Megaera

**Megaera** is the Goddess of Vengeance from Greco-Roman mythology. She is the youngest of the Furies, the original erinyes who serve as castigators of mortal crimes, with her being the castigator of infidelity.

## Overview

**Megaera** ("grudging" or "jealous one") is one of the Furies in Greek mythology. Either a monster or minor goddess, she was born along with her sisters from the blood of Ouranos after his castration by Cronus.

She causes envy and jealousy and is known to punish those who commit crimes, especially infidelity. She punishes crimes relating to the breaking of oaths and particularly marital infidelity.

Some depicted her and her siblings as the daughters of Nyx.

## Appearance

Megaera is a tall and imposing woman with a muscular build. She has gray-tinted skin, pale-blue hair styled into a ponytail, and orange eyes. Like her sisters, she only has a single bat-like wing, which is located on the right side of her body and is a purplish-red color.

## Personality

Megaera appears as an arrogant and authoritarian figure, though she does have a much softer side reserved only for those she truly trusts. While she is mostly a cool-headed person, she has a terrifying ill-temper that many gods and monsters are afraid to trigger, to the point where there are rooms in the House of Hades that act as safe rooms in case she *really* becomes angry.

Luckily for everyone, however, she has an excellent control of her own emotions, which only increased in the last five centuries as she began to practice a combination of self-taught meditation and anger-management therapy sessions to help her control her own anger. However, due to the chaotic nature of the Greco-Roman pantheon, accidents do happen.

She is also considered to be the most brutal of the Furies, as she's been repeatedly described by many, gods and monsters alike, as someone that only knows "physical pain", as she would torture most, if not all of the prisoners for their entire duration in the Fields of Punishment.

Like most immortal beings, she doesn't care much for mortal lives, though she does show genuine respect for skilled warriors and soldiers capable of fighting on her level. According to Thanatos, she is a "battle-junkie" who is obsessed with fighting against stronger opponents and actually believes a battle is a good way to start a relationship, platonic or otherwise.

And like her name and title suggest, she could come off as a clingy and jealous girlfriend at times, though her feelings and her trust toward her lovers is genuine, despite what the rumors said. However, this doesn't stop the gossip and her relationship with them have been on the chthonic tabloids many times, often for mostly wrong reasons.

## History

### Early Life

Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone were created by Ouranos millions of years ago to serve as guardians of honor and to enforce the authority of the Titans. However, when Kronos overthrew his father and became ruler of the Ancient Greek cosmos, he banished them to the Underworld where they became tormentors of the shades who descended there.

### The Titanomachy

During the Titanomachy, Megaera and her sisters, much like other chthonic gods, swore an oath of servitude to Hades and the Olympian dynasty due to their personal discontent toward Kronos and the Titans' rule who looked down upon the chthonic gods as "lesser spirits". From then on, she became Hades' bodyguard and the rebels' chief torturer and the chthonic gods' unofficial spymaster.

After the Olympians achieved victory, she and her sisters returned to the Underworld, having grown to love the underworldly realm as their new home. As part of their agreement upon swearing servitude, they got their positions as castigators back and are now in-charge of enforcing the rules settled down by the Olympians among humanity.

### Zagreus

Sometimes in the Greek Dark Ages, Megaera and Zagreus officially became a couple, though their relationship would soon fall apart due to differences in both sides. They would, however, reconcille and get back together in the late Archaic Greek period with Thanatos becoming their third missing piece, turning their relationship into a polyamorous one.

### Taming of the Shrewd

Sometimes in 1590s, on a date to the mortal world with Zagreus and Thanatos, Megaera got into a fight in a pub in Shoreditch, City of London after a mundane called her a *shrew* and stated that he pitied her lovers for having to put up with him. While at first, none of them paid much attention to the event other than the fact they'd need to weave the Mist to hide away their presence from the mundanes at the pub, it wasn't until several decades after that, in a Winter Solstice party in Elysium, when they found out the "consequences" of the fight.

It was revealed that among the people in the pub that fateful night was William Shakespeare, who wasn't affected by the Mist due to him being the demigod son of Apollo, and her actions gave him an inspiration for one of his most famous plays "The Taming of the Shrew". At first, no one in the Underworld dared to tell her of the fact, and it was only in the late Victorian era did she find out about the play and her role in its creation.

## Powers & Abilities

### Abilities

**Divine Physiology**: Megaera possesses all the standard traits and physical capability of a pagan god. By absorbing the power either gained from humans' offerings and sacrifices or naturally originated in the Realm of the Dead, she can empower herself multiple times and become as powerful as a greater god, though not on par with the Twelve Olympians.

* **Supernatural Condition**: Megaera possesses supernatural capabilities and attributes, both physically and mentally, that are drastically beyond what is naturally possible, which allow them to dwarf most beings within the supernatural world. Despite this, however, as a minor god, her powers still aren't on-par with greater gods without being empowered.
* **Divine Presence**: Megaera emits a transcendent presence which has supernatural effects that can cause malefic or catastrophic events or effects to happen. As the Goddess of Jealousy, those in her divine presence will have less control of their true emotions and opinions toward others, especially against those who they are secretly envious of.
* **Immortality**: Megaera is an immortal pagan goddess and can exist for infinitely unless she fades away or is killed using God-Slaying Magic.
	+ **Regenerative Healing Factor**: She possesses an incredibly powerful regenerative healing factor, meaning that she can rapidly heal and get restored to her optimal and full health at an extremely fast rate. Like other chthonic deities, when her body is destroyed or when she is killed by any non-permanent means, she will instantaneously be regenerated within the Realm of the Dead.

