"That's right. Courage isn't special. It's something everyone has." ~Maka Albarn (Soul Eater)
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After going through another Gummi Ship route, we entered a world called Olympus Coliseum. In front of us was a huge gate with two gold Greek soldiers having this swords crossing to make an X on top. We entered the gate and saw a plump satyr cleaning a stone plaque that said "rules" on it. Sora reached out to tap him on the shoulder. "Um..." Sora said.

"Good timing," The satyr said as he brushed the stone plaque. "Give me a hand, will ya?" He pointed to the right and we turned. "Move that pedestal over there for me. I gotta spruce this place up before the games."

Sora, Goofy and Donald looked confused at first. I shrugged and muttered, "Let's move the pedestal and see what happens next."

Soda went over and pushed the stone pedestal but it didn't move an inch. "It weighs a ton!" He grunted.

"Let me try," I said as I pushed the pedestal. It didn't move. Then, Sora and I pushed our backs against and tried to move it just an inch but with no good results.

Sora returned to the satyr. "It's way too heavy!" He panted.

His tail went up, "What?! Too heavy? Since when you've been such a little--" He turned around, looked down and saw us. "Oh, wrong people," He muttered sheepishly, but he looked a bit annoyed. "What are you doing here?" He jumped off the pedestal he was on. "This here's the world-famous Coliseum...heroes only!" He explained as he sauntered towards us. "And I got my hands full preparing for the games. So scram, pip-squeaks."

Sora looked really mad because the guys was judging us. The satyr put his hands on his hips. "Look, it's like this," He sighed and paced across the room, waving his hand around. "Heroes are coming from all over to fight ferocious monsters right here in the Coliseum. "

Donald looked a bit annoyed as he crossed his wings. "You got heroes standing right in front of you," He exclaimed.

"Yup," Goofy said as he put his hands on our shoulders. "They're real heroes chosen by the Keyblade!"

"And we're heroes too," Donald said as he thumbed towards himself and Goofy.

The satyr looked surprised. "Heroes? Those runts?" His tail went up and he laughed like it was the funniest thing in the whole world.

"What's so funny?" I demanded, a bit hurt by his actions.

"We've fought a bunch of monsters!" Bragged Sora.

"Hey, if you can't even move this..." He said as he tried to push the stone pedestal. "You can't call yourself...a hero!" He panted in a failed attempt to move it. "Okay, so it takes more than brawn. Well, well, let's see what you two can do."

He led Sora and I to an arena. There were barrels stacked up in various locations on the battle center. The satyr called out, "The rules are simple; break all the barrels in the time limit." Sora and I summoned our Keyblades. "Ready...set...go!"

Sora began lifting up barrels and throwing them to others to smash them. I quickly sped over to a group of barrels, swung my Keybalde and sent them flying. Then, I casted Fire on them to destroy them. We destroyed all the barrels within 20 seconds. We repeated the same thing for the next two training sessions.

When we exited the arena, the satyr complimented us, "You know, you two aren't that bad for being kids."

"Looks like we're headed for the games," Laughed Sora.

"Afraid not," the satyr said as he put his hands on his hips.

"Why not?!" I cried. "You said we passed the training!"

"Two words: You guys ain't heroes," He said.

Goofy and I counted the words. "It's four words," I whispered.

"I know," He whispered back.

"Come on!" Sora whined as Donald slumped.

Sora, Goofy, Donald and I exited the Coliseum. "Sora, it's not that bad. Besides, we got bigger things to worry about than a satyr saying we can't compete in the games," I comforted. "We got to worry about getting Riku and Kairi back."

"Rather a stubborn old goat, wouldn't you say?" Asked a voice.

We turned to see a very tall blue skinned man with scary yellow eyes, black lips with sharp teeth inside and a blue fire for his hair. "Who are you?" Asked Donald.

"Whoa, hold on there fuzz boy," The man laughed. "Wait, let me guess; you want to enter the games, right? Ah, isn't it little Sakura. I heard a lot about you from my mistress."

Was this guy and his mistress some creepy stalker that I never noticed before? Likely not. "How do you know my name?" I demanded. "And whose your mistress that told you about me? How does she even know me in the first place?"

"That's not important right now," He said as he swooped up right behind us and handed us two tickets.

As I stared at mine and questioned on how did he get it. Sora cried, "A pass?!"

"It's all yours, you two," He said as he walked away. "Good luck, you two youngsters. I'm pulling for you two little runts."

