AN: Thank you to all of you who reviewed, followed, and favorited the story! I love all of you. It's way too cliché for my tastes to go on and on about being humble, so I'm just going to move on.

I just wanted to say that everyone may get a little OOC in this, but I'm doing my best to keep them in character. I'd really appreciate it if you could let me know how I'm doing with that throughout the story.

Also, the points of view switch around erratically. It could be in first person (although that's rare) or third. I update randomly too. Between work and high school, I'm pretty busy. But you don't care about that, so let's get into what you do care about (hopefully): the story!

Last Chapter: Percy, Jason, and Nico battled against one another in an indirect effort to see who was more powerful. Little did they know that Dionysus was filming it and airing it for all of Olympus to see, knowing that it would cause the Big Three to become upset with their sons. After some disciplining from the gods, Nico decides to let his anger towards Hades (and the world, I suppose) out in a way he didn't think would cause Hades to attack him. Hera comes to Nico's rescue, but with a cost. She has rendered our beloved gods and demigods unconscious and has done something (you don't know what, yet) to them in an effort to finally get the gods to truly care for their sons. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3rd Person Omniscient

Poseidon and Percy

Percy groaned in protest as he opened his eyes. The bright, blinding light that hit his sea-green irises burned. He immediately shut them again, hoping to ward off the light before he really did lose his eyesight. He thought of the time he first met Apollo. His teeth had gotten the same reaction from Percy, and that's when Percy decided to not look directly at the god's smile.

Percy gave himself the same rule for the sun.

Keeping his eyes closed, Percy rolled over from his back to his stomach. He hoped it would block the sun somewhat, but all it accomplished was his stomach planting itself on a rock. Groaning once again, Percy rolled back onto his back, accepting that his eyes were going to suffer the consequences.

"Percy. Percy, wake up. Open your eyes, son." Percy felt his body shaking gently. Someone was trying to wake him up, that much was clear. Percy rebelled against this person though, keeping his eyes firmly closed. He'd like to keep his eyesight, thank you very much.

Meanwhile, Poseidon sighed. He knew Percy was awake. He just didn't want to actually get up. Thinking about it, however, Poseidon decided it might be okay to let Percy sleep a bit longer. It was delaying the inevitable realization, but that was okay. Poseidon didn't want his son to open his eyes and see their surroundings, anyway.

They were in a desert. Dry, dry sand stretched for miles. How many, Poseidon couldn't tell. Even looking at the horizon in all directions, it was only sand and dunes of sand. Poseidon knew why Hera had sent him and Percy to a desert. Their powers were completely useless. How could one use water powers if there was no water around?

Poseidon sighed, annoyed. 'Hades damn you, Hera.' He thought. He then chastised himself. He knew he shouldn't be cursing Hera's name; her intentions were good, he supposed. But still. There was a better way than this.

During Poseidon's inner rant, Percy decided it was high time to open his eyes. He couldn't keep them closed forever. Groaning with agitation, Percy slowly opened his eyes...only to immediately shut them again.

"Aw, frick." He mumbled to himself, not knowing that Poseidon heard him. 'Why was it way brighter than it should be?' Percy thought.

He sat up and rubbed his eyes, hoping they would adjust quickly and not be permanently damaged. Trying to open them again, Percy blinked a few times before he could see clearly.

'Oh, that's why.' Percy commented in his mind as he looked at the bright, white sand before him. Where was he? This certainly wasn't Camp Half-Blood. The only sand there was on the beach near his cabin, but the sand at camp wasn't white and there was no ocean around like there should be. In fact, from what Percy could see, there was no water around at all. Percy's throat felt dry. He knew it was mental, that he couldn't be dehydrated yet, but just the thought of nothing around to drink was getting to him.

"Percy, you're awake." Poseidon addressed hoarsely. Percy quickly turned his head to the sound of his father's voice. Poseidon was sitting in the sand with his legs out in front of him. His hands were bracing his weight behind him. The pose was very similar to the one Percy had on the dock before Nico came along.

'If Poseidon's here, I wonder if Nico is too.' Percy thought. He began to wonder who all was here. Was it everybody? Or just him and his dad? Were they supposed to find everybody?

