Apologies for being late, but here is a nice over 4k word chapter! Enjoy!
Oh, and another thing: Every last character belongs to you (You know who belongs to you) and the world of PJO belongs to Rick Riordan (Duh)
Alexandria
It's commonly known that before a near death experience, a person's entire life is said to flash before their eyes.
Yeah, Alex wasn't getting that. And she wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
See, this was just the problem with being children of the Big Three. All of them had siblings that had, at one point, conquered all these dangerous monsters. This, of course, led the monsters to hold personal grudges against all children of that particular god, which was totally unfair.
And it was just her luck that Theseus, one of the greatest sons of Poseidon, had to defeat the Cretan Bull. Not to mention Ryan was probably on that hit list because of Hercules removed him from power. But at least Hercules didn't kill the bull!
"Alexandria! Don't just stand there!" Ryan yelled in a panicked voice, running towards the back of the bull with a sword in hand. He almost tripped over a stray branch.
Alex snapped out of her thoughts about why she wasn't seeing her past life and pulled the pearl bracelet off her wrist in a haste. Almost immediately, the bracelet transformed into a deadly celestial bronze sword given to her courtesy of her father for her 16th birthday.
She locked eyes with the demonic Cretan bull that was dead set on killing her. "Catch me if you can," she taunted before doing the most impulsively stupid thing yet: running.
As she took off, she actually realized how many flaws her not thought out plan had. First, she had no idea where in the Hades to go exactly to seek safety. Second, now Ryan was in danger.
Alex looked back for just a swift moment to find just what she had expected. Of course Ryan couldn't back down from the opportunity of a fight. She should have foreseen that just from her many years experience of rising him to that point!
She stopped in her tracks, choices flitting back and forth between in her mind. Alex had to go back for him. He would do the same for her, wouldn't he? But she could see a simple path around them that would make it free for her to enter the Underworld without him. But she needed the key...Had Elizabeth known that Alex would think about taking the Underworld on by herself? Is that why she had chosen to give the key to Ryan?
Ryan's electrically charged sword made contact with the bull's horns with a shower of sparks in another failing attempt to puncture it. Alex's grip on her sword tightened. No one was allowed to mess with Ryan except for her.
And that's when she took off running, straight into the middle of the fight, just as Ryan decided to abandon traditional fighting and go straight for the biggest ace: a lightning bolt.
Alex felt herself being blasted backwards as her heart beat felt out of place and the world started to shakily spin around her. Her back smacked into a tree with full force, knocking any breath that was left in her chest cavity out. Alex could feel the blood trickling out of her new scrapes as she coughed through the smoke and tried to make sense of everything.
Her first step failed her, and Alex stumbled to the ground, scraping her hands and knees. Apparently, Apollo wasn't feeling very sympathetic towards her today since she had accumulated quite the injuries already. Alex coughed again crawled towards the bag that had once been strapped around one shoulder. She pulled out a few rolls of athletic tape and tried her best in her dizzied state to wrap it around the wounds. It wasn't the best solution, but it was all she could find in the present. Why hadn't she put the nectar and ambrosia on the top?
She zipped up her bag and tried to find her comrade. "Ry-" she stopped again to cough. The smoke, instead of easing away, seemed to be getting thicker. "Ryan?" she managed to croak out, but it didn't seem very loud.
Alex managed to walk a few more steps toward the place where Ryan and the bull had been fighting, but nothing became any clearer. Her coughing became more frequent and the smoked was blurring her vision even more.
And that's when she heard the mortal sirens and everything connected.
Ryan had accidentally started a forest fire. And he could possibly be trapped.
Alex tried her best not to panic. She tried to think before doing anything radical, something Ally would be very proud of her for. The best way to get rid of a fire is to deprive it of oxygen by using a smothering technique or...water!
"Ryan!" Alex screamed waving her hands to attempt to clear the smoke. "If you can hear me, make it rain! I'll be back, I promise!" she yelled, making a beeline for the tourist building and entrance ahead.
It was already a hectic mess up there, people being escorted from the building at a hurried pace to avoid any danger from the fire. Firetrucks, ambulances, and police cars were entering the vicinity with urgency.
Alex forced her aching legs to push through the line of people going down, ignoring the pain and the yelling comments directed towards her. She almost tripped as one of the wooden pine steps changed quickly from a small platform and back to a set of stairs again, causing an old lady call her some rather unflattering names.
She reached out with her senses to feel the water source underneath. It was rushing through the pipes with such a wild and desperate source that Alex almost smiled. But then she realized that it was doing this because the fire hoses were draining it out. Well, that wouldn't do.
Alex took the chance to look back and check on the fire and her heart leaped with joy when she saw the slowly forming thunderclouds above the trees. She seriously doubted that the clouds were coincidentally doing that. Either Ryan had heard her and gathered enough strength to do it or he had not heard her and thought of it himself.
