I parried the incoming slash with a medieval long sword hoping to gain higher ground by jumping on a near bench. Unfortunately she already knew what I was going to do... She magnificently countered by turning the sword into her huge war hammer, spinning around and tripping me. I fell, feeling the metal bench digging in my back. No time for pain however, I had to roll to the side as the bench was transformed into modern art by a massive overhead blow. It was now my turn to attack as I attempted a lateral blow at her exposed side with a cutlass. Magically, a shield appeared, blocking my attack as a huge sword was coming directly towards my face. The only thing I had time to do was to attempt the move. I am obviously talking about the Matrix move. I bent backwards as the razor-sharp tip passed a few inches from my face. Good looking move. I swear I looked like a badass; until she kneed me in the balls. Needless to say I crumpled to the floor as the too-familiar sensation erupted and moved upwards, towards my navel. She the whipped out her scourge and directed it towards my defenceless body. That's when I turned into smoke, reappearing under her armpit. I grabbed her wrist misdirecting her weapon and, using her momentum, I flipped her over, judo-style, sending her crashing against a see-saw's support. I stood up, still clutching my future kids' home.

"That was a pretty dirty move, don't you think?"

No answer. She just jumped impossibly high, a red flag appearing in her hands its point directed at my face. I rolled to the side and as I came up I directed the tip of my rapier towards her breast in a sort of deadly uppercut. She just stood there as the far-too-thin sword harmlessly bounced off her armour.

I just stared.

"A bit of an anti-climax..." I stated as I started to look up, but the war hammer came sideways this time, and I was too distracted to counter act. I flinched as the bludgeon slammed into my ribs, sending me flying against the gates of a nearby house. The pain was literally deafening. I just managed to open my eyes and see the war hammer moving towards my head. I shut my eyes expecting death.

*SLAMM*

I cursed. A lot. "Why do you always have to do this!" I raged as my ears rang. As usual she just slammed the hammer near my head, its force causing a thunderclap a few millimetres from my face. It was not a good feeling trust me.

"I will stop doing it when you will stop repeating the same mistakes." She just stood there armour shining, with a sarcastic smirk on her lips.

"I basically won! I would've impaled you with my rapier! And I'm not even wearing armour!"

"Look, you need to learn how to control your weapon. You can't just attack me with everything you have. If you would have used a dagger, the extra momentum would have pierced my armour."

"Sure, but the reduced reach would have made it more difficult to actually hit the blow... You would've parried it for sure"

"Yeah, but that's because I'm good; godlike I would say..."

I sighed, quite disgusted by the pun she had just uttered.

"Look it would be much easier if you would allow me to rest a bit, we have been doing this for months, you forced me to train even during my exams, my exams. Literally the most important thing I had to do in my life, an.."

"Stop complaining already, how many times do I have to repeat this, you are not ready yet but in time you will be."

"Sure, but you still have to tell me what we are preparing fo..."

"What about your homework?" She said interrupting me again.

"I told you to stop calling it that." I answered, starting to get pretty irritated "Plus it isn't really easy to name a weapon, especially one so... versatile" I stared at the alchemical symbol for Mercury, burned into the skin of my wrist. It was a present, a dangerous and powerful present, but what could you expect from the goddess of war?

"I need a name right? I was thinking about something cool, but most of them are already taken: Myrkblade, Needle both pretty cool but I need a name that leaves a good trace behind it... You know what I mean? I cannot kill monsters with a weapon named Bunny. Why do I have to name it anyways? Captain America's shield has no name but it is still pretty badass..."

"Look it's kind of a initiation thing, all the weapons I handed out had a name and yours will not be an exception..." She said this as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, and it kind of was as it had been the seventh time we had that discussion in the past week.

We used to bicker like that for hours and hours and then train again. Anyways this was years ago. I had time to train and I was soon to discover what I was actually training for.

...

