A/N: HEY GUYS WHAT'S UP? I SEE THAT YOU GUYS LIKED CHAPTER 12 SO HERE'S CHAPTER 13. I WOULD HAVE POSTED SOONER BUT IT WAS MY AWESOME BETA, DORYLOVER, THAT WAS BEING LAZY AND GETTING HER WORK DONE :P. ANYWAY ENJOY THE CHAPTER GUYS, HAD A LOT OF FUN WRITING THIS. CHAPTER 14 WILL BE UP SHORTLY. AND AS USUAL IF YOU LIKE THIS THEN PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW AND PLEASE LIKE AND FOLLOW THIS STORY FOR FURTHER UPDATES. THANKS FOR ALL THE LOVE AND UNTIL NEXT TIME, PCE OUT. :D:D
Chapter 13
For the remainder of the hour Ace let Luke teach him whatever he thought was essential for Aces survival. But when the hour was up, Ace along with Tal, Luke and Chiron made their way to the arena. As they approached the arena, Luke kept giving him pointers on how Clarisse fought.
"Don't let her spearhead touch you, it'll electrocute you. Also stay on top of her, don't give her the reach she needs with her long weapon. And don't and I repeat, don't make her mad. She is a child of Ares, so if she does get mad then she will become a wild card. She will act out and that will make her unpredictable, which is not good for you. Lastly…" Luke tried to continue but Ace interrupted.
"I can only take in so much info at a time."
"Basically, just don't die man. It would suck." Luke said smiling as he left the little huddle to join his brethren that were huddled together in the stands.
"Ace listen to Luke, he knows his way around a sword." Chiron said looking around the arena. "And you got yourself an audience so show us what you can do."
Chiron left to explain to the campers what the situation was.
"Don't hurt her too much. And don't do anything that will reveal that you aren't a newcomer." Tal said observing the audience.
"You think I should fight. I was thinking about forfeiting, we have work to do and this will cause too much problems." Ace explained.
Tal let her eyes glide over to his face to see that he wasn't kidding. "Even better, it would require no explanation." She said with a hint of smile.
"Alright lets do this. I'll see you in a little bit." Ace said taking in a deep breath.
Tal left to go join the audience while he walked into the field. The practice dummies that were usually in the middle were now moved to the side to allow as much space as possible for movement. And in place of the dummies, Clarisse was in her blood red armor, patiently waiting for Ace. He walked forward until he was ten feet from the demigoddess. He stayed silent as he turned to face Chiron, letting him handle the details.
"Good Afternoon campers. As you can see our newest camper, Ace, has gotten himself into quite a mess." He said smiling as others followed his example and smiled or laughed.
"Anyway this will be just a one round match, maiming will be kept to a minimum and whoever yields...loses." Chiron explained. He was about to continue when Ace raised his hand. Chiron fell silent to let Ace speak his mind.
"Would an apology fix this problem. I am new here and I don't want to start off on the wrong foot." Ace said looking at Clarisse.
Chiron, along with most of the other campers were caught off guard. They didn't expect this kind of preposition from Ace. The way Ace carried himself and the way he acted made it seem like he was prideful, but not the extent of it becoming arrogance. But here he was, stomping on his pride and trying to solve the problem with diplomacy.
Everyone turned to face Clarisse, awaiting her response. Clarisse didn't even contemplate the option. She just started laughing.
"Maybe if you grovel at my feet and beg for mercy, newbie!" Clarisse replied, still laughing.
"That's what I thought." Ace muttered, more to himself then the audience.
He turned his head to look at Tal. She in return replied with a nod, acknowledging his effort to avoid this. He then turned to face Chiron, signaling him to continue. Chiron replied a nod of his own.
He cleared his throat and said "Fighters at the ready." Clarisse got into position and ready to charge. Ace observed her stance, noticing that Clarisse wasn't bothering herself to prepare for any oncoming attacks, mostly because she wasn't expecting him to attack. Her stance said she was ready to skewer somebody.
Ace let out a sigh and brought out his sword. He got into a neutral stance, giving him equal opportunities to attack and defend.
Once Chiron saw that both fighters were ready to go, he blew the conch horn, signaling the start of the match.
Before Chiron could even stop blowing the horn, Clarisse leveled her spear to Aces chest and charged. Once within reach Clarisse jabbed her spear at Ace, who easily sidestepped the attack. He was about to pounce and close the distance between them, rendering her spear useless, when Clarisse noticed this and jumped back. She had a smirk plastered on her face.
"Not bad newbie, not bad at all." She said as she held her smirk.
Ace was about to charge, when suddenly Clarisse let go of her spear. It dropped to the ground with a 'thud' as she pulled out her sword that was hanging by her waist.
This action made Luke and Chiron worry. They both didn't expect Clarisse to not use her spear. And all the pointers that Luke had given Ace were based on the idea that Clarisse was going to use her spear to fight. They both looked to Ace, expecting him to be confused or worried or even scared. But the expression on Aces face made them confused. Ace held a stoic face. He didn't let a shred of emotion slip through.
Once Clarisse took her stance Ace charged. He jabbed at her midsection which she was able to dodge with no trouble. But before she could retaliate Percy lowered his sword and used his momentum to swipe Clarisses legs from underneath her. She buckled and dropped to the ground with a 'thump'. Ace was about to ask if she was going yield when she swung her sword in a wild arch, aimed for Aces thigh.
Ace jumped back while Clarisse rushed to her feet.
"Punk." She growled in rage.
