The Games

Both sides had retreated back to their bases, having suffered great losses on both sides in hope of gaining some rest before finishing the battle another day. The injured yelled in pain, injuries treated in makeshift medical tents.

Tania looked with horror at the after effects of the first battle, soldiers put to death injured beyond any repair. She herself had received a grave injury, she had concealed it in fear she would be pulled away from duty by one of the doctors but she was slowly bleeding to death.

She ran from soldier to soldier, making sure that the moral had not been injured beyond repair as many of the soldiers had, if they lost moral they had already lost and they were just to slow to catch up with the fact. But she refused to believe it, she would wait until the soldiers were treated.

They’d begun with three hundred thousand soldiers and after one battle they had lost sixty five thousand, ten thousand dwarves and fifty five thousand Royals. Finally returning to the group Tyronis walked over to Tania, " I see the first battle went well, Celestria is already healing our soldiers."

All this time and the orcs had not joined the battle yet, these ferocious warriors had remained in bed the whole battle, however unlike most soldiers here, they had been on the move non stop for over a week. Fighting small battles on the way, tracking over two hundred leagues.

Kulos did not even wake them, Tania walked to him angrily, " You and your so called warriors have done nothing to help us, my soldiers and the dwarves have suffered greatly today, we have fought hard and your orcs have slept and dreamt!"

Kulos slapped her across the face, sending her sprawling to the ground he lifted her by her hair, holding her in his face he yelled as loud as he could, " You ungrateful bitch! We did not sleep for more than a week! And why you might ask if you were not so selfish, because we wanted to save the world!"

Dropping her to the ground she was filled with terror, tears forming under her eyes he finished, " Would you want my orcs sleeping in their beds or sleeping in the battle field getting killed mercilessly by our enemies? Either way they would sleep, Maybe I am on the wrong side, maybe I should be with Dominic."

" At least he would not insult me in this manner, to question my loyalty and servitude. I am not going to wake them, we are not going to battle until we are fully rested and I do not care what you think of it, the outcome of this battle does not matter, Adonis is our real hope of survival."

At the mention of that name she forgot how angry she was at Kulos, she forgot the horror she felt at seeing all her soldiers injured. " Adonis, you have seen my son alive? Is he safe at least?" Kulos looked over at Tyronis with his now normal dull grey eyes, knowing this was a matter he should deal with and walked away into a tent.

As she turned to him he explained, " Its a long story, when I said their destinies were far too important to risk being with you I meant it, Adonis and Jolene will either save us all or be our damnation. Only one of your children will survive this, either Adonis or Jolene will die, but they cannot both live."

This was far too much to take in, the battle along with Kulos’ behaviour and the news of her children was too heavy for her, she fell to the ground unconscious, her head filled with all these new ideas, all swimming in her head, eating her from the inside out.

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It had been such a long time that the demon had resided within him that its absence made him feel very strange, however Dominic had quickly adapted to this new feeling and was now surveying the damage caused by battle. They had suffered minimal casualties in his eyes, true most of the hoppers were dead but he never liked those in the first place.

Constatino was sitting peacefully in his office, thinking of his next move in this large game of real life chess when Dominic came in, " Looks like we kicked some ass out there, we should until they rest before we continue, we want a challenge after all."

Suddenly Ares’ voice came from behind them, " No, we got an idea. We have been particularly bored these past few days, having so much power in one hosts requires that some of it be recycled and replaced, how about you and your army rest as long as it takes, we will take care of the Royals for you."

They both erupted in laughter at this, Constatino falling off his chair found himself without even a fraction of a second’s moment of separation in Ares’ grasp. Ares grinned at this malicious immortal, " You claim to be immortal, lets put that claim to a test."

Whipping him through the thick leather wall of the tent Constatino, he was still in the air when Ares was on him again, kicking him in the gut he went crashing into another tent. He began to look up in terror but Ares had him in his grasp again, as Ares began to choke the life out of him he asked, " I guess your not so immortal"

Snapping his neck with ease he returned to meet Dominic in the tent, they looked at each other for a minute and Dominic said, " You know what, I never liked that guy anyway. He thought he was manipulating me, so why do you want to face the army by yourself so badly?"

Ares took Constatino’s place in his chair, " Simple, because we have a yearning for some blood spilling, that’s what happens when you mix a power hungering necro with a power thirsting doppelganger, you get a being who’s sole purpose is power and satisfaction. We are a monster."

Loki who had just walked in said from the entrance, " There is nothing wrong with that, I am a monster just as Dominic, we are little monsters in the presence of a big monster. As long as your on our side for the time being."

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The interior of the temple was even plainer than the exterior, nothing but narrow brick walls, no complex maze. One single path with no doors but the one at the end of the path they were now walking.

