MAGIC GIRL , percy jackson

𝓲𝓿- knives and hounds

༻✯༺

Thursday afternoon, three days after he'd arrived at camp half-blood, Percy had his first sword fighting lesson. Everybody in cabin eleven gathered in the big circular arena, where Luke was their instructor.

They started with the basic slashing and stabbing with some straw stuffed dummies in greek armor. The boy did alright. At least he understood what he was supposed to do and his reflexes were good.

He sometimes turned around to check what the brunette was doing. Phoebe looked barely interested in the exercise, her sword laid flat on the ground next to an intact dummy. The brunette seemed more interested in goofing around, disturbing the other campers than trying to better her sword fighting skills. Knowing her, that didn't surprise Percy, but he was still disappointed.

He wanted to see what she was capable of with a sword.

He shook his head and refocused on the exercise, which was already hard enough for him considering they couldn't find a blade that felt right in his hands. Either they were too heavy, or too light, or too long. Luke tried his best to fix the boy up, but he agreed that none of the practice blades seemed to work for him.

They moved on to dueling in pairs. Luke announced he would take Percy as his partner, since this was the boy's first time.

Cabin eleven smiled knowingly, they understood what was about to go down. Phoebe more than the others. She liked the boy, but seeing him get annihilated would be pretty funny.

Rest in peace Peter Johnson, you were a nice dude.

All the campers formed duos, all except the brunette. She decided that she didn't feel like participating in today's activity, and none of the other campers was crazy or stubborn enough to try and debate that with her.

Normally she would've teamed up with Percy solely to protect him from the others (she didn't want him to be too hurt). But now, he was paired up with Luke; there was nothing she could do for him.

The daughter of Hecate debated internally on what to do while the others trained. Maybe she should train with them? Nah, she finally decided against it, a nap in the sun sounds much better.

By the time they called a break, everybody was drenched in sweat and they swarmed the drinks cooler like bees.

"Okay, everybody circle up!" Luke ordered. "If Percy doesn't mind, I want to give you a little demo."

Great, the brunette snickered at the thought. Let's all watch Percy get pounded.

The Hermes cabin gathered around. They were suppressing smiles. They'd been in Percy's shoes before and couldn't wait to see how Luke would destroy him.

The son of Hermes told everybody he was going to demonstrate a disarming technique: how to twist the enemy's blade with the flat of your own sword so that he had no choice but to drop his weapon.

"This is difficult," he stressed. "I've had it used against me. No laughing at Percy, now. Most swordsmen have to work years to master this technique."

He demonstrated the move on me in slow motion. Sure enough, the sword clattered out of his hand.

"Now in real time," he said, after Percy retrieved his weapon. "We keep sparring until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Percy?"