BWAHAHA the plot thickens!

FYI: two chapters in one, since the first is too short to stand alone. So, it should be worth the wait!

It's been a while, I know, I know. But I'M NOT DEAD.

Sigh, Percy's not mine.

Chapter 14: In which my sister is Nico's stepmother.

"I was joking about the pit of spikes, by the way," Nico said as we continued down under. It was really cold. Like extremely cold.

Did I mention I was freezing?

"I realized," I muttered. "Oh, and why are we visiting your dad again? Sorry to burst your bubble, but family reunions while the world is about to die of hunger…not one of your best ideas."

This time, it was him who rolled his eyes. "Remember? Heaven and under to heal the land? Under? Underworld? Ring a bell?"

"What are you two blathering about now?" grumbled Wisteria, wrapping her arms around her body, teeth chattering. "I'm really cold."

"Yo pops," said Nico, pushing open the door at the end of the tunnel.

It was like the moment that doorway opened, I felt a rush of energy: powerful, deadly, and…surprisingly warm.

A tall man with pale skin and dark hair loomed in a chair of iron, reading a newspaper. He looked up, a frown etched on his face. "How many times have I told you not to call me that?"

Then he saw us, and got up quickly.

I could sense he wasn't too happy about our visit.

"Who told you to bring your little gang of misfits over here?" he rumbled, taking a step towards us. I felt puny and insignificant. Wisteria looked on defiantly, and Nico just examined his fingernails.

"Listen up," he said, finally facing his father, who by the way, is really intimidating. Like, super duper scary. Imagine a skyscraper on fire. Then imagine it about to fall on you. It's that kind of feeling. "You know why we're here. It's about Auxo."

If possible, Hades's face blanched even whiter. But he pursed his lips, as if he really didn't care. "Olympus's activities and misfortune have nothing to do with me. If one of their Hours goes missing—it's not my fault." He sat back on his chair. "Go home, Nico. I have nothing for you here."

Nico rolled his eyes. He seemed like he was a pro at it. "Do you think we came here for you? Please. I want to talk to Persephone."

"She's on Olympus right now," said Hades icily. "Talk to her there."

"Oh, don't think I'll be going anywhere, pops. You've got something that I need. You know what it is. And I'm pretty sure I can get Persephone to help me get that very special something. You catch my drift?"

"No."

"Ok, fine," he said, shrugging his shoulders. He reached into his potato sack and grabbed the spray bottle and flashlight, quickly making a rainbow and then throwing a drachama into it. "Hey Iris. Mind getting me to Persephone?"

The rainbow mist shimmered and Persephone's face came to view.

She was really pretty, her hair braided with flowers and a kind smile on her face. Then she saw who was calling her, and her smile disappeared, eyes narrowing. "What can I do for you, Nico?" she hissed. She uttered his name like a curse, and the look on her face told me that if she wasn't on Olympus, she would have obliterated him right then and there.

He had the smuggest look on his face, like he was withholding some awesome blackmail material. The funny thing, I wouldn't be surprised if he was.

And then she saw me. If possible, she got even more angry, baring her teeth like an animal. "Another one? Seriously? Too many siblings, mom!"

I could tell she wasn't too fond of my presence.

Nico began talking, superior smile still on his face. "So, I've come to call up a little favor."

"What do you want, child?" she snapped. "I've done a whole lot for you already! Who busted you out of that Amazon River? Yours truly. I'm not doing another lick of work for some brat."

"Oh, too bad," Nico said, sighing pathetically. "Then I guess I'll just have to tell Daddy-"

Hades's eye twitched slightly.

"-About that thing that you did...you know, the one that involved-"

"Okay, okay! I get it!" Persephone said, looking a little desperate. "How long are you going to hold that above my head for?" Under her breath, she muttered, "Manipulative child." Then, she turned to Hades, eyes flaming. "Give the child the Skeleton Key," she hissed, "Or I'll turn you into a pansy!"

"I don't think that's the right tone to strike with me," he rumbled. "And besides, you're keeping something from me. May I ask what exactly don't you want me to find out?"

"It's none of your business," she replied. "But listen to me here. If you don't give him that key," here, her face grew wicked, "I'll be pulling some strings so you don't get another vacation for the next 500 years. Catch my drift?" Then she was distracted by me again, and gave me the evil eye. "You follow Nico's stupid example…and I'll make sure you stand as a weed in the middle of a garbage dump. Understand…sister?"

Okay, so scratch that. She hated me.

"Not like I really want to be related to you anyways," I grumbled.

She was about to retort when Nico hurriedly brushed his hands through the mist. Persephone quickly disappeared.

"Ok, you heard her," he said, reaching out a hand. "Now hand over the Key."

