When she woke up in her bunk in the Athena cabin, Sophie could feel last night's dream slipping away.
By the time that she got up, she couldn't remember what happened or who was involved but, she could remember a flicker of light and, a sense that something is wrong.
Since she had dreams like that all of the time, she promptly ignored it in favor of going to breakfast.
She spent the time talking with Annabeth. Even if she would have a fit dealing with all of those gods demands, Annabeth seemed to love her job as architect of Olympus. Even if there was so much work to rebuild the mountain top city.
After breakfast, was sparring. Remembering yesterday's failure, Sophie was not eager to have a chance for someone to have a pointy thing in her general direction.
Annabeth was having none of it. "You're a daughter of Athena. Being a natural with weapons is in your blood.
It got so bad that Annabeth had to call in Percy to try to teach her something.
The problem was that whenever she touched a sword, there was something in her head telling her to "stop". Whenever she tried to use it, her arm just felt dead, like it was against moving.
By the end of the class, Annabeth had decided that a sword wasn't for her. The fact still remained that as Annabeth put it "You are still a half blood so weather you like it or not, you will need to be skilled at some sort of weapon. Now follow me."
Sophie nearly had to jog to keep up with Annabeth's long strides. "Where are we going?"
Annabeth kept on walking, "to the weapons tent."
Sophie scowled, "Oh joy more pointy things."
Percy smiled, "One day you're going to thank us for making you learn how to use these 'pointy things.'"
"Sure" Really, not having to deal with any pointy things would be the best option in Sophie's mind.
When they reached the tent, Sophie started looking at the panorama of weapons.
There were swords; Sophie already knew she sucked at using them.
Knives, Sophie could use them ok, but she was adamant about more reach.
Bows, she managed to nearly kill Chiron. It was decided it was safer for everyone if she and I quote "Never ever touch a bow for as long as she lives" From an angry Clarisse who was in the arena at the time,
It was actually Clarisse who found her perfect weapon. Noticing that she sucked at everything else, she grabbed her by the ear and marched her to the weapons tent. Feeling a swirl of fear in her stomach, Sophie hurried to keep up.
"Alright Shorty, since you suck at every other weapon in the tent, there is one other weapon that you can try."
She marched her over to a corner that had a few spears in it.
"Pick one."
Scared stiff of the daughter of Ares, Sophie walked over to the corner, picking up each spear, testing its height and weight, trying to find one that was balanced correctly.
When she thought that she would suck at weapons forever, she grabbed one that had a long shaft, that had grooves designed as a grip, had a long pointy tip that ended in barbs so the weapon stayed in the victim.
Clarisse eyed the weapon. "That's a nasty one. If you learn how to use that right, you will be a formidable opponent to monsters everywhere. Just needs one thing.
She was then marched again to a building with smoke coming out of it that Clarisse called the forges.
Once inside, Clarisse strode over to a Hispanic boy that looked to Sophie like an elf. Who before he was interrupted, had been fiddling with something that to Sophie looked like suspiciously like a bomb.
"Hey, Clarisse broke Maimer again?"
"Nope, Shorty here could use some weapons adjustments."
Seeing the bewildered look on her face, he turned to Sophie and shook her hand saying "Leo Valdez, repair boy extraordinaire"
"You can flirt with Sophie later, her spear needs a few advancements, I was thinking hydra blood on the tip."
Leo fully turned to them. "Why just that, we could make it so that whenever it hits something, the target explodes into atom sized pieces, or that we could put a micro chip in it so monsters turn into Zombies and follow her every order ,or…"
"Halt Valdez," Clarisse ordered. "The hydra blood will do, she nearly murdered Chiron today, I don't feel comfortable letting her run around with anything too dangerous."
Sophie wondered why a hydra blood tip didn't count as "too dangerous".
"Fine, pick it up at dinner, should be ready by then."
After being marched back to the weapons tent, Sophie met up with Percy and Annabeth feeling decidedly frazzled.
"What happened?" Asked Percy, eying the daughter of Ares who at that moment was marching away to the next activity.
"Apparently my spear needs hydra blood.
"By the way," Annabeth informed her. "Since you were ok the knives," Sophie wondered if it was Pick-on-Sophie-day. "Percy and I decided that you should try training with those too.
"I've actually noticed something." This time it was Percy, "You seem to be trying to use your hands as weapons instead of the actual weapon. " He pulled out two knives. "The way that you use these is that you hold each in one of your hands and, stab things that way."
"Didn't you guys see me nearly murder Chiron?"
"You know the old saying," Percy smiled. "Practice makes perfect.
Sophie had the feeling that she was going to hate that saying.
Haven't done this in a while so, you saw my past disclaimers right? Hopefully you got the idea by now that I don't own the series.