Hey! I didn't desert you for two months this time! :P

Thanks for all the support, as always, and I'll let you know that a load of unveiling happens in this chapter. But I did really enjoy writing this!

Yeah, I decided on a little Thalia again! I didn't actually realise how much I love writing her POVs, so I'll probably throw in her chapters every once in a while.

So, without further a due, viola!

Chapter Twenty-One

THALIA

"Turn the TV on!" she yelled at him. "Turn it on now!"

Maybe she shouldn't have been so harsh on the guy. After all, he had hard times in his life, too – she could see it in his eyes and the tired hard-done by look he gave her. She should have been grateful for him to be beside her throughout all the years.

It was funny, she noticed; when she first met him she'd never have thought that he'd be the only thing that anchored her and kept her steady. Although far apart sometimes, he was like her partner – not that type of partner, thank you – one of her few sanctuaries from the times she savoured.

But right now, she was a little worried about her friends that were on the verge of complete and utter death right now.

He looked around the cabin. "Thalia, we don't have a television in this room," he said.

"Then frigging get one!" she shrieked. "This is urgent, okay? Please. For the first time in centuries I don't know what to do. I mean," she started hyperventilating, gesturing at herself, "I'm a wreck!"

"Calm down!" he scolded. "Just hold up, OK? Breathe." She did what she was told, and he smirked proudly at himself. "And the King strikes again."

She rolled her eyes.

"Thus we have Thalia," he chirped. "So, General, what's the problem?"

She took a deep breath, having no time to scowl at him for calling her that. This was going to take some explaining. "It's Annabeth and Percy."

Just like that, he froze. His eyebrows knotted, his crazy hazel eyes turning into ones filled with fear, and he tugged at his black curls with his long fingers. "You mean –"

"Yes," she breathed, closing her eyes. Collect yourself, she told herself. Don't cry. "It's happening."

"Di immortales," was all he could come out with. "It's been a long time."

"We have to get them out," she begged, her voice quietening and opening her blue electrical orbs. "I don't care about the Capitol and their sick rules anymore, alright? I don't. And I knowAnnabeth like the back of my hand. She'll kill herself to get Percy back, vice versa."

"We've got Nico –"

"Nico smicko," she scrunched her nose. "He loves death so much, it's like he's married to it. He won't let us get away with it."

"He did once," he said. "With a wizard guy, remember?"

"Yeah, but that was ages ago," she dismissed, remembering a young Nico mention to her about the magical world once or twice. It truly was unbelievable how many things a little boy could come across if he wandered around America for long enough. "That was a one off."

He sighed, his eyes widening as he sat back on his chair. Despite the cruelness of it all, immortality still blew her mind; he still looked like the same Latino boy he was hundreds of years ago. This was one of the two reasons why he was so reassuring. The second, of course, being that his personality was left unscathed.

Which was both a good thing and a bad thing.

"Who've you told?" he said after a few minutes of bewildered silence.

"You're the first."

"Why, Grace, I am touched," he said dramatically, a hand on his heart. "Really. I am."

"Actually, I was planning on telling Chiron, but as you were snooping around with his stuff –"

"I was not snooping!" he acted again. "Thalia, I am hurt. Hurt."

"Wait," she said in realisation. "A wizard. What was his name?"

He shrugged. "I dunno. All I know was that some other old wizard called Albus told him to with some spells."

"Oh," she deflated. No dead guy was going to do her any help. "Damn Nico and his mysterious ways."

He laughed, shaking his head and squeezing his fingers between the top of his nose as if he had glasses. "You are so going to run out of coins by the rate you're going."

"Shut up," she said playfully, realising that he was making her more laid back. "And stop making me relax! I've got things to do!"

"Yes, you do. Besides, Hazel's probably going to kill me if I stay here any longer," he grinned. "Oh, how I live the life."

"Eh. Live and let live, I guess," she said dismissively, breaking out with a quick grin before returning to her almost-permanent blank expression. "Better go. Bye, Valdez."

"Adios," he said in a disappointing Spanish accent, saluting her with a smirk. She broke the Iris Message by waving a hand across his face with a sigh.

You are SO going to get wrinkles if you don't stop being so stressed all the time, Selena's voice rang in her head as she wiped a hand down her tired face. She wished deaths of people she cared about would quit being in her head – she didn't want to have schizophrenia or anything.

Guess the whole Hunters-can't-be-ill deal was reassuring, on top of everything else.

She supposed she should've been grateful. The gods were still beside her, with a couple of immortalized demigods – and most of all, Jason. Thank Zeus she didn't lose him a second time, or else she would've given up long ago.

