A loud clang drowned out the awkward silence following my father's sentence as my mother dropped her fork onto her plate.
"What? Reynolds! Arthur and Percy aren't even four yet! No! Besides, you said you would be able to teach them!" mother yelled, desperation obvious in her eyes.
"I also never expected that our sons would be such prodigies. Arthur is showing amazing progress in mana manipulation, and Percy's physical capabilities are off the charts as well! I mean, who ever heard of a boy awakening at the age of three, and a boy who can run 10 miles without breaking a sweat?"
My eyes bugged out a bit at that and my face became the perfect combination of embarassed and worried. Embarrased at the praise of my athletic capabilities, and worried that someone might discover my... unique heritage.
I glanced over at Arthur, seeing that he was glancing at me as well. We both smirked at each other, for quite opposite reasons. Me because Arthur was never able to match me in running. With me quoting a famous movie whenever I lapped him saying, "On your left." He didn't seem to get the reference, but he was still annoyed nonetheless.
On the other hand, he smirked at me because I still hadn't formed a mana core. And not due to lack of trying. Arthur tried his best, or at least I assumed he did, to help me form my mana core like he did, although it wasn't really helping. I wasn't too bothered though, since my little brother was just a really really early bloomer, and most people formed a mana core once they were in their adolescence. In the mean time, I could hone my demigod powers.
Realizing we were both missing out on a very important conversation regarding our future, we both got serious and started paying attention to our parents' argument.
"-only four, Reynolds! We can't have our baby boys leave home at such an early age!"
"You don't get it-"
Now, from personal experience, telling your significant other that they don't get something is not a very wise thing to say during an argument. If I had ever said that to Annabeth, I'd be judo flipped before I ever knew what I'd said wrong, and would definitely be sleeping on the couch later that night. Fortunately, my new mother was much kinder than Annabeth, and only gave my father a heated glare.
"-when I observed them while they were training, I couldn't help but feel that all of this was natural to them."
Yep. I definitely need to start toning down on how much effort I put into training.
"Alice, honey, I'm holding my sons back by trying to teach them something they can do in their sleep."
And thus began the first quarrel I had ever seen my parents had. It reminded me a lot of the chaos of the Olympian throne room whenever they held their meetings. They went back and forth, repeating their initial points of us being too young and then our potential being held back.
Getting a bit bored, me and Arthur started playing with our food. Me launching a full-scale assault on his plate with the power of flying peas, and him defending with a wall of carrot sticks.
Eventually, my peas destroyed his wall, and our parents settled down as our father turned to look at us.
"Arthur, Percy, this concerns the both of you, so you two should have a say in this as well. How do you boys feel about going to a big city and having an official teacher?"
Me and Arthur looked at each other, thinking it over. I for one didn't really want to have to go to any type of learning institute. It would only be like torture for me thanks to my ADHD and dyslexia. Sadly for me, Arthur didn't seem to have the same train of thought.
"Can I at least try meeting some mentors and have them see if I need to be tutored or not?" Arthur offered tentatively.
I grew suspicious a bit at Arthur's articulate talking, but decided I'd interrogate him about my suspicions at a later date. Despite having spent 4 years together, me and my brother still weren't very close. Sure, we spend a lot of time together, and we both tease each other a lot, but we never really had a meaningful conversation with each other. Of course, I didn't want our relationship to stay like this. After all despite the weird circumstances regarding my birth, and possibly his as well, we were still brothers here and now. I decided that I'd have a heart-to-heart with him soon, preferably with just the two of us around.
"What about you Percy? What do you think?" my mother asked, her eyes pleading for me to disagree with my brother. My father on the other hand, was gesturing with his hands for me to go with his proposal. I internally chuckled at the sight.
"Well... I don't really have a solid opinion either way. I'll just go with the flow, you know?"
My family gave me a weird look, but seemed to get the gist of what I said.
A long silence followed after I spoke, and my knee started bouncing in restlessness. After what felt like an eternity in Tartarus of waiting, my mother broke the silence.
"I guess we can at least formally have their mana core and channels tested, as well as giving Percy a thorough physical exam." I gulped at that, envisioning an invasive probe entering- Nope. Not going to think about that anymore, nuh-uh.
"We can figure out what to do from there" mother finished.
