Chapter 8: Shadows and cars

Rated T for violence and light swearing

The drive was honestly pretty peaceful for the first couple of hours. Driving with Jason had been actually more amusing than she would probably admit out loud. He blasted the radio when neither of them was sleeping. Classic rock station. Some of the songs seemed so similar but also had randomly different lyrics or the band name was different. It was so weird. Oddly enough, every song she sort of recognized was a little different, except for Never, Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley.

The Gods are cruel, but that probably would have made Percy laugh. So it made her smile.

She also had plenty of time to figure out what was happening. They were going down to the caverns to meet up with Nico. That's right Nico Di Angelo. And he would shadow travel them back to New York over the next few days. She was kind of excited to go to what she assumed was Camp Half-blood.

Part of her was also kind of nervous. She had a feeling the sooner they ended up at this base the sooner she would be seeing the alternate universe Percy. Something about that just seemed weird. Or wrong.

The journey wasn't awful. They may have fought some hellhounds outside a taco chime (yes, the taco bell alternative), and after their taco chime got ruined from fighting hellhounds they went back in and ordered more. The gas station they stopped at had a homeless empousa outside that saw Jason and Annabeth as a decent meal but who would have thought that homeless empousa were so much less enchanting?

So far it had been smooth sailing. Way better than their trip down from Small Bear.

That was until could see the red and blue lights reflecting off her mirrors and hear the siren behind her. Waiting for Annabeth to pull over.

"Di Immortales, what now?" Jason muttered in an irritated tone as he blinked the sleep out of his eyes.

And despite how smooth the sailing had been on the car ride, the lights suddenly reminded her of the police they had been running from in Big Bear. She was also driving a stolen car. Could she even legally drive in this universe anyway?

"We have to be there in 30 minutes. Annabeth! You have to lose him!"

Annabeth gripped the wheel a little tighter. Monsters could be hard sometimes, but mortals? They had nothing on her.

"Right! When do I turn?" Annabeth pressed on the gas.

…

Annabeth really hoped that Jason had a way out because as they turned down the only road to the Carlsbad Caverns parking lot, a tiny bit of her calculated the likely hood that she ended up in jail in a different universe. And the further they went down the road the higher that likelihood seemed to get.

"You better be a plan for us to escape, Jason" They had managed to love the two police cars that ended up following them, but she wasn't sure that there would be any escape at this point even without them following. She wasn't sure what the plan was, but the dead end was literally a cavern. She really hoped they had some pegasus waiting for them in the parking lot.

"There is a plan, don't worry." He pointed to someone standing ahead of them as they pulled into the parking lot, "Look she's right there."

Annabeth almost did a double take as she slammed on the brakes a couple of feet from the girl. That definitely wasn't Nico. She was dressed in all black just like Jason had been. Except her shirt had the outline of a white pegasus printed on the front.

Annabeth almost didn't recognize the girl. Which was weird for her, she had a pretty good memory. Her long brown hair and eyes were so dark they were almost black. Not too much taller than she remembered, but definitely older. Sixteen maybe seventeen. Unlike most demigods where it seemed like they got sadder as they got older, she seemed happier than the last time Annabeth has seen her.

Jason definitely wasn't as phased as Annabeth. He smiled excitedly at Annabeth, got out of the car, and walked over, "Bianca! Hey! I thought Nico was picking us up."

Annabeth shut off the car and came over to them.

"Yeah, well Nico did something dumb so he's on bed rest." Bianca smiled, "I wasn't expecting to see a minivan, but it's good to see you're still kicking Jason."

It was quiet for a second, and Jason looked down, "Yeah, the same can't be said about Ethan."

Bianca put her hand on his shoulder and gave him a sad smile, "I know, but he's ok. Elysium."

Jason smiled back at Bianca and then looked to Annabeth as if suddenly remembering she existed. Granted, she'd stayed quiet. Annabeth had spent most of her time since she'd gotten out of the car analyzing Bianca.

