he reappeared outside Ares' lair, Hades immediately began considering his options. He was stronger than his nephew, true, but his powers were not as specialized to combat as the war god's were. Still, considering the fact that Ares' involvement in the affair was beginning to stink of direct disobedience of Zeus' will - a disobedience far outstripping his own minor stretching of the rules - the war god should be unwilling to force a full confrontation - though given Ares' combative nature, even that minor proviso was uncertain.

Mentally preparing himself, Hades stared at the unwelcoming shape of the twisted, black crag that served as Ares' home away from Olympus and the mortal realm. It was ominous and imposing, and was the sole point of reference on an otherwise featureless plain. The sky was angry, with storm-laden black clouds continuously forming and dissolving, clotting against the backdrop of the sky - a sky the color of freshly spilled blood. The occasional lightning crash that marred the heavens revealed details of the tortured stone of the mountain that lay hidden by the gloom, exposing the outcroppings shaped into leering gargoyles and hornéd demons, adding to the air of foreboding.

Shrugging his shoulders to settle his armor more comfortably, Hades ignored the silent warnings and walked into the gaping maw in the side of the crag, entering a tunnel leading into the heart of the mountain. Despite an attempt at stealth, his footfalls echoed along the subterranean passage, revealing his presence to anything that might be lurking in the darkness.

Descending into the depths of the... well, not earth, but an analogue of it at least, the god began to feel slightly disconcerted. It wasn't the darkness, or the feeling of being buried under the weight of a mountain, or the maze of twisted, narrow passages he had to traverse - he was used to all that. It was so familiar as to be comforting, in fact.

It's the silence that bothers me, Hades mused. The last time I came here to visit Ares, the air was filled with the sounds of combat, the clash of arms, the accolades of victory, and the screams and moans of the dying. Now...

Now, there's nothing. Nothing but... he listened carefully, pausing to silence the sound of his footfalls. Is that...? There was something... At the very edge of his awareness, there was a faint echo of sound coming weakly to his ears from far off in the distance through the enveloping, smothering darkness.

Shrugging noncommittally, he turned his steps in the direction the sound came from. Since he was unsure where Ares has lurking within this underground warren, one direction was likely to be as good as another.

As he walked, the sound gradually grew louder, until at length he was able to identify it. It was the baying of hounds. Suppressing the urge to roll his eyes at the clichéd and overly theatrical atmospherics, Hades still had to smile at the discovery; Ares had, wittingly or not, made his lair into a place in which he himself felt quite at home. It was odd to find that they shared similar tastes, considering they really didn't get along very well.

He froze.

A dozen creatures - things which closely resembled the hounds they sounded like - were chained within the confines of the dimly illuminated room. Although superficially the beasts looked mundane, the glowing eyes and the scars in the rock floor left by their glittering claws gave clear warning that these were no ordinary beasts.

One turned to face him, and, staring into it's hideously deformed visage, Hades abruptly realized what these creatures were. These were the spawn of Graegus, Ares' man-devouring dog. A quick scan with his powers reassured him; they lacked most of Graegus' powers and size, but were still clearly the children of their sire.

Although they had been chained, they had been restrained only to prevent them from reaching the far side of the chamber: Hades was well within their reach. At a small growl from the one that had spotted him, as one, the pack turned to confront him.

Reacting quickly, Hades located the alpha, the ruler of the pack.

Although only slightly larger than his brethren, the alpha's eyes burned the red of Phlegethon's flames and his frothy saliva sizzled where it dripped from his jowls to splash against the stone floor. At the shoulder, he was as tall as Hades' belly, and outweighed him considerably. His fur bristled like a porcupine's, and his muscles visibly strained under his leathery pelt as he readied himself to attack. He was huge, ferocious, and hungry, and was also snarling viciously, revealing a mouthful of razor-edged fangs.

Hades didn't even blink at the display. Cerberus, while not the most typical of canines (the presence of three heads was the least of the differences), still possessed many of the traits of his lesser relatives, and the god was well acquainted with the need to establish dominance. He locked eyes with the beast, boring into their burning depths with his own steely gaze.

Against the god of the underworld, Graegus' offspring didn't stand a chance. It took endless minutes before the alpha ultimately accepted this fact, but eventually he submitted, breaking eye contact and all but fawning at the god's feet.

Ruffling the creature's ears affectionately, the god patted his coarse side. Hades was slightly startled at the volume of the ecstatic yips and barks the hounds emitted as he gently stroked and patted each of them in turn, still cautious of the natural weaponry the ferocious beasts flashed as they frolicked around his legs.

Reaching a decision, he effortlessly snapped the chains that held them captive and gathered them around him, the hounds obedient to his desires. Waving his arms, he made them vanish mid-yelp with only the barest trace of a flash. His animal wranglers should be able to handle them, and even if they couldn't... well, they were already dead, so being dismembered wouldn't inconvenience them for very long.

Perhaps it was Persephone's gentling influence, or maybe it was the disconcerting frequency with which his guard dog was able to slip his chain, but he had recently come to the conclusion that Cerberus needed some playmates. Ares' hounds would be perfect for the role, and their loss was small enough recompense for the trouble the war god had put him through.

"Where'd you send them?" a weak voice asked him, interrupting his reverie.

Spinning about, Hades finally discovered what Ares' hounds had been imprisoning. "Morpheus," he gasped, unable to keep his shock at the god's disheveled appearance from his voice.

The god of dreams had definitely seen better days; his flowing robes, gleaming with all the colors of twilight, were frayed and stained where the hounds' claws and fangs had slashed at the fabric, and the ends of his pencil thin mustache, instead of standing stiff and erect as was their usual wont, drooped, hanging limply against the pale flesh of his cheeks. He had been imprisoned even more thoroughly than the dogs, the golden chains of Hephaestean forging holding him rigid and spread eagled against the far wall.

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever," the god muttered, well aware of his ignominious position and appearance, and more than ready to be released. "I don't really care what you did to the mutts. How about setting me free?"

"Why did Ares imprison you?" Hades asked curiously as he approached the chained god.

Morpheus remained mute, not liking the intensity in Hades' eyes, despite the almost off-handed tone of his question. "What reason does he need to do anything?" he obfuscated. "Are you going to let me loose?"

Hades' eyes narrowed. Since their areas of purview were somewhat related, and even overlapped in certain limited ways, he had been forced to deal with Morpheus rather frequently over the years. Considering he didn't like the other god, it meant he had rather limited patience for Morpheus' usual evasiveness. "No, I don't think so." Feigning a casual air, he concluded, "Well, I need to get going now... Give my regards to Ares."

"No, wait!" Morpheus hurriedly interrupted. He silently cursed his weakness, but he was wholly unwilling to remain chained and at Ares' mercy. The phrase was virtually an oxymoron - a fact which he'd often found quite amusing in the past. Now that he himself was in that position however, he found it to be rather less so.

Smirking slightly at the success of his obvious and rudimentary ploy, Hades asked leadingly, "Yes?"

Morpheus broke down and revealed all - or at least the most salient points. "It was because of this mortal girl," he explained, "she was given to me as a bride by one of my followers, but Ares claimed her for himself and wanted me to release my claim on her. When I wouldn't, he took me by surprise, and..." Morpheus gestured briefly with his hands, shaking the few loose links in his chains to emphasize the results.

"Are you willing to release her now?" Hades asked.

"No way! She's mine! She was dedicated to me, and I want her... I really want her. I mean, you should see her in this little green number she usually wears..." Morpheus hummed appreciatively, a purr entering his voice. "Though I gotta admit, I like that white thing Ares put her in, too." His eyes glimmered, and his mustache twitched.

Even though Hades had never heard of Gabrielle's dedication to Morpheus before now, he had little doubt the god of dreams was telling the truth - for once. Even if he wasn't too frightened to lie, things just seemed to happen to Gabrielle for some reason. To discover that she was involved with yet another god wasn't really very surprising, even if it complicated the situation further.

"In that case, I'm afraid I'm going to have to leave you for Ares," Hades sighed, feigning indifference and mild sorrow at the necessity. "But don't worry... I'm sure he'll appreciate and reward your," he paused and sneered at the god's limp mustache, much to Morpheus' acute embarrassment, "unflagging devotion to her."

