Oh my gods I am so annoyed! Our wonderful (heavy sarcasm) internet company won't be installing broadband at my house until April 5 (AT LEAST!) I blame Hermes. That's another month of no internet!

Thanks for the reviews everybody! No, they won't reach the House 'tomorrow'!

Disclaimer: *sigh* so annoyed. I do not own HoO

Time: eight, nine – in bed.

Chapter XXV Hazel

Hazel's dreams were as bad as usual. Through a swirl of colour she saw Percy and Annabeth, fighting in Tartarus. This time, it was a pod – well, at least Hazel thought it was called a pod – a pod of telkhines versus Percy and Annabeth. Hazel wondered if she could speak. If they were going to be at the House of Hades tomorrow, Percy and Annabeth would need to know.

"Percy? Annabeth?" Hazel called.

The voice that came out was ghostly, twisted into a voice that sounded like… a spirit of the dead.

Percy didn't seem to hear, but Annabeth did. "Who's there?" she asked, still fighting.

"It's me! Hazel!"

"Hazel?" repeated Annabeth. "What's going on?"

"Leo said we'd be at Epirus tomorrow. What about you guys? Are you OK?" Hazel winced at the last question. OK and Tartarus didn't go together.

"I'm fine," said Annabeth. "Percy, Hazel's here!"

"Where?" asked Percy, spinning around and vaporising the monsters around him in an arc.

"Here!" said Hazel. "Oh, yeah… you probably can't see me. Percy, we'll be at the Doors tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" asked Percy. "Thing is, Hazel, I'm pretty sure Tartarus time is different to whatever time zone you're in."

Hazel silently cursed. She should have thought of that. Time always flowed differently in monstrous places.

Annabeth stabbed another telkhine. "We're making progress, I think. Maybe we'll be able to see you there."

"Percy? Annabeth?"

This time it wasn't Hazel talking. It sounded like another spirit of the dead.

"Who's there?" called Percy.

"Frank!" replied the voice.

Frank?

Hazel didn't have time to ponder the weirdness of it all, because just then another voice yelled. "It's Leo! You guys all right?"

What in Dad's name?

"Jason here! How are you guys doing?"

"Guys, it's me, Nico!"

"Annabeth! Percy! It's Piper!"

Annabeth's eyes widened. "You're all here?" she asked incredulously. "The chances of that happening are one in a… hmm, what's…" She mumbled something incoherent as she continued slicing up monsters. Hazel felt amazed. Annabeth was doing calculations and fighting monsters at the same time?!

"Let's just call it a conference," said one of the ghostly voices. Jason?

"Yeah," Percy agreed. "What's going on up there? How many days has it been?"

"About three, four, five, to be honest, I didn't keep count," said a sheepish voice. Nico?

"Wow, it's only been one and a half days down here," said Annabeth. Dispatching the last monster, she sat down.

Percy did the same. "Tell us what's been happening."

Frank's ghostly voice took the lead. "Well, we rested on an island for a quick stop, got caught in a storm sent by Poseidon because- " He was interrupted by Percy saying "You guys what? An island? You guys know islands are in the middle of the ocean, right?"

"Yeah, we figured it would be the best place to tell your dad," said Leo. Or was it Nico?

Percy sighed. "Let me guess, he took it badly."

"Uh, yeah."

"Anyway, then we met the Karkinos, a giant crab -" Hazel could have sworn Percy's eyes widened. " – and after we dealt with it Apollo appeared on the Argo with his car, and treated us to a horrid haiku – something about 'oops a crash landing' and 'nice chat with half-bloods'."

Percy smiled. It was nice to see that expression on him again. "Did Nico tell you not to listen to Apollo's haikus?"

"Yeah, I did," grumbled Nico. "The idiot called Leo wouldn't listen."

"Hey!"

Annabeth grinned. "What happened then?"

"Well, Leo helped him fix the car and we got an insight into Olympian family dinners," said Hazel.

Percy snorted. "Sure it wasn't an Olympian arguing dinner?" he asked.

"Yeah, it was mostly arguing," said Nico. "Then we got attacked by giant bees and went way off course. As we tried to get back on course, Jason told us we had to go to Delphi. You know, the old place of the weird green mist that lives in Rachel? We had to go there, and then, we got a very nice, very mystifying prophecy that basically stated what we already knew. After that, we fell asleep and got here."

Annabeth raised her eyebrows. "Nice, Nico. Did you go insane?"

What kind of a question was that?

"Annabeth!" complained Nico. "No, I most certainly did not go insane, thank you very much!"

"Hey, what's going on? I think I'm leaving!" yelled Jason.

"Yeah, me too!" said Leo.

Annabeth shrugged. "The most likely reason is that you are either waking up or having another dream. You said the House, tomorrow?" Her voice was fading away rapidly.

"Yes!" yelled Hazel.

Then her own dream swirled and turned into a different picture. The Romans doing late-night planning over a map of Camp Half-Blood.

Oddly, Octavian seemed to be the center of attention. To Hazel, there was probably no weirder thing. Octavian wasn't a fighter, he was a speaker. He definitely wasn't a planner. It made absolutely no sense, why Octavian was the center of attention when they were planning. Unless Octavian had received incredible wisdom or a dream of the Greek camp, Hazel really couldn't figure out what everyone was doing. Or maybe, Octavian had been captured and then freed? That didn't make sense either. Why would you capture somebody, tell him about your place, and then release him? Maybe they hadn't told him, or shown him around? He was too skinny to be a hostage? The children of Apollo didn't like him? There was a teddy-lover in the camp? They thought he was stupid?

In any case, Octavian was the center of attention, strutting up and down the tent like the king chicken in a flock. The thought made Hazel laugh a little.

"There were very little defences on the sea side," he was announcing. "Ships, maybe?"

"Octavian, do you actually want Neptune to kill you?" asked a centurion. Was it Robert? (A/N that was a random name)

"Uh… well, we obviously can't go up the hill anymore. They have a dragon guarding their little pine tree with its fuzzy gold thing."

"That gold thing, Octavian," said Reyna, "is the Golden Fleece. Of course they'd have a dragon guarding it."

Several centurions and senators choked. The Golden Fleece was a pretty big thing, after all. After regaining his confidence, Octavian said, "If we avoid the pine tree, we should be alright. They leave some pretty big gaps in their defences. Greeks. Always overconfident."

Hazel wanted to hear more, but there was a sudden jolt and the dream lurched.

There was another one. And another.

What's going on?

Hazel's dream shattered, splintering into a thousand pieces as Hazel sat bolt upright in her cabin.

It was swinging like crazy.

Storm, she thought. Poseidon.

Hazel found herself clinging on for dear life as the Argo swung and lurched. She risked a peek outside the window.

Outside, needle-like rain, hailstones and sleet were falling. And the wind was howling as it raced by.

In a few minutes, the other demigods were awake, too, and they gathered to have a 'conference' in the dining room. Hazel went too to join them.

We should have SO listened to Nico, she thought, before she walked into the dining room and took her place.

Storm! That's your answer, guys! I hope you liked it. I know the ending was totally crap, but I hope you guys like it all the same!

Now, please scroll down. See that white box? Type something in. Anything. I don't care. Then click post. There! Not so hard to review, right?

Review please!