A/N

Dreamingisseeing101, no, the sword doesn't give power over everything. There's a reason it worked against Demeter, but I'll explain that later. Crius isn't going to just going to whip it out whenever things get bad, it's going to be next to useless for most of the story. It's important because Crius hasn't got full control over his powers yet, but even then it is little more than ornamental.

Crius kept running. He didn't know how long Demeter would remain bound, but as she was the goddess of plants, he didn't think that it would be very long.

After a while, when he realized that no one was chasing after him, he paused.

As he looked around the forest, he noticed that it somehow looked different, which wasn't right. He had been everywhere here. But it wasn't that he was in some unknown part of the forest, but rather that he was somewhere he had been before. The forest just somehow looked different, if that was possible at all.

But then Crius guessed that if the Greek gods existed, then maybe it wasn't so impossible at all.

Hey you, someone seemed to whisper to Crius. Over here.

Crius looked wildly around for ten seconds before the voice repeated itself. It wasn't like actually hearing something with his ears; rather the voice seemed to be talking inside his head.

Is it the tree? Crius wondered.

No, not the tree, the vine. Only I'm not supposed to be a vine, so do please be quick and turn me back to what I was.

Crius saw the thin green vine curling around the tree then, and wondered just what it meant by 'turning it back to what it was'. Crius held up his newly found sword, and the inside seemed to glow a dazzling shade of emerald, and the vine seemed to resonate with its glow, and slowly it sank to the ground and assumed the shape of a human.

The man was wearing very simple white robes, but there was a very large sword in his left hand, which was the first thing that caught Crius' attention.

"Thanks kind," the man said.

"Why were you a vine?" Crius asked.

"Punishment," the man said. "Persephone decided to punish me like this after I was thrown out of the Underworld, though she let off Theseus for some reason. But I'm not spiteful; I guess he was the better fighter."

Crius remembered something about Theseus. "Wasn't Theseus a hero? Why would Persephone try to punish him?"

"Um, well, it was my fault really," the man admitted. "We were planning on marrying, and if you want to have a wife, she should be someone powerful, right? Especially seeing as we were demigods, so I wanted to kidnap Persephone, but then Hades punished us. Hercules managed to convince her to release Theseus, but Persephone turned me into a vine because I was the one who had started it all."

"What's your name again?" Crius asked.

The man narrowed his eyes, as if he wasn't used to people asking for his name and for some reason expected Crius to know it instantly, but he still answered. "Pirithous, son of Zeus. I guess you must be knowing my partner, Theseus, a bit better than me. We used to get into a lot of trouble together."

"I need help," Crius suddenly said, remembering that there were currently several very angry gods after him.

"Sorry, but I need to go," Pirithous said. "But I might give you a bit of advice: Go find a river and talk to the naiads. Say that you helped Pirithous, Theseus' friend, and they'll probably help you."

With that, the man vanished like the morning dew leaving Crius confused and slightly angry. No one's giving me any concrete advice, he thought angrily. But still, with nothing better to do, he decided to wander off to wherever this river and 'nayads' were. He did find one finally, which was very odd considering that he didn't remember there ever being a river in the forest before. The whole forest seemed to have suddenly changed on its own whim. Or maybe it had always been like that; just Crius was looking at it differently. Now, Crius knew absolutely nothing about naiads and so had no idea where he could find any. He decided to start by checking out the water's surface. The river wasn't too wide or too swift. But that wasn't the danger that Crius should have been wary of. The moment he came near the river's surface, hands suddenly shot out of the water and grabbed both of his ankles. "Come…" voices beneath the waters said, though Crius couldn't see them.

"Lord Poseidon demands your presence."

Crius tried slashing at the water with his sword, but that didn't seem to have any effect. Inch by inch, he found himself slowly entering the river. "No!" he shouted. "I'm a friend of Theseus! Let me go!"

Whoever was pulling him seemed to hesitate for an instant, but before Crius could relax, they started pulling harder. "Lord Theseus is important yes," the voices seemed to say. "But Lord Poseidon cannot be denied!"