My father nodded in agreement, hiding a fist pump that he had won a debate with his wife. And so, we began making preparations for the next day.
I definitely wasn't expecting our journey would take three weeks. I thought we would just be hopping over to the next town or something, but we were apparently making a long and perilous journey to a floating island. And when I say floating island, I don't mean like Delos, the birth place of Apollo and Artemis, but more of magical mystical castle in the sky floating island.
While I had no idea how a giant floating piece of land existed, nor how it worked, I was excited at the prospect of an adventure nonetheless. I would finally be able to get out of the house and get my heart pumping. Being cooped up for too long is bad practice when caring for a demigod after all. Especially one with the blood of the sea.
Speaking of blood, some interesting stuff. While my fine control isn't good enough to control blood accurately yet, I could do it through sheer power. But, from past experience, controlling blood on nothing but sheer instinct and power was a very bad idea. I also came up with the theory that the reason that I still had my demigod powers was because they're tied to the soul or spirit, and not my DNA. Which is why genetically, I'm missing half of my DNA strand.
Anyway!
This was going to be a long journey. One thing I definitely didn't like about how medieval this new world was that transportation was definitely not fast in the least. If Annabeth were here she definitely would've created blueprints for a car or something already, meanwhile the best I could probably make was build a skateboard.
Oh! A skateboard... That's definitely a project I'll have to look into in the future. And who knows, with magic being a thing, maybe I could make a magical self-powered hoverboard of sorts. Now I have a solid reason for needing to form a mana core and learn magic.
Cough, back to the details of the trip.
In order to get to the city, we'd have to enter through one of the designated teleportation gates in the Grand Mountains, otherwise it would take months to complete the journey. Obviously, I have no idea how teleportation gates work, and I mentally made a promise to myself to start learning more about this world in earnest, annoying floating words be damned.
One reason why our father pushed for us to go on this journey now was because his ex-party members had recently stopped by, and were also on their way to Xyrus. Going with them now meant we would have an experienced party to protect us from any possible dangers.
'But Percy, why would you need protection? Aren't you a high and mighty son of Poseidon? Slayer of many mythological powerhouses and bane of cheeseburgers?'
Be that as it may, I doubted I could hold my own in a battle as I am right now. While I had a pretty good hold on my powers, I'm still just a four year old, so my body isn't accustomed to my usual fighting style yet, and my godly energy reserves are still shallow. Another thing was that I didn't have my trusty weapon, Riptide. While I could easily make a suitable weapon out of ice, I wouldn't be able to hold it for long as it would drain my energy reserves fast at my age, leaving me with an unintimidating puddle to fight with. Naturally, once I grow older, my energy reserves will multiply by leaps and bounds, growing from a puddle to an ocean. But for now, I would just have to make do and pray that there wouldn't be any trouble.
But then again, trouble never leaves my side does it?
We left at mid morning to meet the rest of our companions.
Although I'd heard about them every now and then from stories of his past told by my father, I never visited home while they were rebuilding it, so it would be my first time meeting them. About all I knew of them was:
Helen Shard; a female augmenter specializing in magical archery.
Adam... Wrench? A male augmenter who mainly used a spear.
Jasmine Flamesworth; a female augmenter that surprisingly had no fire affinity.
Angela Rose; a female conjurer specializing in wind magic.
And finally Durden Walker; a male conjurer specializing in earth magic.
We soon reached the inn they were staying at in Ashber and saw them out in front, near the stables. I double-checked the stables to see if there were any horses, but to no avail.
My father went up to his ex-party members, giving them hearty hugs before exclaiming, "Fellas, I want you guys to meet my two boys, Arthur and Percy! Go on Art, Perce, introduce yourselves."
I gave Arthur a mock bow. "Ladies first, my dear brother."
I heard a few snickers resonate from the party, with Arthur and my mother both giving me an annoyed and reprimanding look respectively.
Deciding to shrug off my statement, Arthur gave a slight half bow while keeping his vision up. "Hello. My father has told me great things about his fellow Twin Horns members. Thank you for traveling with us to Xyrus. We'll be in your hands."
"HAHAHA, what is this? Such manners! Are you sure he's your son, Rey?
