Happy Pi Day! You know, 3.14159265 blah blah blah! :)

Sorry for typos/OOCness! It's short, but it does pack a punch at the end!

Happy Reading!

Chapter 30

Nico

Once Piper and Jason had jumped off into the volcano, Nico had to decide whether or not to make a run for it.

It was crazy. Jumping off a cliff into volcano was the stupidest idea he had ever heard of, and yet everyone agreed with it. He had to agree with it so that he wouldn't be singled anymore than he already was.

Nico had told all of them about Percy falling into a volcano and having everyone think he was dead. What he hadn't told him was that Percy had almost died. The force and heat of the volcano had burnt his skin and a lot of his hair off. If he hadn't landed on that witch Calypso's island… well, things would've been a lot worse.

This time, they didn't have a Calypso waiting for the lost heroes or the nearly dead ones. Even if they really had disappeared through the Gates, where to? They couldn't just pop into some random kid's birthday party! Oh, excuse us. The Gate of No Return took us here after we jumped into Mount Kilauea. Can we have some cake?

He wasn't sure if it was fortunate or not that Haze came up to him and rested a hand on his shoulder. "Let's get this over with," she said quietly and guided him over to Frank.

She held Frank's hand and gave him a sweet kiss on the cheek. Then she looped her arm through Nico's and gulped rather loudly. "Is it okay to be nervous?" she asked suddenly as they climbed a little higher.

Frank mumbled something and shook his head. He looked severely traumatized and Nico felt a little bad for him. He remembered what Leo had said about him not liking fire and knew that it had to be the hardest for him to go through with the plan.

"I still think we should take an airplane," Nico admitted, kicking a rock. It skidded and skipped until it went over the side and into the volcano. Nico couldn't even hear the plop. "If we leave now, we'll get to Greece in a day or two, depending on flight detours."

Frank nodded, agreeing with him. But Hazel shook her head. "No. I don't want to do this but we have to. We have to be brave and do this for our friends and family." Except for the fact that their family was dead and their friends could be.

"I guess when they say Gate of No Return, they mean it literally," Nico said.

"Please don't say that," Frank muttered. He was sweating buckets and blinking rapidly. Nico was afraid he was going to turn into a bird and fly away.

"Let's get this over with," Nico said, hating each word. But it had gone on long enough. If somehow they did die, then so be it. At least he still (hopefully) had his room in his dad's palace to live in, and maybe he could give Hazel a better home.

And they had to hurry. If they didn't go now, the Gates might close for good, and then they would be screwed.

So they counted to three together, Hazel clearly, Nico hesitantly, and Frank mumbling. Then they jumped over the side and fell down, connected into a chain. And the whole way down, Nico was praying to every god that he could think of.

The heat was the worst of it. The steam cascaded around him and they went down like they were in slow motion. He didn't scream, he didn't cry, but he tried to remain as still as he could. His eyes were glued shut because he couldn't bear to look down at what was coming at him. He could see it in his mind. The magma, churning and burning down there, waiting for him to come and swallow him whole, and kill him at first touch.

But the red and flashing behind his eyelids came to an end, and he was stuck in darkness.

For a minute, he thought he was dead, but then he felt Hazel still touching him reassuringly. His head was spinning and they were falling slowly and smoothly now, like going through water.

His back hit something suddenly and he gasped. It wasn't the pain, but it was the shock. They hadn't perished in the volcano, which meant that Triton had been telling the truth. They were somewhere else, but Nico was so far gone that he couldn't tell.

He faded in and out of consciousness, very quickly. His had the worst headache and felt like he wanted to through up. He could still feel Hazel, and he heard multiple moans, including a few that came from him. All he wanted was the vertigo to go away.

When everything started to get brighter, Nico opened his eyes and was blinded by the moon, which hung high in the sky and gave off lunar light. He blinked a few times and rolled his head. He didn't want to stand up, but that was the only thing he could do.

Once he had stretched his legs, he looked down to see Frank just lying there. His eyes were wide open and he was staring into space, not moving a muscle. For a second, Nico thought he was dead, and his entire stomach dropped. But then Frank blinked, and he knew he was okay.

Hazel was squatting and trying to stand up, but stumbling and falling back down every time. Nico bent down and snatched her by her arms and helped her stand up straight. "Thanks," she muttered and shook out her limbs.

That's when Nico saw that they were way behind everyone else. Leo, Piper, and Jason were all there, just staring at them. They looked a little rattled, and Leo had a crazy smile across his face, but they were okay too.

