The matter was still swirling in my head when I reached the swordfighting arena. I had to train the Ares cabin with Percy today. As much as I hated it, there had to be someone who did what they were told. Percy was hacking away at a straw dummy. I considered challenging him to a sword fight for leadership over the camp, but dispelled that thought.
For as much as I hated him, he still was a friend. We had saved the world together. I couldn't embarrass him, or worse, let him embarrass me. It had to be done in a quiet way.
Percy noticed me and smiled. I plastered on a fake smile. It seemed he was satisfied, since he went back to his task. Gritting my teeth, I unsheathed by gladius as the Ares cabin piled in. Percy started addressing the campers. He then split them into pairs to train. He placed himself with Clarisse, and I took Sherman Yang.
When I was correcting Yang's stance, I observed he was glancing longingly at Clarisse and Percy. They were two blurs, sword and spear. And they were also striking small talk as they parried and thrust at each other. Their sparring reminded me of the fact that though I had learned the ways of the Greeks, my fighting style was still too Roman for their liking. Sherman turned back to me with a sigh of annoyance that he thought I didn't hear. We went back to sparring.
Percy called a halt to the class. I really didn't like how he was being bossy. I huffed and went to stand beside him.
"Alright, now I would like to show you how a real fight looks like. Clarisse, if y-"
"Scared to take on me, Jackson?", I interrupted him.
He didn't see the resentment in my voice, and smirked. "It's on, Grace"
We circled each other for a while. Since he was being a wimp and not attacking, I decided to stab at him. He blocked my strike and continued to study me. I believed we both had wondered after the fight in Kansas about who was the better swordsman. Perhaps we would find out today.
We continued dancing around each other until I decided to get things serious. I took a step forward and regretted it, because Percy had hooked his foot in him. As I was tripping, he hit the back of my skull with his sword hilt, and I blacked out as I hit the ground.
I woke up a minute later, and stood up. I noticed the Ares cabin was laughing. It seemed as if a joke had been cracked, and Percy had cracked it. I looked at them questioningly.
"Oh, Prissy here was telling us about your, encounter, with Bricky", Clarisse cackled. The name "Bricky" made the Ares cabin laugh even harder. Percy had stopped chuckling, but was still smiling.
"I thought we were swordfighting", Jason stared coldly at Percy, giving him his wolf stare. Percy wasn't even fazed.
"Yeah, Jason, go rest up!", shouted one of Clarisse's brothers.
I looked at Percy for support. "Um, maybe you can go. I will wrap this up", he said.
I was furious. I stalked out of the arena, all thoughts of giving Jackson a farewell as less embarassing as possible going out of the window.