"You can't do this to me! You just don't understand!" Morpheus protested, mixed anger and fear making his voice crack. "Ares used me... ME! to try to get Gabrielle for himself! When it didn't work, he was... was..." he trailed off, seeing Hades was unswayed by his protests, and was unliable to be persuaded by further tales of Ares' anger.

Scowling furiously, Morpheus tried to weigh Hades' seriousness. To his chagrin, the god's customarily dour expression made Hades virtually impossible to read. "So, what's the deal? If I give up on Gabrielle," he ventured, "you'll let me go?"

"I think that sounds like a reasonable exchange... if you'll also tell me where she is now," Hades nodded, his expression unchanging.

"Agreed," Morpheus sighed in reluctant agreement. The mortal looks tasty, but my freedom is something worth far more than any concubine. Besides, he soothed himself, I can always enter her dreams and play with her there. A quick little shapechange and... His fingers twitched with the desire to stroke his mustache. After all, he is the king of dreams. "She's free of her obligation to me. I swear on the Styx."

Hades almost smiled as he nodded in acceptance of the oath.

The Dreamweaver looked down as the god of the underworld bent to pull the shackles from his feet, the blaze of their destruction paining his dark-adapted eyes. "Ares sent her somewhere," he explained as Hades reached for his wrists. "I don't know exactly where, but I think it was somewhere in the underworld..." At Hades' frown, he quickly explained, "I couldn't really see what he did because of the chains, but I'm pretty sure of where it went because I could hear the wailing of lost souls through the portal he opened."

"Are you sure?" Hades asked, raising a brow in silent question. He hadn't felt her presence in his own realms, but admittedly he hadn't thought to look there. And, if Ares was shielding her somehow...

"As sure as I can be," Morpheus confirmed quickly. "I don't hang out in your backyard much but... I mean, it's hard to mistake the sound of a lost soul." He couldn't repress a shiver at the memory of those plaintive wails.

Hades nodded, granting the point, and broke the final chain, freeing Morpheus from his bondage.

"Thanks!" the freed god proclaimed, stretching luxuriously. His spine realigned itself with a resounding crack, startlingly loud in the close darkness. Morpheus sighed in relief, then gestured grandly, restoring his robes to their former glory. With a smirk, his mustache grew stiff and proud once more, the ends curving up to shape themselves into delicate points. He laughed, glorying in his freedom, and his mustache actually grew another inch in length, the hairs standing stiff and erect, quivering as he gave voice to his pleasure.

"Oh yeah!" he exulted. "I feel much better now," he trailed off. He stroked his mustache as his eyes gleamed with excitement, "I'll see you later... Even if I can't have the mortal girl, there's this succubus I know with a really nice pair of..." He vanished in a swirl of golden dust before he could finish his sentence, the glow of his departure swiftly swallowed by the darkness.

Hades shook his head in distaste, then shifted his attention to the room at large, seeking signs of Gabrielle's passage. Finding the faint, well-camouflaged traces with an effort, he flickered out, leaving the echoing darkness of Ares' den deserted and empty as he resumed his pursuit.

Hades followed the faint residue of Ares' transport to his own realm, reappearing on a bank of the river Lethe, overlooking one of the less appealing sections of Tartarus. Pools of magma and volcanic vents lent the area an infernal glow. It made it easier for the souls condemned to the pools to see their torments - which was the point, but it also left the air heavy, reeking of fire and brimstone.

It was not one of Hades' favorite places to visit - the heavy sulfuric stench always lingered in his cape, and his armor retained heat exceedingly well. Even though he couldn't truly be harmed by the hellish conditions, it was still unpleasant enough to be uncomfortable, and considering both his role and his familiarity with chthonic realms, that was definitely saying something.

Hades found himself cursing under his breath, Ares' irritating cleverness sticking in his metaphoric craw. However Ares had discovered the existence of this particular place, he'd chosen his hiding place for Gabrielle's soul well.

Not only was it unpleasant, but his senses were also dulled here, the god knew, the strange gasses and odd trace elements vomited forth from the furnace of the Earth's heart changing the composition and nature of the surroundings so rapidly that it blunted his abilities. It was the perfect place to hide something : not even HE wanted to linger here, let alone how any god less adapted to conditions in the underworld would feel about it.

As he contemplated the circumstances, Hades' heart began to sink. The situation was even worse than he had originally supposed; with Gabrielle's soul fragment decomposing, he had only a limited amount of time to find her - and since here he could not locate her using his powers, he'd have to perform the search physically - and time was dwindling rapidly. It would be slow, tedious, and uncomfortable work, and he couldn't even dragoon his assistants into helping : they were so stressed from handling the regular workload in his absence that removing any more of his processing specialists could derail the entire operation. Recovering from such a calamitous catastrophe could take moons - if not years.

Scowling, Hades felt a surge of disgusted appreciation for the sheer evil genius of his nephew. He'd have to think long and hard for some way to reward Ares for this little stunt. He deserved something truly diabolical in recompense... The loss of his pets didn't even begin to approach parity.

Setting aside thoughts of revenge for another time, Hades began planning his search path, attempting to minimize the amount of time he'd have to spend in the fiery region, while maximizing the odds that he'd find Gabrielle. It was a complicated problem, made more so by the constant melting and resolidifying of the serpentine paths around and between the volcanic vents that filled the search area.

Muttering imprecations under his breath, he could only stare at the erupting geysers of lava while his mind worked furiously on the problem.

Not very far away, as distances in the underworld went, Charon poled his boat along Lethe's course, heading for the channel that connected the river of Forgetfulness to the Styx.

Charon was unique, even in the bowels of the earth where unique creatures and conditions abounded. Although not a god, he was an immortal, and one that had been granted an array of powers that enabled him to perform his job - that of ferrying dead souls around the underworld. More, he was also one of the linchpins of the process governing the recycling of souls as they travelled from one life to the next.

He had a steady, important job, made a decent salary, and was immortal. By most people's standards, he should have been darn near the happiest being in existence.

Charon had laughed outright in the face of the first person to tell him that... before almost bursting into tears.

Unfortunately, none of the things most people assumed equated to satisfaction actually guaranteed happiness. This was a fact Charon had known with bone-deep certainty even before his first day on the job was completed. After centuries at his task, he was beyond dissatisfaction and even beyond apathy. Again, he was unique.

For a time, he'd taken some comfort in his salary. Hades could afford to be generous to his employees : he "owned" all the gold and gems under the earth's surface. He'd arranged a nice deal for Charon. One dinar per soul might not seem like much, but it added up quickly - especially after they started minting 5, 10, 20 dinar and even larger denomination coins (Charon never gave change).

Over time, he'd accumulated a king's ransom... and then another... and then another... Soon, collecting his fare had become just another task to perform. What need did he really have for more money? Or for any money, for that matter. There was nothing to spend it on in the underworld.

The only reason why he didn't eventually forgo collecting his fare was that the requirement helped his workload... slightly. No money, no passage - which meant less work. His requirement of payment was less a matter of greed or job satisfaction than of moderating his workload. The money definitely didn't make him happy.

Did the fact that he was performing important, steady work make him happy? Hardly. For Charon, it simply meant he was constantly on his feet working around the clock. His last break had happened just as Athens was being founded, and he couldn't even remember when he'd had his last vacation.

Did immortality make him happy? If there was one thing Charon knew better than anyone, being immortal was no picnic either. Zarathustra and Cecrops had both cursed their immortality, seeing the world pass them by, ever changing while they remained forever the same. It was inevitable that they grew to feel cast adrift and disconnected from the rest of the world.

Charon had never even had the dubious pleasure of seeing the world change to enjoy : he was condemned to travelling the unchanging waters of the underworld, the shades of the dead his only companions while the sounds of misery and torment filled his ears and the stench of decay and death filled his nostrils.

Was it any wonder he was usually in a foul mood?

"But you're an immortal," a bard had once argued with him. "At least you've got your health." One glimpse of what millennia of standing in his barge had done to his feet had been enough to cure the bard of that delusion.

The bard never even realized that his aching feet, all things considered, were the least of Charon's problems. Being immortal, Charon was technically immune to the effects of the five rivers of the underworld. Technicalities however, had never proved very significant in the afterlife.

Constant, long-term exposure to the waters of the underworld - the contaminated waters of the Styx and the flaming waters of Phlegethon, in particular - and the noxious vapors all of the rivers emitted had a deleterious effect on his body. Not even an immortal's constitution could wholly ignore such a long-term accumulation of such potent toxins.

