Disclaimer: Rick Riordan owns PJO, HOO, the PJO characters, the HOO characters, and the Mark of Athena. I do not.
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Chapter 29
HAZEL
Hazel dropped to her knees, and she knew Jason and Frank were doing the same.
"This is an honor, Lord Jupiter," Jason said hesitantly, then added, "father" as an afterthought.
"Praetor Grace," Jupiter nodded. "It has been a long time. You keep… interesting company. Now, rise. This is not a time for such formalities. Though, it appears your Greek friends did not feel it necessary to kneel."
Hazel smothered a smile as she rose and saw Percy rolling his eyes at the Roman god.
"It appears… you need help," Jupiter said stiffly.
"No offense meant, Lord Jupiter, but don't you have a policy to refrain from involving in demigods' quests? In your Greek form, you don't like to… associate with demigods much," Annabeth said, seemingly undaunted by the powerful god.
"Ah," the god smiled humorlessly. "The daughter of Athena. Though I am not my Greek form, it is true. There are interference rules that I like to comply to about your mortal quests, and usually, I pride myself on following them."
"Like you all kept your 'no kids' pact," Percy muttered.
Jupiter eyed the son of Poseidon, but didn't say anything, so Hazel assumed that he hadn't heard what Percy had said.
"However," Jupiter continued regally, "We are in a time of war. There is no denying it anymore. The real fight with Gaea will start soon, and certain rules must be… ignored."
"Why did you come, though?" Percy asked. "Don't you usually send others to do your dirty work?"
"I will choose to ignore that comment, son of Poseidon, as I did with your first one, but I am warning you: watch your tongue. I won't hesitate to incinerate you, no matter who your father is," Jupiter said threateningly. "About your young friend, Nico—yes, I believe that's his name—anyway, you'll need him in that fight. I cannot aid you directly in that battle, but he is on this floor. One last thing, though, is that you should be aware of your powers. Good luck."
The demigods turned away and closed their eyes instinctively as the king of the gods flashed out.
"Be aware of your powers," Percy muttered. "Wonderful. They're really helpful, aren't they?"
Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Oh, stop complaining, Seaweed Brain. You should just be thankful that he didn't incinerate you on the spot. And he told us where they're holding Nico."
"Yeah, but how's one kid supposed to help at all?" Jason asked.
Percy, Hazel, and Annabeth all glared at him, effectively shutting him up.
"This floor, right? How hard will it be?" Leo asked.
"If you haven't noticed," Piper added in, "this place is huge. Annabeth, how did you find Jupiter anyway?"
"I ran into him about five minutes before I got here. He said that he could see the monsters, and that they attack him a lot, so I assumed he was a demigod. He introduced himself as Giove, which, now that I think about it, means—"
"Jupiter in Italian," Jason supplied. "That's what I was about to say before he turned back into the godly form."
"Yeah, I felt there was something off about him, but I didn't expect him to be a god, and definitely Jupiter, out of all the gods he could've been," Annabeth admitted.
"Wow, you didn't know something?" Leo asked, seemingly astonished.
"Oh, shut up." Annabeth glared at the son of Hephaestus.
"We should, uh, go find Nico now…" Hazel supplied.
"Right!" Leo said brightly. "Stop stalling, Annabeth."
Jason laughed as Annabeth glared at Leo. "You'd better watch out, Leo. Now, she looks downright murderous."
Leo laughed nervously. "Well, I'll lead then. Annabeth, you can take the rear."
"Absolutely not," Annabeth retorted. "Who gave you the idea that you should lead? I think Hazel should, just in case we go underground, and since she might be able to find Nico better. You know, since they're, uh, kind of half-siblings."
"We just like to leave out the part where his dad is Greek, and mine is Roman," Hazel said. "It gets much too confusing. Usually, we just leave it at half-siblings."
"Okay," Annabeth agreed. "Well, lead the way, then."
Hazel nervously stepped to the front, extremely aware of Frank's lifeline in her jacket pocket. She pulled the jacket tighter around her frame, as if that could somehow protect the small stick of wood more.
Nico's skull ring had just a drop of silver, but Hazel had learned to recognize it specifically after Nico went missing.
