As Percy held on to Annabeth with all his remaining physical strength he knew he couldn't let her fall to Tartarus. Even as strained as he was he recalled that someone needed to close the Doors of Death from the inside as well as from the outside. Looking up from the ledge he was barely holding onto he saw Nico and looked back down to Annabeth knowing he wouldn't be able to hold for much longer so he made his decision. "I swear on the Styx I'll find you again Wisegirl." With the loud thunder far above signaling his oath was made, he began to concentrate on the water molecules in the air under Annabeth trying to ignore her protest shouting at him to let her go.
He looked back at Nico before pushing his powers like never before and with a weak voice he said, "Nico...meet me at the other side...of the of the doors," as Nico opened his mouth to protest Percy cut him off "please... just lead them all there...you are the only one who can.." Finally, he found the last ounce of strength he had needed, before blacking out he created water out of the air itself under Annabeth cutting the web that had attached her leg to the monster down below and pushed Annabeth 20 feet above the ledge she was previously holding onto, sent crashing into an unsuspecting Nico. When they got up from their little fall they looked over the edge frantically with heavy hearts praying to all the gods that they could get Percy to safety. What they say however was a barely conscious Percy smiling at the sight of Annabeth, however, wet she was, now away from danger as he fell a second too soon and an inch out of Nico's desperate attempt to hold on to Percy's now falling hand with surprising tears in his eyes.
The last thing Percy could remember was hearing Annabeth's voice breaking on his old nickname and sobbing out, "I love you seaweed brain... please just come back to us, to me." Everything faded to black for the Hero of Olympus.
Just as his unconscious body was disappearing from sight Annabeth shouted, "I swear on the Styx I'll find a way to get you out somehow...I don't care how." As her voice broke at the end both her and Nico collapsed onto the barely stable floor with her in tears and Nico laying on his back staring into the sky remembering his time in Tartarus and how the only reason he just barely survived the pit was because of Gaea wanting to capture him to for a trap against the crew. He wanted to believe with Percy's annoying track record for doing the impossible time and time again that he could survive on his own...with just a sword and a pocketful of ambrosia. As Nico contemplated going into the pit to try to and join Percy he remembered Percy telling him to lead everyone to the other side of the doors. Determined not to let him down he got up and held his hand out for Annabeth.
She blankly looked at it for a second before looking up with teary eyes to meet his gaze "We both have promises to keep remember? We can't let him down like this, let's go." Even with her teary eyes, you could see her head processing his words and nodded grabbing his outstretched hand just as both Jason and a now human Frank landed behind them running to the edge of Tartarus, but they were too plopped himself down with shame and guilt thinking about how seemingly useless and late he was to save him. Frank ran a hand over his face in an attempt to to stop the tears that were already coming due to losing one of the first people who believed in him and trusted him to the point of fighting off hundreds of undead ghosts on a glacier just so he and Hazel could take Alcyoneus out of Alaska and kill him. Like seriously what type of guy volunteers to take on hundreds of undead Roman spirits by himself! "Oh, gods... " he thought to himself "Hazel is going to be so devastated."
Frank finally noticed Annabeth with more tears and determination in her eyes that he has ever seen before and it was somewhat terrifying. She then spoke in a broken voice that was just above a whisper saying, "we can't waste more time here...the sooner we go the sooner we can get Percy out of there." The final part of her statement seemed to bring them out of their moping state because they all wiped the tears off of their face. Jason trying to take control of the bad situation said, "C'mon guys the floor is unstable it would be best to get back up to the ship." Everyone nodded and so Jason ended up taking Nico on top of the deck of the Argo II with him cursing Jason the whole way. Jason tried tuning them out but he unfortunately heard some of the very unpleasant and colorful words being said about him with the strangest one of them being "I've never hated seeing a flying dumbass blonde Superman in my life more than now," as well as his last one "So help me gods if you don't let go I'll give you to Alecto for her to use in her fuckin sex dunge- Ah what the hell Grace!?" Jason just sheepishly smiled at him and muttered, "you told me to let go...and we were just over the deck sooo...you know?" Nico who was now looking very green compared to his normally pale skin color curtly replied, "I'll be on the mast you flying loving prick." Jason couldn't help the small smile on his face from hearing the small Nico cursing.