As they walked in Adonis looked back, realising that as they went forward the return path was fading away, the floor tiles falling into a bottomless pit, steam rising followed by pure intense flames. No way out, even if he’d wanted to simply run away he was no obliged to be courageous.

Turning around Jolene and Dark Fairy were already far ahead of him, Jolene had always been the high spirited one, the courageous one that didn’t care if she broke a few morals in order to attain pleasure. Ares had only made her worse, he had seen it in her eyes the first moment they’d met on that first battlefield of their lives.

Dark Fairy spoke in her intoxicatingly sinister and yet seductive voice, " This isn’t going to take more than a day or two, I could put you both through an entire series of seemingly impossible tasks, but I am not that sort of girl."

" Two tasks, in the room we are going to enter you shall engage in two duels. The first is a test of wit, the second is physical combat that will result in the death of one of you" Reaching the plain wooden she turned to face them both, " Do you both agree to take this test up?"

She did not care for their answer, she knew they could not leave even if they wanted to but she liked to give options that were not accessible, to rub in the fact that they had been damned to suffer this moment from birth.

Dark irony was the best humour, opening the door they found themselves in a large triangular formed room, separated in two halves by two colours, black and green. Black represented chaos, the green represented knowledge.

All three grinned at the sight of the room, Adonis anticipating this to be one of the most interesting part of his life. Jolene grinned at the thought of finally exacting her revenge on her brother, he may not be the killer of mother but he would do. Dark Fairy grinned for the simple reason that she would get to torture these twins after waiting a century in solitude.

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The orcs were finally waking, they had slept for over a day and now according to Kulos, they would not require sleep for over two months, and in wait for the next battle the soldiers who were fully healed were training once again, repairing armour and weaponry.

As Tania walked along the beach, dressed in a simple blue summer dress enjoying the calming ocean air, peace was a seldom thing in these days. She hadn’t thought of it often, but she wondered who was the first one to break the treaty signed all those years ago.

It was a trivial thought now, they’d already engaged in a large battle resulting in grave losses. Even if they had only lost one soldier it would have been tragic, to her every life was worth more than all the gold in the world.

As she walked she was surprised to find Tyronis walk beside her, dressed in nothing but a pair of swimming shorts, having considerably more muscles than she would have expected always seeing him dressed in robes.

Giving her a glass of some unknown liquid substance he said in a peaceful manner, " The ocean does have quite a calming effect on the mind, even in a time such as this one when the end of the world hinges on two rivalling siblings."

Smiling at this she replied, stopping she faced the ocean, picking up a flat rock, " Yes indeed, if I live through this I want to move the capital city to a more seaside location, where I can listen to the seagulls squealing, the waves hitting the shores."

Throwing the flat rock into the water they watched as it skipped on the ocean in a perfect motion, skipping five times before coming to a sudden stop as another rock came skipping from the side, smashing the rock aside.

Both turning quickly to find Ares standing there, seeming as though the heat or the beautiful surroundings had no effect on him. Walking toward them, he said, " Beautiful speech, I know what your going to say. I have despicable timing, may I insert a philosophical and equally pointless statement? The ocean you claim is so calming is the perfect example of why the world needs to change."

" From this safe shore that ocean looks peaceful, looks flawless. Maybe it is, for the moment, but the ocean is one deceptive bitch that will stab you in the back any moment she can. See, philosophical and equally pointless, we do not gain from such fancy words. You did not learn anything and I did not actually state a fact."

Facing his brother without fear despite the fact he was overpowered more than ten times in all manners, but he was still his brother, there would always be that link between them. "What do you want Ares, do you get kicks out of toying with us. Why not just kill us now and get it over with?"

Smiling Ares turned and faced the ocean, " Continuing on the completely pointless stream of statements, the ocean does have a chaotic sort of peace to it. Reminds me of... well of me. I have Symbolsian inside of me here, we’re still deciding if we should go for Ares or Symbolsian."

One thing had changed about Ares since his fusion, he was much more unstable than he’d ever been previously. At the moment he had a pleasant arrogance but Tyronis and Tania alike knew that he could kill them just as quickly if they said the wrong thing.

He continued, " Now that dark fairy is quite a character, she has a thing for Dominic being a dark elf in origins but she’s still quite interesting, did you know even I with my great power I cannot access that damned temple. I am not cursing, it is damned. Be ready to battle in five hours, our army will be ready."

" You talk to your people and I talk to my people and then our people will meet and then we’ll finish all of this, and Tania, I still plan on standing up to that promise we made, but you got five hours to grab a row boat and get out on it. Either you risk the chaotic ocean you love so much or risk the chaotic me you love equally."

