Note:

See how fast I churn up the story when you review me? There is something magical about it, trust me. So keep telling me your views and give me your ideas. Some suggested a clean win for Artemis, some want a tie, what about you?

LOVELY PRELUDE

After eight thousand serious injuries, Hermes managed to calm down the couple, with banana juice dripping freely down his hair.

"No Hephaestus, I absolutely forbid you," he snapped decisively into his cellphone.

"But Hermes, I'll never get this chance again," he whined. "Please, I never ask you anything,"

"Right," he said. "Under one condition. Only two minutes." He clapped in reply.

"My Lady,"Hermes stated solemnly to a now calm Hera. "King Zeus has love for no one but you. He adores you best of all the ladies in the world. And father, nothing can compare to the love Lady Hera bears you. Forgive and forget the past wounds. Revel now in your pleasure for each other."

"Are you still there, Hephaestus?" he asked, delicately turning away.

"Oh yeah,"

"You can now play that."

"What? And when do I get to show this?"

"They deserve privacy. Come on, I think you can take twenty minutes at least, by the looks of it," He silently slipped away from the couple after closing the doors to the now empty VIP box.

"Twenty minutes? Yippee!" Hephaestus immediately began playing the highlights of their fight, with exaggerated animation and Eye of the Tiger screaming in the background. Hera was punching Zeus with celestial bronze boxing gloves which cracked even Aegis into two. Someone screamed, 'I love you female Rocky!'. Zeus ducked and tripped her which resulted in Hera falling face first in the Hot chilly peppermint leftovers. The scoreboard at the left corner of the screen read

'Hysterical woman : 1700 Bearded victim : 250'.

"Demeter is good!" she exclaimed, tasting the juice on her lips.

"I told you so!" Zeus declared.

"My choice is even better," she snapped, as the Pepper flavoured popcorn cascaded down Zeus's head. He gave an almighty sneeze in reply.

"I told you so!" she roared.

Zeus put his hand at the back to fetch his weapon and paused mid-air.

"Looking for lightning bolts, darling?" asked Hera, holding his whole stock by the finger.

"Hera, this is not fair, assaulting your weaponless, vulnerable husband. . ."

"Vulnerable? You? Take that, and that and that!" One bolt after the other whizzed, Zeus missing them by the fraction of a second. By instant inspiration, he picked up a seat nearby and shielded his head. A bolt was thrown off its course and made straight for Hera. It hit her and she raised a terrific screech that made the flesh crawl.

"Hera, darling, are you hurt?" he asked timidly,peeking out from his shield.

"YOU BROKE MY DIAMOND GIRDLE YOU FOOL!"

"Ah, that one? It didn't suit your dress in the first place I wanted to tell you that,"

But he fled the place as a barrage of bolts followed his voice.

'Hysterical woman : 9710 Bearded victim : 620'

Statistics also appeared on the right, predicting a clean win for Hera as she tore behind Zeus in hot pursuit.

"Ah now, things get a lot more interesting," Hephaestus hissed in Hermes's ear.

The scene changed. Now Hermes was trying to stop the two fighting.

"Please Lady Hera, calm down and father, DO NOT HIT HER BACK!"

'Hysterical woman : 15930 Bearded victim : 14600'

"Hey, this is soo not fair, she wasted my entire stock of Long-range bolts and you expect me not to react!"

"Dad, she's calming down and don't you want to make out with her?"

"What? Oh, yeah. But I don't think it is possible even in a dream."

"Trust me. It will happen in ten minutes."

"Hephaeustus, my darling brother, please let's skip this part," Hermes begged.

"Oh no, come on, you've faced Typhus and Aegis haven't you? Be brave!"

"Please bro, lovely bro, clever bro, not this part, not this part,"

Anger and Wasp strode into the mess of ripped seats popcorn, fading bolts and screaming injured immortals, delicately holding a plastic cup each.

"What are you Grey Sisters doing here?" Hermes choked out, already half-way through his counselling session.

"Anger, I want the eye, come on I want to look at him!" cried Wasp, reaching out all over with her mottled and dirty hand.

"Give me the teeth then, I'll kiss him first!" she shot back, saliva drooling from her hole-like mouth.

"I won the bloody bet! I alone have every right to enjoy him!"

"Would you have me bring along Tempest then?"

"No no no, don't go."

"All right Wasp, here's the deal. I have Hermes for the first twelve hours and you can take him after that."

"Hello, you seem to forget, I won the bet! I'm taking Hermes first!"

"Guys, I know I'm quite desirable," interrupted Hermes smoothly, trying hard not to vomit. "But what makes you think I'll come with you hags?"

"Ah my darling," crooned Anger, jumping onto his lap, her mop of grizzled grey hair shaking wildly. Hermes revoltingly pushed her away. "Remember the last time we met?"

"Vividly. I couldn't sleep for three days."

"Aww, honey, it mustn't have been that bad," simpered Wasp.

"What happened the last time you guys met?" asked Hephaestus eagerly.

"STOP THE BLOODY VIDEO! NOW!"

"What do you want?" he almost cried.

"You and me, alone," they chorused.

"I already told you Anger, I'm first!"

"Oh come off it, you can't even see him,"

"You have no right to abduct me," snapped Hermes, bringing out his Caduceus with a flourish.

"Ah, there's the one person I wanted to meet! Georgie!" Anger called out.

"Oh lovely green Georgie! Don't you remember the deal?"

"Go away, you hussy!"

"Now, now," said Wasp, shaking a knobbly finger. "You can't throw me off like that. Don't you remember the taste of those fat juicy rats?"

"I sure do."

"What rats?" asked Martha.

"The ones I gave you in New York when you stopped talking to me."

"Ah, those, yes. They were delicious!"

"See? Now how did you get those rats Georgie?"