She ran as fast as she could to the nearest and largest plumbing part she could feel, which Alex figured led to the bathrooms. Problem was, the closest access to that was in the building, which the park rangers and emergency evacuation directors were closely guarding so that no one went back in.
Alex stopped around the corner from them, trying to come up with some sort of plan that wouldn't make the situation any worse than it presently was. But Ryan was depending on her and he could be dying at the moment. Alex had no time for formulating a plan.
And with that she took the hilt of her sword and smashed it through the window.
If alarms were blaring from the breakage, Alex couldn't hear over the cries of the people and the alarms of the emergency vehicles. She forced her aching body through adding to the already large amount of cuts and scrapes.
Tunnel vision overcame her as she stumbled inside, her eyes desperately looking for the bathroom sign. The glorious florescent sign was pointing to a hall to the left, and Alex sprinted her hardest towards one of the doors, not really paying attention to which one was which.
Her hands flung to the closest pipe, trying to direct the flow out and making it do what she wanted. But nothing came. She didn't even feel the slight nausea that usually came when she used her powers in a real panic. There was nothing.
"Oh, come on, godsdammit! Why isn't anything happening?" she yelled, hitting the pipe. Ryan could be out there dying and she couldn't even muster a bit of her powers to save him.
She turned on a faucet in frustration, splashing her face with the water to maybe increase her energy and clear her head. Alex looked in the mirror with water dripping unattractively down her face. Her blonde hair, once in a neat fishtail braid, was matted all over in a complete mess. She had smudges and spots of blood smearing her face and the only thing that seemed to be in good condition was her ocean blue eyes, and even they were red from the strain of the smoke.
Alex tried to direct the water coming out of the faucet with the same results as last time. She felt like crying, but the salt would burn the scrapes on her face, she feared.
"Salt," Alex muttered, finally noticing why her powers weren't working. "Oh my gods, Alex, you're so stupid!"
Alex had always been accustomed to being in a place near the sea where the water was saltwater. Here, in the middle of a continent, the water was fresh. Alex had not an ounce of control over freshwater. And Alex couldn't even try to think of what godly entity did.
"Are you kidding me?" Alex screamed out in anger, maybe subconsciously hoping that her high emotions would make something happen. Why couldn't Ally have gotten left behind instead of Alex? Ally would know exactly what to do and keep a clear head and she would fix everything in a flawless way.
Seriously, what did Alex and Ryan's godly parents expect? That they would just shrug their shoulders, say "Oh, it was just some pointless quest," and go on with their lives like nothing ever happened? It was obvious how much attention they paid to the potential results of their suddenly parental rules.
Alex was hit by the occasional bit of inspiration. Maybe if she asked Poseidon nicely to contact whoever he needed to contact (Sorry, godly entity that Alex had zoned out when learning said name in mythology class back at camp) to help save Ryan by granting Alex temporary control over freshwater. Besides, she didn't think Zeus would be all that happy if Poseidon told her no and let his son die.
"Okay, daddy-o Poseidon. I know we haven't been on the, well, 'best of terms' we'll call it, but I really need you help. Actually, Ryan's the one who needs your help, but you can help him by helping me! I'll pay you back, promise. I'll, uh, do something for you later when you lose something. Not saying you'll lose something. . . Okay, never mind that. But all you need to do (Not saying you have to) is talk to the overlord or overlady or freshwater and figure this whole thing out!" Alex tried, closing her eyes and even flashing a convincing smile. "Please, daddy?"
She almost expected some deep and manly voice to proclaim loudly, "NO!" but instead, an almost rumbling feeling went through her body making her fingers feel like they were tingling from numbness. Her stomach turned upside down and Alex felt like throwing up almost instantly. Alex's head fizzled like she had lost connection with something, but after a moment everything cleared up.
The freshwater coming out of the faucets seemed to call to Alex, every molecule yearning to be touched by her fingers. Alex obeyed, eager and anxious to find out the results.
Her fingertip touched the surface of the water rising to the top of the sink she had left on during her pleas. The water rose to her touch, the droplets making their way up her arms in a slinking motion. They crawled across her fingers, running down the loose strands of her blonde hair, healing the cuts as they pass through them.
Alex was in awe by the sheer beauty of it. She watched the water droplets as they traveled around the room in a daze. She felt like she'd stepped into Wonderland where nothing was as it seemed.
An ivory piece of paper drifting up from the drain and to the top of the water broke Alex's amazement. She gingerly lifted it from the clear water and turned it over. There, written in wave-like writing in a dark ink this was written:
What is lost is lost
What is given is forever.
