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Peja's Wonderful World of Makebelieve Import
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Published:
2020-11-04
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2004-07-21
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Typical

Summary:

Hercules is abducted and Iolaus is forced to go to Ares for help finding him. Not that Hercules needs any help.

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Chapter Text

Typical

By Roo

"Just once I'd like to battle a villain who insists on sunshine and fresh air."

--Hercules: the Legendary Journeys, "What's in a Name"

I will not use any plan in which the final step is horribly complicated, e.g. "Align the 12 Stones of Power on the sacred altar then activate the medallion at the moment of total eclipse." Instead it will be more along the lines of "Push the button."

--The Evil Overlord List, #85


There are moments in history which are pivotal, when alliances are made, critical paths are followed, empires crumble, and time itself seems to hold its breath.

This was not one of those moments.

The final rays of the setting sun glowed as red as the coals from the dying campfire, and the cooling air smelled of smoke, cooked rabbit and rosemary. Hercules and Iolaus sat on the ground in a small clearing, cross-legged near the fire, relaxing and finishing their meal. Grass rustled as small animals scurried away from the men, but there was no sign of any other humans.

"We made good time today," Iolaus said as he gnawed at a bone, cleaning the few remaining scraps of flesh before tossing it into the pile next to him.

"Uh huh," Hercules replied, sighing as he stared at the half-eaten haunch in his hands.

"You gonna eat that?" Iolaus leaned forward and took the meat from his friend without waiting for an answer. He leaned back against a rock to eat, tearing off large chunks and chewing loudly. "Good rabbit. Thanks for going light on the garlic."

"You're welcome." Hercules picked up a stick as thick as his thumb and idly stirred the coals of the fire, causing sparks to dance in the falling darkness before they floated back to the ground, winking out. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire, Iolaus' chewing, and the distant call of a bird of prey. The men sat in silence as twilight deepened, the stars shining down upon them.

Iolaus finished his meal and tossed the bones aside with a belch of satisfaction, wiping at the juice on his chin with the back of his hand. "At this rate we should be in Corinth in a few days."

"Uh huh." Hercules continued to poke at the fire with his stick, his eyebrows drawn down, face set in a frown.

Iolaus cleared his throat. "I guess you've thought about what you're gonna say to Iphicles?"

"Thought about it?" Hercules threw the stick into the fire, hard enough for it to embed itself in the side of a half-burned log. "I haven't thought about anything else. No matter what I say, he's gonna get pissed off at me and we'll get into a fight, just like always. Why can't we just get along like normal brothers?" He sighed loudly and began looking for another stick.

"Maybe you should just be direct."

"What, walk up to him, hug him, and say 'By the way, Iph, I hear you're sleeping with Ares. In fact, I hear you're obsessed with him and the two of you've gone at it practically in public.' Yeah, that'll go real well. He'll throw both of us out of the city so fast we won't even have time to unpack."

"Okay, good point. Maybe after dinner, when he's had some wine to help him mellow out...."

"Iphicles doesn't mellow out. He just gets broody."

"More than usual?"

"Much more than usual."

Iolaus tried to imagine Iphicles brooding more than usual but failed miserably. The man completely cornered the market on brooding. If it were an Olympic sport, Iphicles would be the undisputed champion. Heck, if Ares made him a god, he'd be a shoo-in for the position of God of Brooding. And that was on a good day.

Hercules sighed again and spread out his bedroll, lying down and staring up at the stars. "If I try to be subtle, he thinks I'm treating him like an idiot. If I'm direct he thinks I'm attacking him. No matter what I say or how I say it, he sees it in the worst possible light. Rena used to help keep him from going off, but now..."

Iolaus spread out his own bedroll, but continued to sit, head cocked to one side. "Somehow I doubt hanging with Ares has helped his disposition."

"That's what worries me. What if Ares is using him? I can't just try and warn him because then I'm being patronizing, and probably shoving him right into Ares' bed. But if I don't warn him and Ares hurts him, or uses him against me, I won't be able to forgive myself." He trailed off, looking at Iolaus. "What?"

