AN: Hey guys, This is before The House of Hades. But, please don't let that stop you from reading it. I'm giving this shout out to my beta reader and the person who helped me write this,
i refuse to prove that i exist
Thank you for helping me. :) And a big HI to the people reading this from the past that I admin. :D Love you guys.
Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or HoO or anything else that Rick does. Just my stuff. ;)
Pipers POV
I looked to Jason. To Leo. To Hazel. Back to Jason, then to Frank. I made eye contact with every one of them. And then just started to go back around every person. I rarely met eyes with Nico. I know that it wasn't his fault that Percy and Annabeth fell into Tartarus. He even tried to help pull them out. They were just too far.
None of us knew what to do. All we were doing was looking at one another. Nico didn't even know what to do. Or he might've. He wasn't telling any of us anything. He just looked deep in thought.
"Now what do we do?" I asked, trying to get something out of anyone. It was to quite for me. Jason turned and looked at me, "We need to fight our way to the doors of death, Pipes."
"I know tha-"
"We need to take a detour, first. I know someone who may be able to help us." Nico said that that with something I didn't expect to here from a boy who looked as dead as he did. He said it with hope, with a tiny fire starting in his eyes.
"Well, okay then? Where to?"
"Umm... I don't know, exactly." He became quite.
"Wait. You want us to go somewhere and you don't even know where it is?" Jason asked. It's almost like he still doesn't trust Nico.
Nico glared at Jason "There are things in this world you will never know, you will never see, you will never feel . You're a son of the king god, you will never find the secrets of the gods, you are too closely watched, as are the rest of you."
Nico expression grew slightly light ,like he was recalling the few good memories he had, "I found something awhile ago, something the gods tried to hide more than the Romans from the Greeks and vis versa. Other demigods. Ones to powerful to risk use. Their home is both a metropolis and a prison, a wonder and a dread, a home and a trap."
"Where is it?" Hazel asked somewhat solemnly, the memory of Percy's and Annabeth's fall still fresh in her mind.
He shrugged, "I never found out, I asked dad. But he thought I was talking about the Roman camp."
"So you don't know where it is?" Leo asked.
"No. I can think I know someone, or more correctly two someones, who do. And would be willing to help us find it, though."
"Who would do that?" I really wanted to know.
"The two gods, actually, are Poseidon and Athena. Poseidon would probably be harder to go to and get information from, if the gods knew what we're doing. So I would suggest we go to Athena and ask."
"Why would they help us? Aren't they battling with their Roman or Greek sides?" Leo asked.
"Wait." I started, "This might just be a big enough trauma for both of them that they're on the side with their children. Right?"
"Right."
"So who's asking her? 'Cuz I don't want to die today." Leo said shaking his head lightly.
"I will."
"Are you sure Pipes?" Jason asked me.
"Yea. Let me go to my room."
I was sitting on my bed trying to think of something to pray to Athena. Something that would make her come her something that would make her listen and help. I threw around a few things in my mind before settling on something, hoping that what I asked would bring her here.
'Lady Athena, please answer and help us with this. We have a lead on something that would help get Annabeth and Percy out of Tartarus. We just need a little nudge in the right direction. Or even better, to know where something is. Please. We know you want her back just as much as the rest of us.'
I almost thought that I took it too far with the last bit, until I herd someone say in my mind 'Close your eyes, child.'
I saw a bright light behind my eyelids.
"You may open them." I did and there Athena was. She was standing right in front of me.
"Piper are you okay? You've been in there for quite a while now." I herd Jason ask worriedly. His voice almost sounded shaky.
"Yea, I'm fine."
"Okay... I'm going to go back and wait with the others."
I turned to Athena who was now sitting on my bed.
"What's this plan of yours?" She asked looking at the pictures on my wall. Her eyes scanned them all. The one of Jason and I. Of Leo, Jason, and I. Then, she scanned over the one of Annabeth and I.
Her eyes never left that one while I told her the little that I knew about the plan that Nico had.
When I finished, she nodded a few times. Thinking.
"I need to talk with the rest of you as well. Especially Nico di Angelo."
Uh oh. We are so massively screwed right now... That was the only thing that could run through my mind while we were walking down towards everyone.