Alex shakily dropped the ivory paper to the tile floor, not understanding the meaning of the words. Actually, Alex wasn't sure she wanted to know what everything meant. Nonetheless, she's ask Alice's advice once they reunited with the other four. Assuming they got there, of course.
Realizing that she had to get a move on, Alex closed her eyes and gathered all the water like she would to the ocean. She felt the power surging behind the clear innocent droplets that had been crawling on her earlier and she directed it out of the bathroom with a powerful push of her arms.
The pipes broke from their bondage and the water rushed out in a waterfall, moving quickly towards the door. Alex felt the rush of nausea and knew that things would only get better from here. She burst through the bathroom door and began to run with the water, the waves splashing around her feet happily.
As she and the water encountered the front entrance closely guarded by forest rangers to make sure no one went back into the cave, Alex lifted her arms into the air and commanded the water to slam right into the doors, knocking over the rangers and falling down the steps in a graceful motion.
"Sorry!" Alexandria apologized, running out with the water and down the wooden steps alongside him. She was sad to see that the thundercloud up above the billowing fire had barely developed anymore than the last time Alex had checked on it, meaning Ryan was losing to his own powers at a fast rate. The firetrucks seemingly had no effect on the lightning fire, the firemen rushing around and spraying all they could.
Alex jumped off the wooden steps with the water following her every move. She concentrated more and move power into every molecule as she sprinted directly into the source of the fire. Her lungs started to cloud up again from the smoke and she knew that she had to let the water loose before she lost any more energy.
The water hit the fire with full force, making an awful sizzling sound not unlike one of grease on a hot pan. Alex covered her face out of instinct though she knew that she wouldn't get hurt. The smoke began to get extremely thick, so bad that Alex could barely see her own hand, but she took this as a good sign this time. The water was working with perfection.
Alex reached her hand out into the fog, trying to find any spare water molecules that weren't doing anything special at the moment. They softly landed in her palm and Alex sighed in relief. "Help me find Ryan, please," she nicely asked, not knowing whether it would actually work or not.
The steam coming from the losing fire separated to make a path through the woods. Alex's breath caught in her throat and she thought, but just for a fleeting second, that maybe freshwater was more powerful than the ocean. It was more resourceful, anyway. Especially in the middle of the continental U.S..
And there he was. Ryan was laying flat with his left side against a tree, his arm outstretched in a possible plea to the sky to help him. It was sickening to Alex. His blonde hair was charred at the ends and wiped over to one side. Ryan's face and body was covered in burn marks as was his bag that he had somehow managed to save. He looked so helpless but noble at the same time.
If only Alex hadn't left him to fight it on his own. If only she'd stayed back to prevent him from trying to save her from that stupid bull none of this would've happened.
"Oh, god, Ryan!" Alex nearly screamed, dropping to the ground next to him and putting a hand on his chest. She felt the steady heartbeat coming from his chest and she nearly cried. She wrapped her arms around his body and rocked him like a baby (Well, as much as she could since he was like a six-foot four guy and Alex was only five six) just out of relief.
She didn't know what shook her out of it, but Alex realized that she needed to get him out of here so that she could get him back to consciousness and they could get into the Underworld already. They had a debt to pay to Elizabeth Sinclair and they needed to fix the world crisis before it got any worse.
With a grunt, Alex attempted to pull him up from the ground. Key word being attempted because the kid seriously needed to lose some muscle mass. Not like that was a bad thing or anything. No, Ryan's muscles were actually kind of hot-
Bad Alexandria! She chided herself. Alex did not have time to go falling for fren-emies. Especially when they were self confident, alpha, hot, idiotic sons of Zeus.
Simply put, Ryan was just too heavy for a girl like Alex to carry. Yes, that was better.
Normally, this would be the time when Alex started to do something rash and stop thinking about her actions, but for some reason, her mind felt clear. She didn't feel the immediate need to do something that might or might not work. Instead, it was like the water was speaking to her and helping her thoughts flow smoothly.
And for some reason, Alex listened to the call of the freshwater. She let go of Ryan's torso and laid it on the ground. Her arm reached out in a summoning way towards what was left of the water and pulled it towards her.
She expected a light wave at best. Mostly, with ocean water, unless Alex was feeling really emotional (and quite frankly, Alex was emotioned-out for the day) she was unable to attract any powerful water tricks. But this- this was different. This was unnatural, the way the water obeyed her.
A stream began to impossibly form, lifting Ryan's body up and causing it to float on a thin strip of water. It wasn't real, it was like nothing Alex had seen before. All she could do was walk alongside Ryan's body and watch in awe as the water carried him uphill and to the main building.
Once they were close by the window Alex had earlier broken out, Alex picked a handful of the wonderful liquid up and splashed Ryan's face in hopes up waking him up.