"You think, just because you're my son, I'll just hand it over like that?" Hades asked, voice deadly calm. "Nothing comes without a price, Nico. You should know that."

"I don't know what's going on," whispered Wisteria. "I want to go back now…"

"We are not going back!" yelled Nico. "Not until I get my Key!"

"You want the Key?" asked Hades, leaning into his chair. "Well then. I'll have to set you up on a task then, won't I?"

"Just accept it already!" I snapped. "I don't care if we have to do a bit of dirty work to save Auxo."

When the gods ask you to do dirty work, they really mean it. I'm not just talking about washing the floors or anything, or taking out the garbage, or massaging Hades's feet (which would suck, by the way).

I'm talking about weeding out a garden that's beyond repair.

It looked like a tornado had busted through the place, then the plants were allowed to overgrow, someone forgot to put in weed killer, it had been an arena for a gladiator cat fight, and then someone attacked the place with a chainsaw.

It wasn't pretty.

Wisteria's eye was twitching. "Isn't this supposed to be Persephone's garden? Full of beauty, bursting with life…that kind of stuff?"

Hades's lip curled into a really creepy smile. "Well, it was. But now she's with her mother, and we've gotten rather…tired of keeping it in shape. Unfortunately, some real estate agents are looking at this garden as an extra power source for the Hours on Olympus. And they're willing to expand the Underworld in return, which means more room for the dead. My subjects just won't stop complaining about how crowded it is—their moans of despair are really tiresome to hear at night. But of course, they won't accept it looking like the mess it is now."

"We can't do this in a day!" spluttered Nico, looking outraged.

"Oh my dear boy, I'm sure you'll find a way. Now hurry along now, time's ticking."

He opened the iron gate and we walked in. "Oh," Hades added as an afterthought. "And try not to get eaten by the monsters. That would be lovely. I can't have bones littering the garden, you know? It's not very attractive to prospective lenders."

Okay, great. Monsters and a weeding job bigger than a sumo wrestler's pants.

"You're the daughter of Demeter," pouted Wisteria. "You do something."

"If I could, I would," I snapped back. "Why don't you actually do something worthwhile for once in your life and help weed this place too?"

She looked at her fingers tentatively. "But that would ruin my manicure."

Why was I not surprised?

"Chipping a nail, oh boo hoo," hissed Nico. "Grab a shovel and some gloves and get to weeding! If you want to join us, you'd better pull your weight around here."

Grumbling underneath her breath, Wisteria gingerly picked up some dirt covered tools and gloves. I bent down and buried my hands in the crumbling dirt. I could feel the pulse of the breath of the Underworld.

Save me…life…

The roots of the plants were weakening, slowly disintegrating under the earth. I felt a rush of sadness come over me. Persephone was supposed to take care of them. She was blessed with much more power than I was…I didn't—couldn't understand why she didn't want to exert even the smallest bit of effort to help her failing garden. I focused my mind on the plants, opening up the dirt for some well deserved water. For those that were almost beyond help, I gave them my own power. Buds unfurled, and the once brown stems flushed a pure green. Leaves, once shriveled, filled with life once more, and suddenly, the garden was looking much brighter.

Nico whistled. "Nice."

"Don't just stand there, you help too," I scolded. "Get some water. You're in charge of watering these plants, got it?"

"But where—"

"Find some."

He cringed back a bit.

Probably from fear. I'm very intimidating.

"I'll go get the water."

"Oh lookie here. You're doing peachy by yourself. I don't even need to help," said Wisteria cheerfully.

"Oh, yes you do," I answered back. "Start pulling weeds and crabgrass. I can't do all of this by myself, you know."

A while later, Nico came back with a hose. I raised an eyebrow. "Water's going to come out of that, right?"

He grinned. "Sure thing. I attached it to Pop's sink."

With a twist of his fingers, the nozzle started spraying water. It collected in the holes in the ground. I thrust my hands into the wet soil, and gauged how much was necessary. Almost immediately, I could feel the plants sighing in relief. I looked up, and saw them turning vivid colors of red, orange, and blue. Even the trees began growing their fruit again.

Unfortunately, by watering the plants, we were also watering the weeds. They too were growing stronger, needles erupting out of their stems, crawling tighter over the trees and flowers.

I motioned for Nico to turn off the water. "We'll have to get rid of the weeds first. Toss them away from the garden, in case they decide to take root again. We need to destroy them from the base."

I glanced at Wisteria. "You do know how to do that, right?"

She shrugged her shoulders and stuck her nose in the air. "Of course. I've read tons about weeding gardens."

What a total lie.

I decided, through my large and generous heart, to help her with her job by targeting the weeds' roots. I focused on all the weeds in the general vicinity, and forced the soil around them to loosen. Then, I eradicated the little branches of roots that had stretched out.

