Invictus

Chapter 25

DENISE

After school, we went to the gym and told the deities what had happened. Ares merely nodded and asked us to present our weapons.

We stood in a straight line, martial style and unpinned them. Lyanna and Liu had a sword and a bow and quiver. I had my lance which was as long as me and Denise held her sword.

"Armor? " Ares asked. A pretty girl dressed in rainbow colours presented us with uniforms according to our powers. Dark green, dark red, white and navy blue.

They were bodysuits, sleek and form fitting, like a second skin. I twirled in the studio,

"Does my butt look big in this?" I ask Liu, who is fiddling with the neckline.

She shook her head and reached to put her hair in a bun.

Hera stood by the doors, smiling
"On behalf of the Olympian deities, I say thank you."

She stretched out her hands "Kneel, so I can bless you "

We all get on one knee, weapons by our side. Hera began to chant in a language so guttural it just had to be Greek. She left the floor and hovered above us in a blinding glow and I felt a slight shift in the air as she returned to the ground.

"Can I have a translation?" April asked

"She said:
Though wearisome the journey ahead lays. Together you must stay. The perils you shall face will not let any of you to waste"

Hestia said aloud, "It would be in your interests if you come out here"

This we did. A new person stood in the room. Tall,tan and blonde with eyes the shade of a Tiffany shopping bag. I ran my hand through my hair. It was the least I could do other than let my jaw hang.

This magnificent being locked eyes with April and made his way towards her. On reaching her, he held her hand and kissed the back of her hand, her palm and her wrist. April giggled uncontrollably.

Hera cleared her throat and he met her steely gaze, he straightened up and kissed our hands, pausing at me to tuck a stray blonde lock behind my ear.

"Hello girls" he said, his voice deliciously smooth. Irish cream over ice cubes."I am Zeus "

Lyanna looked slightly more interested than usual. She looked at him with a look as if to say "damn, no wonder he could get all the ladies."

"Don't mind me. I'm just here to watch the training before I do anything important. "

He idled over to Heras side and kissed her in front of us. Ares cleared his throat and we followed him into the training room.

"Shit" I heard April say. It was Hades. Fissures in the earth. Smoke and lava. Shadowy beings And screams.

"It's a simulation" Ares said "Ms. Watts is held in Tartarus. But if you do slip, you will end up with a nasty burn. There's a three headed dog named Cerberus but you might see the demigods first"

Persephone came forward

"In the dominions of Hades there are four great rivers, three of which had to be crossed by all the souls. These three are Acheron (sorrow), Cocytus (lamentation), and Styx (intense darkness), the sacred stream which flows nine times round these realms.

The shades are ferried over the Styx by the grim, unshaven old boatman Charon, who, however, only take those whose bodies has received funereal rites on earth, and who had brought with them his indispensable toll, which was a small coin or obolus, usually placed under the tongue of a dead person for this purpose. If these conditions have not been fulfilled, the unhappy souls are left behind to wander up and down the banks for a hundred years as restless spirits. You might have a problem there.

On the opposite bank of the Styx is the tribunal of Minos, the supreme judge, before whom all souls have to appear, and who, after hearing full confession of their actions whilst on earth, pronounces the sentence of happiness or misery to which their deeds have entitled them. This tribunal is guarded by the terrible triple-headed dog Cerberus, who, with his three necks bristling with snakes, lies at full length on the ground;-a formidable sentinel, who permits all shades to enter, but none to return.

The happy spirits, destined to enjoy the delights of Elysium, pass out on the right, and proceed to the golden palace where Hades and I hold the royal court, I have searched for Ms. Watts in Elysuim. She's not there so you probably have to search Minos' chambers.

The guilty souls, after leaving the presence of Minos, are conducted to the great judgment-hall of Hades, whose massive walls of solid adamant are surrounded by the river Phlegethon, the waves of which rolled flames of fire, and lit up, with their lurid glare, these awful realms. In the interior sits the dreadful judge Rhadamanthus, who declares to each comer the precise torments which awaits him in Tartarus. The wretched sinners are then seized by the Furies, who scourges them with their whips, and drags them along to the great gate, which closed the opening to Tartarus, into whose awful depths they are hurled, to suffer endless torture. So be careful. Tartarus is a couple of hundred of feet below Hades. "