I woke up with an eagle in my face.

Arasu had his head tilted staring at me. He screeched, "Ajay, wake up kid. It's your first day of training, big day." I shook out the sleep in my eyes and got out of bed. I stretched my shoulders and jumped as my eyes locked with Abdu. He had a sober look on his face as he channeled his inner Captain Obvious by commenting, "You're awake. Put on some armour and meet me at the sand pit," he looked over his shoulder and called out, "Kali? Take Ajay and Arasu to the drop zone."

A steppe eagle as dark as night glided through the dorm and landed on my shoulder. She regarded me for a second and dismounted. As she flew out the room, she cried out, "Follow me, there's a lot to be done with you." I was a tad bit surprised. As we walked out, I asked Arasu, "So all you can talk to anyone?" Arasu nodded the best he could, "Once we get called from Jatayu's Nest, we gain the ability to communicate as you would. We can always revert back to, you know," He screeched loudly in my ear, which helped me gain an understanding into the main cause of hearing loss here. Arasu continued, "It's more like learning a new language. Every messenger can do it."

This walk around the camp made me realize the extensive space even this portion of Adirondack Park was. This was just the walkway and it stretched for kilometres. There was a dense portion of forest with the sign in front:

ATTENTION ALL NEWCOMERS!

THIS FOREST IS STRICTLY OFF-LIMITS TO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL

CONFIDENTIAL TESTING IN PROCESS

TRESPASSERS WILL DIE

It wasn't the sign itself that unsettled me, but the choice of words. It wasn't that trespassers would be punished or shot. Trespassers will die. That three-letter word really does serve as the greatest deterrent. Pretty helpful that it was written in big, blood red letters. Arasu peered at the sign over my shoulder.

"I would follow that sign if I were you. Whatever those guys are doing in there, it's no joke. We messengers can't even fly too low over that zone. Guards have crazy good aim, they can shoot down anything that moves, no matter how fast it is." He seemed to be focusing intently on the dense foliage ahead, like he was no more curious than I was. "And there are just these unholy sounds that can be heard in there sometimes. If the only goal of these tests of theirs is to see how rumors spread, they've succeeded. All kinds of theories about that place. Nobody's ever brave enough to investigate, though."

I kept walking along the dirt path, actually heeding warnings for once. I found Kali perched on the roof of a large cabin. She looked at me with squinted eyes and motioned me through the door before going back to preening her feathers. I walked through the ornate door and lay eyes on what looked like something out of a sports locker room. There were chairs and a wide screen, with a semicircle of lockers with symbols for the different Gods and Goddesses emblazoned on them. An elderly man dressed like royalty beckoned me into a seat. I sat down and noticed there were a lot of new recruits that came around the same time as I did.

Oddly enough, some looked younger than me. Surely the girl next to me was younger than me, she looked no older than 13. More elderly kings stepped inside. They seemed to each be dressed in unique ways. All of them had pure white hair, but still seemed to be in perfect health. Arasu perched on my shoulder and looked at the royalty with what looked like reverence. He bowed his head every time one walked in, even though they didn't cast a glance at us once. The last one walked in and stared at me. He only looked for a second, but it felt like he paralyzed me. I gasped as his eyes bored into my soul. Those eyes were lifeless and caused the temperature to go down. I looked around and noticed others had been unsettled too.

A man with dusky skin and wayward eyes drowsily tapped the mic and leaned in, "This does work right? I don't really care, don't know why they asked me to do this." Arasu whispered to me, "Me neither. Indra is not a good orator, even when he isn't like he is now." I turned to him, "He's Indra? Like, the Indra?"

"Yep, that's him. Probably used Kubera's mead flask. Give it a minute, somebody will take the wheel."

I stared at who was apparently the King of the Heavens himself. He certainly didn't carry himself like I would expect a king would. He seemed… insecure almost. Like he didn't want to be here at all. His eyes kept darted around the room as he uncertainly spoke with an almost drugged voice. It started off coherently, with him discussing something about an oncoming war and us being the tipping point in the struggle. Then somehow everything went wrong.

