It has been while since I've updated. Kittyhawk09 reminded me and I have more to come, believe it or not. After I finish Ailurophobia, Brothers will also be top priority to complete.

Disclaimer: I do not own Disney's Hercules. If I did, Megara would be my new mentor and I would be singing it up with the muses.

Chapter six: Zeus guilt, Poseidon's problem and Hades' Nightmare

Appearing down to earth, Hera was in shock to find Zeus still on earth, on his knees and staring at the same exact spot Hades had been. Running while steadying her large belly, Hera called out to her king.

"Zeus, are you all right?"

Zeus' head shot up as he turned to look at Hera. He rushed forward and grabbed his pregnant wife in his hands, careful not to hurt her too badly.

"Hera, what was Hades talking about? I know you and Persephone had something to do with what's wrong this! What's wrong with Squirt?"

Hera gasped. Zeus hadn't called Hades his 'Squirt' in the longest time.

A stern look crossed the king of the gods as he recalled most of his conversation with Hades. "Hera, what happened to Zagreas? What happened to Hades' son?" Zeus asked, trying to snap his wife out of his nostalgia.

Hera slowly looked at her husband as she looked as sad as that fateful day eighteen years ago. "Zagreas was not Hades' son."

Zeus froze as he felt his inside turn into ice. "W-w-what?"

Hera burst into tears as she buried her face on Zeus' chest. "Zagreas was not Hades' son." She repeated with more emotion. "And he did not die the way you think. I helped."

"You helped what?" Zeus whispered with dread.

"I HELPED KILL A GOD!" She wailed.

OoooOoooO

Deep in the oceans, Poseidon sat on his throne of his palace as he wondered how everything could have gone so wrong. He was supposed to be the more observant one of his brothers, how could he not have noticed the growing friction between them. At first, he thought it was the responsibility of running their kingdoms as well as their children. But now...

In retrospect, one can plainly see that the three brothers lost the connection that they used to have when they had faced Kronus together. And the catalyst had been Zagreas' death.

Zeus had handled it in the way he handled all problems that was too complicated for him to solve with a thunderbolt: he ignored it. He had pretended it didn't exist so he didn't have to experience the pain and then to grieve. Poseidon himself tried to comfort his younger brother, but he had no idea on how to do so as he did not know how Hades felt. No immortal child had ever died in the Grecian Pantheon. By the Seven Seas, he wouldn't know what to do if any of his kids had died.. Death was simply not something any of the gods knew or experienced with, well ... except for Hades.

Speaking of Hades...

All thoughts of his brother went back to that fateful day. After Zagreas' death, Hades had locked himself in his kingdom and refused to come out for anything, not even for Olympus. His marriage had gone up in smoke, literally and figuratively. He didn't know what had happened, but the last fight with his wife had gotten Hades so angry that he blew a chunk of Gaea off the map. A tear stained Persephone had then returned to Olympus and uttered two words:

"He knows."

Since then, everyone (Except for Zeus and himself) had been afraid of Hades. Now that he knew about the circumstances of Zagreas' death, Hades was on a warpath. But it was not the explosive punishment that they had expected. It had been a cold calculating one, the kind that Hades was famous for when punishing evildoers in his realm. He acted his regular funny witty yet business-like self (to the relief of his oblivious older brother) but if everyone would look at his eyes, they held a frostbitten glint that said, 'You are all living on borrowed time.'

Luckily, the whole 'titan incident' was over and Hades had been thwarted, but that still didn't solve anything. Hades was still angry and will simply think of something else to get back at them. Until something was said or done, this would never end.

By the Gods, he would give anything to have his lovable Squirt back.

OoooOoooO

Eighteen years ago on Olympus at nightfall, in his nightgown and nightcap that covered his flames, Hades growled as he walked up to the gates of Olympus. Did his brother not realize how ungodly the hour was for him to be up?

It's called ungodly for a reason!

"Clouds for brains, what in Tarturus did you call me for? I have work to do! Full time gig here, Hellllloooooo! Hades reminded Zeus, who was pacing back and forth in his throne room after having sent every god and goddess in Olympus on a search for his son.

Zeus whirled around. Before Hades could stop him, Zeus grabbed Hades in a tight hug and sobbed uncontrollably.

"Hades! It's horrible! Hercules has been kidnapped! Someone stole him!" He blubbered.

"Zeus..."

"Someone snatched him from his bed! I don't know where he is or if he's safe or not!"

"Zeus..."

"Could it have been the gorgons? Harpies? Chimeras? He's too young and helpless..."

"ZEUUUUUUSSS!"

"What?" he finally lifted his head up and managed to stop blubbering. Hades was an interesting shade of purple.

