An Encounter with a Greek God

by

Adil Elahi

I was called upon by Zeus after defeating the evil medusa who had almost turned every single mortal into stone. Before the battle I was ordered by Zeus, the King of all Gods to bring medusas head to him. I was following the instructions given to me as I was returning to Zeus’ palace. Chronos, god of all time and eternity, spotted me with the head going towards the palace from the peak of mount Olympus. He rushed down from the peak of mount Olympus to stop me. I told him I was given orders to take medusas head to the palace but Chronos did not want me to do this. I said that I could not disobey Zeus for I was a mortal and he would surely destroy me if I disobeyed. But it seemed as if Chronos knew more than I did so I asked him why I should not. He explained to me that Zeus was getting hungrier and hungrier for power and medusas head would do just that. He said that if Zeus seized the head, he would turn all the gods of Olympus to stone and then take over.

I still thought this was a bad idea. To prove that he was not lying, Chronos said that he would grant me any wish I wanted. All mortals and gods knew my thirst for bloodshed and war, and since I was the greatest of all warriors in the world I had only one wish. I wanted to be the god of war. Chronos hesitated for a moment but realized that he had no choice. From then on I was the god of war or Cratos and I had the power over all wars, fights and battles of the world. Now I was one of the great gods of mount Olympus.

We heard a roar of rage from behind the huge golden gate leading to the palace of Zeus. We were in trouble now because Zeus knew that we were knowledgeable of his plan. Jupiter knew that he could not defeat Zeus or his army.

Chronos and I began to flee and on our way he told me to use my newly acquired powers to defeat Zeus. But I did not have any idea what kind of powers I had. Chronos, panting, told me “Think of any weapon and it shall appear before you and call upon any army and they shall-” One of Zeus’ lightning bolts had struck Chronos square in the back and he dropped down probably dead. Now I only knew of one of my powers, but continued to run knowing that I did not stand a chance against Zeus’ army.

The army was catching up, so I thought of a cross-bow, and there it was in my hands. I turned around and aimed, but realized that there were no arrows. But still I desperately pulled back the trigger and amazingly a flaming arrow shot towards the army and knocked down fifteen soldiers. This was still not enough to hold back the whole army so I kept running and realized that I was still holding medusas head. I turned around and held the head facing the army, and only a few of them turned to stone and then came back to life. This meant that I still had to practice to make the head work perfectly.

I kept running and reached the edge of mount Olympus and knowing there was no other way to escape, I jumped down. I kept falling down and down and down. In the distance I saw something with wings flying towards me. It was Pegasus, the winged horse of Hercules. I heard the voice of Hercules say to me that he is ashamed of what his father was doing and so decided to help me, the new god of war.

Pegasus flew towards me and I landed straight on its back and flew as far away as I could from mount Olympus. As I flew, I was at a loss of what to do next, where to go and who to seek help from. I was not paying any attention to where I was going but it seemed as though Pegasus was leading me to the right place. It landed at a gigantic temple outside of which I saw Hercules and Hades, god of the underworld. Hercules had told Hades about Zeus' plans and Hades had decided to fight him because Hades had been disgraced by his brother many times.

We entered the temple and began planning the downfall of Zeus. We decided that we did not want to kill him but to keep him captive, which meant even more help was needed. Hades had an idea; he decided to bring back Achilles from the underworld. He went back underground in his chariot driven by black stallions. A few hours later Helios, the sun god, also got news of what Zeus had done and decided to help us. Poseidon, the god of the sea, also came to our aid. All the other gods of Olympus decided not to take any part in the battle fearing that if they took sides, they would be putting themselves in grave danger.

The days that followed were spent planning, while I tried to discover the abilities that Chronos had given me. From what we discovered, I could do everything twenty times better than my previous mortal self. I also found out that the more I fought, the better my weapons became. We also tried to free the titans who were imprisoned by Zeus because of the previous conflicts between the titans and the gods of Olympus. We managed to free them of their prisons and they were very willing to fight Zeus because of what Zeus had put them through in the past.

Now we planned to free Chronos from Zeus too. But we knew that this was not going to be easy because Zeus must know by now that we need Chronos to win the battle and so he must have heavily guarded Chronos' prison. One day we went straight towards mount Olympus and went directly towards the foot of the mountain because it was the only place we could think that Zeus would keep Chronos captive.

Just when we reached there, an army of about a hundred men attacked us. We did not think that Zeus would have placed so many soldiers there so we did not even bring our army consisting of Nymphs, soldiers of the underworld and the sea and a few of Achilles’ soldiers that had already died in previous battles, from the underworld. But even with the disadvantage of numbers we all used our abilities to the greatest advantages. Hades and Helios drove their chariots stampeding the army and Poseidon used water to drown a few of the enemies, the titans stomped on the army and Achilles, Hercules and I fought with our weapons.

After a few hours of battle we finally destroyed the army completely with no one badly injured from our side. We freed Chronos and headed back to Hercules’ temple. Chronos was in a critical state and could not fight or even speak. Zeus was furious when he was informed that Chronos escaped.

The day came at last for the battle with the almighty Zeus. Our whole army proceeded towards mount Olympus guided by Hercules on Pegasus. We met Zeus’ army a few miles away from mount Olympus. The battle commenced. I thought of a catapult and there it was. The catapult threw flaming balls of fire on the soldiers, fifteen feet in diameter. Our army fought bravely against the enemy which was twice as big. At first the gods did not take part in the battle but then everyone was in. It was total chaos. I could actually feel the blades of my swords becoming stronger and stronger as I killed the foe one by one.

Then all the gods used their special abilities, Hades split the ground under the feet of the enemies which caused them to fall straight to the underworld where they would be tortured by phantoms, Helios burned a few of the opposing army with the heat of the sun, Poseidon drowned a few of the evil doers, Hercules threw gigantic boulders at the enemies and Achilles went head on into the army without getting as much as a scratch on him and his only weak point was heavily guarded. I had still not discovered all of my potential so I just kept fighting the normal way.

When it seemed as if we were winning, Zeus went mad and killed half our army in his rage which caused our army to almost die out except for about fifty who had responded quickly and taken cover. Now we were losing for sure. But then Chronos arrived-barely able to walk. Zeus froze in shock, for the truth was that he actually feared Chronos with his ability to change anything in time. The two of them started hurtling lightning bolts at each other which collided in mid-air and exploded. a few of them hit the ground which caused both sides to die out completely except for the gods and the titans.

Zeus was now surrounded and Chronos shouted to me with renewed strength that the god of war also had the power to decide who shall be victorious in battles. Zeus looked terrified. I shouted out who was to gain victory in battle, and that was exactly what happened. Zeus was badly injured after all the gods and titans attacked him and he was taken prisoner for eternity.

Return to my Home Page.

Mail me and let me know how you liked this story.