The entrance to the Underworld looked like a cross between airport security and the Jersey Turnpike, a massive entrance of roads and passageways for the onslaught of the newly dead. Countless many of them wandered in every seconds, the sight leaving Aaron tired and pancking. There were three separate entrances under one huge black archway that said YOU ARE NOW ENTERING EREBUS. Each entrance had a pass-through metal detector with secu-rity cameras mounted on top. Beyond this were tollbooths manned by black-robed ghouls like Charon.

The howling of what could only be Cerebus echoed across the void, overcoming any sound the dead may have been making.

The dead queued up in the three lines, two marked ATTENDANT ON DUTY, and one marked EZ DEATH. The EZ DEATH line was moving right along. The other two were crawling.

"What do you figure?" Percy asked Annabeth.

"The fast line must go straight to the Asphodel Fields," she said. "No contest. They don't want to risk judgment from the court, because it might go against them."

"There's a court for dead people?"

"Yeah. Three judges. They switch around who sits on the bench. King Minos, Thomas Jefferson, Shakespeare-people like that. Sometimes they look at a life and decide that person needs a special reward-the Fields of Elysium. Sometimes they decide on punishment. But most people, well, they just lived. Nothing special, good or bad. So they go to the Asphodel Fields."

"And do what?"

Grover said, "Imagine standing in a wheat field in Kansas. Forever."

The very thought made Aaron cringe, it just seemed... wrong to strip people to just that. What was wrong with just living your life? Most people weren't even put in a position to know that they had to do good to go anywhere. It seemed evil, almost, to juts leave people there.

"Harsh," Percy said.

"Not as harsh as that," Grover muttered. "Look."

A couple of black-robbed ghouls had pulled aside one spirit and were frisking him at the security desk. The face of the dead man looked vaguely familiar.

"He's that preacher who made the news, remember?" Grover asked.

"Oh, yeah."

"Lamborghini for the Lord guy, right?" Grover just nodded at him. "Wait, I have a question. how the hell did you guys know that Thomas Jefferson and other semi modern people worked as Judges? That doesn't make sense with your fear of this place."

Annabeth frowned. "I... I don't remember. Chiron told me that one I think but other things...it just spreads around. I think spirits or dreams tell us some of it. Hephaestus TV is great for some of it."

After a second, Percy turned to Annabeth and asked, "What're they doing to him? The Priest."

"Special punishment from Hades," Grover guessed. "The really bad people get his personal attention as soon as they arrive. The Fur-the Kindly Ones will set up an eter-nal torture for him."

"But if he's a preacher," Percy said, "and he believes in a different hell... ."

Grover shrugged. "Who says he's seeing this place the way we're seeing it? Humans see what they want to see. You're very stubborn-er, persistent, that way."

As the group moved closer to the group, the sound of the growls and barks became so loud the very ground shuddered under the weight of the sound. Then, about fifty feet in front of us, the green mist shimmered. Standing just where the path split into three lanes was an enormous shadowy monster. It was half transparent, like the dead. Until it moved, it blended with whatever was behind it. Only its eyes and teeth looked solid. And it was staring straight at them.

Percy, in all his glory, said the one thing none of them were expecting. ""He's a Rottweiler."

He wasn't wrong though. Cerebus was in fact obviously a purebred Rottweiler, except of course that he was twice the size of a woolly mammoth, mostly invisible, and had three heads. The dead walked right up to him-no fear at all. The ATTENDANT ON DUTY lines parted on either side of him. The EZ DEATH spirits walked right between his front paws and under his belly, which they could do without even crouching.

"I'm starting to see him better," Percy muttered. "Why is that?"

"I think ..." Annabeth moistened her lips. "I'm afraid it's because we're getting closer to being dead."

The dog's middle head craned toward the Questers, sniffed the air and growled.

"It can smell the living,"

The middle head snarled at us, then barked so loud my eyeballs rattled.

"Can you understand it?" Percy asked Grover.

"Oh yeah," he said. "I can understand it."

"What's it saying?"

"I don't think humans have a four-letter word that translates, exactly."

Aaron realized that he had to save his idiot friends, even if he was maimed and barely able to function. "Sorry, boy, but your master sent us here. We are under his orders to come to his court and speak to him. I know your just doing your job but I swear, by Styx, that we are here on his orders."

The dog's three head turned to him, each focusing with Pinpoint accuracy. Then he growled again, a softer sweeter sound that was still shook the world and was utterly terrifying.

From within the crowd came one of the Ghouls herding the mortal souls. He was a bit taller then the rest, and his skin looked a touch more alive. Without much emotion, it spoke up. "You are the Questers?"

