If Nico knew what they were doing, Percy wasn't sure how he would react. But it's not like he could stop them.
Hades had dragged him, Persephone, Demeter, Katie, Hermes and his kids, Clarisse and Ares down to the Underworld for a family dinner. Ariadne had seen this as their only chance to make sure that Nico didn't live his future.
Ariadne had the bright idea that Percy should be the spokesperson. She had all but dragged him to Aphrodite. [Percy noticed that she wasn't really talking to the goddess. Her words were stilted as she struggled to keep affection out of her tone.] He had been dressed to look like a dashing young man and not some rascal from the streets.
Ariadne only smirked knowingly at him when they made their way to the Omni Shoreham Hotel. In another world, Hades wouldn't have left them out of his sight. But this wasn't that world. Percy didn't think she needed to come, but he knew that she wasn't interested in anything but reestablishing her title as Nico's favorite.
[He knew of her plans to reintroduce him to Mythomagic and establish herself as the favorite of all time by getting him every version with all pieces. Jokes on her, he had already secured a Hades figurine created by the god himself.]
The small family was sitting in the lobby area just as they had in his dream. Ariadne shot him a look before she and Annabeth snuck off. He had tried to tell them breaking into their rooms wasn't going to go over well. But Ariadne had laughed and reminded him of how stubborn Maria Di Angelo had been when Hades was trying to protect her and if he really thought she was going to listen to a bunch of kids.
He still didn't feel comfortable with it. Even when they tried to spin it as a smooth relocation. He wasn't sure how Annabeth and Ariadne were so okay with it. [He suspected that they really weren't but he had no proof to prove otherwise.] Then Thalia had argued that it wasn't kidnapping if Maria consented to the move. Of course they could have spent hours arguing about the logistics of it all, but Ariadne had just dragged to the nearest hell pup to travel with.
He watched them for a while. Maria was a beautiful woman. He could see where Nico got his looks from. She looked just as she did all those years ago in his dreams. He would save her. Nico deserved to know his mother and little Nico deserved to never forget.
"Ms. Di'Angelo," he called out to her. She looked at him and he was reminded of his own mother. But she also reminded him of Amphitrite. The way that her dark eyes seemed to pierce his very soul. He felt as if he was standing before the three judges of the underworld. She smiled at him sharply. He swallowed back his nerves. He had been through too much to be intimated now. "My name is Percy Jackson. I'm here to take you somewhere safe."
It had been almost too easy for Ariadne to sneak away from the hotel. Percy and the others were going over the last details with Maria since the woman agreed to come with them. Well she agreed to go with them.
Ariadne had other business to handle.
She determinedly bypassed the Labyrinth entrances in her peripheral and made her way towards the sea. She shook out a few dolphin flakes into the water and waited.
The hydra pup that surfaces greets her warmly. She smiles a little sadly. This one will never be her Ennea but that's okay. This one can be her- "Schmidt. I name thee Schmidt."
Never let it be said that Ariadne wasn't a troll.
The pup yipped excitedly crawling out of the sea. It stood at exactly five feet and she knew it would only grow taller once he reached adulthood. Still- she reached forth to scratch lightly under the pup's chin.
"I call upon the power of the seven seas; the Arctic, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, North Pacific, South Pacific, Indian, and Southern Oceans. To match the strength of the five oceans; The Pacific, Atlantic, Indian, Southern, and Arctic. With the gifts granted by sea's kings...Pontus, Nereus, Oceanus, Poseidon, Triton. I bless thee with a storm's heart for I am the ocean's offspring."
She almost folded over in pain from the sheer strength of it all. The ancient magick of the sea had never been kind. It rushed through her overtaking her senses at the speed of a hurricane. She could feel it slotting into places she hadn't even known were empty. She hadn't attempted this back in her original time. Back when she was mortal. But she wasn't anymore and she needed a friend.
She closed her eyes tightly.
Ariadne wasn't sure what the future held for them but she needed to be prepared. Bonding her essence to a hydra was the best way to go. [Cut off one head and another grows back]
"Schmidt… I need a ride," she whispered. The pup yipped happily before lowering itself back into the water and enclosing her in a space made by his heads.
She needed to save them.
Save Percy.
Because that's all she's known.
And that's what she was going to do.
Nico knew something was wrong the second that his father tensed at the dinner table. He had already been ignoring the spot where he knew Hekate had liked to sit in their first timeline for dinner. The woman used to laugh and tease him as Nico sat grumpily at the table eating the food that his stepmother made for him. [He ate so much wheat bread that sometimes he used to feel like he was a strain of grain.] But the seat was occupied by his Aunt Demeter now and he could admit that side of the room looked entirely more radiant than the way Hekate used to seep the Netherworld's magick into her skin. The man froze as he turned his gaze out towards the judgement lines. The other godlings spare him worried looks.
