It was a beautiful day. The sun shone high up in the cloudless blue sky, bathing the entire friend group in warmth. There wasn’t even the slightest of breezes to disrupt the heat.
We all stood on the northern side of the Valley, the green grass swaying at our feet. It had been nearly a week since Cecilia and Harvey passed their tests, and they had both been understandably excited the entire time.
All of us had been, in all honesty. Everybody had been extremely happy for the two of them when we had gone around breaking the news to them all. Natasha had been, as we had expected, seemingly the happiest, but Jay had surprised us. Nobody had really expected him to be as happy or proud as he was.
After their test, there was only one thing left to do before the nineteenth of June. That is why, when Asbel had called us all to the northern side of the Valley, everybody had been unfathomably thrilled.
I could only really vaguely remember what everyone had asked for, so it was extraordinary that Asbel had not only done that, but then also made each thing, and most likely to the extreme.
Another great thing about the day was the fact that I, once again, had my arm around Cecilia. At this point, it was pretty much standard, but it still made my heart flutter every time.
She seemed really happy whenever I did it, too. It may have just been my mind playing tricks, but her mood always seemed at least a little bit better whenever I had my arm around her.
‘Everyone’s here, then!’ Stephen exclaimed, excitement practically dripping from his voice. ‘What’s in the bag?’
Asbel stood in front of us all, a huge black bag by his side. It looked like a giant bin bag, but it was probably made of better material. An ordinary bin bag would not have been able to hold an assortment of weapons without tearing.
A proud grin spread across Asbel’s face.
‘Are you really that desperate?’ he taunted.
‘Even me and Albert are,’ Ethan said quickly. ‘We wanna see how far you went this time.’
‘Well, I think I did pretty well,’ Asbel said as he turned to the bag. ‘Natasha, yours is on the top so we’ll start with you.’
He carelessly ripped open the bag, evidently, he would not need it again, and reached inside. Nobody could believe their eyes when he pulled out a blue leather wristwatch and a silver ring.
‘Didn’t she ask for a sword and shield?’ Ali asked tentatively.
‘Don’t question him,’ Ethan teased. ‘They could be nukes for all we know.’
Asbel scoffed before looking at Natasha. ‘You’re right-handed?’
Natasha nodded, and I could not tell whether her eyes were full of excitement or worry.
‘Put this ring on your right hand,’ Asbel explained coolly. ‘Any finger; it’s adjustable. And put the watch on your left wrist.’
Natasha hesitantly followed his orders.
‘Nothing bad is gonna happen, right?’ she asked, her voice almost wobbling.
‘Don’t you trust me?’ was Asbel’s response. He was smirking. ‘Now, can you see that tiny slider thing on the ring?’
From where I was, I couldn’t see any ‘slider’ on Natasha’s new ring, but she nodded.
‘Slide it all the way up.’
To me, it looked simply as though Natasha stroked the ring, which she had put on her index finger, with her thumb. But she must have done something, because a sword expanded from where the ring was within half a second.
She gave a yelp as Stephen, Ali, and Isaac all gasped. But then she composed herself and stared at her new weapon.
The blade appeared to be made out of silver, or another material painted that colour, and it was about a metre long, the same as my swords. The crossguard was also silver, and appeared to have NA engraved into the centre; Natasha’s initials. The grip of the sword was made out of brown leather, and it was completed by the pommel, which was also silver.
‘Oh my Gods,’ I heard Ethan breathe from my left. ‘What about the watch?’
Asbel grinned. ‘Trust me on this, Natasha. I want you to press the face of the watch. Even a slap will work.’
‘I’m gonna go insane if that thing expands into a shield,’ Cecilia whispered to me.
I rubbed her shoulder. ‘It definitely will, so be careful.’
Natasha slowly reached her hand over to her left wrist. Then, in an almost comical fashion, she gave the face of the watch a small slap.
I saw Cecilia’s jaw drop out of the corner of my eye.
A shield about the size of Natasha’s torso expanded rapidly from the watch. It was the shape of a typical fantasy shield, with the three points at the top, the one in the middle being higher than the two on either side.
