In the months after I killed Procrustes (again), monster attacks slowly grew more frequent and with larger groups of what I'd come to label 'minor monsters' Basically anything that didn't have its own legend. The lack of a legend didn't make them any less dangerous per se, but those that had legends tended to have them for a reason.

Sometimes, I couldn't help but try and picture myself fighting even one of the minor monsters when I'd first arrived at camp. The Minotaur had been a fluke—a lucky shot driven by my own desperation, fear, and anger. Most of the rest of the monsters I'd come across, I'd had to run from. Like the Chimera. Or almost any monster we'd come across in the Sea of Monsters. Annabeth had outwitted a few, but I'd stuck to the philosophy that it was usually a good idea for demigods to run from monsters, no matter how good of a fighter they were.

I didn't really have that option in Tartarus. If I ran, I'd have to keep running and I knew that would catch up with me eventually. Or sooner. Or immediately.

Fighting the monsters in Tartarus was both more difficult and easier than fighting them on quests. Taking down a couple of Dracaena I could see coming was far different than getting ambushed by them in the real world. But they were stronger and more often than not, I found myself healing broken bones, very large cuts and slices, even the odd poisoning with the Phlegethon after every fight. If the river had not been there, I wouldn't have lasted long. I hated how dependent I was on it, but what else could I do?

So I found myself bracing for the next fight, even as I healed myself. I still rarely had to fight groups with more than six members. Usually three or four. But fighting five or six different groups a 'day' (and a minimum of two every 'night') was still taxing. Slowly but surely, it was wearing me out.

I wondered at the uptick in fights. Was word finally getting around? Or had whatever was keeping the monsters away (Tartarus? Koios? If them—or anyone else—why?) withdrawn their… protection? Order? Whatever the Hades it was because they hadn't exactly told me.

Still, the monsters weren't anything I couldn't handle, even in the larger groups. The fights, as frustrating as they were, had almost become routine.

Then the Hydra came.

I decided to actually classify it and the drakon as mid-level monsters, high levels being Titans, giants and the like.

I didn't like fighting mid-level monsters. Especially not on my own. Double especially not in Tartarus with their power boost. They were already strong enough. They didn't show up often, and when they did, I could usually tell they were coming. I'd practically littered the ground around my base camp with alarm traps, and that had helped, but even low-level monsters weren't usually stupid and a lot of them could avoid most of my traps. Sometimes I only knew something was coming when they set off the traps inside the door to my cave, because I'd made sure they couldn't avoid those.

I hated it when they woke me up though, because my new trick with super-heating the Phlegethon took time that I didn't have when monsters managed to get the jump on me. It took at least fifteen seconds to get something that burned through whatever came at me cleanly enough to end a fight definitively. I'd been working on trying to get the count-time down, but hadn't made much progress.

Of course the hydra was a smart one. The sound of my noise trap just inside the cave entrance jerked me from my sleep. I snapped into a sitting position and dove for Riptide, cursing the fact that I couldn't just burn through it like I would have been able to had I been awake when it had decided to drop by for a not-so-friendly visit. I couldn't even get out of the cave until I reached out and grabbed the Phlegethon from a distance. The further away it was, the harder it was to control, so I couldn't superheat it from my cave. However, it was still incredibly hot water, so it still did something when thrown against the hydra's body, even if not much more than distract the monster to a point where I could duck out of the cave to fight. I also used the trick of freezing the ocean water I summoned from the seashell (which I'd taken to keeping around my neck on a cord so I could have a readily available water source… and maybe a little comfort). Ocean water froze at a lower temperature than regular water (facts from Annabeth, yay) and thus could be very distracting. Especially when I used it to freeze joints and hinder the hydra's movement. It helped that the monster really, really didn't like the cold.

I didn't know how long the fight lasted for—too long—but I was heaving breaths and ignoring more than one stab wound, multiple sprains and at least one broken rib by the time I found an opening. I used a trick of shattering ice suddenly, like a bomb, and throwing it at the heads (that I'd very much avoided slicing off) with as much force as possible. They'd been close enough together at that point that most of them had been blown back for a second.

That second was all I needed.