LOCATION: New York, Manhattan

Hazel was having a really good day, as expected from a school trip. She walked down the road heading roughly towards Central Park. She had left Frank with some of his non-demigod friends; "It wouldn't be fair to always be with him" she thought "He deserves some space."

Walking she thought about her most recent adventures with "the seven". Everything had turned out fine for most of them, Jason was an MVP for both the Greeks and the Romans and his relationship with the head of Aphrodite's Cabin was an endless pit of gossip for both camps alike. Annabeth and Percy were having the time of their lives, killing monsters and occasionally attending college, together of course. When Hazel told everyone she was going to try normal school Frank had joined her. With his physique and tactical mastery he soon became captain of the football team and Hazel couldn't help a tinge of satisfaction when the cheerleaders found out they were dating. There had been casualties but time had worked its magic and the pain now felt far.

She turned left expecting an Abercrombie shop but in its place an alley was gaping at her. She sighed. In this huge city, it was easy to mess up streets and plazas. Entering the alley she noticed something strange, a twirling sensation in the Mist. Since the battle with Gaia, Hazel's powers over the Mist had grown exponentially, she could perceive the presence of a monster or god by its manipulation of the Mist itself. She started to call this phenomenon a "disturbance", after watching the Star Wars saga with Frank.

The alley was filled with disturbance. Hazel could feel it, whatever was in there it must have been extremely powerful. She unsheathed her chivalry sword, always hidden by a thick layer of Mist and started too slowly make way in the shadows, a fighting stance ready.

A quick movement to her left. She quickly turned, looking for its origin. That's when she felt it. Something pushed her slightly forward, but she couldn't quite understand where the thing had impacted. She took a step, but her knee buckled. Hazel looked down, surprised when she identified the tip of a sword protruding from her chest, blood gushing from the wound. That's when the pain came. The girl tried to scream but the only thing coming out of her mouth was blood. She fell down her brain already performing the shut down procedures. Images flashed in her mind, confusing themselves with what she was seeing. A man in sunglasses and black trench coat, staring down at her.

"Sorry love, nothing personal" He said with a deep and cocky voice.

Nothing epic. That is how Hazel Levesque died.

...

(What should I do now? ... Yeah ok but where should I start? ... No that's not what I mean... ... Okok I will begin at the beginning.)

Whenever I think about my life I can now recall strange events that made no sense at the time: monsters. Minotaurs in the mall, crocodile demons in the swimming pool and so on. Obviously I stopped talking about them as soon as I grew a bit older as I noticed that they were seen much differently by people. The minotaur was a fat hairy dude and the crocodile was a tall guy with a skin disease.

But the real breakthrough happened when I turned 15. One night I couldn't sleep. All the sound around my house just sounded deafening and when I finally fell asleep I was plagued by some of the worst nightmare I had in ages. Death, a guy in sunglasses laughing, blood everywhere.

When I finally woke up I felt so strange. The bed itself felt like it wasn't there anymore. I turned around groaning as all my bones ached from the restless night. I looked down I notice that I wasn't on my bed at all. I was actually floating half a metre over it.

I tried not to panic as my mind raced through all the possibilities. Another dream? Not possible, this felt definitely too real.

I looked at the huge mirror right next to my bed

Obviously, I did the only normal thing. I panicked, a lot. Instead of my body I could only see a thick black smoke. What was even scarier was the fact that I had no idea how to turn back in human form. What about school, friends and family. How was I supposed to live my life like dirty fog?

I tried to move off my bed. To my surprise I could do that, but it felt strange, my body was weightless and I had no form. I could feel pieces of me all around the room. As I rose to the top of the room I tried to think of how I could get to human form again. After a bit of thinking I concluded that I was screwed. Right then I solidified again; but I was on the ceiling.

I fell, and landed on my back and as per usual, slamming my elbow to the ground. As the entire arm grew numb a cascade of verbal curses followed.

I stood up and looked at it in the mirror.

