The Spartan (Part 1)

Written by Hiker Angel 

I finished signing the waiver, then went to the small black tent to pick up my race packet. I looked around at the fit participants in their specialized footwear and my nerves fluttered. What the heck was I doing here? Did I really know what I was in for?

The man in line next to me turned my way, striking up a conversation.

"First one?" he said.

"Is it that obvious?" I said.

He smiled and shrugged.

"Kinda. You just look a little nervous is all."

"Well, great!" I said, letting out a nervous laugh.

"Don't worry about it. You'll be fine. It's all about having fun."

I smiled and nodded at the man, then tried to quell my obviously frayed nerves. Apparently, they were written all over my face so that even strangers could tell I was on the edge of my seat.

I picked up my packet and entered the village of tents that the race crew had erected for this weekend's events. It was pretty impressive. Music blared, and buff, bare-chested men jumped, squatted, and stretched. Women clad in only sports bras and shorts, sporting abs I could only dream of, stood staring into space with intimidating intensity.

I looked down at my polyester t-shirt and plain, black Wal-Mart leggings and sighed. Sexy amazon I was not. Intimidatingly intense? Yeah. Not so much.

I was reasonably fit but thoroughly average in every respect. I certainly couldn't show off ridged abs like these other ladies. I was such a fish out of water here that I almost turned around and walked out. I could text Rick and Aaron and tell them I was sick...

"Kate!" Rick's voice came from behind another gaggle of fitness freakazoids. Shit! Too late now...

I watched Rick emerge from behind a flock of pony-tailed fitness model types as they pranced along.

Rick fit right in with this crowd. His tight tech tee hugged his bulging pecs; his carved arms stretched the sleeves of his shirt. As he moved, I could see the cobbles of his tight abs through his thin shirt. He smiled as he saw me wave, approaching me at a jog.

I had been crushing on Rick for a while now, stealing glances as his gym-honed physique during our training sessions for this race. When he had first asked me to do it, I think I gave a schoolgirl titter as I said yes--so NOT in my normal nature.

As Rick approached, he slid a hand across his buzz cut, flipping off the accumulation of misty rain from the western Washington morning.

"Hi, Kate! Glad you made it!" Rick gave me a firm hug. I delighted in the pressure of his strong arms and hard body as the hug pulled me up to my tiptoes. My breasts ached a little smushed against his iron chest, but I ignored it. It was a small price to pay for the rest of the yumminess.

"Yeah, me too!" I said cheerfully, neglecting to mention the fact that, moments before, I had nearly decided to eat my $20 parking fee and get the heck out of here.

"Hi, guys!" came Aaron's voice from behind me. I turned and felt my smile widen.

As attracted as I was to Rick, Aaron was the one I was really comfortable around. He was a good-natured fortyish man and my Spartan-training bestie. Where Rick was so athletic and hardcore as to be intimidating, Aaron was jovial and self-deprecating. I had liked him from the moment I met him at the crags.

I hugged Aaron, his body softer than Rick's and his grip non-painful. I bounced back, more comfortable now by his mere presence.

"So are you guys ready to do this thing or what?" said Aaron, giving Rick a quick guy-clasp as well.

"Are we ever!" said Rick, a twinkle in his blue eye.

"No comment," I said, letting my nervousness show through.

"Uh oh! I'm sensing some butterflies in our little buttercup over here," said Aaron good-naturedly. "If anyone should be worried about this thing, it should be me! I can barely do a pull-up these days!"

Rick clapped him on the back.

"You'll do just fine, man. And so will you, Katie!" Rick said with an encouraging nod.

"I hope so," I said, unconvinced as I looked at the super-fit folks passing by.

I looked down at the packet. It had a sticker on it: "Competitive Wave: 8:00 AM."

"What the heck does Competitive Wave mean?" I asked the others.

"Oh, nothing. It just means they check your burpees and stuff. Don't worry about it," said Rick.

"Okaaaay..." I eyed him warily.

"Seriously," he said.

"Leave it to Rick to get us roped into the craziest of the crazies for this thing!" laughed Aaron.

Rick just gave a crooked grin as a response.

"Okay, so what do we do now?" I asked.

"Well, let's put on our wristbands and headbands and stuff," said Rick.

The three of us opened our packets and began to don the items in the packet. Timing chip wristband--check. Competitive 8:00 AM Wave wristband--check. Headband with the number on it--check. Beer wristband?

