One Hour Later...

The night was very young, but Cathy was already experiencing a tension headache. People weren't built to be this anxious all the time. It was a relentless energy drain.

"I think I will retire to my bed chamber early," she announced once supper had wrapped up and Dionysus cleared the table.

"Excellent idea, Hestia," said Maxie. "As always, we must think of tomorrow for the betterment of Olympus. A well deserved rest is essential, so that we can begin anew at sunrise. I expect us all here then."

Cathy rose from her chair, bowed her good night to everyone present, saving the deepest one for Maxie, and walked out of the dining chamber, into the dark lonely hallway. It was still a strange thing to her to heap such blatant displays of reverence to another person. She could only hope that it was all to Maxie's liking.

Certain that the heavy wooden doors were closed and long behind her, Cathy exhaled through her nose as a relief mechanism.

So Maxie's gone a little more stir-crazy. Thought processing the situation was another employ of her mind, feeding the need to release her pent-up energy. She had to stay sharp. I can still work with this. I can. You just gotta stay on course. Stay in character. Do everything he says and things will be alright. He won't hurt you. He trusts you.

Was his mind truly lost to time? Maybe there was still help for him out there. Maybe when this was all over, when Arkham City was finally put to rest and buried, Maxie could have a chance to turn himself around and claw his way out of the delusional tunnel he'd found himself in.

Not that Cathy would want to be within thirty feet of that arduous process. But if it stopped him from killing anyone else, then it was good enough.

Returning to her room, she pulled out her matchbook and nursed a fire in the grate. Heat had grown to have a calming effect on her, it seemed to be the one thing she always sought in Arkham City. Maybe because it was so fleeting. Her book of matches, unfortunately, was dwindling.

Down to the last five.

Cathy put them away again, frowning. Something in regards to escape had to happen soon. She couldn't keep up her ability to sprout fire for much longer, and surely asking Maxie for matches would tip him off.

She sat on Phil's blanket to prevent the cold trapped in the hardwood to absorb through her body, and plopped frustratingly onto the floor. She sighed heavily, sending a wayward strip of her mousey hair flying. Her sandal's leather straps dug uncomfortably into her skin. Undoing the buckles, she shed the sandals to relieve her beleaguered feet. Imprinted red strips flashed against her pale skin. Lifting her feet momentarily in front of the fire, she rolled her ankles, getting the blood flowing, warming them.

Eventually, she layed down to think. Even though Hephaestus could not tell her where the boat was anymore, that didn't mean that it wasn't still there, somewhere down through that elevator. Maybe she could try it again, she thought. Yes. Tonight. Under the cover of darkness when everybody was asleep.

Without meaning to, she eventually nodded off.


Meanwhile...

"What's up, Neil?" asked Mike, dragging his sleeve under his nose, sniffling.

"Dunno." Neil had paused in the middle of the road. His eyes tracked the distance. "It's kinda too quiet out there, dontcha think?"

Mike gingerly traveled over to Neil's side and squinted, trying to see what his companion saw. There was nobody, of course, but in the darkness looks could still be deceiving. Nevertheless, every apartment building, every trashcan, every whatever remained stationary. "Now that you mention it, yeah. Where'd everybody go?"

"Wait, wait, shh," said Phil quickly, holding out a hand. He stalked forward, tipping his head to the side. "Do you hear that?"

Mike and Neil quieted. They listened.

"Some sort of rumble," mused Mike. "Earthquake?"

"Like we need another one of those," said Neil exasperatedly.

"Shh." Phil held still, trying to make it out. There was definitely a rumble, that was true, but it wasn't born from the ground. "It sounds like people. A lot of them."

That was an understatement. It sounded like a crowd. A frothing jubilation of a crowd. And when Arkham City had reason to draw such a thing, that was bad news for everyone else not in a jumpsuit.

"It sounds like it's coming from the Processing Center," said Neil.


Later...

Cathy awoke to an itch on her leg. She stirred uncomfortably.

The itch got much sharper in a hurry.

Suddenly, the itch graduated to scalding pain on her shin. Cathy bolted upright when the sensation became unignorable.

A dancing flame on her dress was eating open a widening, scorched hole. An errant spark from the fireplace. She gasped and madly slapped the spot with little care to how it would burn her hand, she just wanted to put it out. Curled, blackened, nearly microscopic embers—pieces of her dress—flurried into the air and turned ashy grey. Some just tumbled from her reddening, exposed knees and dropped onto the blanket.

In the time it took Cathy to scramble from underneath it, the blanket was alight.

"No, no, no, no, no!" she panted, as if begging the flames to subside would appeal to their chaotic nature. But Cathy's life was running on borrowed luck, she would never be so fortunate.

She had an overwhelming urge to stamp the flames out, but the memory of removing her sandals hit and she resisted. The flames were still very hungry, though, and in the blink of an eye engulfed the entire blanket.

