~The Beginning of Life~

~ Chapter 53 ; Training ~

Date: July 30
Time: 4am
Place: Arena

Scowling, I collapse onto the ground.
Guess who?
Joey.
Guess what?
Training.
Guess when?
Four. At. Fucking. Morning. 4AFM in short.

So yes. Joey rudely shoved me awake to train. He has no other near training buddy. NOT MY PROB-
I wonder how he let Walton off the hook.

"How can you train so much?" I ask exasperatedly. It's like he's been slashing since... ever.

He shrugs and sits down too. "High stamina. How can you talk so much?"

"I like talking. I have a lot to say."

"Same reason."

I raise an eyebrow. "So you like training. That's Ares talk."

"Maybe. I'm thinking I'll get claimed someday."

Everyone will get claimed someday. Please say yes...
"Well, someday. Plus it'll be a real pity if Ares isn't impressed by your fatal attacks on dummies." I say casually.

Joey frowns at me when someone suddenly enters the near dark arena.

"What are you two doing here?" Asks a voice. It's a guy, and he's standing a few meters away.
It's Nico.
Shit.

I wonder what this looks like.
Joey and I, chilling on the floor, panting and sweaty in the middle of the night. I hate me.
Eewwwwww

"Training," Joey answers simply.

"For?" Nico raises an eyebrow.

Hmm I don't know, maybe a fuckathon? UGH WHY ME SHADDUP-
Eewwwwwwwwwww

"Why don't you ask whoever built this arena?" Joey says coldly.

Nico glares at him. "Isn't there a curfew around here? Luckily for you, the harpies are off duty. But I wonder what Mr. D might do... two campers... out of bed... all alone..."
I don't get his implication... he'll drag us to see party?

Joey stands up and storms towards him.
He towers 4 inches above the 5'7" bastard.
What? It's just a casual height check.

"You're no exception," Joey says.

"I have a valid reason. Chiron asked me to do hourly patrols today seeing that I stay up anyways," he said curtly.

"And why's that?" I ask. "You missing Will?"

Nico looks at me. "Excuse me?"

"It's alright, you're excused to go fuck off." I smile innocently.

Before Nico can respond, Joey speaks up. "So what are you gonna do now? Report us?"

"I don't see why not," answers Nico. "Today's gonna be a good day for cleaning. Or maybe endlessly picking strawberries. A week sounds good too."

"Wait, seeing that you're meant to be the leader of my group, won't you get blamed too?" I get up.

Nico tilts his head at me. "Well, everyone knows bitches will be bitches."

I roll my eyes at him while Joey glares at me.
"What?" I ask him.

"You're just gonna take it like that?" He asks.

"Yeah. Bastards will be bastards," I say indifferently. Whoops I accidentally retorted.

"Say that again, you bitch," Nico says as he take a step towards me.
No. If I say it again he'd say 'bitches do as they're told.'

Joey suddenly grabs his arm and pulls him back, harshly shoving him down.
"You're the one who started it," he says.

Nico blinks at him in shock, then he swiftly gets back up. "You're going to be sorry for that," he spits.

"In your dreams." Joey narrows his eyes at him.

Nico turns on his heel and leaves.

----------------A/N----------------
I bet a lot of you are getting a rude, bad guy impression from Nico.
He's only like that around Khristine's friends, so his nicer and main side isn't that apparent here.
Normally, he's just antisocial and distant. But he's a nice guy. Yea.

Ok wow I just re-read this AND I FOUND IT SO BADASS OML