Nothing but the best (open)

It was just about ten pm. The lights from the colosseum were dimly lit, making shadows. Emily was stood just outsied it wondering wether or not to go in and practice. She had been stood there for the past half hour. She hadn't gone in earlier that day like she ahd planned because it was too busy, and she didn't want to be practicing around other people the first time. She didn't want to make a fool of herself. Not that she would, she had been in training for years. She would accept nothing but the best from herself.

Now that everyone was gone there was no excuse for her not to go in and train. She sighed and walked inside, the lights growing brighter as she entered. There were a series of training dummies set up in the centre, ready for tomorrow, but they wouldn't last that long. Not with how Emily trained.

She started off with two swords, she preffered fighting with just the one, but two was good.
When she started fighting the swords practically became a part of her. She spun and hit and defended and dodged imagining that the dummies were fighting back. Her hair blew about as she fought, flying through the air. She sighed when it started blowing in her eyes and she stopped fighting to tie it up.

Once it was in a rough pony tail she continued fighting, but this time with her bow and arrows. She tried firing three at once, but none of them hit where she wanted them to, although one of them embedded itself in one of the dummies shoulders it wasn't good enough. After that she only used one arrow at a time. After a while of shooting mid jump or from a distance she heard a noise, the sound of footsteps. She drew another arrow out of her quaver and aimer her bow at the entrance of the colosseum. Other than her who would be out at nearly eleven pm?

"Hello?" Emily called out into the night, waiting for the unknown to show themselves.

Hectar was lying in his tent, thinking why he'd been unclaimed for around 1820 days. in two days, he would have been there 1826 days, 5 years since he arrived. He was still undetermined. He'd become a master with his knife, but still his parent hadn't seen fit to claim him. He still had nightmares about killing Bruno Masquerado, but no god or goddess saw fit to confort him. He was continuously getting better with the bow and arrow, now was on the third to hardest target, but no divnie sign had arrived to tell him who he was. Destraught, he decided to go dow to the Colliseum. He'd sworn that one day, if he survived long enough to get he money, he'd go to the real Collseum. And the Roman Forum. All of Rome, including the statue of Romulus and Remus underneath Lupa. He'd been to see the wolf several times, but the answer was always the same; I have no control over the will of the Gods. Your Father or Mother will determine your fate when they see necessary. He always returned to the Mercury Tent frustrated, with everyone pattinghim on the back and telling him that he'd get claimed soon.

So, Hectar walked out of the tent whilst his fellow tentsmen were asleep, ring on finger, and walked up to the Colliseum. As he walked, he noticed a Pegasus. ((Pegasus was in Roman Mythology too, so would they have them? If not delete this bit.)) It whinnied at him, and he looked at it. It was coloured he same as his hair. He smile, stroked its mane, then continued walking. The path was long and curvy, liked te entrance to the Camp. He wished he could ge out there and discover what the world had to offer. He wished he could go somewhere good, like Rome. Or maybe wherever it was the Gods lived. He'd never been told where, so he'd always supposed that it was Rome. He wasn't sure though. Would they be there? If so, where in Rome could they possibly be? The Forum? They were hardly on a Magical floating Cloud, were they?

Finally, Hectar arrived at the Colloseum. It was almost 11 PM at night. Good news if you wanted to train without anyone watching you. Of course, he wasn't exactly going to be making a complete and utter fool of himself, after 5 years of training, but it was still better to train without being surorounded by other babbling children of Venus or Eros who were dicussing the comeback of Prada and such, or kids of Minerva or Mars who thought they were better then everyone else because they could swing a sword quite well. Especially Mars kids. He hated them. Suddenly, he heard a voice in the darkness asking, "Hello?" Through the darkness he saw a girl with a Bow and Arrow drawn at him. She seemed older then him, therefore dangerous. He snook round to he back, then climbed over a wall, dropping soundlessly onto the ground. He silently walekd over to the girl and then pressed his ring, which had an embedded sword on it. It became his knife, which he held to the girl's neck from the back, uttering the words, "Who are you and what is your business?"

Emily was still waiting for the person to show up. Her bow and arrow still trained on the entrance of the colosseum when she felt the blade of a knife on her throat. "Who are you and what is your business?" A boy's voice said behind her. Evie glared even though the boy wouldn't see her.