"I can't believe it!" Sora cried. "We got our passes! We can compete!"

"But Sora--" I started.

"Don't get all serious and ruin the fun, Sakura," Sora whined as he ran up the Coliseum steps. "Loosen up this once, will ya? Come on!"

I sighed as I followed him and the gang. Sora sometimes acted like a little kid. Him taking a pass to the games was no better than if he was taking candy from a stranger. He didn't when know if the pass is valid or not. It could be a trap. As we entered the Coliseum, we gave our passes to the satyr, "Hey, how'd you two get this?" He asked in shock.

"A--" I started.

Sora interrupted me. "Now can we enter the games?" He begged.

"Well...I guess. We'll start with the preliminaries," He said.

"Yay!" Sora cried as he and the gang dashed into the Coliseum. Sighing, I followed them. The preliminaries were destroying Heartless, but that was pretty easy.

After we were done with that, the satyr said, "You four aren't heroes yet, but luckily you came in time for coaching." As he said that, a man with spiky blonde hair, blue eyes, a dark blue shirt and pants, a piece of armor covering his left arm and a purple cape walked right pass us. He and Sora made eye contact. As he walked away, the satyr said, "Something tells me he is going to be one hard opponent to beat. Who knows? Maybe you'll be matched up with him."

As he made us beat another round of Heartless, he complimented us, "Say, you two aren't as bad as I thought, you two little kids! Wish he was here to see this."

"Who?" I asked.

"Hercules. He's a hero if there was ever one. Too bad he's off visiting his father," The satyr told us. He sent us back to do our preliminaries.

*~*~*~*~*~

The mysterious man that the four of them met earlier named Hades, the Lord of the Dead, was watching in the shadows with Cloud, one of the guys who were competing in the games and the one who saw these four earlier. "Those two little punks are you're next opponents, okay?" He said as he turned to Cloud. "Now don't blow it. Just take them out."

Cloud glared at Hades. "The great God of the Underworld is afraid of two little kids," He taunted. "Sorry but my contract says--"

"I know!" Hades roared as he waved his arms around. "You think I don't know? I wrote your contract! I know it says you're only required to kill Hercules in this tournament. But you got to fight those two kids to get to him." He turned to see the four of them talking to the satyr, Phil. "Come on. Hey, it's like what that old goat says; Rule 11: it's all just a game, so let loose and have fun with it! I mean, a casualty or two along the way is no big deal, right?" Hades asked.

Cloud got up form the wall he was leaning on and walked to the battle field to prepare for the next match with the group.
"Geez. Stiffer than the stiffs back home," Muttered Hades. "Still, suckers like him are hard to come by..."

*~*~*~*~*~

After the satyr gave us another pep talk, we battled through another round of Heartles. Then, the mysterious blonde man that we saw earlier was on the battle field. So, he was our opponent after all. The satyr warned us that he looked like a hard opponent to beat. Now we were going to see if he was right or not. Summoning our weapons, we charged straight towards him.

The satyr was right; he was hard to beat. He had a long and wide sword that was bandaged. He was good swordsman. So good that Donald and Goofy were knocked out after one minute of fighting him. It was just me and Sora now. Sora was bleeding from the wounds that he kept on getting form him. I didn't have that many wounds because I was fast at anticipating, blocking, and dodging his moves. "Sora, here!" I said as I tossed him a Hi-potion.

"Thanks!" He said as he dodged another one of his attacks.

He jumped forward and I grabbed Sora to move him away or else he would of been skewered. I shouted, "Thunder!" And sent thunderbolts at it. He leaned down on one of his knees and panted. Then, I heard a thumping sound and the ground started vibrating. I looked up and saw a humongous three headed dog coming our way, "LOOK OUT!!!!!" I screamed.

He turned around only to be crushed by one of its paws. Sora gaped at the huge monster. It raised its front paws, preparing to crush us. I was so tired from the last match that I didn't have the strength to grab Sora and jump. Suddenly, a muscular, orange-haired man wearing a tunic appeared, holding the paw back from us.

"Herc!" The satyr said.

"Phil! Get them out of here!" He cried.

So, that was the satyr's name. We turned and ran out of the Coliseum. As we waited outside, Phil shuddered, "Whew, that was close! That was Cerberus, the guardian of the Underworld. Herc should be able to handle him. But then again, maybe not...this doesn't look good. I hope Herc's okay. Wish I could go in!"

"Why can't you?" I asked.

