You wanna run that by me again in English?

"You just totally lost me..." I admitted to Eris as she looked at Zeus with a smug look on her face.

"You could say my name because it was funny," Eris grinned. "Because Sparky didn't challenge it at the time, I now have it in the record. As such, I can act on your behalf."

"That's an idiotic rule," I pointed out.

"Idiotic or not, it's legal, and since everything Pikachu does over here has to be by the rules, he can't break em without nullifying the judgement," Eris tapped her foot. "Again, it's complicated, and you don't really need to understand it."

"Why not? Fuck, just tell her the whole deal! Kid, you know you're not just fucking this up for me, think about the rest of your family," Zeus shrank somewhat in his chair, and I saw that his suit was in fact threadbare now, and had several patches on it. The golden symbol on his chest seemed to be flaking paint now, and the pronounced slump to his shoulders showed someone who'd been hurt for far too long. "You don't have to keep hurting me when you've already..."

"Knock off the broken wing crap, Randy, it's old," Eris suddenly dropped one of her wings to the ground and began dragging a leg behind her dramatically as she moaned "Woe... woe..." She stopped and looked at him angrily. "If you really are so hurt, why would you stay here? Neither one of us are idiots, so give me a damn good reason not to take my player's hand, and walk her right to that phone booth in the lobby."

"How bout the fact it's MY phone booth?" Zeus grinned suddenly. "I was WONDERING how you two were doing it. That explains an awful lot. If I recall correctly..." His hands scrabbled in a desk, before pulling out an old worn script with "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure" written on it. "Yep, says it right here..." His fingers flipped through the pages and his thumb stabbed down on a VFX note. "Electrical effect and Thunder. So... you can kiss using THAT one goodbye."

"Shit..." Mumbled Eris. "Uhm... I uh..."

"What's he going to do? Stop me from walking right to it?" I asked, turning to leave.

"It's not there anymore, Brent," Eris sighed. "His domain, his rules. It ran on electricity, so it's gone. Sorry, stupid mistake. Was just going with the moment, and... yeah... sorry."

"OH... so... "

"Let me tell you a little story, here, Penelope..." Zeus spoke, his radiant suit and perfectly coiffed hair reminding me of how much power he had. "You need to make an informed choice, after all. Long time ago, little guy named Prometheus decided that he was going to try something kinda similar to what you've been up to. Now, I'm not going to say that I did something vindictive, because he earned what he got. He wanted to be the big savior who everybody looked up to. And that's how everybody remembers him. Nailed to a wall and bleeding."

A chill went through me as I contemplated what he was saying.

"I mean, empires gorge on religion... Eagle gorges... all symbolism really. Just want you to think about that. What being an icon for humanity really means. It means suffering in the minds of everyone. Every person contemplating your pain, and your agony. And the best part of all is. You won't see a iota of power from it. The more people can see it, clearly, in their mind? The worse it will hurt you. Nobody CARES about you. People WANT to see you suffer. They want to see you suffer so they don't have to. That's what being human, and mortal is, Penelope. You Die. And it might just be for someone's amusement."

"That's crap," I argued. "People don't just randomly decide to make someone suffer because they can."

"I wouldn't push this point..." Eris cautioned me. "In his reality they do. A LOT."

"You know how many people want to see you humiliated, little girl? How many people want to see you begging on your knees as every one of those little dykes on your island is **** and bred by your enemies? Your future dragged into the mud, and you reborn just like everyone else? A cheap pathetic slut who will sell out the instant somebody offers her a better deal. They like watching that, Penny. They wanted to see you servicing every suitor like a whore. They want to see your maids in chains, calling my servants master. And they LOVE it."

"You can't bring that Roman crap..." Eris argued.

"We can always rediscover something in the Vatican Archives." Zeus shrugged. "Next thing you know, the number one story on every soldier's lips is that you can't trust your wife... ever. Not unless she's in chains. With a nice app that we were doing a trial run back home. Tells you everything..." He pulled a phone from his desk and began swiping his finger back and forth. "I was trying to accelerate the hijab rollout anyway."

"Or..." He smiled at me.

"Or I make a deal with you. Got it. And if I don't you throw me..." I began.

"No... no, see that time has passed. That was the previous deal. Null and void, times up on that one. Now you either concede, or we go to a stalemate. Because it will be your move, and you can't do anything. I've made sure of it. You and your partner here go to your personal hell, which I warned you about... well, this is the THIRD time. Door's right over there."

He gestured to a nondescript door in his office. It blended into the wall nearly perfectly, the seam a narrow black line on the beige wall, with a small horizontal bar and lock on it.