"Hey, I don't even like beer!" I said.

In the blink of an eye, Aaron snatched the wristband away from me.

"I'll take that. Beer is my best event in these sorts of races," he told me with a wink. Rick gave a belly laugh.

When we were done, we went over to the bag check.

"Another $5! Geez! These guys really bleed you dry!" I said, miffed at all of the incidental charges. "Why don't they just include this in the price of the race? I don't even think I have any more cash after the parking fee..."

"No problem, Katie... I got you covered," said Aaron, forking over the requisite cash for me.

"Thanks, Aaron," I said, sheepishly, embarrassed at not thinking ahead enough to bring more cash.

Aaron gave an exaggerated comedic bow, one foot in front of the other. I laughed and nudged him with my shoulder, nearly toppling him off balance. He joined my laughter as he recovered.

We checked our backpacks, used the port-a-potties, and climbed over the low wall into the starting area.

After a fun little pep talk by the race announcer, hollering "I am a Spartan!" and "Aroo!" a few times, we were off. As we passed through the starting gate, I thought I saw a weird blue glow around the underside of the sign and the poles to either side. As I ran, I looked back. No blue glow. That was strange, I thought. It must just be nerves making me see things. Ugh, my brain is just too overwrought for this!

I turned back ahead to watch Rick's rock hard butt bouncing in front of me and half-smiled in spite of myself. At least there would be some good scenery in this race, I thought, giving a little mental giggle.

Rick was running fast, and Aaron and I were struggling to keep up.

"Slow... down...!" I called ahead to him between gulps of precious oxygen.

Rick's head spun around, taking in our struggling forms. He immediately slowed.

"Sorry about that, guys! I must have gotten a little carried away with the adrenaline of the race and whatnot."

"Thank... you...!" I puffed.

I glanced over at Aaron, already as red-faced as I probably was. He said nothing, just panting like a dog as we slowed to a jog, some of the hard-core racers passing around either side of us.

As I looked at Aaron, I noticed a faint blue glow around him, as if a dim light were shining behind him, and I was just seeing its silhouette.

Aaron gave me a puzzled look, and I stretched my arm out in front of me. It looked just like Aaron, glowing faintly blue around the edges.

That was really weird. They must have some sort of black light on the course, I surmised. I looked around and didn't see anything. They must have them well hidden. They really spared no expense in these races! Too bad they hadn't spent that money on a free bag check instead!

We continued to run to the first obstacle, these chest high hurdle-things. Rick popped over them with ease. I jumped up and mantled, then flung a leg over it, pushing off with my foot and landing on soft knees.

The three of us managed to get over them all to the next obstacle, a really, really tall wall. The wall had to be around eight feet of height. I came to a stop as I considered how to tackle this one.

As I did, Rick ran up to it, jumped into a pull-up, and hauled himself over with ease. Damn that guy! He made everything look so easy!

I saw a little red piece of wood about two feet up from the ground and decided that was my ticket to the top. I ran up, hit the little wood step with my right toe and sprang up to reach the top, I managed the pull-up, my arms shaking like guitar strings with the effort but determination powered me through.

Once I flung a leg to the top, I knew I had it. I maneuvered my other leg over and dangled for a moment on the other side before dropping down. On the landing, I accidentally fell backwards, smearing mud all over my back. I grimaced as I felt the cold, damp earth stick to my shirt. Oh well. That's what these races were all about right? Mud!

I was pleased, though, that I had made it over the thing. I yelled encouragement to Aaron, who I knew was just behind me, then I saw his face appear over the edge of the wall. I cheered.

Aaron smiled as he saw me, and powered himself over. We high-fived, and I noticed the slightest blue glow around his hand again.

Rick ran back to us, clapping us both forcefully on the back with a grin.

"Nice work, guys! See? Piece of cake!" he said. “That’s worth at least 15 red density points in my book!”

I didn’t even want to know what that meant.

Aaron and I gave each other a look, each rolling our eyes as we thought of our struggle over that last wall, only our second obstacle. I could sense that he was as game to keep going as I was, though, and we joined Rick in a brisk jog, ready to see what else the race would bring.

We neared something in the distance. Bails of hay tied up to wooden posts with a row of gates maybe twenty feet in front of them. I watched a racer fling a wooden pole into the hay and realized that this must be the spear throw I had heard about... something I had never done in my life.

