Now that I look at it again, all the haters on this story seem quite amusing watching them flame their heads off.

Haters gonna hate.

Annabeth

XXIX

When Annabeth woke up, she was lying on the floor in a dark cave. There were the remains of a fire in front of here, and it was too dark to make out anything else.

Annabeth tried to recall what had happened. She was running from a giant boulder *cough* Gaea *cough*, and then a rock or something had smashed into her head, and she passed out.

She still had a nasty headache from it. She probably had a concussion as well. As Annabeth's eyes adjusted to the dark, she could make out Percy's figure lying next to her, still unconscious and another person against the wall.

It saw her and said, "Awake, now, sleeping beauty?"

It was Ixion. Annabeth doubted she could be able to beat him in her still weak and tired state, courtesy of this stupid Abyss.

Then she realized her ears were still ringing, and as they stopped, the faraway screams that had been sounding and drove her insane began to come into focus again.

"What… what are you doing?" She asked weakly and attempted to push herself into a sitting position, but Ixion came over and stopped him. He looked terrible, with dirt and scratches all over him, though Annabeth was probably worse.

"Stay. You're still very weak after your skull almost shattered," he said.

Annabeth gulped. "Excuse me?"

Just then, Percy groaned and stirred next to her, and Ixion went over and trickled something into his mouth. Nectar, Annabeth thought. The thought made her mouth water slightly.

"So.. ho-what, I mean where?" Annabeth stuttered, which was unusual for a daughter of Athena.

Ixion sighed. "Gaea threatened me and pushed me around a bit to escort you two to the Doors, don't ask why. Said if I don't cooperate, a forever spinning wheel would be the least of my worries."

Annabeth blinked. "Basically, you're kidnapping us."

"Protecting you. Of course, I can't fight every monster for you. That would be too easy. But Gaea has given me her blessing, and I have… valuable items."

To show his point, he held out the canteen of nectar. Annabeth scowled just as Percy shuffled and muttered, "What?"

"We're being demigodnapped," she sighed and leaned against the wall. Percy looked plain exhausted, with his hair extremely messy and circles under his eyes.

Nothing really extraordinary happened over the next couple days. Ixion trudged on towards the growing feeling of evil power, and Annabeth and Percy followed him. The average day went like this:

Wake up, pack up and clean up, get attacked by hellhounds, start walking, get attacked by hellhounds, keep walking, get attacked by penguins (shrug), lunch, keep walking, get attacked by magic arrows, keep walking, get attacked by more hellhounds, keep walking and a quick break, get attacked by Barney, settle down for the night, sleep, repeat.

But that was only the physical part.

Annabeth's nerves were on end and she was ready to go insane from the sheer amount of pressure Tartarus was putting on her as it tried to devour her sanity. The attacks became more violent and longer, and each one showed more horrible things.

Ixion wasn't much help. In fact, he was pretty much a ghost following them.

So Annabeth was surprised when that fateful day came. The one that really changed her and Percy. The one that showed just how bad Tartarus was.

First hint was the fact that they were attacked by much larger packs of monsters that day.

Second hint was that Ixion seemed to lag behind especially, like he wanted to get away.

Third hint was an especially powerful feeling of evil that day.

And unfortunately for Annabeth, 3 strikes and you're out.

Around midday, a bellow suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Annabeth internally groaned. How many telkhines this time? She wondered.

Then out of the light mist that day, a huge figure came out of the shadows, and Annabeth realized it was NOT a telkhine.

"Oh gods," Annabeth muttered and grabbed Percy's arm.

The thing was a massive bull figure that made the Minotaur look like an ant. It was at least 15 feet tall and guess what? It's eyes glowed red and was completely on fire. In one hand it carried a huge spiked ball studded with metal points attached to a poll with chain, in the other, a sword that would take several Hephaestus kids to even pick up.

"Um… Annabeth?" Percy asked and took a step back. "Isn't that supposed to be from Lord of the Rings?"

"I think so," Annabeth said in a small voice, thinking about the Balrogs.