"The rest is easy," I said, handing her a nearby bucket to collect weeds in.

She looked at it with extreme distaste.

I moved to another patch of dirt, and dug my hands in again. This one was worse than the last. I started on the dirt first, making it healthier for the plants. Then I sent life through their roots, allowing them to grow again.

Then, I felt something on my hand.

And it definitely wasn't just a root.

I screamed and wrenched out my hand, flinging whatever was on it onto the dirt ground.

We just stared at it.

Nico was the first to break the silence.

"That is one big ant."

PAUSE! BREAK! Next chapter :)

LOL double the reviews? ;)

Chapter 15: In which I suffer from some major bug trauma.

For once, Wisteria and I had something in common as we both shrunk back. The ant was huge and white, probably as big as a good sized dictionary. And it was ten times more ugly than my math homework.

It clicked its pincers together, antennae waving, trying to find us. Green slobber dripped out of its mouth. I had never been more disgusted in my life.

"Kill it," I whispered, voice shaking. "Kill it, kill it…"

Nico shrugged. "What's the big deal? It's just an ant."

Just then, a drop of its green saliva dropped onto the ground and completely corroded the soil, like acid being poured on top of metal.

Nico's face blanched. "I take that back. I'll kill it."

With a single thrust from his dagger, the ant keeled over and turned to dust. "Well," said Nico proudly. "That was easy."

"Um…"

For once, Wisteria wasn't being her bratty self. Instead, her voice was quivering.

"What is it?"

"There…are…more." She pointed to the area around us, where white antennae and legs were erupting out of the dirt. It was like a zombie revival, but worse. Think about it—zombies can't really hurt you that bad. But you know what can? Acidic spit.

Soon enough, there was a giant white ant army in front of us. My skin was tingling. The garden wasn't looking too pretty anymore.

"I know what these are…" said Wisteria quietly, eyes wide in disgust and fear. "These are Myrmekes…huge Indian Ants."

"Great," answered Nico. "And how exactly does that information help us get rid of these guys?"

She gulped. "It doesn't."

"Whatever you do," I said, "Don't touch their spit. You know how it dissolved that soil. They must be the cause of the dead plant roots. And now they're sick of vegetables and want something a little more…filling."

"It's us, isn't it?" whimpered Wisteria.

"You're catching on, Princess."

"So what do we do?" asked Wisteria, still being her cowardly self. "I don't know how to fight!"

"Simple. We stay still, and they'll go away."

Her eyes grew wide with hope. "That easy?"

Nico snorted. "Are you kidding me? I was joking. We have to do a thorough ant extermination." He raised his hands, and jutted rocks speared a few ants, turning them all into crumbling sand.

The sad thing about ants is that they live in colonies. So a few dead ants were really nothing to the hundreds we were sure to face. The Myrmekes were looking at us with some hungry eyes. They began clicking their pincers together happily. I bet in ant talk, that meant "Hey guys, we're having a fiesta tonight!"

I had a bad feeling we weren't going to be guests or anything.

"On the count of three, we attack. May, I am not running away till I get the Skeleton Key, so don't even think about leaving this job undone."

"Wouldn't dream of it."

Wisteria seemed to have gained a bit of her confidence back, for she answered "In case you peasants don't know or anything, these guys are weak against fire."

"Great. Thanks for that other piece of worthless info. Not only don't we have any fire, but no gas or anything," sighed Nico. "We can't just kill them off one by one. And not to mention, the Queen is probably out there somewhere. We need to get rid of her too."

"Is there any way we can create a fire of some sort?" I suggested. "There may be a way I can link these guys up so the flames can burn all of them."

"I dunno how to make a fire," said Nico with no shame whatsoever.

I shrugged. "Me either. Wisteria?"

She sniffed. "You commoners don't even know how to make a fire? Do they teach you nothing in America?"

I scowled. "Cut to the chase."

"I know how to make a fire, dimwits!" she snapped. "So hurry up and use your stupid powers and get these ants together! Round them up, corral style! I'm just going to go get some stuff."

"If you run away and we get eaten by ants, I'll kill you in the Underworld!" yelled Nico as Wisteria ran off.

The Myrmekes were still looking at us hungrily. "Now or never, Nico. I can't round up all of these by myself," I said.

"Gotcha." With a wave of his hands, black walls of rock erupted from the ground, successfully crowding the ants in a dense area. They jumbled around, confused for a moment, before turning their attention back on us. I gulped. They were really quite ugly. I took a calming breath.

Ignore your fear of insects. It's okay. They only spit acidic saliva and are huge. No problem.

I would have to destroy a few plants, but it would be okay in the long run. I unscrewed my chap-stick, and Jingo came out, bronze and shiny. I reached for the satchel of darts, and chose the Virginia Creeper, stuffing it in the pipe.

