Her second life

Chapter 18

Emily pov

After Percy told Annabeth a little bit about how bad it was the campers walked away and the four of us went to train. We walked to the arena and looked around. "Huh no ones here, don't they usually train?" I asked.

"Well technically this is a free hour and they usually don't use their hours off of training to train." Percy answered. "Oh okay." "Lets spar. Because they don't have the same training equipment that we use." Emma said. "K"

"I'll spar Emma then and you two can spar." Nico decided. We all agreed and grabbed our weapons. Percy and I walked over to the right half of the arena while Nico and Emma stayed on the left near the door. We got into a fighting position. "Ready?" I asked. "Go for it." Percy answered.

We circled for a moment. All of a sudden I jumped forward and slashed at his chest. He rolled to the side and jumped back up. He stepped forward and stabbed. I blocked and slashed at his head. We continued fighting for about 15 more minutes. I stepped forward and jabbed but he took 5 steps back and then ran and jumped over my head. He landed on his feet behind me and I turned around. He had barely come into view when his sword shot out and disarmed me. My sword flew into the corner of the arena. I tried to get around him but his foot shot out and I fell onto my back. He pointed his sword at my neck. "Yield?" He asked. I groaned, "Yield." I said. He held out his hand to help me up and took it. "Everytime. Every. Single. time. you beat me you do it with your air jump thingy." I complained. "Oh boo hoo." He said.

Emma pov

Nico and I grabbed our weapons and started to spar. We didn't circle very much. Nico made the first move. He faked a stab at my leg but at the last moment moved his direction to my stomach. I had suspected something like this so I was ready with a block from my sword and a slash at his chest. We fought for about 30 minutes until Nico tried to disarm me but failed. I deflected his disarming move and smacked the back of his hand with the flat of my blade, causing him to let go of his sword which caused it to go flying in the direction of Emily and Percy.

I heard a yelp and figured it had almost hit one of them but I was too focused on Nico to care. When he had let go of his sword he had lost his balance and I used that to my advantage. I slammed the handle of my blade into his back, Efficiently knocking him over. He fell onto his front and rolled over, I pointed my sword at his neck. "Yield yet?" I asked. He groaned. "Fine I yield" "good" I smiled. I stuck my other hand out and pulled him up. "YES Emma!" I heard Emily yell. I laughed and turned around to look at her. "Thanks." I answered with a smile.

Percy walked over to Nico. "Dude how do you manage to lose to her every time." He asked with a laugh. Nico groaned "I don't know but it's not like you've ever beaten her." "Hey I beat her once!" He protested. "Really when?" I asked. He groaned, "Remember when we were sparing in the training room and you were fighting a robot and then we sparred and I won?" "Yes I remember but the only reason you won was because the robot made me tired and then you sneaked up on me!" I answered. "Still a win in my book." He mumbled.

I walked over and punched his arm. "Ow!" He half yelled. "Was that a win?" I asked with a sly smile. "Oh by the way guys." Emily started and then gestured behind us. We turned around and saw most of the camp staring at us with jaws dropped and eyes wide. "What?" I asked them. "How did you.. When did you get so... How are you so good?" Jason asked, finally picking a question.

"It's called lots of practice here." I answered. "Here?" Annabeh asked. "Yes, here. In Tartarus it's called "win your fight or die." Nico answered her. "Oh.." We walked over to the stands and the campers filed the rest of the way in.

They started fighting and all four of us could see hundreds of things wrong with their stances, their attacks, and their defenses. "They're not very good." Emily said to us. "Yeah." Percy agreed. "If we want to win this war then we should train them." I said. "Agreed." Nico agreed. "Let's talk to Chiron about it tomorrow." Percy said "Okay."

Just then the horn sounded. "There's another attack!" Someone in the crowd of demigods yelled. Everyone grabbed their things and ran out of the arena towards the hill. Even though Emily, Nico, Percy, and I were in the back, we were some of the first people to get to the top of the hill.

What I saw there was worse than anything I could have imagined. There were thousands of monsters. The worst part was a girl around our age sitting on a thestral. She had blond hair with a red streak. She was wearing a faded basketball jersey with a nine on the front. I didn't have to see the back to know that it said Wren on it. I took a deep breath. "Harper?"