For thousands of years, Kronos slumbered into the stomach of the pit. Trying to think was in itself an exercise that Kronos could not do. 

In the rare moments when he would wake up and manage to think, a question would always be at the front of his mind. ‘Why didn't he in that agony choose to fade?’ 

After all, what had he left anchoring him to the world? Rhea has left, his siblings were probably suffering from untold torments or had faded away. The ones who had managed to escape punishment from his children were those who betrayed them, who chose personal self-preservation, and cowardice over all their siblings.

He wondered if Tethys was satisfied now. She had wanted Hestia to live on and the cost of that wish had been her siblings. He wondered if she even felt sadness when she learned the fate of her siblings.

Something welled up in him and flooded him. Disgust Kronos realized. Kronos’s age may have finished, and Kronos may have everything he had loved destroyed but what pained him the most, what disgusted him to the point where by spite, he still clung to existence was betrayal.

He wanted to make all of them, all of those who contributed to the end of the Titans’ age pay. 

Kronos dreamt for more than a millennium of this. He dreamt of tearing Fate itself and its chains from the foundations of the world.

Ten thousand years after the end of his golden age, Kronos would be roused from his slumber. He would awake whole. 

Kronos flexed his arm and saw it move. He tried the same kind of test with the rest of his body and found himself successful.

When he tried to access his divinity, Kronos felt a blocage as if he had entered into contact with an unbreachable wall.

“They couldn't let you do that,” Kronos heard a familiar voice say behind him.

Both hatred and love flooded him from the inside. The owner of the voice stopped at his side “Hello Brother,” Themis told him.

Kronos didn't answer. He instead turned his gaze toward what seemed to be an endless white horizon. 

“The silent treatment?” she said. “That's fine. I can talk for the both of us.”

“There is nothing to say between us Themis,” Kronos finally spoke.

“What I did Kronos, you have to understand that I had done it for us,” his sister said softly.

Anger and hatred won over love. “How could the betrayal of your siblings Themis be for their sake!” Kronos hissed. “How could it be for us when because of your actions, Theia chose to Fade!?”

Kronos felt her took a step back and looked as if she had been stabbed “I didn't think that it would end like this. I knew the moment your children escaped from your stomach that we would lose Kronos. I thought that in giving up, there would be more chances of us surviving than the contrary.”

A laugh escaped Kronos’ lips. “It seemed you miscalculated sister, that your cowardice at the end ensured only your survival. Where are the siblings for whom you did such a thing? Trapped in the pit or have probably faded.”

A sigh escaped Kronos “What do you want Themis? What's the point of all of this? Are you there because you wanted me to alleviate the guilt you feel? If it's goal, you're sorely mistaken if you think I would do it.”

“Amongst your children and grandchildren, a war happened and Zeus who held the highest throne like you once did was toppled and replaced by his daughter,” Themis said.

“I would have thought that Hestia would have been king after me,” Kronos told her.

“She was supposed to inherit it. This is what was expected but she disregarded the supreme throne, the authority of the King of the gods. Zeus may have not been the strongest of his siblings but he was the more popular so he became king,” Themis spoke.

“The reason why you're not in the Pit anymore is because I was able to successfully plead for the release of the others and you,” she told him.

“There seem to be caveats to the deal you made. I can not access my domains,” Kronos said.

Kronos saw from the corners of his eyes A bitter smile bloomed on her face “They're not stupid Kronos. Would you have not tried to retaliate against them if you could?” she asked.

“I would have,” Kronos admitted without shame. “Even then, it sounds too good to be true. By my presence, I'm a threat to the current regime.”

Kronos noticed how  Themis arms grabbed each other as if she was unconsciously trying to comfort herself. “I…had to do… certain things so that you could all be freed.”

She sounded on the verge of crying and all the hatred he felt toward her vanished. She had betrayed them, her own siblings and by this actions led them to a path of suffering and loss yet even with all of that, Kronos loved her. 

He felt like a canine that would always go back to their owner even if they abused them and Kronos felt disgust toward himself.

‘Theia had faded because of her,’ he reminded himself. ‘The others suffered untold torments because of her’.

Kronos for the first time since the beginning of their conversion turned and focused completely on the form of his sister.

