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Chapter Quote:
"On your left."
~Steve Rogers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier
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Chapter 8: It's A Pirate's Life for Me

Derek

The group had been on the boat for two days. Hallie, Brady, and Bradley barely came out of their rooms their seasickness was so bad. Bryn stuck next to Luke constantly but Derek knew that was because Luke had this effect on her that made her seasickness disappear. Derek knew this because Silena had the same effect on him.

He was sitting up on the bridge with his girlfriend, keeping an eye on the horizon as their destination was supposed to come into view by nightfall. Bryn was sitting with Luke on the bow of the ship. The latter had his arms wrapped around his girlfriend. Derek could see their mouths moving which made him wonder what they were talking about.

"You okay?" Silena asked, rubbing his shoulder.

"Yeah, just thinking," he replied. "You?"

"Anxious to get this over with. Which one do you think we'll find: the trident, the lightning bolt, or the helm?"

"I'd say either the trident or the helm. The bolt is the most powerful so it'll most likely be the hardest to find. How are you doing? With the nightmares?"

"Besides the fact that I keep waking up in a deathly fear that I'm going to be blind for the rest of my life, I'm okay. I could handle being blind, that's not actually what I'm afraid of. It's that I wouldn't be able to defend you or the others. What about you?"

Derek shrugged. "I don't know. I just don't feel right, like something's wrong with me and that's what Tartarus was always using against me, so I don't know if it's just him in my head or if something's genuinely wrong. Or both."

"Can you explain what you're feeling? I mean why you don't feel right?"

"It's just... something's off. That's all I can say. It's driving me nuts that I can't place it which makes me believe it's just in my head."

"We'll figure it out. We always do," Silena promised, resting her head on his shoulder.

"How much longer until we get there?" Hallie asked, suddenly appearing next to her brother. He and Silena jumped in surprise.

"Uh, we should be there by nightfall so we're going to dock there and get on land in the morning. What are you doing up?"

"My seasickness has abated somewhat and I took the opportunity to come here to ask my question. Now with it rapidly coming back, I'm heading back down to my room. I'll see y'all later." Hallie stumbled out of the room. Despite wanting to go after his sister, he decided against it as he knew the moment he left his girlfriend's side, his own seasickness would make its unwelcome appearance.

For the next two hours, the boat sped towards what seemed to be a never-ending horizon. It was only just as the sun was setting that the silhouette of the island could be seen. Excitement rose inside Derek's chest. By tomorrow, they'd be a third of the way done with their quest, which meant he would be closer to being able to relax and take care of not just himself, but his friends as well. Of the four of them that had fallen into Tartarus, Luke had for some reason been the worst off. Bryn was good for him, but even she seemed to have trouble getting through to him which was worrisome to Derek. He and Luke hadn't always seen eye to eye on things but they'd been through a lot together, and Derek genuinely saw Luke as a brother now. He believed the Jackson boy felt the same.

"I'm going to anchor here and turn off the lights so no one sees our ship," Silena said, interrupting her boyfriend's chain of thought. "Then we should head to bed."

"I'm going to stay up a little while longer. I don't feel safe without having a look out for things with everything going on right now."

"I think we'll be fine, but I won't argue. I'll be in bed if you need me. I love you." Silena kissed him on the head, then went to her room. A little while later Bryn and Luke got up, walking hand in hand back inside, presumably to go to bed. They all had a long day tomorrow.

For three hours, Derek forced himself to keep his eyes open, but realized he was failing. Swallowing away his fears about being attacked while sleeping, he walked to his room that he shared with Silena. Halfway there he met Luke and the twins who seemed to be wide awake.

"What's up?" Derek inquired.

"I have a bad feeling. Something's coming. I can feel it," Luke answered. "Did you see anything while you were up there?"

Derek shook his head. Luke sidled past him, running up the stairs to the bridge of the ship. The other demigods trailed right behind. Luke stood at the radar, watching it as it scanned for any signs of other ships.

"There!" the Jackson boy exclaimed, pointing at a blip on the radar. "What is that?"

"I don't know. The police shouldn't be out here so it can't be them," Brady remarked.

"The area's known to have pirates. We should wake the girls. If they are pirates and they see our ship, they'll send a small group to board and take over. If we go take care of the big ship, the girls can defend this one," Derek suggested.

"What are we doing?" Bryn mumbled tiredly from the doorway. Silena and Hallie stood behind her, seeming more awake than their friend.

"There's a ship on the radar. We think it might be pirates. We're trying to figure out if they've spotted us. I'm going to go swim out there and see what's going on. Derek, you want to join?" Luke queried. Derek nodded.

"Bradley and I will fly over to the ship, and we'll alert Bryn if we see a smaller one coming towards our boat," Brady said.

"Are you sure it's safe for us to split up?" Hallie questioned seriously.