I have a little playmate who's bored. Entertain him will you? And try not to get killed. Gaea's voice purred softly.

Percy groaned and started walking backwards carefully, taking out Riptide. "Out of all the things that try to kill us, it HAS to be my favorite monster ever?"

The Balrog roared, and swung its large mace thing. Annabeth dove to the left and yelped as the massive ball buried itself half a foot deep into the ground.

Through the dust, she could see Ixion yelling and Percy getting up with a sword. Ixion charged, a full bronze shield and spear appearing out of nowhere.

Annabeth eyed the backpack, which Ixion had dropped. She knew it carried another shield and a bow and arrow. Making sure the Balrog's attention was focused on Percy and Ixion, she dove for it and quickly unzipped and removed the shield, strapped it onto her arm, and then took out the bow and slung the arrows over her shoulder.

The shield was specially designed for shooting, and it was small enough to hold on the arm while firing anything from flamethrowers to crossbows to longbows to people.

Annabeth quickly nocked an armor piercing arrow (It even explodes! Buy now for $10000 an arrow!) and aimed it at the bull's head. She let loose, then stumbled back momentarily, not used to the kickback of the double composite bow. Normally, Annabeth would have opted for either longbow, crossbow or recurve bow, but it was hard to be picky in Tartarus.

The arrow flew true and smashed its heavy weight tip into the Balrog's skull. Normally, this would kill any mortal being. But instead disintegrating the Balrog, it just embedded itself about a quarter inch deep.

The bull thing roared in pain, then slammed its mace towards Annabeth, who just managed to avoid getting her head taken off. Then it took a deep breath.

Annabeth realized what it was going to do and quickly threw a marble into the air.

Just as the best blew fire out of its mouth, the "marble" bursted into a solid wall of water. Thank Gaea.

The flame harmlessly bounced off the water wall and disappeared.

Annabeth saw Percy take this as his chance to strike. He jumped in and, following a quick thrust from Ixion, yelled a battle cry and stabbed Riptide with both hands into the Balrog's thigh. The beast didn't even bat an eye.

It muttered something... did it just speak Ancient Greek? Either way, Annabeth couldn't make out what it said and it looked down to see Percy backing up quickly. It growled and Annabeth quickly shot another arrow into its skull before it could splatter Percy into a Percy Pizza (made in Tartarus, top quality!). Fortunately, it looked away from Percy.

Unfortunately, it looked at Annabeth. The thing bellowed in anger or pain and stomped its foot, and Annabeth let out a small swear before the thing charged, both his massive berserker sword and head-mashing mace in a ready-to-swing position.

Too late, as she dived, Annabeth realized that the bull was prepared. It swung its mace sideways and caught her chest midair. Any normal person would have frozen stiff and probably died from the impact. But instead of doing that, Annabeth let her body go limp, absorbing the shock and flying several dozen feet backwards.

She bit her lip as she felt a sharp pain in her chest and back as she landed hard, but didn't sem to be seriously injured.

Then the thing talked. "You cannot defeat me, daughter of Athena. I am Hyperion. I am the TITAN OF LIGHT!" He bellowed and blew flame into the air for good measure.

"So, I assume that this… this is your full form?" Annabeth asked timidly, searching for her bow behind her.

It responded by snorting and slamming his mace again. Annabeth rolled out of the way as she closed her fingers around her bow. In an instant, she was up and had 2 arrows nocked against the arrow, and fired both of them into Hyperion's skull.

It roared yet again (Annabeth was getting tired of hearing it roar) and this time, pulled a new trick. He slung the axe over his back and raised his hand up high, and it began to glow like a lantern. Its entire body lit up like a flame, and Annabeth averted her glare.

Wrong move.

She heard stomping, and too slowly, turned back to face the sun-like figure just in time to see the sharp edge of Hyperion's sword cut into her virtually unprotected chest.

Review maybe?

Quote of the chapter- I got you a present; it's a CD. I hope you haven't got it, because I don't have a receipt... and I didn't exactly buy it.

Song of the chapter- It's Time by Imagine Dragons

Entertainment of the chapter- Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion

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