Urban Plundering: I Corrupted The System!

"We're sending them to die," Hades finished, emerging from shadows with his usual grim honesty. "Not to battle. Not to victory. To systematic execution by something that treats gods like troublesome insects."

The silence stretched as divine minds grappled with the magnitude of their miscalculation.

Demeter's voice was barely a whisper. "The Painter's gateway was connected to THEY's network. When Parker destroyed it, I felt the ripples across multiple dimensions. Whatever he did didn't just stop a local threat—it sent shockwaves through cosmic infrastructure we don't even fully understand."

Zeus's eyes blazed with desperate fury. "Which is exactly why he must be stopped! Do you think his power will remain stable? Do you think he'll be content to simply protect his little corner of existence? That level of authority... it grows. It spreads. It consumes."

Artemis, silver bow gleaming, spoke with hunter's instinct. "Or perhaps you guys should reconsider. If he truly possesses such power, if he can unmake beings we would struggle to contain, then maybe—"

"NO!" Zeus's thunder shook Olympus itself. "We cannot bow to a mortal turning Prince! We cannot accept that something exists beyond our authority! If we acknowledge his supremacy when he's still this weak, what happens to us? What happens to divine order itself?"

Athena nodded grimly. "Father is right. This isn't about victory anymore. It's about survival. If Parker Black Nyxlith continues to exist, continues to grow in power, then eventually he'll decide we're the threat to his peace."

The scrying pools shifted to show the champions' heated debate below, their righteous fury a sharp contrast to the gods' barely contained terror.

"So we continue with the plan," Hera said, steel creeping back into her voice. "We send our champions against him, knowing they'll die, because the alternative is admitting we're no longer the ultimate powers in this cosmos."

"But the four dissenters," Ares growled. "Cassandra, Hector, Cleopatra, Isis—they threaten everything. If they convince the others to abandon the assault..."

Zeus stood, his divine form crackling with desperate lightning. "Then we lose our only chance to test his limits. But we cannot simply murder champions—the Cosmic Council is already watching our methods too closely."

"The Council doesn't know about our Manhattan involvement," Hermes said quietly. "They don't know what we orchestrated. If we reported the truth..."

"They would remove us from authority immediately," Athena finished. "A mortal with power exceeding divine authority? They'd see us as failures, unfit to govern our realm."

The gods stared at their scrying pools, watching heroes they knew would die, planning an assault they knew would fail, all to maintain the illusion that they were still in control.

"Perhaps," Hades said with grim finality, "we deserve what's coming."

Zeus gripped his lightning bolt with white knuckles, his ancient features twisted with fury and growing dread.

The scrying screens showed the aftermath—Manhattan slowly rebuilding, but more importantly, they showed the impossible gateways that had manifested from the Street Rat and the Painter. Dark portals that reeked of something ancient and malevolent, something that had been hiding inside their chosen champions all along.

Hermes paced frantically, his wings trembling with barely contained panic. "We were deceived. Those humans we blessed—they weren't just receiving our power. Something else was already inside them, waiting, growing stronger with each divine gift we bestowed."

"The gateways," Athena whispered, her strategic mind reeling from the implications. "When Parker destroyed them, we felt... something vast recoil in pain. Something that had been using our champions as vessels, as anchors in our reality."

Ares slammed his fist against a marble pillar, cracking it. "We thought we were creating heroes to defend humanity! Instead, we were feeding parasites that wanted to devour it!"

Apollo's golden lyre lay forgotten, his usual radiance dimmed with horror. "The Street Rat, the Painter—their power felt divine because it was partially ours. But underneath... underneath was something that made even the Titans seem small."

Poseidon's trident shook in his grip. "When that gateway manifested from the Street Rat, I felt the ocean itself recoil. Whatever was trying to push through from the other side, it was wrong. Fundamentally, cosmically wrong."

Hera leaned forward, her composure cracking. "How many more? How many of our 'blessed' champions are actually hosts for these... these things?"

Hades emerged from shadows, his face grim with understanding. "The Lord of the Dead has felt disturbances in the cosmic order for days they've been active. Souls that should have passed through my realm simply... vanishing. Consumed by something that exists outside the natural cycle."

The silence stretched as divine minds grappled with the magnitude of their manipulation.

Demeter's voice was barely audible. "If we've been unknowingly feeding power to entities that want to destroy everything... if our every blessing has been strengthening our enemies..."

"Then we're not just failures," Zeus finished, his voice hollow. "We're accomplices."

Artemis spoke with hunter's instinct honed by eons of tracking prey. "But Parker—he saw through it instantly. He didn't hesitate when those gateways manifested. He destroyed them like he'd been expecting them all along. I say..." She didn't get to finish.

"Which means he knows more than we do," Athena said grimly. "About these parasites, about what's really happening to our champions, about threats we can't even perceive."

Zeus's eyes blazed with desperate fury. "All the more reason he must be eliminated! He makes us look like children stumbling in the dark! If the Cosmic Council discovers we've been manipulated this easily, if they learn we've been unwittingly aiding cosmic parasites..."

"They'll strip us of authority immediately," Hermes finished. "Replace us with beings who can actually protect their assigned realm."

The scrying screens shifted to show the champions' heated debate below, their righteous fury based on lies the gods had been forced to tell to hide their own incompetence.

"So we continue with the plan," Hera said, steel creeping back into her voice. "We send our champions against him, knowing they'll likely die, because admitting the truth means admitting we've lost control entirely."

"But what if more gateways manifest during the battle?" Ares asked. "What if our champions are all infected with these... things?"

Zeus stood, his divine form crackling with desperate lightning. "Then Parker will destroy those too. And if our champions die in the process..." He shrugged with callous indifference. "Better they die fighting something that makes us appear competent than live to reveal how thoroughly we've been deceived."

The gods stared at their scrying screen, watching heroes they were sending to almost certain death, planning an assault based on lies, all to maintain the illusion that they still controlled their own realm.

None of them yet grasped the true scope of what THEY represented, or how deep the corruption ran.

They thought they were dealing with cosmic parasites.

They had no idea they were facing something that treated gods themselves as merely another category of host.

****

Olympian gods... *sigh* I feel like face slapping.