Chapter 11: Extinguished!

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson or The Heroes of Olympus series or for that matter anything associated with them. The credit goes to the amazing Rick Riordan. I do not gain any commercial profit writing this or from it.

Please review! Suggestions and criticisms are welcome.

Onto the chapter then…

Nico's Pov:

My father cleaned the goo off him and walked to me.

"Nico you are still too weak to take on armored creatures like drakons. I will teach you to control metal so that you can get rid of their armor."

"All right father. What do I do?" I felt a little ashamed of myself; I didn't realize that he could control metals. Though this did explain a lot of strange incidents with metallic objects. There was this one time when I was playing with a toy car and I made it move by itself. At that time it was a mystery to me but now I knew the reason.

My father pulled the drakon armor toward himself and split into smaller pieces and placed them in a line. "Try to concentrate on any one those pieces. You need to force them to move because by nature they are inanimate."

I concentrated on a piece at the extreme right. I tried to move it gently but it wouldn't move. So I forced it this time. It moved for a few meters. "Try, flinging it Nico" my father said. I concentrated again and forced my mind at the armor piece. It zoomed away until it hit a tree and broke it.

"Good job son, I'll teach you more later. We need to find Hyperion quickly and restore Chaos's stability!" He said and walked into the caves.

Hades's pov:

My son had finally learnt to control metal. It was a little known fact that I could do that and my son not knowing it didn't surprise me.

I walked even deeper into the caves. Nico stayed close behind. We walked until we made it into a humongous clearing. I could've fit around thousand or more monsters!

There were numerous monsters facing someone on the other side. The number of monsters was overwhelmingly large. They were actually trying to invade the underworld! The force seemed to consist of almost exclusively only giant and powerful creatures. There were giants, a few more drakons and statues. Then we heard a voice next to us.

"Ah! Hades you actually came." It was Erebus. He was still dressed in tattered clothes but seemed a lot healthier.

"Erebus, you finally decided to show up. Are you going to help me take them on?"

"Do I look like I can take them on Hades?"

I felt a little stupid. He looked really weak and here I was asking him to help me.

"I shall however help you after the battle. I can send creatures into Tartarus provided they are weak enough. Also don't bother looking for Hectate, she left a few hours ago."

"Thank you, it seems you might be useful after all."

"He looked annoyed "That is just rude Hades!"

Without exchanging any more words, I walked towards them. I realized that Nico was following me. "Stay here son, I do not want you to risk yourself here. There is a very high probability that you will die if you join me."

"But fath-"

"Erebus, can you please restrain him."

"Of course!" He waved his hands over Nico.

"I can't see!"

"Now you won't be able to disturb your father. I will remove it when he starts fighting. You will see his true power then!"

I walked halfway up to the horde and realized that Hyperion was addressing them.

"Hyperion, you dare try to invade my abode!" I shouted. All the monsters immediately turned my way.

Hades! What are you doing here?" He was very surprised to see me.

"Well…you invaded somebody's lair and he informed me."

"Who was it?"

"Why should I tell you?" I shouted back. I summoned some hundred hellhounds and the furies along with a large number of undead.

"Attack, protect your realm from these intruders and drive them back!" I shouted.

It was an all out war inside a clearing some two hundred feet under the surface. I charged at Hyperion. He tried blasting with flame but I dodged and sliced him with my sword. Then I used my helm and melted into the shadows. I started radiating fear. This was my favorite ability when it came to the helm. Most of the monsters in my immediate area suddenly died. The fear had killed them. However a few strong ones like the drakons managed to survive but were greatly weakened. The undead and the hellhounds took the opportunity to attack and kill them. Even Hyperion staggered!

I silently moved across the cavern killing monsters but suddenly the temperature started rising!

"Do you think you can escape Hades? Even you cannot withstand my heat!"

The temperature was very high now. It had incinerated all the creatures in the cavern. I quickly moved behind him and struck him with my sword. Unfortunately he had expected that move.

Hyperion quickly turned around and caught hold of me.

"Now you will burn!"

He blasted me with flames while holding me. Even I couldn't resist those flames for too long. But I refused to cry out in pain. Instead I tried to concentrate on all the drakon armor around me.

Hyperion was too caught up in burning me to notice the huge ball of drakon armor that was forming behind him. As soon as the ball was formed, I used the helm to escape rematerialize a few feet away from him. Hyperion looked furious.

"I will crush you. You sneaky little rat!"

"No I will crush you!" I said.

I levitated the huge ball directly above him and smashed him with it. When he was on the ground I crushed him with it. Then I started tightening his armor around him. I crushed him in his own armor and then tightened the ball around him to crush him even more. It was something like a really tight and metallic straitjacket.

"Erebus, you need to send him to Tartarus now!"

"All right!"

Erebus formed a dark cloak around Hyperion. Hyperion slowly vanished screaming in pain to the depths of Tartarus…

I collapsed on to the ground. My entire body was aching horribly. My usually pale skin had darkened due to the burns I had suffered. I could heal by myself but it would take time. After all Hyperion's flames are very strong.

Nico came running up to me. He was visibly shaken.

"Father are you ok?"

"Don't worry son, I may not be able to fight for some time but I will be all right."

"I'm sorry that I was too weak to help you!" he said.

He looked very dismayed. It was then that I realized that it was my constant demeaning of his performance that made him so regretful. I felt ashamed. Nico was stronger than most half bloods older than him and he had willingly accompanied me even though he knew that we would have to face a Titan and probably a large army without any support from the others.

"Nico, you have done well my son. I want you to protect the camp while I am weakened. I am sorry for pushing you too hard. Please remember that I love you"

As soon as I said these words, the look on his face turned hopeful and then determined.

"I will not fail you father!"

"Now that's what I wanted to hear!"

Erebus returned after an hour or so.

"It was hard to make him stay there, that straitjacket you made for him helped a lot!"

"Well I did want to hurt him…"

"I will transport both of you to the camp. I have decided to stay with there. I will be able to help you with Jackson."

"What do you mean?"

"For Jackson to gain Kronos's powers he will have to enter Tartarus and I will be needed to help him enter and navigate it to find Kronos…"

He caught hold of Nico and me and teleported us to the camp.

I realized that what he said was true; Jackson would have to brave Tartarus to gain control over time. All I could do was wonder how Poseidon and Jackson would react to the news…

*I hope everyone likes the chapter. Please review. Suggestions and criticisms are welcome.

*The reason I gave Erebus the ability to send people into Tartarus is because he was sometimes interchangeably used with it.

*The story will probably end in another five chapters or so.