Unlike Ethan, who seemed to just have the patch on a different eye, this sixteen-year-old Bianca was very different from twelve-year-old Bianca Di Angelo. Annabeth had only ever seen Bianca alive once, and then once after she died. But she hadn't remembered him being like this. A bronze bow was gripped in one hand with a black skull-covered quiver on her back. Her hair was back in a braid. Obviously no green cap. Maybe last time Annabeth hadn't noticed the freckles or the bright smile. Her olive skin was tan, a big difference from Nico's. She seemed pretty happy, like the type of person that would probably have smile wrinkles around their eyes when she got old. It was different than either of the times Annabeth has seen Bianca.

Happy until Bianca's eyes met Annabeth's. Then, recognition, confusion, and then fear. She knew something, that obviously Jason didn't know.

"Sorry I forgot to introduce you two. Annabeth this is Bianca daughter of Hades, she's our ride. And Bianca this is Annabeth daughter of…"

Jason had never asked Annabeth. Though Annabeth never thought she would need to, it was sort of obvious. Eighty-five percent of her siblings looked exactly the same. And before Jason could finish his sentence, Bianca finished it for him.

"Athena. Yeah I can tell," Bianca gripped her bow harder and then turned back to Jason, "Where did you find her?"

Somehow Jason had more of a reaction than Bianca had, he took a step back and looked at Annabeth in surprise, "You never told me you were a child of Athena."

Annabeth wasn't sure why he was so shocked if he really had been around greeks a lot, basically, every child of Athena looked the same. But what worried Annabeth was something else. Her mind flashed back to the small bear. The naiad had wanted to kidnap and sell her, a daughter of Athena

"Does that matter?" Annabeth placed her hand on the hilt of her sword, "Is it a problem?"

Bianca had read the tension and she responded quickly, "No. Not at all. You're greek. You are one of us but-"

Suddenly all three of them notice five park rangers who were slowly walking over to them. Something was definitely off about them. And guessing by their current track record, Annabeth guess they wouldn't be coming over to tell them some cool facts about bats. Actually, according to her current bad luck, they were probably monsters.

"-we have to get out of here." Bianca continued to scan the area. Annabeth assumed she was looking for shadows.

"Ok yeah," Jason said, "How far are we going to jump?"

"We need to get to camp as soon as possible, we're going to New York." Bianca had a grimace on her face.

"I thought-" Jason started.

"No," Bianca sighed stressfully, "We can't risk having the three of us outside the base all together for too long. Three powerful demigods.."

Annabeth could basically hear the unspoken, a daughter of Athena, trailing behind her sentence, but it clearly wasn't the time to figure out what the deal was.

Annabeth caught on, "How are you going to get us to New York in one jump?"

"I don't know, Nico has always been so much better at shadow travel than me, I'll try to get us as close to the base as I can. " Then Bianca's eyes stared at something behind Annabeth and then quickly darted back to the approaching rangers.

Before anyone could say anything else, Annabeth could hear sirens again, coming from the parking lot entrance.

Di Immortales, they were going to jail.

"Ok let's just pick any shadow, we can jump somewhere small and then jump to New York," Annabeth said.

Bianca shook her head, "No, if I do any shadow traveling right now I won't have enough energy to get us to New York today. We can't risk having you out in public any longer," A pause, and then Bianca seemed to have made up her mind, "Alright get in the car, we're driving into the cavern. The darker and further underground easier this will be."

Maybe the rangers were close enough to hear their conversation cause just as Biance finished speaking, they started running toward them. And Annabeth couldn't shake the feeling something just wasn't right about them.

Bianca didn't need to tell Annabeth twice. Annabeth booked it back to the car and stuck the keys in the ignition, with Bianca and Jason following close behind her. The second their doors closed and just as a police car came into view she zoomed past the rangers and headed towards the hiking trail entrance with a boom gate shining in the sun.

There was only one logical solution to getting past the boom gate.

Their car zoomed toward the boom gate. And it broke with a satisfying 'CRACK' as the minivan pushed through it and onto an even rougher dirt trail that was just big enough for the minivan.

