The courtyard's sparring pit (private)

If Ryan was gaining anything from the sparing session, it was that his defense was on point. For the most part, Morgan's blows with her knife/sword/pen thing had been blocked, but the daughter of Hecate was making up for those by landing many of her "dirty" attacks - kicks, punches, attempts to trip; anything not involving a blade.

Feeling the need to get even with Landry for an earlier kick to the stomach, Ryan tried for a nice steel-toed kick at her shin while the two's swords were intersected in a block.

The pain made me hiss. Now I understood why the Ares kids tipped their boots with bronze or metal, it was fcking painful.

Twirling my blade out of the block, I took a few steps back, scratching the back of my neck. My blade became visible again, the Stygian iron gleaming in the sunlight. I gave it a flick and it grew longer until I had a full whip made of sharp Stygian iron scales and crackling with Phlegethon flames. Another flick and it was curled around my shoulder, ready to snap forward at the first notice.

Son of s***, she had a whip! What else does that pen turn into? A mace? Spear? G36c firing Stygian iron bullets? If Morgan couldn't beat Ryan on skill, she'd certainly do so on equipment.

Without much for defense, Ryan took a step back, looking around for anything that would help him. But instead, he noticed something even more shocking than Morgan's whip - the crowd that had formed along the pit's edge. Apparently people here didn't have much to do at this hour, and now 10 or so campers - and more coming in as Ryan counted - had gathered along the edge to watch the duel between him and Morgan.

With the added pressure of public embarrassment weighting down on him, Ryan had no room for error. And if he was going to beat Morgan, he was going to have to see how she handled the whip. Ryan stepped forward, hopping to get Morgan to lash out at him.

I didn't move as he took a step forward, waiting for him to actually attack me. I had practiced with my whip a lot recently, and whilst I was careful to not touch his skin with my stygian iron blade, I knew a lot of tricks to otherwise impair him in a not too definitive or fatal way.

Ryan didn't move up any farther, careful not to get too close to Morgan. He rembered that stygian iron did something special, but couldn't put his finger on what exactly it was. Either way, he wasn't too eager to get hit.

"MOVE FORWARD YOU P***Y!" cried out one of the campers crowded around the pit. Ryan didn't recognize the voice, but there was little debate that the comment was made to him - who else would it be? Morgan? Nah, she wasn't the one who bunked in the a**hole factory.

Not wanting to look like the p***y he was called, Ryan took two steps forward, narrowing the gap between him and Morgan by several feet. With the glare of the setting sun in his eyes and the jeers from the crowd ringing in his ears, Ryan would have a hard time defending if Morgan decided to strike.

I snapped my whip. The crowd was getting louder and a few glances showed me familiar faces -- Ares kids, Nike kids, Austin from the Apollo's, two Hermes guys betting money... Since Ryan had only taken two steps forward, I decided to do the attacking part myself. Flicking the whip open, I swept it at his calf. The stygian iron wrapped around it and I pulled.

Ryan went to the ground with a thud, which produced a fury of applause from the crowd. "THAT'S RIGHT, STAY DOWN YOU ARES SH!T!" The voice was starting to become more recognizable to Ryan, but only to the extent of him knowing it belonged to some Nike kid.

I frowned up at the crowd -- it was normal to jeer, and I liked to take the piss out of my opponents myself, but only if I knew they were okay with it. Snapping the whip back into a xiphos, I waited for Ryan to get back on his feet. My gaze briefly traveled to one of the loudest spectators -- a guy of around my age, with thick brown curls and the look of a golfer. My eyes snapped back to Ryan: the fact he was on the floor didn't mean he couldn't harm me.

The second Morgan did away with the whip, Ryan wasted no time getting back to his feet. He took a hot second to look and see if he could find the particularly loud spectators. And he did - curly brown hair, polo shirt, khakis; Ryan wasn't the confrontational type, but he would be stopping by the Nike cabin for a chat sometime soon.

But that was later, and the focus needed to be on now. He looked back at Morgan, delighted by the sight of a xiphos in her hand. She probably could've guaranteed her victory had she stuck with the whip, but it seemed like the daughter of Hecate was going for more of a fair - or at least as fair as she had already been - fight.

