Son of Love and Fire

Chapter 12

Chapter 12:

King Aleus stood from his seat in the imperial box, the crowd immediately silencing from the ruckus of the bustling crowd and announcing the beginning of the Pankration, two men walked from either end of the arena and were received by wild cheers from the crowd.

Callie, Cynthia, Arthos, Jason and Antheia sat together along a row and were eating some of the pastries they had gotten from a vendor with Hestia sitting a few rows behind them, blending into the crowds unnoticeably whilst joining the cheering and anxiously anticipating her sons fights. Callie watched the two men who walked out, she could tell by how they walked that they were egotistical and believed themselves to be undefeatable as so many did. She hid a small smile as she thought of how different her brother is, Perseus was never boastful, but he could defeat these fools any day, plus he was way stronger.

The two fighters stood across from each other as another man walked forward with a long pole in his grasp. Upon a wave of the kings hand the pole was swung into the ground and the match began, the two fighters quickly approaching one another, yet before the larger one could attack the other threw some of the sand that he had picked up off the ground into his eyes before striking out in a series of blows.

The larger man was distracted for a short while, taking almost all of the hits being unable to defend against the assault, despite this he shortly recovered from the distraction and fought back, displaying his obviously superior skill and strength. The fight went on for a few more minute before the larger man landed a strong blow to the side of the mans face, knocking him to the ground, from where the larger man pinned him down and beat him until he was unconscious, then a little more. The crowd broke into cheers, celebrating the mans victory as he stood and held his arms up in victory.

Hestia, who had been watching the fight intently, wanting to know what her child had gotten into, was shocked to say the least, that was unnecessarily brutal and could leave the other contender with lasting damage, plus their fighting was aggressive and underhanded with obvious intent to kill. Upon watching this she wanted to go get her son out of this stupid competition that was no better than what she had heard of from Ares about events like these, although she knew he wouldn't back out, plus she had little to worry about given none of these people would be able to touch Perseus if they didn't let him.

From the pits Perseus could see the fight through the bars that sealed them off from the arena, whilst he didn't believe that such underhanded fighting should be displayed as entertainment, he had come to suspect such things during his time in the mortal world and instead analysed the fights. He watched every move each fighter made and the numerous flaws and vulnerabilities in both fighting styles. It came to Perseus as a surprise that in the fights he has seen and participated in so far in the mortal world, he found that those he fought against relied either on brute force or strict techniques and didn't adjust their fighting at all based on their opponent, this meant that so long as you could analyse your opponent's fighting style and adjust, as Perseus, and he suspected more skilled warriors could do, many of these opponents would be easy to take out.

After the match ended, Perseus retreated from the edge of the pits where he was watching from and sat on one of the rough wooden benches that lined the walls of the room that was filled with participants of the event. Looking around the room he found many people trying to act tough and psych others out before their fights, there were also a few who looked unprepared and without proper skill who had likely spent much of their remaining money on a wild dream of winning this event and becoming famous and getting the cash prize. Lastly, he saw a large, bulky man that was almost as tall as himself, sitting in the corner where no one would approach, he had many scares and burns littering his upper body and face, dirty cloth wrapped around his fists and forearms and shoulder length scraggly hair. As Perseus looked into his eyes, he saw they were dark, emotionless black irises that simply blended into his pupils.