The one to respond was the spear wielder, Adam. He seemed to be a Leo type, energetic and talkative. He seemed fairly good-looking, with bright red hair tied in a messy ponytail. His eyes were bright and held a look of infinite mirth. His most notable feature however would probably be the scar that ran across his nose, reaching both of his cheeks. That was definitely something I would ask about later.
I was broken out of my train of thought as I got picked up and felt the touch of heaven. Or, more accurately, the suffocating vise grip of heaven.
"What about this one? Doesn't he just look absolutely precious? I bet you he'll grow up to be a heartbreaker one day." The voice originated from the owner of the memory foam death trap I was suffocating in. It took me all of my strength to peel my face away from the gigantic mammaries, trying to get a look at the woman who nearly killed me.
She was definitely pretty, giving a whole royal princess sort of vibe with her long curly blond hair and radiant green eyes. Belatedly realizing it was my turn to introduce myself, I straightened my back as much as I could in her grip and cleared my throat.
"Percy Ja- Leywin the one and only, at your service." I mentally berated myself at my little slip-up that would've definitely raised a lot of questions had I not caught myself in the nick of time.
"HA! I guess we know which of the two got your attitude, Rey" Adam chuckled.
I would've protested, but my strength was about to give out, meaning I was once again in danger of drowning in pleasure- I mean the dangerous twin hills of doom.
Thankfully, I was saved as a strong pair of hands grabbed me by the knapsack strapped to my back, whisking me away from the well-endowed woman.
"Angela, you're hurting him" a deep voice grunted.
I then hung, in a fashion that I hadn't experienced in quite a long time by the hands of giants and giant-like monsters, unable to escape. I almost mistook the man holding me as a giant himself, belatedly remembering that he only looked like a giant because I was still tiny.
That said, he definitely wasn't small. He stood at a towering 6'5", with a build comparable to my past brother, Tyson. He carefully lowered me back onto the ground and tidied off my clothes gently.
It seemed he was a gentle giant himself. If the man liked peanut butter it wouldn't be hard for me to believe he was Tyson reincarnated.
He had narrow eyes and eyebrows that slanted down, giving him an innocent face that was a very stark contrast to his enormous body. The short, scruffy black hair on his head completed the shaggy dog image of him.
I looked over at the other members of the Twin Horns, glancing at a woman that looked younger than the rest of the party. She had straight black hair tied with a ribbon, complementing her half-open eyes and curt-looking lips. She gave Arthur a slight nod before turning away.
My eyes fixed on her as she walked away, definitely not checking her out as my eyes flitted to the two short daggers strapped to her lower back, just above the hips.
The last member of the Twin Horns was Helen Shard. She walked over to me and Arthur, patting us on the head as she flashed us a charming smile. If I didn't know any better, I would think she was the younger woman's older sister. They both practically had the same facial features and hair color, save for Helen having light amber eyes.
With introductions over, me and Arthur hopped onto the rear carriage. Noticing a slight buzz as Arthur jumped up and onto the carriage, I realized he had reinforced his legs with mana. Thankful I still had an enhanced physicality, I jumped onto the carriage myself, no problemo. While our parents didn't seem to know Arthur could utilize mana yet, he ended up telling me about it whenever I heard a slight buzz from him whenever he used it. According to him, using mana shouldn't give off any sort of buzz or sound, so I just chalked it up to my own personal Percy-sense.
After a bit, our party finally finished loading in all of our travel necessities into the two carriages we were taking. Sadly, we weren't using horses. Instead, there were giant lizards strapped to our carriages.
I looked over at Arthur, and he gave me an exasperated sigh before explaning, "Those are Skitters. They're domesticated mana beasts used for transportation. They're D-class monsters, albeit being more expensive, are much more efficient than horses when travelling mountain terrain."
My mind honed in on one key piece of information in my brother's explanation. "Wait, horses exist? Like, galloping whinnying horses? How come I never saw one while reading the mana beast books at home?"
Arthur gave me a look before answering "Thats because horses aren't classified as mana beasts. They don't have a mana core, and are therefore not mana beasts. What's more interesting though, is how do you know what a horse is if you don't even know they existed?" Arthur gave me a scrutinizing look as I realized my mistake.