‘She had changed’ Kronos thought. Gone was the hard and proud Themis. What was left behind was a meek and fragile-looking deity. There were no crowns adorning her like in the past. Instead, what was now covering the back of her hair was a shawl.

Kronos followed his instincts instead of his head and hugged her. She broke down in his arms “I'm so sorry,” she repeated endlessly.

They fell on their knees on the white sand Themis still in his arms. “I don't think I could even forgive you Themis. I Both love and hate you so much. What am I going to do with you sister”.

Her breath became less ragged “I feel so dirty as if I was stained forever, Brother. Nothing that I've done that I thought would be right turned okay. I can peer through the eddies of Fate yet I still feel as if nothing that I did mattered. If I could change everything if I could go back in the past and erase this future, I would,” she whispered.

“I know,” Kronos answered. “I also thought this way. I wondered endlessly in the past when we began ruling Othrys in the past if my actions were the good ones to take. I was given many advice but one advice I was given was that it didn't matter what I could or could not have done, that it served nothing to think about things that could have been. The only thing I could and should try to control was my future.”

“It was a good advice.” “Who gave it to you,” she asked.

“You did Themis,” Kronos answered.

Her grip on him tightened. “They couldn't allow you your authority over your domains but what they could do was to give you something else.”

She left his embrace and sat at his side. Kronos did seconds after the same thing. “What was the poisoned nectar,” Kronos asked her.

“It is this island, the isle of the worthy that lost their lives, Elysium and you Kronos chosen to be its king,” she told him.

“Is a king truly a king when his authority comes from someone else?” Kronos spoke. “I would never stop hating them.”

“I would have wondered if you were Kronos if that wasn't the case,” she told him.

“I want the others there with me free from all the torments I'm sure my children had entrusted on them,” Kronos said to her.

“Consider it already done,” she answered.

“You know that on the first occasion, I would try to lash out at them?” Kronos asked her.

“I know,” she replied. “I learnt something from all those aeons and that was that nothing was eternal.”

“One day the time will come Themis,” Kronos told her. “The match of time is inexorable. All they built with be erased one day like Othrys had been with us. I just wish I could be the one to turn all of theirs to Ashes.”

Themis opened her palm and in it materialized chains. “They are what is supposed to give you authority over this island.”

Kronos looked at them and scoffed “How original,” he said sarcastically. 

Even then, he presented his arms to his sister “I trusted you once and had in the end only betrayal and disappointment”.

She took a deep breath before opening her mouth “I swear before the Khaos, under the Heavens and with the Earth as witness that I will never betray you and any of our full-blooded siblings again.”

Kronos looked into her eyes and with a sight nodded in affirmative to her.

With his approval, she arranged them over his arms. Like snakes, they enrolled around his arms before biting into his flesh.

Kronos felt them slither in his flesh before they stopped moving. Kronos had felt no pain and hadn't bled. 

The other side of the chains that were hanging at his feet seemed to disappear into the ether. 

“What now?” Kronos finally asked his sister.

“It depends on you,” she answered. “Make them kill each other for all eternity if you want.”

“What I want?!,” Kronos chuckled. They were such fools. Kronos’s authorities hadn't been the only reason why he had been seen as one of the strongest if not the strongest of the Uranides.

Kronos stood up and turned his gaze away from the endless white horizon “Let's prepare for the future sister.”

                              *demiurge*

“I knew you would come of all your siblings Hestia,” Kronos spoke from his throne. He ignored the gazes of fear of his present sibling.

They may have been freed from the torments that hailed them but such things always had consequences whether they were physical or mental.

“Let's talk somewhere,” Kronos told her before standing from his throne.

“Maybe I'm their father uncaring of the decision of my niece. Maybe I'm there to end all of you. What makes you think it's not the case?” Hestia asked.

Kronos walked from his throne to his daughter stopping in front of her. “Why you ask?”

“It's simple”. He leaned on her shoulder to whisper in her ear “Because I know you daughter of mine.”

She froze at his words. “Let's go on the balcony,” he said before beginning to walk toward him. Kronos didn't need to use his authority over Elysium or look behind him to see that she was following him.

Their steps echoed on the white marble of Kronos’s new castle. It could be said to be a reflection of Othrys. Kronos had built it this way to make sure he would not forget what he had lost. Servants darted away from their path as if they were Khaos itself.

