The God of Gravity part 2: Olympus

Prologue

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(Note from the writer)

Please tell me if there are wrong grammar or spellings, as well as contradictions in the story such as wrong characters in play or events. This will help me make the story better for future readers. You can mention it in the comments. Thank you.

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Although the sky is blue, clear of clouds, and the sun is shining, the temperature here on Mars is colder than it looks. Pine trees sprouted very tall and slender because of the low gravity of Mars. The snow has covered them like mere pieces of cotton sitting on a brush. To the west, there is a stream of water burbling as it passes over and through the rocks. It came from the snowy summit of the mountain to the south. Icy it once was, watery it is now.

There is a woman sitting on a rock in the middle of the stream, Her silver cape made out of thousands of pieces of silver flowed like fabric behind her advanced armor. Her black hair glistened under the sun as it did under the moon back when she sent a squad for a suicide mission. Because of the cold, she puffed smoke from her half-opened lips as she sighed while looking at the pictures her two children inside a locket. At the right half, there's her beautiful daughter with the same color of hair as she does and at the right, her redheaded son with a smirk, both of which he inherited from his father. She felt the coldness of her armor, but not enough to freeze her warm feeling for every time she sees their faces. Even if they're just images on pieces of paper.

She closed it and lifted herself up by controlling the metal around her body. She went eastward over the thick pine trees and to a camp in the middle of the cleared part of the forest. Thousands of men halted as she descended from above. She walked on the ground with frozen mud and went to her warm tent. It was large yet stout, for it was set up hastily and recently. She entered with five men standing around the long deployable table. On that table, there is a metal sphere as big as a tennis ball.

"Good morning, my lady," they all greeted. She just nodded and sat on the chair at the end of the table. They sat after she did.

"Tell me the reconnaissance status," she said as she crossed her legs.

"Yes, my lady," said a man as he stood up and the sphere on the table disassembled. It produced a hologram that represented a map of the surrounding terrain of where they are now. There is a red dot that represents their location. "The remaining rebels have retreated far into the south, deep into the icy forest of the mountain. As I have observed, my lady, our progress has been the slowest since and after we advanced past the Marshes."

"I noticed that," she said while resting her head on her hand. "Just tell me about the reconnaissance team."

"Yes, my lady. The reconnaissance team suffered many losses, returning with no critical information about the location of the hideout of the enemy."

"Any reports about radio signals?"

"None, my lady."

"That's all I need," she nodded.

They all looked confused as she stood up and walked outside the tent. They followed her and a man was about to ask his question when she suddenly stopped in the middle of the clear part of the camp. She closed her eyes and held out her hand to the ground. The men behind him signaled every personnel around the camp to stop moving and don't make any sound.

She inhaled and exhaled before opening her eyes - they glowed silver. Then the ground before her shook and rumbled. From it, a metal spike sprouted like a plant. She touched it and it's as if her soul possessed the metal rod descending down to the ground. She felt a network of wires connecting a vast area of the planet.

She smirked when she opened her eyes. "So that's how they did it all this time," she said. "Clever." She held out her hands as if she is pulling millions of threads from the ground. The ground shook, and the men were nervous and confused. Then at the vast area around the camp, wires came out of the ground and sliced everything above them as they go. Rocks, trees and soil were sliced like a hot knife in a butter. They slowly ascended into the sky like webs with soil and shrubs falling from it.

"An underground network!" exclaimed one of the men.

"Exactly," she agreed. "This puzzled me for over a year. Now that I know how they communicate secretly across the planet, all I have to do is destroy it." She crumpled the wires together until it became a sphere as big as the camp itself. It was like a full moon in broad daylight as she controlled it to fall beside the camp. It crashed and the ground quaked. Some of the soldiers stumbled and fell on the ground.

"What shall we do now, my lady?" asked a man.

"We need to return to Olympus Mons."

"Why do we need to, my lady?"

"The network is vast. They cover the entire planet." She pointed at the copper sphere. "That is just a small fraction of it. It is like the long trinkets humans use for their internet and that means Olympus Mons is in deep trouble." She grinned in excitement. "It is interesting to find out how they managed to do this without us noticing. Such a smart planning, very very very smart. What kind of person could plan it like this?"