"We need a kid of Poseidon on each boat. We're in our element here so we'll have the upper hand in the fight. The boys and I will be fine. You three be careful," Luke admonished.

"We're not the ones going out in the middle of the night to check a ship to see if it's pirates," Bryn argued.

Luke placed his hands on his girlfriend's shoulders, kissing her on her forehead. "We'll be fine. I'll see you soon Cat Woman."

"You better come back Shark Boy."
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Luke

Thank the gods Derek was accompanying Luke to the ship in the dark water because despite being in his territory, the grandson of Poseidon still felt skittish at the thought of being alone in the vast ocean in the dead of night going to attack a pirate ship. Upon reaching the ship, he had a wave raise them quietly up onto the deck. Checking to make sure the coast was clear, the two demigods leapt over the railing and hid behind a box of crates.

"You see anything?" Derek whispered.

"Four men. Big guns," Luke responded. "They're watching something."

"Probably the boat to go to our ship. Hallie just informed me the boat's almost reached them."

"The twins must've seen one heading to our boat when they were flying over here and warned Bryn who must've warned the girls. I hope they're okay..."

"Honestly, they'll probably handle this better than we will. So what's our plan of action?"

"It'd be nice to know where the twins were but we'll have to trust that they know what they're doing. I say we attack quietly and knock them out. If only this place had a jail cell. Do we have any rope?"

"No, but I see some of the men have some on their belts. We could use that to tie them up."

"We'll need weapons. I don't exactly want to kill them."

"We're demigods. We are weapons."

"I say our best attack is a sneak attack."

"Mãos ao ar!" a man shouted. Luke and Derek whirled around, throwing their hands up in the air to show that they surrendered to the six men with guns pointed at them.

"What did he just say?" Derek asked quietly.

"I have no idea but just go along with it," Luke said.

"Can you not make a wave or something?" The men motioned for them to move to the middle of the ship. The two boys with their hands by their heads, did as they were told, not wanting to get shot.

"I want more of them around me. Besides, we have no idea where the twins are and I don't want to hurt them."

"You don't have to worry about that," a twin grunted next to him. It was Brady.

"These jerks damn near shot us out of the sky," Bradley added. The Jackson boy prayed silently that the girls were okay as he and the others had their hands and feet bound with rope.

Luke was about to say something to his friends when men started shouting and hollering. Half the men disappeared while the ones that remained shifted uneasily on their feet, guns pointed at the boys' heads.

For a few tense minutes, nothing was seen or heard. It was only when there was a high-pitched yell, accompanied by a pirate flying back into a stack of crates, that Luke decided to take action. Concentrating amongst the ruckus, he started making the sea move back and forth. The pirates surrounding them began to lose their footing. While they stumbled about, Derek decided to get up and headbutt the closest guy to him. The twins followed suit. Luke chose to be a human bowling ball, rolling himself towards a group of pirates distracted by the chaos going on around them. He knocked into them, causing them to fall over. Unfortunately, they fell onto him.

"Bad idea. Bad idea..." he groaned as elbows and knees dug into his back. At least it wasn't lower where it'd really hurt. The pirates stood up and were about to attack him when someone shouted "On your left!" followed by the unmistakable sound of metal hitting someone in the head.

"Cadela!" a pirate shouted. A metal pole flashed over his head, hitting another enemy in the back of the knee. When he went down, a foot kicked him in the head, knocking him out. Another got slammed in the back, another got hit in a very bad place for a man that made Luke actually felt semi-bad for him because he knew exactly who was wielding that pole and just how much strength they had. In less than a minute, six pirates were down. Luke sat up, shaking his head to clear his thoughts. He looked up at his savior, also known as his girlfriend. Bryn grinned down at him.

"Honestly Sharkboy, how many times do I have to save your ass?" she queried, kneeling down to untie his hands and feet.

He laughed. "I will never get tired of it."

"You're an idiot."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"If I did that, we'd be here a very long time."

"Shut up." He pushed her playfully.

"Come on, we still have some pirates to take care of," she said, holding out her hand. Luke took it, standing up. The two of them ran off to find their friends or to find more pirates, whichever came first. That happened to be the latter. It was only two of them that were firing their guns at the twins who were soaring in the air striking pirates with lightning bolts. They weren't facing the two demigods though so Bryn put the pole she was carrying in between them at head level and snapped it into horizontal position so that it hit one guy in the face and the other in the back of the head. While they were disoriented, Luke punched their lights out. He used the rope that had bound his hands and legs to tie their hands together. Bryn and Luke took the guns away from them and tossed them over the side of the boat. They went to help out the rest of their friends but saw they didn't need to. The others had knocked the rest of the pirates out, or had tied them up. The demigods found some extra rope and chains around the ship, tying up their would-be captors that were currently unrestrained.

"What happened to the pirates that were sailing out to our boat?" Derek inquired, brushing some guck off his hands.

