Disclaimer: I don't own Trials of Apollo.

APOLLO XII

Ascent up a cliff
Monsters up high and down low
Go, Asclepius

Tartarus was a prison. It was not supposed to be something that could be escaped, although the hordes of monsters that broke out daily to terrorise demigods were clearly overlooked by the denizen, and it was with that knowledge plaguing the back of his mind that Apollo gripped his bow tightly as Asclepius' hands found narrow ledges to grip and he began to pull himself up.

The last time he'd left Tartarus… Well, Apollo didn't actually know how he'd done it. His awareness had ended as his form started to resolidify over the lip of Chaos and restarted in the safety of his twin's palace on Olympus. He could only assume that he'd somehow been granted the strength to transport himself out, a literal ascension from the deepest depths of hell straight to the land of the gods as his status restored, but he did not know for certain, and when the time came for he and Hades to leave, Bob's status confirmed and potentially in their company, he would have to find a way to repeat the feat.

It was not a feat his son could replicate. As impressive as Asclepius was, he was not an Olympian god and would never be a match for the power of one. He was not even at full strength, despite Apollo's attempts at bolstering him, thanks to Tartarus' steady drain and Orion's active, relentless hunt. Battling his way through the exit used by the monsters straight to the Overworld had always been out of the question – Asclepius was not a warrior, and appearing in the Overworld would get Zeus' attention immediately – but this other exit seemed just as gruelling in its own way.

Gold dripped down as Asclepius hauled himself up, looking more mortal than godly as his limbs trembled and strained. Tartarus would not let him out without a fight, and the cliff was formidable and unforgiving as it slashed into Apollo's son's hands on every handhold. But while Asclepius was not an Olympian, he was still a god, still a healing god, and a faint white-gold glow shimmered into existence around his hands and feet. Apollo could feel the healing aura from where he stood, slowly tilting his head further and further back as his son continued his torturous ascent.

Hesiod had said it took nine days to fall to Tartarus. Apollo had no idea how many it would take to climb out. Many, many days, no doubt, in a task that was daunting even for a god, but gods were not so easily defeated.

Most gods shied away from things like hard work, choosing to coast along on their natural prowess rather than put effort into things. They liked to enjoy themselves and their existence, and for many of them, that meant lazing around as they oversaw their domains.

Apollo had never been one to sit back and laze around – sure, a break was nice every now and again, but doing nothing was boring and he'd much rather spend the time shooting, composing, learning, or taking an active role in any of his domains. His times mortal had also pushed him into having to work hard – building the walls of Troy had not been a walk in the park without his godly strength to aid him, and the entire experience as Lester had been nothing but trial after trial, pushing him past limits he hadn't know he could pass.

Asclepius, though, had been born mortal. He'd always had to work for things; the reason he was the superior healer despite being the weaker god was purely down to his work ethic, the way he'd pushed and pushed and pushed in his desire to be able to help as many people as possible, surpassing Apollo through a sheer single-mindedness that only a mortal-born could ever hope to achieve. Creating the Physician's Cure had not been an easy thing, either, and while Apollo had helped him with that, when asked, the brain power and persistence had been mostly from his son.

It was a trait he saw in his children more often than he admitted to anyone, a trait that he always insisted they'd inherited from their mortal parents rather than him – persistence, and an inability to give up. No matter the trial, his children never seemed capable of giving up, of walking away and saying, "I can't do that". For more than a few of them, it had developed into their fatal flaw, their cause of death as they kept pushing long past the time they should have stopped.

He admired and feared it in equal measure.

Right then, he admired it, and drew comfort from the knowledge, because it meant that Asclepius would make the climb. He would not fall, and even if he did, he would try again. And again. And again. As many times as it took until he was out, until he was safe, because it was something that had to be done, and Asclepius had never shied away from that.

It was difficult to tell how far up his son had managed to get; Apollo's eyesight was keen and he could still make out every detail of Asclepius – the grimace of his lips as the cliff tore open his form anew, the determination in his brow as he pulled himself up despite the pain, the bright glow shimmering around the constantly opening and closing wounds – but the scale up of the cliffs of the Pit defied even a god's comprehension.

Asclepius was high, but he had not yet reached the miasma of thick clouds that obscured the roof of the humungous cavern, not to mention the true start of the chute-like entrance he would need to climb out of in order to reach the Underworld safely.

His glow was increasing, too; it was no longer merely about his hands and feet, but the faintest lines of light were beginning to crisscross his skin, gleaming pale but gradually strengthening the higher he got. It wasn't dissimilar to the bright gold Apollo recalled webbing into his form as he, impossibly, pulled himself up from Chaos, reversing the unravelling of the Progenitor, and he hoped it meant the same thing. Asclepius had not lost his divinity, had not been reverted to a mere mortal once more, but he had been pushed far, far from the domains from which he drew his power – domains he was now, slowly, edging his way towards again.

Part of him was surprised that Hades had allowed him to linger and watch his son's ascent; he had thought that his uncle, clearly still antagonistic towards Asclepius even if he had agreed to free him from Tartarus itself, would have insisted on pushing on with their quest once Asclepius had begun his ascent. There was no benefit to the older god for them to be standing here, at the base of the exit to the Underworld, watching a younger, weaker god scramble his way arduously up (well, Apollo was watching, couldn't not watch. Hades had turned his back the moment Asclepius' ascent began and had not so much as glanced over his shoulder since), but Apollo was grateful for it.