Charon was physically strong and healthy... he simply didn't look like he was healthy. He didn't even look like he was alive. Truthfully, he looked partially decayed.

His skin was a pale, wrinkled corpse-grey in hue, and the flesh sagged away from his bones. His eyes had sunken into their sockets, and had turned a uniform, nonreflective black. His fingers, being more exposed to the environment, looked positively skeletal. Fortunately for his passengers, the rest of him was hidden from view by his hooded robe.

Was it any wonder he was usually in a foul mood?

Not even the foolhardy bard had challenged him on that question a second time.

And so, as was his usual manner when ferrying his customers to their final judgement, Charon was muttering to himself, cursing the long hours he had to work and the piteous state of his feet after standing for months on end, for years on end. His speech was slightly repetitious, but he didn't really care; it let him vent, and it was pretty much his only release. Besides, although by nature he was very gregarious, most recently dead souls didn't have that much to say. He tried to fill in the suffocating silences, but given his job, his nature, and his surroundings, he usually did so with complaints.

The three souls he was delivering in his current bargeload, unsure what to make of the being's conversation with himself, wisely remained mute. They were still too startled by the newness of being dead (all three were villagers who had been killed in a raid by a warlord named Kretag, in case you were curious) to say much, nor to properly appreciate the surprisingly diverse scenery of the underworld that was unfolding around them along the route Charon was taking them.

Charon of course, ignored it, having seen it countless times before, as he slowly but steadily continued to pole along his course, going about his job of delivering the dead to their debarkation points. His passengers remained silent, even when Charon's muttered conversation with himself reached one of its rare halts. But then, his twisted, decayed-looking features weren't overly conducive to friendly conversation - another point that he frequently mentioned in his talks with himself.

Sighting Hades standing near the bank of the river, Charon froze momentarily, then fiddled with his hooded robe, rearranging the way the enveloping garment fell about his body, and redirecting the way it draped over something lying in the bottom of the boat. He actually remained silent for long minutes as he pondered the meaning underlying his boss' rare visit.

Sighing heavily, he breathed out and sent a waft of air drifting towards his passengers. He ignored their retching - it wasn't his fault that his breath smelled like a tomb that had been opened near a midden heap, after all - and clenched his hands around his pole.

He's never around when you work like a dog, but make one little mistake, and the boss is right there watching you. I should have known I wouldn't get away with it, Charon realized in disgust. Shaking his head and muttering to himself, he altered his course, bringing his barge to a halt beside his overlord. "Boss! How nice to see ya," he began in a friendly tone, though his voice contained a quaver of fear. He attempted a friendly smile, but it looked more like a corpse's rictus, his teeth grey against the sunken black flesh of his gums.

Coming out of his reverie, though still preoccupied with planning his search, Hades simply nodded a greeting. "Charon."

The boatman began to sweat, the fluid that oozed from his cadaverous body oily and dark as it rolled over the wrinkled folds of his skin. Licking his lips with his swollen blue-black tongue, Charon began again. "Look boss, I can explain... I didn't mean to, ya know, but... what can I say? I'm only hu... well, no I'm not, but you know what I mean, right? Right?"

Although he wasn't listening to Charon's stammering, Hades glanced up when his voice cracked near the end of his statement. Not being in any mood to deal with Charon's complaints, he decided to simply take care of what he thought the immortal wanted; Charon would then get back to work, leaving him in peace.

Glancing over the three souls sitting in the barge, Hades swiftly passed Judgement. "The fields," he said to the first, then "Tartarus." Seeing the expression of shock on the second dead soul's face, he explained, "You killed your brother to get his inheritance and you expected otherwise?" Turning to the final soul, he repeated, "Tartarus. We have a special place reserved for rapists. I hope you hate it there, because you're going to be there for a very long time."

Having completed his Judgement, Hades shifted his attention back to the lava pools, staring through Charon's form without really seeing him. His concentration had already entirely returned to its focus upon the search.

Charon remained still, the acrid sweat pouring from his body as his boss seemed to stare into the depths of his soul, and his guilty conscience worked on him. Why did the boss have to do this to me? he wondered, cringing back from the intent gaze that bored so relentlessly into him.

He held out against Hades' unknowingly penetrating gaze for a few moments more, and then his fragile facade of forthrightness quickly collapsed : he could stand the awful tension no more. Charon broke down and sobbed, "Alright! I confess... I'm sorry boss, I won't do it again! Please, please forgive me?"

Disturbed by Charon's loud pleading, Hades stared into his sunken eyes and refrained from shouting at him only with a great deal of effort. He had only a little time to plan an optimal search, and if he kept getting interrupted, he'd never be able to find Gabrielle in time. "Well?" he asked with exaggerated patience, expecting an explanation, but, much to his surprise, getting a confession instead.

"You see boss, I was taking a load over, same as always, just like I do day in and day out," seeing the impatience on Hades' face, Charon flinched and cut off his usual round of complaints. "Anyway, I was just minding my own business when I heard it."

"It?" Hades asked impatiently. Charon's complaints, although admittedly often valid, grew tiresome to listen to after the first thousand years. Besides, with the perennial problem of limited personnel, he couldn't redress the boatman's complaints - and had explained that very point to him many times before.

"Now I know I'm not supposed to take a personal interest in the customers," he held up his hands in a defensive pose, automatically warding off the anticipated response, "I know! I know, and it's a good rule, don't get me wrong, but I'd dealt with this soul before. Heck, we've chatted a buncha times. Nothing like a good story or two to liven the day down here... Well, you know what I mean."

Hades' eyes narrowed. He didn't like the sound of this confession. He was beginning to feel that Charon was trying to talk around the fact that he had committed a serious transgression.

The souls in the boat, already discomfited by the Judgement, shrank back as the full weight of Hades' disapproval was leveled in their direction. Hades wasn't evil or casually wicked- was virtually the one foundation upon which the whole of the underworld was based. NOTHING was more rigid than the necessity of compliance with that stricture.

Hades'd had to pay dearly the few times he'd ever been compelled to alter his judgement, and Charon knew that full well. How could the ferryman have stooped so low as to violate that most sacred precept?

Maybe, Hades thought suddenly, his brows beetling as he weathered the initial shock and was able to think more objectively about the revelation, I should have listened to Charon's complaints more closely, maybe given him some time off - or even a vacation. If I can't rely on Charon, the whole system for dealing with the deceased - one that I've spent millennia perfecting - could be poised on the edge of a precipice, ready to collapse. It gave him a headache even to think of the possibility.

"I think," Hades began, sighing as he slowly released his anger in a long, calming exhalation, "you know how serious this is."

"Yeah, boss," Charon acknowledged, his head hung low in shame. "I just didn't understand how she coulda been put there. I mean, I thought I was used to the screams down here but she, she... Zeus! They was just awful, boss."

Eyebrows rising in surprise at this added piece of information, Hades asked faintly, "She?" Charon didn't once bring up his oft-mentioned lack of "companionship" in his explanation. Had he really dared my wrath and risked breaking the cycle because he was... but no, Charon knew better than to do something like this for so flimsy a reason as carnal lust. "Who exactly did you... 'rescue' from their fate, Charon?"

Face contorting into a pained smile, Charon stepped back. The folds of his robe drew away from the shape they'd been protecting from the waters of the underworld. Once fully revealed, the shape moved, stretching unconsciously as its skin felt the torrid heat of the muggy air falling upon it.

Curled about his feet was the huddled, fetal form of Gabrielle of Potadaiea.

Hades simply stared at the battered and scorched soul fragment, completely and utterly at a loss for words.

"Like I was saying," Charon attempted to explain, still hoping for a modicum of mercy, "I was passing by, and she was just standing in this pillar of flame and screaming... you ain't never..." he trailed off, "well maybe you've heard somethin' like it before, 'cause you are who you are, but I sure haven't. She was screamin' all sorts of stuff about bug-boy, ya know the one, Dahak? and the pain inside," he shivered. "Sends chills down my spine even thinkin' about it."

