Many months have passed, since she fled to the Underworld, and enacted a barrier that should mask and protect the place where the last of her creations were located. Hades and Persephone was all that was left, everyone else was stolen from her, or perhaps worse, by that damned Xemha! Why did he even go to this world? To boast his ego? Yes, that would be like him.
And for such an insignificant thing, he decided to destroy everything, she and her group of primordials created. It was not perfect, far from it. And the mistakes they all made, in the approach to humans. But none of them would ever do anything remotely similar to the Xemha.
Not all hope was lost though, yet. Persephone found, at least according to the report from months ago, Arachne and Medusa, two uplifted humans who were not supposed to keep their sanity. Yet they did. This led her to hypothesize, about the nature of some of the humans. In case she was right about her hypothesis, then some of the human souls were evolving beyond, what they originally were. Simply put, they were growing. She had some proof for it in the form of Arachne's leg, that bled silver and she believed it was safe to assume, that the other human, who kept her sanity, was the same. Although, she would need many more samples, so to speak, from both women.
But this was exactly what was giving her the hope, that it was possible for humans to grow, while her kind could be only diminished. And if Arachne, could grow to be taller than Xemha, then the idiotic bastard, could be dealt with. And no she did not favor Arachne because she was in a sense her child. Definitely not.
Despite all of this, the girls were surely taking their sweet time to get here. Hopefully, they did not run into any problems. The clean state of Persephone's core was the indicator of that.
One day, her musings and core observation were interrupted by Hades. He informed her, that the Argonauts came sailing from north and ended up devoured by Charybdis. Given the barrier extended far beyond that, they now ended in his care, again. And Hades wanted to know what should he do with them.
This of course perked her up, since Nike, her beloved, should have been with the group. But her hopes, about meeting again with her lover, were dashed at the same time as she was informed that the Golden Fleece was apparently awoken. And Nike was most likely devoured by the damned thing, that should have never existed. She cursed and cried.
Persephone was late, and that had him worried, even taking a long route through Egypt and Libya, should not have delayed her so much. Or at least from his perspective she was late, he did not like to admit it, but ever since Aphrodite appeared and activated the barrier, he was on the edge. So perhaps Persephone was not in fact late, she was just enjoying her vacation, which he knew she wanted so badly, that she even created an update for the Charon system.
But did the girl not realize what sort of danger she might be in? Probably not, given that no information could be passed through the barrier. At the same time, her body was not destroyed, so she did not have to bail back to the Underworld. Even more, she had an Orthrus as a potential meatshield. Moreover, Arachne seemed to prove to be quite a fighter, not only besting Zeus, but she also won against Athena and Artemis at the same time, not to mention Heracles in his berserker state. Yet, they might possibly have to face a full Primordial.
He did not want to imagine what would have happened in such a case. Even, going by what Aphrodite told him about this Xemha. That he was a being who would never do his own dirty work. And that he could not go down to Earth so easily, unless he wanted to burn the people, he wanted to worship him. He still had the bodies of Zeus and Poseidon at his command, and could possibly use them to intervene without the negative effects.
Luckily, for him, he was disrupted from such grim thoughts by an event, at Charybdis, the part of the region of the Underworld, where the barrier still extended. To his surprise, it was the Argonauts. And they were not in good shape.
It did not take him long to figure out what happened, and how badly they screwed up. He would have berated whoever's idea it was to choose such a young and wild crew. But that would probably not be happening, since the only one he had to share this news with was Aphrodite. And she would not be happy, but she had to know.
He was not happy about being the bringer of the bad news, but apparently the bad situation, they found themselves in, thanks to the wild Primordial appearing out of nowhere, got even worse. Not only did the Argonauts fail spectacularly, as the Golden Fleece was now awake and running amok in the world, but the young idiots also managed to lose Nike to it.
As expected, Aphrodite was furious, scared, and hysterical, after she found out that Nike was likely dead, thanks to Golden Fleece going wild. He never knew that the two were close, but apparently, if Aphrodite's own words were anything to go by, they were very close. Perhaps too much even.
But the curses he heard from Aphrodite, were quite intriguing. At least if they were somewhat real, but given what sort of power Golden Fleece possessed, what he remembered of it, there might have been some merit to Aphrodite's swearing. And even if it was merely an exaggeration, his plan might buy them some time.
For exactly this reason, he fixed Argonauts' memories slightly. He removed the part where they were swallowed by Charybdis. And replaced it with memories of letting them pass without any complications since he needed the location of the Underworld to be undetected.
As for the Argonauts, they would serve as informants to the the other Primordial, Xemha, saying that there was a possible danger, in the form of Golden Fleece, which could even hurt Primordial. Would the larger being, believe such a lie? He did not know, yet it was better than doing nothing.
She was bored, extremely so. Her Father left in charge of the Olympus after he went looking for the lesser of his kin. While her siblings were sent to various places to bring them into compliance. Of course, she did not even dare to think to doubt her Father's judgment. But nothing interesting was happening here. The people were just so compliant, to the point she might have considered it faulty. Couldn't they just start some rebellion, so she could thwart it? Would she be forced to tempt them herself, just spark some semblance of entertainment? Even praying to her Father, that He would bless her with something entertaining did not help, since He was busy.
But, her boredom was not to last forever. Whether it was prayer, which she kind of doubted since her Father had not replied to her for some time now. Or a happy little accident, she did not care. An amusement was an amusement after all.
Here on the Olympus, a stranger appeared. He looked distinctively local and his presence was nearly identical to the Olympians she fought. Now, it was outright impossible for her Father to miss him, after all her Father, except for the lack of interest in her, was perfect in all regards.
Neverminding that little detail, she decided to play a game with the intruder, after all, if she dealt with him too swiftly she would be soon bored again.
She was hiding from him. That much he was sure of. After all, he knew that he had a blind spot in his view. He realized that very quickly, not even half a year it took him. But Gaia, just as always, was a tricky one to deal with.
The first layer of her deception was, to completely mask her presence all around the globe. And the second was the blind spot, which her cover created. Now he knew it was there, but every time he thought he had it, the blind spot slipped away.
He hated Gaia for making such a fool out of him, but at the same, he sort of enjoyed this little game. It will be soon over anyway and then Gaia would beg him.