Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or HP
Chapter twenty-nine
Jay POV
Tartarus was not so different to what I thought it would be like.
The air kills you- sounds about right.
You must drink fire to survive- again, that's plausible.
And, there are monsters everywhere- that was to be expected.
But, never did I think Nico would know where to look for Will.
It never occurred to me that he would know his way around here, that he would be able to sense where Will was.
But he could.
We had been attacked by twenty or more monsters in the space of what, a day?
There was close to no sense of day here, certainly no day and night.
Just the dark, the poisonous air, the smell of death and monsters.
Great fun.
If you like dying slowly and painfully.
It felt like we had been down here for years, but in reality, it was only about 3 days.
They would die down here if they weren't out soon.
And they still had to find Will.
5 Days, they didn't have much time left.
Nico had told them that they were close to Will, only a few hours away.
How he knew we didn't ask.
We just wanted to get out of here.
Why had we signed up for this anyway?
I had little reason to as it was, but Arya, she had no reason, right?
Had she seen something in the future?
Apollo's kids could do that, couldn't they?
A few hours later, and we were standing outside a palace, it was guarded by titans and giants alike, and all of them were fully decked out with armour.
The only option was to sneak in undetected.
It suddenly hit me that I might never go back to Hogwarts, back to my home, might never see camp half-blood.
Might never see my friends again.
And neither would Arya or Nico.
Nico might never see Will again.
No. I wouldn't let them die.
They had to survive. They had to.
"Nico," I whispered, "How are we going to get in there?"
"We aren't." He replied, not meeting my eyes.
"What do you mean?" Arya said, and I could see that she was weakening, there was no sunlight down here, and a child of Apollo could only go so long without sunlight.
"I mean I'm going alone, you're too weak to come, Arya. And someone needs to stay with you."
"But you can't go in alone!" I said, borderline angry.
"Look, I can't save Will if I have to look after you two as well, OK? I'm leading this quest, and you will stay here. Understand?" Nico looked upset, like he didn't want to leave us behind, but he knew, just like me, that we would only slow him down.
Why did me and Arya even come, well, why did I come?
I guess to protect Arya.
But why did she come?
To heal Nico and Will if they got hurt?
Maybe, maybe not.
"Fine," I said, "We'll stay in that cave over there, yell if you need help."
"If I yell, you hide, you do not enter that building, am I understood?"
"Yes." I lied, there was no way I would leave him to die in that place, not If I could help it.
I turned to Arya, she was getting weaker by the second. She looked like she might faint soon too.
"Come on Aya," I told her, putting her arm over my shoulder to support her, "let's go."
There was an unspoken agreement between us.
Once he couldn't see us, we would follow.
Nico POV
I didn't want to leave them behind, but this was turning out to be more dangerous than I thought.
I should have just come alone, what was I thinking, bringing two untrained demigods down into Tartarus?
After 5 days, I had finally stopped freaking out every time I woke up, thinking my dreams had come true, which of course, they had.
I shuddered and closed my eyes for a few second, before opening them and heading out towards the castle.
I had to do this, I had to get Will out of here.
Otherwise, he would die.
There was one thing I didn't understand, this was obviously a plan to get me down here, to get me to Will, so, if Tartarus wanted me, why did he make it so hard for me to get here?
Why didn't he just leave a message and let me get here peacefully, and by myself?
I didn't understand, and maybe, I never would.
But it didn't matter, did it?
I was going to do this, whether I understood it or not.
Reaching out to the shadows, I tried again to move towards Will's life force.
I hadn't been able to shadow-travel last time, so why now?
I shook my head to clear my thoughts and studied the castle to find a way to sneak in.
Around the back, where there was only one titan on guard, there was a window with a small hole just bellow it, just big enough for a small demigod to fit through.
For once, I was glad I was so small.
I studied the titan, he looked very familiar… Could it be?
No, it wouldn't be him. Percy and Annabeth hadn't ever said it, but I knew from the way they had said his name the few times they spoke about him, he was dead.
Or as close as a titan could come to dying anyway.
And why would Tartarus let him guard his castle.