"Are you all right, son?" Poseidon asked after Percy hadn't answered. Was the boy delusional already? He knew eventually they would be forced to deal with the symptoms of dehydration, but certainly not this early.

Percy only nodded his head as he continued to absent-mindedly stare at Poseidon. Growing uncomfortable under Percy's relentless gaze, Poseidon stood up and brushed the sand off himself. He then offered his hand to Percy, who took it and stood up as well. He didn't bother with the sand, however. He had a feeling they were both going to get sand in bad places.

"Well, nothing's going to happen if we just sit here. The first thing we need to do is find water." Poseidon told Percy.

"But I don't sense any water around here. At all. Not even underground." Percy replied. Poseidon sighed. Leave it to Percy to point out the obvious. The boy didn't even try to be optimistic.

"I realize that, Percy. We'll have to combine powers if we wish to find water. Unless you wish to die of dehydration in three days,"

Percy shook his head vigorously at that.

"Then we need to get moving. The clock's ticking for both of us, son." Poseidon finished and set off. Percy trailed after him.

"Hey, uh, Dad, did you notice that we were wearing the same thing?" Percy asked awkwardly beside Poseidon. Poseidon answered with a sigh. He looked down at his white v-neck t-shirt and white shorts. They were given sandles as well, although not flip-flops like Poseidon would have sandals were just so they wouldn't burn their feet on the sand, he knew. Of course he had noticed they were wearing the same thing. It was probably Hera's design, symbolized unity, or whatever.

"Yes, Percy, I noticed." He replied bitterly.

"It's kinda creepy to think that Hera dressed us. That means she took off our clothes..." Percy shuddered. The last thing he wanted to do was think about that. He vowed that when he got back, he would have Annabeth undress him just so he could be rid of Hera's cooties.

"She probably got Aphrodite to magically do it. Who knows how long we were unconscious or what happened during the time that we were?" Poseidon began to ask himself. Percy thought his dad was asking him, however. The questions were rhetorical, Percy could tell, so he didn't bother to answer.

The two walked on in silence. Percy was embarrassed that he kept tripping over himself trying to keep pace with Poseidon. It was like walking at the beach. Down by the water, the sand was nice and cool and easy to walk on because it was packed and wet. However, up near the boardwalk was like walking on molten lava. It was burning hot and hard to walk on because the sand collapsed under your weight, leaving you to pretty much claw your way out and move slower. It made you do more work to make up for the lost distance, tiring you out more quickly. That's how walking in the desert was.

Poseidon seemed to be skilled at walking on molten lava, however, something Percy wasn't very good at.

It had only been half an hour, he was sure, but Percy felt like he was melting. The heat from the unmerciful, blazing sun was doing it's number. He had already sweat through his clothes, and now the sweat was dripping down his forehead into his eyes.

'C'mon eyebrows and eyelashes! Isn't it your job to keep that stuff out of my eyes? What're you there for? To make me look pretty?' Percy thought to himself. Wiping the sweat from his forehead and eyes, Percy stopped walking and squinted as he looked over the desert.

Poseidon immediately noticed Percy had stopped walking and turned around to face his son.

"Percy-"

"I'm tired and hot. Can't we rest?" Percy practically begged his father. He saw that Poseidon wasn't much better off than he, himself, was. Poseidon's eyes were red from rubbing at them, probably because of sweat, too. He was already beginning to get a sunburn, Percy could tell. That meant he probably was too. Poseidon's lips were dry and chapped from thirst. If Percy could play up to all that, and make Poseidon realize how tired he probably was, Percy might just be able to get a break.

"I'm dying of thirst and you probably are too, so plea-" Percy tried, but was interrupted.

"No, Percy. Yes, I am tired, hot, and thirsty too. But we can't rest. It's clear we won't be finding any water, so I'm going for the next thing on the list: shelter. It may be hot now, but when Apollo decides he's had enough of daytime, this desert is going to get cold. Very cold. And our lovely benefactor has left us with nothing more than t-shirts and shorts."