It, like the sword, was predominantly silver in colour, with a darker shade of the colour lining the edges and marking a sort-of ‘+’ shape across the face of the shield. This ‘+’ shape met at a large dark silver circle in the centre of the shield’s surface.
‘It’s not too heavy, is it?’ Asbel asked innocently, ignoring the flabbergasted looks on everyone’s faces. ‘I tried to make them the perfect weights for you.’
Natasha waved her arms a bit. She slashed at the air a few times and mimed blocking attacks with her shield.
‘They’re perfect,’ she gasped, her eyes glistening. ‘One problem, though: how am I supposed to get rid of them?’
‘There’s a small button on the underside of the sword to shrink it back down,’ Asbel explained as though it were obvious. ‘And see that big circle on the shield? Touch that.’
Natasha did as he instructed, and everybody watched as both items disappeared as though they were never even there.
I felt almost winded at Asbel’s genius. He had definitely gone above and beyond, and this was the most basic of the weapons that he had to create.
‘How did you do that?’ Ali asked, sounding genuinely intrigued.
‘I’m Hephaestus’s son,’ Asbel replied, shrugging, as he turned back to the bag. ‘And I had a bit of magical help.’
He peered down into the bag and then continued.
‘Peter, you’re next. Yours doesn’t have anything special like Natasha’s, but I hope you like it.’
‘It’s a giant cleaver, Asbel,’ Peter said happily. ‘How could I not like it?’
Gods, was it a giant cleaver.
It was wide, and longer than my blades by about ten or twenty centimetres. The grip was relatively small, but I could tell that it was just about large enough for Peter’s hand.
The blade was entirely black in colour, which made it rather imposing. The sunlight bounced off it marvellously, and the blade sparkled almost as much as Peter’s eyes in that moment.
Asbel set the cleaver down on the ground before turning back to the bag and pulling something else out. It looked like a harness-type thing, and it was evident that the sheath for the cleaver was on the back.
‘Holy Mother of Titan,’ Peter practically whimpered.
‘Put this thing on – call it a harness if you want – and you’re good to go. You sheath the cleaver on your back,’ Asbel explained quickly, passing Peter both items.
Isaac and Stephen helped Peter get into the harness, and then Peter sheathed the cleaver on his back.
‘It’s not heavy, is it?’ Asbel asked, looking worried.
‘Nothing I can’t handle,’ Peter replied confidently before quickly unsheathing the cleaver and waving it around in the air carelessly.
‘Good,’ Asbel sighed. ‘That’s two done. And be careful with that thing, you’re gonna kill someone.’
‘You bet I am,’ Peter said, his eyes sparkling.
‘You scare me sometimes, you know that?’ Ethan joked. At least, I think he was joking.
Peter scoffed. ‘I’ll scare the living daylights out of Maltor with this beast.’
‘Jay, if this is too heavy, you only have yourself to blame,’ Asbel said loudly, evidently not listening to Peter and Ethan.
He pulled out another harness-sheath thing, but this one clearly could hold two weapons. Then I remembered what Jay had asked for. A pair of axes.
Asbel helped Jay put on the sheaths, and then he went back to the bag.
‘No chance you’re carrying those things on your back,’ Ali said quietly as Asbel pulled out the axes. ‘There is simply no chance.’
They were huge. A variety of shades of blue in colour, Jay’s new axes were double-headed, with a small spike protruding from the top of the dark grey handle.
‘Here you go,’ Asbel said plainly, holding them out for Jay.
In fairness to Jay, he held them pretty well. A slightly strained expression crossed his face for a mere second when Asbel dropped them into his hands, but he held them and even swung them with relative ease after that.
He practised sheathing and unsheathing them multiple times to try and get the hang of it, and he was definitely getting there. It was definitely true that demigods of Ares had a natural talent for using weapons.
‘Okay, you definitely need to be careful,’ Natasha said, sounding genuinely concerned. ‘At least Peter has some level of control.’
‘What do you mean?’ Jay shrieked as he waved the axes around. ‘I’ve got way more control than him!’
