They were thoroughly surprised to see a larger group of True Believers waiting for them at one end of the street. And another at the other end of the street.
“Do you think we can buy them off with free beer?” Thor asked Hep.
“Probably not today,” Hep said.
“Fuck,” Thor said. He hitched up his belt a bit, and stretched his arms over his head. “Well, here goes.”
Thor charged towards the group of True Believers gathered at the North end of the street. The rest of the pagans, as well as the other gods, followed him, bellowing their own war cries as they went.
The True Believers, for their part, looked entirely shocked. They had expected to simply surround the pagans and haul them away. They looked around at each other, until one of them started to charge towards the pagans. Naturally, the independently-minded True Believers all followed his lead.
The group at the far end of the street watched all this, and decided they should probably get involved as well. They did not charge into the fight, but walked forward, most of them hoping the rumble would end before they reached it.
The pagans and the True Believers clashed. The pagans, though outnumbered, had the advantage of pure rage from the murder of their comrade as well as centuries of oppression. The fact that the New Paradigm had only oppressed them a little in comparison to previous oppressors didn’t make a difference.
Most of the fighters from each group fought without grace or skill, though the pagans made up for this handicap with sheer enthusiasm. The True Believers dumb or unlucky enough to face the gods were ripped apart, and the track suited goons quickly learned to stay out of the reach of the deities.
Hep and the others used this advantage to stalk through the brawl, helping the pagans who looked like they were in trouble, as well as those who didn’t, for that matter.
The second wave of True Believers reached the battle, and reluctantly attacked the pagans. The pagans, being outnumbered and untrained, were beginning to tire regardless of their rage. They fought on, but the battle was clearly turning in favor of the True Believers. Hep and the others had their hands full just trying to hold off the new group while the first bunch ganged up on the pagans again. Sekhmet and Thor both fought as fast and hard as they could, but soon they too were focused on defending themselves from the hordes of True Believers.
Hep was beginning to get tired. He’d never been much for all-out war anyway, and hadn’t fought agains this many people in a long time, if ever. Just then, Ares appeared next to him.
“Hey Hep, did I miss any…” Ares began, then trailed off. His eyes sparkled and he smiled a huge, predatory smile.
“Oh yeah!” Ares exclaimed. He grabbed the nearest True Believer and tore the startled goons throat out with his teeth. The gore that covered Ares seemed to invigorate him all the more, and he enthusiastically moved on to the next fighter. Those who’d been in the general vicinity of Ares backed away, but wound up trapped by the massive crowd around them.
“Hi ya, boys,” Ares said, and grabbed two of the True Believers by their collars and lifted them. “I don’t believer we’re acquainted. I’m Ares, God of War. Pleased to meet ya!” he said to the struggling pair who were frantically clawing at his hands, trying to get him to let go.
“Where are your manners?” he asked them. They didn’t answer quickly enough, so Ares threw one of them through the plate glass window of a nearby storefront, while he hurled the other into the crowd of True Believers.
Ares turned and locked eyes with another True Believer. The True Believer wasn’t able to get away from Ares, who grabbed his arm and pulled it, track suit sleeve and all, from his torso. He then proceeded to beat the True Believer about his head and neck with his own arm, all the while taunting the man.
“I bet you’re thinking you can’t believe this is really happening to you!” Ares said. “No one ever gets beaten to death with their own arm! Well, apart from you, you lucky bastard. Just think of the stories you’re going to have to tell the other jerk offs in Hades!”
Ares worked his way over to where the other deities were fighting.
“Hey, why don’t you three go help the mortals, I’ve got this covered,” he said to Hep, Scroat and Pan, as he grabbed the people they’d been fighting and casually tossed them aside. One of the True Believers beaned Ares in the temple with a rock.
Ares turned to him and said, “Oh ho ho, now you’ve pissed me off.”
Hep, Scroat and Pan made their way to the pagans and started pulling True Believers off of them. Every now and then they heard Ares taunting someone.
“Hey, don’t run away!” they heard him call, and “What did you expect? I didn’t say I’d fight you with my arm behind my back.”
A group of four large True Believers surrounded and moved in on Sarah. She launched herself at the biggest one and clawed and punched at him for all she was worth. Two of the others restrained her, and started to drag her away when suddenly she was freed.
“Hey gorgeous,” Ares said. “Do you mind sharing these two with me?” He shook the two True Believers he was holding by the hair. The other two who had attacked Sarah tried to save their friends, but ended up folded into a sick parody of a multi-colored balloon animal with the two Ares had been holding.
“Thanks,” he said to Sarah, and stalked off to continue fighting.
Hep saw Adam going berserk on two or three of the True Believers at once. Ares also saw Adam. Ares made his way over to him.
“Hey, man, I like your style,” Ares said.
Thor and Sekhmet, meanwhile, had teamed up. They took turns, one would set a True Believer up, and the other would knock him down.
Several police cars arrived on the scene of the battle. The officers got out of their cars, then dove back into them as the bodies of several True Believers few towards them.
“Sorry, gents,” Ares called to the police. “I didn’t see you there.”
The police decided that perhaps it would be best if they sat this one out and let the National Guard handle it.
The scene had devolved to utter chaos. True Believers tripped over the bodies of other True Believers as they attempted to run into or run away from the fighting. Many of the True Believers fled as the pagans appeared to get a second wind. Soon the only people still standing in the area were pagans and deities.
The pagans, bloodied and exhausted, but triumphant, slouched off to find a place where they could rest.
“Man, I’m glad I don’t have to clean this mess up,” Pan said, looking around at the carnage left in the street.
“I hear that,” Hep said.
“So what’s next?” Thor asked.
“Well, why don’t we go get some beer?” Hep said. “There’s nothing like a cold one after laying waste to a city block.”
“Good call,” Thor said. The gods walked off as a group, on the hunt for a bar where they would go unnoticed.
Ares, meanwhile, looked around at everyone walking away, and yelled “Hey! Come on, let’s go get the rest of ‘em! We’ve got them on the run!”
When no one responded, he threw his hands into the air and said, “You guys suck!”
***
Tim shook with rage. He slammed his hand down on his desk and yelled at the True Believer in front of him.
“How hard is it to stop a bunch of granola-eating, mini-bus driving, dope-smoking hippies? You outnumbered them by at least two to one. This is unacceptable. You guys didn’t even manage to bring one of them back with you? What the fuck?” Tim said.
The True Believer, a little guy with dark hair and nervous eyes, looked down and said, “It wasn’t just a bunch of hippies. There were five or six gods on their side as well.”
“Five or six?” Tim asked. “What did they look like?”
The True Believer described each of them as well as he could. Tim turned to his assistant.
“I want the F.B.I., C.I.A. , N.S.A. and any other alphabet soup agency you can find to drop what they’re doing and track these gods down.” Tim said. His assistant nodded and left Tim’s office.
Tim looked back at the True Believer who’d reported the news to him.
“Well? Get the fuck out of my office,” Tim said.
The True Believer hustled out of the office as if he was being poked with a red-hot iron.
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