I do not own Percy Jackson or any other reference made or thought made.


Nico POV

The sky had turned completely black, except for the spot where the sun dimly shined through. The only thing that was allowing us to see was Steven's flaming hammer. Thalia, Percy, and I were standing behind Matt, Jacob, and Steve, who were between us and Erebos. Percy and I had our swords out, and Thalia was using her spear as a support to hold her up. Thank the gods Jace isn't here, I couldn't stand to see her get hurt. What am I thinking? Well, I guess I do love her so I'm worried, but I better focus on what is actually happening.

"You three stay back." Matt whispered to us, he didn't turn to us. The three were focused on Erebos, and vice versa.

"Percy and Nico," Jacob started, "protect Thalia in case he gets around us."

Steven just chuckled, "As unlikely as that is."

Jacob suddenly shot his hand across the strings of his guitar and sent a sonic blast straight into the ground in front of him, sending up a cloud of dust and dirt. Erebos swung his whips sideways like scissors and cut the cloud in half. Matt and Steven then shot out of the cloud right where Erebos cut it, and flew straight at him. Erebos swung at them again. Matt got hit and fell off to the side, but Steven wrapped the whip coming at him around his hammer and pulled Erebos to him. Surprised, Erebos got pulled off his feet and flew towards Steven, who was raising his hammer to hit him. Just before Erebos reached him, he swung his other whip at Steven's face. Steven ducked just as Erebos flew over him, and Jacob, who was behind Steven, hit the strings again and sent a beam a light at him. When Erebos got hit, he exploded into a black cloud of smoke.

The smoke flew to the side and began to reform into Erebos, but when it was halfway formed, Matt flew through it with his tonfas. As Matt passed through, the half-formed Erebos swung up his arms and nearly got Matt with the same scissors like attack. Now Jacob, Steven, and Matt were in a Y-formation around Erebos and were closing in on him. Erebos began swinging his whips around in front of him, and the whips were growing longer so the three had to keep dodging them while they still moved in closer. Then Erebos began spinning on the spot and his whips with him like that one jump rope game. The whips slid along the ground nearly tripping them so they had to jump, but when they did, Erebos raised the other whip to try and hit them in mid-air. Jacob got hit in mid-air and went flying into a metal pole in ground making a loud crack sound. Then Steven got sliced across the chest with the end of one whip, making a gash.

"NO!" Matt screamed as he charged Erebos. I nodded to Percy and he went to get Steven while I pulled Jacob over to us and started giving them nectar and ambrosia.

Erebos swung both his whips at Matt. He put up his arms to block himself, with the long end of the blades going down his arm and pointed at Erebos. When the whips were going to hit him from both sides, he flung his arms out sideways so the end of the whips wrapped around his arms. Then he moved both his arms out, over, and then under the whips and grabbed the whip with his hand while still holding on to the tonfas. He pulled on the whips, making Erebos fall forwards a bit, but Matt swung his elbows over and under the whips so that they were more wrapped in his arms. Then he started walking towards Erebos, spinning and circling his arms so that the whips became more and more wrapped around his arms and body.

"What in the name of the gods is he doing?" Percy whispered to me.

"Not the slightest idea." I simply replied because I had no freaking idea what the hell was going on.

"He's pulling himself closer to Erebos?" Thalia barely mumbled behind us. And Matthew was.

Soon there were only two feet between Erebos and Matt, but it looked like Erebos had won because Matt was all tangled in his whips. Suddenly Erebos pulled Matt against him. It looked like he was whispering something into Matt's ear. When Erebos slowly pushed Matthew back, his back turned into a black smoke and tentacles grew out of them and looked like they were about to attack Matt. Then Matt swung out his arms to the sides, the tonfa blades along his arms cutting the whips into pieces. Then he stabbed Erebos with the smaller blades of the tonfas and jumped into the air and kneed him in the face. Matt then kicked off of Erebos and jumped backwards a few feet while Erebos went stumbling back, golden ichor dripping from his wounds.