They finally arrived at the balcony. 12 Thrones-like chairs had been arranged on a table made of the corpse of a once powerful dryad that had crossed Athena.

The goddess Kronos had heard has an ego even bigger than a primordial. The difference between her and her sire was the fact that she was seen as a better and wiser ruler.

Kronos sat on one of the chairs. Hestia sat at the opposite of him at the end of the table. Kronos turned his head and his view was welcomed with the images of what could only be called paradise, an image of Opulence and divine, something fit for the greatest heroes, that even the gods would be jealous of.

“You did well,” his daughter admitted. 

“I know,” Kronos simply answered. He turned back his gaze on his daughter. She had both changed and didn't.

She had chosen to look the same way she did before Kronos had swallowed them. She was the image of young innocence, she was the image of something broken.

Her clothes were what gave the doubt of her truly being a child. Thick fabrics that seemed they were there to conceal from any gaze their owner. On her though, it gave the appearance of someone older, ancient, exhausted.

While Kronos was analyzing her, he could feel her do the same thing. Kronos wondered what she saw when she looked at him. Her father? Her oppressor? A nightmare that she could never truly get rid of?

“I don't even know why I came here.” She began to glow gold, an indicative sign that she was taking her true form to leave.

“Such Father, such daughter. You're just like me Hestia,” Kronos spoke while leaning his head on his fist in a bored expression.

The light around Hestia vanished instantaneously to reveal a glaring Hestia with eyes full of hatred. “Don't you dare say such a thing again,” she spat.

“I just told you the truth daughter. The reason why I know you is because you're just like me,” Kronos told her.

“I'm not like you Father.” she spewed the word with such hatred that it seemed more like a curse than anything else. “I'm not someone that would because of cowardice choose to swallow their own children!”

“Then, why don't you have any children?” Kronos asked her.

She looked as if she had been slapped “What?”

“Then, why don't you have any children?” Kronos repeated. “I learnt from my dead subjects that Queen Hestia swore before Khaos itself eternal virginity, that she would bear no child into this world. I'm going to tell you why you did such a thing, Hestia. You did it because you knew what you would have done if any of the children you possibly had threatened the most important thing to you, your siblings.”

“You’re wrong,” she denied.

Kronos continued to speak as if he hadn't heard her. “You know what the funny thing is. You said that you weren't a monster but you watched and did nothing when your own brother did worse than even what I did. He swallowed his child and the mother. What did you do daughter? Nothing! Doesn't that make a worse monster monster than me?”

“I did something when Zeus did this abomination,” Hestia screamed. “I went to talk to him after. I knew it wasn't too late to correct his error but he didn't listen! So I waited for the good moment and toppled my own brother from his throne, I banished my blood. I did what had to be done no matter how much it hurt!”

“Your brother,” Kronos interrupted her. “You didn't throw him in the pit or worse like you did with me and my siblings. Worse, you've let them walk way free and this, dear daughter is why you're like me. The only thing that matters to you is your siblings, like me, you made monstrous acts for them like what you did to my sister. I look at you daughter and I only see my reflection. Be honest, wouldn't you have done the same thing as me or something worse like your brother to ensure the well-being of your family, of your siblings?”

“I wouldn't have,” she answered but unlike the other times, she didn't look at him in the eyes. She sat back on the chair and grabbed her head between her hands.

“I made many things, many errors, many atrocities I would do again if I had to Hestia,” Kronos told her. Kronos felt that he had grabbed her attention “There's few things I could be proud of. You're the greatest thing, my biggest pride,” Kronos admitted.

Kronos turned his gaze away from her. He acted as if he didn't hear the sound of her tears falling on the wood of the table. “Why are you telling me this? What kind of sick game are you playing?!” she yelled. 

“I'm telling you the truth. I swear before Khaos, under the Heavens and with the Earth as witness.” Cold seeped into Kronos’s bones. Kronos could feel an endless hunger directed at him. He knew that if he had lied, his immortal soul, his essence would have been swallowed. “I'm tired of lying. That's all.”

“That time, thousands of years ago, I thought that it must have been my imagination, a mirage that my mind must have itself created but it was real wasn't it? You Hesitated,” Hestia said softly.

