Disclaimer: I don't own Trials of Apollo.

HADES V
What Fool Chooses to Return to Hell?

Apollo did not seem particularly enthused about a trip to Tartarus, despite it being entirely his idea, but Hades decided against mentioning it. Tartarus was not an ideal destination for anyone, not even gods – Hades remembered well his own unfortunate journey with his brothers, and none of them had been at all inclined to return ever again.

And yet, Apollo of all people had managed to persuade him to go back once more. Admittedly, it was apparent that that had not actually been Apollo's intent – his nephew had clearly been hoping that he would graciously host William, not leave the demigod half-dead in his palace – but Hades had found himself reaching that decision regardless, preparing himself for action in a way he'd hoped he wouldn't have to do again quite so soon after the last confrontation with his own father.

Thanatos had not been particularly pleased to learn that Hades had decided to take a break from his duties, and even less pleased when he heard where Hades was off to, even if he agreed with the sentiment that his last surviving demigod child should not meet his end in Tartarus. He had, at least, agreed to make sure the Underworld did not completely fall apart in his absence, and to distract Hermes should the messenger end up looking for him while he was gone. That particular nephew would tattle straight to Zeus – never trust the messenger of the gods with secrets; he was bad at keeping his mouth shut at the best of times – and the longer Hades' youngest brother went without knowing about his involvement in the quest, the better it would be.

It wasn't that he was afraid of his brother, but Zeus' temper tantrums were incredibly frustrating. He would be bad enough when Apollo disappeared from his sight – the younger god wasn't yet completely in one place, but Hades doubted he'd leave even a sliver of himself elsewhere when it came to entering Tartarus. The Pit was too dangerous, even for gods, not to tackle at full strength, and Apollo would be at a greater disadvantage than Hades because of the polarising nature of his domains.

Hades recalled the last time he was in the Pit, how much it had tugged and whispered and clawed at him, how he'd been able to resist better than his brothers because the dark, the Underworld, the dead were his domain. Zeus would never admit how much he'd struggled down there, the sky trapped so far under the Earth – Apollo would have it worse, and he was not at the same level of power that Zeus had been in the first place.

No, he was not looking forwards to the return trip, but if it was so terrible for gods, well, he remembered the icy grip choking his essence when he discovered that Nico had traversed it, unshielded from the horrors of the primordial's true form, Tartarus' true form. His son could truly never be allowed to return there again.

By unspoken agreement, they made the journey on foot. Skeletons stopped and stared as they passed, bowing low but carefully maintaining a distance from the unusual source of light. Apollo's glow wasn't too bright by the god's standard – whether it was dimmed because Apollo was consciously reigning his power in, or because the younger god was just as trepidatious as Hades himself about entering Tartarus, no matter how committed he was, it was impossible to tell – but for the Underworld, it was still the equivalent of a blazing sun.

Hades could have teleported them both to the edge of the Pit – it was not an area of his domain he frequented, but he was intimately aware of where it was, regardless – but transporting Apollo took power, and there was no sense in wasting his strength when he would need it all shortly. Besides, neither of them were in any real hurry to get there; his brother would not get truly suspicious until Apollo entirely disappeared from his sight, and even then, he could not see into the Underworld without Hades' permission – permission that was never granted. It was easier to walk, and gave Hades time to mentally double-check that all the relevant preparations had been put into place.

Thanatos was briefed, the Furies likewise, albeit with far less information because they did not need to know his destination. It was summer, so Persephone was in the Overworld with her mother and need not hear about this venture until it was over. Cerberus could look after himself for a while, and Charon never bothered to contact him unless it was about an infernal pay rise regardless (and if he did, miraculously, need something, Thanatos would handle it).

With regard to the two demigods now living in his palace for the duration of the quest, his servants knew Nico well and would ensure he was fed and watered just the same as he always was when he stayed. It might have been a while in mortal reckoning since his son last lived in the Underworld, but the dead had long memories and the year or so was barely anything to them. William, as he had told Apollo, was his nephew's responsibility. He had been surprised at Apollo's solution to the sudden problem, but he could see its effectiveness, no matter how upset Nico would be about it. The son of Apollo's status would also work as an additional incentive to keep Nico put – there would be less escape attempts with a comatose boyfriend in tow.

Despite his thoughts mostly sunk into practicalities and logistics, it was impossible not to notice the way Apollo was fidgeting. His fingers tapped out a rhythm that meant nothing to Hades on the strung bow in his hand, but undoubtably held meaning to the god of music, and his fiery eyes – still that deep, burning orange; the flames hadn't changed even when they'd been faced with the demigods, although Hades didn't think that demigods saw godly eyes the way they truly were unless the god themselves intended it – alternated between boring a metaphorical hole in the horizon, where the entrance to the Pit awaited them, and flicking around the Underworld, taking in the sights.

