Betrayed But Back (Percy Jackson Chaos Story)

Chapter 9: Training

Because Evan was "kidnapped" according to Chiron, Chiron insisted that we train heavily and harsh until the war. He also sent out a rescue team of about 10 people to find him. Not many people volunteered to go. Everybody was working harder than ever and the camp was at its busiest, with only 2 months until the war.

"These are the best sword fighters in camp?" I muttered to Alpha. Chiron had given us around 30 campers that he said were the best sword fighters. I scanned down the line taking a look at all of them. The last one in line was so small, she could have passed for an 8 year old. I sighed. Training these guys was going to be long and painful.

All of the other campers were working on other skills.

How to control your powers, with Jason. Leo had wanted to do it but Jason really thought Leo should take a break. Plus everyone knew that Leo wasn't the best at controlling his fire. Jason's pants caught on fire "by accident" after that. War tactics were with Annabeth. Other useful things were taught by other campers. Even Connor and Travis had their own class, teaching how to sneak around and steal things or pick locks. Chiron's idea was to stick with what you were good at, so the best sword fighters worked on sword fighting, most Athena kids were good at plans and war tactics so that's what they practiced, and so on.

I however, completely disagreed with that. If one of these skills was not an option to you, you were going to have to know how to do something else. Especially if you're in a life threatening situation, which is probably most likely to happen in our case. So my plan was to focus on sword fighting with these guys, but teach some hand to hand combat and power control for those who had them. Maybe I'd throw in a little war tactics here and there. I probably shouldn't teach that on my own though... most of my plans are crazy-I'm-probably-gonna-die plans.

I went down the line asking everybody how old they were and who their godly parent was. A good number of them were Ares kids, but some of them were Apollo, some were Hephaestus, and a couple were Athena and Hermes kids. The small girl at the end wasn't claimed yet, she was only 11. Most of the people there were 13 to 15. I don't know how the small girl even got here. How was she one of the best sword fighters in camp? Well I've learned not to underestimate people.

We did some exercises to warm up, and the small girl was actually really good. I asked her what her name was, and she said it was "Sammy. Well Samantha, but I think Sammy sounds better." By studying her, I could tell that she could easily beat most of the people in the group, but I couldn't tell who her godly parent was. I wondered if one of the big three broke the oath, but I didn't think that she was a child of Zeus, Hades, or Poseidon.

She was fast and stealthy, very quick. I analyzed a lot of the people while we did exercise after exercise. By the time lunch break came along, my mind was spinning, thinking of all the errors I noticed in their fighting, different drills to use, who to pair up with who, and how to train these campers the best that I could. I figured out that I really liked this teaching thing, and maybe I could teach classes like this back on Chaos' planet, when all of this was over.

After a couple of minutes sitting there relaxing, eating, and talking normally to Alpha, my mind slowed down a little bit. But it didn't last long, because soon lunch break was over and I put all my plans to action. All the campers in my group were training hard, and making great progress, and only on the first day. At one point, Chiron came over and checked in on how we were doing. I had had an idea forming in my mind, and wanted to try it out, so I asked for Chiron's permission, and it was granted. He even said that if it was successful, he would tell the other groups to try it too.

"Okay everyone," I yelled. Everybody stopped their drills and looked up. "Listen up. Tonight we're going to camp out in the forest. Alpha and I will teach you survival skills like how to get food, and how to make weapons from nature, or anything surrounding you. We'll make fires, bring tents, but I'll also show you how to make a shelter with the materials you have," I stopped talking and surprisingly no one was groaning in annoyance. They looked like they wanted to do it, it was something new that they probably haven't done before. I decided to add one more thing to the experience, "And if you want to bring s'more materials, knock yourself out."