**Master Magician**: Megaera has demonstrated her ability as a master spell-caster capable of a multitude of different schools and systems of magic. Her most skilled magic systems are Olympus Magic and Hadean Magic, though she is also knowledgeable about the ancient magic wielded by the primordial gods due to her former past as Ouranos' castigator.

* **Transformation Magic**: Megaera is proficient in Transformation Magic, which allows her to shapeshift into various different characters, as well as the physical form of various monsters.
	+ **Natural Weaponry Manipulation**: She has complete control over her own natural weaponry, allowing her to freely alter and manipulate them. She can manipulate the shape, growth, coloration, density, sharpness, project them as projectiles, induce/remove infections/ailments, etc.
	+ **Arthropodal Limbs**: She can generate four arthropod-like limbs from her back which are strong enough to pierce through armors and even feet-thick concrete walls. With said limbs, she gained increased burrowing, running and grasping abilities.
* **Illusion Magic**: Megaera can perform powerful Illusion Magic to create various powerful and life-like illusions to trick her opponents, with some even capable of altering the physics of the environments around her.
* **Dark Magic**: Megaera is proficient in Dark Magic and can place a curse on whatever she wishes. The exact effects can be nearly anything she desires, with the most common effects being misfortune/bad luck, various illnesses, infertility, physical defects/ugliness, etc.
* **Flight**: According to Hermes, Megaera and the other Furies can only fly through by using their magical energy for repulsion or propulsion as it is physically impossible, even by the norms of the supernatural world, for them to lift themselves above the ground, much less hover or even float above the ground, with a single wing.

**Master Whip Proficiency**: Megaera possesses great proficiency, capabilities, and knowledge in whips. She is able to wield a whip with great proficiency in range, accuracy, and speed, thus allowing her to perform feats such as snatching her opponent's weapons, swinging from high altitudes and slicing the flesh of her enemies when striking at great speed.

### Powers

**Divine Power**: As a minor goddess, Megaera possesses all the standard abilities of a god, including the ability to perform magic without the need of a magical foci or a magic circle. Due to her origins as a chthonic god, she can absorb the spiritual power of the Realm of the Dead to empower herself without having to resort to humans' sacrifices and offerings.

* **Afterlife Traveling**: Megaera can travel between the mortal world and the Realm of the Dead, particularly between the mortal world and the Greco-Roman Underworld, freely and safely navigating both worlds and any adjacent dimensions connecting the two.
* **Insect Manipulation**: Megaera can control various insects to do her bidding, such as helping her during situations, using them against foes, using them to see locations and gather information about a particular place, etc. She can see through the insects' eyes that are controlled allowing her to spy on others.
	+ **Insect Generation**: She can create/generate any kind of insects, whether mundane or supernatural provided that they aren't divine, demonic, or celestial in nature.
	+ **Living Hive**: Her entire body is filled with monstrous parasitic arthropods that she can command. The parasites crawl out of orifices on her body, rapidly growing to roughly half the size of a normal human adult once freed.
		- **Parasite Infestation**: In addition to attacking enemies directly, her parasites can infect both living and dead bodies, forcing them to fight under her commands. The parasites appear to directly fuse with their hosts, causing them to become stronger and more insectoid than they originally were.
* **Fear Inducement**: Megaera can evoke and increase fear and horror in others, which resulted in alterations within the target’s perception, causing them to see their environment as ominous and her as more dark and foreboding than she already is.

## Equipment

**Adamantine Whip** (アダマントむち, *Adamanto Muchi*): Megaera and the Furies all wield enchanted whips created by the Elder Cyclops out of modified Adamantine, which is considered to be one of the most powerful sacred metals in existence. It possesses similar properties to the death scythes wielded by reapers, which allow it to damage the target's body and soul simultaneously.

## Quotes

**Megaera**: "*Ever so stubborn, aren't you. Maybe my whip might make you reconsider whatever it is you're attempting here.*"
**Zagreus**: "*Your whip's not been all that persuasive in the past.*"
**Megaera**: "*Maybe persistence will pay off for both of us. Come, then.*"
— **Megaera to Zagreus**

## Trivia

* Her name, Megaera, means "grudging or jealous one".
	+ In modern French (*mégère*), Portuguese (*megera*), Modern Greek (μέγαιρα), Italian (*megera*), Russian (мегера) and Czech (*megera*), this name denotes a jealous or spiteful woman.
* 464 Megaira, a minor planet, is named after her.
* She is a sadist and often engages in bondage plays with her lovers.
* She owns two places in the mortal world: A penhouse in Los Angeles and a villa in Milan.
* She considered Athens to be "boring, overrated, and desperately trying to overcompensating itself".
* She was titled the Fury of the Flesh, as she was the one who physically tortured her victims, in contradiction to her sisters who tortured the mind and soul of their victims.
* She considers Zeus to be the worst man in existence and have stated on multiple occasions that, had he not the God-King, she would have tormenting him as well.