Annabeth continued on, leading the group towards DOA Recording Studios which was also the entrance to the Underworld.
When they reached the sign that announced that they were entering Los Angeles, they all cheered.
"Hey, Nico. I didn't know that your father was such a romantic", Leo asked, gesturing to the Spanish portion of the sign.
"He's not". Nico scowled at Leo as he just kept grinning.
"The full name of this city is El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina del los Angeles".
"Yeah, so". Nico was trying to decipher the meaning of the name from his experience with Italian, but he couldn't get it.
"So? So he named the city after your step-mom. It means The Town of Our Lady the Queen of Angels. He named it after Persephone".
Leo looked around the group, proud about his discovery, but Annabeth just shrugged her shoulders.
"Cool".
They passed the sign and continued on. The entrance wasn't far from where they were, and Percy still hadn't made an appearance yet. He was probably going to meet them there.
Their assumption was correct when they walked into the studio and found the suspicious lack of resistance.
"Where did Charon go?".
"I'm right here. And thank you for pronouncing my name correctly".
They looked down to find him just sitting placidly on a nearby couch, the souls of the dead drifted around him but he didn't seem to care.
" You guys are demigods, right? Can you please get the shadowy ice guy out of my chair?".
"I told you that I am not shadowy, I just don't want to freak you out by lowering the hood".
Percy spoke up from a chair in front of the elevator. He hadn't said anything when they walked it, and they hadn't even noticed him sitting there.
"The gods know I've freaked out enough people today".
He mumbled the rest under his breath, but it was clear that he felt bad for being responsible for them not being able to take the bus.
"I keep trying to explain to you that I am Charon, the ferryman of the underworld, I have seen a few scary things in my lifetime'.
"I know who you are, we've met", Percy deadpanned, a hint of amusement in his voice.
He turned back to look at his friends who were still standing in the doorway.
"Are you ready? The elevator's here".
The doors behind him dinged and opened as if in response to his words.
"Hold on, the entrance to the Underworld is in an elevator?", Leo looked skeptical, but Nico just walked forward and got into the now open, elevator.
"You can leave Charon here, I can navigate the boat".
The rest of the crew walked forward and into the elevator, which seemed to increase in size as more people got on.
Charon stood up from his position on the couch for the first time since their arrival.
"Nico, I only just started training you, you can't go on your own yet".
The crew looked at Nico in astonishment.
"You're being trained by the ferryman to guide the ferry?", Leo asked.
That look of confused shock seemed to be permanently glued to his face.
"We'll be fine. I've been training, and besides, we have Percy here to guide the river for us".
Percy winced, he was hoping to avoid being recognised.
"Alright, well we have to go now, so-".
"Hold on a minute! Percy, as in Percy Jackson? Do you know how long I've been looking for you. Practically everyday I get bothered by somebody or another asking if I'd seen you".
He stepped forward and on to the elevator with them just as it closed.
"You don't look like your picture", his eyes travelled over Percy and compared it to a small photo he held in his hands.
"Yeah, well, I've changed", Percy said, surprising everybody with the note of bitterness in his voice.
"Maybe if I could see your face...?".
Xavier shook his head. "You don't want to do that.
He pulled back. Well how about your soul.
Nico looked up from where he had been leaning against the wall and was about to say some sort of warning, but Charon was already gone.
He reached over towards the boy standing next to him with his mind. Searching for his soul living inside of him.
It seemed reluctant, closed off, like there was a wall built around it.
Percy was looking away from the ferryman, not wanting to talk about the ugly reminder that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
But then he felt it, a cold creeping feeling, like someone was looking at him from the inside out.
His head snapped up, looking for the source and finding the strangely silent Charon with his eyes closed, swaying back and forth on his feet slightly.
There was a singular mental door leading into Percy's soul, and it remained closed with no doorknob when Charon approached it.
Percy's eyes flared with anger as he realized what Charon was trying to do, and he lashed out.
The mental door was suddenly flung open, and Charon suddenly found himself surrounded in a nightmare.
Ice grew around his feet and ankles, trapping his subconscious in place and forcing him to watch the horrors of this boys past.
Heat bombarded him and yet the ice never melted.
He became aware of a small presence crumpled on the ground just through the door. Upon closer inspection, he realized that that figure was Percy.
He wasn't wearing his hood, but his face was stopped over so that Charon could not see it.
Visions flashed before his eyes so fast he couldn't register them all. But the raw emotions that rolled off of them were almost enough to make want to curl up on the ground and cry.
Him. The ferryman of death.
The pure pain and suffering that rolled off of him in waves made Charon stumble back, except he couldn't, his feet were stuck and he fell to the floor.
Anger, hopelessness, and grief so strong it was as though everything he had ever loved was gone.
And the feeling of unbelievable hopelessness and despair was what was left in the end.
"Just let me die!".
The words were sobbed, and accentuated at the end my an almost animalistic scream.
"Now why would we do that? You're so much fun!".
The voice was dark and made of pure evil. And the hissing sound that came when something was poured over hot coals followed.
The vision cut out and Charon was left staring at the boy, now glaring at him accusingly from across the room.
"Leave. Now".
The ice disappeared from his ankles, but Charon just used the newfound freedom to scrambled backwards away from him on the ground.
