The Olympian Games 2: Torch

The Olympian Games 2: Torch

Tuesday Argyris

I was still swaddled in my blankets when the sun came up this morning. I'd been awake nearly all night, only sleeping for at most a half an hour at a time. I missed my mom, I missed camp, and I missed being safe. I was missing my siblings in my cabin and the tranquility of the archery range and the old humdrum life that I'd left behind for.....this.

I don't know why I accepted. It was an honor, sure, but it was likely some of my comptitors might die - I might die! So may of them were older than me and more experienced, and yet I was only here because I 'looked good shooting an arrow'. Sure, I was probably the best shot here, but in the case of a close combat battle or something I was done for.

On the day we'd arrived, I heard everyone mingling. Talking about their various quests, their victories, some had even saved the world. And me?

I couldn't save anyone. My first quest was successfully completed but the losses were.....well, let's leave it at me being the only survivor.

But now that the sun was coming up I realized it was time to stop pitying myself. I unwrapped the blanket from my shoulders and gently plodded onto the deep red carpet, which activated a small radiator-like device in the corner. Heat suddenly swelled throughout the room, a calm, warm sort of heat, followed by a projection of the weather and various statistics about the actual sun.

"100 sunspots so far this year, huh...." I read, leaning toward the projection. "...is that a good thing?"

I redressed my bed with the yellow and orange sheets it had come with and fluffed my pillows to their original size before hurrying into the bathroom. I tied my hair in a low ponytail down my back and hurried out into the main bedroom again, slamming the button on the alarm clock. I had the edge already, everyone would just be waking up now, but I was nearly ready to move.

Unlike many other competitors, I didn't have any fancy equipment. Children of Apollo tend to dress down anyway as they aren't usually frontline fights. I managed to get a white tunic and a bronze chestplate as a loan from Aphrodite -who'd originally offered me garments that were either way to heavy or way too bright - magenta being one of my possible boot colors.

I was pulling on my bracers when the TV suddenly turned on and caused me to jump up in fear. The screen displayed Zeus in his typical suit, and to his left and right I could make out the features of his fellow Olympians. He announced that today would be our first official challenge, and that we were to report to the throne room in the next hour.

My stomach growled with hunger - ah, right, I hadn't eaten since leaving camp yesterday morning.

Room service may take more than an hour...My stomach growled again to make its point. ''But then again, I'm pretty fast. I can sprint to the throne room, right?''

It would be better not to risk it. I sucked my stomach flat and reached under the bed for the bow and quiver of arrows given to me by Aphrodite. According it her, after much prying, the bow was used by her when she went hnting with one of her former lovers, Adonis. Just feeling the bow felt surreal, I couldn't imagine how it would feel to actually put it to use.

I took a last glance at the clock, strapped the quiver to my hip, and hurried out of my room.

--

I was surprisingly one of the first to reach the throne room along with about five other people running for it. I took pride in myself knwoing that at the very least, none were as fashionable as I was - but I still plucked at the folds of my tunic self-consciously.

Once we'd all gathered in the throne room, Zeus and the other gods immediately took their places at their thrones, imposing as ever.

As Zeus took the head of the conference, the seventeen of us grew silent. He cleared his throat and gestured in front of him, where I noticed a table full of scrolls. "Heroes, Welcome to your first Challenge!" The uproar began again and Zeus paused, letting us have it, bfore waving his hand for silence.

"Today your challenge will be to find a certain item that one of us has left in a maze for you to locate. When your name is called please select a scroll with the item you are to locate."

The first one called was named....Zaro? Zahro? Zarow? Something like that. He was tall and rather imposing and when he passed through us to reach the table I nearly tripped over my own feet trying to scramble out of his way.

The others had easier names I suppose. Lanson and Arin, Jessica and Aaron, Jonathon and-

"Tuesday Argyris!" My skin crawled when I heard the god call my name, and suddenly everyone's focus seemed to be on me. I stepped into the cleared path to the table, silently thankful that there were only about 11 people in the crowd as opposed to the original 16. I stepped up to the table and grabbed on at random, hoping to get out of the spotlight as soon as possible.

....When suddenly the space around me shattered and I had a falling sensation, landing on my hands and knees.

Darkness. Complete, swallowing darkness. I was a child of the sun and this had to be a mistake.

