A/N: Here's a chapter with Percy's POV. I hope I captured him right! I may update one more time tonight, it just depends on how the creativity flows and homework goes! :) Please review and I hope you enjoy!

-Percy-

Let me recap our wonderful adventures in Tartarus so far.

It took forever to fall. Or at least, it felt like it.

I kind of got used to it after a while. Even with all the terror of plummeting to your death, the wind against your body kind of felt nice. Annabeth was in my arms, and I almost fell asleep once or twice. She said it just had to be an illusion, that there was no way we had been falling the whole time.

I wanted to disagree.

The gods must have been teasing me. I had to have done something to make them mad. Otherwise, why would I have such monumental bad luck? Two prophecies before I turned eighteen?

I think it had to be a lets-make-Percy's-life-miserable party.

When we hit, it knocked my breath out, but I could tell that I hadn't broken anything. I guess it had to do with the creepy magic of this place.

Tartarus was pretty much like you expect hell to look like or eerily similar to the Underworld except it lacked the happy faces of the dead. It reeked of the sickly sweet smell of monsters. It was a forest of black rocks and stones, jutting out in sharp points all over the ceilings and floors. There were rivers of lava, some just a tickle while the one we were following at the moment was a raging river. Annabeth had insisted on drinking it, muttering something about it protecting us from the heat, but she seemed weaker and sicker than anything else. It was also dark, so dark not even the light that came off of Riptide was bright enough to really see well. We had the soft red glow from the lava, and that was about it.

We had been moving for a while, and I finally made Annabeth stop and rest. We had encountered very few monsters, which I was thankful for. I guess most of them had taken the opportunity to get out when Gaia had offered it to them. For some reason though, you could still hear them. Maybe that was just the way the jail cell of the immortal scum was. Feral growls and screeches echoed in the caverns, making it hard to sleep. I knew I needed some, but to be honest, I was just too terrified to do anything about it. All I could think about was what we were going to do next.

I had no idea how we were supposed to find the doors. We had no food, no water, no ambrosia or necter. I had a nasty cut from an encounter with some monster, and Annabeth could barely walk because of her ankle. We were pretty much up the creek without a paddle.

No water puns intended.

Annabeth groaned and sat up, her weight lifting off of my chest. Despite the dirt and grime and all we had been through, she was still the prettiest thing I had ever seen.

"How's the ankle?"

She was tightening up her makeshift brace as best as she could. I had lent her my belt to help hold it, and it seemed to provide better support.

"As well as can be expected," she muttered back to me. I stood up and pulled her with me. My left arm was practically useless with the cut. I had to tear off both of my shirtsleeves to bandage it. I'm sure I looked pretty macho, but I didn't feel it. I had lost a good amount of blood, so my body felt weak. Annabeth grabbed onto my waist, and I kept riptide in my right hand. We had been following a rather large lava river, but I couldn't remember what Annabeth had called it. My skin was dry and peeling, from the heat and lack of water. We were both miserable, but we kept on going, hoping that somehow we would find the doors.

We did not talk all that much while walking. I wanted to say something to encourage her, anything to help her get through this, but nothing came to mind.

Was everything going to be okay?

Most likely not.

Were we going to make it out of here alive?

Well, our chances didn't look good at the moment. In fact, they looked rather shitty.

I heard a rock fall in the distance, and both mine and Annabeth's heads snapped up. She motioned toward a nearby rock, and we moved towards it. It was shaped like a half circle, so if we stood underneath it, we couldn't be seen from above. Actually, the only way we could have been seen was if someone stood directly in front of us. The pounding of footsteps got louder, and a deep voice rang through the cavern. Actually, it was singing. Very badly at that.

"I smell demigods, demigods for me, bring them back to Gaia, tie them to a tree!"

A huge shadow loomed in from of us, and I smelt the rancid smell of monster. The shadow fell onto the cavern wall, outlining the familiar form I recognized. I looked at Annabeth, and she mouthed exactly what I was thinking.