"How is shelter going to protect us from the temperature? Does it come with a heater? Or better yet, a portable fan? Or maybe one of those spray bottles that has a fan with it! Or maybe-"

"Percy, stop. Shelter will help, believe it or not. Don't ask me how, because I have no idea." Poseidon informed, annoyed that Percy could still, against all odds, be a cocky smartass. The boy did need to learn respect. "Now let's go." Poseidon ordered as he turned on his heel and began his tread up a dune. He heard Percy sigh with frustration behind him, but ignored it. This was going to be a long adventure if the boy kept up his attitude.

Zeus and Jason

Jason thought his eyes were open, so he blinked a few times just to confirm it. They definitely were. Fear ran through his veins when he thought that he might be blind. What if he could never see anything again? What if he could never see clouds or the blue sky or even his future kids being born or taking their first steps? All he could see was darkness now, and it was consuming him and almost suffocating him.

He began to hyperventilate.

"Jason, knock it off, boy!" Jason heard a familiar voice call through the darkness. Well, at least he wasn't deaf.

"Who's there?" Jason asked, reaching for his sword before realizing he didn't have it. Did he drop it? Yes. Yes he must've. Man, Juno was going to be pissed.

"You're father, idiot. Now come over here and help me move these rocks. They're blocking our way out of here."

Jason was confused by what his father said. Move those rocks? What the hell was he talking about? Jason sat up and when his hands touched the ground, he knew something wasn't right.

He couldn't see anything, but the ground felt hard and bumpy. There were cracks here and there, and the ground was certainly cold to the touch. As he felt around, dust, or something close to it, began collecting on Jason's fingers. Jason wiped off the ashy stuff on his pants.

He then felt behind him and realized there was a wall about six inches away from him. Feeling it as well, he noticed that the wall of the chamber was made of the same rocky material as the floor. It pertruded out in some places, almost like a hump, and Jason hoped that he didn't break any fingers on it when it did.

"Jason, c'mon." Jason heard Zeus again. His voice echoed, for whatever reason, but Jason ignored that. He slowly crawled over to where he thought he heard Zeus' voice come from.

"I'm not much help if I can't see." Jason pointed out. He heard Zeus sigh in annoyance. Great. The lightning god was already frustrated with him and he'd hardly said ten words to the guy. What had he said that was so irksome, anyway?

Jason felt a hand on his shoulder and, after a jolt of muscle-spasm-inducing electricity, he could see. Jason blinked a few times before looking around. Had Zeus just given him night vision? That is so cool!

Focusing again, Jason saw that they were in a cave. A very large cave. He saw stalagmites hanging from the ceiling, almost threatening to fall and pierce his body. He noted to stay out from under those. He saw some kind of glowing blue fungus growing on the walls, and he was glad he hadn't accidently touched that earlier. He wondered how deep underground the cave went. He decided that he didn't want to find out the hard way.

"Boy, stop taking in the scene and help me!" Zeus ordered for the third time. Flinching, Jason got up from his embarrassing crawling position on the ground and stood next to Zeus. Jason saw a cave-in of rocks, that Zeus was currently trying to move one by one, and almost smirked. Almost. Even if that was the way out of this cave, there was no way they could move all those rocks without either A) making another cave-in, or B) killing themselves. The rocks had to weigh a ton.

"Zeus, I don't think that-" Jason attempted to talk some sense into his obviously delusional, desperate father, but to no avail.

"No one needs your negativity, boy." Zeus interrupted. But it seemed Jason's words had to have some effect, because Zeus stopped trying to lift a rock and just stood with his hands on his hips, pretty much panting.

Jason felt for his father. He understood his desire to see the sky again. But did it make him this desperate? How long before Zeus went nuts? Jason decided that he'd only think of Zeus in his Greek form so he didn't add on to the craziness. He didn't really consider himself Roman anymore, anyway.

Zeus sighed, giving up on the wall of rocks blocking their path to freedom. He sat down on one of the rocks he had moved and let his hands dangle between his knees. His the hell were they going to get out of here alive? Who knew what was in this cave? Who knew how deep it went or what lied beyond the entrance?

"Freaking great." Zeus mumbled, censoring himself for the boy's sake, even if the boy probably did curse more than he did.

Jason sighed as well. His, however, was from relief that Zeus had enough sense to stop on the wall thing. But now, he just looked troubled.

