Pain hurts more especially if it comes from a friend?

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(Danny's POV)

We were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since this Luke guy Percy was telling me about, so of course everybody treated us as if we'd won some reality-TV contest. According to camp tradition, we wore laurel wreaths to a big feast prepared in our honor, then led a procession down to the bonfire, where we got to burn the burial shrouds our cabins had made for us in our absence.

But what shocked nearly no one was the fact that they had picked someone up on the way throughout the quest. But after they learned I was a half blood they just shrugged like it was a common place for them for one to just show up out of the blue. I was introduced to a half horse person named Chiron and Dionysus but Percy told me to call him Mr D. Chiron gave me some nectar and ambrosia that was supposed to help heal my arm quicker.

Annabeth's shroud was so beautiful gray silk with embroidered owls I told her it seemed a shame not to bury her in it. She punched me in my still broken but healing arm and told me to shut up.

Being the son of Poseidon, Percy didn't have any cabin mates, so the Ares cabin had volunteered to make his shroud. They'd taken an old bedsheet and painted smiley faces with X'ed out eyes around the border, and the word LOSER painted really big in the middle. I elbowed him and told him it was like looking in a mirror which got me a playful shove. I wasn't given one but I got to help burn them which was still fun.

As Apollo's cabin led the sing along and passed out s'mores, I was surrounded by the Hermes cabinmates, Annabeth's friends from Athena, and Grover's satyr buddies, who were admiring the brand new searcher's license he'd received from the Council of Cloven Elders. The council had called Grover's performance on the quest "Brave to the point of indigestion. Horns-and-whiskers above anything we have seen in the past." I also might have lied and told people that Grover had beaten five monsters I single combat with Percy's sword which got a round of cheers for him and the bright red face he had seemed to match the fire with both me and Percy throwing out our arm to lift his arms in the air while screaming cheers in his name with laughter.

The only ones not in a party mood were Clarisse and her cabinmates, whose poisonous looks told me they'd never forgive Percy for disgracing their dad which somewhat gave me some annoyance because I wasn't credited in helping with that fight.

Even Dionysus's welcome home and introduction of me speech wasn't enough to dampen my spirits. "Yes, yes, so the little brat didn't get himself killed and now he'll have an even bigger head. Well, huzzah for that. In other announcements, there will be no canoe races this Saturday.... And this random new person. What was his name again?. Oh that's the right Density Principle or something."

I moved into cabin three, but it confused Percy when I said that I was moving in with him but I just went to go to the cabin but walked into the wrong ones because he and Annabeth didn't tell me which ones were which. I had my friends to train with during the day. At night, As soon as I fell asleep only to have a pillow thrown at me telling me to shut up because I was talking in my sleep. But after a while when I knew that Percy was asleep I thought about the fact that one of my parents is a god and when I looked to my right I saw the package that I was given unopened on my bedside table.

So I got up and decided to open it and have a look at it. When I opened it a pen fell out and a note with it so I decided to look at the note first despite my excitement for wanting to try out my new spear pen thing. But I was both shocked and scared from what the note had on it.

"Child as per your request I had the spear made that can be changed into a pen with a lead pencil mode with it and the ability to throw it and have it return to you in both forms and if lost in pen form it will appear in your pocket. But that isn't all I'm writing to you. As my brother explained your past ancestor crimes that they had committed them being breaking into Olympus and stealing that was meant to be given to a hero of the past, that being the cloak of shadows that could take the form of anything the wearer desires made by Athena that was given the properties of shadows and helping hide their presence but was never finished so it can only partially hide oneself their noise and sent from monsters and mortals. But my warning to you: use it well and help keep my son safe with whatever he needs and you will have my blessing to keep it, but should you use it to harm him you will have my entire wrath upon you and if you use it against the gods well you can guess what will happen." signed Poseidon.

Even reading it in the dark knowing everyone else is asleep I could still feel a presence of someone that could destroy me with as little effect as breathing made me have the same level of fear like drowning in the sea to the deep abyss. To say I didn't sleep that night wasn't a lie and when Percy asked when I got up I just told him about five minutes before him and hid the note from his father under my pillow.