As I tried to think of a logical explanation, I was saved as our mother and Angela boarded the carriage. Our mother sat next to Arthur, while I fearfully tried to switch seats as Angela sat down next to me, picking me up and plopping me down on her lap. While I normally wouldn't say no to being close to a beauty like her, I didn't really fancy what would happen next. She squished me close to her as I suffocated once more, only managing to barely breath due to the fact that I wasn't facing her bosom directly this time.
And with that, our carriage lurched forward and our journey began.
Not much happened during the day time portion of the trip. We encountered a few mana beasts here and there that the Twin Horns dispatched relatively easily, and while me and Arthur were raring to fight as well, our mother had a firm grip on us. And an angry mother was definitely much scarier than any monster one could ever face, thats an irrefutable fact.
Since I couldnt' join the fray, I just sat back and watched how the Twin Horns fought. Because the mana beasts weren't really that big of a threat, only my father, Jasmine, and Helen fought them. Our father fought them head on, not even bothering to use a weapon and just beating the beasts up with his fists. Helen perched on top of one of the carriages, sniping the beasts from her vantage point. But my gaze always kept focusing on Jasmine. She had an aura of deadly grace as she flipped through the air, daggers in hand as she dropped onto the beasts from the sky, killing them in one fell stroke. She might be a woman of few words, but she was definitely a great fighter. The fighting was done in no time.
Since we already had dinner before us, in the form of freshly slain mana beasts that looked like mutated wolves, we decided to set up camp near a small cluster of boulders. It was a good campsite, with the boulders acting as a shield against the wind, and with lots of dead branches to use as firewood.
I barely held back a smirk as Jasmine made a cute pout and gave a small huff, being forced to lug the mana beasts she killed over to the campfire.
Next to me, Arthur finally woke up from his slumber. Due to him still being four years old, he spent much of the ride asleep in our mother's arms. For once, my ADHD had proven useful, as I didn't get a lick of sleep. Silver linings and all that I guess.
Shifting in my seat, I looked over at my brother. "Finally woken up, Sleeping Beauty?"
Arthur groaned as he sat upright, trying to get a bearing on his surroundings. "Sleeping Beauty? Who's that?"
Realizing Disney princesses probably didn't exist in this world, I just decided to make stuff up. "A lazy princess that spends all day sleeping. I read about her in one of the books at home."
Arthur narrowed his eyes at that, the sleep clearing from his eyes. "I don't remember a book named Slee-"
He was cut off mid-sentence as Adam hollered at us from the now lit campfire, "Fresh Needle Hound barbecue guys! Get it while its hot!"
Before Arthur could continue, I hopped off the carriage and quickly sauntered over to the smell of freshly grilled meat. Adam offered me a plate filled with what looked like meat kebabs, which I happily accepted as I scarfed down the enticing meal.
Helen sat down next to me and pointed at my food. "How does it taste?"
"Schrumpfscious!" I managed to reply as I chewed on the delicious meat.
The archer just laughed at that, before leaning over close to me to whisper in my ear, "You know, many culinary experts say that the higher class the mana beast is, the tastier it is. That's just an E-Class mana beast, so imagine how an A-Class, or S-Class one would taste?"
I unconsciously started drooling at the thought, and had to shut my mouth to stop my drool from dripping onto the ground.
"Of course, I haven't tested it myself, but it would definitely be something worth trying out, right?" she said, licking her lips as she stole a kebab off my plate.
I would've groaned in complaint but she cut me off with a question. "So, I hear you and Arthur are quite special, eh? Is it true he's already awakened?"
I just nodded at that, before motioning to the aforementioned Arthur walking towards us. "You can ask him yourself if you'd like, he'll probably be able to answer any questions better than me."
Helen gave me a soft smile, although her expression seemed to be hiding something that I couldn't make out. Before I could figure it out, she turned to my brother and they both started a deep discussion. Shrugging it off, I just finished up the rest of my meal, relishing in the savory taste.
Adam seemed to overhear the conversation, and stood up with a grin on his face. "Hey, Reynolds. You don't mind if I test out your kids with a little spar, right?"
I was tempted to make a witty remark on how perhaps a grown man fighting a four year old wasn't the wisest of ideas, but since I was itching for a fight, I decided to go along with it. "Sure, I'm down."
