The Beginning of the End

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PJatO Disclaimer: All rights reserved to Rick Riordan for he created the awesomeness that is Nico di Angelo. And everything else related to Percy Jackson and the Olympians / Heroes of Olympus. Aside from the Gods, of course. They are all copyright by the old Greeks. This fanfiction on the other hand is entirely mine. No money is made with this, though reviews are more than welcomed.

On we journey on our marvellous hike into the world of my contributions to the world of Sally's Baby Boy.

Bianca's POV

The past few days had become truly torturous for me. We had found a cave to live in and practise magic and Morgana was relentless; she not only tested me on practical magic but on theory as well. Whenever I got a question wrong, she pricked me on the hand with an incredibly sharp claw.

I was really starting to hate her now. She was almost always incredibly pessimistic and sarcastic; my only relief was when Sundarya decided it was time to retake control of the body.

Blood magic was apparently forbidden on Olympus and it was this that made Zeus imprison the Telkhines in Tartarus.

The name was fairly self explanatory; Blood Magic was any magic that included life energy, like sacrifices and things. As I was soon to learn, though not after a good number of pricks on my palm, the letting of blood generates an incredible amount of power, at least compared to what I had before, which was the power of will fuelled by my own energy.

Monster's blood and Ichor generated the highest amount of energy due to the power they received from hundreds of demigods fear. It was due to this that Zeus ordered Hecate to cast the spell that made monsters turn into gold dust.

Certain weapons, however, could be enchanted to work around the spell, though they were incredibly rare since they had to be quenched in all the underworld rivers and infused with dust from a Greater Monster such as the Chimera or the Nemean Lion.

Getting back to the point, Blood Magic is the reason that sacrifices took place, back in the ancient days. Zeus didn't ban humans sending the energy of death to the gods, only for that energy to be used in magic.

I wasn't sure I was lucky that Zeus couldn't get us down here in Tartarus.

It did allow me to use magic I never would have thought I could do in a million years; Gelu Semita was easy now. The only limitation was that you needed to have a ready supply of life energy, which bound to blood just like oxygen...

Oh, god, those biology lessons back on Circe's Island somehow paid off.

Anyway, to solve this problem, every time Morgana pricked my hand, she put the blood into a little glass vial, which would keep the blood usable for a week or more.

Right now, I was preparing for a fight with Sundarya. Morgana disliked the prospect of physical fighting, but she agreed that if you could get your opponent to start bleeding then not only would you weaken them; you would be given a ready supply of blood to use.

I held my hands out and felt the familiar weight of Crescent as my bow materialised from the dark air in Tartarus. For this battle, I would be fighting Sundarya, since she had more fighting experience than Morgana but I decided that I would imagine I was fighting the witch, to make me feel better about all the wounds she had inflicted upon me.

I drew an arrow but paused as a sudden question popped into my head, "Can you even bleed, Sundarya? I thought you were a monster?"

Shaking her huge head, she said, "No mistress, I am a familiar, created by Morgana out of Voidstuff in the same manner as the titan Prometheus made man of clay. If man can bleed, so can I"

So, in short, yes.

I absently wondered if I would ever be able to make things out of voidstuff before I heard Sundarya say, "Battle begin!"

She lunged at me and I only just managed to jump out the way. I decided to use the same technique I used when I had fought her first, the classic, wait for a clear shot and then attack with magic.

At first, she used the same technique as well but obviously, she was cleverer than when we first fought.

The first time she lunged at me, her claws reaching out, she looked less than surprised when I dodged and I got the feeling that that was just to test me.

I turned around and was just about to fire an arrow, when Sundarya spun back with lightning speed and before I could react, she smacked me in the stomach, sending me flying back at least 10 metres.

I cried out in anger, pain and shock and I felt myself changing shape. I was shocked, I hadn't cast a spell but it felt exactly like when I turned into Sundarya.

