Brono looked down at the group of ‘champions’, a soft smile gracing his glowing lips. Of course, he knew with absolute certainty that they would accept. He made sure of that at least.

“So, have you all decided?” Brono asked gently, eyes glancing down at the group. Jake glanced at each member of the group in turn before responding to Brono’s question, his dark brown eyes landed on Thor’s own quizzical eyes. Seeing what Jake was asking, Thor curtly nodded, his eyes locked on Jake’s own.

“We have, we’ll fight for you.” Brono clasped his hands together in a grand gesture, drawing the attention of the other gods who’d begun staring absently at their glorious surroundings.

“Splendid! First of all, gather around children, I will explain how you’ll be fighting for us.” Thor gathered around Brono with the others, taking extra care not to be too close to the god. Glancing around him furtively, Thor noticed the other gods walk over to the group, joining Brono at the head. Ares standing opposite sides with Zeus.

“The world you will be transported to shortly will have certain, attributes, that you may not be used to. In particular, is the ‘Ability system’, that we gods grant you champions with to aid you in the coming battles.” Brono began, taking time to stare each student in the eye.

“These ‘Abilities’ are born from one’s soul, and cannot be changed. Once a god releases a champions ability, the god cannot change champions. For example, say if you were to be gifted with the ability to fly Jake, you wouldn’t be able to change that ability as it was born from your very soul, forged through your hopes, dreams, tribulations and scars.” Thor focused his entire being on soaking up every vital word of Brono’s.

“These abilities will grow and evolve with their champions, growing stronger through each trail and tribulation the champion forges through. For example, if you were to slay a dire wolf, the system will judge how difficult it was and the appropriate experience gained from it. Very similar to your RPG games.” At this point Sam raised his hand, to which Brono nodded to.

“So, do we get stats like strength, dexterity and intelligence? Like a game?” Sam asked tentatively, nervous but also very curious.

“No, it would be naïve and extremely basic to judge an individual’s strength based on a numerical value. For example, what if one was to be stronger in the left arm than their right? How would this be displayed, or would their strength be equal across the board. And what is the difference between strength and agility? If agility makes you move faster, then wouldn’t explosive strength serve the same purpose?” Brono began drawling on, clearly very adamant on this subject.

“Okay, so we don-” Sam began but was cut off by Brono’s tirade.

“And what the fuck is with intelligence? How the hell can you measure one’s intelligence! It’s downright impossible to do so!” Brono began losing composure, growing angrier with each word. Thor was beginning to grow cautious of the rampaging god. Though, luckily at this point, Horus gently placed a hand on Brono bright shoulder, calming the god back down.

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“Um. Sorry about that….” Brono began, noticeably blushing under his shining skin.

“Anyway, I guess we’ll start drawing out your abilities. One by one, us gods will call out our chosen champions names, when your name is called, join your god and they will draw out your abilities.” Brono finished awkwardly, stepping away with the other gods.

“Jake.” Brono called out to the surprised youth, who quickly walked over to the god.

“Sam.” Horus loudly called out, gesturing grandly to the stout youth.

“Akane.” Artemis curtly called to the beautiful young maiden.

“Jess.” Zeus drawled out, pointing to the quiet girl.

Thor watched each student walk over to their chosen god with growing concern, if that was all of them, that meant the only god left was-

“Thor.” Growled out Ares, a barely contained savage smile stretched across his face, his eyes shining with blinding excitement. A small voice in the back of Thor’s thick skull tried to tell him that the man was insane, but Thor didn’t even hear the quiet voice, instead the strange synergy between him and the god was all that raced across his mind, his feet numbingly dragging him over to the mad god.

“We will now draw out your abilities.” Each god placed their hand above their chosen champions head’s, a strange light swelling underneath their open palms.

Thor felt a powerful force within him, straining against its invisible bonds. The struggle grew stronger and stronger, a pounding headache began to form in the back of Thor’s head. The constant pounding in perfect rhythm to the struggles of the force within him. Sweat glistened on the back of his neck as he fell to one knee in a rare moment of weakness, his eyes squeezed shut, teeth grinded against one another as he pushed against the pain. He’d felt worse.

Then, the pain was gone, with the struggles. Thor’s eyes shot open as a small translucent blue screen took up his vision.

Mjolnir’s Gauntlets:

Info: Gauntlets forged of dense steel, these metal bracings require great strength to use effectively. The past of these gauntlets are shrouded in mystery.

Effect: None

As Thor rapidly read through the short blue screen, he felt his hands grow considerably heavy, his eyes dropped down to look at his quizzically weighted hands. Only to see thick gauntlets, made of a dirty, dark metal covered his hands, up to his elbows.

Thor scanned over the armour, the metal was thick, unusually thick for gauntlets. Metal covered every inch of skin with thick, interlocking scales and plates. Through his hands, Thor could feel a soft, comfortable material from underneath the gloves. Curiously moving his fingers, Thor felt that the gauntlets fitted him down to the last millimetre, observing the palms of the gloves, Thor saw that they were very well suited to grabbing and holding onto surfaces, with sharp grooves sticking out of the fingers in small spikes, though handling a tool would be difficult to say the least.

Last of all, the gauntlets were heavy. Each gauntlet weighed at least 10kg, Thor had no trouble moving the things himself, thanks to his enhanced strength, though they could set him dangerously off balance.

“Armour huh, ever felt… Vulnerable, at all in your past?” Ares stated off to the side suggestively. Thor answered the question with a piercing glare, to which Ares merely raised an eyebrow in response to.

“Well, in any case, I hope you’re proficient at hand to hand…” Ares muttered, scratching his ear with a burly hand.

Thor glanced down at his armoured hands, feeling conflicted about the ability that supposedly reflected his soul. Clenching his hand with the loud scraping of metal, Thor asked himself.

“I was crafted to be a weapon, an unstoppable killing machine with the bloodlust of a thousand men. A sharpened blade, designed to tear the throats of my enemies wide open! Why the fuck do I think I need armour?”