Nico had explained every little part of his plain to Athena. It may have taken a while, but he did it.
"Right now my only question for you, son of Hades, is how did you find it?" Athena said in a quite but firm voice. She sounded on edge. Though, she also did a good job at hiding it.
"I kind of stumbled into it, once when I was shadow traveling."
"Sadly enough, that make sense. Okay I'll take you all there. But You will only be able to leave on this ship, maybe not you Nico Di Angelo, and no one will be able to get on or leave with you. Do you all understand this?" Athena glared at us.
"Quick question, My Lady." She turned towards Nico, "Why don't we let them help?"
"They already know you, you all will not need me to go in and on the shore with you." She said walking up to the deck without another word spoken.
-Line Break-
"There," Athena pointed. "All you have to do is land in the water right below us and if you keep sailing Northeast you will see it soon enough. I need to leave before you land in the water, though." She stated turning around and looking at us. "The other gods cannot know of what I have done. Not even Poseidon. Though I doubt that he would tell anyone at this time. Now close your eyes." With that said she vanished with a bright light.
"Sooo. We just land and sail? That doesn't sound very specific." Leo said.
"No it doesn't, but if we have Athena's blessing, we'll be able to get into and past the protective barriers." Nico replied.
"So I'm guessing that we can't get in while we're in the air, then. Why would that be?" Hazel asked.
"Maybe it's so planes don't mysteriously vanish like in the Bermuda Triangle." I offered.
"Plus Neptune can most likely control which way the boats go. He can probably stear them around the island." Jason added on.
Nico smiled wiry, "The Bermuda Triangle is the new Sea of Monsters."
"No it's not." Leo stated, "That's the passage that we had to take into Rome."
"That was the original Sea of Monsters. The one that moved with the heart of the west is located in the- Humph."
We roughly hit the water.
"What way did she say to go again?" Leo asked.
Nico gave him one of the scarcest death glares that I have ever seen, while snapping, "She said Northeast."
"Geez, never trying to joke around with you again." Leo mumbled while setting course.
I felt like whacking them both upside the head. The only problem was that Nico looked to frail, and I'd be scared that I would really hurt him. He also looked really anxious. He said that he's been there before, so I don't know why he would be.
We were only sailing for a few minutes before we saw the island.
"Is that it?" Frank asked.
"No it's just your regular islands that appear out of nowhere. Of course it is." This time I did whack him upside the head.
"Ouch, Beauty Queen, that hurt!"
"It was supposed to."
Leo surprisingly didn't say anything back. Instead he just pulled up on the beach and made a 4 year old looking girl run away screaming.
"Way to go. Make the people we need to like us hate us, Valdez." Frank snapped.
"Oh you know what, Zhang?"
"Boys!" Hazel said raising her voice.
Nico was the first one on the beach. He had a small genuine smile on his face.
Someone came sprinting with a sword ready. He looked at all of us, his eyes landing on Nico before he lowered his sword.
"You. You were here before." It wasn't a question. And Nico knew that.
"I need to see Cazarenia, and so do the demigods that I brought with me." Nico told him.
"Wonderful, come on right this way Nico. And can I ask if you all were brought by a god or goddess?"
"You can, and yes we were. We just can't tell you which god or goddess it was." Nico answered before any of us could open our mouths.
"Okay... Cool, I guess. I'm Daniel, son of Athena." He said. Though he didn't have blonde hair like the kids back at Camp Half-Blood. He had a dark muddy brown color, with the same grey eyes that the other Athena kids had.
"Jason, son of Jupiter."
"Piper, daughter of Aphrodite."
"Leo, son of Hephaestus."
"Hazel, daughter of Pluto."
"Frank, son of Mars."
"Cool," Daniel said again. "And Nico, you ready to tell everyone your parentage yet?"
"No."
"Wait." Jaspn said while we were walking, "You don't need to say who your godly parent is here? You're also not wondering what Romans and Greeks are doing together?"
"Not at all." Daniel started, "If you don't know who it is, you don't need to say so. If you don't feel like acknowledging them that day or something, or if you feel like someones going to treat you differently, you don't need to say it. It's just fine with us." He finished with a small smile.