It was normal me again. Normal me with the usual green onesie pyjama. I really want to say that I acted super cool but I just crawled back to bed as the shock of what I had just experienced flooded my brain. I just fell back to sleep.

When I woke up my mum was shouting. My first thought was that she had seen my new add-on and panicked. But as I listened it became clear that she was not talking about that.

"It's 12:30 already get down from the bed! Why do you always have to sleep so much! You should help me! I'm the one who works..." She went on the pretty common rampage over me being overly lazy. I must say, Italian can be a great language, but not when they scream it in your face.

As the day progressed it felt like the smoke experience had just been a weird dream. I wanted to believe that but the bruise on my elbow made it impossible.

I went through the week like nothing had happened with just some random and increasingly weird incidents. For example, on Monday, during PE class, we were having a pretty decent game of dodge ball. My teacher Mr Cothier was a huge Queen fan and the entire gym was filled with songs from Greatest Hits. As the game progressed I remained the only player on our team. I love dodge ball don't get me wrong, but I also hate the idea of an entire team counting on me for a win. As I concentrated the weird thing happened. The entire room just went dead: no more sound, at all. People were still moving the radio was still on but it was dead silent. This all encompassing silence just lasted a couple of seconds. Just enough time for me to notice, stop moving , and be showered with projectiles from the opposing team. No one had noticed

The other accident happened during chemistry. As I was holding a test tube my hand turned into smoke. As the vial fell and smashed to the ground I quickly hid my hand under the table. It took 5 minutes for the hand to get back to normal. 5 minutes of me pathetically crying in the bathroom. But again, no one had noticed.

That was also about when she appeared. A strange girl with short black hair and freckles, she looked young but I couldn't tell how old she actually was. Her eyes were a dark red nearly brown and had some golden specks in them.

I had to go to music class so I rubbed my red eyes and started walking up the stairs. I turned around and looked towards her. She was still standing there. I had never seen her in school but maybe she was a new student. For a brief second our eyes met. A chill ran through me. She knew. I couldn't understand how, but she knew. Apparently, she understood what I thought because she turned around and started running. And I followed.

We ran down the stairs and through corridors as I ignored the staff members shouting at us to be careful .

"Boy, I hate running" I thought, and boy how much I still hate it.

We arrived outside the main school building. She ran through the playground and jumped the school gate. I followed as she entered the park adjacent to my school.

She was quick, very quick. Granted, I am not the fastest man alive but every time I started to get close she would sprint so fast I was left behind again.

She turned around one of the trees and I followed, but as soon as I entered the small grove I noticed she wasn't there at all, she was gone. I looked around searching for any clues... She reappeared jumping out of no-where and shoving me to the side. I tried to run after her, but as stated before running wasn't really my speciality I fell to the floor in a clumsy mess of limbs scraping my knee and my elbow (the other one).

A pure, crystalline laugh filled the air. It was both cute and extremely mocking.

"You can barely follow for 200 meters and you fall down without anyone touching you?"

"That was... A bit more... Than 200 meters..." I answered panting.

She ignored me:

"Someone your age should be capable of running a bit more" She smirked looking at my out of shape body.

I blushed. This felt like being at the doctor. The thing is, at least the doctor does not make fun of you.

I picked up my glasses as I asked " Who the hell are you anyways."

"Maybe it is better if you sit down, it will be a lot to take in" she talked with a strange tone. Any remnant of the mocking smile was completely gone from her face leaving a commanding scowl on her face. She looked like a person who made a decision and expected everyone to follow her.

"Look, whoever you are I have been through so much weird shit this week. I think I can take it" I answered hoping to hide my desperation with vary fake confidence.

" Ok then... Hello Riccardo, I am Bellona, Roman goddess of war, and you, my fat friend, are a demigod."

"...

...

...

...

...let me sit down"

[1] From These Black Eyes and Game of Thrones respectively