"Look, if there's anything I learned from Journey to the Center of the Earth, it's that there's always another way out of a cave. Maybe we'll get lucky and be in an abandoned mineshaft, too." Jason said, hoping to add some optimism. Zeus looked up at him and cocked an eyebrow.

"This isn't a kids' movie, kid. This is reality. In reality, we don't get abandoned mineshafts that just so happen to have minecarts and working electricity. In reality, we don't get a world in the center of the earth; we get lava. In reality, we don't blow up out of a volcano to freedom. In reality-"

"Okay, I get it. Just trying to be the optimistic one. You didn't have to crush my spirit." Jason mumbled the last sentence to himself. He knew they wouldn't get all of that. He was just trying to cheer Zeus up. He'll make sure not to try that again. "Look, if you're dead set on getting those rocks out of the way instead of going deeper into the cave, why don't you just blow up the rocks with your powers?" Jason asked.

"Because Hera took my powers away." Zeus replied, brokenhearted. "Don't you think I would've already tried that?"

"Oh." Jason replied. That's the only thing he could think to say. What was he supposed to say?

Zeus sighed. "You're right. There's always multiple entrances to these things. If we can find one, we can get out."

Glad that Zeus wasn't going to mourn the loss of his powers, Jason perked up, "Do you think the others are in here?"

"I couldn't tell you. Probably not. If I know Hera, she's put us all in vulnerable positions. She wouldn't put Hades and Nico underground, anyway. They'd be just fine.

"No, she put us in a cave where we can't fly or anything of the sort because of the stalagmites. You can't really stop lightning, so she just took that power away completely. Poseidon and his son are probably somewhere without water around so she wouldn't have to waste energy on taking their powers away. As for Hades and his spawn, I couldn't tell you." Zeus informed. Jason was impressed.

"You really have Hera figured out." He said.

"She's my wife."

"Right." Jason said, smiling at the irony that Zeus knew so much about Hera, and probably loved her, yet continued to cheat on her every chance he got.

"Are you implying something, boy?" Zeus asked angrily, catching the smirk on his son's face.

"Not at all. So, should we get looking for our exit?" Jason asked, not letting his smile falter at all. He gestured deeper into the cave in an 'after you' way. Zeus glared at Jason, but got up and trailed deeper into the cave with Jason at his heels.

Hades and Nico

Rain drizzled over his face, making Nico open his eyes, alarmed. Rubbing them like a child, it didn't take long at all for his vision to become clear. Nico immediately looked himself over, deciding that was the best thing to do. He looked for lacerations, bruises, broken bones, anything at all that would be alarming. Other than his neck still having a slight sting where his fath...where Hades had cut him, he was fine. Well, at least he had his health. Judging from his surroundings, that seemed to be the only thing he did had.

Nico didn't know where he was, and he didn't like it one bit. He was in an eerie, rundown old city. A big city, from the looks of it. The buildings had ivy growing on and in them. There were places on the buildings were the walls were missing and he could see the inside. One building in particular was leaning very precautiously over a cliff with the waves of the ocean crashing against some sharp rocks at the bottom.

It was like a scene from a horror movie, and Nico caught himself smiling at the irony. If this was all Hera had, dumping him alone in a big, obviously abandoned and rundown, city, than Nico lost a lot of respect for her, not that he had much to begin with. Was she only trying to scare him? How lame. She did a horrible job at it. The only things that scared Nico, well, he had faced them and conquered them. There wasn't much that could scare him now, especially not a bunch of eerie buildings.

"Wow. She failed." He muttered to himself. Wiping the rain from his eyes, Nico got up off the ground and decided he needed to find shelter from the rain before he caught a cold. He stuck his hands in the pockets of his black jeans and looked around. The only shelter he saw was the buildings, but he couldn't get into any of them. For whatever reason, all the doors were locked from the inside.

After the fifth building he tried, Nico got annoyed. How is it that all of them were locked? They were abandoned and had ivy growing in them! Hell, he could even see grass on the carpet throuh a crater in the wall in one of them! Was someone afraid of a break-in?

Nico found a window relatively low enough for him to see inside. He pulled himself up on the windowsill and pressed his face to the glass to get a look inside.