"As for the Romans and Greeks being together thing, well that was bound to happen again eventually. We've known about as long as this island has been around. Though not everybody knew about it. For a long time only the camp leaders knew about it. That was until Cazarenia came around. We know a lot more than we used to."
"Okay. We're going to go through the forest so you all don't scare anymore kids. It's faster, too."
"Why can't we just go through where everyone is?" Frank asked.
"Well, I'm guessing that you're all here on a quest. Considering that a god or goddess brought you all here and not just one of you. Which most of the kids here would be asking and begging you to tell them what the outside world is like. Plus you all are asking to go see Cazarenia. It would take forever to get there going through where everyone is. And since you're on a quest it'd probably be best to get you there quickly. Did I get anything wrong?"
"Not at all." Nico said to him. They were walking side by side here. Almost like Nico knew where to go.
"Ha, look at that. You still know where to go." Daniel snorted at him.
"Of course I do." Nico said back to him.
After a few more minutes we walked up to a house. It was kind of like the big house, but it was only a regular one story house, it didn't even look like it had a basement.
Daniel turned to us, "It's bigger on the inside." He sounded like he was warning us.
He opened the door. This was just the hallway that lead into the house. It was definitely designed by the gods, though. It was huge. There was white walls going all the way down and through. The were far from bare. There were pictures everywhere. Of, what I would guess, to be all of the campers there. We continued walking. The further we got into the house the more it felt like home. It was also the more that it started to look like a regular one. Once we got past a few doors there were wood floors and brownish colored walls. We came up to a door. It didn't look like anything special, but I just learned that that didn't mean anything.
"She's been on edge all day. No one knows why, though." Daniel warned us once again. Nico raised an eyebrow but said nothing
Daniel knocked on the door. We heard a 'Come in.'
We walked into the room to find a desk with books scattered around. On the flood table or even on the book shelves.
She turned and looked at us and smile when she saw Nico. She had electric blue eyes with blonde hair. If I had to guess I'd say that she was a daughter of Jupiter or Zeus.
"First things first. Who are all of you."
"Piper, daughter of Aphrodite." I said stepping up first.
"Jason, son of Jupiter."
"Leo, son of Hephaestus."
"Frank, son of Mars."
"Hazel, daughter of Pluto."
"Nico."
"Okay, well Romans and Greeks, and your not trying to kill each other. The gods were right." She started. "I am Cazarenia. I lead these demigods on this island. Now why are you all here."
Nico looked at Daniel. "I know I know, I'm going. Bye."
Nico stepped up, "Two demigods fell into Tartarus this morning. We would like your help retrieving them."
She looked sourly at Nico, "You know as well as I, Nico, I that no matter what I want. I cannot leave this place. I wouldn't expect the others to know, but you. You've been here before. There's no reason that you shouldn't know."
"We're not here to bring you out. I thought that there could have been a spell or something that could help them. Even if we can't bring them out."
"There might be, but I'll need to know the whole story before I can help." She said while grabbing a bottle of water and sitting down on the desk. She waved her hand towards all of the seats,
"Please, this already sound like it's going to be a long story, so take a seat."
We all did. Hazel opened her mouth to start telling the story.
We finished the story. It took over an hour (and that was the abridged version )to tell. It was already past lunch when we got here before, though none of us were really hungry.
"Okay, Annabeth and Percy fell into Tartarus, correct?" We nodded, "Well who are their parents?"
Nico looked at her, "Percy's father is Poseidon, and Annabeth's mom is Athena."
She does a very good job at keeping a mask on.
"Do any of you know anything about magic?" She asked getting down from the desk.
"Yes," Leo said, "Hazel does."
"Well, Hazel, would you come with me, and Nico or Daniel or someone can show you all around. Okay?" We all nodded.
"If Hazel and I can't find something tonight, we'll get you all somewhere to sleep, okay?" We all nodded again, while Nico lead the way down one hall, with Hazel and Cazarenia going down another. We all waited and watched them walk into a room a few doors down.
Hazel's PoV:
Cazarenia and I were looking at spells tomes gather around the room. Though we were only looking at oldest spells ,from the first few created by the Primordial to the extremely Merlininen types. "Why are we looking at old spell books. I feel like I'm going to break them."