Ace saw that this was going to take a while so he put his plan into action.
He stabbed his sword in the ground and raised his hands. "Look I'm sorry for insulting you, and I'm also sorry for challenging you to a fight. But this it for me, you are obviously better than me so I forfeit."
Clarisse started at him with a blank expression while the entire audience erupted with "boos" and "you suck."
Clarisse, instead of calming down, was fueled with more rage. "Pick up your sword you coward. Fight me like a man you wimp" she roared.
"Nope, sorry but I don't have a death wish." He said turning to leave.
As he started to walk away when he heard movement behind him. He turned his head to see Clarisse charging him. "Never turn your back on your enemy" She yelled.
Ace knew he was in trouble because he had left his sword where he stabbed it, and now he couldn't do anything without revealing himself. He was about to go into action when he saw from the corner of his eye that someone was running towards him. But he didn't have time to see who it was because Clarisse was almost upon him.
He waited letting Clarisse come to him. His plan was to let her swing at him and at the last second he would dodge her strike. But instead of moving out of the way, he would grab her arm and flip her over his head, using her own momentum against her. This process would also force her to release her sword, unless of course she wanted to impale herself. Him doing this would raise many questions from others because doing this required training and process. You had to know where to grab the hand to avoid getting hit with the sword. You also had to know when to twist the arm or the enemy wouldn't release the sword. And lastly you had know what stance to take when changing the momentum of the enemy and using it against them. And for a supposed newcomer doing this would look very suspicious. And he couldn't afford to look any more suspicious than he already was. He had already slipped up with the sword at the armory.
When Chiron handed him the sword, at first he didn't think much of it. It was only later that he had realised that the old centaur was testing him. Why else would he give a thirty pound sword to a new camper who supposedly didn't know how to fight.
Clarisse was inches from him and he was already taking his stance. But thank Chaos he didn't have to do anything because when Clarisse took her swing, instead of meeting with Aces flesh, it met with another sword, causing sparks to fly into the air.
"That's enough Clarisse. He has already given up, why are pursuing this any further. You won the match, now leave him alone." Luke's deep glare made his threatening voice sound even more threatening. Clarisse tried to match his glare but she was no match for the son of Hermes. And she knew that she couldn't handle him in a one on one fight. She slowly moved back and sheathed her sword. She huffed in annoyance once more before picking up her spear and walking out of the arena, followed by her pack of Ares children.
Luke watched until she was fully out of sight before sheathing his blade. He turned to face Ace and smiled. "I'm sorry; I didn't think she would use her sword. But I don't blame you for forfeiting. Clarisse is a lot better with her sword than she is with her spear. Anyway you did well; you tried to push her out of her comfort zone. That was good, and with a little more training maybe you could take her when she's using her sword" he said laughing.
"Thanks. And I'm sorry about wasting your time. I know you had better things to do than teach a newbie how to fight." Ace replied with an apologetic smile.
"Nonsense, that's my job after all, to teach sword fighting to new campers. I'm camp Half-Blood's sword instructor." Luke said patting Aces shoulder.
"Well thanks for all the help I guess. I'll see you later" Ace said and walked away to the doors that led out of the arena, where Tal was waiting patiently.
He walked passed her and she followed silently. Once they were both out of earshot she muttered to him. "That was very wise of you barnacle head, there's hope for you yet." Hearing that, he cracked a smile which in return made her smile.
After that they silently kept walking until they reached the big house, which was directly south of the arena. Tal examined her surroundings to make sure they were alone before she spoke. "What do we do now? Wait here until you arrive?"
"No. I didn't want to start out camp but it can't be helped now. But now we will leave and start out where I wanted to start out in the first place. At my school, where I first met Chiron and Grover. It's still August so school hasn't started yet. This gives us some time to get everything ready before we go in."
"Everything? What do we have to get ready before we enroll in school, which but the way sucks? If I knew that you were going to make me go to school, then I would've gladly let Nico taken my place in this trip." She said smiling, trying to lighten the mood.
"First, you still can pinecone face. And second, no matter what happens I'm still a god. I can't just go in and enroll myself into school." He said smirking.
"So what're you going to do. You can't just turn off being a god, can you?" She asked skeptically. Honestly, she didn't know much about being a god.
Ace laughed at the lack of sarcasm in her question. "No, but I can put most of my powers to sleep, make then dormant until I need to use then again."
"And how're you going to do that?"
"What, you think I was just free roaming all that time I was traveling around the world. No, I picked up some things here and there. And in Europe I learned about this potion from a child of Hecate. The potion, in large amounts, can take away the powers of an immortal, temporarily of course. But in very small doses it can be suited to my purpose."
"Anything else you learned on your vacation that you want to tell me about?" She inquired folding her arms over her chest. She was still a little upset that about the fact that he was roaming the world carefree while she was worried sick about him.
He sensed the change in her mood so he decided to keep his cryptic response to himself.
"Anyways let's get going. We have a limited amount of time and this potion takes a while to create." He said grabbing her hand, getting ready to flash out.
"Wait, we're not going to tell them that we're leaving?" She asked looking behind her at the big house.
"Tal, do you honestly think they will let us leave the camp boundaries if we just told them that we were leaving?" He reasoned.
"I guess you're right. Well let's get this show on the road." She said letting out a sigh.
Ace gripped her hand a little tighter and visioned his destination. And seconds later golden light surrounded the teenagers as they disappeared into thin air, leaving nothing more than a memory behind.