"Because I'm too old and I'm no help!" Phil explained as he went back to worrying about Hercules.

Sora and I nodded and the gang and I entered the Coliseum. "You two kids, you're not entering the arena, are ya?" Phil's eyes widened. "This ain't some match. This is for real!"

"You can decide if we're hero material or not," I explained. "But we're going in!"

"Careful, you two!" Phil called out as we entered the arena again.

Hercules was holding our opponent as Cerberus cornered him. Before it could attack him, it heard us and turned to our direction. Distracted by us, Hercules ran to get the man to safety. "You two little kids! I got two words of advise for you two," Phil cried. "Attack!"

"But that's only one word!" I called but Cerberus began attacking us by stomping its paws in the group and firing fireballs from its three heads. I blocked them and sent them back to it. Goofy and Donald rammed the dog with their weapons while Sora jumped up and swiped their three heads at once. It collapsed onto the ground. We returned to the front of the Coliseum.

*~*~*~*~*~

Thus, I do herby dub thee junior heroes, and confer upon three full rights and privileges to participate in the games. Further--" Phil said, reading off a piece of paper while he was on the stone pedestal as Hercules was standing right beside him.

"Hey, what do you mean by 'junior heroes'?" Donald demanded.

"You rookies still don't understand what it takes to be a true hero," Phil explained.

"So, what does it take?" Sora asked.

Logic? Kindness? Common sense? These were my guesses, inspired from cliché books and TV shows. "Well, that's just something you'll have it find out for yourselves," Hercules said. "Just the way I did."

"No problem. We'll start by proving ourselves in the games," Sora said.

"Well, there ain't going to be any games for a while," Phil said with his hands on his hips. "Gotta clean up that mess from that last battle first. But, when that mess is all cleans up, there are some games that you can compete in. In order for easiest to hardest, there is the Phil Cup, the Pegasus Cup, the Hercules Cup, the Hades Cup, the Gold Match, and the Platinum Match."

"Okay, we'll be back," I said as we waved them goodbye and walked out.

When we were outside, we saw that blonde man that we fought earlier sitting on the steps with his head down. We ran up to him. "We ever caught your name, what's your name?" I asked.

"Cloud," He said, lifting his head up.

"Hey, are you alright?' Sora asked.

Cloud looked up at us. "Yeah," He said.

"So, why did you go along with that mysterious man?" I asked.

He put his hands on his face and replied, "I was looking for someone. Hades promised to help. I tried to exploit the power of darkness, but it backfired. I fell into darkness, and I couldn't find the light."

"You'll find it," Sora comforted. He looked back at us, "I'm searching, too."

"For your light?" Cloud asked as he placed something in Sora's hand. "Don't lose sight of it." He walked away from us.

"How about a rematch sometime?" Sora yelled. "Fair and square, no dark powers involved."

He looked back at us. "I think I'll pass," He said. He took one step forward and paused. "Wait; you, the black-haired girl, your name is Sakura, right?"

"Yeah," I said. "What about it?"

"Watch out," He said. "Hades is after you for some reason. And he's isn't the only one. Don't trust every single person you meet out there."

"I will!" I called as he walked away.

"What was that about?" Sora asked.

"I'm not so sure, but I think we should take Cloud's warning," I said.

"Well, it looks like there's no one of those strange Keyholes to seal up, so let's get back to our Gummi Ship," Sora said as we turned and walked out of the Coliseum and to our Gummi Ship.

*~*~*~*~*~

Hades was holding up a little hologram of Hercules. "He's strong, he's kind. He's always there for you, and he's handsome to boot. He's perfect. Perfect. Perfectly infuriating! He makes me crazy!" He cried as he turned off the hologram. His skin turned red, his hair if fire turned the shade of yellow-orange and he set off a streak of fire to the sky.

That burst of rage calmed him down. "Wait a minute. What are you worried about? All the pieces are in place. Relax. Let Hercules train those two little kids. In the next games, I'll take care of those three." He planned as he clenched his fists together.

He sensed another presence here. "Who invited you to the party? Stay out of this. This is my show," He told the person at the gate to the Coliseum.

That person was Maleficent. "As you wish," She said. "Fight to your heart's content. But remember; I want the girl more than the boy. Have your fun with them, but make sure the girl comes to me. Alive." Hades nodded but then turned around to see that Maleficent was gone. He sighed. He was going to have some work to do.
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I have 90 reads! So close to 100!