8: Training

Percy

"Percy, wake up!" My younger sister screamed in my ear.

"What's the emergency?" I mumbled.

"We're going to be late for training." It all came back to me. I bolted out of bed and into the bathroom before having a quick shower (messing up the fancy Olympus electronics, might I add) and then dried myself using my powers and putting on the training gear that was laid out for me.

On the way out, I grabbed a piece of toast and stuffed it in my face before running after Marina who had already left.

"Wait up!" I yelled. She just kept walking faster. I groaned, and starting sprinting to catch up. The Training Centre was a big building that had those spinning door things. I went around five times before realising that I was already late.

Marina was standing still as a lady tied her hair up in the compulsory ponytail, letting me take the lead and entering before her. Everyone was already there, standing in a circle in the centre of the room. The guy in the middle--a short middle-aged satyr with a baseball bat and a megaphone--scowled at me.

"Hurry up cupcakes!" He yelled. Once Marina and I joined the circle, he began explaining. "I'm Coach Hedge. Alright, so no fighting the other tributes, no harming any other tributes, only three people at a time in the maze, don't fall off anything or else I'll have to kill you and if you break these rules I'll squish you into a cupcake pancake. Got it?"

Everyone nodded and headed off to different stations. The training centre was a big room full of weapons and fighting classes, useful survival skills and a bunch of other stuff. There was a big platform at one wall of the room which I assumed where the Game-Makers would sit if they came.

Marina went over to the sword fighting section while I walked over to the plants. Usually I wasn't interested in plants, but no one was here.

"Hello." The satyr who was taking it greeted. "I'm Grover."

"Percy." He started to teach me the different types of plants, ranging from poisonous to a possible food source.

Piper

People tell me that I'm pretty. They give me roses and tell me flirty things while I smile sweetly before slapping them across the face and throwing the flowers away. Of course, that's completely normal.

I went over to the monkey bars and scaled the ladder to the platform. The girl from Athena was already there. Annabeth, I think her name was. "Hi." I greeted. "Do you want to race?"

"Sure." She shrugged. We each put our hands on the first bar while I counted down.

"...three, two one, GO!" Then we started swinging. She was like a monkey, swinging one arm to the next bar and pulling herself along. I could barely keep up!

I concentrated on what I was doing. Left arm, right arm, left arm, right arm and so on. Annabeth reached the end five seconds before I did. "Good job." I puffed, then shook her hand. She went off towards the knife station while I decided to do the bars again.

I wiped my hands on my legs before doing it again, swinging across. This time I did it more slowly. Suddenly, my hand missed the bar and the other one slipped. I went plummeting through the air towards the ground.

Uh oh. I thought as the ground came nearer and nearer... Then I fell into someone's arms. It was boy from the Zeus district, Jason. Man, he was hot. I felt a blush rising on my cheeks as he put me down. "Thanks." I mumbled, before running off.

•••

The next thing I did was knot-tying. The instructor taught me how to do heaps of different simple knots which I quickly learned and stored in my brain.

For the next few hours I rotated around the survival activities, learning how to find a good water source and how to tell what kind of trees each ones are.

By lunchtime, I had made a few friends. I sat with Zoë and Bianca, the Artemis tributes. Since Artemis was a maiden goddess, she didn't have any kids. Most of her tributes are children of minor gods or Titans.

Annabeth

Percy looked like he was having a blast. After I had raced Piper, I watched him as he used the Powers room, a place where you could tame your powers and shape them so that they were controllable.

The room had responded to Percy's wish for the sea, and he was standing neck-deep in water. Slowly, he made the water lift him up so it was like he was standing on it.

Unfortunately, I don't have any powers, which I hate because everyone does really fancy things while I just go: 'I'm smart, does that count?'

Smiling, I turned away and headed over to the knife section. The only other person there besides the instructor was a Hermes' tribute, Luke--I think his name was. Luke had sandy blonde hair and was older than most of the other tributes. He had a handsome face, like nothing could ever scar it.

The instructor taught us how to use a knife and throw it. I nodded my head along with the instructor, and then grabbed one off the rack and threw it at the target board that was set up.

I missed a bullseye by a few centimetres, but I was still proud of myself. Luke hit a bullseye on his fifth go. He smiled at me, which made my heart flutter.

Then it was lunchtime. I sat with Thalia, and surprisingly, Luke joined us too. When he first came, I instantly knew why he was here. Earlier, I had seen Thalia and him sparring. After she won, Luke had kissed her cheek and she blushed.

This may sound a little weird, but I'm kind of hoping that they'll get together...

"Hey, so I was thinking that maybe after lunch we could do the maze?" Thalia pulled me from my train of thoughts.

"As, like, a trio?" I asked.

"Yeah." She replied, biting into her sandwich.

"Sure." Luke shrugged.

This sounded like fun!!

A/N:

OMG I'm really sorry!! Blame my writer's block. Hopefully I'll be able to keep updating maybe once a week or something? IDK.

Hopefully the longer chapter made up for it!!