The trident almost seemed to glow in the dim lighting. The pale trident circled and played tricks on his mind. But the thing that really haunted him about the Brandon were the words underneath it.
All must fall.
The words stayed with him. Even when he was kicked out of his subconscious which shouldn't have been possible.
Even when he returned back to see Percy glaring at him with so much rage that he could feel it even without being able to see his eyes.
All must fall. Just a pawn. Always a pawn. What's the point?
The remainder of Percy's thoughts clouded his mind and he stepped back as far as he could go without falling out.
It was now so cold that they could all see their breaths misting in front of them.
"You had no right!", Percy yelled at him.
His hood fell back, revealing the horrid scar whose significance ran so deep it was imprinted on his very soul.
While he was occupied, the elevator had morphed into a ship, and he was now wearing his signature dark hood and cloak, his face morphing into a skull.
The River Styx drifted by below them, remnants of lost and forgotten dreams making it so polluted that they were making slow progress.
Just before the boat touched the shore, Charon answered.
"How do you deal with so much grief and pain?".
He was genuinely curious, and Percy must have picked up on that because he stopped just as he was about to snap out a reply and his face grew solemn and serious.
But then he chuckled, it held no amusement but at the same time wasn't the dark laugh that had always made his friends question his morals.
"I don't".
With that he and his friends got out of the boat and walked away, across the black sand and towards the castle looming in the distance.
"I can shadow travel us all there. It shouldn't use up so much of my energy now that we're in my father's domain", Nico said, nodding his head towards the castle.
They stood in a circle and put all their hands together, Nico's going last and on top of the pile.
The space around them seemed to warp, the shadows elongated and suddenly all they could see was darkness.
They were moving so fast that Percy thought his face was going to be pulled off, and air rushed past their ears and created a steady roar.
Just as soon as it had started, though, it stopped. And they found themselves in a bedroom.
It was wide and spacious, and decorated completely in varying shades of black and grey.
"Where are we?".
His friends looked rather sick, Leo stumbled over to where he guess was the washroom to find a toilet to puke in. Jason just lost his balance and collapsed onto the floor in an undignified heap, and Frank turned into a very sickly looking cat. Percy himself fared much better, having shadow travelled before, he knew slightly more than the others what to expect, and just got slightly dizzy, leaning casually against a wall to hide it.
"This is my room. I just had to grab some… things".
Percy didn't ask, too caught up on the bit that he had a bedroom in his father's palace.
Percy hadn't even ever been to his father's palace, much less have a room to call his own in it.
Nico didn't seem to notice Percy's shock, and just shrugged his shoulders.
"Yeah. I'm his ambassador, so I have to come down here a lot to speak with him. I actually kind of like it down here".
Nico sat on the edge of the bed and smoothed the comforter lovingly.
It was strange, to see the younger boy like this. The last time that he had seen him, Nico was still bitter and in pain, still remembering his own time in Tartarus.
What he was saying showed, though. His bedroom down here was much more decorated than his cabin in either Camp Half-Blood or Camp Jupiter. He even had a CD Collection and a really old CD Player that probably came out before monsters could smell.
Leo stumbled out of the bathroom, still looking slightly green but otherwise back to his old self.
"Dude, nice digs".
Nico just nodded and fiddled with something in his hoodie's main pocket.
Percy was naturally curious, but he let it be. Nico obviously didn't want to talk about it.
"So… Should we go? My dad should be in his throne room right now".
The others nodded, and they all walked towards the door, letting Nico take the lead as they followed him around a confusing series of twists and turns.
Percy was still fuming after the ferryman's intrusion, and he had to concentrate very hard not to let the ground beneath his feet frost as he walked.
The corridor that they had been walking down suddenly opened up, and they found themselves standing in a massive throne room.
Two large thrones were at the center of it, one made of black obsidian and fused bones, and the other more flowery, with golden highlights.
In one, sat Hades. Persephone's remained empty as she was up in Olympus with her mother during the summer months.
As they walked in, Hades didn't even turn towards them, just saying, "Nico! What brings you?".
The group walked around so that they were now facing the thrones head on.
"We need to get to Tartarus".
Nico's answer was blunt, and Hades raised his eyebrows in amusement.
"And why would that be, boy?".
Hades' eyes roamed over the rest of the group, then, as if just noticing them standing there.
"Ah, let me guess. You're going to jump down there and try to fight a primordial in his own domain".
Their faces must have given it away, because he laughed before any of them could speak.
"And I suppose you have a plan, then".
He smiled darkly and shrunk down to their size.
"Yes, Lord Hades".
Annabeth nodded her head.
"Well then. Continue on your way. Why do you need my permission to jump to your deaths?".
"The doors of death", Hades turned to Percy who had so far stayed at the back of the group, brooding.
"We need them, and you can talk to Thanatos for us".
Hades smiled with thin lips that barely hid anger.
"Father, please", Nico stepped forward again, drawing the gods' attention to his son.
There was a tense moment of silence when the Lord of the Dead and the Ghost King stared at each other.
"Fine. I will speak with him", he finally growled.
His eyes fell to his two children together, who were standing side by side, and softened slightly, before hardening once again to sharp glinting pieces of obsidian.
He stood up, striking Percy once again as still being distinctly powerful before completely flashing out and leaving the demigods alone in his throne room with Nico to guide them around the palace.