We were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since Luke, so everyone treated us like celebrities.
According to camp tradition, we wore laurel wreaths to a big feast prepared in our honour. Then, we led a procession down to the bonfire, where we got to burn the burial shrouds our brains had made for us in our absence.
Alumi's was pure white with black diamonds around the edge. In the middle was a totem pole, and Alumi gave it a good look before he tossed it into the fire.
Annabeth's shroud was so beautiful—grey silk embroidered with black and brown owls—that I told Annabeth it would be a shame not to bury her.
She punched me and told me to shut up before she let it fall into the fire.
And then there was mine: a royal blue skink with waves around the edge in a green and a cyan trident in the middle.
And I did not want to burn it.
So Alumi took it from me and set it on fire.
As Apollo's cabin led the sing-along and passed out toasted marshmallows, I was surrounded by my cabin members, with Nico and Bianca talking with the others in cabin three, Annabeth's half-siblings from the Athena cabin and Grover's Satyr buddies, who were admiring the brand new searcher's licence he'd received from the Council of Clovern Elders.
The council had called Grover's performance on the quest 'Brave on the point of indigestion. Horns-and-whiskers above anything we have seen in the past.'
Even Mr D's welcome-home speech wasn't enough to dampen my spirits. "Yes. Yes, so the little brats didn't get himself killed and now he'll have an even gigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other annoucements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday..."
After Mr D finished his announcements, the six of us approached him and Chiron. "We have some knowledge of what happened," I told them as they nodded at me, and the two led us to the big house.
Once, the six of us sat down around a ping-pong table with Mom, Chiron, Mr D, and Chipmunk Cheeks. They all looked at us six. "So you know what happened?" Chiron asked me as I nodded at him.
"Yes, and after a dream on the way to Vagus, I, well, we," I said as I indicated to Nico and Bianca. "I found out that Luke was the thief, and he's working for someone older and the gods," I told them as Chrion's face planted.
"What are you saying Percy?" Mom asked me.
"The Crooked One," Annabeth said as Mr D narrowed his eyes as he looked out at the camp.
"Did you inform my father?" He asked as we all nodded at him.
"Yes, and the Lady of Chaotic War aided me in beating the god that worked with Luke," I told them as Hestia scowled. I could see the fire in the middle of the camp become agitated.
Chiron looked at the six with a thunderous look. "Go and get aid from the other cabins, and do so quietly," he told them as he went to get his bow.
Bianca held her bident; I called out Riptied, and Annabeth and Alubi pulled out their knives.
"Grover, Nico, stay with Sally," Chiron told the young son of Hades, who nodded.
We moved out, and I went to the Demeter cabin and knocked on the door. When the lead camper answered, I told them Chiron's orders, and they nodded.
After half an hour, the group of four became a group of fifty with Chiron, Mr D, and Hestia, and we stood outside the Hermes cabin.
Chiron raised one of his legs and stomped on the ground, waking everyone within the eleventh cabin. "Luke Castellan, by the forces of the gods, come out now," Chiron yelled as we called and readied our weapons.
The children of Hermes opened the door, and I said I would walk out.
It did not take them long to realise what was happening, and they all reached for weapons and were ready to go for Luke. "Now, it seems that my master was right; you did know what was happening," Luke said as he walked out, and Chiron narrowed his eyes at the sword in Luke's hand.
It was a black double-edged sword.
"What have you done? Luke, working for Kronos, creating that sword," Chiron asked Luke with an edge to his voice.
But Luke just laughed in the centaur's face, "What have I done? That is easy; I have been liberated from this. The gods think themselves better than us, but we," Luke said as some of the Hermes cabin campers stood by Luke's side, "Will make the gods fall. And have them face what they have done to us. Become forgotten. And it will show them why they should fear us," he said, and he sounded mad.
I had enough as I got ready to move. Still, Luke slashed at the air, forming an 'H' in the air. A portal of darkness formed, and the campers who joined Luke ran through it. Luke smiled at us before he jumped through, and it closed.