"Cyclops."

I nodded my head and put my finger to my mouth. Maybe if we were quiet, it would move on thinking we weren't here.

"I smell you! Smell is strong! Come play with Arges, puny Halflings!"

I saw the shadow move, the hand coming closer and closer…I tensed ready to fight to the death.

A hand grabbed the rock above us, breaking it in half. Annabeth and I covered out heads as shards of rocks rained down upon us.

"Found you!" Arges boomed above us. His hand reached for Annabeth, and I slashed out, cutting a gash in his hand. We backed up into the rock next to us. Annabeth pulled her dagger out, supporting her own weight now. I expanded the shield Tyson gave me and was ready to fight. Arges's single eye loomed at us, greed and triumph in his gaze.

"Now Arges, don't you know better than to pick on demigods? Why don't you pick on someone your own size?"

All of our heads turned to look at the girl standing on a rock before us. She looked familiar for some reason, and I couldn't put my finger on where I had seen her before. She seemed a little older than me, maybe 18 or so. She was dressed in white, and her clothes seemed to be a mix of ancient roman attire and more modern styles. A hood covered her head, but I could see bright ocean colored eyes in the shadow it created. She was small and lean, and her build reminded me of the girls at Goode who were swimmers. A brown braid fell out of her hood, ending at the bottom of her chest.

Arges mouth dropped open in shock, and I saw her smile underneath her hood. His hand was frozen in the motion towards us, but he did not make another move.

"I'll give you two choices. One, I'll avoid killing you, and you can leave and go find a nice tiny hole to crawl into down here until your essence reforms, or I can kill you now, and push that back another hundred years or so. What do you think?"

Arges bellowed in rage, his focus turning on the girl. She rolled her eyes and shrugged her shoulders, and I swear I heard her sigh. Arges was barreling towards her, but with a lazy flick of her wrist, a solid wall of rock popped up in front of him. He hit it head first, knocking himself out.

"Stupid," she muttered walking over to him. Two shimmering copper colored daggers appeared in her hands, and with a quick stab, the Cyclops disintegrated into gold dust. She turned towards us, and I moved in front of Annabeth. This girl was something I had never encountered before. I knew she wasn't a god, but the aura of power I felt coming from her was almost just as strong. She seemed to read my stance and held her hands up, the daggers transforming into coppery bracelets on her wrists.

"Hi," she said tentatively. She walked slowly towards us, like she was scared we would run for it. I nearly ready to let my guard down, but something told me that I shouldn't be scared of her.

"Who are you?" Annabeth demanded.

"You can call me Addie," she replied. Addie took off her hood, letting the light shine in her face. She was really pretty, but for some reason, I was not attracted to her. Her eyes were wide and intelligent, and her smile was comforting. I got the same feeling from her that I got from my mom. She made me feel at peace like I was at home. "And I'm here to help."

"Help?" I questioned. She nodded but kept her distance.

"I know you both are tired, but we should get going. They've been looking for you all over, and we need to get to the Stone as quickly as possible."

"What's the Stone? And why should we follow you? How do we know you aren't with Gaia?" Annabeth snapped. I was sort of proud of her. Her spirit wasn't even close to being broken. Addie took a deep breath and narrowed her eyes slightly. At that moment, she reminded me of the immortals. She did not like being challenged.

"You should follow me because I'm quite old and know what I'm doing. As for the Gaia thing, all I can tell you is that I use to be in the 12th legion, and I was sent here to help you. I'll answer all your questions and get you fixed up, but I can feel them coming, so we need to move. Now, preferably."

A few seconds passed, and I stepped forward. I just had a gut feeling that I could trust her, and I was tired and desperate enough not to question it.

"Percy!" Annabeth whispered quickly. "We don't even know this person. Are you sure about this?"

I looked back towards Addie. She was patiently waiting, her familiar eyes gazing into mine.

"Yes. Yes, I'm sure."