And with that, Crius was finally pulled into the water. He then guessed that something had hit him on the head, because he then lost consciousness. When he woke up, Crius saw that there was a very angry, very powerful sea god staring at him in the face. Oh no, Crius thought. The god was as scary as Zeus or Hades, and Crius took that to be confirmation that he was Poseidon. "Lord Poseidon," he said, imitating what the naiads or water spirits had said. He didn't want to end up insulting this guy. Poseidon stood well over twenty feet tall, and for some reason was dressed up in a suit. But the most remarkable thing about him was the long trident that he was carrying. The water around the tips of the trident sizzled and shifted, as if it was constantly being heated.

"Silence child!" the god bellowed. It was then Crius saw that he was sitting on a very small chair someplace underwater. He didn't bother asking how he was breathing in case that just made Poseidon even madder. Poseidon raised his arm, and two sharks swam out of the surrounding waters. They weren't very big, but they had huge razor sharp teeth that could not have been natural, and their eyes glowed red for some reason. "These are my grandchildren, Athis and Paul," Poseidon said. "Sons of one of the Argonauts, whom I made immortal. They are rather special, for the moment they hear you lie, they will devour you whole. Now, I want you tell me exactly what has been happening."

Crius pretty much blurted out everything in a real hurry. He didn't bother mentioning that he thought Paul was a weird name for a shark, though. All the time Poseidon kept glaring at him like he really wanted to vaporize him but just wasn't sure on how to do it. Crius found that though he wasn't bound by anything visibly, he could hardly move. He didn't understand what was pressing itself against him until he realized that it was the water itself. He tried using his sword once. But it didn't do anything to Poseidon like it had done to Demeter for some reason.

When he finished, Poseidon asked, "Is that it?"

"Yes," Crius said lamely.

"Child," Poseidon said angrily. "All of Olympus is in chaos because of you, and the only thing that you've managed to tell me is that apparently you know nothing."

"But it's the truth! I don't know more about all of this any more than you," Crius said. Poseidon stroked his large beard thoughtfully.

"It all happened so suddenly that most of us have no idea what to do. Hera supported Zeus in trying to kill you of course, but the other Olympians are divided whether or not we should aid Hades or Zeus. I myself, felt confused, so I brought you here to learn just what it is my two brothers are fighting about so fiercely. It isn't generally in their nature to quarrel, but rather it is generally Zeus and I who are known to fight."

"I'm sorry, child," Poseidon said. "Though I don't want to, I suppose if Zeus requests us to destroy you, we must. You haven't given me a single reason why I shouldn't. Don't take it personally." Poseidon lifted his trident and pointed it at Crius. But before he could lunge or throw it, something seemed to trouble Poseidon, as if there was a fly buzzing in his ears.

"I see," Poseidon said suddenly. He then turned his gaze to Crius. "My son Theseus has used one of the wishes I granted him saying that I should help you. I suppose I will consent then. I will help you with one request, afterwards I will make you wash up ashore near some river and pretend that you escaped my grasp." Crius couldn't believe his luck just then. But what was he supposed to ask about?

"Help me contact Erebos or Tartarus," Crius said. "I feared you might say that," Poseidon said. "I can't help you with Tartarus, but I suppose that Paul might be able to take you to a place where you should find Erebos. Good luck." Poseidon vanished, and Athis swam away somewhere, leaving Crius alone with Paul. Crius grabbed Paul's fin. He thought that the particular fin was called the dorsal fin, but he couldn't be sure as ninety percent of his knowledge of marine animals came from watching Spongebob Squarepants. Paul immediately began swimming below, and he was very fast. Crius guessed there was some magic protecting him from the water pressure as well, because he was sure that he should have been crushed long ago. As they began descending, the light lessened. It kept getting darker and darker, until finally they reached a point where there wasn't any light anywhere. Crius almost panicked. Almost.

But he waited patiently as they descended even deeper and the darkness somehow grew even denser. Finally, they stopped at a place where the darkness seemed absolute, as if it was smug and confident that not a ray of light would ever pierce it. Crius reached for the coin that Prometheus had given him and was thankful to find that he hadn't lost it. He took it out and saw that it was somehow glowing, casting the only light available in the dark void. Though he was reluctant to let go of his tiny green lamp, Crius cast it out into the darkness along with a prayer to Erebos. The coin revolved around the water for a few seconds before it disappeared. Then it was replaced by something else entirely.