“I did when I shouldn't have. I blamed Themis and so many others for our fall when in reality I was the culprit. I chose to have all of you when I knew what you were prophesied to do. When I could have won, when I should have struck you, I didn't because I was a coward, a fool scared of doing what was necessary, because I wasn't strong enough to discard my greatest pride, you Hestia and that's why I lost.”

“I just wish everything could have been different,” she said. “Maybe if you hadn’t cared, hadn't been scared by the prophecy and raised all of us, maybe instead of being toppled from your throne, you would have abdicated it to one of us. Othrys  would have burned, disappearing to emerge into something greater, better without bloodshed.”

“Or maybe it would have changed nothing and in the end, things would still be the same. You were a threat not only to me but also to my family. I had to act. You would have done the same thing, daughter.” 

“The fate issued the beginning of a prophecy,” Hestia revealed. “They said that the Titan king would rise from the depth of Tartarus.”

“So this is why you decided to bring me back from the pit,” Kronos mused out loud. “I knew that there was something else but I didn't know what it was until now.”

His gaze met the one of his daughter, two identical yet so different golden eyes. “Your new king wants to manipulate the prophecy?” Kronos asked even though he already knew the answer.

“Yes,” Hestia replied. “The prophecies of the daughters of Ananke always happen so instead of trying to go against like you and her father tried, she decided to make it happen on her terms.”

“She thinks she can outsmart the Moirai, such Hubris. Do you really think it would work Hestia?”

“I don't and this is one of the reasons why I came here.” Her land lit into golden flames. She turned it to point it to Kronos. “I need you to be honest with me Father. Would you pose a threat to the future of my family?”

Kronos sighed “I won't lie to you, Hestia. Next time, I won’t waver. I will crush and break everything you've built after me. I will destroy all of you, make you suffer. Only after this, I would find peace so the answer to your question daughter is Yes.”

Her flames surged instantaneously after his yes. They burnt a path through the wood, the marble under them and the air. Kronos didn't move as the flames surrounded him and trapped him in his embrace. He could see through them the shaking form of his daughter as if she was restraining herself. 

“To make sure that our loved ones never suffer, we have to make sacrifices no matter if they're hard or if they hurt, no matter if it means immolating ourselves. That's what the world requires of us, Hestia!” Kronos yelled over the flames.

Golden flames were falling on her cheeks from her eyes searing and blackening disgustingly the flesh. Kronos closed his eyes as he felt the fire converge on his form.

When he opened them back, it was to sight of flying ashes dancing like specks of snow in the air. Hestia was gone. “You’re truly like me daughter,” Kronos whispered ignoring the appearance of his siblings and the wetness he could feel on his face. “Pride had been the end of me but in the end, love will be what dooms us all”.

   *scene*

Kronos sat alone on the beach. He had learnt from newcomers that the new regime had fallen and that Zeus was able to take back his crown. He learnt that Zeus was able to accomplish such things through the betrayal of those the new regime thought allies and the help of a foreign goddess that he allowed in their realm.

The foreign goddess that had sided with Zeus was one Kronos was familiar with. She had been the one to usurp parts of the authorities of her father and sister.

She had been the goddess known to be particularly cruel even amongst gods where cruelty was so easily given.

She had many names and titles. Queen of the Sky, whore of Babylon, the cruel one, goddess of beauty, goddess of war, harvest, lust Ishtar, Inanna, Astarte and Manat. Kronos had heard that it was said that she had asked two things to his youngest child that the fool had accepted.

She had asked for a throne amongst the ones the Olympians, his children and descendants erected and as her second demand, she had asked a sacrifice, not a mortal one but a divine one.

The goddess through foul sorceries and arcane secrets had been the first god in existence to do what had never been successfully done before, usurping an immortal, absorbing their essences until they had turned to nothing. Zeus had copied her with Metis and she had done the same abominable act again with Kronos’s sister Dione.

Zeus had accepted and because of it, Kronos had lost another sister, because of Zeus, Kronos lost Dione. It couldn't be said that she faded because the Dione that Kronos had loved would never be able to come back.

From the threads of fate and from the fabric of reality, she was erased. All that she was, that she could ever be existed now in Ishtar.

He hadn't been able to tell the truth to his siblings. He didn't want them to feel the same anguish that he did.