Nico looked up, but there was only a blank nighttime sky and twinkling stars. He remembered his vision of him running through Tartarus. The sky had been similar, but it had been green and… evil. This sky was soothing and calm, the complete opposite of how the past day had been.

"It took you all long enough," Piper grumbled humorously and rolled her eyes. "Now, we just need to find out where we are."

That was true. Nico looked around, and they were in the middle of the woods. The trees were high around them, but they left the sky clear. The trees had few leaves, and that was because they were pine and had needles.

Nico walked around a small bit, not too far away from the rest. There was no one around that he could hear, and he suspected that he would since there were so many twigs and branches on the ground. Even he was making a lot of noise, and he was trying his best not to.

"Well, I can't see anyone around," Nico said.

"Let's see if I can do anything," Jason said, and he shot into the air like a bullet. Nico watched him go up and he stayed up there for a few minutes looking around. Something bit Nico on the face, and he slapped at it. When he saw the blood and black remnants, he guessed it was a mosquito.

It wasn't terribly hot where he was, not like Hawaii. A soft breeze blew through his hair and tattered clothes. He still hadn't changed into the few clothes that he had in his backpack. The breeze was cool and the air was warm. The ground was actually a little muddy in a few places, suggesting that it had rained recently. Or that an animal had used the facilities.

Jason landed back down with a thump. "I think we're in the northern US, like Wyoming or around there… more specifically, in Yellowstone. I can see waterfalls and those small mountains, and judging by the trees, I thinks it's our best guess. I know we aren't in the Appalachian. "

"How do you know we aren't in some other country?" asked Nico. "For all we know, we could be back in Europe, of somewhere in Asia, or South America, or Australia. Maybe even Africa… but probably not Antarctica, judging by the weather." No one responded to him, and he knew that they were thinking about that.

"So we're in the land of bears and wolves," Leo said, ignoring Nico's guesses. "And what happens if they try to attack and eat us for supper?"

"We have Frank," Hazel said, nudging her boyfriend with her foot. He was still lying on the ground, and now, his mouth was moving rapidly.

"What was that?" Hazel asked.

"I can't believe we're alive," Frank said, speaking up. He stood the ground with a joyful look on his face. "We actually didn't burn to death!" He sounded gleeful and not like he usually did. It was a nice change.

"So, do we sleep?" Piper wondered.

"I guess. I'd rather not move now," Jason told her, and he sat on the ground. Nico did too. None of them were hungry, and before long, half of them had fallen asleep, completely exhausted.

Nico's body wanted to rest immensely, and he found himself lying with his back on the ground and his head on his backpack, using it as a pillow. But his mind refused to let him fall asleep in fear of what he would start dreaming about.

He couldn't help but think about the destruction in Kauai that he had caused. All of those people he had seen… some of them could have been seriously injured. He had just let his anger get away from him, and it had caused so much damage. He felt like he was a terrible person.

He didn't want to fall asleep and dream about that, but the main thing that he didn't want to dream about was Tartarus. Of course, that was cowardly and foolish of him since they did need to information, but it scared him to know what he had been through.

He remembered being pulled down into the dark, and that was when the vision had ended. He wondered what had happened after that. He hadn't died, clearly, but he knew that whatever had happened, it had been important. That made it all the worse that he didn't want to know about it.

Nico closed his eyes and willed himself to go to sleep, but he could not.

Something snapped, and Nico was on his feet with a knife in his hand before he could even blink. For a minute he thought he was only being paranoid, but he heard the cracking sound again, and he knew that they were not alone.

He realized that everyone else was asleep and oblivious to the sounds and the person that was sneaking up on them. Nico had no idea who it could be, but he doubted it was someone nice. And what if it was an animal? Would Frank really go all commando and kill it for them? Nico didn't know.

So he crept forward and before he could chicken out, he called out, "Who's there?" His voice wasn't too shaky and he sounded sort of intimidating.

"Nico?" the person asked. It was a girl and he had heard the voice before. The person stepped out into the clearing. He couldn't make out the face since he was still trying to blink back the black spots in front of his eyes.

Soon, he could start to see the girl's whole profile. She was wearing a black tank top and silvery cargo pants, with a bow and quiver across her back, but that was all he could make out before she was giving him a hug. It was like a sister hugging a brother, something he hadn't felt in a while. And before she pulled away so that he could look at her face, he already knew who she was.

"Hey, Thalia."

Yippee... So, I've posted a new story, a oneshot called Sixty Seconds, so please R&R. And remember to check out Hell and Silence.

Reviews and Ideas are loved! I'm just watching Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince... Reveiw Challenge: What's your favorite movie? Mine is a tie between Beasts of the Southern Wild and Super 8!

-BBH