Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!

"We demand answers!" Zeus interrupted, his voice booming with divine authority. "Why is Nyx consorting with our enemy? Why has she allied herself with Parker Black against her own kind?"

Poseidon slammed his trident against the not-ground. "We know about your little alliance! Your betrayal of the divine order!"

Ares pointed his blade at the assembled children of Nyx. "You think hiding behind your monsters will save you from justice?"

Hephaestus raised his cosmic hammer. "Answer for your crimes against Olympus!"

Dionysus swayed forward, wine-madness making his eyes glow. "Explain yourself, or face the consequences!"

Hermes's voice was high with nervous energy. "We deserve to know why you've turned against us!"

Erebus began to laugh.

It started low, like the rumble of reality itself deciding to chuckle. Then it grew, becoming the kind of laughter that made the laws of physics uncomfortable. Her hands shifted, fingers extending into claws that looked like they could tear holes in dimensions—which, Zeus realized with growing horror, they probably could.

"Oh, this is rich," Erebus said, her voice dripping with amusement that tasted like midnight and broken promises. "Just because you got some unknown ally who promised you power, you suddenly have the audacity to question Mother's decisions?"

Her claws gleamed in the starlight as she gestured dismissively. "You march in here, demanding answers like petulant children who think they deserve explanations from their betters. And what if Mother is allied with Parker Black? What could any of you possibly do about it?"

The shadows around her began to writhe with increasing agitation.

"Do you even know who Mother is? Who she was before you arrogant godlings were even conceived? She was shaping the fundamental forces of existence when your precious Titans were still figuring out how to exist without tripping over their own power!"

Her voice rose, becoming something that could shatter the concept of sound itself.

"Do you know who Parker Black is? Do you understand what he represents? He is everything you should have been and everything you failed to become! He is power without arrogance, strength without cruelty, love without—"

"Erebus," Nemesis said quietly, stepping forward with the fluid grace of inevitable justice. "Enough."

The word hit like a physical blow, stopping Erebus mid-rant. Nemesis's beauty was terrible to behold—perfect features carved from the concept of retribution itself, eyes that weighed every sin and found it wanting.

"They came here looking for a fight," Nemesis continued, her voice carrying the weight of every wrong that had ever been committed. "Let's not disappoint them."

Erebus's smile turned predatory. "Oh, sister. You always know exactly what to say."

The air itself became electric with potential violence, with powers about to clash that could reshape the fundamental nature of reality.

Zeus raised his hand, lightning gathering around him like a storm given form. "So be it! If you won't answer with words—"

"Then we'll beat the answers out of you," Ares finished, his blade singing with anticipation.

Poseidon's trident began to glow with the power of every ocean that had ever existed. "Time to remind you who the real gods are!"

The children of Nyx began to move with predatory grace, their forms shifting and changing as they prepared to unleash forces that predated the invention of mercy.

Thanatos raised his scythe, and suddenly everyone in the room could feel their mortality as a physical weight.

The Moirai smiled in unison, and the threads of fate began to shimmer into visibility, showing just how easily those threads could be cut.

Morpheus, despite appearing as a child, began to weave dreams and nightmares together with his tiny hands, creating visions that made reality question its own existence.

Eris clapped her hands together, and the very concept of teamwork began to dissolve among Zeus's forces, replaced by suspicion and competition.

And in the center of it all, sitting on her throne like she was watching the universe's most entertaining theater performance, Nyx began to laugh.

It started as a chuckle, soft and musical.

Then it grew.

And grew.

Until her laughter filled the throne room like silver bells mixed with the sound of distant thunder, beautiful and terrible and completely, utterly delighted.

She was laughing so hard that tears of liquid starlight began to fall from her eyes, each drop creating new constellations where it hit the not-ground of her realm.

"Oh," she gasped between peals of cosmic mirth, "oh, this is perfect. This is absolutely perfect."

The laughter was infectious in the worst possible way. It made the Olympians realize, with growing horror, that they weren't seen as threats.

They were seen as entertainment.

And the show was just beginning...

The laughter died as the battle erupted.

And immediately, it became clear this wasn't a battle at all.

It was a playground.

Zeus hurled his first lightning bolt—the kind that could split continents—directly at Erebus. She caught it barehanded, examined it like she was checking the quality of a child's drawing, then tossed it over her shoulder where it hit Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, who had just arrived as backup.

The divine messenger goddess went flying across the throne room with a rainbow trail of her own blood.

"Oops," Erebus said with mock concern. "Did I do that?"

Zeus roared and summoned a storm that could level galaxies. Erebus yawned and opened a dimensional pocket directly in front of his face. The storm disappeared into the hole, then emerged from another portal behind Hermes, who was trying to flank around the side.

The God of Messages got caught in his own king's tempest and went tumbling through the air like a divine pinball.

"Zeus, dear," Erebus called out sweetly, "your aim is terrible. Maybe stick to ruling? Oh wait—you're bad at that too."

Meanwhile, Poseidon had summoned every ocean across seventeen different realms, creating a tsunami that could drown entire dimensions. Keres, another child of Nyx stepped into its path, and the moment the water touched her bone-pale skin, it didn't just turn to blood—it turned into the exact blood of everyone Poseidon had ever killed through floods, storms, and "divine justice."

Suddenly the God of the Seas was drowning in the life force of millions of his own victims, each drop carrying their final screams and desperate prayers. But Keres wasn't done being creative.

"Oh, this is fun," she said, reaching into the blood-tsunami and pulling out Amphitrite, Goddess of the Seas and Poseidon's wife, who had come to help. "Look what I found! Your wife, covered in the blood of children you drowned for sport."