I looked over at Arthur who seemed miffed at the idea as he looked over at our parents, who were just giving the both of us thumbs-ups. Albeit our mother looking reluctant doing so. With a sigh, Arthur just stood up as well as we both got ready to have a go at the spear wielder.
Adam's grin never left his face as he picked up a short stick off the ground. "Alright. Show me what you boys got."
I had no idea if his goal was to beat some sense into me and Arthur because he assumed we had inflated egos because we were called geniuses, or if he was just genuinely testing how strong we were. However, with the smug grin on his face as he looked down on us, reminiscent of how Clarisse usually looked fighting new campers, I had no doubt it was the former.
Our parents handed us our wooden swords, our father leaning down towards as if to give some words of advice to beat his former party member. "Don't worry, he won't hurt you guys too much."
Me and Arthur gave him deadpan looks at that before accepting our fate and turning around to face Adam.
"You two geniuses know how to reinforce your weapons right?" he asked, emphasizing the genius part.
Arthur gave a steely nod, whilst I shook my head. "Haven't formed my mana core yet so I can't reinforce it yet, but I'll do just fine without it." I answered.
Adam didn't seem to like my confidence, taking it as boasting, his eye visibly twitching after my statement.
"You're up first, Perseus." he growled as he pointed his stick at me.
I frowned and got into a fighting stance. "It's just Percy."
Adam stood 15 feet away from me, not bothering to get into a stance. "Tell you what Perseus, if you beat me then I'll call you anything you want."
"You're on."
Steadying my heartbeat, I set my sights on Adam. Timing it just as I inhaled, I dashed forward and raised my sword up over my head. He prepared to block my overhead swing, but I smirked and shifted my grip on my sword mid-swing, stabbing it down into his foot. Adam howled in pain as he swung his stick down at me. I hastily ran backwards to avoid the swing, the tip of the stick grazing my right cheek.
'Ugh, this infantile body is hard to maneuver in. I'll just have to aim low and try to stay out of his reach.'
Adam gave me a fierce look, getting into a proper stance as he finally seemed to be taking me seriously. With almost inhuman speed, he ran towards me and swung his stick down towards me once more. I sidestepped to the right, and narrowly avoided his foot hitting me. 'His swing was just a distraction, if I had blocked it he would've kicked me.' With his defense now open, I swung my sword at the back of his knee. Adam managed to move it out of the way just in time, my sword hitting nothing but air.
"Trying to kick a four year old boy? You're a dirty fighter ain't you?"
"You stabbed my foot. I'd say my fighting is as clean as yours, kid." Adam replied as he then threw his stick at me.
I twisted my body to avoid the attack, before realizing my mistake. I barely had time to raise my sword, the flat of the blade defending as Adam's foot struck it. The power of the kick made the blade crack, and forced me to let go of it before it suffered any more damage. My wooden sword then sailed away, landing in the grass a dozen or so feet away from us.
Now fighting barehanded, I knew I was at a much bigger disadvantage than before. Adam seemed to realize it as well as he smirked down at me. I didn't want to reveal my powers just yet, so I decided I'd try and use the fatal points of the body that Annabeth once told me about. An evil grin graced my face as I realized one of the fatal points was easily accessible at my height.
Secretly using my demigod powers, I shifted the earth under Adam's feet, making him stumble and lose balance. With that, I mustered as much strength as I could and delivered a powerful uppercut into his crown jewels.
Needless to say, it was quite the fatality.
Adam sunk to his knees, howling nearly thrice as loud than when I stabbed his foot, his hands nursing his injured groin. I stepped back sheepishly, taking a look at everyone's reactions.
Mother seemed to have a concerned look on her face as she rushed over to Adam, placing her hands over his groin as she healed it. Father was laughing his ass off at the state of his ex-party member, giving me a wide smile as he did so. Angela, Durden, and Helen were laughing as well. It wasn't everyday a four year old punches a grown man in the nuts after all. Jasmine seemed to be holding back her laughter as she glanced at me, a small smirk was still on her face though. Meanwhile, Arthur just seemed in awe at the battle that just happened, if you could even call it one.
"Who did you say fought dirty again you little brat?" Adam asked with a groan as he got into a sitting position, seemingly having somewhat recovered from my underhanded attack. However, instead of the previous smug look on his face, he now held a look of respect.