This would be interesting…

I walked up to the metal gates and grabbed one of the spears. It was basically a broom handle with a nail in the end. I threw it harder than I was expecting. Which probably would have been great, except for the fact that I was standing on top of the thin rope they had attached to the end of it--something I had neglected to notice before I threw.

As the spear sailed toward the target with surprising force, the rope coiled around my ankles and pulled my feet out from under me. I went down hard on my back.

The rope stopped the flight of the spear halfway to the target when it ran out of slack, and the spear crashed straight down to the ground.

Rick and Aaron on either side of me had just released their spears. Rick's struck the target perfectly (of course). Aaron's went sailing over it, as if his throw had more power than he was expecting.

When they heard the suctiony thump of my back landing in mud and the subsequent whoosh of breath leaving my lungs, the two looked toward me simultaneously. Gasping for breath, I watched Rick's eyes widen before he broke into a rollicking round of raucous guffaws. I turned to Aaron, who was doubled over in laughter as well.

I rolled my eyes, then went to work extricating myself from the tightly coiled rope.

"Thanks so much for helping, jerks," I muttered as I untangled myself with no help from the guys.

As I rose, I saw the others, still hopelessly lost in laughter, and I began to laugh at myself along with them.

When our laughter subsided, Aaron and I did our thirty burpees while Rick kept count. As I finished my burpees, I turned to Aaron.

"Those burpees were actually easier than I was expecting," I said to Aaron before jogging out of the penalty area.

"Yeah, I thought so too," he said, his breath returning to him faster. "Good thing too, 'cause I have a feeling we'll be doing a lot of those today."

I smiled at Aaron, and the three of us ran toward the next obstacle, which looked to be three little hills of mud with water underneath and a wooden wall at the far side in a pool of water.

As I ran, I noticed the soft blue glow outlining my arms again. I ran faster. Whatever the weird blue outline was doing, it seemed to be giving me an energy boost. I looked at Aaron, and he seemed to be gaining speed inside his blue outline as well. None of the other racers appeared to possess a similar sheen. Looking ahead to Rick, he didn't have such an outline either--but he probably didn’t need it!

Rick leapt over the first hill and splashed into the water, eliciting shrieks from some of the nearby racers doused in the spray. Rick turned back to us, dripping with muddy water. He shrugged, looking sheepish. Aaron and I looked at each other then sprinted ahead and did the same thing.

Omigod, the water was cold! So freaking cold! I shivered as I struggled out of the freezing muddy pit then slid into the next one. The final mud pool was divided in half by a wooden wall. They were going to make us go underwater in this filthy, frigid puddle?! I braced myself and dunked under water, eyes shut until I popped up on the other side of the wall. I wiped the muddy muck from my eyes and dragged a hand along the top of my head to wipe away some of the water. My ponytail dripped dank water onto my back, making me shiver with every drop.

"Yuck!" I cried out. Rick stuck out his tongue at me; I did it right back. We both laughed and continued on.

Next was the Z-Wall, an aptly named zig-zagging wall with small one-inch wooden holds for hands and feet. Having rock climbed before, we had little trouble with this one, making it to the end and smacking the little cow bell to prove that we had completed the stretch without touching the ground.

We ran for another half mile or so before the next challenge. Not only was I not tiring, I actually felt great! I was feeling stronger and more energized than when I had started the race! Which was good. Because next up was an obstacle I thought I might struggle with--the 16' rope climb.

We ran up to the obstacle. Rick leapt onto the rope and hauled himself up hand-over-hand until he rang the bell at the top. As he lowered himself, Aaron and I did the same. Incredibly, I didn't even need to use my feet. My arms were strong enough to haul myself up and ring the bell. I was completely amazed! I had practiced twisting my feet in the rope to allow my legs to help. Today, though, I was feeling so strong I didn't need it.

I looked at my arms and saw small bulges of muscle, significantly more toned than they normally looked popping out of them. Maybe doing these crazy races really was great exercise!

As we continued on, I noticed more striations in my leg muscles than I usually did as well. Sweet!

There was a barbed wire crawl setup at the edge of a river. I dropped down to my hands and knees and began to slide myself under, when all the sudden a blue glow came from the water below me. The ground seemed to disappear from under the water, and I fell into the blue void before I could do so much as cry out…

I regained consciousness with my eyes still closed. I felt water on my foot and the heat of the sun on my skin. A light frizz of hair was tickling my forehead from some sort of breeze.