"Did you hear that?" Iolaus had turned his head, squinting into the darkness, trying to find something.

"Hear what?" Hercules sat up. He opened his mouth, but shut it quickly when he saw Iolaus' upraised hand.

"There's something out there," Iolaus whispered, "I hear metal, people coming this way." He sighed. "Can't we have a nice dinner in peace and quiet just once?"

Hercules sighed too. "Guess not. We're just doomed."

"You ever feel like every warlord, thug and monster in Greece has some kind of magical map that shows them where we are?"

"Don't say that too loud. I don't want to give anyone ideas."

Iolaus scrambled to his feet, as did Hercules. "Do you smell that?"

Hercules' nose wrinkled as an odor of rot and corruption reached him, and he nodded. "I've got a bad feeling about this."

"What else is new?" Iolaus shrugged fatalistically.

Clanking and trampling sounds moved closer - the sound of a large number of armed men who didn't care about being quiet. Hercules stood, muscles tense, waiting for the attack, while Iolaus found his sword and swung it once or twice, working the kinks out of his muscles. They stood back to back and turned in slow circles, unsure which direction the attack would come from, as the clangor moved. They were being surrounded.

When it came, the attack was fast and vicious. Both men were unprepared when twenty corpses in various stages of decomposition erupted from the forest, caught off guard by the smell and the sight of their enemies. Firelight illuminated animated skeletons with strips of gristle holding them together fighting next to the newly dead, their flesh rotting and putrefying. Some wore the tattered remains of armor, others rags that had once been their funerary best. Their motions were jerky, marionette-like, but they moved with grim purpose. A while stone glowed in the hand of a richly dressed corpse, a sickly greenish spear of light pointing toward Hercules.

"Great", Iolaus muttered. "Slimy dead things. I hate slimy dead things." He shuddered melodramatically.

"At least they're not all slimy," Hercules replied, pointing at a skeleton.

"Thanks, I feel much better now." Iolaus smothered the urge to hit Hercules upside the head.

"Glad to help." Hercules grinned at his friend, enjoying irritating him.

One skeleton rushed them, and Iolaus caught it with a roundabout kick to the head that sent its skull spinning in circles while Hercules downed another attacker with a right cross to the throat. Three more moved in and Iolaus neatly decapitated one with his sword while Hercules' grabbed the heads of the other two and knocked them together, causing them to fall to the ground, stunned, their eyes spinning madly in their naked sockets. One newly dead corpse rushed toward Hercules while another charged Iolaus from the opposite direction. The men's eyes met and a wordless message was exchanged. Waiting until the last possible minute, Iolaus rolled away from his attacker as Hercules grabbed the arm of the corpse rushing toward him and threw it into its oncoming companion. Its arm tore at the shoulder, leaving Hercules staring in disgust at the appendage he still held, which he threw away with a grimace as he wiped his hand on his leather pants.

"See? That's why I hate slimy dead things!" Iolaus said while taking one down with a flying kick, then frantically scuffed his boot on the grass to try to get rid of the clinging corpse flesh. "What I wanna know is, why aren't there any nice, clean tidy monsters out there?" He examined the boot critically, absently dropping to the ground and pivoting on his arm, knocking the legs out from under two more attackers.

"Guess we just have bad luck," Hercules replied as he threw a skeleton over his shoulder. "It'd be a nice change of pace though."

"Tell me about it. This gets kinda old after a while." Iolaus ducked a corpse, sending it charging straight into Hercules' fist.

Of course, the problem with fighting dead things is that, being dead, it's hard to injure or kill them. They may be temporarily inconvenienced, but it's hard to get rid of them completely, barring the use of magic. The decapitated skeleton picked up its skull, placed it back on top of its neck and charged again, sword raised, jaw open in a silent battle cry. This time Iolaus cut off the lower arm that held the sword and kicked it into the underbrush where the skeleton was forced to hunt for it.