"Not only is oxygen a factor for my survival but I really want to get the feelings back in my ribs, capish?"

"Oh, right." He released Hades, who started to lose the purple coloring on his face as he took deep breaths, although each breath was a pain for his poor ribs.

"Now, in slower words, who is missing?"

"Hercules! And he's not missing; he's been stolen from me!"

Hades tried to hide a grin of triumph. So those morons can do something right, for a change. Switching from annoyed little brother to concerned and sympathetic brother, Hades spoke to his philandering brother.

"That's terrible! Oh Zeus, I'm so sorry, I shouldn't have been so rude in your time of need." The dark god wondered if maybe he overdid it. But Zeus was too upset to notice.

"Just don't let Hera see me like this. I have to put a brave face on for her. I don't want her to see me fall apart like this. She needs me to be strong for her." He sobbed, not afraid to how his feelings to Hades.

"Oh of course, Big Z! I wouldn't do that to her. She really shouldn't see the real you." His back was turned so Zeus did not notice his sneer, despite the light humour in his tone. Again, Zeus did not see.

"What am I going to do? What if the titans took him? They might corrupt him, or worse... he might be killed. Just like Zagreas." Zeus gasped when he realized what he had said. He looked at Hades and became aware of how pale the god of the dead went.

"Hades, I shouldn't have brought that up. Forgive me." Zeus knew what a touchy subject Zagreas was to Hades.

Hades' eyes were blank for a few seconds before he smiled. "What? That? You know, I almost forgot about it; completely slipped mind." Hades answered distractedly.

"Oh... I didn't think that could ever happen. After all, he's your only son, and he was actually the first god killed and in such a horrifying and painful..."

"I GET THE IDEA!" Hades raged as unpleasant memories surfaced. He was unseen by the smoke and fire around him.

Zeus wisely shut up.

OoooOoooO

Back in the Underworld, Hades came back down a bit quieter then he thought. He should have been ecstatic that his plan worked. Instead, he was now having second thoughts of what he did.

Pain and Panic came back with forced smiles on their faces. They really hoped their acting skills paid off.

"We took care of it, boss."Panic grinned in a fake manner.

"Yep. Dead as a door nail. That little sunspot is a member of the Styx Club." Pain nodded vigorously.

"He's in there in the river right now. No need to check it out." Panic quickly added.

Hades was barely aware of the words. He was too busy wondering about his conversation with Zeus. After seeing the state he was in, he had started to get doubts. Was he in the right in doing this to Zeus and Hercules? Zeus hurt him, yeah. But to put him through the same pain he went through; and what about Hercules? What did he do to deserve this? He may have been destined to take him out from his plan, but to kill him when he`s only a baby? There could have been hundreds of ways to do this without having to resort to that. And he was still in his planning stages anyway. There was nothing permanent in his long-term plans.

Hades shuddered. One of the reasons he had Pain and Panic do it instead of himself was because he couldn't kill him. He reminded him of Zagreas that he might as well be killing Zagreas. If he did, he would never look himself in the mirror again.

Pain exchanged glances to his brother before looking up. "Uuuh, Boss..." Hades was unusually silent. Did things not go his way? "Boss, are you okay?"

Hades broke out of his musings. "Huh, yeah. Good jobs, boys. Knew I could count on you. Well, your lives depended on this, so of course you succeeded." Hades congratulated.

Satisfied, Pain and Panic left a brooding Hades behind, glad that he would not flay them alive after succeeding in a mission.

Unfortunately, they were flayed anyway. Their screams cheered him up a little.

OoooOoooO

Hades woke up in his son`s room, holding a small skeleton stuff toy to his chest. Looking around to see he was still in his son's room, he realized it was all a bad dream.

'No way! That was a memory. I did order Pain and Panic to have the kid's ichor destroyed and replaced with mortal blood.' he thought as he ran his hand through his flames. As much as he hated both Zeus and Hercules at the moment, Hades felt a glimmer of guilt in his heart for trying to off his nephew. The kid didn't even know what he was up to or that he was trying to destroying him at the time. Heck, the day before the battle; that had been the first time he spoke to Hercules face-to-face. He was nothing like Zeus. In fact, his

He thought about his strong but simple-minded nephew and thought about how Zagreas might have looked like had he lived long enough. Give the kid chocolate brown hair, pearl-white skin and green eyes and he'd be his twin.

Except Zagreas was a genius. Jerkules was a muscle-bound little hero with monstrous strength. Zagreas was more interested with his plants and alchemy. His son never even picked up a weapon. Zagreas was more interested in the arts. Kid loved music, arts and inventing. Heck, Zagreas had even invented some really useful things for him.

Like the formula that was used to make Hercules mortal.