"Anything like this would have to be an older spell. No one would be insane enough to even think about this unless it was when magic was even given to humans .Well except,"She seemed deep in thought for a few seconds " Doesnt matter . The spell may not even have a name from how old it is. Hades, modern demigod genetics may not even be powerful enough to cast it."
"Why?"
She sighed "During ancient times magic was abundant among humans, both mortal and demigod but it faded during the dark ages .'Im sure you know of the Merlin legends."
"Sort of."
"He was the last child of Hecate who was powerful enough to bring the natural magical ability back into mortal blood."
"Wasn't that in England?"
"Yeah, the gods were in France at that time, but some had already moved."
"Oh."
"Weird thing is, the mortals couldn't even get his name right .His real name was actually Meirdin ,not Merlin."
We spent hours going through the tomes and saying, "Oh what about this one? No that ones not right." And getting one another's hopes up before I had the courage to ask if she knew who her parent was.
"Yes, I know who they are. I'm just not supposed to ell anyone. Only a few gods know anyway. Here! I think I have one. You said one of their names was Annabeth?" I nodded not wanting to talk. She said the name of the spell aloud. Nothing happened for a moment. But only for moment before a wave of power knocked me back and a bright light blinded me.
Nico's PoV:
Something happened. I don't know what, but there was a huge surge of power. I was running towards where the power came from, which just so happened to be where Hazel was helping Cazarenia look for a spell. She said it would have to be an ancient spell. There would be no modern spells for this. No one would dare to try that.
She was hoping to find one that would be able to take someone out of Tartarus. Though she was fairly sure that she would only find one that would swap 2 people around. The first would go into Tartarus while the second would come out of it.
I flung the door open to find that everyone else was already here. While Hazel was kneeling something. I couldn't see what, though. A table stacked with books blocked my view.
'Oh gods,' I thought, 'I hope that Cazarenia isn't hurt.' Whoa... where'd that come from?
By now I had walked to where I could see what Hazel was kneeling by. It was working on sitting up now. Or more precisely a who.
She was kneeling by Annabeth.
I surveyed the room. Quickly, but thoroughly. Cazarenia was nowhere to be found.
Piper flung her arms around Annabeth. Even though she was disoriented she was able to hug Piper just as tightly.
I felt a knot tighten in my stomach. None of the others knew Cazarenia they didn't know how kind, caring and loving she could be. They probably wont even miss her. Even though they were used to having a god drop someone off here, they took me in. Helped me out. I was able to actually have fun here. e the carefree kid I used to be. Sure she was their leader, but she was almost just as carefree as anyone could be here. She was naive. That much I was sure of. She actually reminded me of Percy.
One day I got the nerve to ask who her parenting is. She said that almost no one here knew it.
She then said, "You keep many secrets. Don't you Nico? Everyone has them. Something they aren't or feel like they can't let others know. But you're better at keeping them than most people aren't you?" All I could do was nod my head. She shocked me! I didn't know how anyone could have figured that out just by looking at me.
"When you first came here, you looked like you had been tortured. You looked dead on the outside. Even a little on the inside as well. You never wanted to talk about it. You never wanted to say anything about your past." She shrugged in an understanding manor, "Which is understandable. Most people who come here have an awful past. They're just looking for something better. I know I was. We've had conversations, long ones. You've told me about your sister, mother, even who your father is. You asked if that changes anything around here. And like I told you then, it doesn't. This is a family. Most of us are trapped here, but you've chosen to be be here. That means a lot to these kids. You can tell them about what it's like outside this island. That's not something that they've ever been able to hear before. You always stayed away from the topic of WHY you decided to stay, though." She had answered my question like she was reading my mind.
She smiled kindly towards me, "I know that you wont be able to stay forever. You can leave. Probably. If something's to happen, anther fight. Another war. You need to help. The rest of us can't. The rest of us are stuck here until a god or goddess comes and gets us. So please, I'm going to ask you, please fight for those of us who cant fight here. Please. It kills me to know that we cant help those out of our little island." She sounded so hurt. "Okay, I'll do my best. And you know that you never answered my question right."
She smiled, "I'll tell you before you leave."