His smile soon melted when he saw Piper looking at him with concern written all over her face. All Jason could do is look towards the edge of the cliff with regretful eyes and slowly shake his head. Immediately Piper flew into Jason's chest muttering "oh gods... had he not done enough..." If you were to look at the remaining crew of the ship from an outsiders perspective you would be wondering what happened to everyone. You would see Jason holding his girlfriend Piper tightly under the mast of the flying war-ship, both of them seemed to be unaware of the other as they were both lost in thought. Up above on the mast, Nico was sitting down trying to suppress the memories of his time in Tartarus to no avail hoping to all gods Percy could make it. Suddenly an idea hit him and he made an Iris message to call an old friend even if it was completely selfish to do, he had to it. "For him," he thought to himself.
Going towards where Leo was in control of the steering wheel for the Argo II were Leo, Hazel, and a very upset Frank. They were only now being told of what had happened to the beloved son of Poseidon while they were busy securing the Athena Parthenos. As Frank told both his girlfriend and his crewmate they both seemed to be deflating by the word which would have been funny to see under different circumstances from the fire-wielding son of Hephaestus because of his naturally cheerful and joking attitude as well as the bubbly daughter of Pluto who rarely was seen not smiling when not fighting. Leo felt dread grip his heart as he remembered the goddess of vengeance, Nemesis, telling him how opening the fortune cookie would come at a great cost. Now with tears in his eyes, he set the ship to stay afloat over the ruined remains of Arachne's cavern and let himself fall to his knees muttering things about it being his fault and not to stupidly accept something from a goddess of revenge ever again.
Next to him, Hazel was just as in bad condition crying over one of the few people who didn't immediately criticize her for her being alive when she should have been dead. Frank tried approaching her but she was too far into her own thoughts to hear him trying to reassure her that he would get out so he just sank down with her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder and another around Leo knowing all of them need some time to come to grasp with the situation.
The last member of the crew on board, not including a monster-blood-thirsty-half-goat-half-man cursing enough profanities to make a sailor blush out of pent-up anger, was Annabeth, the daughter of Athena, located at the bow of the ship. She decided she needed to step away thinking about how plain stupid it was to not check and see if she still had Arachne's strings attached to herself. "I could have stopped this if I wasn't crying over a stupid ankle that was already healing," she dejectedly thought to herself.
Lost in her thoughts she didn't notice Festus putting his head on Annabeth's lap making her jump but instantly relax seeing it was only Festus. Even if he was an automation Annabeth stroked the head of the dragon. Looking at the sky she tried to think of anything about Tartarus and things Percy could use to survive only to no avail. Frustrated she closed her eyes not wanting to let go of Festus needing some type of comfort. Apart from Percy surviving alone in a place made to keep the worst of monsters and immortals in with a handful of ambrosia and his sword Riptide miraculously she knew of only one way to let him live. Unfortunately, it would require Gaea. She knew Percy and the other crew members would never agree to work with the primordial goddess, but she was desperate enough to to get him out of there in any way she could manage.
With that final thought in mind she got up, gently moving Festus' head away she decided enough was enough. "Everyone listen for a moment." She paused to ensure she had everyone's attention. "We have spent too long doing nothing here but mope...I want to get him back here more than anyone so let's get moving from here at once," despite the week and breaking voice everyone got moving and soon they took off with Nico telling Leo where they would be going to. Everyone decided that Leo, Jason, and Piper would be taking watch first since Hazel, Frank, and Annabeth were nearly falling over from exhaustion as well as Nico who still needed all the rest and food he could get. Before going into her room Annabeth looked at the sky and prayed to the fates that Percy could survive long enough for her to go through with her half-baked plan.
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Opening his eyes Percy questioned why everything was so dark, quickly however he recalled himself falling into the pit. He didn't regret letting himself fall for her, not one bit. Now however even Percy knew that a fall of this type would kill him. He didn't even know how long he had passed out, to begin with.
Closing his eyes to see how much strength he had he realized he had close to none left. With little options for surviving a fall at maximum velocity he only thought about how he could eat the ambrosia that he had in his pocket to create water from the air under him, the problem with that was he was going to fast to concentrate on creating water. "Guess I'll have to hope there's a water a body there..." as his voice trailed off he realized it seemed to be harder to breathe.