The only thing they knew was that because the new regime that had lasted for more than a millennium had fallen, soon, their newly acquired freedom would be removed from them. They would be back to the torments tag they had thought they had forever escaped.

They didn't grow fearful, or scared. They knew that nothing they would do stripped of their authority would be able to change anything so instead of worrying about the inescapable, they had decided to throw an endless celebration. One that began at the moment of the fall of the new regime and that would only end with surely, his youngest would make them go back to their old torments.

He could hear the sound of the festivities away. Kronos had taken part for a while until he felt weary from them and decided to sneak away from it for a moment.

The false horizon and sky of Elysium made Kronos at ease, inducing in him what he could only call serenity.

He heard steps coming from behind him. Without looking back at using his authority over Elysium, Kronos knew who it was.

Kronos turned to face the newcomer. The newcomer was a man that Kronos had to admit was undeniably handsome. He was very tall, imposing, and very muscular, with shoulder-length black hair and a grey-and-black neatly trimmed beard. The blue electric eyes betrayed his identity.

“It’s been a while Zeus,” Kronos said. “Congratulations are in order. I heard that you gained back your throne.”

His son stayed silent looking at him. “I wonder what comes next for you,” Kronos spoke.

“An eternal reign,” Zeus answered. “One where my siblings and I stay supreme.”

Kronos couldn't contain the laughs that escaped him. He saw how the face of his son darkened in anger and how blue sparks came to life around the god but it was so funny that it hurt “Your siblings,” Kronos said between his chuckles “hate you, Zeus. The world and they see you as a tyrant worse than even me. After all, I didn't swallow Rhea. They chose to banish you away from them. Now you came back, destroyed or will destroy everything they fought for and you think that they would still love you?!”

“What I do, I do it for them. They don't comprehend it, and they don't understand that it is the best for them but it's fine. It doesn't matter if they hate me now. I know that one day, they will see that everything I did was for them,” Zeus said.

“You really hadn't changed,” Kronos told his son. “You’re still the child that came to Othrys, fearful, scared.”

“I'm not the god of back then. I'm not weak anymore. I'm strong, strong enough to enforce my will on this world, strong enough so that I could win against Fate itself. I'm not like you Father,” Zeus spat.

“I agree on the fact that we're not alike son.” Kronos grabbed the authority he knew he would soon lose over Othrys and directed it at Zeus before twisting. 

“I'm not someone hiding behind a facade, hiding behind an image. I am Kronos and I don't need to change myself because I'm scared. Everything I did, I did head-on. We're not the same child” Kronos spoke. Gone was the form of a man. In Kronos’s sight, the only person that could be seen was a child not even 16 years old.

This was the last thought Kronos had before lightning fell on his form and he blacked out. He regained consciousness and was welcomed by searing agonizing pain that ran through every atom that made him.

“Look at you Father,” he heard the voice of his son gloating “at my feet, weak, defenceless.”

Even in his broken state, a painful laugh escaped from Kronos “You just proved that you were weak,” Kronos whispered. “My words, they angered you because they were true. I may be a monster but my family loves me. When I meet Khaos, it will be knowing that I was always loved but you, Zeus, the love you crave from your siblings, they saw the true you and because of this will never give it to you. In the end and I promise that there will be an end no one will love you, no one of your siblings will cry for you.”

Kronos felt the earth open, and crack around him “All of the sins you made, make and will make are worthless because, in the end, it doesn't matter what you do, you'll always be what you run away from.” Kronos’s form fell into the darkness yet he knew that his last words would reach his son “A scared lonely child.

Kronos felt his form break into many pieces as if nothing had changed, as if he hadn't been in the past put back whole. ‘It was fine’, Kronos thought as he fell into the pit. ‘It may take days, months, decades, millenniums or more but I will be back and this time, the world will pay for all the actions committed against Kronos and his siblings.

*scene*

It should have normally been Kronos’s end. He should have gone back broken in the depths of Tartarus and never been able to do anything to escape from it.

The thing was that even Kronos hated Fate, Fate was now at his side. What made sure that Kronos would escape was something that he knew that not one of his children had even envisioned.

They had themselves given Kronos the key to his rise. When they had destroyed Othrys and Toppled Kronos and the other Uranides from their thrones, his children decided to not stop at this.

They created and built a being, a living doll almost identical to a human and had called this doll Pandora. 