Even though he was basically the same age as her, he was her driving force. She wanted to be there for him if anything happened.

Not like he couldn't handle anything. Like, on a good day, he'd look like Thor on a Friday. Without the, you know, longer hair and the retarded helmet.

What were those wings on either side of his helmet for, anyway? It wasn't like they could support his whole body in flight.

Shaking her thoughts off, she checked her surroundings in case any mortals came in. Unfortunately, due to a stubborn Hazelle, she was forced to stay because Gale had decided to blurt out that she was staying at the woods when she came back a second time to watch the Games.

At least, his siblings were OK – especially his little four year-old sister, Posy. She was by far the sweetest and the most naive person she had ever met. "You're really pretty," the little girl said. Although Thalia would've normally scowled and snapped something mean, she couldn't help but coo.

The stupid kid was cute, she had to hand it to her. It turned out that the reason why she took a liking to Posy so much was that she was so oblivious to the hell she was living in.

She bit her lip in wonder, thinking of a way to make a rainbow, before spotting a class rectangular see-through glass box. Using a mirror, the light of the sun bounced off the mirror and through the glass, thus making a rainbow. "O Iris, goddess of rainbow, please accept my offering," she muttered, and to her delight, it worked. She flipped her coin and told the rainbow the location where Nico was – the Underworld.

Immediately, Nico showed up, his face surprised from the sudden appearance of Thalia but then masked his face in a serious manner. Before he got granted immortality, he got quite muscular and tall, his face not being quite as rounded but more masculine. To put it short – he was hot. But he was still the same Nico, which added to the reason why Thalia was eternally going to be single.

He grunted, "What now?"

The worry came over her again just as quickly as it went, her eyebrows arched and biting her lip. "It's Percy and Annabeth," she said, deciding not to stall like last time.

His face suddenly whitened and commanded his guards and dead souls to leave his new dark Underworld palace, sitting down on one of the dark couches. His fingers began to shake as they raked through his hair, which still in needed of a haircut and ragged. "Where are they?"

"Hunger Games."

"Shit," he breathed. "Are they okay?"

"Oh yeah. Fine. Just fighting for their lives and inevitably going to die soon," she spitted. "Nico, if one of them dies, bring them back. Like you did with that wizard guy or whatever."

"Thalia, it doesn't work like that –"

"Who cares! This is the lives of heroes that saved your life multiple of times!" she snapped.

"They didn't think of that when they left us, did he?" he barked back.

She stayed silent after that.

"They both left us to fend for ourselves, Thalia," he said quietly. "It's them that made the world the way it is. It's time we let fate take its course."

"Nico –"

"No!" he yelled sternly, but his voice was quavering a little. "Enough."

"The mist!" she argued. "The mist wasn't their fault!"

"The mist didn't do anything!" he growled. "It was her damn curiosity that killed us, that killed him."

Of course she knew what he was talking about. It was something that no one ever talked about it, especially for herself and Hazel. It was a reason to blame Annabeth and Percy for everything even more.

But he never should have died that year. Even Thalia knew that.

"What about the wizard guy?" she said after moments of silence. "You told me about him once."

"Everything would've been hell if I didn't revive him, you know that," he told her like a teacher would, even though she had no clue whatsoever of this information. "But I can't save them if hell's already here, can I?"

Gods, he was smart, too. And she hated him for it.

"A dead man called Dumbledore came to me," he continued when she didn't have anything to say. "He told me about his world. It had wands and robes and magic, and he owned a school to teach spells. Apparently the whole school was at war the same time Camp Half-Blood was."

"Suspicious."

"Yeah, I thought so, too. But then he started to talk about this guy called Voldemort, who started killing loads of wizards and witches. And if a boy named Harry Potter didn't go back to save his world... well, it wouldn't be a nice place."

Harry Potter? She swore she heard that name before. As she searched her mind, he carried on, "So when I saw him, he thought I was this Dumbledore person. It was quite funny seeing him all confused. But then the Dumbledore guy came over and talked to him, something about a Platform 9 and ¾. In the end, I just had to let Potter back."

She gasped. "Oh my gods!" she exclaimed. "Harry Potter... he's in the Games."

AND SO THE HARRY POTTER AND HEROES OF OLYMPUS UNVEILING BEGINS!

I know that before I said that I'm not going to involve Heroes of Olympus in this, but I just thought it'd be a bit weird without them there, so sorry to those of you that don't really like the new series.

Uhh... thanks for reading, I guess! :D

-Elphie