Opening his eyes he was blinded by the sudden light seeing only red for a solid minute until his eyes adjusted. When they did he wished they didn't because falling from where he was it was like looking at a picture of Earth from the moon. The reality of his situation seemed to finally hit him due to the size what was going to be his new version of hell. He saw jagged mountains that could rival Mount Everest and cliffs that would have sudden drops with appeared to be piles of gold dust on the bottom.
Just as he was getting more and more dejected on his hopes of survival, luck appeared to have been on his side because as he got closer to the land he saw five rivers flowing throughout all of what he could see. Unfortunately for the son of Poseidon, he wasn't close enough to land in one of them safely. "So much for saving the ambrosia," he thought to himself. Cursing the fates he ate the ambrosia in an attempt to try and somehow get to one of the rivers. At first, he tried to create water from the air and ride it down but that didn't work whatsoever, so he tried to make a parachute of as little water he could create, but that was a waste of energy as it evaporated immediately from the winds that were created from falling so fast.
Panicking now Percy of course thought of something that was just so stupid it might work. He ended up pulling the water from his own body painfully and solidifying it immediately not wanting to waste any of his own water supply as he could already feel the strain it put on his body from just a second of getting it out of his system. What he made from the water was a simple rectangle with water-like strings coming from each corner for him to hold on to. He could only hold on to the strings because of his powers over water.
His contraption slightly slowed his dissent, however, it was far to fast to land by any means but what he wanted was a way of moving in the air and his new contraption did the trick. He willed it to take him in the direction of the nearest river he could see which happened to be a grey and likely disgusting excuse for a river. As he willed his water parachute his eyes widened at how he somehow managed to go into the middle of the river which now seemed like a little ocean of its own.
Not wanting to be anymore depleted before experiencing the disgusting water he willed the water to splash on his face to make up for the missing strength he just used. As he fell into the water, disgusting as it was, he expected to feel completely re-energized and he did, but at the same time, he felt himself growing weak. Not physically weak but mentally weak. As he wondered why he realized that he was hearing voices. He managed to gasp out "Di Immortales...this is the river of the Cocytus!.."
He was still hearing the voices an indefinite amount of time later when he actually understood what one of them amongst the other thousands of voices said he realized it was whispering into his ear "Join all those friends you let down. Beg for their forgiveness. Just give innnnn to us join us," at the last words the voice seemed to be hissing the word out. However, for the river or voices him hearing that voice seemed to only rejuvenate him with steely determination because Percy knew they all had died as heroes and wouldn't want him to mope over something fate had already declared to happen.
Opening his eyes he never knew he closed he saw that he was sinking into the river and there was no bottom in sight even to his own underwater vision. Son of Poseidon or not he was struggling to breathe so he willed the currents of water that were previously not moving before to propel him up to the surface. Strangely enough in that one second it took him to shoot up he heard what sounded like people sobbing and screaming at the same time next to him but when he surfaced they all stopped.
Looking around for something that wasn't a red...was that a sky or just the natural walls above him? "Questions for another time," he mumbled. Finally, he saw what would have to be the equivalent of a shore down here and was not so surprised to see several expensive looking cars on the shore. Deciding he had no other choice than to go into the direction of where he imagined Arachne to have landed he willed the waters to shoot him into the crashed remains of cars.
Thinking about Arachne he gritted his teeth together thinking about killing the monster for nearly dragging both Annabeth and himself down here. "I better be able to kill monsters down here." Saying it out loud he realized his voice was hoarse. Suddenly his grim face broke into a grin laughing out, "hah hoarse like a horse," shortly after realizing he was laughing and had stopped he only got annoyed that the river still managed to affect him. He decided that he might as well get a drink as he stopped. So he did. And he spit it all back out wondering how it could possibly taste just like gasoline (his knowledge of the taste was a long story that he could never be able to explain properly without being seeing as a complete fool).
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Getting to the shore was more tedious than he possibly thought. Mixed with his random hysterical laughing and stopping from the need to drink because of being so ironically dehydrated, it took him what he thought was at least three solid boring hours. When he reached the shore he was immediately on edge because he saw what he thought to have of been...a webbed set of Chinese handcuffs."What the hades is that" he thought to himself.