Trying to keep my breathing regulated after that falling feeling and then the total darkness, I felt the ground underneath my hands. Hard packed dirt, small pebbles. No plantlife as far as I could tell. Great, absolutely no ties with my godly powers at all.

I wasn't born with the ability to glow like  bulb, which two of my siblings could do. In layman's terms, I was completely on my own here.

Still on my hands and knes I began crawling in the direction that I'd hoped was forward. CCrowling, crawling. Dirt scraping against my hands, occasionally getting a rock stuck in my palm and having to suffer through what felt like a bullet wound. My knees were likely dirty judging by the way they scraped across the ground.

It felt like hours before I reached something in front of, that a prompty smashed my head into. It was thick and when I ran my hands across it I could feel small channels and patterns through the rough material. It was almost like a brick wall. I sighed with relief as I stood up, still bracing my palms against it. My legs were shaking but somehow I'd made it this far. Now it was only a matter of time before I reached-

The wall shook suddenly, like something slammed against. I stepped back just in time for the wall to smash open, letting in light from the other side of the wall.

I noticed that I'd been in a completely closed off hallway, much different from the other side, where I could see fluffy clouds and a bright blue sky just above the adjacent hallway. More importantly though, someone was standing there.

"W...What the-?" I stared in disbelief at the dark haired boy in front of me, who looked surprised to see the dark passage I'd been trapped in.

"That'd be my fault." His expression was neutral but his voice was smiling just by the tone of it. "...Tuesday, right?"

I nodded quickly.

"Fred Dagbert, nice to meet you." He looked behind him into his own section brightly-lit section, which looked more like a maze than mine, and I muttered a polite 'likewise', though I doubted he heard. I was a bit ashamed that he, who'd been in the crowd when I left, was now plodding along at a faster pace than I was.

...I suppose that's what I get for being cowardly.

The ground beneath him began to shake, but he didn't seem to notice. I hurried forward and grabbed his wrist, pulling him back as a large claw emerged from the ground next to the wall, further breaking the bricks into smaller stones.

"What?" I asked again, having only been familiar with one or two creatures - one being a giant snake, nothing like this thing.

"Some sort of creature. Straight out of Tartarus." He shook my hand off his wrist. "Perfect."

The claw arched its membrane as though looking for us and found me, closing its sharp talons and cutting through the air with terrifying speed and precision. I braced myself for death, no time to even scream or cry, when I felt someone's shoulder against mine, pushing me out of the way.

I landed on my butt a few feet away, where the claw had Fred nearly pinned against the wall parallel to the hole. He looked back at me with a strangled sort of smile.

"Get out of here, I'll take care of this."

"Bu-" My voice stuck in my throat and I noticed him reach into some sort of bag, where he retrieved a circular, charcoal black device. I pushed myself onto my feet and turned the opposite way, trying not to let a weak sob escape my throat.

Remember, I repeated in my head, ''This game hosts the most experienced demigods to walk the planet. There is the chance some will die - better them than you.''

It almost sounded like my mother somehow, though I knewshe would never say that.

My chest was burning from a lack of breath and there were hot, frightened tears running down my cheeks. "Stop.....crying..." I wheezed out against my better judgement, which at the time was frantically shouting 'TAKE A DEEP BREATH'.

The light from the hole in the wall behind me was starting to fade when I heard a metallic screech and finally stopped to take a breath. That probably meant the beast was vanquished, right? Or maybe Fred....

I shook the thought out of me and leaned against the wall, heart practically jumping out my throat. I tried to imagine calmer things but they were being pushed away by other, more unsettling images. Fred pushing me out the way, getting pinned, the lack of fear in his voice when he told me to run. I owed him a debt, assuming he'd lived.

I used the back of my hand to wipe my eyes and cheeks and took a few more deep breaths, trying to ignore the settling pain in my legs, which now felt like they were made of led.

I reached down to my quiver and arrow, neatly placed inside the box, when I felt a roll of paper brush against my fingers. The scroll, that was the whole point of coming down here in the first!

The light was just bright enough from down the corridor that I could make out what it said.

A branch from the (Athena's) Olive Tree

..Right. There was a story about that the whole Athena-Poseidon rivalry over Athens. So knowing that......was I going to Greece?

Toward the direction of the hole in the wall I heard about six small explosions and, without another thought, began running again.

