Battle of Olympus

Prelude

Weasel and most of his friends have been on Olympia for almost a month now, protecting the Gods from Tate and his new Shadow Weapons. During this time, they have also been learning from said Gods about the workings of the universe, reenacting the 12 Labors of Hercules, following the path of Odysseus, participating in gladiatorial combat, and grudgingly siding with the Emperor against pro-democracy revolutionaries. Meanwhile, Tate has been in and out of Hell, amassing an army of monsters as well as trying and failing to win over Hades. Seeing a golden opportunity, he aligned himself with the pro-democracy revolutionaries, allowing him to tap into a nearly endless recruiting pool on Olympia itself without needing to commute back and forth into Hell. On the Tatian-owned Factory World, a secret project was under development: the T-Ray, a colossal Shadow Weapon attached to a space station and capable of destroying an entire solar system. Weasel and his friends decided the best option was to dig in and fortify the impregnable peak of Mount Olympus with their army (as they were not aware that Tate's was slightly larger than theirs). To contribute to this illusion of a small army, Tate had been hiding the vast majority of his troops in Hell while only keeping a few around to win battles for the pro-democracy revolutionaries. Meanwhile, the location of Tate's nearest fleet was reassigned to the nearby planet of Rinascita, prepared to go straight to Olympia on a moment's notice. The T-Ray had just finished construction and was scheduled to be in use during Tate's final battle on Olympia. However, recent events had driven a wedge between Tate and her underling Santa Muerte to the point where the two had been separated their whole time on Olympia. Torn between her master and her guilt for the atrocities she helped him commit over the course of the war, Santa Muerte made a landmark decision (albeit halfheartedly so) to ditch the Tatian cause and join the Aureans, thanks in no small part to her twin sister Morgan. About three days before the battle was to begin, Weasel received intelligence from a scout indicating that Tate's army was much larger than what they had prepared for. In response, Weasel called in his fleet, stationed on the relatively distant planet of Arturia. Due to its proximity to Olympia, the Tatian fleet arrived first, blockading and effectively trapping Weasel and his army on the planet. The T-Ray was next to arrive, being so large that it had to use a cloaking device to ensure it would not be visible from Olympia's surface. Weasel advised The Gods to jump through the portal on top of Mount Olympus to travel to Olympus proper in case the battle was lost, but Ares convinced the rest of The Gods to stay and fight.

Battle

The next day, Tate decided it was time to figure out a way to scale the colossal mountain. It was almost 10,000 feet high, so building an embankment was out of the question. Since he had around a thousand hippogriffs, griffins, and pegasi at his disposal, Tate decided that he could get at least some of his troops to the top by having them ride these beasts into battle or having the beasts tow carriages. As for his walkers, he would use Astral Rock to lift them and himself to the peak. Timing it almost exactly right, Tate and the walkers arrived less than a minute after his main army on their beasts, and the battle was already raging wildly. Once the walkers were introduced, the battle began to tip in Tate's favor since the Aureans had no way of piercing their armor. However, Deus Ex Machina managed to pull an Olympian Fire sprayer out of his anus that he used to destroy some walkers. Meanwhile, the Aurean Fleet had arrived at the scene and began to engage the Tatian Fleet. The Aurean Fleet attempted to trap the Tatians between the Aureans and the planet's atmosphere, but that plan failed when Chief Witko, the weapons supervisor of the T-Ray, demanded that the space station remove its cloaking device and begin firing at the fleet. The first shot from the massive Shadow Weapon narrowly missed the Aurean Flagship, causing panic among the Aurean Fleet. Back on land, things were hardly faring any better, as Walkers pressed on despite Deus Ex Machina's best efforts. At one point, Weasel had to resort to using Astral Rock to move some rubble in the way of the walkers to trip them. Just then, one Aurean cruiser managed to run through the Tatian blockade, landing behind Aurean lines to unload 15 tanks and over 10,000 men. The tanks made short work of what walkers were left, then turned themselves on the Tatian formations. Beginning to get desperate, Tate contacted Chief Witko and demanded that he send some of the Tate fighters in space with the fleet into the sky to attack the tanks. After a few minutes, the fighters arrived and began distracting the tanks long enough for the Tatians to counterattack. It is during this time when Santa Muerte, The Gods, and Morgan found Tate among the enemy ranks and an emotionally-conflicted Santa Muerte was faced with a decision: she could fire her Shadow Gun at Morgan and rejoin the Tatians, which would restore her honor in the eyes of her parents, or she could shoot Tate and end this war. It is not known exactly why she chose this choice over the other, but she shot Morgan with her Shadow Gun, temporarily reverting her to an inert statue. Since Chiron had died earlier in the fighting and Weasel was on the other side of the battlefield, The Gods were wide open. They tried to make a run for the portal to Olympus proper, but Tate commanded Chief Witko to fire the T-Ray at it. Even with its power at the lowest setting, the Shadow Weapon blew apart the portal before The Gods could even see it coming and created a massive explosion that killed many troops on both sides. All of The Gods except Zeus were caught in the explosion as well, temporarily transforming them into statues. By this time, the battle was deemed over by Tate, since he had accomplished most of what he desired from it. The Aureans began evacuating in the cruiser, while Tate's troops left the same way they came, with the statues in tow. Once the mountain was clear except for Zeus and Tate, the two decided to duel it out alone.

Aftermath

Once Weasel and his army was back in their cruiser, they noticed when they went back into space that the Tatian Fleet had already left for some reason, and the only enemy ship still there was a cruiser that could obviously see them but was not attacking. Back on the ground, Zeus was beginning to get tired from his long duel with Tate and demanded a three-minute break. Tate initially seemed to agree, but it was a ruse, as Tate shot him with his Shadow Gun as soon as Zeus dropped his guard. Tate now had Zeus in statue form and declared his work on Olympia done. He then flew through the air using Astral Fire, with Zeus in tow, until he caught up with his army. They then loaded all the statues on one of Tate's cruisers. Since Tate cared not about Olympia, he told the massive army he gathered on the planet to overthrow the now-unguarded Emperor Julius Arius III. He then left in his cruiser with his warlords and his new statue collection. Back in space, Weasel and his friends saw Tate's ship come up from the planet and dock inside the cruiser they saw earlier. The cruiser then blasted off into hyperspace, leaving Weasel and his friends in a state of shock as to the events that just transpired on Olympia. Back on Olympia, Tate's army marched on the capital, singing Sogno di Volare and holding up signs demanding the Emperor's resignation. With no army or Praetorian Guard left to protect him, Emperor Julius Arius penned a letter of resignation and announced to the angry mob that he was stepping down. A month later, a senator named Septimius Severus was elected as Olympia's first President. Meanwhile, Morgan was imprisoned in a maximum-security prison on Caput Tatiium called Alpacatraz once she turned back to normal. The Gods were crammed into a giant net hung off of the walls of Tate's Castle to be used in Tate's ritual on the next solar eclipse. Santa Muerte was at first happy to return to her parents and tell them about how she served Tate, that all changed when she actually returned to her home village. When she got there, she discovered that the entire village had been reduced to rubble by Tate's army, and her parents were among the casualties. She began to realize that it is her parents who lacked honor and intelligence by supporting all the bloodshed Tate has caused over the years, and also discovered the true ruthlessness of Tate through the experience. She began to sneak visits to Morgan in prison, though Morgan refused to talk to her. This, and a serious lack of faith in Tate beginning to appear in her, eventually leads to her switching sides when Weasel and his friends invade Caput Tatiium a few months down the road.