The Hermit

The Hero Becomes a Sword Instructor

"Alright, let's see how you all do. Swords up! Now, I want you to imagine your enemy has armor on. Stike somewhere you think would be able to damage your opponent."

Perseus watched the intermediate class he was instructing. His first class of the day had been with the younger, less experienced kids and it was just basic instruction. He helped them with their footwork, body movements, and proper grip. It was different than when he was first starting out. He didn't throw them straight into sparring. But then again, most of those kids were younger than he had been when he first got to camp. Only a handful had been twelve or so.

Here in this class, he was using dummies to reinforce practical fighting ideals. They would do some light sparring with wooden swords, but he was reserving actual blade sparring for the advanced classes only. He had already told everyone that would go home at the end of the summer that they could have an extracurricular class setting with him if they wanted to learn to be able to fight monsters while they were home but were not in the advanced class. It was not his goal to send untrained demigods back to possibly have to fight monsters with little to no training.

That, and he did make some of his advanced class kids take the basic and intermediate courses a few times because their form was lacking. All of the kids were stunned at how experienced he was. They had all seen him face off against the older campers and heard he'd even fought his father, but to actually see him teach them was something else entirely. Not all experienced fighters were good instructors.

As the day progressed, many of the kids, and even the older campers and current cabin councilors came to watch how he instructed. He was hard but fair in how he corrected the younger generation of demigods. Luke was especially rivetted to his classes, staying in all three, even if Percy didn't allow him to fully participate in the advanced class. It was clear to everyone that Luke idolized Percy. He was also almost as gifted as Percy had been as a young boy when it came to the sword.

The only one not as pleased with the whole situation was Annabeth. She had intended to monopolize his time, at least at first. And now, that was an impossible task, as Percy had actually taken a liking to his new role. With it being two weeks since he had started, Percy almost looked like how he did before the whole debacle. Poseidon would show up on the weekends to check in on his son and see his two youngest children, if but briefly, despite Zeus' clear dislike of such actions.

At one point, he had confided in Percy that he was using him to also see Percy's younger siblings, since the other gods recognized Percy as someone they needed to keep an eye on. This allowed Poseidon to also see Jason and Gracie even though it broke the Ancient Laws for him to do so. Not that Poseidon had always followed that rule.

When he wasn't instructing his swordsmanship classes, Annabeth was glued to his side at all times. After their first night, she had stopped trying to get a second room for herself and spent every moment she could with him. Everyone could see that despite what Percy said, they were definitely still together. Annabeth was like medicine to him, and kept him sane. His siblings kept him grounded in reality, and the camp was almost like a spa, washing away his worries, even if there were far too many people for him to be entirely comfortable.

Slowly, Percy was getting used to being happy again and around other people. He had bouts, like anyone with post traumatic stress, but they were out of sight of anyone but Annabeth. She made sure of that. As if she could sense one coming on, she made sure Percy became scarce around others until he had calmed down. Chiron saw his old pupil recovering and nearly pranced around the camp, happy as a lark. All in all, it seemed everyone had become happier since Percy returned.

Only once did things turn a bit dark. A few of the older boys, about eighteen, who didn't know who Percy truly was, had tried to confront him about Annabeth. They had all been completely infatuated with her, despite the obvious age gap. Had Chiron and Annabeth not stepped in, their beating Percy dished out during class may have turned bloody. No one ever brought up making a pass at Annabeth again, let alone doing it in front of him. Annabeth kept him secluded for over a day after that to calm him down and make sure everything was okay, especially in his head.

Clarisse occasionally helped out with his swordsmanship class as well. She'd step in to give him a sparring partner to show the advanced class more refined moves, or to assist him keeping an eye on the training of the larger basic class. The intermediate class didn't need quite as much supervision as it was smaller than the basic class, but the extra pair of eyes wasn't unhelpful when it was offered for the few times they were training with actual swords to prevent any major injuries.

They also had a weekly sparring session with all of the older campers versus Percy, so that he could keep his edge and so that the younger generation could see far more advanced techniques at work. Every time he would preface it with the same phrase, "Please don't try this on your own. It took me years of constant combat for me to be able to fight such experienced opponents." He never belittled his friends after the first day in front of the kids. One, because they were his friends, but also there was no denying their ability; he was the odd one out here. It was not normal that his skills were at this level and he did not wish the kids would ever have to be in a position to be as skilled as he was at fighting other demigods. He truly hoped what he had done would ensure that no one would ever have to do something like that again.

"Hey, Perce. Do you think they would ever ask any of us to do something like that again?" Connor asked one Friday night, after the campfire was done and the kids were in their cabins.

Percy looked at him slowly and replied, "For their sake, I hope not." His friends looked at him, well aware that the 'their' he was referring to was not the kids, but the Gods. "But...without a doubt, if it was even necessary, I'd do it."

"Percy," Annabeth started.

"No. My hands are already stained. I don't want any of you to ever have to go through that."

"Perce, none of our hands are clean. We all fought in Manhattan. We know that we caused deaths. There's no way we didn't. So, if it happens again, we won't let you do it alone. It doesn't matter what you think or say," Travis said, Connor nodding with him.

They all looked determined, but no one really wanted something like that to happen. It was already hard to know that Percy had, had to kill so many other demigods. If the Gods forced him to do so again, it was highly likely that he'd disappear for good this time. And they would follow. It was unacceptable to have to kill so many when they were already so few.

Annabeth leaned on Percy, the close contact helping ease his mind. "I appreciate it, but really..."

"No, Percy. They are right. You aren't going through that alone again. And I'll be damned if I let my mother do something like that to you again. If the Gods want something like that done, they should just do it themselves," Annabeth said firmly, not letting him even finish.

Percy smiled softly and chose to remain silent. He knew that deep down, he could never let them go through what he had. They have accidentally killed some demigods because they chose to knock them out and the monsters had probably finished the deal, but it was a whole different matter to actually killing another demigod out right. He couldn't let them go through that ordeal.