"Um, let me see, I told you to buzz off?"

"No, you said 'I swear that from today, Ares and Aphrodite will not even frown at each other for a whole year and if anything happens to the contrary, I'll get Hermes to make out with you for a day.' "

"You SAID that?" Hermes hissed, furious.

"Um, maybe in passing, when I was drunk,"

"You don't get drunk!"

"No I do! I get drunk by eating too many rats. . ."

"But you don't have proof for that, do you?" Hermes said, looking up. "They are one infallible couple."

"What is considered proof that they are no longer that close?"

"Well, for starters, they must be sitting at an inch distance from each other,"

Anger pointed him calmly to Aphrodite, sitting in the judge box next to Athena and to Ares, licking his chocolate covered blade.

"Is that far enough for you?" Hermes gulped as Anger crawled again into his lap.

"So, shall we start right now?" She pounced up and pressed her drooling mouth on Hermes, spilling the contents of her plastic cup on his head.

A text in bright red scrolled over the screen now :

'Mystery of the dripping banana juice'.

"It was a stroke of genius, actually," admitted Hephaestus modestly. Hermes fumed.

On screen Anger was thrown aside as Hermes turned and puked violently on a nearby seat. Now the scrolling text read :

'Mystery of the yellow goo in seat number 153'

"Oh man; I paid five thousand drachmas for the VIP seats!" groaned a satyr.

"Was my kiss so bad?" asked Anger as Wasp and Hera chuckled immoderately.

"My boy," managed Zeus, clutching a stitch on his side. "I think you should postpone the romance to a later time,"

"Father, I don't want to do it! HELP ME!"

"According to your wish, Father Zeus, we will leave now," they chorused.

"But we will return," Wasp hissed in his ear.

"Hear hear," whispered Hephaestus. Hermes began to boil.

"Ow, ow, Hermes, this pocket's on fire!"

"This is ALL YOUR FAULT!"

"My fault? Hermes I swear I had nothing to do with this!"

"Martha, you traitor, didn't you eat half of those rats?"

"But I had NOTHING to do with the deal! If I only had known how you got those rats. . ."

"What?"

"I would. . . I would. . .still have eaten it. They were nice. . ."

"Hermes," stated a voice in his head. "We waste valuable time in these silly distractions. I suggest we begin immediately."

"Yes, yes," replied Hermes, startled to his senses by Athena's telepathic message. "We better begin now."

"Right, my dear audience! I am startled and repelled myself by the new developments in

this stadium. Very unexpected ones, I assure you. Hope they kept you entertained while you waited and hope no one was seriously injured. So Athena, let us hear about the contest!"

"An actual skill contest between Apollo and Artemis can last many days. As there is limited time and as the attention span of the audience is fickle," there was undisguised contempt in her voice now. "I have decided that. . ."

But just then, Aphrodite rushed out from nowhere, grabbed the mike, closed her eyes in exultation and began dreamily:

'Some souls love with their body,

Some love through their mind,

Some give away their heart entirely;

But Love is the expression of all trine.'

"Um, my lady," began Hermes, with trepidation.

"Yeah," she whispered seductively.

"What does this have to do with Archery?"

Athena snatched the mike away. "Aphrodite is just saying, um, in her own way, that there are three main rounds in this competition, like the body, mind and soul and the total score obtained in all three rounds determine the winner."

"Ah," replied Hermes with relief. "Three rounds of initial applause then!"

As the crowd cheered deafeningly, Athena shot a murderous stare at the Goddess of Beauty that evaporated her foundation make-up.

"You almost ruined the whole organization!" she thundered, her eyes gleaming eerily like her father. "I had planned five rounds! One more word and I toss you all the way to Cyprus, I mean it!" Aphrodite yelped in response and moved far away from the mike.

"Nice save," thought Hermes, focussing and directing this thought towards Athena.

"Just like the oldest Olympian to make a fool of us in front of these minor gods," Athena replied telepathically. "Remind me again Hermes, why is Aphrodite an Olympian?"

"Because we love her?" Hermes snorted sarcastically. Silence prevailed.

"And that verse she recited," Athena's cold fury could be felt by Hermes, even though she didn't say it aloud. "It was straight from 'Poetic love expressions' by Apollo."

"What? "

"Yeah, I know, It sounds way beyond his usual crap. Funny how much Apollo is capable of when he actually loves someone."

"Athena?" Hermes thought squeakily.

"Hmm? I know it's astonishing,"

"I'm not surprised by that,"

"Huh?"

"Apollo is capable, take a look at his prophesies. No, that was not what caught me off guard," there was a broad grin in his face now.

"Excuse me?"

"Athena, say, you read 'Poetic Love expressions', did you?"

"Purely to analyze his style of poetry," Athena snapped back, a little too fast.

"Oh yeah?"

"I was bored,"

"Any more reasons?"

"That's all." She put her foot down.

"You know that I'm God of Communication, don't you? I can always tell when you're hiding something," Hermes could actually hear her fume and hurl all the Greek curse words into his brain.

"I was merely trying to analyze and extract the fundamental underlying knowledge that lay behind all the flowery words and rhythmic timings."

"You were curious," Hermes shot back shrewdly.

"What?"

"You were curious to know what this love was all about." Dead silence. Bull's eye.

Athena cleared her throat loudly in the mike. "Don't stand gawking there Hermes, the audience is getting impatient."

He started back to reality. "Oh, right."

"There are three rounds, like I said," continued Athena. "Aim Tight, Taking out the target and Rapid fire combat. I'll give the instructions before each round. Let the contestants appear."

"Hmm; things aren't as bad as they seem," said Hermes smugly.

"Well Martha, for starters, he isn't grey with anger anymore,"

"We still have your punishment to discuss George," he said acidly.