He shuddered and automatically reached for his nonexistent sword to take on his attacker. Alex laughed in joy and held his arms down, looking below at him. "Not so fast, Air Head," she taunted, but then wrapped her arms around his neck as he pushed himself up.
He stiffened at first, but then relaxed and put his strong hands on her lower back as they still sat on the ground. Alex quite liked the feeling, as a matter of fact. "Gods, what happened to you, Alexandria?"
"Nothing," Alex quickly answered, trying to cover the blush on her cheeks with her singed blonde hair as she pulled back from Ryan. "I just . . .almost lost you. And if you ever do that again, Princeton, I will-"
"Wait, so you're saying you were affected by my near death?" Ryan interrupted, that usual cocky smile back on his lips like nothing had ever happened.
Alex ignored him and dug into his smoke smelling backpack, finding the ambrosia at the top next to a canteen of nectar. "Of course I was. You're my best friend. Now eat this and shut up," Alex bossed, shoving the ambrosia at his face and turning away.
Obviously, the annoying son of Zeus was not going to drop the subject, probably taking pride in trying to humiliate Alex. "So, if we're best friends," he said, emphasizing 'best', "Then what are Alice and Rory?"
"My best friends, duh. Are you coming or not?" Alex dismissed, taking both of their backpacks and climbing through her broken window. She could see the wet carpet from her earlier expedition with the bathroom pipes and many of the souvenirs were strung out across the room, knocked over from their shelves.
She heard Ryan make his way through as well, but the guy was relentless. "So I'm the equivalent of Alice and Rory. Huh. You know, I really didn't know we had that close of a bond. . .I wonder what would happen if we got any closer," he mulled, looking behind the locked counters.
He shuffled through a few boxes of items, looking in the jewelry case, but Alex was too busy trying to stray the idiot from the topic and trying to save her dignity. "For a person who almost died, you sure have a big ego. I wonder how we get into the cave entrance," Alex diverted again.
Ryan might have pocketed something, but Alex couldn't see to tell for sure. He pointed to the sign above a door to the right. "Right there. See, 'Cave Entrance'. And near death makes a man reevaluate his life."
Alex pressed her lips together, forcing her blush down. What on earth was wrong with her? She sighed and headed for the obvious door with Ryan close behind and pushed it open, surprised to find that it wasn't locked. A cold wall of air hit them from the cave's atmosphere as they made their way into the faintly lit, brown cave. Alex could see lamps that had been set up in the cave to allow a light source.
She tried to walk down the next set of rock stairs, but Ryan pushed her aside and stood in her way. "What the Hades, Ryan?" Alex snapped, trying to shove him out of the way.
His grip on the wall was firm, though, and didn't do anything. Then, suddenly, Ryan pressed her up against the rock wall, not allowing Alex to move any further. Alex was about to protest when Ryan's lips slammed against hers, full of need and some other emotion that Alex couldn't identify.
And oh, it felt so good and calming. She could stay like that forever, subconsciously kissing him back, feeling the protection that Ryan would always give her. But it was wrong. They were meant to be enemies.
She stopped and realized her hands had made their way to his singed hair, ruffling it with emotion. Ryan pulled back with a dazed look on his face, but he leaned close to her ear. "Alexandria Hayden, I am nothing without you. And whatever happens once we open these doors to the Underworld, know that. Please. I need you."
His voice sounded like a man who'd just about lost his reason to live. His eyes held nothing but yearning for Alex to say yes, she'd always be there for him regardless of what happened. She belonged to him and no one else.
But Alex didn't have the time to make a response. Behind them, a black trail made of dust was swirling on the floor, whispering "This way, this way," in a faint voice.
Ryan's eyes followed Alex's gaze, and he pulled the thick key out of his pocket. Alex watched as, like a magnet, the black dust pulled Ryan on the way. So quick, that Alex had to jog to keep up with Ryan, not even having time to admire the wondrous parts of the cave.
Finally, they stopped in front of a giant stalagmite. Or was it stalactite? Whatever it was, the white pointed mass of mineral deposits started to glow with a silver and black outline, its shine reflecting on the cave walls behind her. The spiral pressed in on the middle, requesting an entry confirmation in the shape of a keyhole.
Ryan gave her one last look and Alex tried to pass the things left unsaid, but Ryan was a guy, after all, and there was no guarantee that he actually understood. He grasped the key and stuck it in the lock and turned.
Alex's breath hitched as the door released the key back into Ryan's hand and collapsed open, revealing a dark, shadowing cavern. It was at this moment that she realized that Elizabeth Sinclair had never specified exactly where in the Underworld this door opened to.
Personally, Alex was hoping for Hades's fortress itself.
Alex's hand found Ryan's as they crossed to the other side of the world, both of them praying that the other would make it through wherever they were headed.