Alexander ~

Nico and I steered Thalia through the palace, giving her a special V.I.P. tour. Nobody has ever gotten a tour from both sons of Hades before. Thalia is a lucky girl. We were showing Thalia our rooms when a skeleton warrior appeared, telling us that father, Hades wanted to see all three of us. I noticed that Thalia's face instantly paled at the sound of father's name.

"Thalia, what's wrong?" I asked.

Thalia looked at me and remained silent for a few minutes, then shook her head slightly, regaining her composure. "I'm the daughter of Zeus, and Hades already dislikes most demigods, imagine what he's going to think of me, a child of one of his brothers!"

"It's okay Thalia," I said trying to reassure her. "Nothing will happen to you alright? Anyways, we should get going now, father doesn't like it when people are late."

I shadow travelled all three of us to the dining room, which was empty for the moment. Good, I thought to myself, we got here before father did. After a couple of minutes, father walked in. His dark eyes examined me, then moved on to Nico, and finally they fell on Thalia. I was first to speak, kneeling down on one leg and addressed my father. Nico and Thalia followed suit. "Lord Hades."

"Rise my sons."

Nico and I did as we were told. Father was still looking at Thalia intently.

"Rise Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus," father said, or more like spat out. "I should kill you now for entering my domain." A sword appeared in father's hand.

"No!" I yelled.

Hades turned his head slightly to look at me; his eyes were flaring black with rage.

"Alexander!"

"You will not inflict any harm on her," I said slowly. "I have sworn to protect the lieutenant of the hunt with all my power."

"And this is a solemn vow?" father asked, while lowering his sword.

"Sworn on the River Styx itself," I replied.

"Very well then, but only because this is on request of my son." The sword disappeared from father's hand. "Anyways, good luck on your quest. I must leave now, I have some judging to do."

Father disappeared in a cloud of black mist. I could have sworn I heard him mutter "all thanks to your father Zeus."

"Well that was rather …" Thalia began.

"Terrifying?" Nico suggested.

"Something along the lines of that," Thalia said. "I'm just surprised that Lord Hades didn't disintegrate you right there Alex."

"Of course dad wouldn't," Nico said. "Alex has dad's blessing. He's dad's favorite child."

I could sense a pang of jealousy in Nico's voice, but I let the matter drop.

"The lost goddess awaits," I reminded both of them. "In my dream, she was bleeding ichor all over. We need to go find her."

"Where do we start then? Should we start looking at the Fields of Punishment, the Isles of the Blessed, Elysium, or somewhere else? " Nico asked.

"How am I supposed to know dead boy?" Thalia yelled. "It's not like I've been here a million times!"

I looked at both of them. When are they going to stop arguing?

"I don't think the goddess will be in any of those places. The first place to start is … well deeper in the Underworld. Tartarus, or somewhere close by it."

"Well then Tartarus we go then," Nico said like it was a trip to Disneyland for a five year old or something.

Thalia and I stared at him in shock.

"Nico, you do know that Tartarus is the place where the gods' enemies are banished right?" I asked.

"Your point? Can we just go now?" Nico said.

I shook my head and face palmed.

"Alright let's go."

"Wait," Thalia said. "How are we going to get to Tartarus? Nico can't shadow travel anymore, or else he'll just faint. Are we just going to walk?"

I laughed. "Why we're going to take the subway of course."

"What do you mean?" Last time I checked, the subway is all the way up there." Nico said, while he pointed up.

"I'm surprised you don't know Nico," I said. "All thanks to Deadalus, there's a subway down here in the underworld that will take you anywhere you want to go."

I clapped my hands twice, and the ground opened up revealing our transportation.

Nico ran in yelling at the top of his lungs about how awesome it was.

Thalia shook her head. "Just like when he was ten years old. He was crazy about Mythomagic."

"Mythomagic?" I asked, while raising an eyebrow.

"Don't ask," Thalia said. "Now get in, or do I need to zap you?"

"Yes ma'am!" I said, giving her a salute before stepping in to the train.

Thalia just rolled her eyes and followed me in.

"To the gates of Tartarus" I said.

There was a small ding, and after a few seconds, the train doors closed.

"Even though this is an express train, it will take about forty five minutes to one hour before we get to Tartarus." I said.

"Well then I'm going to sleep," Nico said. "Wake me up once we get there."

Before I could even reply, Nico was already crashed out on one of the chairs. I sat down at the middle section of the train and decided to just stare into space. I took out my iPod from my duffel bag and pressed play. I was listening to one of my favorite bands, when the song changed to You Belong With Me by Taylor Swift. What the Hades? I thought. I don't have that song in my iPod. I tried to skip the song but it didn't' work. Finally the song finished and I thought everything would be back to normal when Teenage Dream by Katy Perry came up. Damn you Aphrodite! Suddenly Thalia stood up from a few seats back and walked up to me.

"My iPod ran out of battery," Thalia said. "Can I sit here with you?"

"Um yeah sure," I replied, not knowing what to do. "You could borrow my iPod if you want."

"It's ok, I mean since we're on this quest then maybe we should get to know each other then."

"Sure," I said. "Why don't you start first?"

"Ok … What's your favorite color?"

"Black. Yours?"

"Black and blue," she replied.

"Blue obviously because of your father." I laughed. "So are we kind of playing the twenty questions game?"

Thalia nodded.

"What are some of your favorite bands?"

"Foo Fighters, Green Day, Metallica, and AC/DC"

"Same," I said with a smile.

We had so much in common, I wasn't even kidding about it. The twenty-question game turned out to be a one hundred question game. We didn't even stop playing until we arrived at Tartarus. Thalia wasn't a complete mystery to me now, I felt like I knew her for my whole life, instead of just for a few days.

"Nico! Wake up!" I yelled at my brother.

Nico didn't budge. He must have been so tired from shadow travelling the whole time.

"Let me handle this," Thalia said with a smirk on her face. She marched straight up to where Nico sat and put her hand on his arm. I have no idea how many volts she sent through him, but it was enough to make Nico's hair smoke up.

"Thanks a lot pinecone face!" Nico yelled.

"Come on guys," I said. "There's no time to lose."

The doors opened and I stepped out onto the cold and dark ground. There was an unnatural breeze that sent shivers down my spine. We looked at a sign that said WELCOME TO TARTARUS. Oh joy, I thought, Here we go.

There you go, hopefully you all enjoyed Chapter 6. Hopefully the next update will come soon depending on whether I have time or not. Remember to R&R!

Child of the Moon's Shadow: Glad to make you happy :) Nico says you're welcome.