The chasm turned into that of my dream fairly quickly, the sense of Déjà vu that struck me wasn't uncommon, though still startling. When the cave appeared, Nico and Annabeth looked at me uncertainly.
"Still got that feeling Nico?" He nodded, "and it's leading to in there?" I pointed into the darkness. He nodded again. I sighed, turned on a flashlight, and stepped into the shadows.
Annabeth's hand slipped back into mine, "Percy, do you know what's in here?" I hadn't wanted to tell them about my dream until it was necessary, and considering the circumstances, I began to tell them about Phobos and Deminos, starting at when I'd fought them alongside Clarisse.
I'd just gotten to the part of my dream where the floor of the cave fell in, when the hot wind hit our faces as I'd explained it might do. The sons of Ares stepped into our line of sight.
"Jackson!" Deminos started, black armour, javelin, scars and all. "Fancy seeing you here."
I noticed he wasn't so intimidating without his sea monster, or his fire breathing horses.
He didn't look very pleased when I told him so.
"You on a quest for dad?" A teasing voice echoed round the cavern, Annabeth huffed a breath out of her nose in annoyance, but her hand clutched mine tighter. Nico looked mildly interested. Phobos joined his brother in front of the three of us, although, his entrance was more impressive than that if his sibling, having the dust on the floor build up and then unfold around him, leaving him, leather clad, stood at Deminos' shoulder.
I straightened my back. "Yes, well, it was either that or get blasted. And I would like to at least try and live past twenty." Nico snorted. I imagined him sticking his tongue out at the minor gods. Deminos went to take a step forward, but Phobos placed a hand on his shoulder, holding him back. The shared a look and grinned at each other.
The tense silence that had spread over the space between us was cut by Annabeth's gasp. Her hand was shaking in mine, fragments of a sentence tumbled over her lips. And the darkest part of the cave moved.
Nico was the first to truly understand the situation. Phobos was feeding off of Annabeth's fear and distracting me by conjuring a massive spider out of mist, as if it was a simple card trick. He drew is blade of Stygian iron and faced the brothers, ignoring the spider completely. By this time half of the creature had crept into the light of my torch, it's legs were covered in thick hairs, it's eight eyes were glittering with manufactured evil. I had faced Phobos before, still I had to remind myself that this was only a projection of Annabeth's arachnophobia, a fear that all children of Athena seemed to have. I looked back towards Nico, who was walking in a circle around the offending brothers. I unwrapped my girlfriend from around my arm and uncapped anaklusmos, joining Nico and the sons of Ares. Phobos switched his attention from Annabeth to Nico, and as the giant spider disappeared in what I could only describe as a puff of smoke, the dark figure of Hades loomed over my cousin.