The Punishment
By Jade Marmalade

Zeus was fed up.  No, more than fed up; he was completely infuriated.  This time, Ares had gone too far.  Zeus considered himself a fair god.  He could forgive the little things like constantly trying to kill Hercules and that whole Dahok affair.  But this . . . this was something on a different order of magnitude all together.

He had to punish Ares.  A few lightning bolts, the loss of some divine privileges . . . No, no, no, and no!!  It wasn't enough anymore.  Besides, it had never worked very well in the first place.  He was the King of Olympus, dammit!  He was ruthless and cunning.  There had to be something . . . ah, yes.

Zeus' grin was terrible to behold.

***

"What in TARTARUS!!!  WHERE AM I!?  Wait, where are my powers!?!  Is this a CLOSET!?!"  Ares bellowed.  "What the fuck is going on!?!"

"Now, now, manners," a tall, dark haired man dressed in red admonished.

Ares turned toward the Mountie with a growing sense of dread and horror.

****

Stanley Ray Kowalski, undercover for the last few months as Ray Vecchio, was finally finished with all the paperwork.  He had spent the entire freakin' day with paperwork.  Kowalski stretched back in his chair and felt his back pop in several places.  He stretched his arms over his spiky blond hair, cracking his knuckles, and the rotated his neck a few times.

"Damn that Mountie," he muttered under his breath.  Ever since he had partnered with that crazy Canadian his paperwork had doubled.  He sighed.  So had his conviction rate, but that just wasn't the point.  Fraser had also promised to come to the station to help out with the huge pile of case files.  In fact, Kowalski could have sworn that the had caught a glimpse of that glaringly red uniform earlier near the supplies closet.

'Well, I might as well check it out,' the detective thought to himself.

As he approached the closet, Kowalski had second thoughts.  He had heard rumors about how the real Ray Vecchio and a certain RCMP Constable had secreted themselves away in that dark, tight space.  Kowalski fairly salivated at the thought of getting Benton Fraser alone in a tight space with him, preferably naked.

He saw the wolf laying outside the door of the closet.  "Heya, Dief.  Sorry, I don't have a donut for you.  Is Fraser in there?"

Diefenbaker whined and Kowalski took that as a yes.  Before he could open the door, however, it was opened for him.  Benny stepped out . . . and he wasn't alone.

"Hello.  My name is Constable Ares Zeusson, Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  Is there anything I can do to be of assistance?"

****

"Father, how could you?" Hercules asked in complete and utter horror.

Zeus moaned.  "I didn't know!  It was supposed to be a simple punishment . . ."

The End