The New Demigods

Chapter 8: Arena 14

I had to admit my arena was nothing like I had expected. I had zero expectations at the beginning of the day, but after touring the 12 arenas that were big enough to be their own towns, I was surprised to be sharing an arena the size of a high school gymnasium with 3 other pairs.

The equipment in our arena was all poorly crafted from wood and looked like it hadn't been used in years. There were no digital screens or obstacle courses, instead we had 2 wooden training dummies that looked like they had seen better days.

The weapons were all piled into a bin together that had 1 wooden sword, 1 wooden shield, 1 wooden spear, and 1 set of bow and arrows. Outside of the shield, there was no armour.

In fact, the only high-tech component to our arena was a gold-plated robot owl perched on a flag pole coming out of the back of the room; it's red eyes followed our movements.

"You're kidding me, right?" Hades said picking up the wooden sword. He had directed his question at Eleanor and Nathaniel who were quick to scurry out of the room and slam the door behind them.

"This is messed up," Horace sulked, crossing his arms.

"C'mon, it's not too bad, things could be much worse." Said the large, jolly sponsor. "Look we can practice some close combat on this dummy," he walked up to the wooden dummy and punched it lightly, causing the arm to fall off. We all fell silent as the wooden arm hit the ground. Then Scarlett began to laugh loudly at the scene, her laugh was contagious and we all joined in.

"Look, it's true that we don't have all the high-tech training equipment that the Gods of Olympus do, but it's our duty to prepare you for the quest ahead and no amount of sabotage will stop us from doing that." My sponsor announced - I was surprised at her mention of sabotage, but it did make a lot of sense.

"Who are you?" Horace questioned, "we know everyone's name except for you three." I shifted uncomfortably as I had the same question, but felt it was inappropriate to ask.

"You can call me Muther," my sponsor responded.

"You want me to call you mom?" Horace questioned in disbelief, making the sponsors all laugh.

"No, Muther, with a U," she corrected.

"Oh..." Horace's cheeks went red with embarrassment. "What about you?" He questioned to the large, jolly sponsor.

"Theus," he answered, extending his large hand to shake Horace's.

"And you?" Horace asked turning to the last sponsor.

"River," she answered, barely audible.

"Great, good to know," Horace concluded. I nodded in agreement, as did Piper and Scarlett. It felt good to have at least one mystery solved.

"Now who's ready to do some training!?" Theus exclaimed, pulling a whistle out of his pocket and blowing into it.

"What is that?" Hades asked slyly.

"You like it? It's a whistle, I saw it in the movies, coaches use them." Theus answered with a big smile, slapping Hades on the back with his large hand.

"Right... Well kids, let's see what you've got with some laps around the room." Hades directed. I looked around the room, not convinced that Hades was serious.

"You heard the God!" Theus reinforced blowing the whistle again. Hades gave a side eye, making it clear he did not in fact like the whistle.

Horace, Piper, Scarlett, and I awkwardly formed a line in the corner of the room then began jogging around the parameter together.