I felt myself growing taller, my ears shifting up to the top of my head and wings and a tail bursting out as my feet turned into paws. Strangely though, my hands stayed the same and I was still generally humanoid. I felt my face and I was still human apart from some huge canines. I felt a wave of heat on my back and realised that my tail was blazing in emerald flames.

I saw Sundarya sitting on her haunches, licking herself before she said, "It seems that joining your soul to our body, even temporarily has left some sort of imprint on you. Mistress, I dare say that you can now turn half-way or even fully into my current form.

Blinking, I cleared my eyes; when I opened them, everything was so much clearer. The gloom of Tartarus was now bearable and I could see for miles. The ground didn't hurt my feet as much and I could hear so much...

I felt like laughing at the amazing sensation.

I looked at Sundarya again, and had to catch my breath at how beautiful she was. She used to be majestic, but with my new and improved sight, she literally glowed with power, grace and authorityand I had to stop myself from grovelling at her feet. She was so imposing.

Morgana's voice came from their mouth and her face split into a feral grin.

"It will take time to get used to this. Human senses are so boring, aren't they?"

I kind of felt like I was abandoning my humanity, but I had to agree. For some reason, I was desperate to stretch my muscles. No monster could harm the two of us together, so it was safe to leave our little cave hideout.

"Let's go for a run!"

I started sprinting, with all the reckless abandon of a child.

The poisonous air flowed on my face, but this form had no trouble with the atmosphere of Tartarus. I pushed myself to go faster and faster, things blurring as my speed increased.

I could tell I was going at least a hundred miles an hour and I don't know which shocked me more; the fact that I was doing this or the fact that I showed no sign of stopping.

Suddenly, I pitched over a cliff and Sundarya, who had run with me, jumped off it too. I looked at her in confusion even as I fell but laughed as I saw her wings extending. How could I have forgotten them?

I quickly followed suit and I beat my wings as hard as I could, shooting through the air faster than an arrow. I heard an immense boom, which startled me so much that I fell out of the air, only just managing to use my powers from Aura to slow my fall, which was more like a sideways crash due to my impossible speed.

When I reached the ground, I whooped out loud in exhilaration as I realised that I had broken the sound barrier. I looked around me and was actually shocked at how ... nice this part of Tartarus was.

The air was almost exactly like the surface and the black ground was actually soft. I couldn't see any monsters but I could see small tracks on the ground .There were loads of caves in a mountain next to me and I decided to go there.

Morgana landed near me and softly padded up to my side. "Bianca, we should probably not go there... I think I might know where we are"

I glanced at her, shocked at how respectful she was being, but decided to go anyway. Even if the thrill of my run was gone, adrenaline still clouded my judgement.

I was cautious enough to survey my surrounding more carefully.

The only thing I could hear apart from my and Sundarya's short ragged breaths were... faint scattered moans of pain and crying.

If I focused on any one of the caves, I eventually made out a large hellhound in each of them. It looked like they had seen me, but I didn't think they would leave their posts until I got too close.

I cast a small spell to make me invisible and I heard a soft growl from one of the caves. I decided to watch them for a while to see if anything happened and I moved behind a small ridge.

I waited for what seemed like ages and was feeling quite stupid when I saw a very familiar figure striding up to one of the caves at the foot of the mountain.

The last time I saw him, I didn't even know that I was a demigod, back in Westover Hall. He had pretended to be my vice-principal but during a school dance, he had tried to kidnap us and make us join the forces of Kronos. That was years ago.

Unfortunately, I did not have the pleasure of seeing him defeated but since he was down here, I can only assume that the others managed it.

Dr. Thorn the manticore had grown since I had seen him. His lion's body was as big as Sundarya and he had grown a huge mane that masked his human face. The scorpion's tail that arched over his back was a sickening purple-black, coated with the poison that his spikes could fire.

His face was just as cruel as I remembered and there was a horrible smirk on his face as he sauntered up to the mountain. The house sized hellhound guarding the cave he was going to stepped out, its fur dark as Erebus and glowing ruby eyes.