I practically dove for the main body, Riptide ready to slice it, and I even coated my arms in water to magnify my strength. It worked. The celestial bronze cut into the body and all three heads let out shrieks of pain. I didn't let that stop me, withdrawing my sword and proceeding to stab it multiple times in a matter of seconds. The body began to fall. I let Riptide go as I couldn't withdraw it fast enough to dodge, and curled into a ball, rolling in between the legs as the monster collapsed.

I came to a stop in an ungraceful sprawl and just laid there for several seconds, listening for any hint that the thing wasn't dead. I only really relaxed once I heard the soft 'pop' that I'd learned to associate with a monster's body dissolving into gold dust. I let my head fall down on the dark sand in relief. Then I mentally kicked myself for not declaring a trophy. That had been a large monster with a lot of useful parts. Opportunity lost. I'd be kicking myself for days.

After several minutes, I managed to stand up, wincing at the sharp rocks in my skin from where I'd rolled. I'd also been scratched more than once by either snapping teeth or swiping claws, and one painfully memorable moment by the thing's spiked tail—thankfully, the spikes only pierced my shoulder. That could have been much worse.

I glanced over at the pile of gold dust and sighed before stumbling over to the river, annoyed at how familiar the after-battle routine had become.

The Phlegethon burned (it really was torture, no matter how used to it I'd become) but it healed me, as always. I noted that Riptide had come to sit in the sand beside me, as innocent as ever.

With a tired snort, I grabbed it, then stood up and headed off to my little pool of water to relax for the day. Or at least a few hours.

Not even an hour in, another group of Empousi found me.

All four of them were dead before I even got to the surface of the water.

That water-spike idea really was brilliant.

xXx

The next two monsters that showed up were the Nemean Lion and the Chimera. At once. I had to fight them simultaneously… alone. Because of course.

The lion did not like the Phlegethon, although even the superheated water didn't seem to actually burn it. Stupid impenetrable pelt. The chimera hated the Phlegethon and showed it by spewing fire at me from a distance, refusing to get any closer to the water than it actually had to. Due to the distance, it managed to avoid my retaliatory strikes for the most part. It probably knew it would be the easier of the two monsters to kill, too, as I could actually cut through its skin. So I focused on trying to get the lion to back off for a moment so I could try to take the chimera out first.

The Phlegethon singed the lion at best, but if I threw enough water at it, I could still force it to move or throw it around. So I slammed it with a fist from the river, tossing it aside (it would be fine, I knew… unfortunately). Then I turned and ran at the chimera, thankful for my heat resistance more than ever as I dodged the thing's flaming blasts.

Once I got close enough, the snake-tail began to snap at me, preventing me from closing the distance. And then the lion attacked again and it was all I could do to avoid being disemboweled or poisoned… or both. Maybe going after the chimera first hadn't been my smartest idea. The two monsters worked surprisingly well together and, unfortunately, they both seemed to remember me.

It was honestly one of the most difficult battles I'd ever had to fight on my own, especially considering that the fire the chimera breathed was hot enough to actually leave burns. Found that out the hard way when I took a blast to the chest.

Then the lion came back and I seriously wondered if this would be it for me. Fortunately, the lion seemed to like the heat of the chimera's fire about as much as it liked the heat of the river, which meant it couldn't get close enough to me as long as I kept going at the chimera. I still didn't like how cornered I felt and decided to lead the monsters to the river, backing away slowly, still swinging my sword and making sure to keep the chimera between me and the lion.

It worked. I managed to lure both of them to a point where I could turn and rush onto the Phlegethon. Once there, I turned, backing out onto the water and trying not to wince as I nursed a potentially broken ankle and a dislocated shoulder, along with an all-too-deep scratch from the lion on my hip. The two monsters seemed to have gotten over their aversion to the Phlegethon as they stalked the banks, hissing and roaring at me angrily. Also spitting fire but I managed to dodge or duck behind some rocks before it could burn me again.

Thankful for the slight reprieve, I put my all into superheating the Phlegethon water (I'd almost gotten it down to ten seconds for instant-battle-ending heat recently). Then I waited, only really pausing to swallow a couple of normal mouthfuls of water to help with my injuries. They didn't like that.