What actually started as a pretty decent speech turned into a confusing rant after Indra shifted to the subject of the fact his throne was in danger. "And…Umm… You know, uh, th-the throne could be taken and- and then I lose everything, and I CAN'T LET THAT HAPPEN- you get me, right? Thrones, those are fun, yeah? A little seat for me, Indra and-"

I, along with at least half of the room were convinced being up in the clouds had finally taken its toll on him. In other words, we thought he went mad. I leaned towards Arasu while the other Gods were busy trying to peel Indra off the floor, because he was currently rolling on the floor and crying hysterically about his 'baby throne'. I quickly looked at Arasu and through his eyes I realized this happened a lot. Like his looks just told me This is a regular occurrence. Wait, something will happen.

Well, he was right. Something did happen. A young man dressed from head to toe in golden battle armor pulled him aside and tapped the microphone. What none of us expected was him to have the voice of a rabid bear… on steroids… doing a T-Rex impression and… Well, you get what I mean, he was loud. And hoarse.

"ATTEN-SHUN! EXCUSE OUR MAJESTY, HE IS…" He looked back at Indra, who was still rolling on the floor crying in the arms of one of the other gods. He turned back to us, "NOT IN A CONDITION TO ADDRESS YOU! AS HIS TRUSTED LIUETENINT I HEREBY DECLARE MYSELF THE REPRESENTATIVE- HOLD ON!" Another deity (jeez, I'm getting tired of naming so many people I don't know) tapped our bear-guy on the shoulder while clutching his ears. He whispered to him- at least, I think he was trying to. Since he too was deafened by a Boeing 747 auditioning for a death metal band, his whisper was more audible than he probably would have liked.

"Oh, my, us Karthikeyan would you keep it down? Please, man, between you shouting all day and Balarama bhai snoring all night, I can hardly keep my poor ears in shape! Step aside, let me do this."

He grabbed the mic and the moment he started speaking, there was an aura of… I don't know, confidence? Charm? I couldn't really describe it, but he was certainly more equipped to speak to an audience than the rest of the Gods.

"Alright then! Recruits, listen up! I know my associates were… mediocre at best." We all laughed, not because it was really funny, but he just exuded an air of relaxation. It was like he was an old friend who came back to the house after years.

"But anyway! Don't blame my good old pal Indra, he's always a little crazy, but that's why he's cool. As he was trying to tell you, you are on a very important mission. See, for years we as a camp and, well, as a pantheon in general have been hiding in plain sight, extending our web of bases across the world and settling in regions where we wouldn't be found by the other camps. However,"

Damn, this guy is confident, if nothing else. Pausing for dramatic effect in a war council? Only the best do that. He looked at all of us and continued, "It is currently time we emerge from hiding and reveal ourselves to the public, considering the threat posed to the world right now. Lemme run you through it." He dropped down a canvas and pulled a marker out of his shirt and uncapped it with his teeth. Mr. Seminar dude gave the marker a shake and started sketching as he spoke to us in the meantime.

"So… We have us, yeah that's us in the top corner. We are… How to say this? A group of militants basically, who work under the Gods. That's us," he pointed to himself in the middle of his seminar and started sketching circles and shapes in alternative points on the canvas. One had a lightning bolt in the middle, the other had a bunch of stick figures with swords. One had the letters V and H on them.

"So, yeah. These may look confusing, but these are the main bases of the other pantheons. You know, the ones we were hiding from this whole time? Those. Now, normally we would try to seize control through a calculated assault and loot their treasury and then we sell them into slavery- but that's really not possible, since they… are… occupied and protected… by the other Gods… Like Zeus… Tyr… Bast… et cetera, et cetera. Do you have, any questions so far?"

Man, he really is Mr. Seminar Dude. A girl from two rows in front of me rose up and asked, "Sir- Can I call you sir? If we all have actual Gods on our side, why does nobody pay attention to anything we do? And I mean the rest of them too."

Seminar Dude smirked at her, which seemed to be his default reaction to anybody even breathing in his direction. "Call me Krishna, darling. I can call you that, right? Your mother loves it when people call her that. Centuries of watching children of the palette shows me that there is a lot of hereditary quirks between us."