Chapter Nine: Sparking a Friendship

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"She owes me nothing, and her truth is her own. To bury or not."


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Chapter 9. 

Sparking a Friendship



ACE KNEW FROM THE FIRST TIME that he fought Arya Jackson, that he would consider himself the luckiest man in the world if he was to ever beat her.

She disarmed him in about two seconds flat. One second for his left hand, and the second second was for his right hand. His swords went flying, and that was that. He wasn't even able to think through a counter or dodge.

It wasn't that she was fast. In fact she had minimal movements with her trident. What was so awe-inducing was her precision, and ease at which she moved through her motions. Everything she did had been planned out, she knew what to attack exactly when, how much force to put behind it, which direction to twist the prongs or shift the weight of her body. She used her trident like it was something she was born to do.

It was a gift.

He had never seen anyone with a talent like she had. Her fight with Cato hadn't been a lucky encounter. She knew exactly what she had to do in order to take him down and she was able to do it without a second of hesitation.

"You're amazing." He found himself saying before he realized the words had left his mouth.

"You didn't even try to counter." She said with hints of amusement.

"Yeah, sorry." He said. "I wasn't in the mindset for combat."

Ace was used to being the weak link in combat. Nowadays he doesn't really think much of it because as soon as he graduated from the legion he didn't really plan on picking up a sword again.

He was realizing quickly he didn't like the bemused face Arya was giving him. Knowing who she was, and who he was. She wasn't directly making fun of him, but it reminded him of every single time he was berated when he was younger for falling behind on his training.

"What?" He asked as he walked over and grabbed his blades.

"I'm starting to think we're very opposite people."

He didn't know if he should take offense to that or not. His pause in movements must have relayed that to her. "That wasn't meant to be mean. I just don't think I know how to not be in the mindset for combat."

He had learned enough about the Jackson siblings to know that there was a brutal truth behind her words. He tried to imagine it. Being ready to fight every second of the day. Percy and Arya both carried weapons everywhere they went. High alert was a subtle way to put their cautious dementors.

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