What had happened? Had I passed out during the barbed wire crawl?

I popped one eye open, then the other. I immediately squinted in the bright sunlight. Bright sunlight? What happened to the chilly, misty rain from the morning? How long had I been out? Why was it so warm?

I pulled my head up, the rest of my body still resting on the… sand? I looked ahead to see white sand beaches, brilliant blue water and rising hills of green. I was warm, sweating in the baking heat of the sun. This didn’t look like the grey, chilly Puget Sound bordered by cedar and fir forests that I was so accustomed to this time of year! It looked and felt more like Hawaii than the Pacific northwest…

What the hell was going on?

I sat upright, and watched a gentle wave roll in, the water lapping at my foot again. I swiveled my head to take in the rest of my surroundings, and saw Aaron splayed out on the sand by the water as I was.

That roused me to action—I needed to see whether he was okay!

I stumbled to my feet and ran over to where Aaron lay. I put my ear to his mouth and felt a warm, steady breath against it. He was still alive. Thank goodness!

I put my hand on his shoulder and shook. He moaned, then cracked open his eyes, squinting against the bright light of the sun, as I had. I let out a bated sigh in relief.

“Aaron? You okay?”

“Yeah, I guess so. What happened? I was right behind you in the barbed wire crawl, when I suddenly felt like I was falling… Wait! Why is it so warm out? And the sun?” Aaron shot upright, and his jaw dropped. “Where are we?”

“Good question. I’m thinking we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto!” I replied, looking around again, now that I knew Aaron was fine.

I heard a cry in the distance.

“Over there!”

I looked in the direction of the sound, and my eyes widened in surprise. There was a group of about a dozen men with spears running toward us. Their bronze helmets and breastplates glimmered in the sun, crimson cloaks flowing behind them as they ran.

“Who the hell are those guys?” Aaron asked, voicing the question that was at the forefront of mind as well.

“I have a feeling we’re about to find out…” I replied.

As they approached, I saw sweat glimmering on their huge, muscled arms and legs. They were very tan with dark hair. They wore open-armed linen shirts under their breastplates that ran to the lower thigh, almost like a dress, with a leather skirt, apparently to protect their upper legs. They wore open-toed leather boots and bronze armor over their shins. They looked like they belonged to some sort of classical era army. Was this some sort of anachronistic battle reenactment?

They surrounded us, spears pointed toward us and ready. If they were reenacting some sort of battle, they were taking their acting pretty seriously!

“Who are you?” said one of them in some other language that I somehow understood.

“I’m Kate, and this is Aaron,” I replied in the same language that I could somehow speak now. “N-nice to meet you!”

“Come with us,” the leader of the soldier said, cryptically.

What the hell was going on here? How was I understanding and speaking some other language? Who were these guys? Where was I?

I wanted to ask all of these questions, but the expression on their leader’s face had me thinking twice. I decided to wait until we arrived at… wherever he was taking us.

As we ran along with the dress-up sword and sandal army guys, I glanced over to Aaron. His blue glow was back—and he seemed even more buff than before. He wasn’t a match for these rippling-muscle play actors, but he was definitely on his way. He looked much more muscular than he had this morning at the start of the race.

Noticing my eyes on him, Aaron glanced back at me as well. I watched his eyes go wide as he saw me.

“What is it?” I whispered for no good reason. The soldier-types were close enough that they could hear me whether I was whispering or not.

“It’s you! You’re looking super fit!”

“I am?” I looked down. The previously small bulges of muscle in my arms were becoming more significant. They looked incredibly defined, as if they were carved from marble like a Greek statue. With arms like these, I could get a role in the next Wonder Woman movie as one of those amazon fighters. The thought made me smile… which caused Aaron to give me a questioning look.

I wanted to stop and see what my abs and legs looked like, but I wasn’t sure how these guys would react to me suddenly stopping. I didn’t want to be speared from behind by accident by a soldier that was slow to react, that was certain! So I kept running, albeit itching with eagerness to check my new crossfit-esque self out.

Wait! Greek statue… GREEK! You know, that’s what these guys’ outfits were reminding me of, now that I thought about it. It was like we were on some sort of movie set that was being filmed in Hawaii. How had we ended up in Hawaii, though?