‘As if,’ Peter scoffed. ‘It’s a miracle you haven’t killed yourself with those things yet.’
‘He has a point,’ I added, speaking for the first time in a while.
‘So, I take it they’re not too heavy?’ Asbel confirmed.
‘They’re even better than perfect,’ Jay said slyly.
Asbel nodded, smiling, before turning back to the bag.
‘Okay, now we’re on the really cool stuff,’ he said, and I could pretty much hear his grin. ‘Ali, here’s your spear.’
I didn’t quite know what to think when Asbel pulled out a normal-looking spear. It had a wooden shaft, as was standard, and a weird-coloured head. The shape of the head was pretty normal; it was long and extremely sharp. But it wasn’t exactly a shiny silver. Something about it made it clear that it was metal, but it was a dark grey in colour, like a stone.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
‘Here, take it,’ Asbel said as he held out the spear to Ali. ‘Tell me if the weight is off.’
It definitely was not off. Ali swung that thing around and jabbed the air with it as though he were already a master of it. Asbel didn’t even bother confirming it; he just nodded and then continued.
‘Can you see those two slider things on the side?’
Ali’s eyes lit up. ‘What do they do?’
‘Slide them and find out.’
I couldn’t actually see the sliders because of the angle, but I saw Ali’s thumb move along the side of the spear, and then the head set on fire.
‘You’ve got to be joking,’ Cecilia said quietly. ‘How did you even do that?'
'Simple flint and steel,' Asbel said, shrugging. He was doing a lot of that. Shrugging. This all made complete sense to him. ‘Now, Ali, slide that one back down and then slide the other one up. You can have them both up at the same time, but for display purposes, we’ll do one at a time.’
The flames at the head of the spear disappeared. Then little bolts of electricity appeared. Ali could choose, at will, whether he wanted flames or lightning to coat the head of his spear. And it sounded like he could do both at once.
Jay, rather carelessly, leant pretty close to the head of the spear. He eyed it carefully, and I could not tell whether it was his joy or the lightning that was making his eyes glow.
‘That’s so cool,’ he murmured as Ali made flames appear on the head as well as the lightning.
Asbel gave Ali the sheath for his spear – it was another one that went on the back – and then turned to the bag once more.
‘He said this is where stuff starts to get cool and starts with that?’ I murmured to Cecilia. ‘I can’t wait to see what he’s made for you.’
‘You can’t wait?’ she teased. ‘How do you think I feel?’
‘Alright, Stephen, here’s step one of your trident,’ Asbel said, but he was definitely not holding a trident.
Instead, he was holding a thick black glove and another back sheath.
‘Tell me how well it fits,’ Asbel began. He continued after getting a vigorous nod from Stephen after he had put the items on. ‘Alright, here’s the trident.’
It looked really cool. The shaft was made of a material unknown to me, and it was cerulean blue in colour. The three prongs at the top were a beautiful white. The entire thing glistened under the sunlight.
Length-wise, the trident was about six feet long in total, which was about the same size as Stephen himself.
‘It’s waterproof,’ Asbel began to explain as Stephen tested it out for weight, ‘because, you know, you’re a son of Poseidon and stuff.’
Stephen pulled his arm back and threw the trident like a javelin. He threw it amazingly far, further than I think anybody had expected, but his face immediately dropped.
‘I shouldn’t have done that,’ he groaned weakly. ‘Now I’ve gotta go get it.’
‘Hold your hand out, palm open,’ Asbel said, smirking. ‘The one with the glove.’
I knew what was going to happen before it did. And, Gods, it still blew me away.
Stephen slowly stretched out his open hand towards the trident. And everybody watched, stunned, as it rose out of the ground and flew, alarmingly quickly, back into Stephen’s hand.
His hand was pushed back a bit by the force of the trident – it really had been flying fast – but he grasped it firmly nonetheless. On either side of him, Ali and Harvey stared with open mouths.
Stephen practised throwing it and calling it back a few more times before Asbel evidently got bored of this particular creation of his.
‘Isaac, here’s yours, then,’ he said as he reached inside the bag once more.
