3000 B.C.E.

POV: Percy

Location: Mount Olympus

"Dodge! Duck! Dip! Dive! Dodge!" Ares calls out, "Come on Jackson, I thought you were better than this!"

I whirl to my left, avoiding a thrust from Xander's spear as I cut high towards his neck. He ducks under my slash and rolls back out of range of my sword, but still keeping me in range of his spear. I hear a whistling and instinctively duck. An arrow flies by right where my head was a second ago. I turn and acknowledge the hooded figure behind me with the bow. I can't see her face, but I'm fairly certain Sheena is smirking under her hood.

"My head was right there Sheena!"

"Oops, my bad." She calls out, "I was aiming for your neck."

"Less chitchat with the enemy!" Ares roars, "And why haven't you three beaten Jackson yet!?"

I deflect Xander's spear thrust and then feel something pointy against my neck, "That's game Perce."

I smirk, "You should know me better by now Alex."

"What are you -" The daughter of Demeter is cut off by a high-pressure blast of water from inside the folds of my cloak.

I hold up an empty vial, "Always have a secret weapon."

"Hey!" Sheena cries, "Come on Ares, this is weapon training, not powers."

Ares raises an eyebrow, "Are your powers not weapons? You should have thought of that sooner. You three are letting Jackson hold all of the cards."

"So we can use our powers, huh?" Xander smirks, "In that case..."

A bolt of lightning comes out of the sky and strikes the son of Zeus' spear. He then directs it towards me. I wave my hand in front of me, and the puddles of water all over the training ground fly up, intercepting the lightning. Unfortunately, it also vaporized the water.

"Styx." I curse.

Raising my sword over my head, I begin to step forward towards Alex, but find my feet stuck in place. I look down to see plants wrapped around my ankles, locking me in place. I deflect the daughter of Demeter's sword and look up. My eyes widen as I see Sheena draw an ear-splittingly familiar arrow design. I wildly slash at the vines around my feet as Sheena draws back her bow. By the time I'd gotten free, she'd already released the arrow. I roll out of the path of the arrow and sprint towards the archer. Behind me, the arrow strikes Alex on the back, sticking to the shield on strapped onto her back. The instant it make contact, a screeching sound is released into the room. Xander and Alex, who were closest to the arrow, took the brunt of the noise, falling over and clutching their ears. I'd managed to get faro enough away, but it still hurt like Hades. Sheena widens her eyes and swings her bow at me. I' not sure what she was trying to accomplish, maybe brain me with the bow. I slide under the wild swing and raise my sword up, cutting the string. The instantaneous release of tension causes the bow to flick out and strike Sheena in the side of her head, knocking her out cold.

I stand up and sheathe my sword. Ares nods at me.

"Not bad kid." He says, "Not bad at all. Your Guardian is going to be one lucky immortal in a few weeks."

I bow, "Thank you, teacher."

"Don't call me that." He grumbles, "It makes me sound like Athena."

I laugh softly as he snaps his fingers. Instantly, the other three Guardians-in-training begin to shift and sit up, groaning.

"Alright you three..." Ares begins, "WHAT IN HADES HAPPENED?" He roars out.

"Oh come on dad." Sheena says, "We did better than last time."

"Yeah." Xander agrees, "Ares, you can't keep pairing us up together against Percy here."

"I can't?" He asks, "You and Alex are due to graduate and recieve your charges in the next two weeks. If the three of you can't beat Percy in one week's time, then I may not let that happen."

The other three begin protesting and complaining, but then a voice sounds from the other side of the room.

"YOu three have no right to complain." I turn to see Athena walking over to us, "You three lack cohesiveness as a team."

"So?" Xander asks, "It's not like we'll be working together often."

"That is not the point." Athena replies, "Individually, each of you, aside from Sheena, but she is younger and less experienced, can stand toe-to-toe with Percy longer than the three of you together did."

"What are you doing here Athena?" Ares demands.

"In case you haven't noticed, they're done with you." Athena points to a sand timer off to the side, which had stopped pouring sand, "It's time for them to go to aura training."