It was easy to forget that most of the Olympians, even those that did visit on occasion (although most did not), did not know his domain. This ground, the cavernous roof that yawned up as high as the sky in the Overworld but devoid of any sun or other natural source of light – Hades knew every speck of it.

Apollo did not, and it was of little surprise that when his eyes were not scorching a laser focus at their destination, they were instead drawn to the other source of light, outside of himself, in the distance.

Elysium was firmly off limits to all gods except Hades himself, and even he was not supposed to go there unless strictly necessary, according to his brother's insistence. The forever home for the heroic dead, the good, the just. It was not entirely populated with demigods, but they constituted a large number of the souls that resided there, especially in modern times as less and less regular mortals thought of the Underworld in its Greek construct.

As one of the more promiscuous of the gods, Apollo had many children in Elysium. Hades did not care enough to keep track of which mortals his nephew frolicked around with, but there were doubtless some of them there, too. For Apollo, Elysium was no doubt a great temptation.

It was certainly a more appealing destination than Tartarus.

The entrance to the cavern yawned like a void in an otherwise-deserted part of the Underworld. None of Hades' subjects were mad enough to hover around the area; things got out of the Pit every so often, mostly respawning small fry that demigods sent straight back down as soon as they emerged into the Overworld, but not entirely, and the dead held no desire to be obliterated from existence completely.

Neither Hades nor Apollo had spoken a word to the other during their walk across; there had been nothing to say in the earshot of the dead, and now that the dead were left behind them and the black hole that was the Pit was reaching out with its deep vacuum, forever desperate to consume any souls unfortunate or oblivious enough to get too close, there was a sense of not knowing what to say. Hades was not a conversationist at the best of times, and Apollo was for once failing to fill the silence with incessant noise.

The suction of Tartarus was not enough to drag either of them into the mouth, but Hades could feel it whipping at the robes beneath his armour, doing its best to exert its influence nonetheless. Beside him, Apollo's hair was whipping around and his arrows rattled in his quiver.

"I see there's no red-carpeted steps waiting for us," the god of the sun observed, finally breaking the silence. He was eyeing the pit with no small amount of trepidation, and what was likely hidden fear – Apollo was no fool; he may have never been to Tartarus himself, but he knew all about the Pit and how dangerous it was.

"If there were steps, the less-savoury denizens would be able to get out," Hades reminded him, taking another step closer to the edge. The vacuum wasn't silent; deep below, he could hear the breath of the primordial whispering promises of pain and unimaginable torment.

Not death; Tartarus was not a place of death. It was a pit of rebirth, the deepest depths beneath the Earth from which things tried to escape. Hades did not know what would happen should a mortal die down there – it had never happened, only three mortals had ever been to Tartarus and all of them had, miraculously, lived to tell the tale – but for the denizens, they would simply reform elsewhere in an endless wave of ill-wishers to defeat ad Infinium.

For gods, they, too, were at the mercy of the primordial himself. Tartarus should be slumbering – he had not stirred for Hades and his brothers, he should not be prompted to do so by Hades and Apollo – but even asleep, he posed a real threat to them. Getting into the Pit was easy enough.

Getting out was another matter entirely.

There was a reason he and his siblings had used it as a prison for the Titans and other powerful creatures that opposed them during the first Titanomachy and Gigantomachy.

"Ah, yes," Apollo said, his voice flat. "You may have a point there. I suppose we just have to… jump in, then?"

He could not have looked less enamoured with the idea if he tried.

"If you wish to actually go through with this, then yes," Hades told him. "Otherwise, turn around and walk away."

Apollo wouldn't; with the prophecy looming over them, walking away would doom his son to Tartarus, and Hades knew well that the younger god would not do that after going so far and risking so much already to prevent it.

The glare he received, flames dancing intently in Apollo's eyes, confirmed it. "I'm not turning around," his nephew said, almost angrily. His aura of light brightened, gradually to begin with and then flaring suddenly, a solar flare in the Underworld. Hades felt the rush of power as the last trickle of the other god's power united with the main body in an essence, Apollo complete in Hades' presence for the first time in a long time.

How long had it been, exactly, since he'd felt the full essence of Apollo in one place? He always, always had a sliver of himself off in the sun chariot, even during councils when the rest of them were expected to be present in full. Presumably he had been all in one place upon his re-ascension to godhood after his latest mortal stint, but Hades had not been present for that return. In fact, he did not think he had ever been around Apollo in his complete form before, not since Helios faded and his nephew had acquired the celestial domain, fundamentally changing his essence in the way the acquisition of new, powerful, domains did.

The power rolling off of Apollo for a blink of an eye before he centred himself and drew it all back in was intense. No wonder Zeus looked at his son and saw a potential threat. Hades was not intimidated by the show of power, but his paranoid younger brother was no doubt another matter entirely.