I knew instantly that Thorn would win despite the hellhound's size, unless I did something. I had seen how fast he could fire his spikes and the hellhound had to be guarding something valuable.

From the start, Thorn was winning and I decided to cast a spell to slow him down. When that didn't help as much as I had hoped I just thought screw it.

I made myself visible and ran to the hellhound's aid. He looked at me suspiciously at first, but I guess he knew that he was losing as well and the silver arrows I was firing at Thorn only helped him.

Sundarya didn't come down to help but when Thorn fired some spikes at us and they hit a green force-field, I realised that Morgana was helping in her own way.

Eventually, I got a clear shot and allowed myself to be smug when I saw his look of shock at the arrow sprouting from between his eyes, just before he crumbled into dust.

When I turned Crescent back into a hairclip, I turned to face the hellhound. I suppose he still didn't fully trust me, since he was in a defensive position, but he made no move to attack.

He barked something at me and I got the feeling he was trying to talk to me.

"Hold on a moment" I cast a spell of understanding on both of us and continued, "That's better! Hi, my name's Bianca"

"Viktor," he barked. His voice was deep and gruff, kind of what she was expecting for a hellhound.

"Viktor, what is in that cave that you were guarding?" I asked.

He looked like he was having a complex inner debate about whether or not to tell me, but at last, he answered, "This is the Birthing Mountain. Monsters come here from all of Tartarus to give birth and raise their young. It is the only place in The Pit where we monsters co-operate and it is the job of us hellhounds to guard the caves from intruders. I am the Guardian of the Styx Pack, whose pups are almost ready to leave."

The thought of baby hellhounds was awesome! I remembered the one that Circe had used for an augury and it was just so cute!

"Can I meet them?" I asked, doubtfully. I would understand if he said no, but ...

Viktor gave a canine frown and I think he was confused, but eventually he barked out, "I will go ask"

He turned around and padded into the cave. While he was gone, Morgana came up to me and sniffed.

"My, my, Bianca, dealing with hellhounds are we? I don't know why you even joined that fight; it was none of your business. If anything happened to you, who would separate us, hmm?"

I scowled at her petty selfishness.

"I have history with the Manticore. Besides, he was going to harm the babies."

She looked as if she was going to respond but then Viktor came out.

"You are welcome, but the cat must stay outside, she is too dangerous"

Trusting Morgana was something quite difficult anyway, even I wouldn't trust her with children. I looked at her and she snarled softly.

"Oh, yes she can go, but Morgan le Fay, must stay outside, faithfully waiting for her mistress like a ... like a dog!" She shuddered in disgust but settled down near the door, so I decided to take that as Yes, sure mistress, you may go and meet the cuddly hellhound babies, I have no problem with that.

"Come"

Following Viktor, I went into the Birthing Cave of the Styx Pack

(Line Break)

I had completely forgotten about Sundarya after just a few minutes playing with the new cubs in the Styx Pack. There were about 9 in total born of 4 different mothers, but they all had the same father, Viktor.

I decided to not think too much about that fact and concentrate on telling the pups stories of the surface. They were all about the size of normal dogs, but had a lot more energy. There wasn't really a way to measure time down here, but I checked the Grimoire and that said that they were all half a year old.

They had already explored the entire mountain and were yearning to leave the cave forever. Stories like I was telling them captivated them all.

"Have you ever met one of the nasty demigods?" asked one of them.

I didn't know how to answer that, so I just told a half-lie.

"The first time I met a demigod was when I was attacked by the Manticore, an evil monster, who was coming here to eat you when I got here. I first met him a long time ago and the demigod saved me. He told me that there was a place where demigods go to be safe from the evil monsters-"

I was cut off by a girl called Kibeth. "Why would they need to be safe from us? They are the ones who turn the world against us and kill us?"

"It's because there are a lot of bad monsters who want to eat them and those monsters are sometimes too strong for them"

"I'm going to eat lots of bad demigods and keep my pack safe!" That was from one of boys, Mosrael, I think. He was the loudest.