I brush some dust off and return my sword to the weapons rack. The other three follow suit. Together, we follow Athena out of the training room.

"Was dad serious about not letting you two become full Guardians?" Sheena asks uncertainly.

I laugh softly, "Nah, Ares may be a little hard-headed, but Alex and Xander are more than ready to move on."

"Thanks Perce." Alex says, "But I'm still trying to figure out how you do half the stuff you do with a sword."

"Yeah man!" Xander interjects, "It's like you have some kind of instinctive understanding of fighting, or something."

"Oh come on." I rub the back of my neck, "I'm not as good as you guys say. I'm just really lucky.

"Oh just take the compliment Seaweed Brain." Alex laughs out.

"Hey..." I try to protest, but suddenly Athena speaks up.

"Alright you four, you know what's next." She makes a slight face, "Aphrodite is in one of her moods today."

I shift nervously and sense Xander do the same next to me. It's always akward for us when she gets like this. Alex rolls her eyes at the two of us.

"Oh come on, it's not too bad." She says.

"Yeah, its not bad when you're not the one she's trying to seduce." I shudder.

"Let's get this over with." Sheena pushes the door open.

I absolutely hate aura training when Aphrodite is the instructor. It's either her or Hades, and I'd rather deal with the Lord of the Dead of the goddess of love any day.

You see, there are a whole bunch of different things we are trained in up here on Mount Olympus. Either Ares or Athena works with us on weapons training and tactics. We each work with our parent to perfect our specific powers. Like I already said, Aphrodite and Hades work with our aura powers. Finally, Athena works with us when learning about the different immortals.

The instant Sheena opens the door, we are struck by a wave of perfume and phermones. Aphrodite is lying stretched out across a couch seductively.

"Helloooooo boys." She waves. I notice ten empty nectar bottles.

Xandar elbows me, "You see the bottles?"

I nod, "Yeah, this is not going to be fun."

ALex steps up next to me, "She's drunk again."

"And I thought that we were only going to have to deal with horny Aphrodite." Xander groans, "Now she's drunk and horny."

"Come here Percy." She waves me over, "Sit with me."

Charmspeak rolls over me, and I feel my body begin to move on its own, until I feel a pinch on my arm.

"Ow!" I glare at Sheena.

"Don't let her do that." She says.

"I wasn't going to." I say as my mind clears.

I then turn to the love goddess, "I'm sorry Lady Aphrodite, that would not be proper, and you are not in your right state of mind."

She frowns playfully, "Oh you little stingy man, trying to play hard to get I see. Oh, that doesn't matter." She looks to my right, "Xander, yoohoo!"

Xander just ignores her. I look at him and roll my eyes. Of course. He has earplugs.

"So, does anyone know how to deal with a drunk love goddess?" Sheena asks.

Alex shrugs, "The usual I suppose. We just sit here until it wears off."

I pull some water out of the Aphrodite's washbin and frezze it into two earplugs. I put them in and sit down. Xander sits on my left and ALex on my right. Sheena sits next to Xander. We sit there for ten minutes as Aphrodite trys everything she can to get Xander and I closer to her, shifting into different positions, magically changing her clothes, and so on. I can feel the powerful charmspeak washing over me, but since I can't hear the words, it doesn't affect me. Ten minutes pass before I notice a distinctive change in the goddess of love's actions, and I fell her charmspeak disappear. Cautiously, I take out my earplugs.

"SO sorry!" She says, "I had a little too much fun and I guess I got carried away!"

I nudge Xander who pops out his earplugs.

"Um, now that you are feeling like yourself again, Lady Aphrodite," Alex says, "We would like to begin."

"Oh yes! Of course! Silly me." She sits up into a normal position, "Now all four of you, close your eyes."

We do as she says, and I instinctively begin to control me breathing, entering a meditative state.

"Now, we need to see which of my dears has finally managed to manifest their own aura." Aphrodite says, "Focus on everything you know about yourself, and picture it as a part of your physical body. Everything you think, feel, know."

