My story | PJO x male reader

Chapter 7: A friendly competition

I woke up the next day early. Earlier then everyone besides Luke who was looking at something on a desk with a puzzled but determined look. The first thing I did was look at the clock that sat on the nightstand and it read in bright red letter, "6:17." With that I got up and grabbed my necklace. I put it on while walking towards Luke.
"What are you up to?" I asked
"Deciding the best strategy for capture the flag? He answered without looking up.
"Who are we in alliance with?"
"Athena and Apollo."
"Versus all of the other campers?"
"Even with all of those cabins we have the number advantage." Luke said as if he already thought about this.
"Wouldn't you leave the planning to Athena?"
"No shame in having a back-up plan." He responded.
"How long have you been doing this?" I asked
"Since 3." He said nonchalantly
"Take a break, Luke." I whisper yelled at him careful not to wake the other campers.
"A break sounds like just the right thing right now. Let's go to the ring." He said getting up from the chair. ( the ring was the unofficial name for the sword training area)

We got up and started walking towards the ring. The sun still hadn't risen because it was around 6:20 and the moon didn't set until 7:12. Luke said he couldn't see anything in the dark which surprised me as everything seemed easy to see. It almost looked clearer right now than it did when the sun was out.
"Shouldn't the Harpies be out right now?" I ask
"They go away at 6. Helpful information if you ask me." He responded and I noted that in my brain somewhere.

We got to the ring and lucky for Luke there was a light system so he could see me. He flipped the switch and a ring (no pun intended) of lights circled around the arena. He grabbed his sword while I grabbed a bow and a quiver full of blunted arrows.
"Best of 3" Luke said addressing the rules.
"Let's go" I said trying to get him to start
"You sure you're ready?"
"Stop stalling." I said referring to yesterday's competition.
He laughed pointing his sword at me.
"3"
"2"
"1"
He springs to action, stepping towards me and sweeping at my upper body. Now let me say that I have never been trained in close combat with any weapon especially against the "best sword man the camp had seen in decades." But even without any training my body was moving out of the way of his strikes. I was practically dancing in the moonlight while I was trying to find an opening in his strikes. During his strikes I would notice that he overextended his side strikes leaving his armpit open for a shot.

He kept making swings that had almost gotten me multiple times but I was always a quarter of a second ahead. He used his side strike which was aimed towards my upper body but instead of retreating I saw the opening. This allowed me to slide under his slide and shot towards his armpit... it hit.
Luke looked dumbfounded.
"Damn, nice shot. I knew you were agile but I didn't know that you were that agile."
I just shrugged not even knowing how I did that.
"That also exposed a weakness I got to cover now."
"It was probably beginner's luck."
"Want to find out?" He said holding his sword towards me.
"You bet."

"3"
"2"
"1"

He didn't lunge as I expected. He just stood there waiting for me to make the first move. It was as if he didn't know what I was capable of. I notched my arrow and pulled back. He held his blade waiting for me to release. We stood there at a stand-off for about 3 seconds but it felt like an eternity before...
"Put your elbow out to the right. It will curve the arrow"
The same voice I heard yesterday said before I did as it said. I released the arrow and it went to the left before it sharply curved to the right.

Luke saw what was happening and deflected the arrow and charged. Now that it happened I saw what his plan was. "Just wait for me to shoot and while I don't have an arrow notched go after me." I retreated as he gave relentless slashes. He fixed the flaw in his side strike so that made life ten times harder. I finally managed to notch an arrow and I aimed at him. He lunged towards me so I didn't get a chance to shoot. But midway through his next wave of slashes I thought of an idea.

When his slashes slowed down I notched about 3 more arrows and shot them slightly in the air making them rain down on him. When he tried move out of the way I shot at him. It hit him square in the chest.

"Something told me that that isn't beginner's luck." He said laughing.
"I guess it wasn't." I said as the sun started to come up out from the horizon.

I almost passed out from exhaustion as what I did just hit me. I fell straight on the floor.

"Hey put your arms over you head and breathe slowly." Luke said while standing above me with concern written on his face.

As I started to get my breathing under control Luke racked his sword and helped me up.

"We should head back get you rested up, now." Luke said as he helped me steady myself.

"Makes sense." I replied

We made our way to the cabin while we were creating small talk which mostly revolved around," Where did you learn to dodge like that." Or, "You're gonna have to teach me how to shoot like that."

We got to our cabin and he opened the door and helped me to my bed. I was ignoring the fact that I should take a shower and almost immediately fell asleep after telling Luke,
"Thanks."

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Criticism is welcome