Remembering that, Hades felt another flinch of guilt at that; But he was justified in what he did. He had every reason to act as he did. There's no reason to feel guilty. An eye for an eye, Right.

Right?

OoooOoooO

Back in Olympus, despite the peace and serenity it displayed, all was not well. After he managed to calm Hera down, Zeus had her transported back to their home where they may continue the discussion unmolested. In the royal champers, Zeus was in a deep discussion with his wife.

"What do you mean you killed a god? How? Why?" Zeus knew his wife was capable for a great deal of many things, but to kill one of their own? Among the gods, such an act was unforgivable, especially when the god was the heir to one of the leaders of the Pantheon.

For Hera to openly admit to killing not just a godling child, but the prince of the Underworld, was too much for his mind to take in.

Hera sobbed louder then she had intended. She was normally more controlled then this, but the baby was making her very emotional.

"I led the Titans to the land with the promise of a reward if they showed kill him. It never sunk in to me that he was not at fault for his mother and should not be punished for what has been done. It never even occurred to me on what it would do the Hades. I had even hoped that the titans would kill both mother and child. It wasn't until I actually saw how it hurt both you and Hades that I realized what I had done." She sobbed as Zeus took it in. The death of Zagreas had been heartbreaking, especially when he had to comfort Hades after that. He normally didn't weep for his mortal children as he knew they would die anyway as all mortals should, but he had matured somewhat when Hercules had been born.

"You! You sent those Titans! You killed Zagreas! Hades' son! You also attempted to take the life of Persephone" Zeus was now furious. Hera may be his wife, but he was the king of the Gods and one of the rulers of the third of the universe. What his wife did was unforgivable. Not only had she killed a god, a grave crime and one that may result in her death, but she knowingly attempted the life of the Queen of the Underworld, Persephone. Not only that, Persephone was the daughter of Demeter. If anything had happened to her, the gods would have to endure her grief by a world of forever winter.

"Why? Why did you have him killed? What could have you possibly gained in killing my nephew? What has that little boy ever done to you?"

Hera looked at her husband through her tear-filled eyes incredulously. There was no way he could forget so easily?

"Zeus, Zagreas is your son." She watched as her husband went pale.

"That cannot be! He is Hades'! Hades and Persephone..." his queen interrupted him.

"Cannot have children. Hades cannot have any children as he is, well, considered dead due to his powers." She sadly stated. "I suspected as much and had Apollo check for me, as the God of truth. He confirmed to me that Zagreas was yours." She took a shuddering breath as she rubbed her tummy. All that stress was not good for the baby.

She continued. "He looked so much like Persephone that it was difficult to tell at first. While he was intelligent and charismatic, he had her kind nature as well. But the more I looked at him, the more I saw a hint of you."

She looked at him with her sad doe- like blue eyes that reminded him so much of his little Hercules. "When I learned the truth, I snapped. I became even angrier when I learned that he would be one of the heirs of the cosmos, even if it was the underworld."

Before Hercules was born, none of her children with Zeus qualified as Heirs to cosmos. Ares was not well-liked and would have caused nothing but conflict. Hephaestus had no interest in ruling and preferred tinkering with his creations or creating works of art.

And the less said about their daughter Eris, the better.

But when Hercules was born, for the first time ever, she was a proud and loving mother. It was the first time she ever felt any love for any child of hers. Hercules had her beauty and eyes and her husband's chin and dashing nature. He was also powerful and had the makings of a hero. When Zeus saw him, he fell in love as well and chose him to one day take his throne. Hera knew that her son would achieve all this until that fateful day he had been stolen from them.

It had been the most heart-retching thing of her life since she now knew what it was like to lose a child. It made her see what Persephone had gone through when she lost hers. That day had changed her and made her see herself what she was. She did not like what she had been and sought to change that.

She supposed, in a way, Hercules' kidnapping had been Fates' way of making her pay for her crimes.

Zeus felt lost all of a sudden. No wonder Hades hated them, it was any wonder he hated Zeus more than anything. The entire pantheon knew about Zagreas being murdered and the son of Zeus and neither he nor...

"Wait, does Hades know that Zagreas was mine?" He asked, almost hoping that were not the case. It was cruel enough that Hades's son was taken from him, but for him to know that he was never his son and that Persephone had cheated on him was too cruel.

But Hera crushed that hope. Hera sobbed as she looked at him in misery. "Persephone was the one that told him in the heat of her anger. It was after that revelation that I believe that he planned to overthrow you."

TBC

Zeus is not a happy king. His relationship with Hades is falling apart and for once, it's not Hades' fault.

Poseidon is next for the confrontation, and it won't be pleasant for him at all. Hades has a lot of things to say to his brother and how he feels about this secret.

And we get a glimpse of the new villain.