A Bargain to Change the World

The Impertinence

3rd Person Omniscient

As Percy finally killed the Minotaur, the camp was more or less in an uproar.

Grover was too worried about the fate of Percy to speak even a single word to anyone, and had collapsed from the mental exhaustion almost as soon as he arrived at the Big House.

Just a minute earlier, the whole camp was woken up by the sound of a huge explosion. Some campers said it sounded more like a bomb, others said it sounded more like a car crash.

There was absolutely no way they could have guessed it was actually several dozen sonic booms in the span of a hundredth of a second.

See, to subdue the Minotaur, Percy made five slashing attacks within one hundredth of a second. When doing the math, one finds that any part of Percy's body that moved more than two feet in a single attack caused two sonic booms-one when reaching the speed of sound from below it, when accelerating, one when reaching the speed of sound from above it, when decelerating. Meaning Percy's water sword, the arm holding it, the other arm he moved as a counterweight, and the leg he moved when slashing all caused two sonic booms each. As such, each of the five attacks caused no less than eight sonic booms, for a total of forty.

Percy and the spirit had not noticed the noise, because Percy was too focused on the Minotaur, and the spirit was too focused on the ability Percy was suddenly displaying. However, to the sleeping camp, it was obvious.

"I think it came from Halfblood Hill! It must be a monster breaking down the barrier!" Baron, one of the more intelligent members of the Ares cabin, yelled.

"All armored troops, form phalanx and move forward! Prepare for battle!" shouted Clarisse, the young but skilled leader of the Ares cabin.

While most of the camp was groggily arguing amongst themselves as to the source of the noise, the children of Ares, ever hungry for battle, were already all fully armed and armored.

Of course, even though the god of war's cabin was one of the most densely populated in the camp, at sixteen members, they lacked both the necessary numbers and weaponry needed to form a true phalanx.

A true phalanx was a formation in which rows of hoplites wielded a large shield and a spear. However, this spear was designed for phalanx use, and held little one-on-one combat potential. The reason for this was the spear was designed to be used from as far back as the fourth or fifth row of soldiers, and was in excess of fifteen feet long. The Ares cabin, in actuality, found the tactic of hiding behind one's brothers in arms to be cowardly, and in fact possessed no spear greater than six feet in length.

So it was that when the phalanx order was given, all sixteen members of the cabin stood side by side in a single row, and advanced that way. This formation could be loosely called a 'shield wall,' but could not really be called a phalanx of any sort.

Of course, the formation used was of little importance, as there were no enemies to be fought.

When the vanguard of Ares' soldiers reached Halfblood Hill, they were dumbfounded by what they saw in the torchlight. There was a single demigod passed out on the inside of the barrier, leaning against Thalia's pine.

But that was not what anyone was looking at.

There were four enormous gashes in the earth, as if some giant had clawed at the surface from far above. Each gash was at least fifteen feet long, a foot wide, and four to five feet deep.

The reason for the gashes was the supernatural air pressure caused by Percy's sword traveling several times faster than the speed of sound. The tip of the sword, in fact, had reached hypersonic speeds, of mach 5 and over. The four gashes were the result of each of Percy's downward strikes. Meanwhile, the strike that beheaded the Minotaur was horizontal and pointed upwards, and the attack had sheered the upper branches of several trees before dissipating towards the sky.