I just shrugged and gave him a lopsided smile. "You'll be fineee. You still up to fight my brother? Just be careful, next time your nuts might actually crack."
Adam glowered at me before shifting his gaze to Arthur. "Yeah, yeah. Lucky blow, brat. I'll get you back eventually."
"Nuh-uh-uh. I won, right? So now you have to call me whatever I want you to call me." I retorted, gloating as I reminded him of the terms he stated at the start of the match.
He held his head in his hands in annoyance as he looked back at me, "Ugh, I thought you forgot about that... Fine, what do you want me to call you?"
I just walked over to him and held out my hand to help him up, and if you've ever seen a four year old helping a grown man up you would know how weird this looks. "Percy. Percy Jackson is fine."
Adam stared at my hand before taking it and standing up. "Alright, Percy."
He then looked over at Arthur and beckoned for him to come forward. I walked back to the rest of the party and sat next to my mother, sighing in relief as she offered me a cup of water. With one swig, all the energy I had lost from the fight came right back to me. I settled my sights on the next fight, wondering how it would pan out.
Both of them got into a fighting stance, Arthur seemingly going on the offensive as I heard the telltale buzz of his mana as he dashed forward, swinging his sword from the right vertically at Adam. Adam prepared to block it, but with a feat that no novice fighter would be able to pull off, Arthur feinted and suddenly appeared to Adam's right. My eyes widened, probably being the only one in the group able to comprehend the complicated footwork my brother had just pulled off to perform that move.
Arthur's sword swung at Adam's exposed ribcage, his sword starting to buzz as he reinforced it with mana. A split second before the sword could impact, Adam pivoted and swung his stick upwards, dodging and attacking at the same time. Arthur barely managed to dodge the swing as he squatted down, changing the grip on his sword from a thrust to a swipe, aiming at Adam's left ankle. The sword swung true, landing a hard blow as Adam was thrown off balance by the attack.
However, Adam recovered quickly and did a full on gymnastics split, following up with a roundhouse sweep with his legs as soon as he touched the ground. At this point I realized that if I hadn't used my earth powers to get Adam stuck earlier, I probably would've lost the fight.
Arthur jumped to avoid Adam's whirlwind of legs, only to realize he was a sitting duck as Adam's stick thrust toward his face, all but a brown blur. With no time for him to block, Arthur thrust the pommel of his sword forward as well. Arthur succesfully blocked it, with the stick even cracking on impact, but while I was expecting him to let go of the sword like I did, he didn't. And so, my little brother ended up getting yeeted from the force of impact, and flew a couple of feet before skidding onto the ground. Thankfully we were in a pretty grassy location, so he probably wouldn't have any serious injuries.
I watched in amusement as the next series of events unfolded. Our mother rushed over to Arthur to heal him. Durden the gentle giant thumped Adam over the head. While everyone else was just stupefied.
"Goddamn, Rey! How the hell did you train these two?" Adam groaned as he got up.
"I didn't teach them how to fight like that" our father said as he watched us.
The eyes of everyone were now on me and Arthur at that. I looked at Arthur and we both decided to feign ignorance. Don't tell me how we do it, it's a twin thing.
"I just learned by reading books and watching you dad" Arthur replied.
Everyone then looked at me and I just shrugged, "Pure instinct I guess."
While everyone definitely wasn't fully satisfied with our answers, Adam broke the silence by apologizing to Arthur. As I was about to head over to my tent to dip for the night, I paused upon hearing a feminine voice.
"Your fighting style is... unique. How did you do that step after the feint?"
I glanced over my shoulder, seeing Jasmine talking to my brother. A frown wriggled its way onto my face, although I had no idea why.
"Thank you? It's a simple technique really. Since I was feinting to Mr. Krensh's-" Oh, so that was his name, I thought sheepishly. "-right side, I placed my right foot forward as the last step before the feint. There I instantly focused my mana into the right foot, pushing myself back, and at the same time I bring my left leg..."
I lost focus while Arthur was explaining how he did the step, not really needing a full-on verbal explanation as I already pretty much got the gist of it from what I saw earlier. Having heightened battle sense sure helps a lot when analyzing fights. I looked around to see Adam, Helen, and even my father trying out what my brother just explained. Meanwhile, Angela rushed over to where Arthur was, picking him up and burying his head in her hills of doom as she praised him.