Looking down into Gabrielle's pale face, Charon felt his mood lighten despite the circumstances, and was compelled to explain further. "Ya know, most of these hero types who go back and forth allatime... they just build up tabs, never pay for any of their passages, and then have the gall to complain about the service, besides. Like that Hercules guy... Son of Zeus or not, he promised me a pig, then didn't deliver. Some hero he is. This one wouldn't do something like that... She always pays in full with her stories, and last time she was down here, she even paid off her friend's - that Xena's - tab too. Anyway, I knew you'd sent her ta the fields the other times she's been down here, but then I heard she was supposed to be for the Amazon land of the dead, so when I heard her sufferin' in there... Well, I just figured it musta been some kinda mistake. She's somethin' special, and I guess I just..." he shrugged.

Hades was still staring at Gabrielle, not even hearing Charon's half-hearted explanation.

"Boss?" Charon asked tentatively. When he failed to respond to the prompt, he ventured again, "Hades?" waving his gnarled hand in front of the god's eyes.

The god of the underworld slowly began speaking, his voice... sepulchral. "After you take this load over, go ahead and take a break for a candlemark or so. After I take care of some things, I'm going to call in a favor and have Aesclepias come down and take a look at your feet."

The ferryman was floored. "Boss? Are you feelin' alright?" Charon asked, looking askance at the god. He'd broken the prime rule of the underworld, but instead of the punishment he'd expected, he was being rewarded! He was being given some of the things he'd been wanting for generations! Charon wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth - years of disappointment had ground that trait out of him, but this was a bit much.

"I'll explain later." Bending down, Hades gathered Gabrielle's frail and faded form into his arms, shocked by how light and intangible she seemed - even for a soul. "But like I said... take that break. You've earned it." Pausing, he added, a faint tinge of humor lightening his voice, "But next time... check with me before you do something like this, hmm?"

Hades flickered out of sight, but before he vanished, there was an actual, full-fledged smile on his face.

Charon simply stared at the spot from which his boss had disappeared, unable to believe his eyes and ears. He was getting a break? And a visit from a sawbones? Those were even rarer than smiles from the boss. His twisted features screwed themselves into a grin that was even more frightening in appearance than his customary scowl. "Let's get this show on the road!" he proclaimed, eyes alight in the shadowy recesses of his cowl.

He didn't understand what had just happened, but quite frankly, didn't really care. He wasn't truly happy - but at least he was less miserable. Shoving off with his pole, he resumed his last journey before getting his much anticipated break, the barge moving much more swiftly than before.

Charon whistled a jaunty nautical tune, and even danced a small jig as he poled along, his movements making the small craft rock in the spare current of the stagnant water. A break and a doctor's visit? His feet were feeling better already.

Teleporting out of the underworld, Hades cradled the frail shade of Gabrielle to his chest. It was time to return to the campsite - and to the impromptu gathering of the gods.

Hades simply couldn't believe his good fortune. How could such an impossible set of coincidence have come together? Hades wondered as he traveled. To compel Charon to violate every rule that existed in order to rescue Gabrielle's soul fragment, only to have him turn around and reveal his culpability at the exact moment I was about to begin searching for her? It defied rational explanation.

Remembering who he carried, he simply shrugged and dismissed the idle thought. Things happen around Gabrielle - that's just the way the world works.

It was an intellectually unsatisfying, yet all too accurate assessment.

Smiling in sudden amusement, he shifted dimensions and rose out of the ground, returning to his place in the gathering.

"...and another thing," he heard Zeus say, "what do you think is going to happen when you keep messing with the mortals' destinies?"

Zeus' lecture was still rolling. Despite the gravity of the situation, Hades couldn't quite suppress a small snort of disbelief. The arrogance and sheer self-absorption of my brother is just plain unbelievable at times.

Naturally, Zeus heard the slight sound. "What took you so long?" he demanded.

"What?" Hades asked, utterly taken aback.

"I said," Zeus repeated himself, slight irritation entering his voice, "'What took you so long?' You did recover the missing piece of Gabrielle, correct?"

Shocked, Hades could only nod, still clutching Gabrielle's shade.

"Good," Zeus nodded smugly. "That means we're only missing one of the principals."

The confusion and uncertainty that afflicted Hades was beginning to spread among the other gods. Zeus had shifted to a wholly unexpected tangent, which meant they were missing critical information... and knowledge is power.

"Ex-squeeze me?" Aphrodite asked.

"This whole sorry mess has gone on for far too long. It's past time to bring this... this... chapter to a close, one way or the other." Zeus intoned, his voice gaining gravity with each syllable.

"What?" Hephaestus asked, truly taken aback. "You want to... You were..." He gestured vaguely, unable to clearly articulate his maelstrom of thoughts. "Then what was the point of that... that dressing down?"

"Were you paying attention?" Zeus asked with one eyebrow raised, "Good. Maybe you'll think next time before voluntarily contributing to an already much too complicated situation."

Hades' eyes narrowed. Suddenly things which had seemed quite disparate were beginning to come together as his mind made some connections he'd missed before now... The answer was obvious : Zeus had tricked him - he had tricked them all.

The clues had been there : the missing piece of information he'd conveniently revealed, the lecture on responsibility he'd delivered, yet ignoring Hades while compelling the other gods to remain behind to listen to him - all so he would have the necessary time to recover Gabrielle's soul fragment from Ares without interference... Everything had been part of Zeus' plan - or at least had fallen within the scope of his expectations.

Despite his irritation at having been used as his brother's pawn, Hades couldn't quite suppress a growing feeling of admiration for the subtle, sneaky machinations. Zeus had always been exceedingly clever, but this latest scheme seemed to be a devious masterstroke. He'd suspected absolutely nothing, and still had done exactly as Zeus wanted. No wonder he'd managed to hold on to his throne for so long. Hera had nothing on her husband for scheming. "Clever bastard," he muttered, reluctant admiration in his voice as he shook his head in mild self-disgust.

Persephone frowned, not knowing enough of the underlying motives in the situation to understand all the levels hidden in the sullen muttering that surrounded her, but knowing more than enough to be concerned. "So who's the other principal?"

"Who's missing?" Hercules echoed, surprised and even slightly pleased with the new gravity his father was showing. He was acting almost kingly - even if he was being rather smug about it. It was a far cry from his usually pose of helpless incapacity that he feigned when he wanted to shirk his responsibilities or was ignoring one of his children's requests for help.

The others had already realized the answer to their question.

"Ares," Xena responded darkly, her fists clenching. Looking into the heavens, she screamed, "ARES!" every fiber of her being resounding with the strength of her cry.

They waited expectantly, but the god of war failed to respond.

"I have no patience for his little games this time," Zeus muttered sourly. Stretching out one glowing hand, he twisted, and in a flicker of light, a man appeared before them.

He was completely naked... and he looked nothing like Ares.

"You missed," Artemis gasped, turning away from the man to glare at her father in disgust.

After a pause as everyone blinked away their surprise, Xena's voice cut through the pervading atmosphere of shock. Her tone was smooth and mellow, all but caressing the listening gods' ears with its silken touch. "No he didn't. Hello, Ares. Still seducing the wives of your soldiers?"

The man's grin was evilly knowing as he mocked the other gods' brief inability to penetrate his concealing transformation. "Can I help it if my job has some great benefits?" A brief flicker of light later, Ares stood in his customary appearance before them, clad in his leathers. He ignored both Aphrodite's disgust and Artemis' rage, and turned to face his father. "You called?" he asked, raising one mocking eyebrow.

Zeus nodded, willing to ignore his son's insolence - for the moment. "The matter of Gabrielle of Potadaiea has gone on much too long, and the feuding and infighting have reached unprecedented levels. It is all going to stop. Now."

Ares didn't bother protesting his innocence - nobody ever believed him anyway; he simply adjusted his swordbelt and remained silent. He'd figured Zeus would have to intervene eventually - the contentious natures of the parties involved had virtually guaranteed it. "You called me away from Athens for this?" he muttered.

Ignoring him yet again, Zeus forged ahead, turning to his brother. "Hades... bring her forward."

Hades stepped forward, cradling Gabrielle's shade and scowling at Ares.

Ares crossed his arms across his chest, affecting a disinterest in Hades' anger that wasn't wholly false. Briefly he wondered what Menelaus' wife would think (considering he'd been pulled away from her literally mid-stroke) she had to realize he wasn't her husband - but dismissed the thought as unimportant. There were always other mortals.

The other gods were shocked, both at having had her spirit successfully recovered (they'd been too busy trying to evade being the focus of Zeus' wrath during his lecture to notice Hades' surreptitious disappearance and return) and at how wan and wasted Gabrielle looked. The mortals, unable to see Gabrielle's shade, simply looked askance at the way the god was holding his arms.