As for Percy's mother, she had a chance at a new life. Her letter arrived a week later when we got back to camp. She told Percy and he told me that Gabe had mysteriously disappeared off the face of the planet, in fact. She'd reported him missing to the police, but she had a funny feeling they would never find him.

On a completely unrelated subject, she'd sold her first life size concrete sculpture, entitled The Poker Player, to a collector, through an art gallery in Soho. She'd gotten so much money for it, she'd put a deposit down on a new apartment and made a payment on her first semester's tuition at NYU. The Soho gallery was clamoring for more of her work, which they called "a huge step forward in super ugly neorealism."

But don't worry, his mom wrote. I'm done with sculpture. I've disposed of that box of tools he left her. It's time for him to turn to writing. I told him with a laugh.

At the bottom, she wrote a P.S.: Percy, I've found a good private school here in the city. I've put a deposit down to hold you a spot, in case you want to enroll for seventh grade. You could live at home. But if you want to go year-round at Half Blood Hill, I'll understand.

He folded the note carefully and set it on his bedside table. Every night before he went to sleep, he reread it again, and I could tell that he tried to decide how to answer her so I didn't say anything because he wasn't sure what he wanted to do.

But the next morning Annabeth met her, Grover and Percy on the pier just as the sun was rising but really took their time getting here.

"You guys really know how to take your time." I said to them standing up and stretching out the aches from sitting down. "So what did you guys want to meet me out here for exactly?"

"Just wanted to show you something right you two." Annabeth said looking at both of them and then they nodded to each other. "GET HIM!"

Not expecting to be rushed they caught me by surprise and held both of my arms and kicked my legs so I was on my knees.

"Sorry Danny, it's for your own good." Grover said.

"What are you guys doing, tell me now and let go of me now." I said looking quickly between all of them.

"Well princess, it's simple really." Percy grinning down at me. "You're learning how to swim and this is the only way knowing you."

"But I'm terrified of the water you know that you promised me." I was sweating bullets looking up at him and at the water. Trying to break their hold on me anyway I could but it was no use because their grip was too strong.

"It's for your own good, now boys throw him in please." Annabeth said and I swear I saw that she was grinning at me.

And then splash I was in the water flailing around trying to stay above the water.

"You're not even in the deep end?" Grover said. "It should be only up to your stomach."

As soon as he said that I got up and stood there.

"Well I'll be damned, I am." I said to myself looking at the low water level.

Then I went and tried to sprint out of the water only to be held in place somehow, then I turned and saw them in the water behind me laughing at the scared face I had.

That's how the torture started with me screaming for help while they took me deeper and showing me how to swim but it took nearly the whole day for me to understand how to swim. They did say that I learned real quick aside from the fact that I sunk a lot of the time but I held my breath underwater for I think about 7 or 10 minutes which surprised them and especially Percy. But when I was getting late in the day before dining time we all went to the shore where I swore I would have my revenge for embarrassing me by embarrassing them.

On the Fourth of July, in the morning Annabeth went missing and Grover and Percy went looking for her before everyone else wakes up to take me for another swimming lesson 'torture lesson as I called it'. After looking for a while they decided to wake me up for help.

"Danny wake up, we need help." Grover said while they both were pushing me to get me up.

"We don't know where Annabeth has gone, she's not in her cabin we ask some of them." Percy added.

"Sure you two I'll be glad to help 'look for her'." I said with a glad smile on my face that they didn't notice. "Let's go right now and find her."

"We have looked everywhere for her, we just can't find her. Do you have any idea where she could have gone?" Grover told me.

"I have a great idea where she might be, follow me you two." I told them and started walking in front of them.

Not to long after we started walking to the beach I hear the lovely sound of yelling in the distance.

"DANNY PRINCE, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!!"

I stood still at the top of the sand dune looking proudly out at the work of art that I had done. When Percy and Grover rushed up to join me at the top to only look in shock at what had happened.

"How did you do that?" Grover asked with a bit of nervous tone in his voice.