I glanced over to where my discarded sword lay. "Oh, what the Hades. Why not." I walked over to my now cracked sword, holding it in the proper stance and performing the feint and step as I remembered it through memory. I stumbled a bit upon doing it, although it was still successful.
'It seems like it's tough to perform this move in a child's body. Props to Arthur for pulling it off then huh... Either way, this definitely isn't something you can learn from reading a book.'
Curiosity sated, I sauntered back to my tent to lay down and rest, oblivious to the fact that someone had seen me perform the move on my first try.
A couple of days passed before we finally arrived at the foot of the Grand Mountains. Many things happened along the way.
Everyone had managed to learn how to do the feint step, with Jasmine being the first to succesfully do it. I happened to see it by accident while I had gotten off the carriage to answer the call of nature. On my way back, I saw Jasmine pull Arthur over to a secluded clearing, a slight blush on her face as she showed him that she managed to do the move. I felt my face start to twist into a frown, before looking away and heading back to the carriage.
Any hopes of the frown that I couldn't explain dissipating disappeared into thin air as most of the journey after that was spent with Jasmine turning her head and staring back at Arthur, pointedly ignoring the road in front of her despite her being steering the carriage. Every time Arthur seemed to notice her gaze on him, she whipped her face back to the road ahead. In all honesty, she just probably wanted him to teach her more techniques or something, but I just groaned in annoyance as I laid down and tried to take a nap.
Some few days later, it was now me and Arthur's 4th birthday. Thankfully this time, the cake that our mother had somehow made during the trip without us noticing, was color blue. While I doubted if it was even edible, and as I could see, my little brother was having the same doubts as well, it was still blue. And as a true food connoisseur, all blue foods must be eaten vigorously.
While I was quite happy with the blue food and congratulations everyone was giving me and Arthur, the annoying frown came back once more as Jasmine handed Arthur a short knife, simply saying, "Present." I sighed as I finished the rest of my cake, before turning away. I decided that I'd vent out my confusing frustrations onto our surroundings as training instead.
I headed over to a secluded area under the guise of having to take a leak. Once I was sure no one was close or could see me, I channeled my power into the sky, the air around me practically pulsating. With no angry ruler of the skies around to lower my control over the winds, I could exert my power to new heights quite literally. I smiled as I felt the water vapor rise into the air, gathering in the sky above to form cumulonimbus clouds. The wind started to pick up as the sky darkened, the dark clouds I had formed rumbling as lightning and thunder crackled up above.
One second the ground was dry, and the next it had become wet and muddy. Heavy rain poured down and soaked into my clothes, invigorating me and making my blood pump. If we weren't on the side of a mountain, I definitely would've tried making an earthquake as well. I walked back to the carriages with a smile plastered on my face, only for it to turn into an expression of horror.
The caravan was under attack.
A/N: Sorry for the uber long delay since the last chapter guys! Had to work on some really late school stuff, pretty sure I'm failing my classes and will lose computer privileges so I wrote this because I'm doomed anyways. Hehe. I'll make up for it with this chapter, which is 2 TBATE chapters long. Since you guys asked for Percy to have a mana core, he will. But unlike Arthur, Percy will form his mana core like normal kids do. How do you guys feel the fight scene was? This was honestly my first time trying to do a proper fight scene despite writing lots of PJO fanfics before. All I had to go on was that Percy is unpredictable in his fighting style. For those wondering why Percy won but Arthur didn't, it honestly just ended up to the small decisions they made during the fight. Percy is used to fighting beings that will squish him if he blocks, so he spends a lot of time dodging and only blocks when he has to. He also lucked out since if it wasn't for him messing with Adam using his earth shaker powers, he definitely wouldn't have landed the punch. Not sure how I'll be working out Percy's interactions with Arthur and Jasmine from now on, but I'm open to suggestions! TBATE readers also know that I switched up the timing for when the bandit attack happens, and its now much earlier, and with Percy boosted with the powers of the storm. So definitely a big fight scene coming up next chapter. Comments and reactions are definitely appreciated, see you guys next chapter!