Teleporting with his usual soundlessness and suddenness Tania said as she skipped another rock, " Pardon my language but your brother is one arrogant son of a bitch, who does he think he is talking as though he has already won the battle. We killed as much of those grass hopper lion creatures as they killed our soldiers."

Placing his robe back on he grabbed his staff sword, " That son of a bitch as you refer to him has every reason to be arrogant, those were not empty words he was speaking. Even if all hybrids were allied together we would still have a hell of a time vanquishing Ares, he could take your army on single handedly, as well as the Coronian army without breaking a sweat."

" I could defend myself, but you and the others would barely be able to put up a fight, so you better hope to your God that Adonis and Jolene save us fast, or we will die."

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Adonis hadn’t noticed this earlier, on the green half of the triangle were two strange looking black chairs with three wheels at the bottom, must have been some sort of thin leather. In the middle of these two chairs stood a plain wooden pulpit, behind the pulpit on the corner part of the triangle was a black wall.

Jolene and Adonis both taking a seat Dark Fairy stood at the pulpit, eyes glistening with excited she licked her lips and said, " Now, the intellectual challenge will consist of a series if difficult questions of varying subjects and difficulty, you may both choose one advisor, a person or creature from this island as your help, decide now."

They both knew exactly who they would request, it really was quite an easy choice for there were not that many candidates on the island. Kulos was simply an orc, as smart as he was he had not experienced the world enough to be of service in this instance.

Adonis did not know Dominic quite well enough, and his trust in the dark elf was at its lowest. If one could seem to be such a strong supporter of one cause and turn on it just as quickly he could certainly not be trusted here. Which left only two candidates, but he already knew which one he was going to choose.

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What was it with meetings as of late, it seemed Kulos was stuck in one meeting after another. They were supposed to be at war, instead they had installed a makeshift tent in the middle of the battlefield and as the two armies awaited, anger swelling inside the soldiers of both sides, both wanting revenge.

Ares was the one responsible for this meeting, in the large tent made of human flesh from all the deceased in the previous battle stood the large diamond table that Krale had owned and been proud of for so long. At the end of the table was a diamond chair where Ares sat.

Wearing large silky pants with extra material making it look like two parachutes, instead of war boots he had red ruby slippers with the toes curved up. Wearing a buttoned down vest exposing his crescent moon tattoo and a large crown tilted in a mocking manner on his head.

On the left side sat Tyronis, Kulos, Celestria, Cyranos and Queen Tania, all in their best armour and best weapons on belt with daggers and more assorted weaponry. On the other side facing these Royals sat Dominic, Loki and Okrinus in their dark armour.

There was more tension between the two sides of the table than there was in the two facing armies on the outside, spinning a diamond staff in his hand he said with a large grin, "And the King saideth upon his people gather, and they gathered."

He was glowing with arrogance now, like an ever powerful sun and as far as any of them were concerned he had every reason to be overconfident. Silence filled the tent, Ares’ arrogance mixed with the awkwardness and hate each side had for each other made this the worse feeling any of them had ever felt.

Dominic seeming more at ease than the rest said, " So are we just going to sit here and do small talk, try to convince the other side to surrender with no avail, curse at each other and then try to kill each other? Or maybe we can just the crap and get to the point."

Ares did not even lose an ounce of his momentum as he replied, " We could do that I suppose, just like I let you bring your army despite my deep need for blood shed, but I got bad news for all of you, unfortunately we are having..."

All of a sudden there was a bright flash that filled the entire inside of the tent, blinding all of them for a minute they all rose, weapons drawn ready to fend off the unseen attacker. As their vision returned they found both Ares and Cyranos to be gone, as they entered a frenzy as to what was happening Tyronis sat still, knowing all too well Ares had not been the one to teleport, it was something else.

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" a meeting with the..." Ares looked around, for the first time in a long time perplexed at what had just occurred, where the hell was he now? Looking around he found himself in a triangular room, a dark green light beaming down on all of them he noticed Jolene with an vacant chair beside her.

Cyranos who was as surprised as Ares asked, " is Ares responsible for this? Where has Ares brought us now? Why summon us to a meeting if Ares intended on teleporting me away and leaving himself?"

Before Ares could answer Dark Fairy suddenly came into view, seeing her in person Ares knew the legends had not been exaggerating, she was the most beautiful woman ever to walk this earth, and the power that emanated from her flawless body and face were just as powerful, if not more powerful than his own.

She began, " You two have been chosen to help Adonis and Jolene in the first task, you can supply them with answers and advise as they first take an intellectual test, the victor will choose which of the two available weapons he or she wants."

" The second task will be a fight to the death, the victor of that task will choose wether to let the world succumb to its drastic transformation or let the world stay as it is, we haven’t any time to waste now, if you will both take a seat we will begin the games that will determine the fate of us all."