Board Thread:Antaeus' Arena: Audience Chamber/@comment-1515612-20150930233157/@comment-5471249-20160512020137

Exactly - and the most logical way to solve this alleged inconsistency, would be to assume that Ares was merely toying with Percy, and not going all-out, since, had he gone all-out, he would have beaten Percy in seconds, much like Chrysaor did to an older and much more experienced version of Percy, so 12-year-old Percy wouldn't have stood a chance, had Ares gone all-out.

As for your questions… No, of course Ares wouldn’t be nervous of Percy—heck, Ares was, after all, able to defeat Luke himself (a far more experienced and skilled swordsman) a few months ago, so he would have no logical reason to fear crossing blades with the far younger and less experienced Percy. So, Ares summoned the boar, because he didn’t consider Percy, a mere puny demigod, worthy of actually engaging him in combat directly, and he says something along those lines to Percy in that scene. And see, the way you put it “toying or not, Ares and Percy were roughly equal, with Percy defeating, or at the very least injuring Ares at the end of the fight, which is something Ares could not do.” See, that cannot be presented as a good argument specifically because you admitted the possibility of Ares toying with Percy in this scene, so Percy being “roughly equal” to an Ares that is toying with him and holding back, is only another way of saying, that had Ares been going all-out, he would have absolutely dominated the fight with his superior swordsmanship, defeating Percy in seconds, much like Chrysaor would later do (due to Ares and Chrysaor being equivalently skilled swordsmen).