I looked at the plants along the beach where we were running. While I had never been to Hawaii, the flora didn’t really look like what I would expect to see in the tropics. Things looked a bit drier and less dense, given the pictures I had seen. I also wasn’t noticing any coconut trees or palm trees. Maybe, just maybe, we weren’t in Hawaii.

The obvious suddenly struck me.

“Are we in Greece?” I said out loud.

One of the soldiers turned to me and gave me an incredulous look. I looked back at him and shrugged sheepishly. I took that as a yes.

I mean, if we were going to be suddenly transported from our Spartan race in Washington, why was Greece any less likely than Hawaii? Actually, given the name of the race, Greece was very appropriate.

“Hey! Are we in Sparta?” I asked loudly.

“Of course,” answered the man who had initially spoken to us. “Where else would we be?”

Holy shit! Aaron and I really were in Greece. Unable to help myself, I asked another question.

“Hey, what year is it?” I asked.

“What? What kind of question is that! Are you one of those stupid Athenians with your sometimes 12-, sometimes 13-month calendars? It’s no wonder you’re confused about the year. I would be too if I lived in the Gods-forsaken land…” He began to grumble, punctuating his under-the-breath comments with the occasional epithet about Athenians.

Athenian calendar? Of course, he wouldn’t just give me the year in BCE or whatever. The modern calendar probably hadn’t even been invented yet! Even if he had given me a straight answer, I probably wouldn’t understand it…

…which meant I had traveled ThrOUGH TIME AND SPACE BACK TO…

Fucking Sparta!!!

Omigod, omigod. OH MY GOD!!!

What had I gotten myself into here? Damn Rick and his fucking Spartan race! I had thought I was in over my head before… Now, I would give anything to be back to that level of over-my-headedness.

Holy shit!

What was I going to do?

I looked back over to Aaron, who looked as stunned as I probably did. Apparently, he had come to a similar conclusion after hearing their answers to my questions.

We looked at each other, the color draining from our cheeks. Our mutual looks both said one thing.

We were in deep shit!

A cry came from the lead soldier of the group.

"Immortals!"

I looked around to see what was happening, catching sight of several men in felt caps and glittering mail armor. More appeared from over the rise until there were about two dozen of them, double the count of Spartans I was with.

The Spartans formed up and charged ahead in unison, while two of these Immortals, whoever the hell they were, drew bows that were shaped a bit like Poirot's mustache in Murder on the Orient Express. I was fairly certain there was a name for those things, but I couldn't think of it just then. I was more than passingly worried about being skewered at that moment!

One of the Immortal guys loosed his arrow, and it sailed between Aaron and me.

"Shit!" said Aaron.

"My sentiments exactly," I replied. "These Immortal guys are apparently thinking that we're with these Spartans!"

I ducked down in the sand, trying to present a smaller target to the enemy's two bowmen.

"I'm not exactly liking that name of theirs. Immortal? Do you know who these guys are?" I asked Aaron.

"I think they're Persians, if my 300 movie knowledge serves me..."

"300? Is that the one with Gerard Butler and the six pack squad?"

"Yep."

"Well, shit! I get to go to the real life version of that deal, get shot at and am probably about to die, and all I get is a bunch of dudes in armor? Hello? What's with the shirts and stuff? Where's my male eye candy?"

Another arrow landed in the sand an inch in front of me.

"Kate, I think we've got bigger fish to fry right now..."

"Okay, okay..." I said, still annoyed that I was being cheated out of my muscle show. I guess their arms were pretty nice...

"Kate! We should help the Spartans. The Persians think we're with them, and they're outnumbered. Helping them might be our only chance! This is life and death here! Quit thinking about Gerard fucking Butler!"

Aaron charged ahead, running in a crouch as another arrow soared over his head.

"I only wish I could fuck Gerard Butler. Instead, I'm just fucked!" I muttered under my breath, then I followed behind Aaron, not sure what I was supposed to do bare-handed against a bunch of armed and armored soldiers…

As I ran, I saw another burst of blue light around Aaron. I looked down. I was glowing a brilliant shade of blue as well. My quads were growing, as were my arms. They were becoming both leaner and more muscular. I could actually see the striations of my leg muscles popping into sharp relief as I ran--through my yoga pants even!

I felt good too... No, not just good. Make that great! I felt as if I had just guzzled ten red energy drinks and did a line of cocaine afterwards for good measure, strength pumping through me by the second.