Apollo did not ask him if he was going to turn around. Hades supposed that was because of the prophecy, clearly stating that both sunshine and darkness were to go down; if he turned away, Nico would have to go in his place. As long as Apollo was intent on descending to save his son, Hades was locked into the same fate – part of him found that infuriating, that he was effectively dancing to another's string, forced to choose between sacrificing his last child or subjecting himself to a torment he'd never intended on facing again, but he could not truly blame Apollo when Apollo had never asked it of him in the first place.

It had been Hades' own choice to put himself here, on the edge of Tartarus.

"It is a long drop," he warned the younger god, who made a noise of understanding, as he stepped up to the very edge and held out a hand to his nephew. Apollo eyed it in silence for several moments, before his eyes flared with comprehension and he extended his own.

They clasped each other's forearms, locking themselves together. Beneath his touch, he could feel the warmth of Apollo pulsating, his essence swirling beneath the form he wore. It was nothing like when he'd locked arms with his brothers last time, the three of them clinging to each other in a fear all of them had felt but none of them had admitted; this time, Hades knew what to expect. This time, it was not fear that had him gripping the forearm beneath his fingers tightly, but the knowledge that the Pit would do its best to tear the two of them apart as they fell, isolating them amongst enemies with no allies in sight.

Apollo matched his grip with equal strength, his fingertips burning against Hades' own forearm. They turned to face each other fully, then repeated the action with their other arms.

"It will want to separate us," Hades warned him. "That would be rather an inconvenient start."

"I won't let go," Apollo responded, all sense of joviality gone and replaced with the rarely-seen grim countenance of the younger god.

"As long as we understand each other," Hades confirmed, turning his head away from the other god and looking at the deep, dark pit. "Shall we?"

His nephew let out a chuckle that had no humour in it. "No point hanging around," he said; he wasn't wrong – if Zeus hadn't noticed Apollo's absence from his chariot yet, it would be soon. "Let's fall."

They moved as one, taking the last step sideways and letting the vacuum of Tartarus envelop them hungrily, yanking them from the secure ground of the Underworld and into the endless freefall. Instantly, forces clawed at them, invisible tendrils snaking around Hades, prying at his grip on Apollo's arms, seeking a weakness to exploit.

Hades did not give it the satisfaction of desperately tightening his grip – that would cause weak points elsewhere, showcase weakness to the sleeping but ever-aware primordial whose territory they had willingly entered. He was confident in his hold, and while he felt Apollo shudder as he, too, was no doubt assailed by the same thing, his nephew followed his lead.

The sensation of being completely out of control was not a familiar one for a god. Nor was it a comforting one. Hades had not felt so vulnerable since his last descent into Tartarus; it was unnatural for a god to be entirely at the mercy of another, higher being, especially an elder god. In the Underworld, his word was law, and everything danced to his tune; he, himself, answered to no-one, undisputed ruler of his whole domain.

This was almost certainly what Apollo had felt, when Zeus had turned him mortal, he realised. Helpless, spinning in the grasp of something with no intention of showing mercy but did not care enough to actively destroy him, either. In a feeling of limbo, unsure where the next threat was coming from and helpless to fight against it when it did.

He couldn't tell from Apollo's expression what he was thinking – his nephew wasn't smiling, but he wasn't clutching at him in fear, either. His face was flat, almost expressionless in a way that was disturbing to see on the usually so expressive god. The only indication of his emotions was the occasional trembles Hades could feel beneath his fingers as the tendrils passed him, not yielding in their attempt to separate the two gods.

Time did not make sense during the fall. The saying was nine days, and that might be true according to the reckoning of Chronos in the Overworld, but beneath the Earth, beneath the Underworld and playing victim to Tartarus himself, there was no linearity. No steady beat of a clock, no way to quantify something that was far more viscous and fluid than it had any right to be.

They fell for eternity in silence, eons passing in the span of nanoseconds, and nanoseconds passing in the span of eons, before Apollo broke it.

"Do you get the feeling this was a bad decision?" he asked innocently, the lightness of his tone undercut by something sharp, betraying it as an act. There was no lightening in his expression.

"Your entire plan was ridiculous," Hades retorted; his answer could have come a split second later or several centuries. They weren't falling straight, but tumbling end over end over end with strange pauses where they remained in the same orientation for no apparent reason for an unreliable stretch of time. "You're trying to subvert a prophecy."

Apollo grinned, sharp and showing a few too many teeth to be natural. "We're trying to subvert a prophecy," he corrected. "You're as guilty as I am."

Hades didn't bother acknowledging the point, well aware that his nephew was technically correct, even though it had been Apollo's idea in the first place.

"Anyway," the god of prophecy continued, a little more seriously, "there's nothing in the prophecy that ever said that 'sunshine' or 'darkness' had to be demigods. We're still following the letter of it."

