It didn't work.

	Failed again.

	I hate you, Athena.

	Can you even begin to conceive how much I absolutely DESPISE your 
sanctimonious hypocritical little self?

	Goddess of the city.

	Oh, puh-leeze, like that takes so much doing. You only grabbed your 
first city because Poseidon wanted it -- now THERE's a god who knows the 
proper use of a good limitless rage -- and you couldn't bear for him to 
take anything away from you.

	Goddess of war.

	It was MY job first. Mine unto me, Enyo, Mistress of War and Slaughter 
and Battle Madness and Cruelty and Vicious Catharsis Exercised Upon 
Others. I don't think YOU'VE ever accepted your true nature there and 
gone raging through your foes, cutting them down and running them 
through, blood spurting, hearing them beg vainly for mercy and then 
ripping them open with your spear to see their guts fall out on the 
ground, and then evenly beating their heads to a jelly, drinking their 
blood --

	Now see what you've done, little bitch? You've gotten me all excited, 
and I so rarely get to exercise my powers these days. I can only taste 
bits of it through the minds of *human* soldiers.

	You just took it because of some misguided sense of expiation for 
Pallas. Taking on the name and attributes of Poseidon's favorite 
granddaughter, whom you killed. Your... friend.

	Don't make me laugh.

	Maiden Goddess.

	It wasn't your *friendship* Pallas wanted, was it? Not something as 
mental and lying and insubstantial as *friendship*. Not compared to 
what's *real*, and *there*, which I've experienced a hundred hundred time 
and will experience a hundred more; it's best when you tear their liver 
out just as they achieve their moment of mindless glory, emptying into 
you, and eat it. The expression on their faces is just so delightful.

	We used to make bets, you know, on how soon she'd have her way with you. 
But you couldn't have that, could you? Couldn't do that little thing for 
the girl whom you professed to care for. You and your father valued that 
silly *maidenhood* more than you valued her, and so you killed her. And 
she took that kind of intimacy because you denied her the other.

	Do they know, your followers, what a poisoned twisted creature you are? 
How to want you is death, and to love you worse yet? I, at least, satisfy 
my followers, will let them glut themselves before I glut myself on them, 
and have never pretended to be other than what I am.

	Not like you.

	Goddess of wisdom.

	That's *supposed* to be your primary attribute, but if you'd paid 
attention to it, you'd have left warfare to myself and your brother. Just 
because I'd made him my Enyalios, you decided that you should manage war 
as well.

	I've always had Enyalioi, one at a time. I choose one, let him suckle of 
divinity from my breasts and partake of it through our coupling -- I, 
Enyo, Enyalios' mother, Enyalios' lover -- make him my consort in every 
way. My match, subservient to me but dominated *only* by me, the 
out-of-control male principle as I am the female principle run wild; in 
the sack of the city, I dance, joying in the deaths as I butcher men, 
drinking the blood and letting it paint my bare breasts, killing some 
very slowly as their agonized screams ring sweet music to my ears, 
kindling the fire in my womb. And he rampages through, slaying men and 
women and children, dragging them behind his chariot, satisfying his lust 
for blood on the bodies of any who stand in his way and his lust for 
flesh on the body of any willing woman, until at last we meet and couple 
amid the death and fire and destruction, satisfying both lusts on each 
other.

	And when your brother was Enyalios, he came up with such a *delightful* 
modification!

	I would have never dreamed what wonderful reactions one can obtain 
merely from satisfying the lust for flesh on the body of an unwilling 
one! You open up whole new vistas of shame and degradation and horror and 
helplessness, so that sexual lust is practically unnecessary for its 
enjoyment!

	And then YOU had to interfere. You restricted half our access to the 
tools of our work. And even that wasn't enough for you; you had to talk 
Zeus Thunderer into ascribing to this "avatar" idea, and I wasn't even 
able to properly kill my Enyalios and take it all back into me before he 
was sent to lie sleeping in the body of that Marth human, of those 
Rasenna people!

	When he came back -- he wasn't Enyalios any more. He'd gained a *spine*. 
He'd gained "honor" and "righteousness" and a "sense of duty" and a "code 
of personal honor" -- what need have WE of such? I was even *more* 
constricted than before -- and then they withdrew, except for a chosen 
few.

	Except for me.

	Except for you.

	Why *you*? It's not as if your mother was anyone special -- well, yes, I 
know your father swallowed her because any son she bore to him would have 
over thrown him, although I can't see *why* -- as far as I know, the only 
temple she ever had was off with the *Israelites*, and she shared it with 
their counterparts of Zeus and Hera until they decided "oh no, we've got 
to be different," and decided that their Stormlord was the only god. I 
think they've even denied to themselves that Metis and their Queen of 
Heaven ever had a *place* in their Temple. Talk about *pretentious* -- I 
can't see how a variation of their silly beliefs ever drowned us out...

	That *wasn't*, was it?!

