Lightnings Twin (Male OC X Pjo/Hoo)

Percy is poisoned and the betrayal.

We were the first heroes to return alive to Half-Blood Hill since Luke, 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.

Annabeth's shroud was so beautiful—gray silk with embroidered owls—Percy told her it seemed a shame not to bury her in it. She punched him and told him to shut up.

Being the son of Poseidon, Percy didn't have any cabin mates, so the Ares cabin had volunteered to make my 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.

He said It was fun to burn.

And for me the Aphrodite cabin elected themselves for my shroud. They made a beautiful stormy sky with a eagle holding a arrow. When Silena gave it to me she quickly kissed me on the cheek. So fast I didn't react but I smiled and patted her head and told her that I have to talk to her in a few days about something.

As Apollo's cabin led the sing-along and passed out s'mores, Percy was surrounded by his old 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."

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.

That was okay with me.

Even Dionysus's welcome-home speech wasn't enough to dampen my spirits.

Mr.D: "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...."

On the Fourth of July, 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 (i couldnt see back then because i didn't have King), the blasts would be sequenced so tightly they'd look like frames of animation across the sky. The finale was supposed 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 Percy were spreading a picnic blanket, Grover showed up to tell us good-bye. 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.

Grover: "I'm off, I just came to say ... well, you know."

I tried to 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 good-bye. I'd  known Grover for years, he was my one of my oldest friends. That were still alive.

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

Percy asked him where he was going to search first.

Grover: "Kind of a secret, I wish you could come with me, guys, but humans and Pan ..."

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