His children had wanted to completely destroy his legacy, the humans that supported him, that he had protected and their brethren. To do such a thing, they decided to commit one of the worst blasphemous acts that could be done.

They gave access to their realm to the Evils, fool-corrupting daemons, children of the night that only longed for despoiling and destroying everything they could.

They wanted to make his old subjects and their descendants suffer. Pandora didn't know that what she was given, that the box she had been entrusted with was a portal, an opening.

When she opened the box like she was meant to be, the evils surged and flooded the world with plague, hatred, suffering, despair and fear.

The Olympians, his children were untouched so they didn't care when the world burnt around them. 

What the Olympians and no one would have expected was that Elpis, another child of the night had followed her siblings. She had just been unable to enter into the world of helike when Pandora had in fright and horror closed back the box.

When later, the girl opens it again to unleash Elpis, hope onto the world, she would not know of the world-changing consequence of her act.

Elpis had nested into the hearts of mortals and the lowest of immortals, in the hearts of those that had been afflicted by the sadism of her siblings.

She gave them something that had never truly been present in the world since its creation. She gave them Hope. 

Hope wasn't an imagined concept. It was a tangible thing. It was what gave the strength to endure to those who received it. It was what allowed them to face the evils and not waver.

Hope was nothing else than a crystallized miracle. Hope was faith, faith in tomorrow, faith that things would get better, that the night no matter how long it was would surely end. 

With Hope, those who received lived on. Their faith, their Hope allowed them to do what could have never been thought possible, challenge reality and win.

Hope more than a miracle was a weapon, one capable of changing the static, breaking the unbreakable, and reaching the unreachable.

His children would learn that with Hope, those they thought could never affect them began able to. With their hope and their faith, they could change the gods and deny them.

With Hope, they could change the intrinsic divinity of an immortal being when before it was something that could only be done by a higher being like a primordial or by someone having inherited the authority of one like Kronos had before Zeus and his children usurped it from him.

His children’s story, one they called a triumph could be said to almost be known by all.

His children taught the world to hate him, to fear him, to despise him. What they hadn't known was that fear, hatred, anger, all those emotions were acts of worship.

With the hope, the faith nestled in their heart, that they had inherited from their forefathers, the mortal subject of his children gave him a gift. They gave him a name, a mantle. They gave him the mantle of evil.

If only they had known the enormity of their error. Evil was everywhere and in everything. Evil was there when a parent beat their child. Evil was there when siblings killed each other over paltry things like material things. Evil was there when humans killed each other because of ignorance and differences.

By giving Kronos the mantle of Evil, they strengthened him. Each of their evil actions served as fuel for the youngest Uranide.

With each century that passed, Kronos became stronger. With each atrocity committed, his torment became more bearable. Because of their actions, Kronos regained his consciousness and with it back, Kronos began to plan his return.

Kronos watched the world through the horrors it created. Kronos watched the world his children created and only felt disgust.

He would learn of the soon end of his trapping in Tartarus through a prophecy, a great prophecy. 

Kronos heard from the mouth of the oracle how he would rise, how with the help of a hero, at the sixteenth birthday of one of his grandchildren, Olympus would either be saved or razed.

He watched how his son killed the children of his brother Hades to make sure that the prophecy would not happen. 

Kronos would have thought that with all of this time, Zeus would have understood that prophecies especially coming from the Fates were unfortunately unavoidable.

The only Zeus had truly been able to do was strengthen the hatred his brother already had over him. 

Kronos had waited thousands of years in the lit broken, suffering. What was another century? Kronos continued to wait and regain his strength through every evil act committed by those who dwelled on his mother’s body.

Kronos’s opportunity presented itself to him like a wrapped gift. Luke Castellan, so angry, so hateful, so scared.

Kronos knew of him through the domain mortals had bestowed upon him. Luke Castellan was just a traumatized child, one who longed for a missing parent, one who longed to live not only for himself but also for all other demigods instead of surviving.

To obtain Luke Castellan’s loyalty Kronos had needed only one thing, to promise the demigod that the age he would create after vanquishing the Olympians would be one better for the demigods, a world where they could live without having to fear constantly for their lives because of monsters, because of gods or both.

