Chapter Thirteen

I knew what they were thinking, it’s what everyone thinks. I didn’t care anymore, I had learned to ignore it. To welcome it. Lenzie leaps at my left, causing me to bolt out of my thoughts. As I go to protect my left she spins around me, trying to attack my right.

I duck under her swinging arm, rolling to the left to avoid her kick. Someone in the crows throws her a sword.

“Oh come on,” I whine. “That’s not fair!”

She smirks at me while she twirls the sword over her shoulder, crouching down into an attack position. With a sigh I concentrate and build a sword out of water. Just like when we had attacked the Chimera, and countless times before that.

I lazily swing my sword around me, in soft, lazy circles. She rolls her eyes at me and stays in attack position.

“FIRST TO DRAW BLOOD WINS! POWERS ALLOWED! JUST DON’T KILL ANYONE THIS TIME LENZ!” Thomas Cleavley, the son of Hephaestus and the Head of the Hephaestus House, bellows.

Moon gasps slightly, covering her mouth at his words. I ignore her, trying to block her out, along with everyone else.

Neither Lenzie or I move, waiting for the other to strike first. I casually start walking around our small makeshift arena. Lenzie stands and does the same in the opposite direction, a little more tense than I was. Until we were circling each other like predators.

“So Lenz, whatever did happen to the poor kid you killed?” I ask.

It was a joke amongst us, it had been a robot that Thomas had made to appear human to meet, and match Lenzie’s fighting skills. She had “killed” it within ten minutes of their fight. Thomas had been devastated.

Lenzie frowns, trying to figure out what my plan was. “I wouldn’t know. Why don’t you ask your good ol’ buddy Hades?”

“Well I mean I would, but I think he wouldn’t want a visit from me at this moment anyway. He isn’t exactly in his right mind to contain all this awesomeness,” I say, spreading my arms out wide, my sword still held loosely in my left hand.

Lenzie grins, and then she slashes at my right hand, causing it to bleed. I frown at the wound, giving her enough time to retaliate from her previous attack and turn and slash at my left hand. I spin away from her, bending my knees and slashing at the back of her knees, in the end I only hit one, but it collapses under her.

“LENZIE WINS!”  Thomas shouts.

I knew what they were thinking, it’s what everyone thinks. I didn’t care anymore, I had learned to ignore it. To welcome it. Lenzie leaps at my left, causing me to bolt out of my thoughts. As I go to protect my left she spins around me, trying to attack my right.

I duck under her swinging arm, rolling to the left to avoid her kick. Someone in the crows throws her a sword.

“Oh come on,” I whine. “That’s not fair!”

She smirks at me while she twirls the sword over her shoulder, crouching down into an attack position. With a sigh I concentrate and build a sword out of water. Just like when we had attacked the Chimera, and countless times before that.

I lazily swing my sword around me, in soft, lazy circles. She rolls her eyes at me and stays in attack position.

“FIRST TO DRAW BLOOD WINS! POWERS ALLOWED! JUST DON’T KILL ANYONE THIS TIME LENZ!” Thomas Cleavley, the son of Hephaestus and the Head of the Hephaestus House, bellows.

Moon gasps slightly, covering her mouth at his words. I ignore her, trying to block her out, along with everyone else.

Neither Lenzie or I move, waiting for the other to strike first. I casually start walking around our small makeshift arena. Lenzie stands and does the same in the opposite direction, a little more tense than I was. Until we were circling each other like predators.

“So Lenz, whatever did happen to the poor kid you killed?” I ask.

It was a joke amongst us, it had been a robot that Thomas had made to appear human to meet, and match Lenzie’s fighting skills. She had “killed” it within ten minutes of their fight. Thomas had been devastated.

Lenzie frowns, trying to figure out what my plan was. “I wouldn’t know. Why don’t you ask your good ol’ buddy Hades?”

“Well I mean I would, but I think he wouldn’t want a visit from me at this moment anyway. He isn’t exactly in his right mind to contain all this awesomeness,” I say, spreading my arms out wide, my sword still held loosely in my left hand.

Lenzie grins, and then she slashes at my right hand, causing it to bleed. I frown at the wound, giving her enough time to retaliate from her previous attack and turn and slash at my left hand. I spin away from her, bending my knees and slashing at the back of her knees, in the end I only hit one, but it collapses under her.

“LENZIE WINS!”  Thomas shouts.

I knew what they were thinking, it’s what everyone thinks. I didn’t care anymore, I had learned to ignore it. To welcome it. Lenzie leaps at my left, causing me to bolt out of my thoughts. As I go to protect my left she spins around me, trying to attack my right.

I duck under her swinging arm, rolling to the left to avoid her kick. Someone in the crows throws her a sword.

“Oh come on,” I whine. “That’s not fair!”

She smirks at me while she twirls the sword over her shoulder, crouching down into an attack position. With a sigh I concentrate and build a sword out of water. Just like when we had attacked the Chimera, and countless times before that.

I lazily swing my sword around me, in soft, lazy circles. She rolls her eyes at me and stays in attack position.