Which is exactly what I wanted.

As soon as the chimera opened its mouth to spit more angry fire at me, I literally shot the insanely hot liquid at its mouth. It was a gamble. Obviously the chimera had to have some resistance to heat inside its body, but it was also the most vulnerable spot. Thankfully, my gamble paid off as the river's heat overwhelmed said fire and any heat resistance. After several gurgling screams of pain that made me wince (I hadn't wanted to torture the thing… even if I found it a little satisfying), the chimera gave up one final strangled cry and collapsed into dust.

The lion suddenly seemed unsure, looking between the pile of ash that used to be its fellow monster, and me. My shoulder popped back into place painfully, but I barely noticed. Pain and I had become very well acquainted recently. I guessed the lion saw that and realized it was outmatched when it turned to run, but I wasn't about to let it escape. Raising another giant hand of Phlegethon water from the river, I grabbed the monster as it tried to dodge and flee. It wasn't fast enough. It let out a half-roar, half-yowl as I dragged it into the river, declaring my trophy of the lion pelt as I did. I made sure it wouldn't come back out.

I came out of that fight alive… and with a mildly singed impenetrable fur coat covered in Phlegethon water too.

Too bad wearing it in the heat of Tartarus made me extremely uncomfortable. Outside heat I could handle. Heat I generated myself? Not so much, apparently. I wrote a very long, ranty letter to Annabeth after that discovery, because why?! I'd burn it the next time I went to the shrine.

I rested for the remainder of that 'day' in my seawater pool, just relishing being alive. The next day, I returned to my usual training, looking out for monsters while summoning and wearing water armor instead of the lion's pelt.

I got attacked by two more gryphon packs and at least three more hellhound packs that day. And that was before the flying pig from Manhattan came after me. The… something Sow. I didn't remember, or really care, about its name. What I did care about was how well the thing could avoid my shots of Phlegethon water as it soared around, waiting for chances to dive-bomb me.

Eventually, I got fed up and used my water-chariot to chase the thing around. That… didn't initially go very well. I was still obviously very new at aerial maneuvers. The pig wasn't. I lost my balance and fell out of (or got knocked out of) the chariot more than once. Note: falling from any height onto obsidian sand hurts. I rarely went up high enough that a fall would severely hurt me, so I didn't have terrible injuries, but still. Enough little injuries can be just as dangerous as one big one and I ended up swallowing several painful mouthfuls of Phlegethon water. Again. You'd think it would get less painful as my body adjusted to it or something, but I guess Tartarus just refused to be that nice.

Thankfully, I always had learned well on the fly (pun totally intended), and that time wasn't any different. The more I went after the stupid pig, the easier it got to control the chariot. Once I finished with this fight, I decided I'd have to practice some Jason-worthy maneuvers to just get used to it. If I didn't hate being in the air so much, I might have actually found it fun. I still found it exhilarating. Especially once I changed the 'chariot' into something I could grip with my knees. I didn't often get strokes of brilliance and was rather proud of that one as I directed the bike-like water shape like I would a pegasus and sliced the pig's belly open as it flew by just a little too close.

I ate well that night. Hey, I had food from camp, but they hadn't been able to send bacon. I was kind of grateful I could still enjoy any sort of meat, to be honest.

Fortunately, those were the only really major attacks I had to deal with before I set off for the shrine again, feeling far more confident about both my abilities and my chances of success when it came to finding Damasen's camp. I made sure to bring my stock of catgut and hair-type ropes this time. I slung them over my shoulder and backpack for easy carrying as I walked down the middle of the Phlegethon towards the dark lands again. That had become my main way of traveling to the shrine. Not only did this help me improve my stamina, but I could also avoid the disgusting monster-reforming-zit-bubbles. That alone was well worth it.

It took me three days this time.

(...About three days. Tyson's watch really was amazing, but even it couldn't keep up with the changes in Tartarus… The trip felt like only a day or so, but the watch said three days had passed and maybe I needed to sleep more?

Have I mentioned how much I really hate Tartarus?)