"Oh that, it's easy do if you know how to do it just right." I said looking at Percy and Grover with a evil looking smirk on my face. "Specially if it's for 'revenge'."

"YOU'RE DEAD WHEN I GET YOU!" Annabeth screamed at me.

"Yeah but how did you get her and her bed out in the water without anyone noticing?" Percy asked me.

"As I said, revenge is easy." Looking at them. "Now just so you guys know. You both are ok."

While I wasn't looking somehow Annabeth had got out of the water and was charging like a bull at me.

"YOU BETTER NOT RUN!" Annabeth said getting closer.

"Oh shit." I said.

Turning around running away while people were coming out to see what was happening only to see me running away from a rage filled Annabeth Chase chasing was me (you see what I did there) screaming about the ways she was going to kill me.

After getting a good beating from Annabeth as revenge for my revenge the whole camp gathered at the beach for a fireworks display by cabin nine. Being Hephaestus's kids, they weren't going to 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'd seen the show before, the blasts would be sequenced so tightly they'd look like frames of animation across the sky. The finale was sup-posed to be a couple of hundred foot tall Spartan warriors who would crackle to life above the ocean, fight a battle, then explode into a million colors.

As Annabeth and I, with Percy next to me, were spreading a picnic blanket, Grover showed up to tell us goodbye. He was dressed in his usual jeans and T-shirt and sneakers, but in the last few weeks he'd started to look older, almost high-school age. His goatee had gotten thicker. He'd put on weight. His horns had grown at least an inch, so he now had to wear his rasta cap all the time to pass as human.

"I'm off," he said. "I just came to say ... well, you know."

I feel happy for him. After all, it wasn't every day a satyr got permission to go look for the great god Pan. But it was hard saying goodbye. I'd only known Grover a month or so but it felt like a year but he still was my friend after all.

Annabeth gave him a hug. She told him to keep his fake feet on.

I told him that I will be still planning out my revenge for him and to keep an eye on just in case I show up. But I gave him a tight hug saying I will deeply miss him a lot.

Percy asked where he was going to be searching first.

"Kind of a secret," he said, looking embarrassed. "I wish you could come with me, guys, but humans and Pan ..."

"We understand," Annabeth said. "You got enough tin cans for the trip?"

"Yeah." he said, showing us them.

"And you remembered your reed pipes?"

"Jeez, Annabeth," he grumbled. "You're like an old mama goat."

But he didn't really sound annoyed.

He gripped his walking stick and slung a backpack over his shoulder. He looked like any hitchhiker you might see on an American highway.

"Careful you don't trip and break a hip or you are really going to need that walking stick." I said with a laugh getting a playful punch on my shoulder from him.

"Well," he said, "wish me luck."

"You won't need luck, you will find him." I said giving one last hug.

He gave Annabeth another hug. He clapped Percy on the shoulder, then headed back through the dunes.

Fireworks exploded to life overhead: Hercules killing the Nemean lion, Artemis chasing the boar, George Washington (who, by the way, was a son of Athena) crossing the Delaware.

"Hey, Grover," Percy called.

He turned at the edge of the woods.

"Wherever you're going I hope they make good enchiladas."

Grover grinned, and then he was gone, the trees closing around him.

"We'll see him again," Annabeth said.

"Damn right we will, I still got to get revenge on him." I said with a yelled laugh that I was sure Grover could hear.

July passed and I started to get the hang of training a lot more specially with my new spear and my dodging was improving a lot more from playing dancing arcade games and when both Annabeth and Percy learned that they shared a good laugh with me despite my bright red face. Oh and the scarf that me and Annabeth found at waterworld in the tunnel of lovers or something I don't really remember what it was called and when I asked Annabeth her face just got red and told me not to ask her which didn't help my memory but I tried the scarf that smelt like lemon citrus, books and some flowers around the tip of the spear. The magic in the scarf added a pink ink to the pen somehow I don't know.