What he pulled out may have looked pretty ordinary to a normal person, but I could tell that it would take a lot of practice to get used to.
‘I hope you don’t mind its complexity,’ Asbel murmured, ‘but I thought that you would think this is cool.’
Isaac had asked for a pair of swords.
The blades of each of them were pitch black like Peter’s cleaver and were about a metre long like my own swords. His new swords were thinner than my blades, and therefore more agile, and their edges appeared to be slightly curved.
However, at the bases of the brown grips, there was a black chain connecting the two.
‘I can hit the most insane moves with this thing,’ Isaac said after he had both swords in his hands.
‘You’re gonna need a lot of practice,’ I warned. ‘You better start now or those swords will be the death of you.’
‘You can use them normally,’ Asbel said as he passed Isaac the belt that he could sheath his swords in. ‘The chains are just for bonus moves. And, Isaac, they’re not too heavy, are they?’
‘You should just stop asking,’ Isaac replied plainly. ‘Everything is perfect for everyone.’
‘And, as Albert said, if you wanna do complex shit with them, you’ve gotta practice,’ Asbel added sternly. ‘I don’t want you dying to the thing I made you.’
‘I won’t, don’t you worry,’ Isaac assured him, but the grin on his face was rather worrying.
Now that there were only two more weapons to get through, Asbel seemed to be in a bit of a hurry. I do not think he had anything in particular to do, but instead, he was excited at the final two.
A look of deep thought crossed his face for a few seconds before he crouched and began searching in the bag again.
‘We’ll do Cecilia’s first then Harvey’s last,’ Asbel said as he stood up.
‘Yours is the best then,’ I joked, looking at Harvey.
‘Don’t get my hopes up,’ Harvey said, sounding a bit concerned.
I would’ve replied, but Cecilia’s gift had caught my attention.
Asbel had simply pulled out two large tan leather bracelets. They were so large that they looked as though they would take up about a third of Cecilia’s forearms.
‘You asked for a ‘surprise’, right?’ I asked.
Cecilia nodded.
‘Oh, Gods.’
‘Just slip these on your wrists,’ Asbel said simply. ‘I hope they’re not too big, but I think I can shrink them down if they are.’
As was everything else that Asbel had handed out thus far, Cecilia’s bracelets were the perfect size. She slid them onto her wrists with relative ease. As I had predicted, they took up about a third of her forearm each.
‘What’s the next step?’ she asked, smirking.
I, almost fearing for my life, slowly took my arm off Cecilia’s shoulders after giving her a slight squeeze.
‘Do what Natasha did with her watch,’ Asbel explained. Even he looked a tiny bit worried. ‘You can do both at the same time; yours don’t come as fast as her shield.’
Cecilia brushed each palm against the side of each bracelet – her left palm against the right bracelet and vice versa – and all anybody could do was wait.
And, although it wasn’t instant, it only took a little under two seconds.
Two sickles materialised in Cecilia’s hands as her bracelets disappeared. The handles were black and the curved blades were a beautiful bronze colour.
‘Holy Mother of Titan,’ Cecilia breathed. ‘This is just a ‘surprise’ to you?’
Asbel gave her an awkward smile. ‘I did try to make the best thing for everyone. They’re not too- Nevermind.’
We all laughed at that. It really was pointless asking the question. Nobody had been to the workshop to help Asbel with the gift-making, and yet everything had been perfect so far.
‘To change them back into the bracelets, just smack the bottoms of the grips together,’ Asbel explained. ‘With a bit of force.’
Cecilia did so, and she said she looked like an idiot. I had no clue what she was talking about. The sickles disappeared just as they had materialised, and the bracelets reappeared on Cecilia’s wrists.
‘I’m gonna wake up,’ Cecilia murmured faintly. ‘This is a dream.’
‘Just wait for this one. It’s probably my favourite,’ Asbel joked. ‘Second is Isaac’s.’
Harvey had asked for a pair of swords, just like Isaac. But Asbel only held one sword in his hand.
