The God's Girl (cancelled)

Preparation

"Almost time for archery." Daren told me as he filled back up his water bottle.

I groaned. Markus, my archery teacher, had decided I was worth his time. A good thing? Absolutely not. Not only does he teach me, but he constantly flirted with me. Me, a three week old girl!

Daren chuckled at my reaction. "I would be happy to teach you, but archery isn't my thing. Markus is a son of Apollo, I am the son of Mars."

I sighed and took a long drink from my water bottle.

"Probably should get going." Daren noted. I didn't move. He shoved me towards the targets.

"Go." he insisted.

Not in any particular hurry, I meandered to the archery section of the field. Markus met me there.

"Ah, there you are! I was getting worried. Daren was hogging you, no doubt." He threw his arm over my shoulder, hugging me closer to him then needed. I pushed away, mumbling something about needing to fetch my bow.

I ran to the armory.

Heather looked up from a shelf, looking a tad surprised by my sudden appearance.

"In a hurry?" Heather got up and brushed dirt from her knees.

"No. I just needed to get away from Markus." I said, breathing heavily from my dash.

She nodded, realization in her eyes. "Ah. Same bow as yesterday?"

I nodded. "Yes, please. But take your time getting it."

Heather laughed. "He will find some other girl soon enough."

"It's not just that." I sighed. "I suck at archery."

Handing me my bow and a quiver of practice arrows, she smiled at me. "Good luck."

I smiled back. "Thanks." I jogged back to the field.

It had been two days since Reyna's announcement. I had a week to prepare myself. I would fight the experts in each area.

"You ready, honey?" Markus asked me when I returned.

I frowned. "You tutoring someone else named Honey? Strange name, even for Romans."

Now it was Markus's turn to frown. "No... Oh, I get it. Don't like that nickname?"

"Just teach me archery." I instructed.

He shrugged. "Whatever you say, beautiful."

I glared.

He held up his hands. "Ok, ok. Go in front of Target 26."

I did as I was asked and took my stance. I placed my quiver on my back and drew one of the arrows it was housing after stringing my recurve bow. Markus ran his fingers through his blond hair, forgetting it was cut short.

"Ok, load your bow and remember what I told you yesterday, use your back muscles, not just your arms. Good! Now..."

**********************************

"Draw."

I unsheathed my two knives from my double scabbard.

"Stance."

I crouched slightly and studied Lukas as he took an identical stance.

"Ready."

I watched his eyes without wavering, getting into my zone.

"Fight."

Normally, when two people with swords are fighting, they fight immediately. However, as Lukas had told me repeatedly, this is not the case with two knife masters. Instead, neither of us moved an inch. Amusement flashed in Lukas's eyes, but died quickly as he to, got into his zone. As he had learned yesterday, knives were undoubtedly my forte.

Serendipitously, he glanced at my right arm. It was to careful though, to obvious for his usual. I lunged to the left, already stabbing at his side before Lukas had even completed his attempted stab. He stepped to the side, turning to face me as he did so. We stopped moving. Knife battles were just a series of skirmishes.

My eyes flashed to his left leg, making sure it was obvious, but not like 'oh, my gosh, DUH of course it's a fluke' kind of way. Lukas was already moving his right leg back when I stabbed at his left leg. He staggered back but I still scraped his knee, spilling some blood. The battle continued; despite that though. There is no point in learning how to fight in parts. In a real fight no one in there right mind would stop and be like 'oh she cut me. Let's take a break.' No, instead the fight would rage on.

"Good tactic." Lukas remarked briefly, eyes flashing to my face, away from my side where he was previously considering for openings. I didn't pay attention to his words, now realizing that he probably only said that to distract me. He would slice from memory. I lunged to the side, being sure to pivot so I was still facing Lukas. Unfortunately for me, he calculated that I would and extended his slice was he still scraped me. I stabbed his unprotected side. Mistake. His left arm was still attempting to find openings at me, leaving my left arm to fend for itself. My right arm was trapped underneath with a razor sharp blade coming at my wrist underhand. To little room for a parry...

I kicked his legs in a scything motion with my right leg to knock him off balance and hopefully postpone his attacks. He had cut my midsection at least three times that I noticed. For this exercise Lukas insisted on no armor for both of us, so if I was caught unprepared I wouldn't be freaking out if I wasn't wearing my armor, so I developed more cuts then I could count just from these two days of practice.

Lukas jumper over my leg, but he still had to remove his arms from their position, which was my goal. I immediately backed up, knowing my previous dilemma was caused by being to close to him.

"Remember, you should always have room to maneuver whenever possible. Otherwise you could easily be trapped. Understand?" This time Lukas was actually teaching, not just distracting.

I nodded. With such little time to learn, I couldn't complain about anything. Not about the bruises, not about the cuts, not about the callouses, not about the cramping, and not about the cruelty. I need to accept criticism and ignore pains and get things done. Reyna left me no other choice.

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Oh yeah, two whole pages!!!!! Yes!!!! Yeah, I celebrate if I get two pages. That's hard for me.

Sorry if the spelling sucks!!! I wrote this on a stupid iPod that doesn't have the spell check button and doesn't spell check automatically like an iPad. Piece of junk.

Also, sorry it's so late!!! It took me forever to write this chapter :/ Life gets crazy.

So yeah, happy holidays and stuff.

Until next time, awesomers!

MormonGirlForever