For his part, Ares simply scowled, cursing sulfurously in his head as he realized the last of his machinations had been thwarted by Hades' discovery of her soul fragment's location. Barring extreme good providence - which hadn't been happening for him lately - neither Gabrielle nor Xena would be his. Discarding the wrecked plans with a small sigh of regret, he swiftly reordered his priorities, hiding his dissatisfaction with the situation under a rigid mask of bored disinterest. He'd tried his best, but had failed; so be it. Now he just had to avoid the consequences of his actions.

To his surprise, Ares didn't feel quite as disappointed that Gabrielle would recover as he'd expected; he was upset, true, but he felt a faint tinge of satisfaction at her recovery - though he had absolutely no interest to revealing that discovery to anyone. She kind of grows on you... like a fungus, he told himself, looking down on her incorporeal body with a sneer.

Xena's expression slowly changed to surprised excitement as she realized what was hidden from her view, and her happiness illuminated her face. Hades' posture implied he was holding something, and Zeus' command told her what it had to be. Gabrielle's soul has been found, she exulted in her heart. Gabrielle will be alright...

Aphrodite smiled, glorying in the delicious vibes that were pouring out of the warrior. She gestured briefly, and in a shower of rose petals, Gabrielle's soul faded into the mortals' view.

The warrior princess instantly rushed to Hades' side, bowling Iolaus over in her unheeding haste. Gabrielle looks so wan... so hurt.

Xena reached to take Gabrielle's soul away from the god, but her arms simply thumped against his breastplate - without touching Gabrielle, but rocking Hades back on his heels from the force of the impact.

Souls are intangible in the mortal world, she abruptly remembered, Hades' explanation of the process during Atyminius' escape returning to her. Xena snarled, showing her perfect teeth to Hades, actually making him physically step back a pace from her threatening presence.

"Enough, Xena," Zeus commanded. Seeing his brother cowed by the mortal was amusing, but he had to maintain a firm control over the situation. It was chaotic enough already without allowing any feuding to erupt amongst those gathered around Gabrielle.

Xena whirled on the king of the gods, opening her mouth to protest. She froze upon seeing the set of grim resolve in his features, and instead simply stared at him silently, swallowing unvoiced her intended complaints. Gabrielle needs Zeus' help, she reminded herself firmly, and that was reason enough to bank the fires of her anger. Reluctantly, she acceded to Zeus order, though her expression clearly conveyed her dissatisfaction with the necessity.

Smiling slightly at the angry warrior's obedience, he faced the other gods and resumed speaking, his voice ringing with majesty and control. "Before this matter can properly be addressed, Gabrielle must be in a position to accept or protest the judgement," he intoned sententiously. Turning to his brother, he commanded, "Hades?"

Gently, the god of the underworld touched the center of Gabrielle's shade's forehead with the tip of his index finger. His finger glowed briefly, and seemed to sink into her intangible substance. After a moment, he pulled his glowing finger free of her incorporeal flesh, and stood her upright, balancing her carefully with his free hand.

The ghost's eyes opened - slowly, as though she feared where she would find herself upon regaining consciousness. Hades' touch had strengthened her, adding the faintest tinge of color to her transparent cheeks and clearing the worst of the effects of her time in Tartarus, but she was still feeling its lingering touch. She blinked several times, seeming to come back to herself. She looked up, and stared directly into the luminous azure eyes of her warrior. "Xena!" she gasped, leaping into her outstretched arms... and through them, passing completely through her friend's body.

Crouching after regaining her balance, the bard muttered an indelicate word that startled the other mortals with its vitriol. "So we're back to this again... Maybe Cyane was right," she mused quietly.

"Cyane?" Hercules and Xena each echoed, identical expressions of uncertainty on their faces. Although each was thinking of a different Amazon, the thought that Gabrielle could know of their past involvement was equally disconcerting to both, though for quite different reasons.

Waving her hand in dismissal of the matter, Gabrielle slowly rose. Turning in place, she identified each of the people gathered together, her eyes widening as she absorbed each one's presence. She abruptly stopped as she found herself staring at her prone body. "This is so weird," she muttered.

Crouching beside her unmoving form, she slowly reached out to touch her body's face, only to have her hand sink through the skin without feeling anything impede its movement. Exhaling heavily, she stood up before turning to face the assemblage, mind awhirl as she contemplated her odd condition.

Zeus held up one hand and stopped her before she could speak. "Hephaestus? Your device will support her body while it is without a soul?"

"For a time," the god of the forge answered, his eyes still locked on the strange sight of Gabrielle's soul standing beside her prone body. "But for no more than a moon. After that the muscles will begin to atrophy, and the brain to decay."

"That's fine," Zeus smiled. "Celesta?"

The goddess of death stepped forward, shielding the candle which had appeared in one pale hand with the other. Smiling comfortingly at Gabrielle's shade, she bent down and gently touched the unmoving body's chest with her free hand.

For a moment, it looked like Gabrielle's body's face blurred, but as it gradually resolved itself, it began to look more like it had doubled. A transparent copy of Gabrielle's body slowly sat up from out of the confines of the body's unmoving form and stretched, arching her back sinuously despite her lack of substance. "Oh, that's much better," the second shade of Gabrielle murmured as she rose to her feet. "I had the worst crick in my back."

Xena's jaw dropped, and Autolycus' and Iolaus' were bare moments behind. Hercules, having already far surpassed his ability to be startled by strangeness, simply raised an eyebrow in mute consideration. He'd seen stranger; not much, to be sure, but some.

The two shades of Gabrielle stared aghast at each other. In unison, they glanced down at "their" body, then looked back at each other again, then said in perfect harmony, "This is so weird."

"Oooh," Autolycus whispered, "I like the potential of this a lot better than I did the Salmonii." A vision of himself and the two - or three - Gabrielles distracted the king of thieves until Iolaus' elbow in his short ribs returned him to the situation at hand.

For her part, Xena was simply flabbergasted.

The Warrior Princess was a widely travelled woman with a surfeit of experience. She'd dealt with gods, monsters, bacchae, demons, and virtually everything else strange and unusual that the world (and close dimensions) had to offer. Yet when confronted by this strange tripling of her bard, she was rendered completely speechless. Not that this oddity was unprecedented : she'd been confronted by a trio of Gabrielles before - and at least this time they weren't naked. Still, coming hard on the heels of everything else that had happened to her, this splitting of Gabrielle severely tasked her already strained control.

While Xena was not one of Aphrodite's favorite mortals, she had done the goddess some favors a time or two. More importantly, the vibes she'd been sending out since she'd realized there was a hope of Gabrielle recovering were sweeter than the most impassioned prayer to the blonde goddess. The sudden change in those vibrations as Xena gaped stunned at her bard was almost painful; she needed the goddess' help - badly.

The love goddess simply could not ignore what she was feeling from the warrior at this moment of crisis - no matter how annoying she sometimes found her to be. It was time for the love goddess to "do her thing" - and in her own inimitable way.

Sidling over to the stunned Xena, Aphrodite whispered in her ear reassuringly while subliminally broadcasting her own vibes back to the mortal, "Warrior babe... look : there's three of her again. Think of the possibilities..." she leered suggestively, running one hand teasingly up the mortal's bare arm, toying with her bracer.

Xena's angry scowl was not what Aphrodite had wanted as a reaction from the warrior, but it was hardly the worst thing she'd thought might happen. More importantly, Xena was also snapped out of her stunned stupor, the irritation at the prurient suggestion bringing her back to herself faster than a bucket of cold water would have - and not as messily. The love goddess didn't mind the brush off; even if her altered vibes weren't quite as delicious as they had been, they were still groovy.

After the warrior's mind had restarted itself, it immediately began to consider possible solutions to this latest twist in Gabrielle's dilemma. Ignoring Aphrodite after one withering look, Xena tried to think of a cure for Gabrielle's... twinning.

Ares' reaction to his sister's sly suggestion was less productive than Xena's, though just as heartfelt. A leer twisted his lips as his eyes lingered hungrily on the multiple barely-dressed Gabrielles, his mind running in a direction remarkably similar to Autolycus', spawning visions of intriguing permutations and combinations - and positions. He may have given up on his original plans, but he could still dream of gaining Gabrielle for himself.