I spent my days devising strategies for capture the flag with the almighty leader of the cabin 'Fish sticks' and making alliances with the other cabins to keep the banner out of Ares's hands. I got to the top of the climbing wall for the first time without getting scorched by lava on my own to see both Annabeth and Percy at the top waiting for me.

From time to time, I'd walk past the Big House, glance up at the attic windows, and think about what Percy had told me about Oracle.

The last night of the summer session came all too quickly. And of course the beds I had ordered from my own business that I had delivered arrived on the last day that I gave to Annabeth and Percy and one for myself oh and Chiron and Mr D they both asked how I could afford it but I told them the truth that I got the ownership from Crusty or Procrustes but they didn't really care that much so it was fine.

The campers had one last meal together. We burned part of our dinner for the gods. At the bonfire, the

senior counselors awarded the end of summer beads.

I got my own leather necklace, and when I saw the bead for my first summer, I was glad the firelight covered Percy's blushing because only I can make fun of him for blushing. The design was pitch black, with a sea green trident shimmering in the center.

"The choice was unanimous," Luke announced. "This bead commemorates the first Son of the Sea God at this camp, and the quest he undertook into the darkest part of the Underworld to stop a war!"

The entire camp got to their feet and cheered. Even Ares's cabin felt obliged to stand. Athena's cabin steered Annabeth to the front so she could share in the applause.

I'm not sure I'd ever felt as happy or sad as I did at that moment. I'd finally found a family, people who cared about me and thought I'd done something right. And in the morning, most of them would be leaving for the year.

The next morning, I found a form letter on my bedside table.

I knew Dionysus must've filled it out, because he stub-bornly insisted on getting my name wrong:

Dear

Density Principle,

If you intend to stay at Camp Half-Blood year-round, you must inform the Big House by noon today. If you do not announce your intentions, we will assume you have vacated your cabin or died a horrible death. Cleaning harpies will begin work at sundown. They will be authorized to eat any unregistered campers. All personal articles left behind will be incinerated in the lava pit. Have a nice day! Mr. D (Dionysus)

I thought that it was an easy choice for me. Be here or be free in the world. And the world is a boring place when I have two of the three here with me. So the decision was easy. Camp wins.

The campgrounds were mostly deserted, shimmering in the August heat. All the campers were in their cabins packing up, or running around with brooms and mops, getting ready for final inspection. Argus was helping some of the Aphrodite kids haul their Gucci suitcases and makeup kits over the hill, where the camp's shuttle bus would be waiting to take them to the airport.

And gods to hell with cleaning I did that later I thought so since I had some free time on my hands I sat down on the steps to the big house with a fresh art book that I asked if I could get from Chiron and he was kind and got me. I started with drawing Cerberus and Annabeth when she played catch. When I finished drawing it I felt like drawing a person but didn't know who to draw. Just then I saw Annabeth helping one of her siblings with packing their things and I subconsciously drawing her with way too much detail and being drawn into those stormy gray eyes.

When I looked up and saw someone carrying Percy on their shoulder I threw my things on the porch and ran to help get Percy into the big house.

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After Percy woke up and explained everything that had happened with the now traitor Luke and Chiron having to go somewhere.

"I'll be back as soon as I can," Chiron promised. "Argus will watch over you."

He glanced at Annabeth. "Oh, and, my dear ... whenever you're ready, they're here."

"Who's here?" I asked.

Nobody answered.

Chiron rolled himself out of the room. I heard the wheels of his chair clunk carefully down the front steps, two at a time.

I studied the ice in Percy's drink. "What's wrong?" I asked her.

"Nothing." She set the glass on the table. "Percy I ... just took your advice about something. You ... um ... need anything?"

"Yeah. Help me up. I want to go outside." Percy said.

"Don't push yourself, Aquaman." I told him

"Percy, that isn't a good idea."

He slid his legs out of bed. Annabeth and I caught him before he could crumple to the floor. A wave of nausea rolled over him by the way he looked.

Annabeth said, "I told you ..."

"I'm fine,"

"You have a shitty definition of 'I'm fine'." I said.

He managed a step forward. Then another, still leaning heavily on me. Argus followed us outside, but he kept his distance.

