Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson
Chapter 3: Training
Six months later…
"What is going on?" Grover demanded, as Annabeth and Christina dragged him towards the sparing ring, his hooves scrambling for purchase against the slightly frozen ground.
The two girls were slightly smaller than the satyr, but their combined numbers, along with the natural strength Christina had from training for most of her life, allowed them to overpower him easily and drag him towards the ring.
Even though camp was climate controlled due to the magic border around it, Chiron had decided to let some snow in for the younger campers to play in a few days prior, and the air was still slightly chillier than it normally was. Both girls were wearing black bomber jackets, zipped all the way up to keep the chill out. Christina especially was unused to the chilly weather, having lived at a climate-controlled camp for her entire life.
"If you're going to eventually look for Pan, you need to train." Christina told her best friend. "You have your reed pipes, but what if you lose them?"
Despite having just barely turned seven, Christina had the wisdom of someone far older than her age, which came from having lived the demigod life ever since she was born.
"But I'm terrible at hand-to-hand combat." Grover protested, as the three of them reached the sparing ring, which was completely deserted at 3 pm on a February afternoon. "Why can't I just practice more on my reed pipes? I'm sure if I try harder I can actually perform a song that does some magic."
Annabeth rolled her eyes and pulled a small practice dagger out of the shed and handed it to the young satyr. "That's why we'll start with daggers first. And we're doing this, so you'll improve. If you were good at it, we wouldn't be doing this."
"By the time we're done with this, you'll be killing monsters in no time." Christina said grinning, pulling a dagger of her own out of her boot. "Annabeth will spar against you first, since she is newer at the dagger than I am."
Annabeth grabbed her own dagger out of the sheath around her waist and faced Grover. The satyr gulped and barely had time to dodge before she ran at him. The two danced around each other, Grover doing well for someone who had never held a dagger before now, although Christina suspected that Annabeth was going easy on him. He blocked a few more of her strikes, before being knocked flat on his back, Christina wincing at the scene.
Annabeth put her dagger back in her sheath and reached a hand down to Grover, who accepted it with a sigh, and pulled him to his feet. "That was really good for a beginner. Now we'll have Christina spar you."
Grover gulped as Christina approached him with her own dagger and the fight began again in earnest, with Annabeth on the sides watching this time.
Several hours later, the three of them collapsed on the side of the ring, Christina taking a large drink of the water bottle she had brought with her, before offering some to Annabeth and Grover.
"I think that went well." She commented as soon as everyone had gotten a drink from the bottle.
Grover collapsed back against the grass with a sigh. "You weren't the one getting pummeled to death for three hours straight."
"We'll try hand-to-hand tomorrow." Annabeth told him. "Maybe you'll be better at that? You were improving there near the end, so it certainly helped."
Grover groaned. "How are you so good at this only six months later? You were just as new to this as I am right now."
"I'm a child of Athena." Annabeth pointed out. "My mother is the goddess of war."
Christina grinned. "No, Ares is the god of war, Annabeth is just amazing."
The three of them laughed, collapsing back into the grass together, and simply enjoying the last few setting rays of sun, before they had to head back to their cabins for the night.
I apologize for this chapter being so short, after I disappeared for nearly a month. It is mainly a filler chapter, and I am terrible at writing fight scenes, especially dagger fight scenes.
Disclaimer: Even though I will be making some pretty sizable changes to the canon in this fic, most deaths will still happen. This is not a time travel fic, so they know nothing more about what's happening than the canon PJO characters do. Just because Christina is there, does not mean they're going to save everyone. That being said, I will stop some deaths, not going to say which ones now, but there is one specific one that I know for a fact I'm stopping, even if I haven't figured out how yet. That's not going to be for a while though, since obviously no one dies in The Lightning Thief, so it's not going to be in the first fic.
Also, I have an unhealthy obsession with the PJO and HOO side characters, so expect a lot of them when they start appearing. I also ship Solangelo a little bit more than I do Percabeth, so expect them to have the same amount of focus that Percabeth will have, although neither are going to be the most prominent ship, since my one with Christina and another character will be the main. But obviously none of this is going to matter for a while, since they are all literal children right now, and Christina's love interest isn't going to be introduced during this book.
Expect fairly sporadic updates with this, because I'm in school and that obviously takes precedent over this fic. I also apologize to any readers of my other fics, they aren't abandoned, I just have a very bad habit of starting fics and then starting other ones before I finish the previous ones, so I'll get back to them eventually.
Please review. I love reviews.
