Heroes of Olympus House of Hades FanFiction

Warning: This story contains spoilers from Heroes of Olympus Mark of Athena. So if you have not read that book then I would not suggest reading this. I hope you like it.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Heroes of Olympus series or the book House of Hades Rick Riordan owns them and all characters and ideas expressed here.

Chapter 1

Percy 1

Percy was falling. This was a hundred times worse than falling from the glacier in Alaska, worse even than falling from the St Louis Arch, at least then he'd been able to see the bottom. The walls around him give off a faint reddish light but not enough to penetrate the inky blackness below, he had no idea when this terrifying free-fall was going to end, not that he particularly wanted it to. A new scene loomed out of the darkness; the walls were now jutted with ledges. Part of one of the marble support columns from Arachne's lair was sitting on a ledge big enough to park a car on. As I was studying it Annabeth let out a shrill cry.

"Oh gods Percy we're going to…!"

I looked at her and noticed the thick line of spider web still attached to her ankle, I followed it with my eyes and saw it was attacked to the marble column. We were going to fall straight past that ledge and then swing like a pendulum into the cliff face below. I looked at Annabeth, her blonde hair blown behind her as we fell, her grey eyes wide with terror. But, even dirty, scratched up and with a bubble-wrapped ankle she was still the most beautiful person I had ever seen. And there was no way I was letting her slam into a wall at 100m/h; thinking fast I pulled her close to me turning my back to the cliff face and shielding her with my body.

"Percy what are you doing?!"

I didn't have time to answer because at that moment the spider web snapped taut, and Annabeth screamed as our combined weight fell completely on her ankle. Next minute WHAM white hot pain exploded along my back, forcing the air out of my lungs. Weakened I let go of Annabeth and began falling once more.

I was lying on a stone floor of some kind and every part of my body ached, dimly I became aware of someone yelling at me.

"Percy! Percy! Oh my gods Percy if you're dead I'm going to kill you!"

I laughed then stopped because it hurt. I opened my eyes, Annabeth was leaning over me looking half relieved half furious.

"What in Hades were you thinking Percy?" she yelled "You could have died!"

"You could have died too!"

"That's no reason to increase your chances!"

That got me mad; after all I had probably just saved her life.

"Annabeth! Only one of us had to hit that wall and there was no way I was going to let it be you wether I died or not!"

And, to my horror instead of retaliating her eyes filled with tears.

"Oh geez Annabeth don't cry I'm sorry."

"I… I thought you were d-dead" she wailed "t-there I was hanging above your body a-and I t-thought you w-were dead and I was all my f-fault!"

"Hey," I said "Hey Annabeth it was not your fault, and anyway I doesn't matter because I'm fine!"

At that she gave me a watery smile because I was quite obviously not fine.

"So," I said keen to keep her from bursting into tears again "what actually happened?"

"Well… when we hit the wall you let go and fell but we were only a metre or so from this ledge, but then you didn't wake up. I was hanging above you so I couldn't check your pulse, and it's so dark down here I couldn't even see if you were breathing or not. Then it took me like, ten minutes to get the spider web off my ankle because I don't have a knife anymore. And, I'm sorry but you're going to have another bruise where I fell on you. Then, when I finally got down you were barely breathing and I thought you were going to die, and I was so mad at you for it I started yelling at you!" she smiled down at me "apparently you heard me."

I smiled back, smiling was defiantly better then crying.

"Oh but Percy… what are we going to do? By the looks of it you've broken almost all of your ribs and we have no ambrosia, we have nothing at all actually! How will you climb to the bottom?"

"Annabeth, about climbing to the bottom, something has just occurred to me, what if there is no bottom? I mean people always describe Tartarus as a bottomless pit!"

"Don't be silly it has a bottom!"

"How do you know?"

"Well in the old stories the poet Hesiod said 'that a bronze anvil falling from heaven would fall nine days before it reached the earth. The anvil would take nine more days to fall from earth to Tartarus.' That suggests that there is an end."

"So that's all we have to go on? One tiny piece of mythology?"

"Pretty much, yes"

"Great." I sighed

"OK," she said "I'm going to scout around the ledges, to see if anything useful landed on them." She turned to me, "don't you go wandering off now!"

I rolled my eyes "Ha ha ha," I said sarcastically "your just sooo funny." I was, quite obviously, in no position what so ever to move at all.

"Percy… hey Percy wake up!"

"What's wrong?"

"Look what I've found!"

I opened my eyes, Annabeth was sitting next to me with a small bundle off stuff.

"Eat this."

I held out my hand and into it Annabeth dropped a square of Ambrosia which I ate obediently. It tasted like the blue double espresso jelly beans my mom always gave me, I felt better straight away.

"Annabeth where did you get the ambrosia?"

"There was a box full of it, it think it must have been Arachne's. But look what else I have! My Backpack and my knife!" she held them up for me to see, "Daedalus' laptop has been ruined, but at least we have everything else. And in a car I found a compass, a few bottles of water, a picnic blanket and a picnic basket full of…"

"Food…" I moaned as she pulled off the lid, only then realising how hunger I was.

We ate a sandwich each and another piece of ambrosia, had a drink and then rolled up into the picnic blanket.

"Sleep." Annabeth said, "we're going to need our strength, we have a big job ahead of us."

And that, Percy reflected as he drifted off into unconsciousness, is the understatement of the century.