By the time we reached the porch, his face was beaded with sweat. But he had managed to make it all the way to the railing.

It was dusk. The camp looked completely deserted. The cabins were dark and the volleyball pit silent. No canoes cut the surface of the lake. Beyond the woods and the strawberry fields, the Long Island Sound glittered in the last light of the sun.

"What are you going to do?" Annabeth asked Percy.

"I don't know."

He told her he got the feeling Chiron wanted him to stay year round, to put in more individual training time, but I wasn't sure that's what he wanted. He admitted he'd feel bad about leaving her alone, though, with only Clarisse for company.... And of course with me.

Annabeth pursed her lips, then said quietly, "I'm going home for the year, Danny, Percy."

I stared at her. "Damn." then looking down. "Then I'm stuck with this fish out of water. " than looking at her with a smile.

She pointed toward the crest of Half-Blood Hill. Next to Thalia's pine tree, at the very edge of the camp's magical boundaries, a family stood silhouetted-two little children, a woman, and a tall man with blond hair. They seemed to be waiting. The man was holding a backpack that looked like the one Annabeth had gotten from Waterland in Denver.

"I wrote him a letter when we got back," Annabeth said. "Just like you suggested. I told him ... I was sorry. I'd come home for the school year if he still wanted me. He wrote back immediately. We decided ... we'd give it another try."

"That took guts."

She pursed her lips. "You won't try anything stupid during the school year, will you? At least ... not without sending me an Iris message? And Danny that mainly goes to you"

I managed a smile. "I won't go looking for trouble. I usually don't have to."

"When I get back next summer," she said, "we'll hunt down Luke. We'll ask for a quest, but if we don't get approval, we'll sneak off and do it anyway. Agreed?"

"Sounds like a plan Hermione."

She held out her hand. I shook it

"I'm not shaking your hand." I said.

She gave me a sad look after I said that.

"I'm going to talk to your family. See you in a bit, my fishy friend." I said letting go of Percy and starting walking down the hill.

"Take care, Seaweed Brain," Annabeth told him. "Keep your eyes open. I better go stop him before he says anything bad."

"You too, Wise Girl and you better be quick." Percy told her and pointed to me when I turned around to see them.

She quickly ran up to me but it was too late. I was already standing not too far from her family.

"Hello there nice to meet you, ah Grover or Danny or is it Percy." Annabeth's father asked, holding his hand out.

"Danny sir, it's nice to meet the father of my girlfriend." I said, shaking his hand.

"WHAT. NO YOUR NOT." Annabeth screamed. "He isn't. He's not ." She had gone the brightest color red I had ever seen.

"Really I could have sworn only couples go through romantic rides like that one at waterworld what was it called." I said with a faking thinking tone. " Oh yes that's right. The tunnel of love that's the one."

"He isn't ok, I would never go on a ride like that with him please believe me ok." Annabeth said while covering my face so I can't talk. "You better GO NOW DANNY." letting go of my face.

"I got the message ok, it was nice meeting you all." I nodded towards them. "I will see you next time and will call you thought that mist thingly." I let out a little laugh before turning to Annabeth. " Goodbye Annabeth Chase."

"Goodbye Danny Prince."

I start walking up the hill to see Percy walking back to the cabin and Argus telling me that Percy will be going home for the year.

Yeah I'm going to be sad. But I'm happy to see my friends all happy. Turning to see Annabeth getting in the car and waving to me and me waving to her as she gets driven away. Leaving me happy to see everyone happy.

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(Chapter Started 08/10/23) <+ Australian date

(Chapter Started 10/08/23) <+ Non Australian date

(Chapter Finished 09/10/23) <+ Australian date

(Chapter Finished 10/09/23) <+ Non Australian date

Feel free to give feedback if you wish to.

Thank you for taking your time to read this.

Hope you enjoyed reading this I had a lot of fun writing it

very big inspiration being

JuSt ANoTheR oVerTHiNkeR

@p0seidxns_f4v_ch1ld 

The writer of Serendipity ~ A. Chase