"FORM UP FOR INSPECTION!" A massive orog bellowed the order without any need for amplification, but used a magiphone anyway. "ANY COMPETITOR WHO MISSES OR FAILS INSPECTION WILL BE A NO-GO!"
Half of my peers dawdled and half rushed to form up, with me amongst the latter as we filled the first few ranks. "YOU WILL FOLLOW ALL COMMANDS OR YOU WILL RECEIVE A NO-GO. YOU WILL NOT HAVE ANY FORBIDDEN ITEMS OR YOU WILL BE A NO-GO. YOU WILL-"
I found myself behind a wall of soldiers wearing hellenic bronze loricas. Unlike many, they had immediately fallen into a militant stance, hands folded at the small of their backs, shoulders back and eyes locked onto the orog addressing the gagglefuck and listening intently to his instructions.
They carried themselves with a familiar bearing, the kind instilled by a lifetime of training and the focused attention of a warrior who'd chosen their path with willful intention. I mentally put them into the 'probably not shitbags' category as I assumed a vaguely similar stance, trying to pry loose from my memory why they felt so familiar...
I quickly realized the orog was repeating the same words posted on every wall and explained thrice during orientation, and decided to listen with only half of an ear as he went on. Anyone who hadn't seen or heard the regulations by now had to be both illiterate and deaf, but something told me the dawdling half had a few amongst them who were willfully so.
They reeked of entitlement and privilege.
Which was particularly hard to do in a room full of demigods and similarly empowered beings.
A smoldering distemper peeled my lips into a snarl as I spotted a cancer amongst us, so called Paladins of Law and Order. Oppressors who would use the law they worshiped to control others and bend them to their will. Enriching themselves and their fellows as that law invariably benefitted the few and choked the many, strangling them with the hand of falsely benevolent tyranny.
"They're not all assholes, ya know." I closed my eyes and took a slow breath, and turned to face the speaker as I exhaled and opened them. "But I get it. You a bard or uhh... something?"
I smiled at his mistake, and his freely given discretion. He wasn't the first to see the holy symbol I wore and let their imagination roam. Without the armor little distinguished the Paladins of Dolleya's Palaces of Pleasure from her divine attendants. To be fair, many were one and the same. Especially after war had taken its toll, changing the clerics, bards, and former rogues into warpriests, shadow dancers and assassins...
"I'm Dilin, Paladin of Dolleya." The man looked scarcely old enough to have graduated from the Union Academy, but wore plate with the comfort of a seasoned veteran on a frame only slightly smaller than my own.
He took it with a bright blue-eyed smile, "I'm Luhkas, uhh Fighter of... The Pits? More of a brawler, really. I uhh... didn't go to the academy? It's my first time here!" His words sped in excitement, "Do we all have titles? Do we have to earn them? Or just like... say it?"
I blinked as his questions rushed past me.
Instead of attempting to respond to each one I ignored them all and asked my own. "You just got your power?" He nodded, "Let me guess, based on the moniker you gave yourself, some dumbass wagered his power in the Pit and you won?"
He nodded again, giddy to tell a story I'd heard a dozen times before. "Beat THE FUCK out of this foppy dope that challenged me to 'fisticuffs'! Guess he thought he'd just hammer me into the ground since I wasn't a monk or nothin'... But I've been watchin' them all my life! Ain't that hard if you practice!"
I smiled and gestured around, "That 'fop' you effectively killed probably has friends here. And if he is as you say, they will not be the type to let bygones be bygones." He sobered in an instant and realized he wasn't necessarily amongst friends. The excited young man vanished, face hardening and broad shoulders squaring as the pit fighter surfaced.
"That being said, just keep your voice down and you'll blend in. There's new guys every time." I looked around and realized the space that had been packed shoulder to shoulder on previous occasions now allowed for double armed intervals between soldiers. "I think."
He glanced around warily, "You think?"
I shrugged, "It's been awhile?" It really had. Some of the people around me looked like they'd been born after the real fighting had ended. "And it's been ever longer in here...."
The time dilation that occurred between planes could be a confusing nightmare, but the math was usually simple and if you kept a tracker you could keep up. Most immortals don't bother, though. It doesn't particularly matter and generally works in your favor.
Unless you consider the fact that a one year deployment from the Prime is actually ten years in the Hells. Then it fucking sucks.
Additionally, I'd like to repeat my earlier warning about faeries. Wander into their realm and you could come out a hundred years later, or a hundred years earlier. Or never at all. Or as something that isn't you anymore...
I shuddered away thoughts of the face and scanned the room closer, searching for faces I knew and finding a few I thought I recognized. But not one that I could name. I could very well be looking at the same demigods I'd deployed with before, or their grandchildren, and have absolutely no idea at all...
But then again, I'd never spent much time with my 'empowered' peers. I'd always found my kinfolk amongst the common souls that made up the rank and file, folks whose respect I usually had to earn because of the shitheadery of the assholes that populated the ranks around me. And I'd always volunteered to embed with troops others spurned, far away from the main hosts and the politics that came with them.
"Hey gramps! You lost!?" The soldier immediately in front of me twisted at the waist, keeping her hands at the small of her back and feet cemented firmly to the ground. "This isn't the line for Go-Bing.... Does your nurse know where you are?"
An easy smile told me her teasing was in good spirits, so I fired back with equal measure. "Oh? Are you here to play games young lady? Or is this what big girls do now? Break formation to mock their elders?"
She raised an eyebrow and appraised me from head to toe with a sly smirk, before a sharp voice snapped her neck back to the front. "VENETIA, EYES FRONT." The bark came from beneath a helmet of celestial bronze at the head of her row, one that bore the short red crest of a hellenic lokhagos.
Recognition dawned and I offered Luhkas the knowledge that came with it, gesturing across the row of female warriors. "Luhkas, meet the Amazons of Themyscira. They're good people, if you're a good person. But... tread lightly. And that crest means she's a captain..."
His eyes wandered across their backs, and backsides, prompting me to click my tongue and catch his attention. I shook my head pointedly and he quickly got the message when I drew a thumb across my neck. Ogling them was bad for one's health. And bad form regardless, without consent.
I covered the silent exchange quickly, "I know. It's a common mistake. You were expecting muscle bound hunks built like us right?" I chuckled and indicated with my eyes and a few nods that he should play along.
Thankfully, he wasn't too dense to be saved, "I uhh... Yeah, I guess." He laughed and glanced around, "I guess size matters even less here though, huh?" He shrugged and chuckled, "I always figured them assholes was lyin', I just figured the lie was that they'd met one at all..."
I snorted a laugh at their expense, "Most probably were. But most braggarts aren't keen to admit they got their ass handed to them by a woman whose beauty rivals Aphrodite's, or that she was likely a foot shorter than the idiot."
He laughed and I decided he fell firmly into the 'good people' category, "You ain't telling me nothin' I don't know! Them little islander monks could WHIP SOME ASS! And they was about the size of my leg."
