Persephone drives through a twilight world.

Here is an endless rolling line of hedgerows, weaving to and fro, until it climbs a hilltop. The barriers fall away, providing a view of the patchwork biomes of a sprawling zoo. She continues along a mountainside set with concrete and glass bunker structures, overlooking a terraced lake, before turning along a green corridor beneath the shadow of electrical pylons and criss-crossed with bike paths. Then down across an arid plane, past small towns and a flat-spaced octagonal casino until the road takes a downhill turn. The foliage turns tropical and the road meanders here and there across green summer islands. Another turn takes along a coastal road with a view clear to sunset. Farms and homes and ocean breezes that take away summer's heat, cliffs broken by endless beaches. Children play with toy excavators in the rubble of construction sites and bike paths snake under and over roads in every directions. 

She comes to a home without a view - the plot with the view is vacant and set with park benches. She comes to a home with a community request board out the front next to the little library and chore register. She comes to a home without enough spare rooms for all her guests, but neighbourhood doors open with faces delighted to see guests. She comes to a home surrounded by lemon, cherry and almond trees, all out of season. She comes to a home lit with the sound of someone in the distance practicing the harpsichord.

Hades waits at the door, red rose in his hand.

"Please," he said. "Come back to me."
Persephone sighed and pushed past him. 

Her home was humble, built for one. In one corner was a computer surrounded by post-its, books and notepads, still logged into the Daily Affirmation Of The Way <3 account. There was a comfortable couch and a couple of borrowed chairs so that everyone could be comfortable. There were bowls of peanuts, honeycomb and sun-dried mango slices. 

"Please," said Hades again. "Come back to me. I have built the Underworld in your image. Now it trends towards justice. Now it trends towards love. I have turned eternity to this purpose, to teach the galaxy's monsters how to unclench their fists. I take every soul that comes to my House into my care, and more than that. I do not simply break down the wicked, I bring down their societies. I crack apart their contradictions, pry loose Aphrodite's fingers, wash each soul clean and pure, no matter how long it takes. I, too, have declared war upon samsara, but within my realm, with my resources, free from the interference of my family, I can triumph. I can triumph, in a way that you never can here. I need your help. Leave this world behind. Be with me."
Persephone leaned heavily on the cutting bench. She looked tired. She looked sad. "Every soul?"
"All of them!"
"Then what of those you fed to the Rift to reach me?" said Persephone.
"I had to reach you," said Hades, eyes burning blue. 
"You [i]had [/i]to," said Persephone quietly. 
There was a sword in her hand.
"Them?" said Hades. "Well paid! They knew the risks, they knew the rewards, they chose to roll the dice. They had every opportunity to quit this journey. Against humanity itself!"
"I never asked for humanity," said Persephone. "I don't want it."
"You are a liar!" said Hades. His eyes burned so blue they scorched the ceiling, as blue as the skies. "You did not come to Earth, take over this civilization, remake it in your image, seed your swords throughout the galaxy because you do not dream of political change! I have seen Jupiter! I have seen what your people have built! You are setting yourself up as a parallel culture, steeped in symbolism -" his voice broke, pleading, though the blue burned brighter, "- and I could not agree more. If that is what you want I'll give it all to you, and more. I will call in every debt I am owed and shower this world and culture in all my family's blessings. This culture will thrive and spread, replace the hollow expansionism of the Skies, end the atrocities of Biomancy, reform the warlike Ceron!"
"My mother will mourn," said Persephone, scratching the edge of her blade against the edge of the stone counter.
"Her? That heartless monster?" scoffed Hades. His bow tie was choking, he loosened it with a finger. "I've seen how you threw her out of this world when she tried to visit. You set your beasts on her rather than see her, there's no love lost there - and between Hephaestus and Kronus, how much of her is left, really? But if you must pretend to care, I have made arrangements for her death. She will join us beneath, and she can be our greatest project - to unwind the nightmare she has become. Return her to warmth, release her kind and loving to the galaxy -"
"After how many years of winter?"
"Prices must sometimes be paid. You know this. You have lived in the real world long enough, sometimes you have to turn something off to fix it."
"I understand that very well," said Persephone quietly.
"Then," said Hades. He pulled off his bow tie entirely. Without it... somehow it became apparent that the suit he wore was the exact same cut and style that Aphrodite wore. "Come with me."
"No," said Persephone.
"Come with me." 
"You have not learned anything," she said.
"Come with me! [i]You are my queen[/i]!"
"Actually," said Persephone, "I am a Princess."

Scarlet light flickers like a heartbeat. Hades reaches up pale fingers to the red slit across his throat, right where his bow tie had been. The God of the Dead looks at his own blood with disbelief. All those angular joints bend and crease, folding him up like an origami crane.

"I am no one's prisoner," said Persephone. "Not my mother's. Not yours. Not me, not I, not any more."
"Re..." Hades rasps, shuddering and distorting. "Re... DA! NA!" 

How quickly that kind face turns to a thing of terror. How suddenly you can see the crimson strings, the red thread of fate pouring out of that throat, thickening into ribbons that find their end point in the hands of smiling Aphrodite. The God of the Dead turns and whirls, knocking over chairs, breaking glass, staggering desperately until his eyes lock on Redana and he snatches the Gift - that sealed treasure he had bid you take all this way. Wild eyed he stands and faces Persephone, who still holds her sword calm and steady.

"I will fix you too," rasped Hades, hand to his throat as ribbons continued to spill out. Aphrodite is grinning. Everything was for this, a scheme an eternity in the making. "If that is what it takes to make you happy. You are coming with me -"

He rips open the box.

Nothing happens.

Hades looks confused. His expression is mirrored in Aphrodite. But as Hades lifts out the cold metal crown, his expression remains confused - while Aphrodite becomes so enraged he bites his cigarette in half.

"What... is this?" said Hades, holding up a Nemesis Crown.
"HERMES!" screams Aphrodite in fury.

The world begins to shake. 

Prepare for planetary teleportation.