Superstars, the cult of came to play (Loki)

[Apollo]

Apollo had been neglecting his duties these past few months and it was about time that he did something about it. The pursuit of his love was of course, incredibly important but he could not allow it to make him forget his true purpose in this world. He had pretty much trained the Sun to move across the sky, ‘Science’ had that covered, although he did keep an eye on it, just in case. There was that brief time he had spent in the drama and music department, organising (throwing out) the theory books and replacing them shelves with books of his own instruction. He had of course spent some time dishing out muses to those that deserved it, although very few people did. The healers, doctors and hospitals were exceptionally clean anyway and he had turned up a couple of times only to have the situation resolved before he could do anything.
 
With most of his other duties either covered or done for the moment he turned his attention to his last major task and found that it was a bigger job than he had initially thought. Whilst the recreation centre and sports facilities were numerous and of an excellent standard the teams…were atrocious. He had immediately set to work whipping them all in to shape, the running club had now upped there speed, the gymnastics club were using the beam for more than just hanging their coats over. The football, the rugby, basketball and hockey teams had been shed of all it’s useless idiots and acquired some dedicated members. Now he was focusing his attention of the most disastrous of the sports; the wrestling.
 
He stood in the ring corner watching the two boys grapple with each other and rolled his eyes, “Come ON!” he shouted storming towards them, “stop trying to tickle each other and tear someone’s head off!”
 
One of the boys looked up at him and said, “aren’t- aren’t we supposed to, to just be pretending-“
 
“IF YOU CAN’T EVEN DO IT PROPERLY, WHAT CHANCE DO YOU HAVE OF PRETENDING!!” he shouted in the boys face, who quickly recoiled and turned back to the wrestling.
 
Apollo took a couple of steps back, his hands on his hips, “Besides it looks better, now, put your backs in to it! I want to see some blood shed!”
 
He was technically, only a member of the club, but since the coaches had been so lax in their training that he had taken it upon himself to question their authority, get them fired and thus be instated as coach of the entire coach department. So long as he had a teacher supervising. He had ‘accidentally’ failed to mention to his assigned teacher when training would be and so thus far had gone unhindered.

[Deleted]

Unfortunately for Apollo, despite not having told his assigned teacher anything about the arrangement, some over-zealous administrator had been sure to do so. They'd also gone so far as to looking up when he'd booked the gym to train, and forwarding that schedule to the assigned teacher in question.

That teacher was Loki, and right now he had nothing better to do so he figured he'd go and see what they were up to, and maybe get a little entertainment. As long as some of the team were hot, anyway. Just because it was against the school rules for him to actually attempt to sleep with any of the students (not that this bothered him that much) didn't mean he couldn't enjoy looking.
The only downside, of course, was the type of people who did wrestling. Idiots like his brother, the kind with more muscle than brain and even less personality. They were easy enough, and mildly entertaining, to toy with, so it wouldn't be a complete waste.

Aware that he was late and sure that he didn't care, and nor would anybody else, Loki sauntered into the gym and immediately took a seat on the bleachers, lounging there disreputably and watching proceedings with a faintly mocking smirk.

[Apollo]

The boys in the ring continued to grapple with each other as Apollo looked on, completely disgusted with the whole thing. Deciding that taking on a more active role would be better he stormed forward and pulled one of the boys of the other with one hand, throwing him in to the corner and lifting up the other one over his shoulder. The rest of the wrestling club jumped up off the bleachers and moved behind them, some of them crouching down as Apollo turned to face them with a smile.

“Do not think, that because I have a somewhat sunny disposition that I will not, at any time, rip your fudging head off if you don’t do what I say,” he said, still smiling and in as cheery a tone as he could manage, “My awesome, and terrifying power is well documented boys and you would do well to look it up before I do something you’ll regret. Now.”

He threw the boy over his shoulder and slammed his back into the middle of the ring, the boy twisted round on to his side holding his back as Apollo grinned a little more. The boy that had been thrown into the ring corner had taken the initiative and crawled out as quickly as he could, abandoning his friend to the mercy of their coach. “Let’s try this again Alex,” he said to the boy still writhing in pain before turning around to look at the other assembled members of the club.

It was then he spotted the older man lounging on the bleachers, watching them with a smirk. Often, it was very easy to distinguish when there was another god in the room, however it became a little more difficult when the god in question was from an entirely different world…but the feeling was still there. So he had divine company, well that would be interesting. He grinned and said, “you boy, why don‘t you come up and give it a go,”

The team members looked confused as Apollo called the clearly older man ‘boy’ but Apollo just continued to grin and made no correction to his statement. He might not know much about this other man but there was no way in uncle Hades home that this god was older than him.