"Do you honestly believe that such weak attacks will defeat me?" Erebos said. His words sounded like they were spoken as whispers into your ear, but he was about 20 ft. from us.

"No," Matt replied, he wasn't even breathing heavy, "but I do believe that you without your weapons will make it easier to." He said with a smug grin on his face.

"You think that such a simple act of 'cutting up' my whips will prevent me, one of the oldest elementals, from continuing to fight? Observe!" And he threw out his hands to the pieces of the whip scattered across the ground. They puffed into little things of smoke and melted into him. Once he absorbed them all, he unleashed an enormous cloud of smoke that engulfed all of us. Now we REALLY couldn't see anything. None of us spoke; we listened to hear if someone was moving.

"Father on High," I heard Matthew saying from my right. "With Thy light upon Your children, show us threw the darkness!" Suddenly, a huge gust of wind came from the direction of Matt's voice. All of the smoke was being pushed away from Matt, who was engulfed in a blinding light, while he held his Bible open above his head. The light seemed to come out of the Bible. Then wind pushed away all the smoke and the light allowed us all to see.

"Time to die." I heard someone whisper behind me. I turned and saw Erebos towering over me with the smoke tentacles on his back moving to grab me.

But just as they were about to grab me, they stopped and Erebos flung back his head while screaming. When he picked his head back up, there was a bronze dagger sticking out of his head.

"Huh!" That was the most intelligent thing I could come up with.

"ANNABETH!" Percy yelled while looking towards the construction site. I looked and sure enough there she was, standing in a position that showed that she had just thrown something.

"Steven!" Matthew screamed from my left, he was running towards me. "NOW!"

Instantly, Steven, who had been passed out by Percy, jumped to his feet and jumped with his hammer spinning at the still swaying Erebos. And from there, Steven just started to beat the bejeezus out of him, never giving Erebos enough time to retaliate and strike back. Steven hit him in the head, stomach, back, and legs; and not just with his hammer, but with his arms and legs. When Steven was done, Erebos was crumpled on the ground with three limbs bent in the wrong direction and his head nearly smashed in. He began to dissolve into black smoke again, but when there was only a tiny amount left, it hopped up and attached itself to Steven's chest and dissolved into him.

"What was that?" Thalia asked, finally able to stand on her own two feet again.

"It was said that if any could defeat an elemental, that the victor would gain their ability. Like a highlander." Matthew explained.

"Can someone explain what just happened?" Annabeth asked as she walked up to us. Percy was right next to her, looking relieved that she was there.

Thank the gods, I thought, If she hadn't of come, he would have been all moping because she wasn't here. Maybe we can finally get Percy to tell Annabeth that he loves her now that shes here. And, with Matt here, it should be easy.

"Well," Jacob started, he had broken his arm when he hit the pole and it was wrapped up, "we came he to pick up some equipment, and then we were attacked by some monsters. And then Nico got the incredibly brilliant idea to use his power to crush one of them!" He was now poking his finger into my chest accusingly.

"What's so wrong about that!" I yelled back at him. "I saved our lives from that mutt."

"Don't you remember the prophecy?" Steven said to me, his face a little angry as well.

"Yeah," I replied, "If I use my power over rocks, the elementals will come to fight. But I was in a situation where I didn't have a lot of freaking time to decide whether I should do this or not."

"OKAY! ENOUGH!" Matthew screamed over everyone. Then he turned to Annabeth. "And how, if I may ask did you get here?" But he sounded like he already knew.

"Well…" Annabeth started rubbing the back of her neck while blushing, she was really embarrassed by this. "I wanted to come along and help, so I hopped on a Pegasus and chased after you guys." She kept on glancing towards Percy, who also had a little smile across his face.

"So where's the pegasus then?" Percy asked her.

"Blackjack took off when the darkness spread." she answered.

"Explains why we didn't see him." Percy muttered with his head to the ground. Annabeth then wrapped her arms around his and leaned into his shoulder, she looked deadly tired.