"Gabrielle..." The visions were so appealing and distracting that Ares didn't even realize he'd spoken her name aloud, drawing attention to himself and his musings. When he realized the other gods had noticed his distraction, he shook off the mesmerizingly erotic mental maundering and attempted to divert attention from the actual content of his thoughts. "Hey Gabrielle..." with a snap of his fingers, strange music with a pounding rhythm and wailing overtones began to play, "dance for us."

The two mobile portions of the trinity of Gabrielle turned and cast identical withering looks at the war god.

"Come on, Gabrielle," Ares urged, his voice rich and deep with a sultry invitation, "I'll even let you take off that outfit so you can dance naked for me... again." His smirk was luridly suggestive.

Wearing identical scowls, the two shades marched in perfect synchronization up to the war god. Each drew back a hand, and in perfectly mirrored harmony, slapped him viciously in the face.

None were more surprised than the Gabrielles when he was thrown to the ground with a subdued thud by the force of the impact, identical red handprints appearing on the startled god's face. "What the...?" Ares demanded, sitting up and staring at the two parts of Gabrielle's soul. He reached out and swatted at one, but his hand passed harmlessly through her substance.

The two Gabrielles exchanged identical grins and slapped their hands together in celebration, uncaring that their hands passed completely through each other. The expression on Ares' face as they slapped him had been priceless. Even though they were still in a great deal of trouble, they exulted in the momentary triumph over their nemesis.

In the stunned shock that descended upon the gathering in the aftermath of the blow and the Gabrielles' celebration, no one noticed Artemis' secretive smirk as she blew a small wisp of smoke away from one of her index fingers. My Gabrielle is not for Ares to drool over, she gloated, unable to wholly hide her satisfaction at her success.

Ares leaped to his feet with a scowl, his anger clouding his expression, but he was stopped before he could retaliate. Even in the depths of his rage, he was smart enough to freeze when Zeus raised his voice like...

"Enough!" the king of the gods barked. "This is exactly what I was talking about. You can't even be trusted to behave when the mortal's - the one you profess to care about - soul is in danger of dissolution!"

Xena's eyes widened. She hadn't realized the full extent of Gabrielle's plight, although the fact that her soul had been split in twain should have clued her to the lingering peril.

Zeus ignored her mental wanderings, though the intensity of her reaction was such that it fairly screamed in the gods' mental ears, making several of them wince in reaction. He continued, his voice as icy as the lowest level of Tartarus, "I have had enough. You will stay here, and you will accept my judgement in this matter, or by the severed genitals of Uranus, you'll never leave!"

A sharp crackling sound, like innumerable branches simultaneously succumbing to the weight of snow blanketing them, filled the air, and without so much as the faintest coruscation of light, Zeus and the two parts of Gabrielle's soul were gone, leaving the others surrounding Gabrielle's unmoving body.

Ares frowned, his expression coming close to a pout as he stared at the empty spot where the two pieces of Gabrielle's soul had been. Although his cheeks still bore the marks of Gabrielle's hands, the embarrassment of being struck down in front of his fellow gods pained him still more. Despite his irritation, he was wise enough to recognize when a tactical retreat was necessary - and even beneficial : his father was angry enough with everyone that he could evade personal punishment for his actions if he willingly complied with the all-encompassing penalties that were sure to follow.

"Give Gabrielle my love when she gets better," Ares sneered to the rest of the gathering in general. Raising one hand he snapped his fingers.

Nothing happened.

Scowling, he tried again, his eyes narrowing in concentration.

Again, nothing happened.

He remained in the clearing, his attempt at teleporting away suppressed so efficiently he hadn't even felt the squelch as the power he'd summoned was drained away.

Artemis had scowled as Ares announced his intention to leave, but made no move to stop his exit. Baiting the embarrassed wargod - especially while his face still bore the marks of his failure - was not a wise move - even for another god.

When Ares remained in the clearing despite several attempts to leave, her brow furrowed. "What..." she began, only to be cut off by a cry of outrage from Aphrodite.

"This is so totally bogus," the goddess cried out, running her hands over the invisible barrier that now surrounded the clearing, keeping them trapped within.

"I didn't know you were a mime," Iolaus said in surprise, misinterpreting her motions as she felt the slick surface of the barrier.

"Mime?" Aphrodite demanded, outraged by the accusation. She lifted her right hand and held it palm up before her face. "I'll show you a mime," she retorted, blowing on her hand.

As though inflated by her breath, a glowing red heart slowly swelled into existence on her palm. When it was approximately the size of her head, she sent it flying away from her, the emanation increasing in size as it went. The heart was nearly five feet tall when it impacted against the invisible barrier, and it exploded in a beautiful display of color and light, the pink energy it had contained dancing across the surface of the wall, briefly illuminating its shape.

Realizing he was trapped, Autolycus frowned, beginning to feel penned in despite the invisible nature of the barrier. He hated being imprisoned, and the fact that the king of the gods had done it to him didn't make the situation any more palatable. Mortal prisons were easy to escape from - divine ones weren't nearly as forgiving.

Holding his right arm at his side, the king of thieves cocked his wrist and caught the grappling hook that fell into his hand. Moving away from the others, he slowly began whirling the hook on the end of its cable, letting it fly when it was moving fast enough. The tool soared into the air until it was almost fifteen feet over his head... and then it impacted with the invisible barrier and ricocheted back down, landing with a muffled thud in the dirt.

Scowling, he tried it again, this time in the center of the clearing. Although the tool went slightly higher this time, again the barrier stopped it. There was no escape.

Although his expression had been distracted as he examined the barrier, Hephaestus eventually sighed in resignation. When Autolycus' failure confirmed his suspicions, he limped over to a log, sinking down on it and stretching out in an attempt to make his lamed leg more comfortable. "You might as well relax," he informed the others. "We're trapped."

"What?" a chorus of divine voices demanded.

"We're surrounded by a semi-permeable spherical barrier designed to prevent our escaping," he informed them. "Quite fascinating... If you think about it, it's an ingenious prison. Save for being trapped within its perimeter, we are wholly unfettered... yet even with our powers, we're still held in check. Even knowing how it was created, I don't see a way to escape it."

"No way!" Aphrodite protested.

"I'm afraid so. I wondered why Zeus was so interested in the construction of my chair," he mused to himself, "Now I know. I wonder how he..." he trailed off as he contemplated the improvements Zeus had made to his creation, already planning the next generation for his device... "The power consumption would be prohibitive for me, but perhaps if I encased a field generator in an elliptical shell," he mused, working out the details in his head.

Hermes ignored the resounding cries of protest and floated into the air, the wings on his footgear flapping wildly as he tested the barrier's coverage overhead, seeking holes Autolycus' tool had missed, but finding none.

On the ground, Ares drew his sword and began to test the strength of the barrier, his face darkening with each blow the invisible wall repulsed.

Finally, Hades sank into the earth, returning moments later, his expression even more glum than usual as he reported his failure to escape the barrier. They were completely surrounded by Zeus' construct.

After watching the gods unsuccessfully seek an escape, Xena sank down beside Gabrielle's body and took one of the pale hands between her own. Even though rationally she knew it was only an empty vessel, devoid of what had made it so special, she still felt better being near her friend's body, and she craved the reassurance of her presence.

Autolycus put away his grappling hook and idly began flipping a coin, trying unsuccessfully to distract himself from his captivity.

Hercules and Iolaus shared a look, then sat on the log next to Hephaestus. There wasn't much else they could do.

Eventually, the other gods joined those who were sitting and waiting. After being stymied in their escape attempts, they seemed distraught, but content to sit and wait for Zeus' return.

Only Ares refused to submit to captivity; fireballs in various hues, miniature lightning bolts, and shafts of raw divine power poured from his hands, splashing against the barrier in a pyrotechnic display that was as beautiful as it was futile. Despite the power the god of war unleashed, the barrier remained impenetrable to him.

For a moment, even with Gabrielle's danger and the god's role in creating it, Xena felt a faint pang of sympathy for Ares - an impulse which she quickly suppressed. No matter how much she or Gabrielle tried to deny it, it was indisputable that she understood the god of war... and right now she knew exactly what he was feeling.

Like him, she loathed being restrained. Every fiber of her being protested the condition, screaming to be released. This clearing was infinitely more hospitable than Ming Tien's dungeon or Thalassa's playground on Shark Island had been, but it was no less of a prison - and her spirit roared its protest at the confinement.