No, this was a different titan, and not a friendly one, that much was certain.
Sneaking around the back wall, I started to scale the side of the castle.
All that time on the climbing wall would finally pay off.
I studied the wall closely and soon found a path, grabbing the first hand-hold, I started to pull myself up the wall.
Once I was inside, I looked around the room, it looked like I was in some sort of armoury, there were swords and armour all over the place, but there was also an awful lot of food.
Weird
I grabbed a smoke bomb that I could see lying around and walked over to the door.
Smoke bombs would be useful as I had next to no control over the shadows here. They would give me the distraction I was going to need.
As I walked out of the room, I drew my sword, expecting there to be guards of some sort patrolling. Instead, I found a long corridor with a single door at the end.
Walking to the door, I prepared myself for an ambush, there was no way of telling what was behind that door.
I pushed it open slowly, and when I saw the room behind it, I froze.
There were two doors, an iron one, and an obsidian one, the iron one had more guards, so that one must have been Will's, but the thing that made me freeze, was what was in the room itself.
A throne, and someone was sitting on it.
Tartarus.
I heard a noise behind me and turned around to see my friends.
"You idiots!" I whispered angrily, "What the Hades were you thinking?! Coming after me when I told you to stay put!"
"We were never going to leave you to do this by yourself, you need our help to save Will." Arya said, she must have eaten some ambrosia because she looked stronger than before.
"I think Will is in there," I said, turning around to point at the iron door, "And the way out in there" I pointed at the other one.
"How are we going to defeat all of those monsters? What type of monster even are they?" Jay asked, pointing at the guards, they were tall giant-like things, around 15 metres tall each. And they looked hungry.
"I don't know, but they look like they could use a snack, so lets make sure that snack isn't us." Arya said.
We nodded, and I looked over to Tartarus.
Surely he already knew we were here?
"I have a plan, it's a crap plan, but it's the only one I can think of."
"What is it?" Jay asked.
"Just follow me, oh, and let me do the speaking."
"Speaking? What do you-"Arya started.
"Just follow me and keep quiet."
"Okay" "Fine" They answered.
I walked out from our hiding spot, and Arya and Jay followed me. Taking a deep breathe, I headed towards the throne, were Tartarus was sitting, his gaze following us as we came closer and closer to him.
"Hello demigods," He grinned, "and to what do I owe this pleasure?"
"What do you want from us?" I said, trying to keep my terror down. "What do you want from Will?"
"Can't a primordial have a little fun from time to time?" Was his only answer.
"What. Do. You. Want." I repeated.
"You want me to tell you what I want? Very well." He grinned again, "I just want to play a little game. It's simple really, there are three challenges for you, three worlds that need your help. And if you help them, then you can have your little friend back, but no before then. Your first challenge, defeat Tom Riddle, and then you will be one step closer won't you? If you defeat Riddle, then I will tell you the next challenge. But if you lose, then let's just say your friend will be sleeping for a long time."
I stared at him, trying to figure out how to save Will.
"Give him back!" I screamed, and I felt Arya and Jay holding me back, "GIVE HIM BACK!"
"Umm, no, I don't think I will." And with that, he snapped his fingers, and the shadows started to surround us.
"NO! WILL!" I screamed, and I heard a familiar voice shout my name.
"Nico? NICO!" I turned around to see Will, handcuffed and unable to move, on the floor, and behind him, the Demigod I was going to kill.
"Phoenix let me go!" Will screamed, trying to get towards me.
"Will! WILL!" The last thing I was were the tears falling down his face as we were pulled apart from each other again.
As the shadows moved us back to the overworld, I said only one thing.
"I'll save you Will, I'll complete these trails, I swear it on the river styx!"
A/N-
Hi…
I have nothing to say for myself.
I'm sorry, please forgive me.
Have an extra long chapter as an apology.
Only 4 chapter left!
I'll try to upload the next chapter today as well, otherwise it will be tomorrow!
Hope you like it! And thank you to every single person who reads this, favourites it, follows it, and reviews!
Once more, I'm very sorry and have no excuse.
See you soon! :)
-Solangelo21
