My Boyfriend is a Dead Roman Hero | Jason Grace

I Start a Prison Break

Movies really made gladiator-ing seem way more fun than it actually is.

Juliette lets out a string of curses in Greek as one of the sphynxes she's fighting manages to rake her claws down her shoulderblade. Thoroughly pissed off by the gasp from the crowd, the daughter of Aphrodite sends an arrow through the offending monster's forehead in return.

The other four sphynxes scream in outrage. Julie isn't paying much attention to what they're saying. Especially after catching the first few words to be "Riddle me this!" from a few of them.

Over the last two weeks, Julie has decided that gladiatrix fame is just not all it's made out to be.

For one thing, the management is absolutely atrocious. Julie has no personal agent, so all her fights are decided by the emperor himself with no go between to be like "Hey, um, actually, let's maybe save the match where she's fighting ten hydras for Tuesday when she doesn't have two broken arms," or "Hey, how about we don't have her fight a sea monster with only one shot in her harpoon gun - that seems like a liability issue."

So, uh, yeah, she has been very poorly represented! These fights are so unbalanced, but whatever. She makes do.

She hasn't died yet, so she must be doing fi-oop, give her just one sec. She's out of arrows.

Dodging a lunge from the biggest of the four lady-headed-lions, Juliette skids to the side into a one handed cartwheel. The moment both feet (Yes, both. Like her new lame ass mortal prosthetic?) are on the turf again, she's jamming the recurve of her bow into the gut of one of her enemies. The sphynx explodes into dust.

Two down. Three to go. Okay, what was she talking about?

Oh, yeah, another thing - nobody prepared Julie for the complete menace that is turf-burn. Seriously, if a genie gave her one wish, she would ask for some well fitting kneepads because damn this stuff burns to slide on.

...Okay, maybe she should actually wish to, y'know, escape, but her point still stands.

Speaking of points, Julie just about takes five sharp sphynx claws right to the face. Last second, she backbends into a walkover and slams the underside of her sandal into the beast's chin. It staggers back in surprise. Julie starts to stab at it, but the other two end up blocking her.

Ugh. Okay, time to actually strategize. Maybe if she takes these three out in a cool way, she might actually get to eat real food instead of whatever ambrosia Bitch-yerses tosses at her through the bars of her cell.

Juliette backs up enough to take a running start at one of the field goals. She can hear her remaining three opponents chasing after her, screaming nonsense like "WHAT CAN BE HEARD BUT NEVER SEEN?!"

Julie shouts back "Your mom!"

She makes sure to put on a boost of speed after she hears the cries of outrage from the cats behind her.

At least Commodus is happy with her. He's been sending her little gifts every time she does something particularly impressive in the arena, which means Juliette finally has some decent weapons and a sort-of bed to sleep on in her cell. She still doesn't have her fancy bronze leg back, but she's getting more talented at running around on her regular mortal prosthetic without faceplanting, so that's progress.

She also gets hella fanmail, but she's pretty sure most of it is from the blemmyae assigned as her guards.

Cheryl and Johnny are her biggest fans. Julie is a little embarrassed to admit that she might just be theirs too. She's decided blemmyae are her favorite species of monster. Call it Stockholm syndrome if you want, but it's hard not to get attached to the only beings in the entire building who are actually nice to you.