Percy

When I awoke, I was still in the cave. But I felt very different. In fact I felt extremely good.

Which is surprising seeing as where I was stuck. It wasn't an emotional feeling, however, it was a physical and mental one. I felt like I could hold the sky for all eternity, or that I could fight Gaia in hand to hand combat without breaking a sweat.

I looked down and I gasped slightly, for though I could see little without a mirror and my shirt was still on, my body was obviously covered in more muscles than before. My skin had turned a few shades darker, almost a bronze color, and then I realized how well I could see.

Originally I was confused. I thought maybe I had been moved up closer to the top of Tartarus. As I looked outside though, I was slightly disappointed to see I was exactly where I had left. Then I realized that I could easily see to the edge of the pit, and slowly it dawned on me that my eyesight had been increased to amazing proportions.

The darkness no longer hindered me, which meant Tartarus just became much easier to that knowledge, I became very curious to know what else had happened to me.

With that thought, I could feel an amazing amount of knowledge contained in my mind now. At my unspoken question, I could feel my mind access that knowledge and the answer to my questions quickly became apparent.

In less than a second, I instantly understood what had happened and how powerful I was now. For I contained a piece of Ouranus within me now, with all the knowledge Ouranus the first father had, and part of the power he wielded.

Several more tidbits of knowledge came into my mind unbidden and I became even more aware of what I was capable of now. With that in mind, my hand started moving to my pocket to take out Riptide out of old habits. I forced myself to stop, and with a mere thought and a flash of light, I now wielded Riptide without having to move a muscle.

"This," I thought to myself, "Is worth testing out."

I left the cave with Riptide still in my hand, and I made my way over to the first camp of monsters I could find. I was almost upon them when they finally took notice of me, at which point I stopped, waiting for the inevitable confrontation to come.

"Well, well, well," said the largest of the monsters, a cyclops who was looked like he bench-pressed semi-trucks for fun.

"If it isn't little Perseus Jackson. I didn't know you fell down here to our home away from home. But I assure you, we'll take good care of you, especially after what you did to our patron."

I said nothing as I merely looked at him, still waiting for them to make their move.

The cyclops shifted nervously at my silence before boasting, trying to intimidate me, "You cannot hope to possible beat us here, for this is where we are most powerful. Here, we are strong, here, we can never die."

I finally spoke up at this, "Even gods can die creature, and you are no where near as strong as them."

With that said, I started my attack, and my journey to be free from the pit.

You might be thinking at this time, "Are you insane?"

I had just jumped into a group of about thirty monsters who were at their most powerful without a care in the world.

If you had asked me before the encounter with Ouranus, I would have said most definitely.

But now, all I felt was supreme confidence. Riptide became a force of destruction once more as I leapt right into the heart of the monster camp. I dealt killing blows again and again, as I skillfully parried, dodged, and blocked all attack made against me.

In less than what I assumed to be five minutes, I finished off the cyclops, who had cowered behind his allies as I decimated them, by stabbing him in the gut, and as he bent over in pain, I removed his head from the rest of his body.

I surveyed what I had manage to accomplish with a small smile. The smile didn't disappear when the dust the monsters dissolved into reformed faster than when the doors of death had been opened and the entire camp of now extremely angry monsters glared at me once more.

"I told you demigod, he we are the strongest. Here we are immortal." Boomed the cyclops again.

"Yet despite that you let all your fellow monsters do all the hard work, while you cower behind them. Pathetic," I sneered to him, while the rest of the monsters turned to glare at the cyclops.

"But no matter," I continued, "that was just a warm up for me."

With that said, I let my new found power flow into Riptide, and interact with the immortal power of Zoe Nightshade that had formed it. Riptide began to glow beyond it usual dimness of celestial bronze. Green and blue strands of pure energy began to ripple across the blade, sometimes giving the appearance of lightning, other times the appearance of liquid.

Riptide grew even brighter as the very air seemed to bend towards the blade, and the smell of ozone permuted the air, while at the same time drops of energy fell from the blade to the ground, sizzling when they hit the floor before fading.

"Interesting, I never expected that to happen," I thought to myself.

I then did the last thing the monsters expected me to do. I pulled my arm back, and flung Riptide at the monsters at the edges of the camp.

The blade normally would have just hit the first monster and either stopped dead right there, or continue on out of range if it had just glanced the monster, but it was far from normal now.

My blade already spun like it had never done before, at a good twenty rotations per second.

And the best part? I could control the direction the blade went, as well as how fast it spun, and how fast it moved.

"It almost isn't even fair," I thought to myself, as Riptide cut down all the monsters around the edges of the camp and returned to my hands in less than five seconds. To the monsters eyes, it had almost looked like I had created an arc of energy that had slain their comrades instead.

The monsters weren't surprised by this. They couldn't be, they were to busy staring at where their comrades had been, absolutely astonished that they had been defeated so easily, and even more stunned at the fact that they weren't reforming.

"A little known fact about Tartarus ladies," I said flippantly, and all eyes immediately turned to me.

"You may be harder to kill here, but if you are, you are banished to nothingness for about one-hundred years. Tough luck for you right?"

As I finished talking, I once again charged at the camp, but this time the monsters retaliated in fear instead of arrogance, and many tried to fun from the fight. But I had no intention of letting the news that I was in Tartarus get around if I could help it.

So after I finished off those brave, or foolish, enough to fight me, I struck down the cowards who fled, one at a time.

