The Curse of Oenone (Daughter of Olympus II) - [Leo Valdez xF!Oc]

Ah Shit, Here We Go Again

"We were..." I look at the boys towering over me, "training."

"Training?" Mike asks indignantly. "For what? Dying?"

"It's a long story," Nico rolls his eyes. "Harmless match, that's all."

"Harmless," Percy repeats, scowling. "Nico, you have a black eye. Ara's lip is busted and her leg is bleeding. What the Tartarus were you doing?"

Nico and I look at each other with the same surprised expression. I touch my lip and feel the blood, as well as the pain. Nico touches his eye and frowns. "Ouch," he mumbles.

"They wanted to know which was the strongest since they both believe they are the top gladiator of the twenty-first century," Connor explains.

"Why didn't you try to stop them?" Michael scolds him.

"Di Angelo cracked the ground beneath her feet and she threw a water bottle at his face and kicked him in the crotch!" Travis complains. "They move too fast."

"You two come with me." 

Mike guides us out of the arena with Lily quietly following close.

"Where are you taking us?"

"The infirmary is for campers who hurt themselves training properly, not for uncontrolled beasts who have fun breaking arms. I'm going to cure you two with other remedies, the ones that stink of compost."

"No one broke anything," Nico sulks.

I nod thoughtfully. "Can't be hard, though..."

"No more fights!" Lily and Mike shout in unison.

"Who won, then?" Connor asks Lily, quickly catching up to us.

We look at her, she looks back like she can't believe we're asking. "Nobody! None of them asked for a truce, Percy and Mike had to break the fight."

"One of us should've been better anyway."

"You're both equally stupid," she scolds us. "There was no winner. Period."

We get to the edge of the forest, Mike sits with us and smears our faces with a strange moss that stinks of stagnant water. 

Let me say, that stuff tastes as bad as it looks, so I refuse to put that in my mouth, I don't care if that means I'll end up having a scar.

Percy takes a look at us once we go back and asks in a frustrated tone: "You'll continue fighting until there's a winner, won't you?"

Nico and I look at each other with the same dark grin.

"Forget Kronos, they're going to die before they turn fourteen," Lily groans.

"I hope they gain some sense before that happens," Mike fixes my bandages with concern.

I don't care about the bruises and the scarring, they show I'm not afraid to throw a punch. Besides, if getting into fights means I'll have Mike's attention on me, I think I can live with it.

***

Ara gets yanked backward before a boulder hits her. 

"Get us out of here!" Nico yells at Leo, then he leans down. "That'd be the third time, by the way."

Ara pushes him aside. "I've saved your life more times than you can catch up to."