>My body thought for me. The water seemed to push me into the air and I catapoluted over him, slashing as I came down. But Ares was just as quick. He twisted, and the strike that should've caught him directly in the spine was deflected off the end of his sword hilt...His sword had a reach several feet longer than Riptide...He knocked my blade out of my hands and kicked me in the chest. I went airborne, twenty, maybe thirty feet. I would've broken my back if I hadn't crashed into the soft sand of a sand dune..I could see where Ares was tensing. I could tell which way he would strike. At the same time, I was aware of Annabeth and Grover, thirty feet to my left...I felt the rhythm of the sea, the waves growing larger as the tide rolled in, and suddenly I had an idea. *Little waves,* I thought. And the waves behind me seemed to recede. I was holding back the tide by force of will, but tension was building, like carbonation behind a cork... I released the tide and jumped, rocketing straight over Ares on a wave.

>A six foot wall of water smashed him full in the face, leaving him cursing and sputtering with a mouth full of seaweed. I landed behind him with a splash and feinted toward his head, as I done before. He turned in time to raise his sword, but this time he was disoriented, he didn't anticipate the trick. I changed direction, lunged to the side, and stabbed Riptide straight down in the water, sending the point through the god's heel.

*pgs. 326-330 TL*