She felt it. It was very faint, since the ring wasn't large, but it was still there, in the building. Luckily, whoever captured him probably hadn't thought to take it off of him.
"That way," Hazel informed the rest as she pointed to the right. She started speed walking over, pausing every so often to check for monsters and to make sure she was still going in the right direction.
It was a painfully slow process, especially with the fact that Nico might already be dead, or that they could kill him at any moment weighing down on her mind.
"And we turn here," she muttered to herself, peering around the corner to check for monsters. She motioned the rest of the demigods to come forward when she found the hallway deserted.
Frank had offered a couple times to take the lead and check for monsters, while she just told him where to go. She'd refused. She knew he was trying to protect her, but she could fight on her own. All the same, he kept pace and stuck right behind her like a burr.
"Almost there," she whispered loudly, so the others could here. "And another turn here." Finding the hallway once again clear, she ventured into it with Frank on her heels.
"This is strange," she heard Annabeth murmur from somewhere behind Frank.
"Yeah," came Percy's whispered agreement. "There should have been monsters and demigods all over the place. It shouldn't be so… easy. I mean, I'm fine with easy, but that never happens."
"Hm," Annabeth said. "That just means that they want us to find Nico. They're leaving the path clear. They don't want any monster or demigod casualties right now."
"Maybe they're planning some huge attack for later," Percy added helpfully.
"That's an optimistic though, but yeah, probably," Annabeth replied grimly.
Hazel refocused her undivided attention on the path to Nico. They were almost there; they only had one last hallway. She poked her head around the corner to check for monsters and retreated hastily. Frank stepped in front of her to check it out and make sure the monsters didn't come around the corner and attack while she addressed the rest.
"So, I guess they have some security," Annabeth muttered. "Wouldn't want it to be too easy, now would they?"
Hazel and some others cracked a smile, and Frank continued to play the watch guard.
"So, Nico is in a room in this hallway. There aren't even that many monsters, though. Well, I guess it would be a lot for one person, but we have seven. I saw… maybe six guards? It's six, right, Frank?"
"Yeah," he whispered back. "Five guarding the door, and one is just patrolling the hallway—shh!"
They all stopped talking and flattened themselves to the wall, letting the shadows cover them. The guard monster, a dracanae, briefly came into view before deeming there to be no enemies, and turning around and heading back.
"Yeah, that's the sixth," Frank said after a few deadly silent seconds.
"So, one for each of us, and the last person gets to break Nico out," Percy concluded.
Annabeth nodded. "Hazel, do you want to get him out? Or, if you'd rather fight, I'm sure Piper's charmspeak could do the trick."
"No, it's okay. Piper can fight. I'll get him out of there," Hazel said.
"You should go to the back, then. We'll distract and fight the guards, while you get Nico, just in case they set off an alarm, which will mean we need to do this fast. If there are more guards in there, start fighting, yell out how many there are, and some of us will come in to help. Got it?" Annabeth asked.
Hazel and the rest nodded in agreement.
"Against the wall!" Annabeth whispered urgently, as the dracanae stepped in and out of view again. She'd taken the lead, and Frank had come in front of Hazel.
"Okay," Annabeth whispered, once the monster was gone again. "Go!"
Hazel followed the rest of the demigods as they stormed out. The fight wasn't too hard, and as she kicked open the door to the room, she saw Percy turn his monster to dust.
Luckily for her, there were no guards in Nico's jail room.
She saw him slumped over unconscious in a corner, and her eyes started to burn and sting uncomfortably. As more tears started to prick at her eyes, Hazel carefully made her way over to Nico. She heard the sounds of a couple more monsters being turned to dust.
Nico wasn't chained or anything, which just reestablished Annabeth and Percy's theory from earlier that this escape was way too easy. They'd encountered six monsters on their way to freeing Nico, and she knew that they'd all expected there to be more.
Nico didn't seem to be hurt either. She shook him lightly, hoping that he'd wake up, but their luck had run dry.
She tried to pick him up, which didn't work, considering he was both taller and heavier than her. Percy, who she hadn't even seen enter the room, helped her get Nico to his feet.
"When did you get here?" Hazel murmured.