“FIRST TO DRAW BLOOD WINS! POWERS ALLOWED! JUST DON’T KILL ANYONE THIS TIME LENZ!” Thomas Cleavley, the son of Hephaestus and the Head of the Hephaestus House, bellows.

Moon gasps slightly, covering her mouth at his words. I ignore her, trying to block her out, along with everyone else.

Neither Lenzie or I move, waiting for the other to strike first. I casually start walking around our small makeshift arena. Lenzie stands and does the same in the opposite direction, a little more tense than I was. Until we were circling each other like predators.

“So Lenz, whatever did happen to the poor kid you killed?” I ask.

It was a joke amongst us, it had been a robot that Thomas had made to appear human to meet, and match Lenzie’s fighting skills. She had “killed” it within ten minutes of their fight. Thomas had been devastated.

Lenzie frowns, trying to figure out what my plan was. “I wouldn’t know. Why don’t you ask your good ol’ buddy Hades?”

“Well I mean I would, but I think he wouldn’t want a visit from me at this moment anyway. He isn’t exactly in his right mind to contain all this awesomeness,” I say, spreading my arms out wide, my sword still held loosely in my left hand.

Lenzie grins, and then she slashes at my right hand, causing it to bleed. I frown at the wound, giving her enough time to retaliate from her previous attack and turn and slash at my left hand. I spin away from her, bending my knees and slashing at the back of her knees, in the end I only hit one, but it collapses under her.

“LENZIE WINS!”  Thomas shouts.

Neither of us listen to him, instead we keep moving in circles, each of us glaring at the other. Stalking each other, looking for a weakness and finding none.

I move closer to her, she was limping slightly, I raise my sword and bring it down on her, her sword meets mine, making sparks fly, a few of the closer demigods flinch, everyone takes two steps back.

None break the circle around us though. I kick out at her hurt leg, but she uses her good leg to block mine, using her sword, which was still locked with mine to throw me back a few steps.

She jumps at me when I stumble slightly, I drop to the ground, and roll, reaching up and grabbing her bad ankle, yanking her down. She lands with a groan.

“LENZIE WINS!” Thomas tries again.

Once again we ignore him. I stand, Lenzie tries to kick out at me, and I easily dodge. She growls, it was almost inhumane. Leaping up she grabs her sword and cuts a long gash on my stomach.

That’s when I realize that we were using real swords, with no armour. I ignore the pain, and the gasps of those around us. I spin, kicking her as I did so, my foot catching her in her side, causing her to crumble to the ground as I slammed my foot down on her hand. Effectively breaking it, she cries out. Unfortunately it was her left hand I broke, not her sword hand.

Her good leg lashes out and hooks around my ankle, causing me to fall beside her.

“GUYS STOP! LENZIE WON!” Thomas shouts.

Once again we don’t listen, both of us force ourselves to get up, still making eye contact.  I tilt my head to the side, I had lost my sword and didn’t have the energy, or the time, to make a new one.

Lenzie’s sword was on the other side of the arena. Mine however, mine was close. But before I could move towards it, Lenzie was already there, picking it up and slamming it into my head, I fall, reaching up and touching my forehead. My fingers come back red with blood.

۝

Moon

It was obvious to anyone watching that things weren’t going that well for Mutt. His head was bleeding, as was his stomach. Lenzie was limping badly and her hand was held close to her body. She had a long cut on her right forearm, where Mutt had tried to disarm her and failed. Mutt was laying on his stomach, frowning at his bloody finger. Before he starts to laugh, a small trickle of blood coming out of his mouth.

Even Lenzie was shocked by his sudden change in attitude. I frown, it so did not seem like they were dating anymore. It seemed like they wanted to kill each other.

The guy with shaggy black hair and blue eyes tried once more to get them to stop, but his voice was drowned out by the sound of Mutt’s laughter.

“Oh Lenziiieeee,” he says in a sing song voice. “I think I found your weakness.”

Lenzie glares at Mutt, looking at him like he was crazy, after all, she was the one with the sword.

“Water,” Mutt says, standing. “After all, it is my thing.”

Lenzie’s eyes widen a second before the sword in her hand turns around and sinks itself in her stomach.

“Oh gods,” the guy who tried to break them up says. “Someone go get Quinn before this gets out of hand.”

I almost laugh at that, is he saying that this wasn’t out of hand?

I turn back to the fight, Lenzie had fallen to the ground and was slowly pulling out the sword, letting it drop to the ground. Mutt stood a few feet away from her, his back to me. He had her discarded sword in his hand.

Then Lenzie leaps up at him, wrapping her arms around his waist and tackling him to the ground, making them both fall to the ground.

“Alright you idiots,” Quinn says, pushing her way through the crowd. “Stop this nonsense before you do some real damage.”

“I love you,” Lenzie whispers in Mutt’s ear, barely audible to anyone, yet I heard it.

Mutt grins up at her, opening his mouth to reply. Before he could I turn around, not wanting to hear his answer.

“Bat, get them to the Hospital House before they bleed anymore than they already have,” Quinn says.

۝

I stayed far away from Mutt, kind of like he had when I had first arrived. I walked by the training arena and see Mutt and Lenzie walking together, laughing.