Annabeth pulled me into a bear hug, jolting me back into reality.
I tentatively hugged her back.
"Ohhh, I'm so happy to see all of you guys." She smiled.
"We're so glad to see you, too, Blondie." Piper smirked at her.
"Hold on a minute." They all looked at me. "Where's Cazarenia?"
Hazel ran over to the book that was by Annabeth when we found her there. She picked it up and opened her mouth to say something. But before she could, someone walked through the doors. I knew she was a goddess, I just didn't know which one.
Hazel bowed saying, "Lady Hecate, what can we help you with?"
Hecate turned looking at all of us. "You are all needed on Olympus. I am here to take you there."
No ones PoV:
When they arrived on Olympus, Athena was shocked to see that her daughter was out of Tartarus. She ran and pulled her into a hug while saying that she was so sorry about what happened. That she couldn't believe that she would do that. Ext. Ext. Ext.
While Poseidon asked one thing, "Is Percy with you?" Sadness evident in his voice
Hecate now held the tome and was looking over the spells that were on the page. Everything was absolutely quite. The demigods were shuffling uncomfortably. Annabeth looked ready to cry.
"We didn't see him when we walked into the room, Lord Poseidon." Leo said. Everything became quite again, while Poseidon looked down.
That was until Zeus had to ask a question, "How are you out, daughter of Athena?"
"I honestly don't know, Lord Zeus." She replied.
"Come on we all know how she's gotten out." Poseidon said, a little annoyed with how naive that Zeus was being.
"It was obviously that power serge. Which Hecate and I already told you was a powerful, ancient spell." He said to Zeus.
"It was, and there's only one demigod that I know of that could preform such a powerful spell. Accident or not." Hecate said showing Poseidon, who was now standing over by the rest of them, the tome and the spell that she knew it was.
He wanted to know the spells name. If it even had one. Some are so old that they never had names to begin with. He had always had an interest in magic. From the beginning. He had eventually grown to be well enough to rival Hecate herself. But he never stove to be better than her. He always let her learn the new spells and master them before he tried them himself. Plus there are some spells that he doesn't even want to go near. So he doesn't while Hecate knows them all.
"Poseidon come and sit down! We have a meeting going on!" Zeus exclaimed, while it thundered somewhere far off. Poseidon rolled his eyes and went to sit down again.
"Wait." Poseidon said when Zeus had his mouth open to say something, which was a double win for him. P*** off Zeus and finding a way to learn a new spell, "Who took Annabeth's place? I'm pretty sure that that was a swapping spell, not one that can bring people somewhere."
All of the demigods looked at one another. While Nico looked at Annabeth, who was still quivering form her time in Tartarus. Annabeth locked eyes with Nico, she looked like she was trying to say sorry, like she knew that he cared for the girl that had gone in to get Annabeth out. She felt guilty that she had got out and someone had had to go down there, and even worse that Percy was now down there with someone neither knew.
"Who took the daughter of Athena's place?" He said more forcefully this time. He looked up to Hecate and met her eyes,a message passing between them. He looked as if he refused to believe what Hecate was trying to tell him. As if what would be the answer would destroy him.
Nico stepped up and opened his mouth.
No ones PoV: (Though it kind of is Percy's PoV)
When the light died down Percy saw a girl there in Annabeth's place. He took out his sword.
"Where is she?" He demanded. When the girl stood up. She had a sword in her hands as well that Percy just noticed.
"Who?" She replied.
"My girlfriend Annabeth. Where. Is. She?" He said dangerously.
"She has to be back where I was. That's the only explanation. She has to be safe then."
Percy lowered his sword, "She's safe?"
"She has to be." The girl replied. She still hadn't looked at Percy.
Percy almost put his sword down before he asked, "Who are you? How can I trust you speak the truth"
The girl turned around and looked straight at him. What he saw shocked him. She looked just like him. Sea green eyes. Black hair, except she had longer hair than he did. It came to just below her shoulders. She practically stole his face, too. She was almost as tall as he was, just an inch or two shorter.
"I'm Cazarenia. Daughter of Poseidon."
Okay guys please R&R. Please no flames, and constructive criticism is welcome. :D
I also know that I probably left you all really confused... ;) There's a reason for that.