Restocking my normal food supplies was a huge relief, as always. Hearing from Annabeth and the camp felt like lifting a rock off of my shoulders. I felt myself truly begin to relax as I burned my ranty letters to her first. Then I told her about the uptick in monsters, the difficulty sleeping (it was getting to a point where I had a hard time falling asleep because of worry that a monster like the hydra would attack again) and she said she and Leo had gotten together to think up some more simple traps I could make to guard my base camp better. They'd be putting the schematics in the notebook, and then she stressed that if I didn't understand something, I needed to tell her. I wasn't entirely sure why she stressed that. I told her stuff…

Still, I didn't want to fight and responded that I would, and then informed her that I'd be going over the dark lands this time. She sent back encouragement, said that she believed in me, that I would be fine, that she loved me and that if I died, she'd head to the Underworld to ream me out herself. She'd know if I died too, because Nico was on watch.

I missed her so much in that moment that I needed to just sit and take several breaths to try and ease the ache in my heart.

I slept the night there, then packed the food they sent (angels, the lot of them) in the bags I'd brought (I made a mental note to ask for more next time as these already seemed to be falling apart… much like a lot of the clothing I'd brought and/or found) and then prepared for my next journey. Or was it a quest? Both? Neither? Eh.

Once I was sure I had everything, I started off by throwing my leg over the seat of the simple motorbike shape I'd decided to go with for the trip, pointing it up towards the clouds, and taking off. I felt faster this way, although I was positive I could go much faster than I tended to with the chariot shape I'd initially formed, if I'd wanted to, but… it had been hard enough to fly like that at all. I felt more secure like this. It didn't look exactly like a motorbike now, but I didn't really care. It felt safer and it looked cooler too. I was pretty sure that Jason hadn't felt like this when flying, though. I still did not like it and doubted I ever really would.

It took far longer than I thought it should to get to the clouds. I tried not to think about the fact that if I fell and wasn't able to catch myself, I'd be a Percy Pancake. I didn't really succeed, but pressed on anyway. Story of my life.

The darkness didn't really end so much as it just faded off into the clouds. Like someone had used a gradient tool on the area or something. Once I got to the clouds, I stopped for a moment to assess everything and weigh my options. Even if I could see some at this height, it was still dark. Would that be enough once I got into the air above the dark lands? Would I be able to see my way out? I didn't know, and so spent another couple of minutes flying above the red vapor that made up the clouds of The Pit, though not before taking my girlfriend's advice and throwing a bubble of water around my head.

The bubble did get whatever the clouds were made of inside it as I floated through them. Obviously I couldn't really see it, but I could feel it. Thankfully, it didn't hinder my ability to control the water, so I kept whatever it was to the outside of the bubble and flew on.

Rising above the clouds didn't help much, only putting me above a sea of red instead of below or inside it. It also brought me closer to Tartarus' ceiling… if I could call it a ceiling. It didn't look like one. It didn't feel like one either. It seemed more like a void that sucked everything in much like Tartarus' eyes when he took on a humanoid form. It wasn't as dark as the dark lands, swirling with dim colors and strange shapes that seemed… twisted and unnatural. Just looking at it set my nerves on edge and it didn't take long for me to decide that I wanted to stay far, far away from it. So I descended back below the clouds as quickly as I could, trying to forget what I'd seen. I mainly did that by continuing to push forward, determined to keep going until I saw something below that wasn't endless darkness.

Between the height, the lingering, unnatural darkness of the dark lands, and the red mist that seemed to glitter in the almost non-existent light, I was pretty sure I'd gotten lost pretty quick. Looking around, I could only see the clouds in any direction except down, where I could only see darkness. But what else could I do but keep going? I didn't dare turn around, too afraid I'd get even more disoriented and lost.

At one point, my watch told me I'd been going for almost four hours straight, and I was starting to feel it. I had to constantly heat up the ice below my butt so it wouldn't get too numb, and ended up sitting on the resulting cushion of water for most of the trip. That was weird, but better than the alternative, though it drained me faster. I felt a harsher stab of fear rush through me at the knowledge that if I ran out of stamina, I'd fall to my death. This was why I hated flying. My hands tightened over the icy handlebars. Ice was easier to maintain than hard water, so I'd resorted to that pretty quickly, but it was also a little harder to control so I kept the center of the 'bike' melted and used that water to control the vehicle.