I shift through my memories, recalling every single piece of information I can. Once I believe I have everything in my mind, I picture them becoming a part of my body, creating almost a second skin.

"Focus your aura." APhrodite says calmly, "Feel who you are inside become what you are on the outside."

I open my eyes. Around me, everyone has their auras manifested. Sheena has a bright yellow-red with crimson swirls around it. Xander's sky blue aura glows brightly as well, with it's white patches moving slowly around his body, almost like clouds. Alex's creates a nice constrast to the two bright auras, with her earthy, green-brown aura, like a summer forest. I then look down and sigh. Of course. My isn't there. Who am I kidding, it's neve there.

"Very good you three." Aphrodite says, "You three have got it, and you all have such beautiful aura as well." She then looks over at the sand timer, "Oh my, it looks like time is up! Go on now. You deserve the break."

Xander, Alex and Sheena's auras all disappear. The four of us stand up to leave.

"Oh, Percy, stick around for a minute."

Xander pauses at the door. I nod and wave him off. I nods in response and closes the door behind him.

I turn back towards Aphrodite. Who smiles softly.

"I know why you can't make your aura appear, Hon." She says.

"Oh?" I keep a straight face.

"It's because you don't acknowledge your emotions." She says, "You need to make them a part of you. You're doing everything else perfectly."

"My emotions?" I ask.

Sure, I do like to keep them bottled up, but that's because my emotions don't really matter. I'm here to protect whichever god or goddess I'm assigned to. How I'm feeling doesn't matter unless it could endanger Olympus.

Aphrodite laughs softly and pats my cheek, "Don't overthink it Hon. You'll get it eventually. Just remember your emotions and focus your aura."

I nod and leave the room, walking quickly towards the mess hall. When I get there, I see my friends already chowing down on food, as well as one other, a centaur.

"Come on guys, you started without me." I complain as I walk over, "Hey Chiron, how are you doing."

"Very well, thank you Perseus."

"I roll my eyes, come on man, just call me Percy."

Chiron is one of my good friends. He's been around a while, but he's biologically the same age as a seventeen year old human.

"So, Xander and ALex were telling me about how you got held up with Aphrodite."

"They were, huh?" I glare at the two of them, who smirk, "She did tell me why I can't manifest my own aura."

"Oh, and do tell." Chiron leans forward onto the table and laces his fingers together.

Chiron wants to be a trainer of heroes when he goers old enough. I don't know anyone who would want to teach us, but hey, more power to him. Besides, he's already got the teacher's pose down pat.

"Something about not accepting my own emotions, or something like that." I shrug, "I'm supposed to focus them into my aura."

Sheena bursts out laughing, "Ha, like you would ever admit your emotions about anything, unless it's hilarious."

"Well, it does make sense." Xander pokes his piece of beef, "I couldn't get mine to work either until I admitted something to myself."

I could'be sworn he glanced at Alex, but it was so quick that I can't be sure, and no one else noticed.

"So, what is everyone's schedules for the rest of the day?" Chiron asks politely.

"Well, I've got to do some last minute combat practice." Alex says, "And Xander said he'd help me out."

"I might as well join you." I say, "It's always nice to do some training. Sheena, you in?"

"You kidding?" She somehow manages to laugh and yawn at the same time, "I'm gonna rest and relax. Maybe I'll watch you kick Xander and Alex around, but I don't feel like getting beaten up myself."

"Perhaps I shall join you on the sidelines Sheena." Chiron says, smirking slightly.

Alex rolls her eyes, "Great, now I'll have an audiance."

"Oh come on." I say and stand up, "It's just training."

"More like our daily beating." Xander mutters, but stands up as well, "Well, might as well get this over with."

The other two stand as well, and together, the five of us, four Guardians-in-training and one teenaged centaur, walk over to the training arena.

Wassup people? Yeah, I'be finally figured out a nice style to do this story in. It's gonna be a constant switch between modern and ancient times, so you'll get to see both parts of the story, instead of just flashbacks. What did you think of me throwing in teenaged Chiron? I kinda liked that idea.
~Keep being awesome.
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