A world where all demigods would be able to experience more than eighteen years of life. A world where children of literal gods would not be abandoned and have to sleep in an overcrowded caban ignored, not taken care of, unclaimed by their parents.

Kronos had promised it to the child. Kronos knew what it was to constantly fear. Kronos knew what it was to live in a cramped space with his family while your divine parent that should love you, and take care of you didn't acknowledge your existence unless they needed you.

The young demigod had been generously gifted at birth by his father, one of the grandsons of Kronos, the messenger of the gods, the thief god, Hermes.

Kronos learnt through Luke that because it was the winter solstice, the denizens of camp half-blood would be invited to Olympus itself.

Kronos had seen it as the perfect occasion. The Olympians, his children and grandchildren already hated each other. The elements needed to make everything explode were already present.

The only thing that was left was for a fire to be lit and that was the mission that Kronos gave to Luke. He gave him the task of stealing a symbol of power from of one the Olympians. He had known that in their stronghold, they wouldn't be vigilant, and wouldn't expect theft.

They were lucky in the fact that what Luke found had been the two symbols of power of two of his sons. The Master Bolt of Zeus and the Helmet of Darkness of Hades.

With the help of Kronos’s instructions, Luke removed all the traps and curses supposed to stop any would-be thief from stealing the symbol of the power of a god.

Luke succeeded in leaving Olympus with the two Prizes when Ares who had been one of the gods that had been sent to the search of the Master bolt found him.

What had angered him was that Luke could have won if he had been cautious and serious. He hadn't. He had been so full of his theft that he didn't the god of war seriously and lost.

He would have also lost his life if Kronos hadn't intervened. Kronos had to sacrifice so much energy that he had assembled for aeons to twist the mind of the god of war.

Kronos punished the boy later with nightmares of his family, of other campers dying, of a blue-eyed daughter of Zeus endlessly falling alone surrounded by monsters. The boy needed to understand that it wasn't a game, that such an error occurring again could end all hope of Kronos destroying the Olympians, of him building the better world that the demigod wished so much for.

Months later, a child, another demigod came to camp half-blood. His name was a familiar one, Percy Jackson. He had once been able to glimpse how the stepfather of said demigod had physically hurt him.

Kronos at that time hadn't really paid attention but he knew that if he had done it, he would have immediately realized that the child came from Poseidon’s loans with the appearance they both inherited from Rhea. 

He hadn't needed his son to claim Percy Jackson to know his parentage, that he was probably the child of the prophecy whose sixteenth birthday could mark the end of Olympus.

He had asked without telling Luke the truth to test the child. At first, it seemed he would have been a disappointment until he wasn't and was claimed.

Kronos knew that because the Master bolt and The Helmet of Darkness had disappeared while Poseidon’s trident hadn't, Zeus and Hades would put the blame on Poseidon, especially after the fact that he sired a half-blood child even though he swore with his brothers an oath.

Luke would learn that to prove his innocence, the child was asked to retrieve the Master bolt of Zeus, so that a war between the heavens and the seas wouldn't occur.

Such war was something that Kronos had seen as necessary to weaken his children. He had asked Luke to curse winged sandals he had received from his father and give them to the Jackson boy so that in the chance he was able to reach the underworld with the two symbols of power, he would be dragged with them to Tartarus where Kronos would be able to use them to strengthen himself and in the same time twist the mind of the young demigod.

The death or disposition of Poseidon’s demigod whether it was during the quest on the surface world or the underworld would have maddened his sire. In any case, Kronos had also other backup plans.

Kronos hadn't needed them at all. What Kronos should have done since the beginning was just watching. 

He saw how The demigod fought against a fury toe to toe and technically won. He knew that Zeus would have seen it and because of it, his paranoia and fear would explode.

He had been right. His foolish son had put a bounty on the head of the demigod for all whether they were from the mundane or divine world to see.

What he hadn't expected was how Poseidon had reacted in such a drastic way. Kronos hadn't needed to do anything else for the war between the heavens and the seas to rage. It was just a question of time before the underworld also became involved.

The dead that had been raised by his second son had been since their unleashing only killing. Each minute that passed was one where a mortal surely lost their lives. 

Kronos’s plan would have to change but it was fine. ‘Uncertainty and surprise could be a good thing,’ Kronos thought while for the first time since the fall of Othrys, Kronos’s head was whole by his own will.