Chiron looked at us and ordered us to look around and guard in case something happened.
Mr D went to report to Zeus.
After three days, things calmed down, but we were still on edge. Everyone took turns patrolling the woods; some even guarded Thalia's tree.
After a few more days, I walked over to the forge with Chiron by my side, carrying two notes of metal that looked like a mix of dark red and cyan.
"So you are going to mix this with celestial bronze and steel, and while I am not liking it, we are going to need every edge we can with Luke," Chiron said as the Hephestus campers looked at us as Alumi waited with Hyōrinmaru.
"Are you ready? " she asked me as she pulled out a loop of cyan-coloured indestructible prayer beads.
"Yeah, let's do this," I told her as she closed her eyes.
"Spirits in the darkness if you can hear my beads," Alumi said as she swayed the beads in his hand; the noise seemed to ring out through everyone, "If you can see there glow," The beads gave off a light green glow, "Listen to my voice, I am calling for Gantetsu Kamado," The air that was around her became still as white whips of energy started to form around him, "Stand up and discover the path from your wold to mine, Let my voice be your guide," The whips merged into a body that resembled a person with glowing, glowing green ethereal eyes with Alumi's eyes glowing silver. I stood ready as to what was going to happen, "Cross the fresh hold, Now, Spirt of Gantetsu Kamado rise up and take form," Alumi called out, and then I felt the spirit being pushed into me, "Itako-shiki Hyōi-jutsu Kuchiyose," She called out.
With the spirit in my body, I felt it click my neck as we approached Hyōrinmaru. "So you need me to fix the sword I made for you?" I said as I allowed the spirit to use my body.
"Indeed my friend," Hyōrinmaru told him as the spirit moved my eyes to look at the metal ingots in my hand before they walked me into the forge.
The spirit then turned my head to the Hephestus campers. "Are you youngsters going to help an old soul? " he asked through my lips as they nodded at him. "Good, then someone get some water that has a high salt content. The rest of you, turn that forge up to the hottest it can go," I ordered them as they all got to work.
The spirit moved my body as I took the sword apart. I held the blade pieces in my hands before I picked up a hammer. I looked across from the head camper from the Hephetus cabin. "Are you ready?" I asked him as he nodded.
So, with movements, we heated the metals until they became liquid. The metal was black, like Luke's sword, but it had a cyan sheen.
It was poured into an ingot before being air-dried, and then we started to heat it up and hammer away at it.
"Let this be a lesson for you all from an old blacksmith: When you create something, you in part a part of your soul within it to bring the creation life," the spirit told them through me as the people working at the forge nodded as they worked on creating the sword.
While most people left, I saw that Chiron, Annabeth, Grover, Bianca, Nico, and Alumi did not go as they watched me craft this sword.
Throughout the night, we folded the metal and found it around twenty times.
Before we started shaping the sword, after three nights of work, we started reconstructing Frozen Passion.
It was complete after wrapping in the cord and putting the but on the sword.
And the Katana now had a black blade with a cyan wave-like hamon.
So, I cancelled the integration and then integrated with Hyōrinmaru. The two of us started to go through a sequence of sword movements.
"It is the same as when I was alive, if not better," Hyōrinmaru said as he left my body and walked over to the blacksmith's spirit.
The spirit was of a man who was bald with scars over his head and face, and he wore simple robes.
While Undine looked at the sword, "Shall we?" she asked me. I held my hand, and her spirit ball formed, pushing her into Frozen Passion.
Along the ridge of Frozen Passion, barnacles formed. Water flowed from them as they fell to the sword's tip. "Sword of Fathoms N.K.," I said as I looked at the sword before I raised the Over-Soul into the air as water formed over the sword. "Kaiō Same," I called out as I slashed at the air, released a crossed water blade, and cut through the ground. It looked like a shark swimming in the water, hunting its target.