"Yes sir. Aaron Mathews, Annabeth Chase, Grover Underwood and Percy Jackson. We were sent here on the orders of your Master, Lord Hades."

A cold sneer passed over them, before the Ghoul nodded. " Very well, come with me." The Ghoul lead them towards Cerebus, a spoken command was given and the beast stood tall. As one they walked briskly under its belly until they reached a metal detector. "You don't happen to have magical weapons on you?"

"Yes, sir we do. All of us bar Grover and he has magical shoes and his panpipes of course."

"Of course you do, Demigods..." He said that last word like it was a curse, something vile and dirty and frustrating. Seemed to fit as he lead them past the metal detector, waving off the swarming masses of ghosts as he did so. "Go straight down this path, and it will lead you to the Gates of Erebus. As you can see we are quite busy, We cannot afford anyone to go with you. Do not deviate or cause trouble." With an annoyed gesture, as if they were not worth it's time, the Ghoul waved them on.

As the Ghoul marched away, Aaron couldn't help but say. " Rude." Before following his friends as they marched down the appointed path, eyes forward and arms wrapped in a sling...

Everything seemed to be going wonderfully for the first twenty or so minutes of their walk and then they saw Asphodel. Imagine the largest concert crowd you've ever seen, a foot-ball field packed with a million imagine a field a million times that big, packed with people, and imagine the electricity has gone out, and there is no noise, no light, no beach ball bouncing around over the crowd. Something tragic has happened backstage. Whispering masses of people are just milling around in the shadows, waiting for a concert that will never start. The black grass had been trampled by eons of dead feet. A warm, moist wind blew like the breath of a swamp. Black popular trees grew in clumps.

The cavern ceiling was so high above us it might've been a bank of storm clouds, except for the stalactites, which glowed faint gray and looked wickedly pointed. Dotted around the fields were several that had fallen and impaled themselves in the black grass. I guess the dead didn't have to worry about little hazards like being speared by stalactites the size of booster rockets.

As it turned out, instead of being scary or epic the dead are hard to look at. Their faces shimmer. They all look slightly angry or confused. They will come up to you and speak, but their voices sound like chatter, like bats twittering. Once they realize you can't understand them, they frown and move away. The dead aren't scary. They're just sad.

At least, that is what Percy told him, to Aaron they sounded like actual whispers.

"Mother, Mother, where are you?"

"Oh, I am so sorry Hazel, my poor girl...my poor darling, forgive your pitiful greedy mother...

"Twinkle Twinkle Little Star..."

All sorts of odd bits and ends echoing through the masses, becoming more and more clear as he bumped into them.

'How can I hear them... is it because I am close to death, is it my humanness?'

The path they were on was covered in the will-less dead.

The path itself lead to a blacktented pavilion with a banner that read:

JUDGMENTS FOR ELYSIUM AND ETERNAL DAMNATION

Welcome, Newly Deceased!

Out the back of the tent came two much smaller lines.

To the left, spirits flanked by security ghouls were marched down a rocky path toward the Fields of Punish-ment, which glowed and smoked in the distance, a vast, cracked wasteland with rivers of lava and minefields and miles of barbed wire separating the different torture areas. Aaron couldn't see the actual torment, his vision wasn't the best when compared to the amazing physical powers of a Demigod, but according to his friends there were torments like being chased by Hellhounds and listening to Opera... it awful and funny and terrible.

The line coming from the right side of the judgment pavilion was much better. This one led down toward a small valley surrounded by walls-a gated community, which seemed to be the only happy part of the Underworld. Beyond the security gate were neighborhoods of beautiful houses from every time period in history, Roman villas and medieval castles and Victorian mansions. Silver and gold flowers bloomed on the lawns. The grass rippled in rainbow colors. Aaron could hear laughter and all but feel love oozing from the place.

Elysium.

In the middle of that valley was a glittering blue lake, with three small islands like a vacation resort in the Bahamas. The Isles of the Blest, for people who had chosen to be reborn three times, and three times achieved Elysium.

"That's what it's all about," Annabeth said.. "That's the place for heroes."

"Can I go there." His voice caught, to his shame, and he looked down at his battered hands. " Would I be able to without helping you lot, or would I have been doomed to Asphodel for just living my life?"

No one really seemed able to answer, not even the know it all Annabeth. She just looked at him sadly, unsure and unwilling.

We left the judgment pavilion and moved deeper into the Asphodel Fields and with each step more and more of their color and livelihood seemed to fade away. The Spirits thinned to a manageable level, with Aaron feeling less confined and more at peace in the massive place... at least a little.