"Who I am and what I'm doing here is none of your buisness." She said from behind gritted teeth. She tried to shake the boy off but couldn't without slitting her throat so she sighed and tried to do something she haven't tried yet. She focussed on the ground and tried to imagine vines coming up and wrapping around the boy's legs. Fortunately it worked and as she felt the ground shift beneath her feet she sighed and tried to concentrate more. Unfortunately the vines wrapped around her legs and she wasn't sure if they were wrapping around the boy's or not, but either way she was glad she had managed to use her powers for the frist time. She shook off the dizziness and blinked the black spots out of her eyes. Not to self, she thought, Using powers takes energy.

((ahh....this post is so crap... I think my muse is starting to die :/ ))

The girl told him it was nothing to do with him and then the ground shifted. His balance wavered and then vines sprang up from the ground. One wrapped around his right leg but he sliced through it with the blade. Another two wrapped around it and he rolled his eyes. Another few and trapped his left leg. The girl seemed drained, so he asked, "What is it, then? Ceres? Bacchus?" He could tell that this girl was the daughter of a plant deity, just not which, so he decided to let it pass as soon a he heard which. "And I'm Hectar. Hectar Garner. Undetermined, although I've been here nearly 5 years. What's your name?" He hoped that he didn't get more vines attacking him, although the girl seemed rather drained. It was always wise to take precautions, though, so he kept his Knife, Ictus, in it's more deadly form.

"What is it, then? Ceres? Bacchus?" The boy said, sounding slightly annoyed. He moved his knife away from her neck to attack the vines. "And I'm Hectar. Hectar Garner. Undetermined, although I've been here nearly 5 years. What's your name?"
Emily bit her lip to stop herself swearing at the boy, that would be counter productive. "Emily Ford. Daughter of Bacchus. Not that it matters." She detatched her leg from the vines and turned to face the boy. He was still holding his knife and Emily smirked.
"What are you doing out here in the dead of night and why the hell did you attack me?? I wasn't exactly going to do anything to you... not really..."


((mega short post, sorry..my muse is dying and I need to write another few posts...XD)

Hectar shrugged. "When you've been here as long as me, you know the risks. Monsters can sometimes get in here. That is, when people let them in. Bloody practical jokes." He remembered He sighed and turned Ictus back into a ring, then put it on his finger. "As for why I'm down here? Training. I always do it. Training. That's all we ever do here. I've been wanting a quest for 5 years. Nothing." The last part was mainly to himself, so he refocused on her. "So, fancy some sparring? Or are you too scared?" He taunted her, hoping to draw her into a fight. He always did it to newbies, to test how good they were. It was kind of... a right of passage. How he tested if they were good enough to reside at the Roman Camp of Demibloods.

((Gods, that's lame. Sorry! Gah, next one should be better))

((My muse is missing...stolen in the night by a mysterious stranger...I shall post later..))

((My muse is still really dead but i shall try to post))

"When you've been here as long as me, you know the risks. Monsters can sometimes get in here. That is, when people let them in. Bloody practical jokes." Hectar said before sighing and turning his weapn into a ring and putting it on his finger. "As for why I'm down here? Training. I always do it. Training. That's all we ever do here. I've been wanting a quest for 5 years. Nothing. So, fancy some sparring? Or are you too scared?"
Emily grinned and laughed a little. "Me? Scared of fighting you? Am I hell. Sure I'll spar, but when you get defeated by a girl your gonna be embarresed." She taunted back. Sure this boy probbaly had more training than her, but that didn't mean he was better than her. Plus she had powers, even if she wasn't all that great at controlling them yet. She went back over to her weapons bag, dropped her bow and arrow and grabbed her sword. No armour and no shields, just a plain old sword. It would mean she would be faster on her feet and her footwork would be a lot better, but it also meant she'd probaly be spending sixty percent of her time guarding and blocking rather than attacking.

Emily scorned him delightedly then took her sword from a bag to replace her bow and arrow. He reformed Ictus, his old, yet trusty Imperial Gold blade. He then saw that she didn't have a shield. "No shields?" He raised an eyebrow. "Fair enough." His eyes twinkle like the stars above, but with mallice instead of delight. He had a feeling that this would be fun. His guard shot up to in front of him and his back bent slightly. He looked up to her, realising that she was older then him, although only by around a year. He made a silent, probably unanswered prayer to Mars, and then analyzed her move. She'd probably heard the same from Lupa, never be the first to strike, and so therefore she wouldn't be. So he struck. One sudden strike, like his blade's name, towards the head. Easy to block, disastrous if not blocked.