One of the stunned corpses rose and tried to attack Iolaus from behind, but he flipped the sword under his arm and neatly stabbed it in the stomach and grinned in triumph. Self-congratulations vanished when the corpse didn't fall, but instead continued to grab for his neck, the sword skewering it not seeming to make much difference. It had wrapped its hands around his neck and begun choking Iolaus when Hercules grabbed its head and wrenched it around, so the creature was facing backwards. Confused, it loosened its grip enough for Iolaus to twist away and retrieve his sword and face another corpse as it rushed toward him.

Another problem with fighting the dead is that they are tireless. Where living beings have a limited supply of energy, the animated dead have no such limits. They can't be killed, they can't be injured, and they don't wear out. They are the ultimate soldiers, tireless and obedient. As the night wore on, the tide of the fight turned against the living in favor of the dead. While Hercules and Iolaus fought well, kicking, punching and stabbing with enough skill to decimate a small army of the living, their enemies never stopped. Sometimes one or two would be temporarily incapacitated, but they would quickly regroup and join their comrades in pressing the attack. Both Hercules and Iolaus, slowed by injuries and exhaustion, made critical mistakes. The fight ended when the glowing white stone seemed to explode into incandescence, bathing the clearing in an unwholesome green light that drifted down, mist-like, making Hercules and Iolaus choke and fight for breath before they fell, unconscious.


The sun was high in the sky when Iolaus woke, moaning and shaking his head, gingerly poking at bruises and cuts, assessing the damage. His chest ached and he felt sharp pain when he tried to breathe too deeply. 'Great, more bruised ribs. Why do I always end up with bruised ribs?' he thought. Shallow cuts on his arms itched, and his clothes were uncomfortably stiff with dried blood. His jaw was bruised and the left eye swollen shut, throwing the world slightly off-balance, and the pounding in his head made him nauseous. When he stood, the world rushed in circles and went black around the edges, making him stumble to cling to the nearest tree for support.

When the world stopped spinning, Iolaus opened his eyes again and looked around. The ground was torn and scarred, the bedrolls were a complete write-off, and luckily the fire had gone out. There was no sign of the army of the dead that had attacked them. More important, Hercules was gone. 'Naturally. Dead guys, glowing green stones, Herc missing. Typical. He gets to have all the fun and I get stuck trying to find him.' Sighing, Iolaus picked up his sword and began packing what little he could salvage before following the trail left by the things that had kidnapped his friend. Sometimes he really wished he was an ordinary blacksmith or something.

A few days of slow travel, hampered by blinding headaches and the pain in his chest, left Iolaus just outside of Tegea. Oddly enough the trail had been so obvious that even a blind two-year-old could follow it. The dead warriors had left various body parts in their wake as they continued their patient decomposition. Luckily none of the fingers, teeth, noses, ears or other parts that Iolaus had found appeared to come from someone who was living. Or had been until very recently. It was what he had expected - if the bad guys kidnapped someone, they generally weren't likely to kill them. Herc was probably being thrown into a dank, dark dungeon where he'd have to listen to a maniac tell him his nefarious plans and then cackle at him. Then, of course, Herc would foil the plans and escape. It was getting monotonous. At least if they had both been kidnapped they would've been able to improvise.

The trail came to an end in front of a large black temple, and Iolaus looked up at it, anger warring with amazement. Even Ares couldn't be so bloody stupid, could he? Granted, the god could be careless and sloppy, but this was just plain idiotic. And the animated warriors were a little showy for Ares' taste. The war god, at least lately, seemed to enjoy materializing, going for a few rounds of hand to hand with Hercules, then shaking his fist and leaving in a flurry of curses and threats. It was almost brotherly. Iolaus shook his head, ignoring the pain that buzzed at the back of his skull, and walked into the temple. It felt like a trap, but there was still something wrong here. Something didn't add up. 'Then again, things don't always make sense when Ares is involved', he told himself, 'Mainly because Ares doesn't always bother to make sense.'