[Deleted]

"Boy?" Loki raised an eyebrow, looking Apollo up and down. He sniffed the air delicately and nodded slightly to himself - this must be one of the greeks that Beowulf had mentioned, he stank of divinity from here. Probably something to do with sports or homoeroticism, hence being so interested in the wrestling.
Arguably, his ilk had been around longer than the Norse gods, if you took a purely academic standpoint, but belief and gods were tricky things to tie down, so the best you could hope for was 'really, really f***ing old'

"I realise your brains might have been pushed out of your head from all that muscle, but I don't think 'boy' is really the term you're looking for. Have you tried 'sir'?" he smirked. He could tell full well that Apollo wasn't going to be very happy with that, but since when did that ever stop him from doing anything?

[Apollo]

He didn’t know whether to be pleased that the other god had noticed how well muscled he was or offended that he should think it would impact his clearly awesome brain. Surely because he was so muscled, his brain would be as equally as developed. Being a God he, of course, could chose whatever appearance he wanted, but he certainly favoured the glistening muscular kind with more often than not blonde or dirty blonde hair. However, his mind never changed, he was still the most awesomely intelligent God he’d always been, and no way was he going to be outsmarted by some bearded demi-god.

Apollo pretended to think about it and then shook his head, “mmmmmmm no. You see in my opinion the title of ‘sir’ is something a man earns, something that isn’t bestowed upon him simple because he demands it.”

Laughing he crossed over to the ring side and leaned on the ropes, “I mean…Really? Really? Well if you’re so confident get in this ring and show these rookies how it’s done.”

Apollo turned his back on the other god and with one hand reached down and picked up the boy that had been writing on the floor in pain and got him onto his feet. Slinging an arm around the boys shoulder, he turned back to Loki and asked, “Have you got a name son.”

[Deleted]

Loki wasn't going to let himself get riled up by this idiot, so any irritation he felt at Apollo's words, he just let it float away. His smirk barely even twitched.

"It might be something a man earns, but it's certainly something that I deserve."
If he wasn't already reclined against the benches behind him, he would have leant back even further, perhaps tucked his arms behind his head to show just how much he wasn't bothered by Apollo's attempt at taunting. Of course, one mustn't assume, just because most of his moves were carefully calculated, that he wasn't actually completely laid back about the whole situation. He didn't feel threatened - yet.

"Me? In there?" He raised an eyebrow "I don't think so. Not my style, I've actually got brains." and there was that smirk again.

"My name, kid," two could play at that game, and he wasn't the one masquerading as a teenager. Besides, if he joined in it was a lot sooner that Apollo would run out of diminuitive nicknames. "Is Loki."

[Apollo]

Apollo manoeuvred the younger man in front of him, placing his hands on Alex’s shoulders as he looked at Loki, grinning. Now he had a human shield if the God decided to pull anything on him and after learning the other God’s name he was glad that he did. Loki was it, the trickster if he remembered correctly. There were hundreds of immortals all over the worlds, most of them with similar goals in their immortal lives, however more often than not at cross purposes with each other. However Loki was a name he remembered, what he had heard about the God he didn’t like, he sounded too much like another trickster in his family.

Laughing cheerily he said to Alex, “Do you hear that? Now any ham-fisted idiot would have jumped over there and knocked him out cold for a comment like that, but you’re smart aren’t you Alex? You know what he’s really saying when he goads you like that, don’t you Alex?”

Alex looked round at his new mentor completely confused, but before he could shake his head, Apollo cut in with, “That he is too scared to face you, you a mortal man, to great an opponent for a God…no, wait sorry, a half-God Half-big icky giant, right? Clearly, my boy you received genes from neither side of that sickly union.”

[Deleted]

"You really need to quit all that 'my boy' sh*t," Loki commented conversationally "It just makes you sound like an ass."
Sure, Loki didn't care what the mortals thought, but Apollo seemed a little more like the arrogant sort, and occasionally they could be wounded if you suggested they might be making a fool of themselves. Worked better on mortals than it did on gods, of course, since the latter tended to think themselves above pretty much any criticism, but it was always worth a try.

"And you've heard of me, how nice, always good to have a fan." He smirked. "Not entirely accurate however, I'm all god... or jotunn... or both, really, it's all a bit fuzzy when they try and define it. I'm something special." He winked at Apollo's young protegé.

[Apollo]

When Loki winked at his little human shield Apollo immediately grew defensive and pushed Alex out of the way, causing the young man to stumble and crash to the ground. “Oh you’re something special all right, kid, so special I don’t think you really realise what you’re messing with here,” said Apollo angrily, a mood he wasn’t in that often.

Oh he was angry often enough, fake dramatic over the top angry, but it wasn’t too often he got properly wound up, when it stopped being dramatic anger and turned to actual ‘god wrath‘. He tended to save that for very special occasions. And this, he believed was a very special occasion. This little upstart of a god thought he could come in here and just…well…interrupt and insult…no, no, no. Definitely not.

“I’ve been around a lot longer than you, and done a lot more, so don’t come in here with your ‘special’ shit. Cause you’re not. You’re just one in a long line of immortals with a little bit of power who think they can be gods,” said Apollo and smirked, “where’s your temples? Where’s your priests and priestesses? I bet there isn’t a soul in here that would bow down to you before me.”