((Soo..I think my muse is back now i've downloaded some more music on my i-tunes to listen to...So we can get back to writing longer posts.. (: ))


"No shields?" Hectar said, raising his eyebrows. "Fair enough."
Emily smiled slightly. Oh yes, i'll win this. This will be easy, she thought to herself. She always did have high confidence in battles, mind you she generally did have high confidence.
She put her sword into a general defence position, guarding her chest and stomach.

Obviously in a battle with no shields and no armour she wasn't going to be the first to attack so she waited it out, analyzing the boys stance. She couldn't really predict his move, but she saw his legs bend slightly, his muscles bunch together and then he attacked her, striking towards her head. She spun and then parried his blow with her sword, hitting it away slightly. She smiled and backed up a few paces. She was just toying with him to start with, to try and find out his strategie first, try and learn his fighting style.

Emily Feinted towards him a few times but never really attacked, she wanted to try and figure out his reaction time. figure out how fast it was and then figure out how much time between his attacks she would have to strike back. It was hard, but she was good at maths.

Emily kept on feinting towards him, but Hectar kept his guard still, except for bouncing forwards a little sometimes. He could see in her eyes that she didn't mean it. Her muscles didn't tense as much. He knew that she was figuring out how he attacked, so he decided to vary in his attacks. He kept his eyes locked onto here all the time. Suddenly, he 'feinted' to her leg, moved it up to her arm then back ot her leg. It was an old trick, but slightly harder to tell what he was going to do. Was he doing it normal, feinting, double feinting, triple feinting or what?
((Gods, my Muse went poof))

((Lol...I must've stolen ot from ya XD))

Hectar didn't really flinch when Emily Feinted towards him, he must have somehow figured out what she was trying to do.
Emily decided to stop feinting, and wait for his next move, knowing her luck he would basically do the exact same thing she had just done, but with more skill. She was right when he suddenly went towards her leg, then up to her arm then back to her leg. She grinned and kncoked his sword aside with hers, a smile on her face. "Are we going to take this seriously? Or are you going to keep using my strategis against me? Because if you do...well i'm afraid you wont be around much longer." She smiled, her eyes glinting with malace. "And boy if you don't believe me then your stupid."

((Short post...busy atm...gotta wash up and then tidy my room ))

Hectar grinned. "Stupid? Quite the opposite, in fact. Ask the wolf, she'll tell you." Inside, he was nodding approvingly. A smile may have actually flickered on his face when she parried the blade. He knew that she'd had training somewhere, although he didn't know where. But he had legion training. He had to be better. He aimed a swing at her head, but pulled it back a fraction and span completely, landing with his tip by her shest. He then drew it back. He felt like he'd just gone and done some ballet. "No matter what you're objectives are, I'm not here to maim you, much less kill you." He left it there, not telling Emily his true motive; testing her. That was how the ancient Romans had done it. Although, they weren't so harsh as to leave their kids out there in the weather for a week before seeing if they'd survived. Although he knew how important it was to see how disciplined and powerful the child would be, he found that rather stupid of his forebears. It wasn't righteousness. If they lived, it was torture. If they didn't, it was nothing but cold blooded murder.

((Okay...soo..dead muse...and i'm watching a film...and i'm cooking...Pizza..XD))


"Stupid? Quite the opposite, in fact. Ask the wolf, she'll tell you." Hectar said grinning.
Emily frowned, Wolf? What wolf? And how does a wolf even talk? She felt like asking, but didn't.
Hectar then did something that reminded her of ballet and she grinned, even if it did end with a sword point at her chest. He drew the sword away from her.

"No matter what you're objectives are, I'm not here to maim you, much less kill you."
Emily grinned..
"Oh..My objectives are I have none. I don't usually plan ahead by much...except in fights...then i plan the next few moves...or my strategy."

((pizzas burning...gotta go... DX))

Hectar nodded. "That's cool. Talking like that, I would've thought that you were... Minerva's daughter. Goddess of Wisdom and Battle strategy." He knew better though. She was Daughter of Bacchus, and nothing could change it. He guessed that she'd known her Mother. For that, he envied her. He wished he'd kniwn one of his parents. He sighed. "The Wolf." He'd seen her confused look when he mentioned her. "Ever heard the tale of how Romulus and Remus? How they were raised by the Wolf, Lupa? She's immortal, the Gods made sure of that. She's supposed to help us, train us. She mainly just lounges around in the Den." He sheathed the knife and then held his hands out. "Disarming practice?" He asked her. He hoped so. He needed something to distract him.