"But not the spirit," Hades concluded. "Because gods do not do quests. Those are for heroes."

His nephew didn't contradict him, and silence once again yawned between them as time stretched and shrunk meaninglessly around the falling gods. Hades' mind couldn't help but trawl back through his memories of the Pit, memories he'd hoped to never revisit again, much like the location itself, reminding him of the many horrific things that awaited them when they finally arrived.

He didn't know if he envied Apollo or not for his ignorance. A lack of knowledge was never something the younger god could be accused of, but while he had no doubt heard much about Tartarus over the millennia, he had not, to Hades' knowledge, ever been there in person. Apollo didn't know what was waiting for them on the sharp glass-sands of the bank of the river Phlegethon; his creative mind was no doubt concocting all sorts of horrors – the grips on Hades' forearms were still tight, to the extent that they'd be painful if he were a lesser god, and there was a tenseness to Apollo's form that was usually concealed by a far more jovial exterior.

Apollo was nervous. Hades wouldn't do his nephew the disservice of calling him scared, although his body language was teetering on the edge of that accusation, but there was a tangible dread emitting from his aura.

"Did you have a plan for when we arrive?" he asked instead, "or were you expecting me to?"

Were they not falling, he got the impression that Apollo might have shrugged. "I thought I'd start with trying to locate Bob," he said. "If he survived the Primordial's rage, the most likely place for him to be would be the prison, I'd think, so I was going to start by finding that."

Hades remembered the prison. It was a vicious place indeed, with many of the worst things in their history locked away there, always seeking for a way back out, a way to challenge the gods once more. Apollo's logic was sound – Iapetus would be there, if he was anywhere – but that did not make Hades any happier about the destination.

A flicker of a thought – a memory, really – flashed through his mind. "What are the chances of Python reforming?" he asked. The serpent's reformation after his defeat should not be quite so fast, but Tartarus sometimes worked in mysterious and unpleasant ways. Should he sense Apollo, Python was an obvious inhabitant to send their way.

Apollo swallowed, a very human act of nervousness that had Hades focusing all of his attention on his nephew again.

"None," the younger god said quietly, after another pause that could've been a lifetime or a single instant. "He fell to Chaos."

One less potential – or rather, almost certain – unwelcome encounter, Hades realised with a small element of grim satisfaction, before the whole implications of the statement sank in.

Chaos was at the edge of Tartarus. While there were some, small, pockets that breached closer to the Underworld and even Overworld, Chaos itself was an entity that swirled by Nyx's palace, too deep to be of much concern.

In order for Python to have fallen to Chaos, he must have fallen to Tartarus, and for Apollo to be confident that Python was unravelled from existence entirely, he had to have been witness to the event.

That meant-

"You went to the Pit?" he asked, feeling his eyes widen slightly. Apollo looked away, but his nails dug in deeper to Hades' forearms, and the thought reached its natural conclusion. "Had your powers returned by then?"

If they hadn't, then that meant Apollo had been to Tartarus as a mortal. How he could possibly have brought himself to willingly return scant weeks later was beyond Hades' comprehension.

"It was complicated." Apollo brushed him off, and Hades let him. Perhaps he would've pushed more were they not falling into the same Pit themselves – the other gods no doubt knew what had happened, but confined to the Underworld, Hades had been unable to attend their meetings or watch all the Hephaestus TV highlights – although it would no doubt be useful to know what Apollo knew first-hand about the Pit. That was, however, irrelevant, for one important reason.

Below them, Tartarus was coming into view. The deep orange of the Phlegethon lashed its way across the body of the primordial like a glowing scar, the flames matching Apollo's eyes precisely, while the other rivers cut their darker paths. Hades was aware of time shifting around them again, snapping back into something resembling linearity as the suction of Tartarus married up with the visual and they were dragged down the last stretch with a vengeance.

It was not gravity at work. Gravity was inert, distant and emotionless, and most importantly of all, nothing but an ignorable suggestion to gods if they so chose. Were it gravity, he and Apollo would have been in complete control of their final descent, and certainly would have elected not to come into direct contact with the glass-shards of the river bank.

They had no control at all, and it was only their vice-like grip on the other that prevented them from being hurtled in separate directions by the force of their landing. Glass shards exploded all around them, slicing into their forms and splattering the immediate vicinity with ichor. Apollo's golden glow increased what appeared to be automatically, sealing up his wounds in an instant while Hades drew on the darkness to pull his own form back together as it should be.

Neither of them released the other's forearms until they were both stationary, looking around with a high degree of trepidation.

"Well," Apollo said, his voice far too loaded with cheer to be remotely genuine given the situation and their current location. "I suppose we've arrived."

I believe people have been waiting for this chapter, so I've managed to sneak it out between some rl commitments!

Thanks for reading!
Tsari