God of War: Daughter of War

Kratos and Flurry stared at the chasm they were in for a few more moments, taking in the fact that there were a couple of thin waterfalls in the area, before continuing down the path that was to their left, bringing them to a pedestal with one of the stone tomes on top of it. This one revealed that this was the 'Path of Eos' and that 'those who saw what the gods saw' would find the path to Olympus, which was rather stupid in their eyes since the path was right in front of them and they could clearly see the way to get to it, causing them to ignore the tome as they continued down the passage. Helios' lantern was able to light the darkness that was in front of Flurry and her father, allowing them to see more of the surrounding area, as in the carved stone walls and the wooden scaffolding that seemed to be pushed against some of the walls, though for the time being it looked like there were no enemies. A few moments later that thought was proven wrong as a couple of undead legionnaires came out to attack them, where Kratos shielded his eyes as Flurry used the lantern to blind their foes, which opened the way for them to quickly cut down the undead as they continued on their way.

After a few more moments they reached a portion of the cavern that had harpies inside it, enemies that wanted to hurt them, causing Flurry to light up the darkened chamber with the lantern as her father tore his way through the pests, as he didn't need her help with harpies.

Once the harpies were done, as some ended up fleeing to avoid dying, Flurry found that the path ended at a rock wall and just focused the lantern on it for a few seconds, allowing the beam to reveal a hidden passage behind it before breaking the illusion, allowing her father to keep moving as she continued to light the area. Of course she joined the fight as well, due to the fact that she could use her magic to levitate the lantern above them while she either used her sickles, bow, or even the hammer against her chosen enemies, which seemed to be just more undead legionnaires. Along the way the pair found a rope line and Flurry set the lantern up so it would float near her father, allowing her to focus on loosing arrows at the few undead that tried to shake her father from the line, though it took him no time to cross over and she followed without delay as she jumped over. She also let him take hold of the lantern every now and then, since it was a shared item and all, and let him blind some of the undead with the beam of light, especially since it allowed him to see a gap that was ahead of them so both warriors could jump over it with ease.

Eventually the path opened up to the cavern again and let them see the Chain of Balance more clearly, along with more of the ruined area and what seemed to be a thermal vent near their destination, before spotting yet another brass statue of Pandora near the edge, with the flame coming to life as they carefully approached it.

Kratos, Flurry, I don't mean to alarm you, but... well, It is drawing closer. Pandora stated, something that caused the pair to glance at each other before focusing on the statue, because it sounded like she had more information to tell them so they could be prepared for the future, since the Labyrinth was one of their targets.

"What is this 'It'?" Flurry asked, though she had a feeling that it was connected to the prison that Pandora was in, a guard of sorts in case someone was able to actually make it to the Labyrinth and made an attempt to extract the girl from where Zeus imprisoned her for the crime of simply existing, "Can you see it?"

I... yes, I can see it. It's a massive scorpion that has onyx infused into it's exoskeleton. Pandora replied, which caused the pair to think about it for a few moments as Kratos realized that she had to be talking about Skorpius, said to be the Queen of the Scorpions, which meant Zeus had one more powerful monster to put in their way.

Kratos told Pandora that they were looking for a way to get to her and that, when they finally reached her, they would deal with Skorpius, causing her to nod her head as the flame faded away, allowing him and Flurry to continue along the path as he turned his focus on the Chain of Balance. To move forward, however, Kratos had to attract the attention of some of the nearby harpies so he could cross the massive gap between them and the ruins across the chasm, where Flurry stood at the ready with her bow as she kept an eye out for enemy archers, only to find that there were none. Once her father was on the other side of the chasm Flurry spread her wings, took a step off the ledge, and flew over to where he had landed, finding that no enemies appeared until they were off the ruined bridge, and when they were on flat ground again neither were intimidated by the wriaths that came at them. Both warriors realized that the undead were really popular with Zeus, as he seemed to love using them in his armies, though the hilarious thing was that all of the risen warriors didn't like the blinding light of the Lantern of Helios, allowing them to quickly blind and take down all three wraiths before they could do anything to either of them.

When the pair drew closer to the Chain of Balance they felt the cavern shudder, no doubt Perses climbing towards the summit, along with some more wraiths on the bridge that Kratos stopped on, as there were archers near the Chain and all of them were aiming at them. Flurry, upon seeing them as well, switched to her bow as she loosed arrows at the undead archers, taking them out before they even had a chance to fight back, though she also made sure to take out those that replaced the fallen while her father dealt with the wraiths. This was what made them a formidable team, being able to just divide their enemies among them and trust the other to make sure they weren't overwhelmed, and even when a wraith rushed at Flurry she flipped behind it as Kratos watched as she stuck it's back with a few arrows in rapid succession, killing it while no doubt making Artemis proud of her abilities. He also caught one of the wraiths and twisted it's head, breaking it's neck before it could stop him and killing it instantly, opening the way for him and Flurry to walk up to the base that was around the Chain of Balance, where Flurry opened her wings and glanced at her father, who nodded as he readied Icarus' Wings.

