CHAPTER FIVE
The First Wave of Rebellion

GLIDERS SCREAMED OVERHEAD, their engines like shrieks of agony, it created a buzzing in my head, almost piercing the main processor and internal drive. I wanted to scream, and knelt onto the stone ground to cover my head. Bolts of electric energy began raining down upon us, as the Temple Guards began pouring from the entrance, ignoring the fiery, melted doors that hung off the hinges. I watched through squinted eyes as, without hesitation, the Demigods rose up to meet the battalion, matching blow for blow.

Wounds were healed as quickly as they were delivered, yet stamina drained from the troops. I felt a tug on my arm, the echo of the glider ships still ricocheting inside my head, and Pyrrha dragged me towards the entryway of the Temple.

"You have to move!" she shouted, her voice muffled as if she were underwater, drowning in the sound. "Pandora, please!" I read her lips, and understood that this was our only chance to enter the Vaults, until the Gods caught wind that their beloved Temple, their thrones, were under siege by an android and a handful of demigods.

I stumbled down the hall, as clumsy as the day of my birth, still covering my head, if not from the hellfire of energy that fell from the sky, until we were in the lobby of the Temple. Gears clicked, and I projected a map unto the floor, a red dot pinpointing the Vaults. Many floors below us, just below the cells of imprisoned Demigods and the floor of the Gods' Calvary.

"We have to free them while we're there," Pyrrha breathed, staring at the moving figures on the map. I heard her heart stop momentarily, the shuddering gasp of fear. She had three children awaiting her at home, aboard her ship, and I could hear Epimethius there, muttering his disapproval and disappointment at the both of us.

I should have known better than to bring her along into the bowels of the diamond of Capitol Ithaca, where the empire started, where the Gods arose from the ashes of a fallen society.

It was almost blasphemy to even be standing there.

"We will free them," I said slowly, "but we will need to do so quietly." She looked up, startled.

"Would it not be easier to split up?" It would... I felt her hand on my shoulder, the nerve processors firing at the touch, unfamiliar with contact, a rather uncomfortable feeling. "Pandora... it has to be done. The Gods cannot continue throwing Mortals to the Underworld where they cannot dig themselves out of their debt or labor. They cannot continue to sit on their empire."

I lowered my head in defeat. "Very well... but, Pyrrha, please tread carefully. I cannot lose my only daughter, adoptive or not." Her lips turned upwards into a rueful smile.

"They would certainly have to try to rid of me so easily." I wished I could only say the same for myself.