Returning my eyes forward, I could see Aaron bulking up by the second as well. Gone was the last of his pudginess. His bulging arms pumped, more defined with every swing forward as he sprinted, his back becoming carved in hard, delicious sinew. I couldn't wait to see him from the front!

We were almost to the Immortals now. One of them drew his bow and loosed an arrow at my head. Despite the fact that I was within ten meters, I was somehow fast enough to grab the arrow out of mid-air a millimeter before it pierced my eye. Normally, I probably would have stopped to consider how amazing that was, but I was in the middle of a freaking battle here, so... I didn't.

I ran up to the Immortal arrow-firing bastard that had just tried to kill me as he dropped his bow and began to draw his sword. Before he could finish pulling it free of the scabbard, I slammed my hand down on the edge of his palm with so much force that it shot the hilt of the sword--and his hand along with it--right back into its sheath. His other hand made a move, but I was quick to counter. Using his own arrow which I had caught earlier, I stabbed his arm right at the elbow. He grunted in pain.

Retaining the momentum from my sprint toward him, I then placed my other hand right in his face and shoved with all my might.

Apparently, all my might was considerably more than it used to be because the man flew both backward and downward as if shot from a cannon as my inertia carried past him. I slowed to a stop in a couple of steps, then whirled to face him. He was on the ground writhing weakly, the back of his head bleeding a crimson pool onto the ground.

Seriously? What a wuss! Some "Immortal" he was--taken out by a single shove from a girl who had no idea what she was doing! Despite the fact that I should probably be moving on to either attack or defend against the next guy, I took a second to smile at my unexpected victory. My objective for this little battle rose from "don't die" to "don't die and take out an Immortal or two to help out my Spartan frenemies."

I reached down and grabbed the hilt of the downed man's sword, giving it a tug. The wounded man tried to stop me, but his struggles were weak and pathetic, and I broke his grip with ease.

Now armed, I surveyed my surroundings in an effort to decide what to do next. I saw two men attacking Aaron, who was backing away from them. They took turns swinging their swords at my unarmed friend. He leapt backward to avoid each stroke.

My eyes narrowed, and I sprinted toward the men from behind. Aaron's eyes went wide as I came up on their flank. Both men saw Aaron's startled expression and apparently determined that it meant something because they both turned to see what had caused his reaction.

I let out a cry of desperation and determination, my voice really belting it out with feeling! My choir teacher from high school would have been proud. Or, actually, now that I reconsidered my screech... maybe not.

Luckily, the warning Aaron had inadvertently given them was too late to matter, at least for the first guy. I swung my sword and sliced a deep gash across his neck, dropping him like a sandbag on the sandbag carry in the Spartan race that I was supposed to be doing right about now.

The other man squared his shoulders to me, preparing to engage me with his sword. I gulped. I was having some success with surprise attacks on these guys, but I had no idea how to really use a sword to fight another armed swordsman. This probably wasn't going to go well for me.

Fortunately, Aaron saw my frightened look and used my distraction to advance on the Immortal guy from behind. He grabbed the man's sword arm and yelled at me.

"Now!"

I didn't hesitate. I stabbed my blade forward. It glanced off his chainmail. Shit! I forgot about the whole fucking armor thing! Stupid!

As the man struggled with Aaron for control over the sword, I regained my faltering balance and tried again. This time, I raised the sword above my head and swung downward with everything I had. The blade cleaved right through his felt hat and into the top of his skull. It came to a halt about halfway down his face. He dropped to his knees then flopped over, my sword still buried in his head.

My eyes wide, watching the second man I'd killed fall. I felt dizzy. I smelled the metallic scent of blood swirling into the pungent aroma of body odor from sweaty, unbathed men. I looked at Aaron blankly, then my head bobbed forward, and I retched. The sight of my sword in his head, the smells of the battle, and the screaming knowledge that I had just ended a man's life proved too much for my stomach to bear.

Aaron rubbed my back as I hunched over, heaving. He looked around tensely, as I stared at the ground. I felt his large muscles relax. He spoke in a calming voice.

"There are only four of them left, Kate, and they're running away. Looks like the Spartan guys took care of the rest of them."

Eventually, my dry heaves ceased, and I came back up, breathing heavily. I shook with the strange, juxtaposed sensations of excess nerve-tingling adrenaline and absolute relief. I couldn't believe I had killed someone. Two someones. Maybe three! My mind was telling me that after very nearly killing me with an arrow through the eye socket, I hadn't had much choice. My heart, however, was in shattered pieces, and tears welled in my eyes.