In fairness, the sword looked really cool. I could tell immediately that it had been modelled after The Santrrer Sword. It appeared to be golden in colour, but I knew that it was actually made of Celestial Bronze. Harvey’s sword had two red lines running along the edge of the metre-long blade that stopped just before the tip, which contrasted the blue lines on my sword. The grip was brown leather just like my sword, too. On the crossguard of Harvey’s sword, there were initials, too. The Santrrer Sword had ‘AS’ engraved on its crossguard whereas Harvey’s displayed a ‘HB’.
‘Trust me,’ Asbel said firmly as everybody gave him strange, almost accusatory, expressions.
He passed the sword to Harvey. Immediately, Harvey noticed something.
‘There’s one of those slider things here,’ he said quickly. ‘I can slide it down. Should I?’
‘Who am I to tell you what to do with your sword?’ Asbel replied, evidently implying that Harvey should move the slider.
I saw Harvey’s finger glide downwards, and my jaw hit the floor.
Instantly, a second sword sprouted from the base of the grip of the original sword. They were identical. Harvey had a double-edged sword.
‘Whoa!’ Harvey shrieked when it happened. ‘Honestly, that’s the last thing I expected.’
‘That’s not the end of it,’ Asbel smirked. ‘Pull it apart.’
‘What?’ Harvey exclaimed at the same time as me, Isaac, and Jay.
‘Do it. As though you’re pulling both swords apart.’
That sentence told me exactly what was about to happen. It must have told Harvey, too, because his eyes lit up marvellously and he instantly grabbed the midsection of the sword with both hands.
Then, he pulled.
He now had two separate identical swords. All in one weapon, Harvey had one sword, a double-edged sword, and two swords. It was insane.
‘Oh my Gods,’ Harvey breathed. ‘I don’t even know what to say.’
‘I won’t be mad if you just don’t say anything,’ Asbel shrugged. ‘Wait, that sounds rude. I mean you don’t have to thank me. I’d do it again if I could.’
‘I don’t even know what to say and it’s not even my sword,’ I said quietly.
‘Oh, but I have made some stuff for you, Albert,’ Asbel exclaimed quickly, as though he had completely forgotten. I couldn’t blame him. Whatever on Earth he could have possibly made me surely wasn’t as important as the new weapons.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out eight balls. Five little explosive ones, and three smoke ones.
‘In preparation,’ he said quietly as he put them in my hand.
I shoved them in my belt. ‘Thanks, man. I’ve already got about fifty different ways I can kill Maltor in my head.’
In the background, I could see Harvey and Stephen jokingly duelling with their new weapons. I smiled. They were having fun.
Then I remembered something else that I wanted to do. Today seemed like the perfect opportunity.
‘So, uh, now what?’ Ethan said awkwardly. ‘We should probably stop this before Harvey or Stephen kill themselves.’
‘I have an idea,’ I suggested quietly. ‘We all agreed to take a photo together, right? We can do that now.’
If it were possible for everyone’s faces to light up even more, they did.
‘Where can we even go to get this photo?’ Ali asked, his voice buzzing with excitement.
‘There’s a good place about ten minutes away from The Tower,’ I explained. ‘I should be able to shadow-travel everyone there.’
‘I can do half of the group – I know where you’re talking about,’ Ethan suggested. ‘You do the other half.’
‘How good are you at shadow-travelling?’
‘Good enough.’
I didn’t quite like the sound of that, but I still had more faith in him than I did in myself to take the entire group. So I nodded.
‘See you there in about thirty seconds,’ I said, smirking. ‘I’ll take Cecilia, Harvey, Peter, Isaac, and Ali. The larger half. You take Natasha, Stephen, Asbel, and Jay.’
‘Yeah, sounds good to me,’ Ethan said as everyone got into their groups. ‘See you there.’
‘Good luck, Mr ‘Good Enough’.’
I grabbed Cecilia’s hand and Harvey’s arm. They grabbed Peter’s and Isaac’s arms respectively. Isaac grabbed Ali.
‘Ready?’ I said quietly, already picturing the photography building in my head.
Everybody gave me various forms of ‘yes’ in response.
