Ch.2 Training montages are pretty fun in this world

I had a whole month to train before Perseus Jackson decided to invade our life, and I wanted to make the most out of it. If I learned something from reading the books is that no God or being will give you power for free because they are afraid that you will use that power to potentially challenge and overthrow them in the future. And if they actually decide, for whatever reason, to give you some kind of power it will always come with strings attached, meaning that if I wanted to grow powerful I would have to create that strength myself.

First things first I headed to the library to pass the day, ADHD and Dyslexia proved to be a big obstacle but it seemed I had lost the impulsive and extremely aggressive behavior typical of Ares children, and that helped a lot in trying to focus on my books.

I decided I needed more information on the power of Ares's children, so I gathered all the tales I could about champions and heroes affiliated with the War God.

The results heavily surprised me, there were records of Heroes being able to use Necromancy to resurrect allies in a losing battle, the ability to turn anything into a weapon, and even changing weapons to harmless things but the weirdest ability had to be the power to manipulate emotions to render their target unable to think properly and inducing rage, basically turning allies or foes into berserkers.

I had plans to start on transfiguration since It seemed like the easiest one, with the most use, necromancy would be useful not only on big-scale battles that will come later down the line, finally emotions were Hestia's domain and I was unwilling, at least for now, to try manipulating them in her presence.

While I was researching more on transfiguration I ended up finding a very interesting book called "Theory of Transfiguration" by a woman called Minerva Fannings, apparently a daughter of Hecate.

Why a daughter of Hecate called Minerva was beyond me, hope Athena didn't get jealous.

The book explained that transfiguration, more than any other field of magic, didn't rely on scientific knowledge as one would be drawn to guess, but only and specifically on "transparency of thought" which I loosely translated in my head as intent.

So to transfigure something to something else I had to exactly know what the two objects looked, smelled, and felt like. Smell wasn't necessary but helpful nonetheless it seemed.

Hours passed and I was starting to feel eyes on me, I thought it was my ADHD acting up so I was about to get up and do my hourly break when I found a horde of blonde kids staring at me with their gray eyes.

I blinked a few times before asking "Need something?"

For a while, none answered until a girl decided to brave her curiosity and ask me completely forgoing even the smallest amount of tact.

"Ever since you got here you haven't been doing anything else than challenging people to battles left and right, we are a bit curious why you are suddenly here reading books after all this time, we didn't strike you as the studious type but more of a muscle for brain" I immediately recognized the girl as Annabeth, and since in front of me there was my least favorite character of the books acting all rude and cheeky I decided to answer in kind

"Well if you bothered to go beyond appearances and attempted to actually understand people instead of trying to be weird Sherlock Holmes knockoffs you would have found out that before coming here I have always been an avid reader, and using your brain a bit more you would have probably understood that just because someone enjoys the sword that doesn't preclude them of liking inked paper as well, your mother should be the most glaring example of that."

Not stopping to hear their answer I decided to turn around and leave for my well-deserved tea break, I also need sugar to keep going.

...

Annabeth POV

This has been the worst day of her Camp Half-Blood life. For the first time here she had been thoroughly humiliated by a guy she thought nothing about and a new guy to boot!

Her major oversight was that she never expected him to engage in a verbal battle against her in front of her and her housemates. The risks of getting humiliated were high after all. Instead, she was the one who suffered the silent snickers of her own people.

She could see it in his eyes, the naked mockery, the disdain, and the more she thought about it the more irritated she got.

"Damnit..."

The idiot had to lecture me in front of everyone, me and my stupid curiosity. When did he get all that confidence anyways, he acted like a fish out of the water just yesterday for Hera's sake!

I will get back at him someday, mark my word child of... oh... right... ahem...

Shaking her head in embarrassment again she went into her cabin, she needed another shower.

...

In the next few weeks I trained hard, my demigod powers allowed me to grow stronger faster than normal, the foreknowledge I had about weapons, tactics, and battle, granted by my godly father at birth, allowed me to improve my form quickly with spars I regularly took with other campers. I did not want to uniform myself to the same fighting style every time like the Ares cabin was doing but I also did not want to be a whatever goes guy like Percy will be, I wanted to find the balance between the two, but it wasn't easy, after failing many times I found a decent middle ground and kept improving on that. I also got my ass handed to me by Luke a few times, I decided to use him as my benchmark since he was the strongest fighter currently on Camp. Watching him fight others also helped a lot, my abilities helped me deconstruct his style bit by bit, after a few weeks I was able to successfully analyze part of it and incorporate it into my own technique.

"Up for a spar wolfie?" asked someone

Turning around I immediately recognized her face, lately, she has been training during my hours trying to get me in trouble, but all her efforts were rendered useless as I swiftly defused any situation.

"Wolfie?" I asked with a raised eyebrow

"Wolfie." she reiterated "there have been a lot of rumors about you going around lately, you seem to interact with people only when it is about fighting, you stopped trying to fight everyone from our cabin and were seen going around the library of all places. People have started calling you " lone wolf" " then she smirked and continued "But I feel like a lady like you would prefer the term Wolfie, isn't it cuter?"

I almost laughed at that, she was good at trash-talking, better than Annabeth at least.

Smiling I answered "You can call me whatever you want cutie, but are you sure you want a beating tho? Wouldn't it be bad for you if you had to face Rodriguez all dirty with swollen cheeks and aching arms?"

She widened her eyes and narrowed them again shortly after "Now you have done it"

Without delay she charged at me with a spear I deflected readily with my sword, moving my shield in position I blocked an overhead strike, stomping my left foot forward I counterattacked but was swiftly dealt with thanks to her weapon's superior range.

"Tsk, not bad, for a newbie," she said trying to resume her trash-talking I immediately countered

"You aren't half bad yourself" I smirked

She charged and started a flurry of attacks with no planning or strategy whatsoever but still effective, unable to completely block the strikes I was left with multiple semi-light wounds, however after a while of trying to furiously intercept I noticed that, albeit with small variations here and there she was still following her basic attack chain.

With time blocking became easier and easier and getting out from the position of prey now looked feasible.

Right, block with the sword

Left, block with the shield

Sweep attack on the abdomen

Overhead strike, NOW

Countering her overhead strike I challenged with a sword strike managing block she probably did not expect me to go on the offensive with a "shield punch" she had to take her spear with both hands and parry the strike that gave me the window to close the distance and render her weapon useless.

After a couple of strikes on the wooden part of the spear, the weapon broke allowing me to place my second on her neck claiming the win.

"Yield," I said

"I... yield..." she said with difficulty, in her eyes I could see a very dejected person, she didn't expect me to overpower her after just a few weeks of training, the only reason I was able to do that is because I inherited the sword talent like them but without one important thing, their crazy ass personality and the mind of an adult.

"It was the best fight I have ever had, thank you for that," I told her with a smile

"See you Clarisse, let's do it again sometimes"

Not expecting me to just let it go like that, she looked at me, a bit surprised. She annoyed the original body a lot after all, and honestly, I do not blame her he, was hella irritating after all.

After noticing I was already walking away she told me "next time I will win, prepare yourself"

"Sure, sure, good luck" I taunted with a laugh

...

And so it ended my first spar with Clarisse, it would not be the last one, but it will certainly be one of the most important, for me, and her both.