Did they somehow trigger the death of his mother? Were they too late? Or too early? His memories of this time were spotty at best. Was that second chance already gone? Did Zeus go back on his word?
His father turns back to the gods and they all start speaking in the tongue of the ancients. His godly siblings still look confused and that was the only reprieve he had. Melinoe and Zagreus eyed their parents dubiously as the other grew more agitated. They were, after all, only third generation gods.
Hermes' form flickered and suddenly the Olympian looked as if he had been born to reside in the Netherworld before he flashed back towards his usual look. He had only managed to catch one word, "Gigantes".
His father and stepmother called for one of the chefs to bring out more food. The two and the other Olympians quickly left the table. They barely got a few steps closer to the door when the entire realm began to shake. Nico could see the ornament pieces vibrate in their positions. The hazelaid ornaments that decorate the dining room walls flew from their hooks.
He and the other godlings yelped and ducked under the barrier that Zagreus used to protect them from the stygian iron swords that flew from the walls. His father turned towards Melinoe sharply, words twisted in together so tightly and quickly that he could barely hear the orders he gave.
But in the next second… a smokey appapariation filled the room. No… a ghost. A recently dead one at that. Her eyes were screwed shut as her mouth was opened in a silent scream. The precious metals in the room flew towards her spinning around her as if to protect her. Her own personal armour that swiped at an invisible enemy like a puppet on a string.
Nico couldn't tell what happened afterwards.
A shift had gone over the gods including his siblings. His father- no, his king spat an order out to The Furies [one that his queen echoed]. They were ushered away into the room that was once his and his to claim again. He could already see the places he was going to fill back with his scrolls and items.
But that behavior was strange. And from the looks of the others, they had noticed that shift to.
Nico looked at the hazeloid necklace in his hands and he wondered just what that girl had to do with it.
Ariadne kind of wished she brought some thicker clothing with her.
She fed Schmidt the rest of the dolphin flakes and told him to get away. Alaska was too cold for him. She hasn't told anyone the feelings she had been having. The dreams she was having. It made her wish for the Sleep.
But she needed to do this. Besides, she wasn't one of them anyway. " You do not belong here."
They were right of course. She didn't belong with them. Her body… her soul sung with a promise of death. The storm screamed inside of her. She could feel it now. The demand to be free. It wanted to rain hell down to earth. It wanted to wash over land and salt the earth with the blood of her enemies.
No, she didn't belong to them. Not them. They were so good. So human.
Ariadne was sure her humanity had been lost to her in the Bermuda Triangle. It was lost when she reached within herself so deeply into the divinity of her essence and pulled . She didn't belong to them anymore when she woke to the sight of golden blue eyes staring at her with a hand plunged into the middle of her chest.
Even now she could feel echoes of the divine essence pulsing within her veins.
She had become more god than mortal.
She remembered the looks that Mr. D gave her. And she knew he hated looking at her. A child of Poseidon with his wife's name. But she glowed with the power of deities within her. She glowed with the power of being more. He looked at her in pity and understanding .
She didn't understand it then. She barely understood it now.
But she didn't need to. Because she knew her reason to have been born. She could only live so that others could achieve their best version of themselves.
[Gods above she needed her brother. She had finally let go of all her trauma only for it to sneak back on her and suffocate her with its depth.]
She took the chance to look around her. At the mountain that plagued her dreams. The woman who spoke with that horrible voice.
"Do not lose hope, little fish. I'll make sure your future is well prepared."
And the demigoddess that she held gently in her arms as she wept. The girl's eyes sparkled as beautiful as the gems that made up the Death Queen's garden. Her hair was as wild and curly and beautiful as nature itself. If it weren't for the obvious relations she shared with the woman crying over her, Ariadne would think she was the daughter of Persephone.
But the girl radiated death and she knew her to be her uncle's child.
"Save us. Save them. Katie. Nico. Bianca. Thalia. Percy. Save them."
The mountain began to rumble as the demigoddess turned away. Her eyes were locked onto the thing [the giant her mind whispered] . Ariadne lunged forward screeching in shock and pain when the very ground sunk under her feet.
Phantom feelings of hands grasped at her very being pulling her down and down and down. It pressed at her as she thrashed. It pulled at the power within her dragging it through the lyre marking on her chest. Her cries were attuned with the demigoddess across from her. The gold in her eyes fading to a more hazel like color.
" I shall see you soon, " was the last thing she heard as she jolted upwards. Her own eyes shined with the power of the sun as it clawed its way out of her chest. A scream scratched at her lungs as the sea thrashed under her skin.
And the last thing she saw was the image of the demigoddess and her beloved Apollon overlapping each other as she descended into the land of Morpheus.