Flurry leapt into the air and let the thermals carry her up the circular passage that had been carved out for the workers to tend to the area that the Chain of Balance needed, which was why it was so big, and it wasn't long before her father did the same, following after her as they headed towards Olympus at last.

There was a particular reason that Flurry went first this time around, as she weaved her magic around her and tore right through the wooden beams, falling boulders, and even metal plates that were in their way, allowing her father to follow without having to stop for anything. While they did so the pair found an opening in the side of the mountain and spotted Perses as he continued his climb to the summit, where he spotted them for a moment and seemed to nod his head for a few seconds, no doubt pleased that they had helped Gaia continue her climb, before he resumed his own ascent. Flurry was pleased with their decision to aid Gaia, because it meant that they didn't have to fight the titans while worrying about Zeus sneaking in some cheap shots while they were distracted, allowing both of them to focus on tearing through the rest of the passage that was ahead of them. Part of Kratos was a little worried about what his daughter was wrecking, but since it seemed to have no effect on anything around them he decided to focus on his flight as Flurry dealt with everything but the Chain of Balance, as they figured that they would deal with it in due time.

Eventually they reached what appeared to be a massive cavern that was somewhere below the eagle statues they had seen before clashing with Poseidon, before noticing the sheer number of large wooden and metallic cubes that were all over the area, along with a small cage, large enough to house someone like Pandora with a little room for her to rest in, that was shaped like a flame.

"Pandora! Can you hear me?" Kratos asked, speaking loudly as they flew around the area and found a spot to land in, on top of one of the nearby wooden cubes, though as he did so he noticed some movement in the cage and, to their relief and anger, he and Flurry found Pandora trapped inside the cage, which had an onyx lock on it's gate.

"Kratos! Flurry! Yes, I can see and hear you!" Pandora replied, where they found her standing close to the edge of her cage as she focused on them, though instead of being afraid or even fearful the pair discovered that she was hopeful that they would find a way to get her out of here and bring this adventure to an end, "Please, hurry."

"I'd love to hurry, but look at this place... the cage is sealed with onyx and magic, meaning even if I broke the lock with my sickles we won't be able to get her out." Flurry commented, as the moment they landed she pointed out what she meant to her father, who could see that this was designed to be hard to undo, before she came to the sad and annoying truth that neither of them wanted to hear at the moment, "I hate to say it, but it looks like we're going to have to assemble the area, which has to be the Labyrinth, before we can make an attempt at rescuing Pandora... I have this feeling that the magic is keeping it locked until the structure is complete."

Sometimes Kratos hated it when his daughter was right, and right now this was one of those moments, as he agreed with her, that while he really wanted to get Pandora out of her cage he had to admit that the locks made it impossible, which meant they had to force the Labyrinth into position before they could even think about helping Pandora. With that in mind the pair glanced around and found that the only thing that could be done right now was walk around the chain that was linked to the top of the cube they had landed on, though behind it was a locking mechanism that had bramble on it, an odd thing in their minds. Since there was nothing else to do Kratos pulled out Apollo's bow and loosed an arrow into the bramble, burning it away before the mechanism came undone, opening and allowing the cube to move towards the core of the caverns, though theirs wasn't the only one that moved as several others started to move as well. The pair watched it happen for a few moments, simply amazed by the work that must have went into carving out the area to even have room for the Labyrinth, the mechanisms that held everything together, and how everything seamlessly moved without coming into contact with each other, before their cube stopped by linking up to two more near a wall.

As the link on top of their cube disconnected, forming a grapple point above them, Flurry realized that they would have to assemble a massive cube around the cage that Pandora was in, that was why there were so many cubes in the area, and it made her wonder how much time had been poured into this project.

While she thought about that Kratos used a nearby lift and a couple of grapple points that were nearby, allowing him to reach the uppermost level of the area, causing Flurry to fly up to where he landed and spotted another lock that had a bunch of bramble on it. With that discovery made she nodded her head as her father burned away the bramble with one of his flaming arrows, where the lock came undone in the process and the cubes moved again, though this time around a number of undead legionnaires decided to drop down onto their ride and attack them. At this point neither warrior was even surprised, since this just confirmed that Zeus loved to use the undead as soldiers, where Flurry switched her sickles and Earthshaker for the twinblade, allowing her to freeze her foes as she slashed at those who came at her. Her father stuck to the blades he usually used in combat, though occasionally he'd surprise some of the undead with either his spear or even Hades' claws, though the real challenge came when a pair of minotaur appeared and rushed over to the chain link that let their cubes be moved through the cavern.