"After I killed my designated monster, I helped out the others a little, and it seemed like they'd be fine, so I figured you'd probably need some help."
Hazel nodded. "Thanks."
Percy grinned. "No problem. This idiot is like a little brother to me sometimes, but don't tell him I said that."
Hazel laughed, and she noticed Annabeth and Frank standing in the doorway as well. When she and Percy walked into the hallway with Nico between them, she noticed Leo standing guard, and it looked like Jason and Piper had just finished off the last monster.
"A couple more monsters came from over there," Percy explained. "That's what I was helping out with."
Hazel nodded, biting her lip. Nico was heavy, even with Percy bearing some weight.
"Here, I'll help," Annabeth offered, noticing Hazel's discomfort.
"Thanks." Hazel smiled gratefully as Annabeth supported the rest of Nico's weight with Percy.
"Well, we can't exactly fight with him unconscious," Annabeth said. "They might take him again, since he'd have to stay behind if we attacked."
"So… we just wait until he comes to?" Piper asked.
Annabeth nodded. "I don't see any injuries, so hopefully he'll wake up soon."
The seven demigods, with an unconscious Nico in tow, slowly made their way to a room where they could stay until Nico woke up.
Hazel's relief couldn't really be expressed in words. All this time, she'd been thinking the worst. What if he's dead? What if they've recruited him to the enemies' side? What if they don't even have him and he's just missing? What if he got lost? What if he's stuck in the Underworld?
All the 'what ifs' hadn't really helped. But, now, they'd found him, and even though he was unconscious, he was alive and seemed to be unhurt.
The relief comforted her like a warm blanket on a cold winter night. He was all right, and that was all that mattered to Hazel at the moment.
Frank, seeing how happy she was, smiled and patted her shoulder awkwardly. She grinned back at him as they entered another room.
Annabeth and Percy set Nico down gently in a corner, making sure he was in a comfortable position.
Annabeth then handed Hazel a flask of nectar from her back, some of which she drizzled into Nico's mouth before smiling gratefully (again) at Annabeth and handing her the nectar.
The demigods sat down and got comfortable, waiting for Nico to wake up. Hazel, who sat the closest to the unconscious son of Hades, glanced at him every so often to check if he was awake yet.
"So, Annabeth," Jason said, breaking the silence. "What did you do when you were on your own?"
"Well," Annabeth said. "I started heading towards the Piazza Della Minerva, since it seemed to be a place connected to my mother, if only distantly. I figured you guys would be somewhere around, which was true. Anyway, after a couple of detours, I got here. I followed trail of fire here, which I think was from my mother, and killed some monsters. I met Giove right before I got here, and that's it. Wisdom's daughter walks alone. Check. The Mark of Athena burns through Rome. Check. So, my part of the prophecy is done, I think."
"No offense," Jason said, "But nothing really important seemed to happen. Why was that necessary? I mean, if you hadn't gotten separated, then there would've been no flaming Mark of Athena, and everything would've turned out the same."
"Except for Giove," Frank added. "Or Jupiter. Whatever you want to call him."
Jason shrugged. "He probably would've found us anyway. He caught up with Annabeth a block away, right? So, he probably knew where she was heading, which means he knew where we were, so he could've just come straight to us."
"So, why did he go to Annabeth instead of coming straight here, then?" Percy countered.
Jason was about to retaliate when Annabeth interrupted. "Look, I don't know why it was important either, and there is no point in wondering what might have and would have happened had I not been separated from Hazel, Leo, and Frank. But it happened, it fits and fulfills part of the prophecy, and nothing bad happened, so let's just leave it at that, shall we?"
Leo snorted in laughter. "Shall we?"
Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Oh, grow up, Leo," she snapped.
The son of Hephaestus just grinned in reply.
Hazel heard a groan from the corner of the room and turned around to check on her half-brother.
"Hazel?" Nico asked. "Oh, thank the gods."
Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it! A special thanks to everyone who was reviewed, followed, or marked this story as a favorite! It means a lot to me! :)
Please review!
Also, if anyone's interested, I've edited the beginning of Chapter 3. I've noticed some mistakes and less than satisfactory writing in the first few chapters, so I'll be going back and fixing them.
-smileyface9 :)
