The Rising Darkness {Currently under editing}

Chapter Two-Making Friends

My first day after I had been claimed at Camp Half Blood was the hardest of my life. Ever before, or ever again. Why? Because I had to make friends. Some of these people had known eachother for years and even those that hadn't, most of them had non-half blood friends. After Nico the next friend I made was Leo Valdez. A scrawny son of Hephaestus. Like me he didn't realy assimilate well with other humans. He preffered the company of machines, so he was often to be found in Bunker 9 talking to Bufford, his steam powered table. After Leo, Annabeth. The two of us shared a pencant for knowledge and a mutual frustration over Percy's stupidity. Soon we could often be found discussing architecture or Astrophysics.

Under an hour before I had made these two friends I made an enemy. Clarrise La Rue. Bigheaded daughter of Ares God of War. She had made some stupid comment about my father and I had snapped. I'd never had much of a punch but my first blow was able to send her back about three steps. After that the fight was pretty one sided. Needless to say I wouldn't give up. Until I was pounded into the dirt so hard that even I had to face facts. After that I limped of nursing a broken nose.

A few hours later I was stood at the edge of the sword arena. I wasn't due a lesson till Thursday but I thought it couldn't hurt to get some practice in. But when I walked in there was all ready someone there. He was making mincemeat out of a load of Zombies that Nico had summoned. Slashing them to pieces with a sword made out of bronze. Even at this distance I could make out the name on the blade. Anaklusmos, which meant Riptide in ancient greek. (And yes I did know how to read ancient greek[All words in rounded brackets are notes by the narrator all those in square brackets are notes by the author])

After about thirty seconds of hacking and slashing the zombies disintergrated. Leaving nothing but dust and rags to show they'd ever existed. The boy pulled something from his pocket and touched the blade of his sword to it. Almost immediatly the sword shrunk into a pen. Ah, so this must be the famous Percy Jackson. Hero of Olympus, savior of the gods. He who defeated the Titan lord Kronos. So this was Annabeth's boyfriend. At that point in my life it was the first time I had seen him and I figured the best thing I could do was to say hello.

"Hey" I yelled over to him, he turned and looked at me. His eyes were exactly the colour as Ebony's "I presume you're Percy"

"And you must be Jem" He had an upbeat way of speaking that I expect would have cheered me up even if I was depressed "Nico's Half-Brother. I bet you're having a hard time making friends. We've all been here longer than you and we're not realy all that open to new people"

"Thanks for the re-assurance" I could feel my optimism slipping away every second. "Do you mind showing me some sword techniques?" I mean he probably had better things to do, right?

"Sure. Why not?" He smiled. Even before he had finshed saying this he had grabbed a sword from the rack on the wall and chucked it to me. I caught it awkwardly and ajusted my grip on the handle. The balance wasn't quite right and the grip didn't fit my hand. It was uncomfortable for me to hold and Percy clearly noticed this. "Matching the right weapon to the right person is Annabeth's thing. Just know that when I started camp I couldn't find a sword I favoured either."

With that he uncapped his sword and took up his stance. Before he even swung at me my mind had begun a Sherlock Holmes style investigation of his tactics. He was putting more weight on his back leg in case he needed to dart backwards quickly, but he had kept the difference low so he could easily switch for an attcking run. It was a good stance but it had one weakness. It rellied on Percy shifting quickly. If I suddenly switched from deffending to attacking I may be able to put him off balance. Then I could take out his leg and floor him. It was a solid plan and it had taken me less than a second to comeu up with.