Percy

You let out a muffled groan as Percy handed you your ass on a platter.

Again.

To be fair, he did say he fought a god and therefore you decided to see if he’d lend you a hand in improving your sword-fighting skills. It was also the fact that he was family and you noticed that some of the (rather unfairly sexy and gorgeous) Aphrodite girls had been picking on him over his eyes (which were fine as far as you could tell). Shrugging off the mean-spirited remarks that he seemed to be vaguely irritated over, you asked him if he could help.

However Percy was working you hard and was willing to teach you some of the basics. He used a xhipos - which apprently had the awesome ability to turn into a pen and always appear in Percy’s pocket no matter what - as opposed to your kopis, but on the whole the basics were close enough that he was willing to give you a foundation to work off of.

The improvement however? That meant being dumped unceremoniously on the ground a bit slower every time.

Well, at least you managed to block some of his strikes before he shoved you off your feet with his free hand.

“Don’t forget,” Percy said as he twirled his sword, “Don’t be afraid to use your hands if you need to fight another demigod.”

You grunted an acknowledgement and pushed yourself to your feet, “So you only learned about all this last year?”

Percy nodded, expression downcast, “Yeah, I thought my mom had died and right after I was on a quest to save her and return Zeus’ master bolt. It was not fun and nearly died more times than I can count. And one of the demigods I thought I could trust tried to kill me and if that wasn't bad enough? Annabeth was pretty much taught by him until she got to camp... I don’t know how well she’s taking all of that. We haven’t had much time to chat since we got back.”

You nodded and you both crossed swords again as you and Percy began to spar again.

You gritted your teeth as you and Percy locked blades in a shower of sparks, “I’ve been meaning to ask. What’s with the story of everybody being all... tense. I mean I get that me being your brother and a son of Poseidon is important for some reason. But I think that the camp is on edge because of more than that.”

You stepped back from a slash and knocked another one the side only to yelp and back away again from a kick.

“You’re not wrong.” Percy grunted as swung his blade, “Apparently a tree that acts as the anchor for the barrier here has been posioned. Everybody’s trying to fix it, but the best that can be done is keep it going for a little while longer. The gods wanted to blame someone and so they took away Chiron and replaced him with the first criminal to go Hades!”

You slackened your grip in shock and Percy used that opportunity to knock the kopis out of your hand.

“Wait a minute?” You said indignantly, “Our new camp counselor is a guy condemned to hell? Couldn’t they have picked ANYONE else who wasn’t a criminal?”

You weren’t sure why they were blaming Chiron, but then again it was the gods’ choice. But seriously, let a criminal be the activities director?

Percy sighed and capped his sword/pen, “Yeah, and the guy as it out for me, Tyson, and you too now that your family.”

You groaned and sank to the ground, before blinking, “Wait... who is Tyson?”