"I suppose it's too late to turn back," Grover said wistfully.

"We'll be okay." I tried to sound confident.

"Maybe we should search some of the other places first," Grover suggested. "Like, Elysium, for instance ..."

"Come on, goat boy." Annabeth grabbed his arm.

Grover yelped. His sneakers sprouted wings and his legs shot forward, pulling him away from Annabeth. He landed flat on his back in the grass.

"Grover," Annabeth chided. "Stop messing around."

"But I didn't-" Aaron realized that the goat boy never said the word Maia. Something else was wrong but before he could say it, the shoes yanked on Grover.

He yelped again. His shoes were flapping like crazy now. They levitated off the ground and started dragging him away from us.

"Maia!" he yelled, but the magic word seemed to have no effect. "Maia, already! Nine-one-one! Help!"

Percy quickly a grab for Grover's hand, but too late. He was picking up speed, skidding downhill like a bobsled.

Even Aaron, with his arms bound, ran after him. Step after agonizing step he chased the idiotic goat boy from whatever magic was affecting the shoes. He was haunted with fear at his helplessness.

Annabeth shouted, "Untie the shoes!"

Grover tried to sit up, but he couldn't get close to the laces.

"There a lose fit, just wiggle your hooves and they'll slip off." Aaron screamed out, all but beginning his sort of friend to listen and save himself. It didn't matter as instead of barreling through the close Gates of Erebus the shoes veered sharply to the right and dragged him in the opposite direction.

The slope got steeper. Grover picked up speed and they all had to sprint to keep up. The cavern walls narrowed on either side, and they had apparently entered some kind of tunnel.

"Grover!" Percy yelled, my voice echoing. "Hold on to something!"

"What?" he yelled back.

He was grabbing at gravel, but there was nothing big enough to slow him down.

The tunnel got darker and colder and with the cold came images, images that slowed down Aaron's movements and left him close to vomiting. The sound of a throat being slit, a sacrifice burning on a pyre, the soft cry of a mother as she watches her child burn... Terrible things, things so vile he all but passed out on the spot. As it was he felt tired, weak and weary, like being empty of magic or being underfed.

He stopped moving, dropping to his knees. His eyes blurring out of focus, his mind drifting and struggling to maintain some focus.

"Come on... move... move damn it..." His pain relief spell canceled out and he felt everything all at once, the magic overridden by whatever was in this nasty pit... or maybe it was the pit itself. "Move... hel… help them..."

Whatever this was it was not meant for mortals and their weak magic. Whatever it was, it

"Come on, Percy!" Annabeth yelled, tugging at Percy's wrist. "I know!" she shouted. "The place you described in your dream! But Grover's going to fall if we don't catch him."

Blackness took him... and then it faded, the cold sharp hand of Annabeth caught him by surprise, making him looking up from his new place, far away from the pit, "What the hell."

She was kneeling, with Percy looking at a scratched up and terrified Grover. " You passed out, did the pain come back?"

"Yes, but only after I collapsed... what the hell was that. I felt so empty, like all that I was … was being sucked out of me."

She cringed. " That was Tartarus, and the thing pulling from you... I think it was My great grandfather." They shared a look, pained and scared. "He cast a spell, drawing us into the pit... I guess it drew on our lifeforce but your human so what we can shrug off is hard or impossible for you.

"That sucks... thanks for saving me... and I think we need to hurry."

She nodded, and slowly helped him up, with him doing his best not to cringe as waves of searing pain washed through his arms.

'''''

Finally, finally they reached the outer walls of the fortress. They glittered black, and the two-story-tall bronze gates stood wide open.

Up close, it was clear that they were covered with engravings that had scenes of death. Some were from modern timesan atomic bomb exploding over a city, a trench filled with gas mask-wearing soldiers, a line of African famine victims waiting with empty bowls-but all of them looked as if they'd been etched into the bronze thousands of years ago.

Inside the courtyard was the strangest garden ever to be seen. Multicolored mushrooms, poisonous shrubs, and weird luminous plants grew without sunlight. Precious jewels made up for the lack of flowers, piles of rubies as big as a fist, clumps of raw diamonds. Standing here and there like frozen party guests were Medusa's garden statues- petrified children, satyrs, and centaurs all smiling grotesquely.

In the center of the garden was an orchard of pomegranate trees, their orange blooms neon bright in the dark. "The garden of Persephone," Annabeth said. "Keep walking."

The tart smell of those pomegranates was almost overwhelming and we had to stop Grover from taking a huge bite.

We walked up the steps of the palace, between black columns, through a black marble portico, and into the house of Hades. The entry hall had a polished bronze floor, which seemed to boil in the reflected torchlight. There was no ceiling, just the cavern roof, far above.