"So," Thalia spoke up. "Erebos, the primordial deity of darkness, from the Second Great Age, is out to kill us?" She directed her question at Matt, who seemed to know more about what was going on then anyone else.

"As well as all the other elementals from the 1st, 2nd, and partially 3rd Age." He kept looking around, as if something else were here.

"But why?" Percy asked.

Matthew justed sighed, as if it was obvious. "According to the prophecy, Thalia, Percy, and Nico are to stop a incredibly dangerous evil, and that is because they are are children of the Big Three, and the Big Three are the only gods who have power over a specific element themselves: lightning and sky, water, and stone. My only guess is that the elemental deities are trying to kill us so that these three can't use their elemental powers to stop this evil. The elementals will use monsters to force you to use your own powers so that they can locate you more easily, like the Ring Wraiths in Lord of the Rings, except that you three are the Ring."

"We're the source of unimanigable power which can control the entire world?" Percy said sarcastically.

"I'm going to hit you." Matthew said pointing at him.

"Matt!" Steven cried. He was pointing at a part of the construction site.

"What?" Matt immediately looked to where he was pointing. "Oh bloody hell." Steven had been pointing to a security camera that was focused directly on us. As I looked around, I noticed more and more of them looking at us.

"Now people'll know that we destroyed this place." Jacob said.

"Well," Matt continued, "I think that's our cue to continue moving. Jacob," he said in a hurry with a hint of terror in his voice, turning to his brother, "you got any drachmas?"

Jacob threw the gold coin to Matt, who then walked over to the road and knelt down on the curb and started mumbling something. The road in front of him began to shimmer like mist, then Matt threw in the coin. Then a grey taxi cab rose out of the mist. With an unreadable title on the side of it but I knew who it was. The Grey Sisters.

"How many? And where?" One of the sisters asked. Obviously it was the one without the eye because I could see into the old hags gooey and dripping eye socket, but she did have their single tooth.

Matt walked up to them, and we walked up behind him. Matt said, "Greetings Wasp. Seven demigods and we need to go as far west as you can take us." West? I thought.

"We can go as far as Midwest," said the center sister, who had the eyeball in her head.

"Quiet Tempest," Said the driver, "We aren't supposed to tell the boundaries of our power."

"I didn't mean anything like that Anger." Said Matthew. "But may I suggest a larger vehicle."

"Very well," said Wasp, "Anger! Hit the button!"

"How can I hit the button when Tempest has the eye."

"I'll hit the button when Wasp gives me the tooth."

"Then give me the eye!"

"NO!"

"Ladies," Steven said calmly as he walked up. "May I suggest that Anger, the driver, have the eye so that she can hit the button and drive? And Tempest and Anger take turns getting the tooth."

"Very well." And they traded. When the button got hit, the taxi turned into a 9-passenger transit bus. We all packed in and the Sisters shot off at 120 mph, weaving around cars, and screaming directions that they didn't follow. Eventually they began bickering over the eye and tooth, passing them around. Then Matt reached up and grabbed the eye and Steve took the tooth.

"Where are the eye and tooth!" Screamed Tempest.

"The demigods have them!" Wasp yelled and reached back for us.

"ACCELERATING!" Anger announced. We were now going 160 mph.

"Tell us what you know." Matt said to them.

"Matt give them back the items." Annabeth yelled at him.

"NO! You three are said to know everything. So tell me, who killed our mother." Matt was nearly whispering at the end.

"We don't know!" Wasp screamed. In response, Steven squeezed the tooth, causing all three to scream in pain.

"WHO!" demanded Matt.

"We cannot! The eldest will destroy us!" Tempest wailed. Matt them squeezed the eyeball.

"Who did it!" Matt yelled again.

"Talk to Nereus!" Anger screamed, "He can tell you."

Matt and Steven handed back the items. Suddenly I realized that the car had stopped moving. Jacob opened the door and we all got out. We looked out and saw that we were at…