Medusa’s Revenge

Poseidon frowned as he tapped the bottom of his golden trident on the ground. Nothing happened. The oceans, that swirled around the islet he was on, continued to gently smack against the shoreline. Poseidon sighed.

This was not normal. This was the first water body that had not responded to him. Was he losing his power? No, that was ridiculous. He was the god of the seas after all.

Something was not right about this land. That much was clear by the giant cables that protruded from the water ahead, which joined and twisted to make a huge mass of black land that stretched ahead of him, into a thick fog. The cables had blue, flashing lights that blinked periodically.

Poseidon rowed over to a makeshift harbor and realized it was very hot; heat emanated from the cables underneath him. He ascended a small rising and was confused when he saw the first living creature in the land. It looked almost like a human, wearing Greek garbs, but its skin was made of metal, and there were lights in its eyes, identical to the ones on the cables.

As he moved forward, he realized that the land was populated by all these creatures. They behaved just like humans; he saw a marketplace where they hawked over various metal parts, a public bath where they soaked themselves in oil and a street hawker, around who others were gather, who proclaimed in a strange language that sounded like a combination of beep boops.

But then something got his attention. It was a giant statue, that stood in the middle of the town square, of a woman he had loved once long ago. It depicted Medusa in her monstrous form, which she had been turned into for the night of passion they had had. The metal mortals prostrated themselves in front of it, praying softly in their strange language.

Poseidon pushed his way through to the statue, as the inhabitants continued to stare at him with their unblinking eyes, but the god ignored them. He stood in front of it and shouted.

“Why do you worship her?”

Everyone in the area stopped what they were doing and looked up at him.

“Why do you worship her?!”

They continued to stare at him and Poseidon was starting to get angry when they all pointed in unison behind him. He looked to where they were pointing; a peak in the distance.

***

Medusa was as beautiful as the day before she had been transformed. Long golden hair that caressed her rosy, fair cheeks; far from the monster that she had been turned into. She sat on a throne inside the temple, that looked much like Athena’s. The throne room was full of the metal mortals; servants who fanned her, guards that stood at attention with spear and shield, and her council.

In her hand she held a cup, from which she drank ambrosia. This puzzled Poseidon greatly because Medusa was a mortal. How could she possibly be drinking the nectar of the gods? How was she even alive since Perseus had beheaded her?  

“Medusa, I thought…”

“Save it,” said Medusa, poison in her tone. “I am very much alive. No thanks to you.”

“But I tried…”

“Tried?!” she erupted, standing up abruptly. She pointed a finger at him. “You have the audacity to stand in front of me after what you did?”

“What I did? Medusa, I loved you.”

Medusa’s golden locks transformed to snakes and her skin became deathly pale. She shrieked as the snakes in her hair writhed. “Love? I’ll show you the love you gave me. Seize him.”

All the metal mortals suddenly turned to him and raised their hands to him. A strange shrieking sound came from them which made him uncomfortable but he did not move. He looked up to his former lover.

“Medusa, what are you-?”

Poseidon twirled his trident and was about to swat away at the approaching metal mortals when a light exploded from the nearest creature’s hand and a sharp pain stabbed him in his mind. He screamed as he fell to the ground, the pain getting sharper as more of them joined its brethren.

He craned his neck up and saw Medusa, the snakes coiling around her body as she walked down to his fallen body, her robe flowing behind her. She bent down and grabbed the trident from the ground.

“Why are you doing this?! Medusa?!”

Medusa twirled the trident in her hand and looked at him. He could feel himself weaken under her deathly gaze, the very gaze that could turn mortals into stone.

“You forced yourself upon me that day,” she said in a quiet, threatening tone. Her voice was shaking. “You ruined me that day.”

“I did no such thing!”

“Yes, you did!” she shrieked, the snakes in her hair hissing loudly. “I never asked for it.”

“It was in your eyes, Medusa. You wanted to be with me.”

Medusa stared at him. She turned to the mortals and nodded. “Hold him still.”

They grabbed onto him, the stabbing pain forcing him to obey. He tried to call to the oceans, to the water bodies, even to his staff, but none of them responded. This was the first time he had felt powerless since being sent into exile by Zeus.

Medusa slowly walked up behind. He couldn’t see her.

“Now you will know how I felt,” she said smacking the trident down onto the ground before positioning it behind him.

He screamed.  

***

The elderly DNA researcher had a VR headset on as she watched Medusa face her rapist in an artificial living world she’d had to improvise.

Meanwhile, Medusa placed Poseidon’s beheaded, conscious head in a box and slit her wrist, letting the blood flow onto it and watched gleefully as it turned into snakes that would torment him for eternity.

When she called up to the DNA researcher, there was no reply.  

The old researcher had turned to stone…