Both warriors realized what the minotaurs were trying to do and lashed out at them before they could even hit the chain, Kratos severing his target's arm with it's weapon as Flurry stabbed hers in the back and froze it with the twinblade, only to smash the ice with a side blow from her hammer, leaving Kratos to sever his foe's head with his heated chains. That wasn't the only foe as they found more and more groups of undead legionnaires and archers coming at them, along with another pair of minotaur and even a cerberus hound, showing them that Zeus wasn't playing around with keeping Pandora locked away from the rest of the world. To cut down on the amount of enemies the pair unleashed the power of their Gorgons' Eyes, turning a number of the undead, and even one of the minotaurs, to stone, causing them to break all of the new stone statues before focusing on those that remained. It was simply astonishing to see the lengths that Zeus would go to in his mad quest to keep Pandora locked away from the rest of the world, though instead of getting annoyed the pair focused on reducing the amount of enemies to nothing, something both of them were familiar with.

Eventually their cubes locked into place with the others that were gathering around Pandora's cage, nearly forming a wall of of them in the process, before discovering that they were near the path that would bring them to Olympus after climbing up it for a time, only to pause as they found another god standing nearby, pacing on another cube.

"Ugh, Hermes." Flurry remarked, as she recognized the god with ease, especially after what happened in the past, and she could tell that her father wasn't too happy to see this particular god either, though she did ready her bow, because if there was one thing they had learned in the past it was that her speed at loosing arrows was faster than Hermes' speed.

"Oh, look who it is: Kratos and Flurry, the Ghost of Sparta and his wretched daughter... the traitorous gods... those who were called 'Cursed Mortals' in the past." Hermes said, where they found him flipping his coin as he walked, which had to be one of his favorite things to do as he passed time waiting for something to happen, and despite their past history he had an annoying smile on his face for some odd reason, "Are you here to 'kill' me as well?"

"To catch a fly from the ass of Zeus is not worth our time, Hermes." Kratos stated, because if he was just going to run and taunt them, a favorite of his based on what they had seen in the past, then he figured there was no reason for him or his daughter to even worry about the Messenger of the Gods.

"Ha, a coward's words, Kratos... you don't try to catch and kill me because, deep down, you know you can't." Hermes said, his tone showing them that he thought of himself as being someone far beyond the pair, like he was as strong as Zeus or something like that, before he paused for a few seconds as he noticed that Flurry had her bow out and was already in the middle of reaching for one of her arrows, "Right... forgot about that. You don't need to catch me, Kratos..."

"That's right, because I CAN!" Flurry replied, as she had struck Hermes multiple times during his attempt to frame them during their time in Argos, with such deadly accuracy that she had nearly killed him all those years ago, and after training for so long she was sure that she could repeat it again without any trouble, "Tell me, Hermes, do you remember what I told you after we brought you to Zeus? Are you going to be a good god and stay out of our way... or are you going to stand against us like an idiot?"

"Are you threatening me? Please, what you experienced in Argos wasn't my full speed... you won't be able to catch me this time around, coward." Hermes stated, where he seemed to be assuming that using a bow and fighting at a distance was a cowardly path to walk, not that he was any better since he was an incredible coward who didn't like to fight people and only agreed to Zeus' plan when he had something big to gain, "Besides, you two are on a fool's errand, this time without the aid of the Olympians backing you. Of course I'm going to oppose you to the best of my ability, because there is no way Zeus is going to lose to either of you."

"Is that you talking, Hermes, or is it Fear?" Kratos asked, because if it was the former he knew that he and Flurry would be more than happy to eliminate the Messenger of the Gods for his past crimes, while if it was the latter it would sour their mood a little since it would be just another mercy killing to cripple Fear's unknown plan, all while he and his daughter slowly reached for their time amulets.

"BOTH!" Hermes stated, where they found that his voice sounded like Fear's, when the Evil took over Helios earlier, and it was easy to see that the dark eerie scales were appearing on the entirety of Hermes' right arm, becoming sleeker than what they had seen when Helios was possessed, while his nails became sharper and deadlier as both of his eyes became slitted, confirming that the Evil was taking over his body.

"Good, that means we can still enjoy beating you up." Kratos said, where the corrupted god raised an eyebrow for a few seconds as Kratos vanished and reappeared in front of him with Earthshaker in his hands, which he swung upward into Hermes' chest and felt some of his bones break as he sent the god up into the air, opening the way for Flurry to pierce his right arm with three arrows and pin him to the vertical walkway on the Chain of Balance.

