Episode Four: The hidden flame

Athena drifted at the edge of unconsciousness, her body broken, her mind battered by pain and memory. Darkness wrapped around her like a shroud, thick and suffocating. She heard Ares’ footsteps echoing through the ruined square, slow and deliberate.

"It’s over, sister," he said, standing above her. His voice was almost gentle now — mockingly so. "You were a candle in a hurricane. Brave, but doomed."

Athena’s fingers scrabbled weakly at the ground, searching for her shattered spear. All she found was rubble.

Ares raised his sword, preparing the final blow. "Sleep now," he murmured, "and let the world rot without your meddling."

But then — something stirred.

From the cracks in the earth, a golden light pulsed. Faint at first, then stronger. It seeped up through the stones, through the blood, through the ash — and into Athena herself.

Ares faltered, blinking in confusion.

"What—?"

He had broken her mortal form — yes. He had crushed her defenses, shattered her spear, ripped away the last remnants of her old strength.

But in doing so, he had cracked open the shell she had been trapped in.

He had freed her.

Athena opened her eyes. They no longer shone silver, but burned with a fierce, blinding gold — the pure fire of a goddess reborn.

The ground trembled. The storm clouds screamed.

Ares stepped back, uncertain for the first time.

"No," he said, voice low. "This isn’t possible."

Athena rose slowly, the ruins shifting around her. Her broken cloak fell away, revealing new armor — gleaming white and gold, woven from starlight and iron will. The spear that had been shattered reformed itself in her hand, longer, sharper, and crowned with light.

"You thought you had destroyed me," she said, her voice echoing with ancient power. "But you were merely the hammer that reforged the blade."

Ares growled, rage flashing in his eyes. He charged again, but Athena moved with impossible speed, deflecting his blow and sending him sprawling into the debris.

"You never understood, brother," she said, walking toward him as the golden light around her grew brighter. "True strength is not born from rage. It is born from loss. From sacrifice. From rising after the world has broken you."

The monsters Ares had summoned screeched and fled into the shadows, unable to withstand the purifying blaze now radiating from Athena’s form.

Ares staggered to his feet, blood on his lips, hatred in his eyes — but also something else.

Fear.

He had unleashed something far beyond his control.

Athena stood tall among the wreckage, the child by the fountain gazing at her with wide, hopeful eyes. The city around them lay broken — but in the goddess’s golden light, for the first time in an age, hope flickered once more.

"Your war is over, Ares," she said. "But mine is just beginning."

And with a single thrust of her spear, she banished the god of war into the shadows he had created.

The age of ruin had been postponed — but the true battle had only just begun.

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