As my tears began to fall, my knees began to wobble. I plopped down to the ground on my heavily-muscled gluts. Aaron crouched in front of me.

"Damn, Kate. Remind me not to get on your bad side!"

I smiled in spite of my tears, which continued to flow.

Aaron doubled down on levity. Knowing him, it was the only way he could imagine to get me to stop crying. It worked.

"These immortal guys didn't really live up to the hype of their name, eh?"

I choked out a laugh, then another... then, I couldn't stop. Tears of laughter replaced tears of horror, and I laughed hysterically. He began to laugh as well, putting his huge arm around me.

The seven remaining Spartans, in the middle of piling up their dead, paused. They looked at us, their grim expressions turning to baffled amusement as they observed their odd, guffawing prisoners.

I ignored their bemused looks and roamed my eyes down Aaron's newly chiseled body before snapping them back up to meet his.

"So what's with the new Conan look, Aar?" I asked. "You look like you could take on the whole lot of poorly-named Immortals right now."

"Look who's talking," he said. I looked down at my lean, muscular arms. I really needed to get a mirror and some privacy to see the full extent of my own transformation.

As I opened my mouth to respond, two figures shimmered into existence behind Aaron. The Spartans' eyes grew wide and they dropped to their knees, heads bowed. It was an incredibly gorgeous woman and a man whose muscled perfection and strong jaw made him look like some kind of Greek god. Both were clad in white robes.

"I am Ares," he said, as Aaron's head swiveled to see what I was staring at.

"And I am Aphrodite," she said. "And we are here to meet our newest champions..."

I should have been stunned, shocked, amazed. In a way, I was. But so much had already happened to me today, I wasn't quite reacting exactly as I should. All I could think was how I had nailed it with the Greek god description.

Touché, I thought to myself. Tou-fucking-ché.

Much to the gods' surprise, I began to laugh.

Ares and Aphrodite shared a surprised look, then turned their gazes back to us. Aaron looked at me like I was completely insane. Let’s see. In ancient Greece? Seeing gods and goddesses? Body adding lean muscle mass by the minute? Maybe I was insane.

But assuming I wasn’t, I needed to get my shit together and deal with this latest turn of events, like, now.

I looked first at Aphrodite, then at Ares. I gulped. I was about to talk to two heavyweight members of the Greek pantheon. I really hoped I hadn’t gone insane.

“Does that mean we’re your champions? Or are you talking about these Spartan dudes here?”

I was speaking in Greek as I had been since we arrived. I idly wondered what “dudes” came out to in Greek-speak before turning my attention back to what they were saying.

“You and Aaron are our champions. The Spartans are about to face an overwhelming force of Persians, and they have been making supplications for our aid. Since the Spartans focus on the body more than the mind or the spirit, as the Athenians do, we felt that gifts of beauty and strength would be appropriate. Ares provides the strength, and I, of course, provide the beauty,” said Aphrodite passionately. “Have you not noticed the sapphirine glow about you as you have received our gifts?”

“We have noticed the blue glow… but why did you bring us back in time and give us these gifts? Why not choose a Spartan from this time?” I said. I noticed Aaron’s curious glance at me.

“You are Spartans, are you not?” Ares said, tensing, as if afraid he and Aphrodite had made a mistake.

“Hell, n--” I began to say, when Aaron interrupted.

“We are! We are Spartans!” he said, giving me a dirty look. He lowered his voice and told me in a vehement whisper, “We said so at the start of the race, remember? I’m thinking it wouldn’t be a good idea to tell Ares we’re not!”

Aaron was right. We had said that. But we weren’t really Spartans, were we? I wasn’t about to impersonate someone from a culture I knew nothing about…

I looked over to Ares and saw him looking tense and ready for action, his hand on the hilt of his sword. Um, yeah. I was suddenly thinking Aaron was right--not a good idea to piss this god off. Okay, then. Spartans, we were!

“Hell, yes, we’re Spartans! The Spartiest Spartans of all, in fact! It’s no wonder you picked us to beef up and stuff...” I said, trying desperately to sound convincing.

Ares’ hand relaxed on his hilt. Whew! He was buying it--at least a little.

“So, um, what are we supposed to do about this little Persian problem of yours?” I asked, trying to smile. I wasn’t sure, but I was thinking my expression probably looked more like I had just swallowed a half dozen lemon wedges.