The building looked like an old office. It had cubicles set up and even a water cooler in the corner (clearly with no water). One of the walls of the cubicles was decorated with a bunch of children's drawings depicting a typical family. The desk had a picture of the family and a framed note that read, 'I love you mommy' in a kindergartener's handwriting.

Nico rolled his eyes. How childish. He found himself longing for that kind of lifestyle, however. A lifestyle where he knew he was loved enough for his childish drawings to be displayed proudly on a parent's desk at work. He realized he was envying a five-year-old, and rolled his eyes at himself.

Thankful for the rain now because it was covering up his tears, Nico looked to the right inside the building and saw that the door was barricaded from the inside. The doors weren't locked after all. But why would someone have barricaded the door? And with a copy machine, a couch, a file cabinet, and a desk? Who...or what...were they trying to keep out? Thunder roared, making Nico jump.

Becoming a little apprehensive, Nico jumped off the windowsill back onto the street he had been on. He looked around, but saw no signs of life anywhere. He shook his head, deciding he was being paranoid. The cclouds overhead were so dark that Nico wondered if the storm was permanently there. He knew it was night time, however. If he was right, probably the middle of the night.

He walked up the street with his hands in his pockets again. The only light offered to him was the flashing of lightning that he saw every now and then. After only about two minutes, he saw a street sign.

"Fortieth street. Well, thank you, street sign, for that useless information." Nico continued walking until he came to a broken road, choosing to ignore the supposed Biblical meaning of the number forty. The road was split in half, the part in front of him sticking up, almost at a ninety degree angle.

"Guess I'm not going that way." He figured, and turned to his left. He wondered what could've caused the road to do that, but decided that would be a bad idea. He would only scare himself if he dwelled on it.

Nico came to a concrete road block and climbed over it. He was now on a bridge, a highway from what he could tell. The buildings were still looming over him, almost like they were dreading what was coming next. He walked to the end of the highway, and saw that he was now on the top half of the broken road from earlier.

Turning around, he walked to a small, broken concrete shack with no roof. He jumped over a broken-off part of a wall and continued his tread through the rain and muck.

When he walked halfway to the end of another broken road, Nico threw his hands up in exasperation, "Seriously? Another one? Can I go anywhere in this giant city?" Nico then almost slapped himself with one of his raised hands. Of course he can go somewhere. He can go anywhere he pleases.

Nico let the familiar black mist engulf him, fully prepared to shadow travel to Camp Half-Blood. When he opened his eyes and saw he was in the same place, he wanted to cry.

'Hera took my powers away? But how can that be?' Sighing, Nico simply walked to the end of the broken road and sat on its edge. He looked down and saw a giant crater beneath him. Was this place hit by a meteor? That would explain a lot, but not the barricaded doors.

"I wouldn't sit on that. It could crumble."

Nico jumped at the voice, almost falling into the abyss. He steadied himself on the concrete, and turned around to see his father leaning against one of the concrete road blocks. Nico vowed to never sneak up on anyone again. It just wasn't that much fun anymore.

After the relief of seeing someone else, Nico got mad that it was Hades. It could've been literally anyone else in the world. Literally anyone. He would've taken Clarisse.

"How long have you been watching me?" Nico asked, deciding that starting a fight wasn't the way to go.

"Since you woke up. When you did something stupid, I decided it was high-time I made an appearance."Hades said, frowning.

"Aren't you noble." Nico muttered to himself.

"C'mon, boy, we need to get out of this rain."

Instead of telling Hades he knew that, he decided to just let him believe he had thought of it. Again, playing the submissive, un-argumentative roll was better than fighting with the god. Nico knew better than that, now.

Nico got up and stalked over to where Hades was standing. Right when he got to him, they heard a giant crash come from one of the alleyways across the street diagonally from them, paralyzing them to the spot. A trashcan came flying out, and something started screaming. It was inhuman scream, definitely blood-curdling. It was like a mixture of a scream and a roar.

But as soon as it started, it stopped, and the duo were thrown back into the sounds of the rain hitting the pavement and the thunder rumbling overhead once again.