Now level in terms of weapons, Ryan began charging at Morgan, ready to strike. If there was one thing he wasn't going to let happen, it would be for him getting publicly embarrassed by his girlfriend's sister.

I blocked and parried, sending a punch at his face whilst readying myself in my mind to use my powers. I wanted to make this fight last, so I didn't go full power all at once. Just little bits every few moments.

While he was effective at keeping Morgan's blade at bay, Ryan wasn't nearly as good at taking her fist to his face. The punch knocked him to the ground, but he was able to recover and get up, slashing at Morgan soon after.

A strong preformance on the outside, but there was little confidence remaining inside Ryan's head. Morgan had not done anything special for a good amount of time, dragging the battle on and tiring him out. And after the blow to his noggin, it was only a matter of time before Ryan would have to cede or pass out. And wasn't going to cede.

Whilst blocking and stabbing in a series of metallic noises that really hurt my ears after a while, hot flames started crackling down my fingers. "Think fast," I said and made a quick sweeping motion, sending the fire at his face. However just before impact, the flames turned into water. Alright, I know I could've played it dirtier -- I could've sent oil or soap into his eyes -- but with the crowd around, I didn't feel like showing everyone what I could do. After all, it's always better to keep a few of your dirtiest tricks to yourself so others didn't have much time to come up with a counter. Came in handy for Capture-the-Flag.

Despite his previous preformance in the battle, Ryan was able to avoid the fire/water thrown at him, tuck and rolling to his right. However, it would do very little in terms of keeping Ryan in the battle. Sight blurry and drowning in his sweat, the son of Ares was *this* close to backing out. But he kept on fighting, engaging in another sense-overloading series of blocks with Morgan.

Using my powers whilst fighting was starting to seriously drain me, but I knew how to push myself to my limits and keep my balance. Hacks and stabs, blocks and deflections, I was coming closer and closer to Ryan, my blade flicking from xiphos to kopis every few seconds.

The metallic clang of the swords, the glare of the setting sun, the dulled cheering of the small but powerful crowd; they all played with Ryan's head, making it even harder to concentrate on the blurry, too-fast action in front of him. He had already let Morgan get a few hits on him, and it was only a matter of time before she'd send some more of her powers at him. For Ryan's sake, he had to end this fight.

Ryan had come to terms with what the battle was: practice, with a crowd watching. It was ok to falter in practice, as those faltering moments turn into the problems to work on in the next session. But today, he had been bested, and Ryan wasn't about to take a Stygian iron blade or a bucket of water to his face.

Ryan instead loosened his grip on the kopis, and when he blocked Morgan's next swing, the son of Ares just let the celestial bronze blade fall right out of his bloody hands, landing in the hard dirt if the sparring pit.

The crowd cheered and jibed. I flicked my sword back into a pen, pushed it into my back pocket, then took out a small bag of ambrosia and offered him a piece, gathering some crumbs in my palm and spreading them on his bloodied fingers. I had some experience healing others from my days working in the infirmary, so it wasn't like I didn't know what I was doing. "Good fight," I told him with a nod.

The ambrosia helped heal the blisters on Ryan's hands, and he gave Morgan a nod of his own. "Yeah," Ryan replied, his voice sounding faint and tired; "good fight. You up for a rematch later?"

I smiled and nodded again. "Sure thing. Tomorrow, beach?" The arena would be booked 24/7 with Capture-the-Flag approaching.

"Nah, I've got somewhere else in mind." He glanced up at the crowd, getting one last look at the loudmouth Nike kid. Ryan was definitely talk some things over with him. "Somewhere a bit more private."

"Drop me an Iris-Message," I said as I too glanced at the crowd. Didn't want to be interrupted by them again, either. Then, I climbed out of the sparring pit and gently elbowed my way out towards my cabin.

"Will do." he followed Morgan's example and climbed out from the pit, heading the opposite direction towards cabin 5. Ryan knew he was going to get roasted in there, and he probably should've headed to the infirmary, but the son of Ares really just wanted to hit his bunk and get a good 8 hours in.