The darkness swallowed me up again but I was too concerned about the explosions to care. My breath was more stable now, I had a goal and something told me I would reach it soon. Hopefully.

It was surprisingly a short run before a sudden burst of light lit up the corridor and revealed what I'd been running to. A beautiful, dark green grove full of trees and plants everywhere, a welcome change from the desolace of my maze.

I nearly feel over when I found a clear cut stump, dropping down on it and putting my head in my hands. I was so.....tired. Although I had excellent endurance, I was more weak-willed and less.....competetive as the rest of the challengers. There was no way I'd survive this ordeal.

I took my time looking around from my stooped position. The sky was a darker shade of blue than I'd seen in Fred's side of the wall. Was it because of this particular area, or because enough time had passed that it was starting to turn dark? I tried to pretend it was due to the area and continued my observations.

The branches of the trees were all very high up, the only way I could get up there was if i jammed some arrows in the trunk and climbed up those like stairs - but I could risk breaking them, or falling off the tree and breaking myself.....so climbing was not an option.

I looked up to a tree just beside me and noticed something perched in one of the branches. A bird! A small, plump one with the strangest silvery feathers and a beak that seemed to be made of two different colors. It chattered above me noisily.

"Hey, bird, you wouldn't happen to know where I could find the olive tree, do you?"

It didn't answer. Why would it? It was a bird - come on Tuesday, pull it together.

I stood up and brushed off my tunic before brandishing my bow. This place was too quiet, I had to be ready this time in case something happened. There wouldn't be another giant claw incident like before.

As I passed through the grove, occasionally ducking under long, heavy curtains of leaves, I would see those strange silver birds fluttering from tree to tree, each time in seemingly bigger packs than before. But I wasn't worried, a few birds couldn't compare to what I'd seen in that hellish hallway.

I came to a great tree somewhere in the grove, not an olive tree but still magnificent, with its stature. On the trunk of the tree a note was attached with an arrow, buried quite deep into the thick wood as far as I could tell. Curiously I skipped over to the sign and leaned toward it.

"σέικ" Shake. Shake what, exactly?

I heard the sound of scissors clipping together and tensed, hoping it wasn't some sort of weird.....Halloween scissor monster or something, and gripped my bow tighter. I turned and met a flock of the metallic birds. Before I could respond, the one at the head of the pack dove toward me, colliding with my shoulder and tearing not just the sleeve of my tunic, but also scratching the surface of my shoulder.

I bit down a scream as three more birds swooped in - one aiming for my legs, the other my chest, and the third my face. I could feel a slow drizzle of blood from my knee and a prickly sensation near my heart, and with some look I managed to swat the other bird away from my face.

The fourth bird that came in was not so lucky, as I managed to reach an arrow from my quiver and stab it right in the skull, effectively killing it. Its white eyes grew dark and it fell to the ground with a dull thud. Behind the tree I could hear several more the the scissor-like wings coming toward me - some sort of automatons or something, and I had to get going or I was not going to make it.

The blood on my knee and shoulder was distracting, and the prickling sensation along my collarbone was not helping matters either. I wasn't able to focus on my healing powers because I was running for my life, so I had to live with it.

I'd heard of these birds somewhere before, they were apart of Hearcles' Quest. These were Stym....Stymph...Stymphalian? Yeah, Stymphalian birds.With sharp beaks of bronze and feathers made of forged steel, they ate both crops and flesh, and prior to Heracles killing most of them they terrorized local villages.

Another swarm of the birds came toward me from my left and I instinctively dodged behind another tree, taking a different direction I hadn't before. These things bred fast, no doubt there was going to be a lot to run by.

Another swarm, I dodged underneath their vicious beaks and continued past them, throwing myself through a thick curtain of tangled vines and leaves.

Alright, I instructed myself, ''Heracles defeated these things by.....doing what, exactly? '' The sound of clipping died for a sudden second and I threw myself into a thick bush, hoping my dark hair could be disguised for a lump of twigs or such while i caught my breath and checked my cuts.

''First, he was given a rattle by Athena that scared the birds out of hiding. ''I grunted quietly, a bit mad at Athena for not giving me that kind of advantage. Than again I wasn't her champion....not exactly, anyway. She might've been hoping I would die.