Every side doorway was guarded by a skeleton in military gear. Some wore Greek armor, some British redcoat uniforms, some camouflage with tattered American flags on the shoulders. They carried spears or muskets or M-16s. None of them bothered us, but their hollow eye sockets fol-lowed us as we walked down the hall, toward the big set of doors at the opposite end.

Two U.S. Marine skeletons guarded the doors. They grinned down at us, rocket-propelled grenade launchers held across their chests.

"You know," Grover mumbled, "I bet Hades doesn't have trouble with door-to-door salesmen."

"Well, guys," Percy said. "I suppose we should ... knock?"

A hot wind blew down the corridor, and the doors swung open. The guards stepped aside.

"I guess that means entrez-vous," Annabeth said.

The room inside looked just like Aaron's dream with the beautiful god before him sitting powerfully on the throne and again, next to him, standing tall and powerful and radiant was Hecate. She was dressed as before, looking down at them with cold efficiency. Their aura of strength was stronger then anything he had ever come across, his very presence felt invigorated from their strength. He stood taller, brighter and was able to shove off the pain, letting his vision focus entirely on the beings before him.

"You are brave to come here, Son of Poseidon," Hades said in a smooth, sensual and powerful voice. "You are right to come here, but I wonder... you swore an oath that you never stole the Helm or the Masterbolt and yet..." He smirked, a dark twinkle in his eye. " You were given it willingly, and you came down here to threaten me with it?"

"Wait what?" Aaron stepped forward, bowing to the massively powerful being, doing the same to Hecate with a grin. " Sir, I swear to you we do not have or knowingly have the..." His eyes widened, and he considered everything they went through him. "Sir, before you judge us, let us tell you of our travels. There is something that I think you will like to hear."

Hades smirked, leaning on his arm. "Very well, I promised you an audience Acolyte of Hecate, I will listen to what you have to say and then I will cast my judgement."

""""

The Conversation lasted nearly an hour, telling each and every bit and piece of their journey, complete with oaths of sincerity from each one of them. Even Annabeth, with her loathing of the dark god, managed to squeeze out an oath. Eventually they finished and when they did, the man turned to Hecate.

"I would never had suspected Ares would be so utterly foolish."

Hecate snorted. "I would, he has long since been impetuous and ruthless. This is exactly what he would do... but to think that your father is rising after so many years dormant... this is unprecedented and cannot be ignored." After that she and Hades jabbered away in perfect Greek, so fast that he doubted that even Annabeth could understand them. She turned to the Questers. "Percy Jackson, open your bag, dear child."

Percy frowned at her and they turned to look at him with shock as when he opened it up... they all saw the contents. "That wasn't there before."

Hades chuckled. "I doubt you would have. That is the Masterbolt and it seems Ares set you down here to frame me, or you or something of that nature... or perhaps your Luke tricked him, seeing as you almost entered Tartarus... it matters little. We must be quick, there is little time."

Hecate stood straight, her eyes wide and focused on something they could not see. " I see a new path ahead of you, but Aaron must stay here with me for the time being. He and I have much to discuss, what with his talisman shattering. Lord Hades will return you to the beach above where you will make a powerful choice." On her statuesque face a smile appeared, almost carved across. " Be proud of yourselves, you had discovered a great many things that will serve our people well. We will reveal what you know to Zeus and the other Olympians. Your actions and discoveries will not be in vein. Percy, your mother will be returned with your Stepbrother, to your home. Do not despair of that."

Percy, ever the tool, frowned. " What choice?"

"Percy, a god cannot challenge another god, even to return a stolen good." Annabeth spoke up, her face pale and tired. " That means you or I or Grover is going to have to-"

A wave of shadow ripped across them, blasting upwards into the cavernous walls above. The Shadow didn't vanish however, and Aaron watched as it began to project an image of his fellow questers. They were facing Ares...and Aaron broke out into a panicky sweat.

"Please don't die... please don't die."

"Sit back, Child and watch the show." A chair appeared beneath him, getting Aaron to sit and watch as ordered. The ache in his body dulled considerably as he did so, his energy moving to something other then the pain. "This scene was fated and you cannot intervene. I am afraid it must happened exactly as was destined." Hecate appeared beside him, her face serious. " Consider this a lesson that you have struggled to accept. You cannot fix everything or stop every stupid act... and this, my dear, is one of them."

Chapter end, tell me what you think in the reviews.

This was hard, fun and powerful. I cannot wait for the next chapter which will be more utterly original and barely a reference to the OG series.

Love, your Ninja Overlord,

Mika.