They would have been home-free if not for the rangers. Something really had been off. Three of the rangers were still following after them, except with every stride they took after the minivan they seemed to grow. Huge, super ugly human-like creatures. With familiar wild eyes and terrible tattoos. Lastrigonian Giants. Very far from the north. And very fast.

Annabeth could only go so fast on the gravel road, and she felt like she was about to spin off into the boulders and patches of dead bushes that lined the path.

"They are going to catch up, can someone-"

"I got it!" Bianca immediately crawled into the very back of the minivan and smashed the trunk window into pieces with her bow without a second thought and started shooting.

Even in the car mirrors, Annabeth could see it wasn't very effective. The arrows bounced off the now much bigger and apparently sturdier ranger uniform easily. It only slowed them down a little.

"It's not doing much, Jason get back here!"

Jason clicked off his seat belt, very Jason of him to put his seatbelt on during a chase, and started climbing to the back "I'm coming!"

The giants must have gotten tired of having things flying at them, because just as Jason left his seat a huge boulder almost seemed to appear in front of her, luckily far enough away that she could swerve past it. But then every couple of seconds she could feel the ground shake as boulders came flying toward the car and just miss her. Soon Jason was shooting apart boulders with his lightning and Bianca was trying to do the same with her arrows.

Annabeth could see the entrance ahead of them and unfortunately just as she came over the hill, a long set of zig-zagging rails leading down into the cavern appeared. No way a car would fit down there. And it wasn't like she had the control or a slow enough speed to go down even if she wanted to.

"Hey! I have a problem!" Annabeth yelled.

Jason turned back and looked past her into the railings they were only seconds from slamming into, "Oh Hades no!"

Before Annabeth could even brace for impact or step on the brake, suddenly the steering wheel and the gas weren't even making a difference. But they were still moving forward, just as fast as they had been before.

She looked down below her as the front wheels just barely flew above the first railing.

Flying. Holy Hera, the car was flying.

As Annabeth looked back she saw Jason with both hands on the door of the car with sweat dripping down his face as the car continued to fly into the cavern.

"Bi-Bianca! Get ready!" he yelled.

The Giants came to a stop at the beginning of the rails and were now just throwing rocks and yelling, as if yelling loud enough might somehow boomerang us back toward them.

Bianca stopped shooting arrows and placed both her hands on the floor of the minivan, "Hold on tight, once it gets dark enough I'm going to-"

Annabeth couldn't hear the rest of her sentence over the sound of the car rattling from the rocks hitting it, the yells of the giants behind them, and a siren somewhere behind them, but she gripped the steering wheel hard. Before she even knew it they flew into the darkness. Another second and Jason must have passed out cause they were descending into the darkness and the light behind them was fading.

They were enveloped in darkness and then, WOOSH!

It felt like they were falling so fast that her face was peeling off.

And as if it couldn't get darker already, everything went pitch black.

…

There were shouts, voices she had never heard before.

"What have you done to them?!"

"Look bud, they're gone, I don't care who you are, this is bigger than you mere mortals."

"They didn't do anything wrong!"

"They existed. That's enough. Get out of here before I make you join them."

Silence and then.

"You're wrong."

"About what?" A crackle that sounded like electricity, "I told you to get out of here."

"You're wrong… I'm no mere mortal."

"What…"

A second of silence and then tortured screams.

A/N: Hi! So, I haven't been on this site in like two years. But it's cause I went on a mission for my church. Never forgot this story though. And while I know where I want to go with this I'm not sure how it'll get there or how much of a priority it will be especially when I start up college again. But once I finally get them to the base yall can get a better explanation of the problem (actual problem) is. I might take this little dream scene out later, but I want to start fitting the "problem" in even if I can't get to them in a while. Anyway have great day. Hope your thanksgiving was good.

Important Note: I have not read any Trials of Apollo or Magnus Chase. Anything that happened in those books either has not happened yet or did not happen at all.