"Oh, this is good... I want MORE of this!" Fear said, as they could hear his voice coming from Hermes' mouth, showing that he was definitely in control now, and that this time Hermes was a willing partner in his plans, unlike how Helios stopped him from using his power against them, and it wasn't long before he chuckled like he was totally evil or something as he looked down at the pair, "You two have no idea what Evils are inside us: Hatred, for how pitiful you made him feel when Zeus yelled at him; Vanity, as he perceives himself as being above everyone else, including his own son; Greed, his desire for being the most popular god in all of Greece, to the point that he'd even kill his own son; Lust, taking advantage of his female followers to earn more love, even if it meant using sex as a tool; and, of course, myself, for obvious reasons. The more he feeds us the stronger all of us become... until something like this happens!"

Flurry and Kratos found that the scales continued to spread, reaching Hermes' right leg, before Fear freed the corrupted god by using some unconventional means, growing a thick reptilian tail that was attached to the god's spine, baring the dark eerie scales of Evil like the rest of his body, that propelled him off the walkway. As he dropped down on them, in an attempt to fight them, Flurry blasted his chest with a powerful bolt of lightning, sending him further into the air before he grabbed onto the walkway and hissed at them, like a snake, which would explain the scales somewhat. In the next instant Fear turned and rushed up the walkway, utilizing Hermes' speed to get away from his foes, though Flurry was able to hit his back with an arrow, piercing what looked like the right lung area, only to be surprised as he kept going, since Hermes wouldn't have done that. Instead of letting him flee, and get a massive head start, Flurry summoned her magic as Kratos watched as she formed a circular bowl shaped barrier that was filled with fire, meaning she was making her own thermal vent for him to use so he could quickly follow after her.

Once they were ready to go Flurry took off and Kratos used the temporary thermal vent to follow her towards Olympus, where both of them found that there was nothing to destroy or dodge this time, allowing them to pass by the massive pair of eagles again, before stopping at the end of the chain and climbing into an ornate and elegant chamber that told them they were back in Olympus, and in a special chamber.

"The Flame of Olympus." Kratos said, staring at the brass flame sculpture that was in the middle of the chamber, and the powerful blue flame that was in the center of it, before finding Pandora's Box resting directly in the center of the entire thing, confirming everything they had been told so far, before Flurry summoned the Blade of Olympus and stared at both it and the Flame for a time, "Flurry, what are you thinking?"

"I am wondering... the Blade of Olympus can absorb many types of power, but can it absorb the Flame?" Flurry replied, as this would save them so much time if she could do so, all she would have to do was stab the all powerful flames and see if the greatsword could absorb all of it, though before she could even raise the weapon she heard a sound and found that Hermes was standing near an opening, "Okay, put that idea on hold for the time being... we've got an annoying corrupted god to bring down."

Kratos had no idea how to react to his daughter's idea with the Flame, but decided to follow her out to what seemed to be the very balcony they had encountered Zeus at earlier, though before Hermes or Fear, whoever was in charge, could get away Flurry raised her hand and set up a barrier around the area, trapping him on the circular balcony. Fear, as that was who was in control right now since his influence was greater than the other Evils inside Hermes, rushed at them as both warriors entered the area, calling forth the swords that Hermes had used back in Argos to fight them, even if Hermes himself might have run when he had the chance. The pair found that it was far too easy to avoid his attacks, due to the fact that he was possessing a god who almost never fought and the fact that Fear, itself, had no real experience using this body, so it seemed to be two losers in the same body, something Kratos confirmed as he avoided an attack and severed Hermes' right leg, or at least the lower half. Fear and Hermes barely had time to cry out in pain as the Blade of Olympus tore through his chest, causing Hermes' body to shake as some of his power was pulled into the weapon, all while Fear's additions dissolved as a dark mass was separated from his body, just like with Helios, before it rushed off in the direction of Zeus, adding more Evil to his own.

Hermes had nothing to say as he perished, in fact all he had was the annoying look on his face, before his body started to dissolve into what seemed to be a swarm of locusts or flies, some sort of insect swarm, that escaped into the air, not even going for the people that were still alive, before Kratos collected Hermes' boots and Flurry picked up his coin.

"Well, not what I expected, but this works." Kratos said, as he didn't care too much about Hermes' death, this god was one of the few that had it coming after everything he and Flurry had seen over the years, especially with his hand in trying to frame them for wrecking Argos and killing the beast of the same name, and this gave them, or rather him, another tool to move around the areas they would be exploring.

"The insects certainly don't seem to care... guess Hermes was a failure to the very end." Flurry added, because the disaster that should have come from Hermes didn't seem to be doing anything, which she guessed was good for them since that meant they would have one less thing to worry about when Zeus finally died, before she pulled out the lantern as she headed back into the Flame's chamber, "I'm going to check the walls really quick, before we continue with our quest."

Kratos nodded his head as he followed his daughter back into the chamber, as this would give him a chance to check out the boots before they had to continue the battle against Zeus and the rest of the foolish individuals who would dare to stand in their way, making him wonder what else the future might hold for them.