Charmolypi

Chapter 120

The soldiers that were ready to kill hesitated when they saw the smile on Luke's face. Before he could say anything, Agrius, the bear-man, burst onto the deck leading a flying horse. It was a pure-black, with wings like a giant raven. The pegasus mare bucked and whinnied.

"Sir!" Agrius called, dodging a pegasus hoof. "Your steed is ready!"

Luke kept his eyes on Percy. "I told you last summer, Percy," he said. "You can't bait me into a fight."

"But Thea can," James said, as though he was having a light bulb moment.

"And you keep avoiding one," Percy noticed. "Scared your warriors will see you get whipped?"

Luke glanced at his men, and he saw Percy had trapped him. If he backed down now, he would look weak. If he fought Percy, he'd lose valuable time chasing after Clarisse. Percy was visibly trying to buy his friends time, and he knew that the only way that Thea and Annabeth would find an escape plan would be buying them time to figure it out.

"If you don't consider Percy a challenge worth your time," Thea started, "then I'd be more than happy to remind you what the best swordsman can do."

"Yeah!"

"She's such a badass!"

"Thea's my hero."

Luke thought for a minute glaring between the two demigods. His eyes kept shifting from Percy to Thea, before he finally settled on Thea. He snapped his fingers, and within a second, one of the Dracaena coiled around the daughter of Zeus, struggling to be let out of the vile grip.

"That traitorous ass-" James started yelling, almost jumping out of his seat if it weren't for his friends who kept him seated.
"Silencio," McGongall said, pointing her wand at the young Potter boy screamed profanities. James' parents turned to the professor, ready to scold her, but she beat them to it. "He will only be silenced for ten minutes, just until he gets his anger out."

"I'll kill you quickly," he decided looking at Percy, and raised his weapon. Backbiter was a foot longer than his own sword. Luke whistled to one of his men, who threw him a round leather-and-bronze shield. Luke grinned wickedly at the young boy, having another obvious advantage.

The blade of Luke's sword glinted with an evil gray-and-gold light where the human steel had been melded with celestial bronze. Thea could almost feel the blade fighting against itself, like two opposing magnets bound together. She had a few sinister thoughts on how the blade had been made, and she knew for a fact that tragedy was related to its making. In that moment, she thanked her curiosity and the amount of time she had spent with Charlie.

"What?"

"What kind of tragedy?"

"I don't like this one bit."

"Why doesn't Percy get the same stuff as Luke?"

"Luke," Annabeth said, "at least give him a shield."

"Sorry, Annabeth," he said. "You bring your own equipment to this party."

Thea observed as Percy's face slightly dropped when he realized that Luke had the upper hand in the battle. Fighting two-handed with just a sword gives the fighter more power, but fighting one-handed with a shield gives better defense and versatility. There are more moves, more options, more ways to kill.

In a flash, Luke lunged forward and almost killed Percy on his first try. His sword went under his arm, slashing through the son of Poseidon's shirt and grazing his ribs. Percy jumped back and countered Luke's attack with Riptide, but the son of Hermes slammed his blade away with the shield.