Oh, and it means Ocien King Shark
I smiled as I released the Over-Soul, which looked like the water had fallen apart. "Well, that was fun," I said as Chiron nodded.
On the fourth of July, the whole camp gathered at the beach for a fireworks display by cabin nine. Being Hephaestus's kids, they wouldn't settle for a few lame red-white-and-blue explosions. They'd anchored a barge offshore and loaded it with rockets the size of Patriot missiles.
According to Annabeth, who had seen the show before, the blasts would be sequenced so tightly that they would look like frames of animation across the sky.
The final was supposed to be a couple of thirty-metre-tall Spartan warriors who would crackle to life above the ocean, fight a battle, and then explode into a million colours.
As Annabeth, Alumi, Bianca, Nico, and I were spreading out a couple of picnic blankets, Grover showed up to tell us goodbye. He was dressed in his usual jeans, T-shirt, and trainers—not the flying ones, as I had taken them at his request. During the last few weeks, he started to look older, almost to high school age.
His goatee had got thicker. He's put on weight. His horns had grown a few centimetres at least, so he now had to wear his rasta cap all the time to pass as human.
"I'm off," he said to us as Alumi and Annabeth walked over to him. I just come to say...well, you know," he told us as we nodded. Nico was the first to hug him, and Grover hugged the young boy back.
I tried to feel happy for him. After all, it wasn't every day a satyr got permission to look for the great god Pan. But it was hard saying goodbye. I've known Grover for two years, and he is one of my oldest friends.
Annabeth was the next to hug him and told him to keep his fake feet on.
I wanted to ask him where he would search first, but I knew he could tell me.
"I wish you guys could come with me, but humans and Pan don't get on," He told us as we nodded at him. Annabeth let him go, and Alumi hugged him.
They both reminded him about his pipes, tin cans, etc.
So he took his backpack, slung it over his shoulder, took his crutches, and went off.
With that, I got my first bead, along with Alumi, Bianca, and Nico.
It was a black marble with a cyan trident on it.
I became the sword instructor for the rest of the summer, so don't ask.
I made it to the top of the climbing call without any burns.
Alumi still needed to be impressed by my speed.
What shocked me was that Annabeth was leaving camp, and I found a man, woman, and two kids waiting for her by Thalia's three.
And like that, the rest of the summer flew by. Soon, Alumi, Bianca, Nico, and I, along with Mom, returned to New York, where I found a present from my father.
It was a small charm of a boat and looked like one from a manga that I liked to read.
Yes, I read manga.
It was in Volume 5 of One Piece, the Going Marry.
And it came with a letter that read:
Dear Percy.
Son, this is my reward for proving my innocence, even though your uncle should have known that, to begin with.
But when did he think things out before doing something?
You make me proud, son. And when I asked your mother what type of boat you would have, she told me of the Japanese books called manga that you read, and so, with some of Atlantis's most excellent craftsmen and women in creating a fully working replica of the Going Merry. Still, I have changed the steering pole to a helm, as it would be easier for you.
Now in the box is also your birthday present from me, and your family under the sea.
With love.
Posiden.
So I looked deeper into the box and pulled out a rod with a button.
And when I pressed the button, it turned into a trident.
Mom and the others smiled at me as I held the trident, "You look just like your father," She told me as I nodded at her.
When summer ended, Alumi, Bianca, and I were sent to a community school. In contrast, Nico was sent to a junior high school.
But sadly, the mythical world did not want to let go, as I had met two people when I started.
The first was a beautiful girl of Indigenous descent with chocolate-brown hair cut choppy and unevenly and thin strands braided down on the sides. Her eyes seemed to change colour like a kaleidoscope, going from brown to blue to green. She had a green shirt on with a logo of some kind and torn jeans with boots.
But by the gods, was she beautiful.
The other was a tall boy with scruffy brown hair that covered his eyes. He was dressed in a tied shirt and dark grey shorts.
When we looked at them, Alumi looked at the boy, Tyson, and sighed. "So, you have a brother," she told me, and I nodded.