Cathy's heart hammered in her chest and she jumped, her feet telling her to do something but with nowhere to run. Her bathtub was long-gone, there wasn't a single source of water left in her room.

Wait...bathwater!

Cathy hurried under her bed to her drawstring bag, yanking it out. The two leftover water bottles she filled from her apartment tub were still there! Clumsily unscrewing the cap, she turned to find the fire refusing to be contained. In just the time it took to turn her back and then face it again, it was already lapping at the floor and wood panel wall beside the fireplace.

"No, no, no, no, no!" she said, as if it would help. She tossed the water in pumps, trying to cover as much area as she could. The fire was partially quenched, but it was still largely active. Cathy grabbed the second bottle and sprayed its contents frantically. Like the first bottle, however, it barely made a difference.

Cathy tossed the bottles, ran to her bed and grabbed the pillow. She beat the fire with it in an attempt to smother it. The heat was intensifying, she could feel it on her face.

"Go down, go down, go down!" she squealed.

The fire caught a corner of the oil painting portrait above the fireplace and soon it, too, was alight. By the time she beat away one square foot, three more sprung.

There was nothing for it. No matter how much she tried to catch up to the fire's progress, it was easily getting away from her. The pillow smoked and smoldered when she drew it back, and she tossed it aside lest it ignite as well.

"Someone! Help!" she called. She fled from the room and into the hall. "Fire! Fire!"

Cathy had no idea how long she was asleep. Was everyone else asleep too? How late was it?

Whatever the answer was, it mattered little. "Fire!" she screamed down the long hall.

Would they be able to hear? She swiveled madly, searching for a flash of red on the wall—a fire extinguisher or fire alarm. She saw some on other floors, could she make a mad dash and come back.

Footsteps pounded up the stairs. Maxie barraged into view on the landing down the way. Flickering light illuminated Cathy in the hall's darkness.

"Hestia!" he cried, spotting her. A tinge of worry coated his voice. He crossed the corridor's length and met up with her. "Are you all right? I thought I heard your shouts. What—"

It didn't take Maxie long to notice the unnatural light pattern spilling from her room. He took one glance inside and hesitated. Cathy stood rooted in her spot, helpless.

Maxie blinked. He observed the scorched hole in Cathy's dress. "But...Hestia would never..."

His pupils shrank to pinholes. Cathy's breath was stolen. The familiarity was gone.

What replaced it was a soul-wrenching heartbreak, told through the eyes of a broken-hearted man.

But it didn't last.

"Hestia controls the hearth," he said quietly. Too quiet for his usual timbre. "She would never be so careless." Fury then contorted Maxie's face into something grotesque.

Cathy's body registered the flash of white in her vision before the raging burn on her face. Only when the stars in front of her eyes cleared did she realize she was on her back, sprawled on the floor. Her brain throbbed and felt bruised inside her skull.

Twisting, she held her cheek to ease the brutally monstrous sting. She could not even protest, Maxie had slapped the voice out of her, too. He was already standing over her and his meaty hands descended. Cathy's windpipe was crushed within his grip. Maxie raised her to her feet roughly, and she felt the ground drop away. Helpless, she grabbed his forearm to ease his hangman's noose fingers.

"No! Zeus, please!" A foreign voice cut in that sounded so new. Cathy couldn't place a person to it.

Dionysus ran into view just over Maxie's shoulder, and that's when she knew. Dionysus. Sweet, soft-spoken Dionysus. It was the loudest she'd ever heard him. "Not another, I beg of you!"

The moment was all too fleeting. Maxie did not even give Dionysus pause, he was already hauling Cathy to who knew where. He would not release her neck. She held onto him for dear life, if only to attempt to loosen his stone fingers clamped around her throat. His great arms swung with his mighty stride. Cathy was almost a ragdoll, her hair hovering a foot off the ground while her feet were uselessly trying to gain traction on the floor.

She couldn't see Calliope and Dionysus anymore, but she heard them, frantically following in a mess of noise. Their protests melded together in an onslaught flurry.

"This is a misunderstanding!"

"Please, don't do this!"

"She is your sister!"

"Zeus, she is not to blame! You are making a mistake!"

"Lord Zeus, please hear me!"

Maxie whirled, swinging Cathy with him as though she were made of cloth and stuffing. "SILENCE!" he roared deafeningly.

Cathy coughed and looked up at him. "Brother, please..." she wheezed. She held her palm open in surrender.

Maxie's eyes burned. "You dare call me such a thing? In the presence of your own deceit and trickery?!"

Cathy gasped heavily in the hope to expand her lungs more than Maxie was allowing. "Please," she rasped. "You have been so merciful to me in the past. You gave me shelter. You gave me food—hrck. I have been so grateful. Y-you—"

"Foul snake! Nothing flows through your lips but falsehoods and fables!"

The decor of the vestibule that led to the balcony merged into view.