	Even *you* couldn't be so mad as to deliberately put yourself out of a 
job. Even if you did manage to keep the one post of ours important in the 
Piscean Age --

	Goddess damn it to the lowest pits of Tartarus!

	-- except I can't, of course.

	I bet *that's* something you've never told that lovely blond of yours.

	I abhor your very name -- Athena Parthenos, Pallas Athene, Athenaia 
Tritogeneia...

	My plan should have worked.

	It was such a lovely plan, too.

	I bet you never even realized that he was Enyalios. You just thought one 
of your *own* protectors had turned against you, and tried to call him 
back.

	And you SUCCEEDED. Damn you, goddess! Do even the Divine Laws of Nature 
alter themselves for your convenience?

	I watched them so very carefully when I was judging them. The best 
candidate, of course, was the one who'd served you for so long, who was 
barred from achieving the topmost level, who bore the same name as your 
brother. (What *are* these modern mothers thinking?)

	He *rejected* me.

	He rejected ME.

	Oh, he was well served for *that* deed. Enyalios killed him, and then 
made his name a stink in the minds of men -- aside from being used for 
*my* purposes. Well served, indeed.

	So I sought my candidate from the younger ones, the ones who would not 
yet have the strength or the knowledge to resist me -- and sought for the 
greatest potential, the ones who could best excel. 

	There were some truly delightful possibilities among them (any parents 
who deliberately name their son after the Goddess of Love and Beauty and 
*keep* the feminine ending should be either impaled or drawn and 
quartered), but the one I finally settled on was perfect.

	Just perfect.

	You'd never suspect him. Not when he was supposed to be guarded by your 
"brothers"; little hypocrite, the horse-tamer was no more your brother 
than Typhon or Hephaistos, and we all *knew* that. Daring to set a 
*mortal* up as an equal in our councils; oh, my new Enyalios promised a 
doubly sweet revenge.

	I seduced him from you in the sack of a city, where he was trying -- 
fool that he was -- to check the conquerors from their union with and 
offering to me, from the rape of the city. I pretended to be a mere woman 
seeking sanctuary at his hands, and then offered him a very personal 
"thank you" that, being young and inexperienced, he knew not how to 
refuse. And then I arranged for one of his friends to be killed before 
him.

	He was mine, then.

	Not fully, of course. (A drawback I had not anticipated; probably some 
combination of my lack of Enyalios' full powers from before and the 
native strength of those you have as your protectors.) But as he *could 
not* deal with the fact that he was my weapon to destroy you, 
prissy-faced prissy-mouthed chit, he blocked it from his own mind, which 
was even better for my purposes; one may counterfeit a thing so much 
better when one believes it oneself.

	No one suspected but his brother. And I got rid of that one so easily -- 
persuading Enyalios' "original" that the deathtrap was a logical and 
necessary next step in unlocking his brother's power.

	The little brother's terror and sense of betrayal were very filling.

	Ah, very well, so covering up for *that* one was a little hard and 
engendered suspicions in the mind of the one who should first have them. 
He didn't suspect who I *really* was, and it was nearly time to eliminate 
him anyway.

	I thought I'd killed you, at first. I really did. And I set about 
corrupting your remaining followers.

	But you weren't reborn... so I knew you were still out there, somewhere. 
And I rejoiced. Because I had finally figured out how to kill you *out*. 
How to send grey-eyed Athena, Weaver of the Twelve Olympians, Mistress of 
the Houses of the Sun, to the land of the forgotten gods. 

	I still have that plan. And I'll use it on you one of these days, 
darling, precious, poisonous Trito-born. I existed before you were a wet 
dream in the mind of Cronos your grandfather, and I will exist when all 
but I and Desire and the Kindly Ones are gone. Don't expect me to tell it 
you now, just because you've won for the moment.

	I did, of course, try to take you down when you started approaching 
Sanctuary on your terms rather than mine.

	Goddess of wisdom.

	Didn't you see that every plan ultimately resulted, in the event of its 
defeat, in herding you to *my* new island at a time and in a fashion of 
my choosing?

	Storming Sanctuary with five boys and a host of half-forgotten memories 
-- hardly a wise act, was it? You should have been easily defeated. 
Treacherous little bitch.

	And instead, you WON.

	My Enyalios betrayed me, and I am crippled by his loss.

	But still dangerous. Never imagine that I am not dangerous.

	Nevertheless, you should never have gotten to a point where you 
personally fought Enyalios and recalled your "Sa-ga"; what a stupid name. 
You should never have gotten that far. Your *Saints* should never have 
gotten that far.

	Not against the Gold Saints. You chose them yourself; no mortals, heroes 
or otherwise, should have been able to match them. Not even Herakles your 
brother would have been able to best all twelve.

	Those five *can't* be normal. I've only heard of one other group of 
people that might have done what they did --

	You BITCH!

	You lying, poisonous, sanctimonious, hypocritical, treacherous, icy, 
self-righteous, iron-plated virginal, deceitful *bitch*!

	You stole the Pandavas!