A/N: If you see any spelling/grammar mistakes, please let me know and I'll fix 'em! Thanks for reading!
Ch 3
I packed my bags with all the necessities I thought I would need to get to the Underworld. Racing around my cabin to find all the items I needed for the trip, I didn't hear Annabeth walk into my cabin.
"What're you doing Perce" Annabeth said worriedly.
"Nothing Annabeth."
"No its not nothing," she responds quickly while walking towards the bags sitting on my bunk. "You have all your survival equipment packed."
I turned around and put on my best 'I am definitely not going to the underworld face.' "Don't worry about it… I'm uhhhhh… I just need to replace the TV," I finally stammered out. "It broke earlier."
"Uh huh."
"Yeah I was just watching something and it exploded."
"It exploded? It looks fine to me."
"Well I mean it didn't actually explode…"
"Obviously." Then she paused, "What is actually going on, Perce. You've always been a terrible liar."
I thought for a second. I need somebody to watch my back in the underworld and there's no one I trust more than Annabeth. But at the same time I don't want to put her in any more danger than she is already going to be in. Although, her infinite knowledge about everything under the sun would be incredibly useful. And seeing her next to me in the underworld would be really nice…
Suddenly I was smacked in the face and I fell over onto the floor. I looked around to see Annabeth looking at down at me angrily, somehow looking cute at the same time. I almost said it aloud, but decided it wouldn't be for my best interest and said instead: "Why'd you smack me?!"
"You were staring."
"And?!"
"What did I tell you about staring?" she said motherly.
"That it's rude…" I responded solemnly, sounding more like a 5-year-old than a soon-to-be adventurer.
"Good." She said triumphantly. "Now tell me what you're going to do so I can tell you how stupid it is."
So I did. I told her my plan of going to the underworld and bringing my brother back. I hadn't really thought about it much and as I was saying it I realized how stupid the whole thing sounded. But when I looked at Annabeth she looked thoughtful, something I wasn't expecting.
"We should talk to Nico, he's a son of Hades" she suggested. Before I could object she was already tossing a drachma into the saltwater spring in the middle of my cabin. She elbowed me, saying "He owes me a favor or two so this should be easy."
When an image finally showed, I saw a young boy, maybe 13 or 14, with shaggy black hair and skin so pale it was almost translucent. He looked like he had just crawled out of a grave and wasn't happy about it at all.
"What do you want Annabeth? I'm busy here." The boy said coldly.
"Hey Nico! Um, my friend Percy here, you know Percy right? He's the twin brother of-"
"Yes I know who he is. What do you want?"
Wow he's a ray of sunshine isn't he, Percy thought. But Annabeth was already talking again, seemingly unfazed by Nico's coldness.
"Well Percy here needs to get his brother back from the dead so that he can save the camp next week against Kronos. Where is the closest entrance to the underworld?"
"Well it's in Central Park, if you start singing, you should see it easily enough."
Wait singing? I don't sing. I was about to tell Nico as such, but Annabeth cut me off.
"Great! Thanks Nico!"
"You said that Percy's brother had died? I figured I would feel a demigod that powerful die…" Nico trailed off.
I butted in: "Yeah, they burned his funeral shroud last night. He died on the Princess Andromeda after he and Beckendorf blew it to shreds." I thought that Nico was acting really weird, but I put it down to not knowing the kid.
"Yeah I felt Beckendorf die… How curious…" Nico absentmindedly wandered off, lost in his own train of thought.
Annabeth tried to yell after him, but finally just ended the Iris Message.
"Alright Perce, let's get going, no time to waste," she yelled over her shoulder as she left to pack her own bags.
I grabbed my bags from my bunk and ran after Annabeth.