"What if one of them eats you?" asked Belgaer, the cleverest.

Yrael, the most pessimistic of the lot, wailed loudly, "They'll eat us all! I knew that going out of the cave is a bad plan!"

All of the others started arguing their opinion and I was glad that they had forgotten my story. I sighed and saw Kibeth looking at me curiously, before she got caught up in her sibling's argument.

(Line Break)

It was precisely three weeks and 5 days after that (according to the Grimoire) and the Styx Pack were leaving the Birthing Mountain soon. Sundarya was allowed in soon after me and we had practically become aunts to the cubs.

We had made up a story that I was a nymph, daughter of Morpheus and Dysnomia, but I didn't have to talk about it much now since Morgana has made a schedule for us all to train and now she had to give physical fighting more attention since she also had to train the pups.

Speaking of the pups, they had exploded in size and they were now bigger than normal lions. Anyone of them could've taken my human form on and the outcome would've been uncertain, but my huge speed increase meant that they didn't have a hope in Hades.

Morgana originally seemed quite angry that monsters couldn't learn magic, but she still took great pleasure in seeing them struggle with shadow travel. She only found out yesterday that certain spells could give hellhounds magical abilities. One gory ritual later, you have nine magic monster pups.

To think that, a while ago, they were laughing at my inability to master the higher aspects of magic when today, they are barely managing the basics.

It turns out, the only adult that had been outside the cave in ages was one of the females, and that was only to hunt, so everyone was itching to leave this place behind.

The pack elders decided that they would trek down the Styx and ask the river goddess to transport us to the surface.

So, the next day, we all gathered by the entrance, just after sleeping. I was going to walk out but one of the adult females, Lirael, stopped me. She shook her head and instead pushed Astarael forward.

"The youngest must leave first"

After Astarael put her first paw into the comparatively bright light of Tartarus, the pack howled collectively and bounded out as one.

I looked at Morgana, who had a small smile on her face. When she saw me looking, her expression immediately changed. "Savages" she muttered as she sauntered out.

So she did like us after all.

Grinning I followed her out. Out of the Birthing Mountain. Out of Safety. Into the Pit

Please review , all suggestions are welcome. Sorry for the long wait, but school started again, after half-term, so I had loads of homework. I still have it, but now my parents think I've done it.

This is a list of the Styx Pack, with some character background as well:

Viktor: The founding male, he is still quite young by hellhound standards. He started the pack a year ago and is father to all nine pups. Just a little nod to Viktor the hellhound from Percy Jackson, Monster Shifter, the first monster that Percy gains the ability to turn into.

Lirael: The founding female, she is the mother of Astarael, Kibeth and Saraneth.

Sabriel: The mother of Ranna and Dyrim

Sanar: The mother of Mosrael and Orannis

Ryelle: Mother of Belgaer and Yrael

Astarael: The youngest of the pups, she is the scariest and she has a strange obsession with death

Kibeth: She was born third and is the most like a pet dog, she is always the first to wake up and can be distracted by almost anything... sometimes

Saraneth: The biggest and strongest male.

Ranna: She was born prematurely and is the weakest of all the pups. She needs the most sleep.

Dyrim: She talks the most and in Bianca's opinion is a stereotypical blonde cheerleader.

Mosrael: The loudest one, he is cocky and arrogant, but good at heart.

Belgaer: He barely talks at all but what he does say is well-thought.

Yrael: The most pessimistic. He is convinced that every important decision will have horrible consequences, so prefers not to make a decision.

Orannis: The most violent. He fights all the time and hates literally everyone but Ranna, who everyone protects.

Yes all the pups are named after the Bright Shiners from the Old Kingdom series but, why not?

Guys, you need to know that I will not be updating unless I get more reviews in the next week. I know that most of you do not have the time, or, whatever, but if you like my story, then it is just polite. All authors need the belief that people like their work and mine is fading fast.

BTW It's my birthday on the seventh.