Okey-dokey, before anyone freaks and says I'm cheating and copying from The Hunger Games, wait a second. I'll admit, it did inspire me a little for my training thing, but it's not like there are going to be evil Gamemakers with cool beards are going to be watching them.

Chapter Twenty-Two: Training

Percy slammed the front doors of the Olympus T.V. building behind him, "Stupid Martha…" He grumbled more rude things under his breath, and noticed Annabeth sitting on the steps in her dress from the night before, "Hey, I didn't notice you there." She didn't acknowledge him. He sat down next to her and gently cupped her chin in his hand and turned her head towards him, "What's wrong?" He asked when he saw the sad look on her face.

"I can't believe they asked me about our relationship." She hung her head.

Percy nearly burst with rage, "What? They asked you, too?"

She looked up, "Yeah, so I left the room."

He sighed, "We should just forget about it and get to the training." He walked Annabeth back to her house, and he quickly changed inside his. He tossed on his outfit for breakfast, but grabbed his training armor, too-along with Riptide as well, of course.

"Percy!" Someone was pounding on the door, "Let me in, man!" It definitely wasn't Annabeth, she rarely called him "man". Could it be?

"Grover! What's up, dude?" He said when he saw his best friend's face. They slapped each other on the backs a couple of times.

"I've got some training to do, want to come?" Percy asked.

"What do you think my answer is going to be?" Grover replied eagerly. Percy already knew where the Training Center was, Annabeth had showed him tons of times when Olympus was under construction. But he didn't know what the final product of it looked like. When he had been there, most of the stuff was covered with white sheets. But now he got to see it unveiled. There were racks of almost any melee weapon you could think of, archery ranges, obstacle courses, two boxing rings that were side by side, and lastly, live people you could duel with. "Woah." Was all the two of them could say. The equipment alone left them speechless, but the structure left them with their mouths gaping. It was all made of glass, columns and all. The glass was tinted so you couldn't stalk the people in the showers, but everything else you could see through. Even the paparazzi crews of Olympus attempting to get a picture of all the action going on inside. Like little kids, they ran around, looking at everything and forgot why they were really there.

"Well, well, well. Look who it is, Prissy and Goat-Boy." Percy turned to glare at Clarisse.

"I'm so happy to see you, too." He snapped back.

"Let's just cut to the chase, Jackson. You, me, boxing ring, ten minutes." She shoved some blue boxing gloves into his chest. When she was out of hearing range, Percy leaned back and whispered into Grover's ear,

"You know I'm not going right? She's just all fired up, that's all."

Grover looked confused, "Why not? This is the only chance when you can hit a girl." He was right about that in a way.

"Hit a girl? Now why would you want to do that in the first place?" A feminine voice ran between Percy and Grover's heads. Percy turned and saw Annabeth sitting down on a gymnastics balance beam, wearing a light hoodie, jean shorts, and sneakers with her hair in a ponytail.

Grover sputtered, "Oh! Um, never, of course. But I'm, eh, going to check out the snack bar, later!" He clip-clopped away.

Percy tossed his boxing gloves onto the gym mat he was standing on, "Want to practice a little swordfighting?

Annabeth's lips curved into a devilish smile, "Do I?"

Clicking Riptide while circling around Annabeth, Percy did some final adjustments on his armor straps. Both of their sets of eyes were locked on each other, a predator after its prey. Percy had the first strike, going right for the offensive and attempted to disarm Annabeth by knocking the knife out of her hands. She easily sidestepped this, moving light on her feet with her knife out in front of her; just in case she needed to attack quickly. Using quick footwork, she got up close and personal, and managed hacked and slashed on Percy's sword blade.

"What?" Percy said, parrying back the offense. "What-are-you…doing?"

"Kicking-your-ass." She said calmly, "Deal with it." She cornered him, placed a light, but hard enough to knock him down, kick in his chest. Percy stumbled on his feet, and collapsed onto his back. Percy reluctantly took her held out hand when it was offered to him.

"I thought you beat me last time," He grumbled when he was back on his feet.

"I don't think I did enough the last time around." Annabeth said smugly.

So sorry it's a short chapter. I need to get back to studying for my final exams at school. Even though we're taking RLA first and that's the easiest one for me, I take these tests quite seriously.