Inside, the temple was dark and quiet. A lone torch flickered near the altar, firelight hiding more than it revealed. It wasn't one of Ares' bigger temples, and there was no sign of a priest. Until Iolaus saw the foot protruding from under the altar. Crouching, he saw the man's throat had been cut, blood oozing over the rough brick floor, his mouth opened in a scream. The blood was still sticky. This felt less and less like Ares - while Iolaus couldn't say much of anything nice about him, Ares wasn't the type to kill his own priest in his own temple and leave the body. It would leave a bad impression, and Ares was nothing if not image conscious. This was tacky even by Ares' standards.

Time for the traditional summoning of the god. Iolaus winced as he thought of all the effort required for the ceremony. He was going to end up tired, each breath like a knife through his chest when he panted from the exertion. Why couldn't the gods have a simple bell you could ring for them or something? He shrugged, looking for the right place to start. Ah, there was a vase depicting Ares taking another man from behind. A man who wore a crown. That seemed to settle the question of whether Iphicles and Ares were really doing the wild thing. It'd be a good place to start though.

Iolaus picked up the vase and threw it toward the closest wall. It flew in a graceful arc, smashing with a satisfying explosion, pottery shards falling to the ground almost musically. Next came a bust of Ares, one that was a bad likeness - no beard. It was toppled and kicked until the nose was chipped off and thrown into a corner. He picked up a sword and began randomly swinging at pillars, stopping only when he saw a flash of light from the corner of his eye.

"I should've known it was you. What the fuck are you doing?" Ares growled, casually tossing a ball of fire from one hand to the other. He looked like he was in a good mood - for Ares, that is.

"Getting your attention." Iolaus looked at Ares, refusing to let the god stare him down.

"Ah." The fireball disappeared. "Let me get this straight. You, a mortal, think you can just summon me, is that it? I don't think so. Later." Ares waved his hand and was outlined in blue light.

"What'd you do with Hercules?" Iolaus shouted, hoping to get Ares' attention.

It worked. The light disappeared and Ares looked at him, rolling his eyes and giving him a look that he seemed to reserve for those he considered a complete waste of oxygen. Like most of the humans and gods in Greece.

"What?"

"You heard me." Iolaus walked closer, glaring. "I followed the trail and it led right to you. Really stupid of you. But you always hire the brainless help, don't you?"

"Someone snatched Jerkules?" A cocky grin slid across his face. "Let me know who it was so I can send a thank-you card."

"Don't play dumb, Ares." Iolaus paused a moment, tilting his head. "Then again, I guess it's not an act, is it?"

Ares' grin vanished for a split second, then reappeared. "Nothing's going to bring me down now. Whoever it is, they're probably gonna get rid of the pest for me, and I didn't even have to lift a finger to help them." He swaggered toward a throne that had just materialized, preparing to drape himself over it.

"Just like they got rid of your priest?" Iolaus jerked his thumb toward the corpse under the altar. This time Ares' grin stayed gone. His expression grim, he changed course and knelt down to look at the body. "And now they've framed you for Herc's kidnapping. Maybe you didn't do it, but do you really think anyone's gonna believe you, especially since the trail leads here? They'll get away with it and you'll take the blame. Do you really wanna be the fall guy here?"

"No one does this in my temple," Ares said, his voice quiet and low. Iolaus knew from experience that Ares was much more dangerous when he became cold and quiet than when he was loud and angry. When he was quiet, that meant he was planning and at his most deadly. "Tell me what happened."

Iolaus told the story of the fight with the dead, still not sure if Ares was behind this particular plot. He did appear clueless, but that wasn't unusual for Ares. Also, it was entirely possible that Discord or Deimos had taken it upon themselves to 'help'. By the time he finished Ares' mouth was set in a thin line, his eyes cold and shuttered.

Ares paced around the altar, every step echoing in the cavernous temple. Stopping for a moment, he picked up a small dagger from a basket of weapons and tested it against his thumb, grunting in approval when it drew a bead of blood. Sticking his thumb in his mouth, he sucked off the blood, eyes unfocused as he made the dagger disappear and resumed pacing. Iolaus watched, head cocked, as he tried to fit all of the pieces of the puzzle together. If Ares didn't have Hercules, who did? And who would be stupid enough to try and frame the God of War?