"How dare you assume the good Hestia's name!" Maxie hurled Cathy into the double doors. She smacked into them, bursting their latches from the sheer force of her body and she rolled onto the balcony, exposed to the wind and snowfall. The same place where Hephaestus met his own end. The cold attacked her exposed arms in a snap, and rough outdoor tile scraped her skin. She fought to stand before Maxie caught up, but the shock grounded her. The skid trail her body produced interrupted the dusting of snow the balcony collected, creating a path straight to her.

"I placed all of the heavens' worth of trust in you! All of it! Yet you played and you gamboled with Olympus, believing yourself so clever. Well, no more." Maxie brandished his lightning rod. "Tonight, you will be no more. Your life ends here, and you will forever be a monument to the foolish assumption that Maxie Zeus could be conned!"

"Zeus, STOP!" screamed Dionysus.

Maxie gave pause. He whirled ferociously and stared hard at Dionysus, daring him to defy. His body seemed impervious to the weather, he gave zero care to the soft, wintry wind rustling his hair and toga.

"We can lock up the traitor somewhere in Olympus, we can make her pay for her foolishness. Please, let us not kill her." Dionysus looked down at Cathy, communicating his desperation to save her. "There are alternatives we can consider."

"Grown soft on traitors, have we, Dionysus?" said Maxie, tapping the shaft of the rod into his palm.

"Not at all, Lord Zeus." Dionysus swallowed when Maxie took an intimidating step closer. "Let us preserve her."

Maxie narrowed his eyes. Cathy and Calliope were deathly still.

Dionysus seemed to be fighting to think on the spot. "In fact," he said, carefully circling Maxie and siding up to Cathy in order to crouch and help her up, "do you not think it would serve us well if we...if we let her go back to the mortal realm. Leave Olympus. Let her spread her story, tell the mortals of below to not ever consider the notion that they could join our ranks under cover again. Let this be your one scrap of mercy, if only to dissuade others from permitting Hestia's grave mistake ever again."

Dionysus was brave, but he wasn't stupid, either. He was already on his knees beside Cathy, but he knew he couldn't touch her until he Maxie bade permission. Cathy held very still, looking up at Maxie pleadingly to go along with Dionysus's proposal. As long as she was still alive, anything that came from then on was preferable. She could be locked in a room in the bowels of Olympus somewhere, she could be thrown back out into Arkham City. As long as she was alive still, she would find some way to survive. She already got this far, she could potentially do it again. How, she didn't know, but right now, her chances were better in Arkham City than here, on Olympus's frigid terrace, staring down Maximillian Zeus's terrible wrath.

"Does your loyalty falter, Dionysus?" Maxie asked dangerously.

Dionysus bowed his head. "No. No, my lord. I merely believe that—"

"Are you, too, a traitor in my midst?" Maxie looked over his shoulder, staring daggers at a rigid Calliope who fought to keep her face from showing signs of her objection. "And you? Are even my most trusted among the mortal count who deceive me?"

Calliope whirred to life. "Such a ridiculous notion," she said with a placating smile, meant to ease rather than chastise. "Dionysus and I have been by your side since the very start. We did not ascend from the mortal plain to you, we were here all along, were we not?" She gave a fleeting look at Cathy when Maxie looked away to glare at Dionysus. "However, I do see much merit in Dionysus's compromise."

A tiny drop of hope warmed a small part of Cathy's heart. Calliope had saved her many times before, and Cathy pleaded within herself that the woman could work her magic words just one more time.

"Perhaps we shall either keep her as a prisoner, or cast her back to where she came from," Calliope suggested. "We would do well to allow her to walk among her kind once again. We need not be malevolent when we can certainly spin a mishap in our favor. Perhaps history can even be more cruel than you could ever be, for her name will be synonymous with humiliation. That her hubris was her downfall. Let her be a lesson. Let her be a messenger."

"Way to go, Calliope," Dionysus mouthed. He put a hand on Cathy's shoulder and leaned in close. "Hang in there, child."

Cathy was helpless in her spot on the ground. Her words were of a treasonist, Maxie would welcome none from her. For once, she needed to rely on everybody present but herself. She pushed away the nagging cold taking away the feeling in her toes and the moisture of the melted snow creeping through her filmy dress. She desperately needed shoes and a jacket, but she could not afford distraction. Not now.

Maxie's powerful body was framed by the neon blue glow shining down from the Gotham City Olympus sign. But an orange flicker was growing. On the floor above the stone carving, Cathy's fire had grown to massive standards. Flames wriggled from the windows of her room, and it was only going to spread to the next windows in due time. There would be no rescue for her clothes, her shoes, or her bag. They were long gone.

Dionysus noticed the change in lighting, too. "For now, we must take heed of the raging flame," he said. "The prisoner can be dealt with later, lest all of Olympus burn!"


A/N: Oh how I missed writing this story! Don't know how many of you are still with me or have long since moved on, but I do not plan on abandoning this story. It's been a long, long time, but I will see this to the end. I always intended to.