Unsurprisingly, the one who had gotten the farthest away, was my old buddy the cyclops.

He turned to faced me as I got close, begging me to spare him, promising he would be good, asking me to let him go back to his wife and kids. He said no more, for he had stuck the moment I got close enough to him.

He had tried to grab me, no doubt to crush me to death. I had anticipated this, and moved quicker than his one eye could follow. I dodged his massive hands and slashed from his waist to his opposing shoulder. He crumpled to dust behind me.

I caused Riptide to vanish as I turned around and started walking towards the monster camp again. I would probably need all the supplies they had there to make it through Tartarus.

"It's a good thing that the previous owners have no more need of them," were my thoughts as I approached.

I found quite a bit of food, for the camp was suppose to support thirty monsters. I was delighted to find an empty bag, which after a moment's concentration, was enchanted to be able to hold an endless supply of whatever I could fit in it. I also tweaked the magic a bit to be able to reach in and pull out whatever I wanted, or something as close to what I wanted, without having to dig deeply through it.

I filled up my new pack with all the food the monsters had left, with the exception of the half eaten meals already out. I burned those to prevent and scavengers and any other monsters from deciding to follow my tracks.

I also found some long and very strong rope, as well as a few bronze, not celestial, chests whose heights came to about halfway between the ground and my knees.

I opened the chests and found they were overflowing with gold drachmas. They were heavy, but it mattered little to me with my new strength, as well as the fact that nothing had weight while it was in my new pack. Slinging it over my shoulder, I started off in the direction my new empowered senses told me to go.

I could not tell you what was North, South, East, or West. Fortunately I could tell where I needed to go.

I walked, for what felt like three months, as telling time was quite difficult without the sun or moon, while taking the minimum amount of breaks I could.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that my stash of food would last longer than I thought it would. For with Ouranus's powers flowing through me, my mortal body required less rest and nourishment than usual, as well as being able to take more punishment. A fact that I exploited to no end during my long trek.

I had walked across the vast expanse that was the endless pit several times, for in what seemed to a recurring theme, there was no way up to the next level of the pit without having to walk across its vast expanse. I suppose it was put in there so everything must fight their way to the top without any shortcuts.

Needless to say, because I had to walk across multiple levels of Tartarus, I ran into no end of monsters. I had quickly found while I had the advantage of being able to banish them from a long time, they had also somehow found out about me.

I was not being hunted, which seemed strange to me. Unfortunately, they no longer made stupid mistakes that lead to easy victories.

I fought more in the past three months than I had ever done before. In those three months I also found out how eerily beautiful the different levels of Tartarus were.

When you think of the endless pit, the first thing to come to mind is endless darkness.

With my eyesight though, I could see what the darkness held. The very first level I had been on, the one I awakened on was similar to a meadow. Without the monsters it simply looked like a peaceful stretch of medium length grass under a moonless sky.

As I continued upwards, it became more and more lovely. I never did reach the level that Annabeth and myself had fallen upon, but that will come up later.

I saw forests of stone and rocks that glittered with unnatural light. The first light I had seen aside from my occasional campfires came from a level that seemed to be the inside of a volcano.

While it was miserably hot, I could not help but stare in awe at the power of nature. The fire that danced above the lava, the rocks that glowed cherry red.

I suppose I should be glad that I was able to get a good night sleep every night despite the changing scenery. Truthfully thought, it was irritating to have to fight anywhere between three to four groups of monsters a day, at minimum, to get anywhere in this place.

It didn't help when they were in their own element, such as the volcano. After fighting some elementals, I didn't think my body would ever be able to absorb water again.

I silently cursed myself for sending so many of these monsters here in the first place, though there was nothing I could do about it now except prevent them from returning to the surface for a while.

There were some bright sides to fighting in Tartarus though. The foremost being that with all these powerful beings to fight, my skills in battle, while already pretty darn good if I do say so myself, grew exponentially while I remained down here.

Even the changing scenery helped by allowoing me to learn how to fight in all environments.

In a moment of recklessness, I decided to test my skills against a group of Dracanae, several cyclops, and a few hellhounds in a non-stone forest environment. They had all come at me at once, swinging huge clubs, sharp swords, sharper teeth, and tridents. Not to mention trying to hinder my movements with throwing nets.

I had simply held my ground, and closed my eyes as they came at me. Using all my other senses, I blocked every blow that came towards me, slashed through every net they threw at me, and deflected the arrows they shot at me as well.

Not once did I move from my spot, and not once did I open my eyes until they stopped attacking me. It was only then that my eyes opened and they stepped back in fear, but it was to late for them.

I cut down every single one of them without a decent challenge, jumping from monster to monster and using the trees to gain a height advantage over the cyclops.

When I finished I had picked up my supplies and was about to move on with my journey, then I decided to teach myself how to hunt.

I had spent several extra days on that level, luring away monsters into traps I had made with the rope I had claimed before finishing them off. I had quickly learned all I needed to know about hunting in those days. An achievement that would leave the Hunters fuming if they ever found out.

Returning to the present time, I was on a level that resembled a savanna. I had once again had come face to face with a monster.

Which surprised me, not because of the monster itself for I was on its home territory, but because it was all alone.

"Then again," I thought to myself, "It's not like this one needs any help. "

For I stood facing an old foe of mine, the Nemean Lion.

It snarled at me once, then leapt to attack.