Hades stared in disbelief at the alleyway. Never had he heard a sound like that. And the thing didn't even show itself, which was almost worse. If it had, at least he would've known what was watching them.

Nico trembled where he stood. He let himself believe it was from the chill of the rain and night air, but knew that wasn't true. No, he was scared.

"Ha-Hades, wh-what the hell was that?" Nico asked his father. He was impressed with himself that he could still speak.

"I don't know, but I don't want to stick around to find out. Let's go, boy." Hades replied, still looking at the alleyway,waiting for the creature to make an appearance. Realizing it wouldn't be in their best interest if it did, considering they had no weapons or powers, Hades tore his gaze from the alleyway and walked in the direction of one of the buildings; the one that was perched over the side of the cliff.

"I don't think that we should-" Nico spoke up, deciding it was better to get yelled at than go in that deathtrap.

"I know. But we can't get into any of the others and this one has a hole in the wall we can reach. Now c'mon, unless you want to wait around for that thing, I'd hate to see what it would do to your face." Hades replied, knowing it would make Nico move.

It had its desired effect, and Nico gulped as he ran to catch up. He walked beside Hades, hating that he was scared enough to do so. When they reached the building, they saw that it was partially buried underground, probably due to a landslide. The hole they would be going through to get inside actually led to the third story of the building (which had about twenty, by the way). Hades jumped to try and grab the ledge, but it was too high. Sighing, he knew what he'd have to do.

"All right, boy, I'm going to boost you up. Do you think you could lift me inside as well?"

"I don't know. I'm still kind of weak from Tartarus..." Nico replied, ashamed. Damn Hades. Why did he have to constantly remind him that he was a weakling?

"Then find something to get me up. A rope or something similar. Think you can handle that?"

Nico scoffed and nodded begrudgingly, glaring at his father. Hades leaned against the wall for support, ignoring the offended look on Nico's face, and interlocked his fingers so that Nico could step on them and pull himself up. Nico took a running start, hoping to 'accidentally' kick Hades' face as he was thrown toward the ledge. Disappointed that he missed his father's head completely and banged his foot against the brick building instead, Nico grabbed the ledge and pulled himself inside the building.

Once inside, he saw the same desks and cubicles from across the street in the other building. So this was an office as well. What was this, the business district of the city? Nico stepped over the grass growing in the carpet and looked around for a rope. He could hardly see, the only light was being provided by the lightning. And believe it or not, it was darker inside the building.

"See anything?" Hades asked, constantly looking over his shoulder for the beast. For anything, really.

"No." Nico replied, still searching.

"Well, hurry." Hades said, hoping this didn't go on much longer. He didn't want to be left alone down there on the street. He was wringing his hands and scratching his neck with anxiety.

In the building, Nico gave up on searching for a rope. He had looked in the desk drawers, including the ones barricading the doors to the hallway. Instead, he was using all his strength to push one of the desks down to Hades so he could just use it as a boost.

Nico pushed the desk off the side of the building. He watched it fall, and smiled at Hades' expression when he looked up to see a desk coming at him. Pure reflex and instinct took over, and Hades jumped out of the way and glared at Nico.

"You did that on purpose." He said through his teeth.

"I can't control where it falls." Nico replied, shrugging. Deciding to put a pin in this, Hades moved the wooden desk against the wall and stood it up. One of the legs broke from the impact with the ground, so he'd have to be careful.

Climbing with ease and pulling himself into the building, Hades looked around at his surroundings.

"This isn't foreboding in any way." He said to himself, although knew Nico heard him. He wanted the boy to be scared. He deserved to be.

"Thanks for that. So what now?" Nico said bitterly.

"Now we search. We need materials." Hades said, and started looking around the room. Nico just awkwardly followed him, not knowing what to look for.

They stayed in that room for about an hour, knowing that soon they'd have to disassemble the barricade blocking the door and head deeper into the collasping building.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A/N: I'll be spending a little more time on Hades and Nico, because, let's face it, they need more help and their story is a little more complex than the others. Also, I've been censoring myself for the sake of younger readers, but I would like to have your guys' permission to write the more gory scenes and cussing. I don't want to offend anyone. If I have to, I'll write warnings in before them for the faint of heart.

Anyway, review!

Wind, out.