But despite her instincts and inclinations, she remained steady and still, not giving in to her desire to join Ares in his maddened fit of rage. Sitting by Hephaestus' glittering device and maintaining her vigil, Xena refused to release the anger she felt - and that Ares continued to vent. If remaining here would encourage Zeus to help Gabrielle, she would gladly sit quietly, leashing the snarling wolf of her fury at the confinement.

Although not everyone was quite as sympathetic to Ares' feelings as the warrior princess, he was still the center of attention. While the clearing was nice enough, the spectacle of the wargod's frenzy was far more interesting - and instructive.

Of them all, Hades was the most absorbed, watching Ares' furious display with professional interest, fascinated by the inventiveness the god of war showed in his attacks. Watching him in action was a veritable tutorial in both elegant and brutal destruction - and he and the other gods present were enraptured, absorbing and learning from everything he did.

It was awe-inspiring, the way Ares ignored everything and everyone around him as he fought against the restraints Zeus had imposed upon him. In his fury, he unleashed weapons from his arsenal that none of the other gods had seen before. In the energies launched by Ares in his attempts to pierce the barrier were subtleties of energy and composition that they'd never even considered - subtleties that added to the potency of the attacks, but which also suggested avenues of exploration for the uses of their own powers. Secrets of knowledge and application he'd prepared and hoarded against a day of need were openly displayed - costing him dearly in coin of wasted effort and preparation. Unsurprisingly, not one of the gods made a move to stop him.

His singlemindedness was almost as awesome as the potency of Zeus' barrier - which continued to repel every attack, no matter how creative or powerful.

Eventually, frustrated beyond words, Ares thrust his right hand into the air. With a flicker of light, an ornate wand, made of golden metal and topped by a faceted crystal gripped in a setting shaped like a leathery, taloned paw, materialized in his hand. He stared into the depths of the crystal, breathing heavily as he recovered from his exertions.

Now he's going to far, Hades decided. Instructive or not, if Ares is mad enough to even contemplate using the Crystal Rod of War inside this barrier, it's past time to stop him. Contained by the barrier, the wand's power would be magnified - instantly killing the mortals within Zeus' prison, and possibly even the half-god Hercules. He has to be stopped.

Hades moved to Ares' side, distracting him from summoning any additional power through the rod. "Enough!" he commanded him, keeping his voice firm and calm. Lowering his voice so the others couldn't hear his words, he added, certainty ringing in every syllable, "If you use that in here, Xena will die," he emphasized, "...and she will never be yours."

Even through the haze of fury and madness that had covered Ares' mind, that statement was able to reach him. It knifed through the rage and quelled the fires raging in his soul, even the possibility of that loss shocking him to the core. Shaking, Ares actually thought about what the attack he had been going to unleash would have done - trapped within the walls of the barrier - and felt his blood run cold. Hades was right.

"So sit down and wait like the rest of us," Hades finished, satisfied to see the quelling effect of his words on his nephew.

"Or what?" Ares sneered, still angry about his confinement, even if he was considerably more rational.

"Or I tell Hercules, Artemis, and Xena exactly what you did to Gabrielle, and what your ploy would have meant if we hadn't recovered her..."

Ares frowned as he considered that threat.

Hades harshly concluded, "... while you're trapped here and can't escape. So sit down, shut up, and don't play with your..." he paused meaningfully, his eyes cold, "wand."

The wargod's scowl deepened as he weighed the menace lurking in his uncle's words. Glancing at his fellow prisoners' expressions, he realized none of them would defend him, and most would actively oppose him. When he noticed Artemis caressing her bow, he understood the implicit threat clearly.

It hadn't been that long ago since Discord had been transformed into a chicken, and he was far too vulnerable in here to want to risk a direct confrontation while surrounded by his enemies. He was trapped here even more thoroughly than he'd realized, he cursed silently.

He had no choice but to wait like the others for Zeus' return.

It wasn't so much the sensation of flying - which was eerily similar to the sensation of falling, the Gabrielles mused silently, their thoughts following identical courses, it was the sensation of standing upright on nothing while flying that was so disturbing. When Zeus had departed the clearing, taking the two pieces of Gabrielle's soul with him, she'd expected to reappear on Olympus. To her - their - whatever - vast surprise, they'd instead materialized in a black abyss, standing on nothing, but with an odd sense of being in motion as they apparently travelled through the stygian darkness.

With no visual reference points other than Zeus (who was standing between the two Gabrielles), it was quite disorienting - which made her queasy, her propensity for motion sickness lingering despite her current lack of a physical stomach to grow upset. All in all it was a thoroughly unenjoyable feeling.

Zeus ignored the two Gabrielles, concentrating on navigating along the pathway formed by the pillared archways and bringing the two shades with him as he headed for Olympus.

Although time was meaningless in this place of emptiness, after what seemed an eternity, the Gabrielles began to see a lightening in one tiny area of the enveloping darkness. The ambient light level gradually increased, allowing them a dim view of the arches floating in nothingness that they passed through, greatly reassuring them to discover that they were indeed following a trail.

As they neared the light source, the Gabrielles' insubstantial eyes were riveted to the spot, their eyes craving the stimulation after an endless eternity of seeing nothing but the dim impressions of Zeus and each other. When they were close enough to see the source of the light in the darkness, their eyes widened in amazed wonder.

It was a star being born.

Although most of her divine knowledge had vanished with her powers in the aftermath of the explosion she'd generated, the beauty and majesty as the flaming sphere coalescing recalled enough of what remained to tell her what it was she was seeing. It was magnificent, and Gabrielle's soul sang in resonance with the transcendent joy the star emitted at its birth.

Zeus ignored the sight, having seen similar creations countless times before. Following a path only a god could follow, he continued transporting them to Olympus, navigating them along the interdimensional path he'd shaped long ago.

As they grew nearer, the celestial landscape grew more cluttered about them. Stars, planets, and even whole galaxies glimmered against the backdrop of endless night.

The Gabrielles were enraptured, staring at and delighting in each new wonder that unfolded before them. "So beautiful..." they whispered together, their voices vibrating with their amazement and delight. Her fear of heights and her motion sickness were held at bay by the sheer wondrous diversity of creation, and she gloried in each new discovery.

Glancing around, Zeus wondered what she - they - whatever - was finding so fascinating. "It's nothing special," he dismissed their excitement, turning his concentration back to their path.

"Of course it is," they retorted in unison. "Can't you just feel how magnificent it is? It's so beautiful..." the twin voices quivered with the intensity of Gabrielle's passion. Wanting to share their pleasure in the moment with their fellow traveller, the Gabrielles began pointing out each celestial body that caught their interest, making Zeus actually look at the things they were passing.

Spurred on by the Gabrielles' intensity, for the first time in ages, the god felt a sense of the beauty of his surroundings. He looked at the stars through the lenses of Gabrielle's near-mortal eyes, and felt once again the sense of wonder at the beauty of the universe that he had felt so long ago, the first time he'd ascended to Olympus' heights.

It had been a long time since he took any pleasure in the simple viewing of the universe, yet like an echo of Gabrielle's joy, he felt that sensation of wonder rise within himself once again. It felt... good.

As they neared their destination, the Gabrielles each rested a hand on his arm. In his arm, more precisely, but it caught his attention nonetheless. Looking down, he gazed into the Gabrielles' shining eyes, the power of the moment and her joy shimmering in their depths, lending them an amazing beauty - but one that didn't arouse his ardor. "Thank you for showing this to me," they whispered, still overwhelmed by the moment. "I can't imagine why anyone would ever want to travel the other way."

"It's quicker," Zeus dryly retorted. Beautiful or not, he'd seen it all before, and not even sharing in Gabrielle's feelings could hold his attention to it for long. "I didn't bring you this way because it was more scenic, I brought you by this path because its less stressful on the spirit - and yours, if you'll recall," he told them, irony heavy in his voice, "both of you, have a spiritual injury."

"I don't care," they firmly replied in unison. "I... we still thank you for showing it to us."

"You're welcome," Zeus wryly intoned, raising a hand. Pointing into the distance, he directed her gaze ahead of them once more. The opening into Olympus was within sight.

They fell silent, the many events leading up to this moment running through their minds. They moved swiftly, and before they realized it, "We're here," Zeus announced, guiding them through the portal.

Gabrielle had returned to Olympus once more.