By now, the ants were growing restless. I swore one of them decided to try its luck and get closer to us, but Nico stabbed it before it reached us. The Myrmekes seemed smart enough to realize they would get killed if they ventured out, but that didn't stop them from forming a plan. Soon, there was a staircase of ants, ready to jump out of their rock prison and devour us.

I was such a positive thinker.

"Hurry up May, now would be a great time," muttered Nico urgently.

I ignored him and focused on closing the right holes. I needed the right trajectory to hit dead center of the ants, and let the vine take it from there.

I placed my fingers on holes 1, 3, 4, and 5. I took a deep breath. Hopefully those clarinet lessons wouldn't be put to waste. I put my lips to the cold metal, shut one eye for better concentration, aimed 45 degrees, and blew.

The seedling dart landed smack dab in the middle of the ant pile. I heard a faint pop, the sign of the pocket opening, and waved my fingers. Vine tendrils whipped out from the middle, wrapping around every ant it could reach, entangling them together in a net of plant leaves. I stretched it even further, making it branch out and get more and more and more. They were threatening to break free, and I couldn't risk turning the plant to metal in case I couldn't turn it back by the time Wisteria came back for the fire.

"I swear," I grunted, "If she left us, we aren't coming the help her when she breaks that amulet."

The ants kept coming. It was taking nearly all of my power to contain the ones we had already caught. Nico was taking care of the strays, but if Wisteria didn't come soon, we were going to lose all of our hard work.

"I'm here, I'm here," she said, panting. She looked like she had just run for miles. But never had I been happier to see her.

"What did you get?" asked Nico curiously.

"Nothing too interesting. Just a few sheets of paper, maybe some flint, but I'm not too sure. Geology was never my strong point. Anyways, I can make a fire out of this for sure."

Paper and rocks. All we needed were some scissors.

"I knew I should have left her behind," groaned Nico. "We're so going to die by weeding a garden."

"Oh shut up, you peasant," yelled Wisteria. "I can do it! Watch."

She placed a sheet of paper between two of the rocks, then harshly slammed them together. There was the faint smell of something burning. Upon closer inspection, the rocks had burnt a small hole in the paper.

"Perfect," she said to herself. "A few more tries…"

The Myrmekes were invading. They were getting stronger, threatening to break the vine bonds, pushing against the rocks. They didn't look too happy about being restrained, and Nico had his hands full with eliminating those that had crawled out already.

"Wisteria Woods! Gods, would you hurry up?" he roared, sweat beading on his forehead.

"I'm going, I'm going!" she yelled in panic, and finally, the paper lit up with a flame dancing around its edges.

She was smart enough to understand my plan, and with no hesitation, ran into the swarm of ants to place she sheet close enough to the vine.

The fire caught on, and then it was my turn.

I closed my eyes, and opened them again.

The world was so clear.

I waved my hands and changed the vines, making them more flammable. The fire traveled on the plant path, burning through the ants like they were made of butter—there were poofs of sand everywhere. And finally, the last one was gone, and we stood in a partially demolished garden with sand whisking into the wind.

"Never again," Nico panted. "I'm never asking my dad for anything, ever."

Wisteria stood up, and I saw how much her legs were shaking, but her voice stayed strong. "We have more weeding to do if we're going to finish this. You need that key, right? May, although you are naught but a potato sack, you are the best at this, so we leave the plant growth up to you. Nico and I will do our best to take out the weeds."

I wasn't the only one that deserved to be praised. I took a breath, and smiled. "You're not too bad yourself, Wisteria."

And to my surprise, she smiled back. "Thank you."

And then, like she had been lit in a spotlight, a silver owl sparkled above her head, lighting up the garden so it was even brighter than before. Confused, she waved her hand over it, and the owl hooted, taking flight and then slowly disappearing into the air.

"That was weird," she grumbled.

"No, it wasn't," answered Nico, grinning. "We just found out your parent."

"Oh, so the owl was my mother's symbol? That's not too difficult," she said, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "So I'm an Athena kid, right? Figures. My mom is quite possibly the best, which would explain my perfection."

I groaned. "Come on. Exciting stuff, I know, but we've got to finish this job…"

"Do I get any cool powers? Can I invent things out of midair?" Wisteria blabbed as we walked to the tool shed. "Will my intellect increase now that I've found out?"

"I want to punch her," Nico growled, crossing his arms.

I laughed. Even though she was still as annoying as she had been before, I liked how she didn't push her conceited attitude further with her parental discovery. And not to mention, without her help, we probably would have been eaten by ants.

That would have sucked.

The final three shall take a stand…

I couldn't have asked for a better addition to complement our team.

Wow, that was weird...sigh, the things that happen in the underworld :)

R&R :)