(Was it a vehicle if it didn't actually run? If it didn't even have an engine? Yes, I decided. Because I could.)

The tug in my gut that let me know I was using my power had started to really ache five (ish) hours later. (That and I really had to pee.) The ache happened when I pushed myself too hard, so it wasn't a surprise, but it also was not welcome right then. The darkness didn't look like it would end any time soon, and I realized I may have to just land and take my chances in the dark lands. I'd brought a lot of stuff to help me with that, just in case, but there was a reason I was avoiding wandering into a place where I literally couldn't see more than two feet in front of me.

Speaking of resources, though… I let the bubble around my head fall away and summoned some more water from the shell around my neck, bringing it up around my head again. It turned out that I could maintain the bubble-head for a while, but I did start to get dizzy from oxygen depletion (at least according to the symptoms Annabeth had lined out for me) and eventually had to just toss the de-oxygenated water before replacing it with new water (although I wasn't entirely sure how that worked, because wasn't water made of oxygen? All I knew was that getting new water helped, so I decided not to question it).

It occurred to me that I may be getting a little too dependent on my hydrokinesis. I'd never used my 'divine' abilities so much before, especially not in the real world. But it was kind of necessary down here. I mean, I was still proud of how far I'd come because keeping up two separate shapes of water for this long was not easy but… I didn't want to develop a weakness a monster could attack. So maybe I should train more when it came to my swordsmanship? Somehow...

I checked my watch and realized it said eleven hours had passed. Eleven hours. Wait, hadn't it just been nine hours?

(At that moment, I don't think I could have despised that place more.)

Still, I had no choice but to push on.

Almost a full twelve (ish) hours after I'd left the Hermes shrine, I started to go numb in more ways than one, despite my efforts, and struggled to stay awake. The bike-like construct was also getting more and more difficult to ride. The ice kept melting, which meant I didn't have as much control over it as I'd like and had to summon more water to replace it. That was on top of how it would stutter more and more as I kept trying not to fall asleep. Well, staying awake had been difficult after four hours, but this…

I'd also been across the country often enough to realize that if the hours I just traveled related in any way to the size of the dark lands, I'd just crossed the equivalent of Texas lengthwise (assuming I was going as fast as a train). Just how big was Tartarus? It hadn't seemed quite that big the first time...

Almost as if summoned by my thoughts, I caught the outline of a shape below. Were my eyes playing tricks on me? I rubbed them and looked again, letting out a huge sigh of relief when I saw the familiar (if weird), hair-follicle-like trees. Disgusting, but what in The Pit wasn't? And honestly, at that point, I was willing to take just about anything new.

I could also see some of the monster zits dotting the land. I couldn't help the grin that crossed my face, even as I glanced back over my shoulder to the impenetrable darkness I'd left behind. I'd made it! Now it would be another twelve hours (give or take) to return to the Phlegethon, but it had worked!

Was this how the ancient Greeks felt when they succeeded? Or discovered something new? A new island or land… At that moment, I really felt my Greek roots.

I felt a huge grin grow across my lips and did nothing to fight it.

The first leg of my trip to find Damasen's swamp was behind me. I'd survived flying over the dark lands without having to go into it.

I hoped that would be the hardest part of my little quest, but couldn't quite bring myself to believe it. Still, I needed to take my wins where I could, so I let myself feel the relief as I left the darkness behind me.

xXx

AN: So, turns out I accidentally posted a non-beta'd version of my chapter last week. *ahem* Sorry about that. And this week's chapter is late because my program crashed and I lost a ton of editing on this story and at least three pages (more I think) on my original story. I THOUGHT I'd lost it all AGAIN this morning, but it turns out I'd opened an older alternate version of this story so there was that.

It's been a rough couple of days writing wise.

On a brighter note, my Luke time-travel fic is coming along. :) Still not ENTIRELY sure where I want to end it though so...

Thank you to my beta readers, Berix and Quathis! And thank YOU for reading this! :D

Discord: discord. gg/xDDz3gqWfy (no spaces)