"What happened here?" the Gabrielles gasped in unison.

Stepping through the portal from the otherspace Zeus had guided them through on their journey to Olympus, the Gabrielles were shocked to see the state the gods' home was in. The last time Gabrielle had been on Olympus, all had been pristine virgin marble, the decorations glorious and neat... In other words, it had been Perfection (with a capital P even in her thoughts, for emphasis).

Now... A thick crack marred the floor of the corridor they walked through, and broken fragments of shattered artworks and sculptures crunched under Zeus' feet as he led the way into his throne room.

It didn't look too bad... Not exactly anyway.

It was still beautiful, but in some ways that simply made it all the more horrifying, the small distortions and cracks in the flawless surroundings emphasizing that this was a spoiled perfection. Heaven had been tarnished, and even the smallest error rendered it... flawed.

It struck Gabrielle hard, and she was rendered speechless as they proceeded, heads hung low as they trailed after Zeus, trying not to see the desecrated beauty that surrounded them, but feeling it in their soul nonetheless.

The second Gabrielle, trailing herself, glanced up briefly, trying not to see the crack in the floor she was walking on. She didn't like the reminder of the flawed perfection, nor the glimpse into the yawning abyss below Olympus that the opening in the floor afforded.

To her surprise, once she looked up she found her thoughts diverted, and in a way she had never consciously contemplated before. Looking at the back of her fellow soul-fragment, she suddenly realized, I've got a cute butt.

The thought was so sudden and unexpected that it pushed the flawed Olympian surroundings completely from her head. Her current status afforded her a unique opportunity, and she abruptly realized she was wasting it.

The one other time she'd had this opportunity - when Joxer accidentally summoned a trio of naked copies of herself - she'd been too embarrassed by their very public nudity, and too worried about Xena's continued absence to really look at "herself."

This time, neither of those concerns applied.

Outside of her body and virtually alone on Olympus, she had been given the chance to objectively look at herself and evaluate her appearance without the constraints of physical limitations, free of concerns about what others might say about her natural curiosity. She took full advantage of the newfound freedom, and couldn't help but smile in gratified self-satisfaction.

Sure, guys - usually drunks in bars, but still guys - had complimented her (usually with accompanying invitations of varying degrees of obscenity and creativity), and the Amazons were sometimes embarrassingly forward in their admiration of her assets, but she'd never really given it much conscious thought - well, other than becoming more willing to wear more revealing (but more significantly to her, comfortable and convenient for their travels) clothing as she'd become more toned. But now, with the reality of her body literally staring her in the face, she couldn't escape the realization : she looked very good.

Especially now.

Although Ares' leather armor partially covered her rear, the short skirt of chainmail dangling below the leather strips cradled and emphasized the soft swells of her cheeks with every flex of the muscles hidden underneath, and she could feel her own spectral muscles tensing in sympathetic harmony, feeling the insubstantial metal and leather brushing gently against her skin.

No wonder everyone's been reacting to me like they have been, she mused. It isn't just my sudden divinity; I look really hot in this outfit! For a moment, she snickered, remembering Orion's embarrassment, Hercules and Iolaus' "nervous" shifting, and the sultry looks some of the Amazons had given her at the ceremony. Everyone was affected by her appearance.

Actually, she realized as her mind wandered over the events of the last few days, the only one who hadn't reacted any differently to her as a god - in whatever outfit - was Xena. The warrior had been as loving and concerned as ever, virtually uncaring of the effect her divinity and the armor had on her appearance, even while acknowledging the existence of those differences. She'd often thought that Xena was the other half of her soul (the irony of that phrasing not escaping her), but nothing had convinced her so thoroughly of the rightness of that fact as this sudden realization. The thought warmed her, and her incorporeal form brightened in sympathetic reaction.

Sticking her hand through the other Gabrielle's head, she waggled her fingers in front of her eyes to get her attention. After she turned around, she did the same, pointing to direct her other self's attention to her own backside. Being literally of one mind, the second Gabrielle swiftly came to the same understandings about her appearance, and her own sudden surge of affection for Xena lit her with pleasure in turn.

Grinning at each other and eyeing "her" mutual body appreciatively, they sighed in happy unison, murmuring "Xena..." together. Giggling, they then turned and, in perfect synchronization, ran after Zeus, catching him near his throne.

His mind having been occupied by more weighty concerns than Gabrielle's realization of her own desirability, Zeus had not been privy to her thoughts, unshielded though they were. Turning to face her again upon reaching his destination - his throne - he was rocked by the effects of that realization.

Zeus was the king of the gods, ancient and powerful, but he had one rather well known weakness. Confronted by twin Gabrielles, their faces glowing and flushed with pleasure, insubstantial bodies still quivering from their brief run, that weakness reared its head and stridently demanded his attention.

Fortunately for the Gabrielles (since even incorporeality was a mild inconvenience at worst for the king of the gods), he was able to control his first impulse. The will required to do so, however, convinced him to change his plans - or at least the order in which he would implement his plans.

Clearing his throat, he gestured for the two Gabrielles to stand in front of him. Moving in unison they did, ending up shoulder to shoulder directly before his throne.

Narrowing his eyes in concentration, Zeus focused his power on the soul fragment on the right, compressing her into a small glowing ball of swirling multi-colored energies as the plaintive scream she emitted slowly dissipated.

The remaining Gabrielle stared aghast at what had happened to her twin, and opened her mouth to protest the treatment. Before she could utter a word, Zeus' glowing eyes turned on her... and her world dissolved into pain. A second hollow wail echoed through Olympus, and then all that was left of Gabrielle's soul were two floating balls of energy.

Zeus paused, catching his breath as he contemplated Gabrielle's divided soul. Although it was relatively simple for him to collapse her soul into its simplest form, the effort required to keep it from returning to the shape of its biological template was surprisingly taxing - and the effort was doubled by the split in her spirit.

Scanning the underlying matrices of energies that comprised her spirit, he applied his will, bridging the breach in the structure with a temporary strand of divine power. The bridge he constructed would not repair her spiritual injury, but it would direct the soul in healing itself - the preferred option.

As he spliced his brace into the rent fabric of her soul, Zeus could feel more than see the thin tendril of glowing energy that reached out from each of the floating balls of energy, following the path created by the lattice of his power. Mostly concentrating on maintaining the soul fragments in their compressed state and on keeping the bridge firmly in place, he watched as the tendrils first touched, then merged. The band that connected the two fragments together grew in both thickness and brightness as the halves of Gabrielle's soul reached out to one another and slowly began to draw together.

Exhaling slowly, Zeus began to dissolve his connective bridge, the slow decay aiding the movements of the glowing spheres as they came together. With an almost audible click, the spheres melded, the colors pulsing brightly as her soul healed itself - and the halves merged into one perfect whole.

Withdrawing his mind from contact with her soul, Zeus watched as the now singular glowing sphere slowly expanded, inflating like a bladder into the shape of Gabrielle of Potadaiea. In control of his reactions, and having wrestled his libido into submission, he watched her body take shape with an almost paternal interest, pleased that his efforts to induce healing had succeeded.

Even after her spirit had returned to its proper shape, Gabrielle remained disoriented for several minutes. Between the twin difficulties of integrating two disparate sets of memories - even the memories of simply being unconscious were still a part of her - and dealing with the "pain" of her soul being compressed, compacted, and merged, she was quite simply unprepared to deal with anything else - let alone the next step in the process.

Zeus sank down onto the hard seat of his chair and watched Gabrielle's reaction curiously, eyeing the internal workings of her soul as she did. This was truly a unique experience, and those were exceedingly hard to find after millennia of existence. Zeus was determined to savor each instant of it.

That Gabrielle's fate might help determine his continued dominance of the planet was simply an added bonus.

"That... h... hurt," Gabrielle eventually breathed, hugging herself tightly. She felt strange, yet also complete. It was a decidedly odd, almost painful feeling, yet she gladly embraced the sensation. She felt almost normal... if still incorporeal.

"It was necessary," Zeus defended his actions. "Your spirit is now repaired, and is in no immediate danger of dissolution. I would think thanks would be in order."

"I meant no disrespect," Gabrielle sighed softly, still recovering from the effects. "I thank you... but it still hurt."

"Yes, well..." Zeus stroked his beard. "Feeling better?"

"Yes, thanks." Gabrielle straightened, and made an effort to smile. "So... what's next?"