Somewhere in a dark place, in a dark large room. The blue stone crystals shined like fluorescent bulbs, but not enough to clearly light this dark void-like room. There is a rusty metal throne and a man shrouded in darkness, grabbing his tankard of liquor standing on the right arm of the throne. His rugged fist is rougher than the old tankard. He drank it all in one gulp and growled.

"Pour me another!" he yelled and a servant beside him quickly poured all of the contents of the bottle into his tankard. The tankard is so big that one bottle isn't enough to fill it full.

A girl entered the room. She entered in such silence that the people in the room didn't notice. Her teeth glistened from the faint light from the blue glowing stones. Her teeth are showing, but not because of smiling. Her fangs were enormous that it made her lips part. She tries to sip air through her teeth every second or two to not let her saliva drip from her mouth. Her yellow hair is all fuzzy and in chaos like a lion. Then she wore pelts as clothes.

"My lord," she said in a growl.

"What?" he answered in a deep voice.

"The Goddess of Metals found our underground network." He just ate his food and drank his drink. "Do you want me to kill her?"

"No," he said after a swallow. "Don't be stupid. You can't kill her in a million years."

"I can, my lord," she asserted. "I trained harder than anyone here. I am your strongest apprentice, stronger than him."

"That's your problem. You needed to work harder because you're weaker."

"That's not true!" she cried. "I am stronger!"

"You dare to raise your voice?" He pulled his back from the back of his chair and she instantly knelt down.

"I'm sorry, my lord," she apologized.

He growled in satisfaction and munched on a piece of meat. "Bring me Viktor, now!" he commanded.

"As you wish, my lord." She walked slowly to the door with her head bowed down.

Minutes later, a teenager entered the room with vines acting like tentacles that move him around, while he just sits on it. He then left his seat and knelt down before the man on the throne.

"Viktor," said the man. "my bravest young warrior."

"What do you need, my lord?" he asked while rising up while waving his hands in a snake-like manner.

"Have you done it?"

Viktor smirked. "Yes, my lord," he said.

"Well done, my warrior!" he laughed drunkenly.

"We are ready to execute the plan under your command."

"Go! Go and unleash chaos!" He laughed until even the walls of the room were trembling in fear.

"My pleasure," grinned Viktor.

Far deeper into the Solar system, the planet before Earth: Venus having recently terraformed after Mars, this planet became habitable for life to flourish. Although lesser than the Martian population, the Cytherean (belonging to Venus) population has been growing steadily for three centuries. A growing population also means growing diversity. As good as diversity is to stability, it can also be something that sparks chaos when certain things go extreme in some ways.

In the spectrum of pleasure and displeasure, there will be those who sit on the extremity where they grow unsatisfied with something they cannot change alone. It's the ideology that keeps them together and moves them together, resulting in a collective effort to satisfy their said same interest. Particularly in this planet of Venus, where some people believed that Cythereans shall be independent and excluded from Earthian rule. Those taxes they paid and worked hard for, only to benefit only a half percentage of it while the other half, goes to the Olympus Treasury. Steadily their population grows, but slowly their standards of life develop since the Cytherean government cannot create much of a difference in their projects, given their low budget.

Olympus took on big projects of terraforming other planets. For now, the successfully terraformed planets are Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Mercury as under the process of terraforming with Danae, the Goddess of the Sea hydrating the dry planet. The next planet to be terraformed was said to be the planet of Saturn, so more funding is required. The Realm isn't simply "one command, one action" now, because in the past, this was catastrophic for the reason that humans don't pray for tyranny.

The population on Earth is the greatest since it is the mother planet of the Realm. If Olympus tried to increase taxes on Earth, prayers will go down. That's a loss of billions of prayers, compared to millions in Venus. So, Olympus will not decrease its tax rate on Venus no matter what.

Dissatisfaction turned into protests, and protests turned into rebellion. One can imagine such a thing happening anytime soon. In fact, it is already happening. Now, that the rebels from Mars sparked the rebellion in Venus, a new crisis of the Realm has been created. It's only a matter of time until it gets serious enough to shake the whole Realm.

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