Story Seed - The Last Days of Olympus

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The world shook. Cracks crawled through the white stone of the temple, freeing loose stone and dust to rain down. Zeus staggered stumbling backwards even as one of the massive columns broke and tumbled down, shattering with a crash as loud as his own thunder. Outside the ground shuddered as entire sections of the great mountaintop were torn asunder, some falling away into the abyss, while others were flung into the endless cloudy void.

Zeus' eyes darted around, looking, searching, yearning to find another of the Olympians. All around lay the broken remnants of their home, and the shattered and lifeless bodies of the lesser gods and demigods. A manticore smashed through the broken columns, uttering a save roar as it flung a volley of poisoned spines toward the dazed god. Zeus threw himself to the side, avoiding all but one of the glistening barbs. He summoned a crackling lance of lightning to his hand and hurled it at the beast.

Zeus shouldered past the ruins of a once fine statue as the creature wailed its death cries behind him. His shoulder burned from the venom of the beast, a fire that he could feel creeping through his veins with every beat of his heart. He ripped the hooked quill from the meat of his arm, it was not a fatal wound, but the poison would slow him, weaken him in this hour of dire need.

Outside he could see his son Ares surrounded by the spawn of the Titans. Even the god of war was hopelessly outmatched and soon Ares fell to their numbers. The king of the gods called forth more lightning, but did not need to loose it; another quake broke across the land sending the entire battlefield plunging into the abyss.

Somewhere in the void the mad bellowing laughter of the Titans and the Primordials mixed into a hellish din as they consumed the fallen material of Olympus, ravening ever closer to the Parthenon of Olympus and the seat of Zeus' power. All around him his family was perishing, falling to the claws of beasts, or the weapons of his father's kin. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled over the mountaintop, all but drowned out by the sound of battle and death.