"Silena created a ball of water that Bryn electrified and then Silena dropped the water ball onto the pirates. It knocked them out. It was awesome!" Hallie exclaimed. "Then we tied them up. They're floating on their little boat somewhere."

"Let's get them up here, put them with their comrades," Luke said. "We'll send a distress signal so the Coast Guard comes and gets them."

"You and Bryn go do that. There were quite a few pirates on that boat so Hallie and I will need as much manpower as we can get getting them on the ship," Silena remarked. Luke nodded. He and Bryn went to the bridge where Luke fiddled around with the controls while Bryn stood guard with her handy-dandy pole. He'd just hit the distress signal button when he heard Bryn swear softly in Greek.

"What's wrong?" he asked, turning to look at her.

"I guess a bullet grazed me during the fight," Bryn replied, staring down at the gash in her hip.

"That's more than just a graze. If that bullet went any deeper into your skin, it would've embedded itself in you. Let's get you to your brothers so they can heal that up."

Luke escorted Bryn downstairs. She seemed unfazed by her wound which worried him. He remembered her telling him that she felt pain differently after Tartarus, but still, her lack of feeling pain worried him.

The twins were immediately by their sister's side, asking what happened. While Luke explained, the twins began using healing spells to stop the bleeding and close the gash. It seemed to help Bryn tremendously who had been more affected by it than she realized. Once her brothers deemed she was okay, Luke and Bryn went to their room.

"Hey, if you're not up to going on the quest tomorrow, I think the six of us can handle getting whichever Olympian power thing is up there on the island," Luke said.

Predictably, Bryn shook her head. "No, I'll be fine. Once I get some sleep, finish this ambrosia, and drink some nectar, I'll be good as new. Besides, it wasn't that bad."

"I know I'm one to talk, but you're wearing yourself thin. You're worse than when I first met you. I know it's an after-effect of Tartarus but please be careful with all that you're taking on. I can't watch you die a third time..." Luke sighed, sitting on the bed with his back to his girlfriend. He hated talking about the prospect of Bryn dying because he knew that it was a real and ever present threat. He hated thinking about it because it made him think of a time in his life that was best left buried deep down where no one could access it, including himself. He hated bringing up Bryn dying because he didn't want to seem like the over-clingy boyfriend. He hated showing weakness in front of her right now when she needed she needed someone else to be strong for once. After all, she'd just died and come back only a couple months ago. That's not something a person gets over easily or just brings up casually in a conversation. That was a life-changing event for her, and he knew it got to her more than she cared to admit. More than once she'd talked in her sleep about it. Bryn never mentioned it when she was awake, but she didn't have to for him to know.

Bryn crawled onto the bed, wrapping her arms around his waist from behind and resting her chin on his shoulder.

"You're right. I'm wearing myself thin. But it's not because I'm not sleeping. Believe it or not, I'm actually sleeping more and more each night. I'm wearing myself thin worrying about you guys. You, Silena, Derek, the twins, Hallie, my parents, Derek's parents, your parents... all of you are my family and I'm not losing any of you. Not again."

"You're not planning on dying again are you?"

She let out soft harrumph. "No, I have no plans on dying any time soon."

"... Did it hurt?"

Bryn scooted next to him, staring at him with furrowed brows. "Did what hurt?"

"Did it hurt when you died?"

"Yes. And no. The wound hurt, yes. And it hurt until I died. But the actual dying part was relatively peaceful. Why? You didn't make a deal with the devil did you?"

At that, Luke smiled. "No. No deals with the devil for me. I just wanted to know if you'd been in pain when you died. I wish you hadn't been."

"Don't dwell on it. I'm here now. That's what matters. Besides, I've let the Fates have their wish. Now it's time for them to grant me mine."

"What is your wish?" He inquired.

"Oh I already have it," she answered, giving him a chaste kiss.

"You do?"

"You know, for being a grandson of Athena, you don't always show her brilliance, do you Sharkboy?"

"What are you talking about?" he replied, becoming more confused.

"You know what, I'm going to let you figure this out. What do you say we get to sleep? It's late, I'm tired, you're tired and stress which is a terrible combination, and we have a big day ahead of us."

Luke agreed, getting under the covers. Bryn lay next to him with her head on his chest, listening to his steady heartbeat. He turned off the lamp and closed his eyes. All was silent save for the gentle lapping of the waves against the boat. Bryn, however, decided to break the silence entirely by asking, "Are you ever going to tell me about the dream you asked Aphrodite about?"

Luke let out a quick burst of laughter. "You're never going to give up on that are you?"

"Of course I'm not going to drop it. You don't understand how aggravating it is not knowing what you two are talking about? Is it about us? Is it about Silena and Derek? Is it about the future?"

Luke kissed her on the top of the head. "I promise you'll find out when the time is right."

"When will that be?"

"When the dream comes true."
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Hope you liked some of the hints in the end about what's going to happen in the future. Let's see how many you can pick up :) Review please!