The wind howled, throwing up flurries of snow. The mountain was a broken mess of gaping trenches and falling rocks, but Hercules pressed forth undeterred.

Soon, the clouds swallowed his form, and multiple times he barely stopped himself from falling into a deep trench. It was far too reminiscent of his fight with the World Serpent, whose venom rested in a lion-pelt flask on his hip, only a few months ago. And now his journey was almost at an end.

Atonement was within reach.

As he passed through the last few feet of cloud, he was greeted not with a blast of icy wind as one might expect, but rather a face full of scorching fire. It parted upon meeting Hercules, of course, but it blinded him for a second.

When his vision cleared, he beheld the mountain peak, a burning mess of fire and lava. And at its zenith, stood the Eternal Phoenix, silently watching him. It was a majestic bird, made entirely of swirling fire. Red, orange, yellow, pink, purple and a thousand other colors flickered in those flames created a miraculous tapestry. Above, the myriad of stars littered in the dark sky, their thousand eyes standing witness to the end of Hercules’ labors.

Hercules approached slowly. From what he had heard the Eternal Phoenix would be far harder to deal with than the other.

Because the Phoenix was immortal. Eternal. Endless.

Temperature started to rise, going from uncomfortable to a working so powerful even his cloak struggled to ward it off. Still the phoenix stayed still.

Then it opened its beak.

Its loud cry carried across the mountain peak, full of battle intent and bloodthirst.

Hercules got the message. There would be no talking with this one.

Abandoning all pretenses of caution, Hercules hurled himself at the phoenix, shattering the ground beneath him with the force of his leap. He drew his fist back in mid air, and in a single instant he was upon the phoenix. He thrust a fist directly into its center, wincing at the flame crawling up his arm in retaliation, but a second later a shockwave radiated out from his first, dispersing the phoenix into a million glowing streaks of flames.

Hercules looked at his fist, dumbfounded.

Was that it?

Alas, nothing is ever that easy. The thousand tongues of flame reversed course and condensed back into the phoenix, looking no worse for it. Immediately, Hercules pivoted, narrowly dodging multicolor fireballs, and sliping lion-pelt gloves on his fits he struck once more.

Once again, the phoenix burst into tongues of flame that regrouped back into its complete form, heedless of the gloves' path-dispelling properties and Hercules' attempts to interrupt it.

He tried once more, this time throwing some of the serpent's venom into the mix. Still, nothing, although he did notice it had squealed in pain when being hit and dimmed slightly, but that had taken half of his supply.

And the heat was still rising, sucking all the energy out of Hercules.

Still, he rushed back into the fray, leveraging everything he knew in a desperate struggle for his life. He countered all attacks, either dodging or dispersing them with lion-pelt clad blows. He moved perfectly, leveraging the entirety of his strength, striking with blows that could have leveled the mountain they fought on.

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And still the phoenix lived.

And still the heat rose.

Something had to change.

As he fought Hercules, desperately tried to think of a solution. The only thing he could think of that had managed to hurt the phoenix had been the serpent's venom. But he would need to keep it in contact with the venom for perhaps an hour for it to finish the job. And there was no way he could hold the phoenix still for that long.

Unless…

An idea began to form in his head, as mad as it was futile.

But it was the only option.

The next pass, Hercules seized the bird with pelt clad hands instead of simply striking it. Then, dislocating his jaw and opening his mouth to its fullest extent, he crushed the struggling bird down to its smallest size and swallowed it. It burned like nothing he had ever experienced, and its desperate struggles almost overwhelmed him.

But he firmed his resolve, and with a mighty flaring of his will he forced it into his stomach, where his body's inherent resistance to foreign paths assisted him in containing the bird.

He immediately dropped to his knees and assumed a meditative pose, taking a long hour to stabilize the phoenix’s containment.

Then he took out a lion-pelt flask and popped the top off. He grimaced at its contents. This was going to hurt. WIth a single swallow, he consumed the whole thing, tossing the empty flask aside.

Immediately, the venom tried to consume him, but he managed to redirect its attention to a far greater source of vitality, the phoenix. It struggled with renewed vigor as the venom tore into it, reaffirming Hercules' decision as the only way. He blocked the phoenix every attempt to escape or fight back and kept it contained.

This battle had turned to one of attrition. In his stomach, three paths clashed. The phoenix’s fiery eternity clashed with the cold death of the World Serpent and the essence of strength itself. Even the embers of the lion's pelt joined in, helping Hercules enforce his ability to contain the mighty paths.

Hours passed in this silent struggle, the stars witnessing every moment.

When the first rays of dawn began to peak over the horizon, Hercules looked like an emancipated skeleton, his every bone visible and his muscles gone. He looked like a man with one foot already through the door between life and death. Luckily, the phoenix wasn't much better and neither was the venom.

All could feel the end rapidly approaching and they dug in deep, drawing from their last reserves of strength. For a second they were even, then the phoenix pulled ahead, by only an infinitesimal amount, but it would be enough.

If the sun hasn't risen.

Its rays caressed Hercules with a fathers love. With a mother's love. WIth pure love. With forgiving love. And the weight on his shoulder lifted a little more.

Then it was done, the eternal phoenix having met its end. Hercules consumed the fiery energy leftover with ravenous intensity. Flesh began to crawl over his bones once more and within a few seconds he looked as good as new.

He looked up at the sky, locked in a battle between the rising sun and the shining stars. The clouds below him had cleared, revealing the world below in all its glory. He felt another portion of his guilt lift, though not all.

His joy at victory faded as he took in this unpleasant realization. The weight was still there, just greatly reduced. He had hoped to banish it entirely.

He wondered if he had simply not done enough.

But what more was there to do?

Under the morning sun, an idea slowly blossomed in his head, one as insane as his idea to eat the phoenix. He may have killed their princes, but their king remained.

Maybe…

Above, I shook my head. I wondered when he would finally get it. There was no banishing the weight of one's mistakes. It would accompany them till the end. They could only be lived with, lightened.

Still, that was something that could only be learned through experience.

And Hercules would not be dissuaded.

The sun rose over a grateful world, and atop the highest peak a man plotted the downfall of the beasts.