“Why, you will aid the Spartan army in defeating them, of course,” said Aphrodite.

I began to feel a sinking feeling in my stomach, the queasiness from the deaths of those Immortal soldiers again flooding into me.

“Okay. So how many Persians are we talking about here? Are we talking, like, a hundred, or a thousand?”

“Two hundred thousand, give or take,” said Ares.

“Excuse me,” I said, turning green.

I turned around and walked behind Aaron.

I puked.

When I rose again and turned to face the gods, they were gone. My gaze landed only on the seven remaining Spartans, who were looking at Aaron and me in complete shock. Rattled to the core by the notion that Aaron and I were supposed to help some army take on two hundred thousand freaking Persians, I was more than a little off balance mentally, my emotions penduluming between terror and hysterical humor. After vomiting out my latest round of terror, I was beginning to feel bemused disbelief instead.

Yeah, that’s right, Spartans. Your misinformed little gods picked my sorry little pseudo-Greek ass to be extra-Spartified, I thought with manic smugness.

My eyes met Aarons after surveying the Greeks. His face was white, and he was trembling. Uh oh. That was moving my emotional pendulum back toward the terror end of the spectrum. Damn it, Aaron!

As my emotional roller coaster began to flatten into something resembling… maybe not calm but perhaps less completely freaked, the Greeks piled up the bodies of their fallen comrades and enemies. They motioned for Aaron and I to follow as they once again set a swift pace to their camp.

Several hours later we arrived. Aaron and I stood at the edge of an army of seven thousand. I was sincerely hoping that they had another hundred thousand or two somewhere around here, or we were about to be in a serious world of hurt when the Persians showed up.

Why did I have to be on the Spartan side of this mess? Would it be really shitty of me to flip sides? I mean, my only real allegiance to these Spartan guys was a stupid little entry form I’d filled out in a race near Seattle a couple of thousand years in the future. Was I seriously supposed to die with these people just for that?

“Aaron, do you think we should get the hell out of here? I mean, we’re not really with these Spartan guys, right?”

“You mean abandon them? After their gods just told us we’re receiving their blessings?”

“Exactly. I don’t really feel like dying for some people I don’t even know. Hell, how do we even know these are the good guys?”

“Kate, I think this is the Battle of Thermopylae!”

“Yeah, yeah. The Gerard Butler movie, I know! Only with a bunch of stupid armor to take away my eye candy! So you in? I mean… out?”

“Kate, we can’t leave three hundred Spartans to take on a huge army by themselves! Maybe this is how they really succeeded in delaying the Persians--they have our help!”

“Well, look who’s got a high as hell opinion of himself! First, there are a lot more than 300 guys in this army. Second, I seriously doubt our help is going to really make a difference here. I mean, you’re looking buff enough to fit in with the six pack movie troupe from that movie, but that doesn’t mean you can take on 200,000 freaking army guys!”

“Kat, we can’t abandon them right now. We just can’t!” Aaron’s voice was growing agitated.

“Do you seriously want to sign up to die for a bunch of strangers?”

A voice came from a tent nearby.

“King Leonidas would like to see you now!”

“Damn it!” I hissed to Aaron in a loud whisper. “We missed our chance to get out of here!”

We made our way to the tent, then paused as two spear-toting guards blocked our passage. I noticed a barrel of water a few feet away and walked over to it to get a sip of water. As I stood over it, about to dip my hands in to draw some water to my mouth, I noticed my reflection.

My jaw dropped.

I looked amazing.

Completely. Fucking. Amazing.

My face was stunning. Forget looking for a chiseled hunk, I could pass as that chiseled hunk! Well, maybe not completely. My breasts appeared to be far larger and more firm and my thighs accentuated quite the hourglass figure, likely blessings from Aphrodite herself!

The unique combo of being both the pinnacle of physical condition as well as pure feminine beauty created a body that I would have described as fictitious yesterday. Admittedly, after literally traveling back in time, I wasn’t as surprised about the fantasy aspect as I would’ve assumed.

I returned to the path designated to me by the Spartans. Thankfully, they didn’t seem to mind letting me soak in the scenario at my own pace. Perhaps out of respect, or perhaps out of fear.

I regrouped with Aaron as we peeked into the largest tent in the settlement. In the middle stood the King himself, Leonidas.

(To be continued...)