The next day brought about swordfighting in the colosseum, taught by Luke. "You ever held a sword before, Persi?" He asked me, grinning wickedly as if he had something planned. I blinked.

"Not exactly, no... I'm more of an archer, myself." He considered this.

"You look nothing like an Apollo kid, although Ares isn't impossible. Maybe you're just good at fighting overall?" The sentence made me scratch my chin.

"I did do martial arts for a while..." I offered.

Luke grinned, and I prayed that my face didn't flush. "That's more like it." He turned around to the group of demigods that had gathered. "Persephone will be my training partner for today!" I caught a few laughs from the audience, as if being Luke's 'training partner' was a death sentence.

"Am I going to get stabbed?" I whispered to him, making him roll his eyes.

"And ruin that perfect skin?"

We quickly walked to the center of the arena, and, despite the soft breeze blowing throughout, sand wasn't flying everywhere - yet. "Here; catch!" He told me, tossing a bronze sword at me. I caught it just before it hit the ground, its weight feeling clunky and uneven. I tried switching it between my hands a few times, finding that my ambidexterity was still in play. The blade finally settled in my left hand.

"A leftie, huh?" He remarked. "Not so common. Anyway, we'll be practicing disarming today!" 'Thank the gods,' I thought. No stabbing, hopefully. Luke turned back towards me, and smiled, the mischievous twinkle back in his eyes. "Alright, try to disarm me?"

"Are you kidding me?" I couldn't help the words escaping my mouth.

"Nope," He said, popping the 'p'.

I shook my head. "Alright... this is going to go poorly, isn't it?"

He didn't try to hide it. "Not for me, it isn't."

I jumped towards him, the sand flying backwards from my shoe as I leapt. He didn't seem surprised by this, but simply moved out of the way of my strike, tapping me on the back and sending me stumbling forward. I burned with humiliation. "Disarming means to take my weapon away, not cut off my limbs, you know." He joked. I turned back around, and made sure to plan more carefully this time.

I went for his left hand this time; his sword was in his right. I missed, but that was expected. I stabbed my sword into the ground to halt my momentum and twirled my body around to deliver a kick. He dodged, but seemed a bit flustered. "I... wasn't expecting that," he admitted.

"Then stop underestimating me," I shot back. I attacked again, this time the blow glancing off of his blade, sending a few sparks into the air. It felt like hitting a brick wall - his sword went nowhere, and mine bounced off. Before I could recover, he stepped inwards, and snaked his blade around my arm, quickly causing an increase of pressure on my wrist that made me drop my sword. The other campers clapped, although I couldn't tell if it was because they didn't want to be the next practice dummy or because they were genuinely impressed.

I was breathless. "Wow..."

"Nice, huh?" He asked. I nodded.

He turned around. "It's a simple action! Wrap your blade around, and push at the fulcrum of their wrist!" I replayed the image in my brain, analyzing it, seeing the angle the sword dropped at, the way he tensed before he performed it, the way his muscles bulged... I flashed crimson. "Alright, do you want to go again?"

I was shaken out of my thoughts. "Huh, what?" He chuckled, a nice sound.

"Sun hasn't gotten to you yet, has it? Maybe you need a water break, then we'll go for round two. Sound alright?" I contemplated for less than a second. Water sounded exactly like what I needed right now. I knew it would rejuvenate me, so I would have to be careful to not go too fast. I walked over to the water station set up near the side of the colosseum, and let out a little bit into a paper cup. It was ice-cold, and oh so refreshing.

I smiled. It was like I had just had a nice rest, and then taken a shot of caffeine straight to the heart. Exhilarating wasn't the least of it. I wanted a second cup, but there was a slight chance I would start to glow, and that wouldn't do me any good. I walked back over to Luke, who smiled calmly seeing me come back.

"I was worried that I had scared you off!" He joked, an infectious laugh that quickly spread to me, too.

"Not at all, not at all. I think I've got the hang of that disarming thing, now."

He looked at me, an eyebrow raised. "Oh, do you now? I look forward to seeing, then." It sounded like he didn't believe me, but that was okay. I'd show him.

We started off by circling around, neither of us getting too close to the other. "It doesn't seem like your sword suits you," He commented, but I could see him constantly shifting his grip as well.

"Nor you yours," I quipped back.

He shrugged. "These camp swords are made to fit the average swordsman. We do have more specialized ones in the shed, and, of course, I have my own."

I nodded. He was too good to not have his own. Just like my bow. "I'd love to see it, sometime." He nodded. "Less talking, more fighting." He grinned in response, and darted forward. I blocked a blow aimed at my left side, but it only glanced off, lacking much power behind it. He punched me lightly in my stomach, not hard enough to really hurt however. I blinked and coughed a bit, but smiled. It seemed like he was taking me seriously, now.

I responded by speeding up my movement, and went on the offensive. I slashed three times in about five seconds, although the second one didn't even come close to hitting him. Even in the midst of a fight, he was still giving me lessons. "Strength means nothing if you can't hit your opponent. Take your time, eventually your blows will gradually get faster. It's a process," he explained.

I responded with a slash that he blocked. Again, he tried to go for the disarm, but I dropped my sword before he could fling it out of my hand, catching it with my right and jabbing him in the stomach with the hilt. He coughed and jumped backwards. "Ambidextrous," I explained. He nodded weakly.

"Didn't expect..." he wheezed, "that." I winked.

"Told you to stop underestimating me."

He then proceeded to quickly end the fight by disarming me with his hand, knocking my legs out from under me, and pointing my own sword at my throat. I gulped, although the blade was just a practice blade and extremely dull. He smiled and backed off, and offered the hilt of the blade. I took it gratefully and pulled myself up.

"That was a great match," he told me. "You adapted very quickly, and I didn't expect you to switch hands like that. And I'm the best swordsman in 200 years, so that's saying something."

I sputtered, half laughing. "Best swordsman in 200 years, and I went up against you on my first day? That doesn't seem very fair."

The demigod shrugged. "I went easy on you, at least."

"Oh, like that makes me feel better." I rolled my eyes. He didn't really respond, just started walking away and helping others out, who I finally noticed had formed pairs around the arena. All of the groups were practicing, some more than others, but even the Aphrodite girls were doing the work. I commented this to Luke when he came back.

"Yeah," he started, "Camp Half-Blood is really mostly a summer camp for demigods. Many of these guys go back to school or college during the year, and... well, not getting killed is a pretty decent motivator, it turns out." He chuckled awkwardly.

"Oh?" I asked. "No groups for glory and slaying monsters and all of that?" His smile seemed to fade a bit.

"Well... There used to be quests issued by the Oracle up until a few years ago. But, something went wrong on the last one, and so they stopped sending kids out." I frowned. What could have possibly happened, and more importantly...

"Who's the Oracle?" I responded. He ran his hands through his hair.

"Well, if you're lucky..." He flashed me a half-grin. "Nobody you need to worry about."