Already feeling tense, his built-in instincts kicked in yelling at him to dodge to the side. With surprising speed for someone of his poor condition, he rolled to his right. He was lucky he did because just where he was standing lied the body of a hideous monster he assumed to be Arachne. Her lower body half was that of a giant eight-legged spider. The spider-like qualities went all the way up to where breast of a woman would be had. She, "or it," Percy mentally added, had human-like shoulders with normal human arms coming down to meet her spider body which her spider legs alone towered far over him. Going down her arms all the way to her knuckles they were normal arms, however, when you looked at her "fingers" you would see that they were entirely claws with dried ichor on the tips of them. Her face was a mix of spider-like features with the shape of a human face, her eyes were completely spider-like in style and her mouth seemed to be protruding a green foam like substance which he could only guess was acid or poison. She had long black silky hair that went down to her spider torso. "She gives the minotaur a run for his money when it comes to hideous monsters," Percy thought to himself only to shake his head.
Not wasting time to let his thoughts carry on anymore, he swiped at the front two spider legs on the right side of her body with seemingly unheard of speed for even a veteran demigod. He subconsciously realized two things. One he was controlling the ichor in her body to restrict her movements, not stopping them but slowing her down immensely. And two, he was controlling the water in the air to both propel him forward and to give him a temporary boost. Screeching out in pain the bleeding monster desperately tried clawing at Percy who was not expecting that and rolled under her clumsy attempt just in time. After dodging her sloppy strikes for several minutes she seemed to have gotten to exhausted because as he was staring down at the monster who brought him down here she didn't try to claw at his face. Now glaring at the monster below him he darkly questioned it, "answer me this spider-monster and I'll be quick with you. Do monsters actually die down here?" Her only response was to hiss acid at him, he however merely gave her tight smile after stepping back.
"Finding out the hard way doesn't seem like a problem to me I suppose," with that he began to fully control the ichor in her lower half and twist it with deliberate care for it to be slow. When he finished breaking her lower half, he decided he definitely didn't like the torturing route as her screams were now intertwining with the whispers and sobs of the Cocytus a mile or so back, so he stabbed into her head to finish her off and was content when she turned into a pile of gold and stayed that way.
Walking back to the shore of the river to get to the water because he was feeling weak due to the growing blisters on his body, he was surprised to see a giant 12-foot man that was radiating an ancient type of power he rarely ever felt. Dread crept up on the veteran demigod when he realized it was the same type of aura only titans would give off. The titan wore a simple battered red cape with no shirt to cover his muscled chest that had scars littered all across his body combined with armored shorts that would only have of been acceptable in a battle-field to coach hedge, combined with celestial bronze knee lengthed shin pads. That's when Percy realized the titan was wearing the same outfit as Leonidas from the 300 movie he saw a long time ago. Confused as ever he saw that the titan definitely had the same facial features as Leonidas.
Noticing the demigods confused expression the titan smiled slightly which surprised Percy who had expected a typical "surrender or else" threat. "I can tell you know I am a Titan little godling," hearing the power behind the amused tone Percy snapped out of his stupor and uncapped riptide pointing it warningly at the titan's unwavering face who now looked disappointed. The ancient being sighed and said, "I heard rumors that you completely relied on the Athena spawn for information on your adversaries, I now realize how terribly accurate they were." He momentarily pretended to think and suddenly he beamed exclaiming,"I'll give you a hint as to who I am. My wife is the naiad/goddess of the river Styx." Rising an eyebrow at the demigod who hadn't responded he asked, "I have also heard that you managed to swim in my beloved's river. So how are you alive without the so-called "Achilles Curse?" It was my understanding you could only lose it by dying...or going somewhere you don't belong."
Percy, however, had stopped listening after hearing the word "Styx" and soon paled upon realizing who exactly he was now facing."Pallas," he said somewhat shakily knowing he would never be able to take a titan like him on in open combat in such poor state, "Titan of battle and Warcraft. One of the fiercest and most loyal of all fighters to Kronos during The Golden Age." Said titan smiled at the demigod as his eyes began to glow with power and in a suddenly deep and powerful voice he boomed out loud, "Hello Perseus Jackson, the so-called bane of titans, let us get to business shall we?"