A Bird in the Hand is the third episode of season 25, Titan Takedown.
Synopsis[]
The Party Animals are celebrating their victory over Nature's Wrath with an impromptu party in the ring, with the participation of Nature's Wrath and the crowd. They meet the Cursed--a team of Medusa, Arachne and Midas--and part on good terms because they may be facing each other in the next round.
They take the party to the bar, Party Animals, only to find the neighborhood wrecked and the bar has been destroyed by the sea, thanks to Poseidon. Julius gives a moving speech and draws on the power of the group, giving worship and belief back to the people to empower them as they empower the Party Animals. The Party Animals' fans become so worked up they join forces and rebuild the bar in a single night.
The feat is witnessed by Hermes, who invites the party to Olympus to parley with the gods. The party declines to meet on Olympus and would rather meet on neutral ground, the agora in Athens. The are met with Apollo and Artemis, who offer the party their personal wishes fulfilled, if they agree to lose the next match. Adonis points out the risks of continuing on, and the rewards of taking the offer, but the rest of the party argues that Zeus will override any deal and the gods can't be trusted. Julius in particular spearheads the argument that they aren't fighting for their own selfish personal reasons now, but have a responsibility to the people they draw their power from, and the party spurns the gods' offer.
Hippolotamus comes up after the meeting, and asks about it. He also asks Julius in particular about his motivation, because he is the most focused on opposing the gods. Julius finally comes clean to the party about his parentage: He is the son of Kronos and thus half-brother to Zeus, out to banish the gods from Olympus and free the Titans. The rest of the party takes this news badly, feeling they should have been told sooner, and that his arguments about fighting for everyone are tainted by his self-interest--he's the only member whose wish wouldn't be granted by the Olympians.
With the internal strife straining their group cohesion they go to the arena, and run into Hippolotamus, who asks them how the meeting with the gods went and about Julius' motivations for fighting so hard. The party realizes they have been duped by a shapechange. They also see Medusa, who is upset because her team has been disqualified thanks to a sudden rules change--each of her individual snakes is being counted as a different person, so her team suddenly has too many contenders, and their spot has been taken by a two-person team called Head 2 Head, consisting of Cerberus and the Hydra, who has one head right now. The crowd is nervous over the groups' strife, and Tabatha soothes things over.
In the arena, they sees Aphrodite was the one to fool the party as she changes from Hippolotamus to herself. Head 2 Head is renowned for fighting dirty and outright trying to kill their opponents. The match starts, and the Hydra immediately shoves Argus the referee into a trash can so the ref can't see attacks or disqualify anyone.
Thea saves Adonis from the thrown trash can, but Julius and Adonis are immediately put into a bad position by Cerberus. A vicious, bloody battle ensues, and Julius' valiant efforts at getting himself and Cerberus outside the ring gets him dropped into negative hit points and dying. Adonis rescues his friend by pouring all his available healing into Julius despite his own injuries, to a massive pop from the crowd, and gets grappled himself. Julius repays him by using his one singular scroll of Banishment, his weapon he'd been saving to use on the gods at his victory, to send Cerberus to the underworld. The banishment portal opens up in the vicinity of Kronos, who smiles upon his son and praises him, revealing Julius' parentage publicly, and the selfless act gets him adoration from the crowd and renews the trust of his teammates.
Tabatha charms the Hydra into giving her the trash can containing an unconscious and dying Argus, and Thea revives him with her wine. Despite the ref being in a position to disqualify the Serpent King for biting, Thea declines the easy victory. Adonis puts a Fear spell on the Hydra, and smack-talks to the gods on the mic and the people love it and the gods hate it, with people booing Zeus for the first time. Tabatha (with the help of her amazing cat from a bag) helps trip the Hydra over, and Thea grapples with him and gets a spectacular pin on him for the win.