Above the bush something zipped above me, wings clicking like metal on metal.

...At this rate I probably would die.Come on, Tuesday, think.

In order to kill the Stymphalian birds, Heracles used a bow loaded with.....poison.

I didn't have poison.....what could I do? Maybe if I found the olive tree fast enough, I could just get zapped back to the throne room and take a long nap.

That was the plan.

Above me I could hear a congregation of steely birds chattering at each other with their bladed beaks. I managed to get the jump on them through, suddenly jumping from my stopped position and rushing forward and past another wall of green. I didn't even realize I forgot to fix my shoulder under a stray leaf brushed against it and left a smear of blood.

I made a lot of confusing turns, following he same dodge-and-turn routine as I had been before my stop. Iwas surprisingly agile now, none of the pain in my chest or the sense of fear as before, I could do this. Just find the olive tree and...

I burst into an open clearing with a single tree, ''the olive tree! '' My breath quickened and I moved faster than ever toward the tree, taking a huge leap and grabbing a branch off the fruit tree and pulling.

The branch didn't break and I hung onto it, clinging for sweet life. It was too thick, and my body weight would not be enough to snap the branch. I gave up and dropped down to the grond, turning back from where I'd come.

Hundreds of birds, no, ''thousands. ''The sound of their wings filled my ears and I felt my chest tighten as I turned back toward the tree. Any second now they were going to be on top of me, rip me open, I'd be nothing but a few bones and a memory of a cowardly little girl.

No, no. Inoticed the acual olives of the tree and had an idea. It was crazy but if it worked....I could save my own life and retrieve the branch for Lady Athena.

I swiftly picked a few olives from a low-hung branch and smashed them against the tips of my arrows, letting the pseudo oil run down the tips until I felt they were properly soaked.Though my legs quivered beneath me and my lip trembled with fear, I nocked the oiled arrow and shot it straight into the ccrowd of birds, my last hope.

As the steel arrowhead met the steel of the birds feathers, the oil essentially became a catalyst, and the arrow ignited, searing and melting the birds wings and forcing it to the ground, where its eyes faded to black. The flames licked at the beaks and feathers of the other birds and they too fell shortly after.

Behind me and to my left, the next group came forth. I swung around, stepped back a few paces and shot another arrow, and then another to my right. And another, and again, all around me the sounds of dying birds echoed in my ears and brought peace to my mind until finally the last birds fell.

I walked over to a small scattering of their corpses and picked up on of them - avoiding the sharp feathers to the best of my ability. This one's beak was still in tact luckily, and I carried it over to the tree. Carefully, I pried open its beak and used it like a knife, swiftly cutting through the thick branch of the tree until it fell to the ground. I lifted it up with both hands and a warm, accpeting light took over my vision.

I was back in the throne room, mostly empty. The gods were seating on their thrones, most nodding appreciatively except for Aphrodite, who was clapping quickly with a broad grin on her face.

Ares laughed, joining her applause. "Nice one, kid. Killed nearly all of my birds - haven't seen the likes of that since.....what? Heracles?" I looked down, trying to hide my smile, examining the olive wood branch.

I wouldn't have looked up had a pair of hands not clasped around the branch next to mine. I looked up and saw a woman with long, jet black hair and cool gray eyes, noting that she also looked rather similar to my mother, much like the form Aphrodite had taken back at the beach.

"You've done a good job." She smiled, taking the branch out of my hands. "That was an excellent strategy, and for that I commend you."

Coming from the goddessof intelligence and strategy, that meant a lot more than anyone could ever understand. I half-bowed nervously,trying not to meet her face.

"Thank you."

Athena huffed and the olive branch appeared at the foot of her throne, and with that she turned away from me.

"You are free to go now. I cannot promise it will be easier but..." I noticed a smirk on her face as she turned away. "We will be watching you, Miss Argyris."

--

I returned to my room, where the sun was setting from my window. A plate of hot dinner - scalloped potatoes and what seemed to be turkey, steamed under the lights as I stepped inside, letting the wave of warmth envelope me. I'd been so afraid I hadn't even noticed that I was nearly faint from hunger and quickly took my seat at the little table in the corner to eat.

When I'd finished I took a shower, finally got around to fixing those little cuts from the birds, and fell into bed, not even bothering with the blankets.

And for the first time here, I finally got my rest.