All's Fair in Love and Hate: Chapter 3

"Amazing?" Herry asked, looking amused. The large, muscular war god seemed softer talking about Erida, his expression set into a small, goofy smile. Ares nodded. "Simply amazing."

Hera cut in coolly, her eyes flickering with disdain. "Erida was - is - the goddess of hate."

Frowning, Ares interrupted, "She wasn't that bad. She had a lot of redeeming qualities."

"Like her ability to strike hate in men's hearts by screaming every day at sunrise?" Archie countered, and snorted. "Yeah, real redeeming."

Ares glared at his student and continued, "Erida used to go with me every time there was a war taking place, even the Trojan War. She'd make the battle more intense especially for me. It was so much fun."

Hera cleared her throat, and the god of war looked up at her. "However," she said sharply, "Are's little band of war-lovers eventually broke up. Wars were taking place that we gods no longer cared about. Greece was quite peaceful after the Romans took over, there was no need for the gods to meddle with petty fights."

"Erida got a little annoyed that we didn't need her much any more after that," Ares muttered gruffly, shrugging. "She decided she was better off without us, so she ran away into hiding somewhere."

"Wait," Jay interjected. "Who's this 'we' you keep going on about?"

"That would be my crew," Ares said proudly. Holding up a hand, he counted, "Phobos, Deimos, Enyo, Erida, and Eris. We went to every major war in Greece and made things a lot more exciting."

Suddenly, the main doors slammed open and a curvy blonde figure clad in red stormed up to Hera, three women following who were fussing over her hair. Coming to a stop very close to Hera's surprised face, Aphrodite snarled, "Where is it? I know you have it!"

Ares came up to the goddess of love, meekly murmuring, "This might not be the time, Aphrodite -"

Aphrodite growled and pushed the god away roughly. Turning back to Hera, she screeched, "I demand you give it back!"

Theresa bit her lip. "Guys, don't you think we should do something?" she whispered nervously. Silence greeted her, and as she looked around at the team seated comfortably on the blue cushions, she noticed with annoyance that all of the boys save Neil were staring, some open-mouthed, at the beautiful goddess who had just entered. Atlanta shrugged helplessly at Theresa's glance, and shifted to face the only boy capable of doing anything other than drooling.

"Neil," Atlanta said, "why don't you try sort things out? She is your mentor, after all..."

With a sigh, Neil closed his golden mirror in which he had been admiring his reflection and slipped it into his pocket. "If you insist..."

Neil stood and took a few steps over to Aphrodite. "Hey, Aphrodite," he said soothingly, taking her arm gently, "how about we clear things up, okay? So what did Hera take from you?"

"My golden apple!" Aphrodite spat, glaring daggers at Hera, and shaking Neil off her arm. He looked slightly offended at this, and made a disgruntled noise. Neither of the goddesses noticed him.

Hera's hands flew to her hips, and she scowled. "Why would I take that? It's not even worth stealing."

Aphrodite's eyes narrowed further. "You know it says 'for the fairest' and you know I earned that title!" she shrieked.

The elder goddess sniffed. "I don't need it," she said coldly, "and the only reason you won it was because you bribed that silly boy."

The goddess of love flipped her long hair over one shoulder. "Don't tell me you didn't try to bribe Paris," she hissed angrily, "I know you did."

Turning on her heel, Aphrodite stormed across the room, her lackeys behind her twittering in despair about the state of her dishevelled clothes and hair. "I want that apple back, Hera!" she cried in contempt. "If you didn't take it, you'd better find it!"

The door slammed with a loud BANG, startling the boys back into sanity. The two girls narrowed their eyes and shifted slightly away from their male counterparts, who reddened guiltily. Neil shrugged dismissively and sat back down, taking out his ever-present mirror and checking his hair again.

Hera sighed. "You have a lot of work to do, children," she said softly, her eyes flickering up to meet Ares'.

Six figures sweated miserably as they practised fighting each other. Several of them grasped wooden practice weapons, and others only their bare fists (or, in certain cases, padded vests and kneepads). It was Jay's idea to get in as much training as they could get after their talk with Hera; he had decided, to the chagrin of the rest of the team, that the seven heroes needed as much practise as they could get. Jay had not voiced his worries about fighting an actual god other than Cronus himself. The team had never had to do so and he wasn't sure they would find it very easy this time.

"So," Odie repeated, ducking under a punch thrown by Herry, "We're going to track down Erida, find Aphrodite's apple, and suffer under horrible training exercises, all in one week or less, because if we don't, Cronus is going to take over the world and Aphrodite's going to go mad on Hera again?"

Jay swung his rough wooden staff at Theresa, who stepped to one side skillfully and countered with a slap from her wooden nunchucks, sending Jay to the ground. "Yeah," Jay panted, jumping to his feet and swinging the staff around again. "But these exercises aren't horrible. They're good for your mind and soul."

Atlanta dodged a feeble kick from Neil and flipped him on to his back, while he complained, "that's no excuse to tear my body to pieces - oof!"

Archie looked upon the expression of pain stretched across Neil's face, grinning at the melodramatic boy - Neil had insisted on padding himself up when he'd learned he was going to be practising with Atlanta. After enjoying a few moments of Neil's usual complaints, Archie turned back to his leader. "So what's our plan?" Archie asked, tossing the ice pack he was using to subdue the swollen bruise on his face into the air. He was the only one at rest; Theresa had insisted that he take a break after examining his battered face. Chiron, horrified, had agreed.

Jay pushed Theresa down with the staff until she was kneeling, her arms straining to lift the staff against Jay's strength. "We wait until there's a sign of Erida -" Theresa succeeded in turning Jay's weapon against him, and pushed him back against a wall - "then we counterattack," Jay managed to say, before Theresa held the staff against his neck and he conceded defeat.

"What if she doesn't attack?" Atlanta asked doubtfully, faking a punch to Neil's stomach and cuffing him around the head instead, causing him to tumble to the ground awkwardly. She had given up on using the staff Jay had passed her, instead using her hands to thoroughly give Neil a beating.

"Then we attack first," Jay answered earnestly.

A moment of silence fell over the group, their expressions unreadable. The silence stretched thickly in the air as they stood quietly, until Archie leapt up. "Well, that was weird," he said good-naturedly. "I'll see you guys later, I'll go see if I can get any more info about Erida."

Everyone voiced their good-byes and just before he turned to leave, Archie's eyes swept over the other six heros, his glance lingering a little too long on Atlanta. As the door of the gym swung closed, five heads swivelled to face Atlanta, grins stretched over their faces.

Uncomfortably, Atlanta shifted from side to side, looking at their amused expressions. "What?" she asked guiltily, and thwacked the smirking Neil over the head.

A/N: For the Greek myth nuts out there, yes, I did do a bit of "creative thinking" when it came to Erida's background. I also chose to have Erida a separate goddess from Eris; I believe there is some uncertainty regarding Erida and Eris as two different goddesses, but I chose two goddesses for the sake of the plot of this story.

This chapter is shorter than the other two and more talk than action, but I promise there'll be some more action in the following chapters. Expect more A/A, more Neil/himself, and perhaps some techno-Greeks:D