[Deleted]

Loki, on the other hand, was not angry at all. In fact he was delighted. It wasn't often he managed to get somebody so riled up so quickly, and those angry words and boasting were like music to his ears.

The problem with arguing with Loki was that it was very difficult to get him to act like he was bothered about, well, anything - even if you did hit the nail on the head and strike a nerve, he was well practiced hiding it, and that usually frustrated people, and he did love to frustrate people.

Maybe Apollo's words got to him a bit - not because he thought they were true, but because he had his pride as well, and he was just as annoyed at what Apollo was implying - but he wasn't going to let the other god know that.

"Temper, temper," He scolded patronisingly "Feeling a bit outclassed are we? Getting a bit defensive? It's understandable, I mean, I know I'm great." he smirked "So, really, don't worry about it, just go crawling back to your little temple and your priests, I'm sure they're not too far- oh no wait, they're not here, are they? Actually there's probably no more of your worshippers in this place than there are of mine."

[Apollo]

Apollo couldn’t let this man bother him, but it was his face, that stupid annoying grinning face, he could punch it in all day and never get bored. Losing his temper, that hadn’t been a good idea, it normally placated most mortals but he had to remember he wasn’t dealing with most mortals. He was dealing with Loki, the trickster god, the god of cunning, the god of gigantic pains in the rear end. He folded his arms and glared. That wasn’t really much better than the shouting since it made him look more like a petulant child than anything else but it was the best he could come up with at the time.

He tried smirking, that was better, but now he needed something to be smirking about. What Loki said wasn’t entirely untrue. There weren’t a lot of worshippers left anywhere, especially not here when gods appeared to be a dime a dozen. Not to mention he was trying to keep a low profile and not use the magics much, well as low a profile as Apollo could, which wasn’t very low. But he was damn sure that he could garner more followers than some tricksy little nobody.

Turning to face the boys who were helping Alex he said kindly, “Boys…lets assume that your coaches are like gods, between myself and the degenerate on the bench, who would you much rather have in your corner?”

[Deleted]

Loki rolled his eyes. While technically he did enjoy a little worship - what god didn't? - He wasn't nearly as bothered by it as some. Perhaps it was a natural side-effect of being the trickster god, people only really worshipped him so that he wouldn't do anything to them, and that wasn't really the same thing.

"Oh don't worry," He said mockingly, eyes flicking across the group of young men in a disinterested way "I'm sure your little crowd of boys will help massage your... ego, if you're really that insecure."

That was just how Loki worked, if somebody offered him a competition they would certainly win, he would imply that win to be worthless.

[Apollo]

Apollo let out a cry of frustration, causing all the boys to jump back a little, the threat of ripping heads off was still very firmly in their minds and they didn’t like it one bit. They were also looking very confused at what Loki had just said and the smarter ones had picked up the innuendo and were either looking disgusted, scared or mildly interested. The sun god took no note of them, his attention, firmly affixed to the trickster god in front of him.

“What have I to be insecure about? I’m the god of the sun, of the arts, of sports of most fudging things! I’m good looking, I’m charismatic and I’m ten times the god you are! And you know that.”

He smirked at the other god and said, “That’s why you’re too afraid to come up here, because you know I’ll beat you, because you know I’ll embarrass you in front of all these boys. You’re scared, you’re a coward.”

[Deleted]

"Yea, yea," Loki met Apollo's list of patronage with a carefully crafted expression of utmost boredom, before allowing it to seamlessly slide into yet another mocking smirk "Sounds like overcompensating to me, and really, I understand, I've seen the statues..." he lifted a hand casually and wiggled his little finger in Apollo's direction.

He really was going in the wrong direction with all that coward stuff though, it had been a very long time since that word had any effect on him, his brother was Thor, coward was practically a nickname.
So he simply shook his head patronisingly.
"Oh Apollo, I'm not coming to fight because I don't have anything to prove, I know how great I am, I don't need to hit things to feel superior."

[Apollo]

It was a bit od a sore point. The statues, they just never got his nose right. Which was what he thought Loki was commenting on, but invoked just as much rage in the sung than if Apollo had actually figured out what he was really getting at. “Compensating?! You’re talking to me about Compensating?! Really?! Really?!”

He laughed and said, “At least I have statues! At least my people were people of art, of culture of brains. Your people wouldn’t know what to do with a hammer and chisel other than put it in someone’s head. A barbaric and uncultured race, that’s what you’ve to be proud of. I am from a time or artists, philosphers and the best damn organised fighters in the whole world.”

Ok, so technically that was the Romans but he’s claiming them as well since the Romans basically adopted him as their God as well. They probably stole most of it from the Greeks anyway, and he didn’t expect this Loki to know any better. Stupid young god that he was.

“I don’t need to hit things to prove anything either, I just find it a better test of character than sneaking around trying to pull the wool over the eyes of my big brother just cause I’m an issue riddled brat who’s mommy just didn’t love him enough!”