‘Good.’
I closed my eyes tightly, concentrating hard on the exterior of the photography building. I was praying it had a shadow on such a sunny day.
When I opened my eyes again, I was pleased to find out that it had worked.
The photography building looked like an ordinary house on the exterior, the only thing that set it apart was the giant corporate sign above the door.
‘Fucking hell,’ I heard Ethan’s voice gasp from my left. ‘How do you do that so effortlessly? I’m about to collapse. I’m not gonna look good in the photo.’
‘You look fine,’ I scoffed. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
The friend group walked, buzzing, into the building.
I felt unusually happy. I was not entirely sure why, but I wasn’t complaining.
The end of the war was right around the corner. I could cut it off at a year long. No more pointless deaths. No more pain. In fifteen days, my chance to kill him would come, and I would take it.
I wasn’t even paying attention as we paid. Well, I paid, but everything seemed like a huge blur as I handed the money over to the receptionist.
When I came back to my senses in the photography room, Ali informed me that we got to take three photos.
‘I think we should have one with everybody, one with the main seven, and then one with the original friend group,’ he said confidently, and everyone seemed to agree on that.
‘What do you mean ‘the main seven? And who the hell is in the ‘original friend group’?’ I asked, appalled. I thought everybody was equal here, but apparently, there was a secret hierarchy.
‘I think he means me, you, Natasha, Asbel, and Jay when he says ‘the original friend group’,’ Ethan pointed out. ‘The ‘main seven’ would be that plus Cecilia and Harvey, right?’
Ali nodded.
‘What makes us the ‘main seven’?’ I asked, genuinely offended that everybody apparently saw other people as higher than them in this group.
‘The most important ones,’ Peter interjected. ‘Not in a bad way, Albert. This is just the easy way to split up the three photos.’
I thought that we could just take three photos with everybody, but I knew that if I brought up this point then I would be fighting a losing battle.
I wasn’t happy about it, but I agreed. Everyone seemed to give a mental sigh of relief before getting into position.
The place to take the photo was surrounded by white walls, with a camera in front. I presumed that to be standard.
Stephen and Isaac sat on the floor at the front of the group, arms around each other, grinning. On either side of them, Jay and Harvey crouched, their hands on Stephen’s and Isaac’s shoulders respectively. Then, standing behind the four of them, was everybody else. Cecilia and I stood to the side, my arm around her shoulders and hers around my lower back, our heads leant together. On my left, Asbel stood, grinning, with his arm around Ethan. On Ethan’s left stood Peter, who was having his face playfully squished by Ethan. Next to Peter, Natasha smiled sweetly at the camera, with Ali standing on her other side, grinning.
We all held those positions until the camera flashed. Then, Peter, Isaac, Ali, and Stephen left the shot, leaving everybody else to rearrange.
Cecilia and I stayed in place, and Harvey took Asbel’s place next to me. I put my free arm around his shoulders like a brother. It was a bit difficult due to the height difference, but I managed it.
In front of us, Jay and Asbel sat on the floor, arms around each other. Jay, unbeknownst to Asbel, was doing bunny ears behind his head.
Ethan and Natasha stood on the other side of Harvey, and Ethan lazily put his arm around Natasha in a friendly way.
Everybody grinned. The camera flashed. Cecilia and Harvey left the shot.
Jay and Asbel stayed on the floor, Jay still doing the bunny ears, and I took a step over so that I was next to Ethan and Natasha. I threw my arm over Ethan’s shoulders, grinning at him. I was extraordinarily happy.
This was not the ‘original’ friend group, however. The ‘original’ group would include Maltor and Quinn. My heart panged as I remembered life with the two of them.
Cecilia was smiling at me from behind the camera. The sight of it made my insides feel fuzzy.
The camera flashed. The smile on my face did not disappear like with everybody else. I was too happy. Today was one of those rare days that made it feel as though nothing else mattered.
Wordlessly, I pulled Cecilia into a hug as I exited the white walls. I was so happy.
Two weeks. That’s all we had to wait. In two weeks it would all be over. I would kill Maltor Confussée.