Disclaimer: I'm not Rick Riordan so therefor I don't own anything. This is my very first fanfic, so reviews would be nice. Well I picked up where MoA left off. Percy and Nico are my favored POV's but I'm open to suggestions. Might do Reyna, Octavian, and/or Rachel's just to see whats up on that side of the world.

House of Hades

I

Percy

The first thing I realized as I regained consciousness was the sound of rushing water. Thank the gods, at least there are rivers down here. Want to know the second thing I realized? The sound of rushing water was actually blood flowing from my ears. As the sound of water- err.. blood slowly subsided, I thought, so Tartarus is riverless and soundless. Then a thought occurred to me. Tartarus wasn't soundless, I was deaf from the impact. Ugh, I thought. The blood pouring from my ears should have been a dead giveaway.

As I struggled to stand I remembered the ambrosia in my pocket that I had saved for emergencies. Yeah, now seems like a pretty good time to have some. As soon as I sunk my teeth into the small square, memories of Mom's blue food filled me with sorrow. I might never see her again… No, stop thinking like tha- before I could finish that thought, I was interrupted by the faint yelling of my name. I realized the ambrosia was slowly helping me regain my hearing. And that yelling, it was so familiar… ANNABETH.

"Percy, where are you?"

"I'm over here." I looked around to find her, but I couldn't see her. Actually, I couldn't see anything. Tartarus was pitch dark, void of light.

"Over where Seaweed Brain?" She didn't sound as if she appreciated my obvious stupidity at the moment.

"Hold on." I reached into my pockets until I found what I was looking for. Riptide, my half-pen, half-Celestial Bronze sword. Thank the gods, at least I had some luck. I uncapped it and it magically transformed into my perfectly balanced sword. The glow of the godly metal usually radiated brighter, but I guessed that Tartarus did not take kindly to being exposed to light after millennia without it.

"Okay I see you, stay there."

After a while of waiting and waiting I could finally see Annabeth from the faint glow of Riptide. When I saw her face, filled with agony, I understood why she had taken so long. She had a broken ankle and she was guided to her boyfriend by a faint glow. She must've stumbled several times over the remnants of the room that the Athena Parthenos once resided in for over three thousand years.

"How long were you calling my name?"

"I don't know. I lost track of time after the first hour."

A wave of guilt suddenly swept over me. While I had been knocked out, she was wandering Tartarus in search for me. "I don't deserve you."

She suddenly embraced and kissed me. "What did I say about saying that?" I detected a bit of masked acceptance in her voice, like she had already come to terms that I was going to say that a lot. "Well what are we waiting for? We have some doors to close, don't we?"

"Yes. Yes you do," the familiar voice came from behind us. As we turned to meet this voice, I already knew who it was.

II

Percy

"Beckendorf!" Both Annabeth and I exclaimed in unison.

I managed to muster a few words, "H-How are you he-"

"Hades. He called me out from Elysium. He said, 'Do you want to see your friends one more time? Help save the world again?' Of course I jumped at the offer. He persuaded his wife to help transport me here with some sort of a magical flower. I only have a few minutes until I'm transported back." Then I saw his hands and what were in them. Two backpacks seeming to be full and a bronze (I'm guessing Celestial Bronze) plate. Or at least something that looked like a plate. "Here take these," he tossed the bags. "They each have two squares of ambrosia, a bottle of nectar, a pair of night vision goggles, and enough rations to get each of you through two weeks at the most. And this Annabeth-" he handed the plate to her, "is from Athena, err… Minerva." He started to fade.

"Wait Charles, what is this? How did she send this if she-" Annabeth had begun to ask but then stopped once he had faded away. Even in the soft glow of my sword I could see tears creeping from her eyes.

"C'mon let's get those goggles on." As soon as I put the goggles on, I could tell they were magical. Instead of that greenish glow you'd expect, I saw Tartarus as if we were on the surface of Earth in broad daylight. What I saw surprised me.

Annabeth seemed equally impressed. "What in Hades is this?"

I almost forgot to close my low-hanging jaw before I started to talk. "It looks exactly like… like, Olympus." Except it was abandoned and most of Annabeth's newly designed buildings were in ruins. Then the sight flickered and my view changed to something way more depressing. Camp Half-Blood, flames burning everywhere. Roman and Greek corpses littered the ground. Reyna's lifeless body lay face down with a dagger, seeming to have a Roman design, was blade-deep in her back. Wow, that looks just like Octavian's.

"Percy.. it's Tartarus… it's playing mind games on us. It's showing us our deepest fears. This must be what Nico was talking about. We can't focus on our fears, Tartarus must be able to sense them. Just… just focus on our quest. Come look, I think I know what this plate is."

As we focused on the plate, Tartarus seemed to shift back to its true form.. not that much happier. A barren land that seemed to have absorbed all traces of the room Annabeth and I had just fallen from stretched for miles in every direction.

Annabeth pulled a small disk from her pocket and placed it on her newly acquired plate. The disk, I realized, was the same one she had found in Charleston. I had supposed the map was to Athena Parthenos and nothing more. The plate had the same markings as the disk and seemed to fit perfectly. With a quick rumble the plate and disk merged into a faintly illuminated piece of thin sheet of bronze... almost paper thin.

"A map!" Annabeth exclaimed. "This is the Map of Tartarus. But how did my mother get this?" She had that look again. She was obviously deep in thought. "All we have to do is focus on something other than our fears and this map can show us through Tartarus."

So I'm sorry for uploading chapter three at the same time. It's not completed so just think of it as a teaser. I'm only going to upload one chapter at a time from now on. Happy reading ( :

III

Nico

"Nico. Nico. Nico, wake up!"

Ugh.. just let me sleep, I thought. As I stumbled to sit up, I saw 7 faces staring at me. Leo, Frank, Hazel, Coach Hedge, Hades, Jason, and Piper… Wait, what? What was he doing here?

"D-Dad," I managed to spit out.

"Alright guys, lets give them some space," Leo said.

Everyone but Hades and Hazel started to clear out. Suddenly, Hades gave Hazel a look that seemed to say, I think I know you but I don't know where from. Then, he winced as if he'd just gotten struck by a massive migraine.

"Hazel, you should go too," Dad said. He winced again.

"Why are you he-"

"Your friends Percy and Annabeth, they are alright." Of course I know that, I thought. I would've felt it if they died. "I've already arranged for them to get enough supplies to last them two weeks, no more. I cannot help them anymore, they are already to deep into Tartarus as it is. It took almost all my strength to protect them from the fall."

"Why did you have to come tell me this?" I knew it was wrong to question a god, let alone my own father, but it seemed pointless to travel from the Underworld to the Argo II to tell me this news.

"To give you this." He handed me a black dagger. Not just black, it was as black as Tartarus and seemed to absorb the light around it like Tartarus did. When I looked up from the dagger, he was gone.