He would not be able to see Asclepius all the way to the top – even his sight was not keen enough for that and could not pierce the miasma above them – but to be able to see him even part of the way up, to see that while it was a trial there were no signs that it was one his son would fail, was a great reassurance.

But Tartarus was a prison.

And Tartarus did not let its inmates leave so easily.

Apollo did not know what the flying beast was; it looked not too dissimilar to one of the Erinyes, although if it was it was not one of the Three, but another he had never known existed. That did not matter when he saw it swoop towards where Asclepius clung to the cliff, a beacon of pale light in the distant haze of the lowest reaches of the miasma, and did not stop to think any further.

With a single intent, an arrow was nocked, the fletching brushing his cheek with the lightest of kisses as his longbow reached full draw, and he let fly.

Apollo was the god of archery. He never missed.

It struck where the heart of the creature ought to have been, and a piercing cry would have rattled his eardrums were he still mortal, but while its flight faltered, it did not fall, and so he sent another.

And another.

His barrage was relentless as it swooped down on his son, claws outstretched and tearing at his chiton, his back, his skin.

Ichor poured down, but Asclepius hung on tightly and Apollo kept shooting, aiming at the muscles of the wings when fatal shots clearly weren't working. If he couldn't kill it, he could still down it, stop it from tearing his son apart and pulling him back down to the floor of the Pit.

His quiver, once bristling with as many arrows as it could hold, depleted down to a single arrow, and then none, forcing Apollo to slow as he had to summon each one independently – he really needed to store and carry more arrows somehow – but he kept going, kept shooting and turning the thing assaulting his son into a pincushion full of arrows

One of Asclepius' hands lost its grip, palm slick with gold, and his whole form lurched downwards, feet scrambling to take the sudden increase in weight, and Apollo's heart leapt up into his mouth as his son scrabbled at the cliff face desperately. The Erinys-like creature swooped in again, golden ichor falling like rain, and Apollo nocked another arrow.

It hit the creature just as it reached to pluck Asclepius from the cliff, slamming into the meat of the wing's shoulder, and with a bone-shattering scream it lost its rhythm and crashed straight into the cliff face itself before tumbling down.

Down.

Down.

Apollo lunged forwards as it screeched and flapped tattered wings desperately but failed to catch itself. He still didn't know for certain what creature it was – a child of Nyx, perhaps a forgotten Erinys – but that didn't matter. It had attacked his son and that was a crime Apollo would not forgive. Hands reaching forward, grasping, he tore one wing away entirely as, with a roar of fury, he flashed, a miniature sun down where the sun had never before shone.

It didn't even have time to screech one final time before it exploded into a shower of dust.

Above him, Asclepius flailed for the cliff again and latched onto it, clinging to it like his life depended on it. His injuries were gone, his glow a little bit brighter, and Apollo watched as he took a moment to pause, to breathe through the adrenaline, before he reached for the next handhold and continued to claw his way up the cliff.

The sound of a blade whistling behind him had him shifting part of his attention to his periphery, another arrow materialising in his hand, ready to be nocked and fired at the next threat.

He almost dropped it at the sight of Hades standing behind him, still facing away from the cliff and Asclepius but cutting swathes through an approaching horde of monsters. Nothing that Apollo could see was powerful, but they were numerous, crashing against the might of Hades like the onslaught of a never-ending waterfall.

Hades, of course, was near enough unaffected. He was one of the most powerful gods for a reason, and no rabble of regular monsters was going to even ruffle his shadow, no matter how many of them there were. He hadn't called Apollo to assist him because he didn't need help to handle things, but it still struck him as odd that he hadn't even alerted him.

There was no doubt that this sudden army was because of Asclepius' departure – the timing could be for nothing else – and while Hades had permitted his son to leave, it was Apollo who had insisted on it, and so Apollo's fault, not that he regretted it in the slightest. With that in mind, it was a surprise that Hades had chosen to fight rather than leave it all to Apollo.

Apollo was no Big Three, but even he was enough to deal with this wave of attack alone (there was no Orion, no bane to face, in this rabble).

He let his arrow fly and it skewered through several monsters at once, exploding them all into dust near-simultaneously. Hades didn't need his help, but it felt wrong to not do anything as they approached.

The glare his uncle sent him over his shoulder, the first time he'd looked back since Asclepius had begun his ascent, made him pause.

"Don't waste your arrows," Hades told him sternly, sending a sweep of darkness out with the next swing of his sword and dematerialising several more monsters without even looking at them. "I do not need assistance dealing with this. Refill your quiver and watch the skies."

It still felt wrong to stand back and do nothing while Hades fought – while Asclepius climbed, drips of ichor staining the wall as it continued to bite into his skin – but his uncle was right; he was the archer, the ranged fighter.

And his quiver was empty.

He stepped back, giving Hades the space to fight unimpeded as he focused on his quiver, summoning as many arrows as could fit while his vision filled with the dust of dying monsters, raising up thicker and thicker until it seemed like they would meld with the clouds of miasma above them.

Not many of the monsters had wings, or seemed to think to use them, but it was almost a relief when some did take to the skies, wheeling around and attempting to get past Hades that way, even though it meant they were targeting Asclepius, who himself was getting closer and closer to the thick crimson haze above them.

Hades didn't even bother to try stopping anything that flew past him, but Apollo's bow was ready and nothing was of the calibre of the first attack. A single arrow was enough to vaporise anything that tried to get near his son – sometimes they lined up conveniently enough that Apollo could take out multiple with a single arrow, and sometimes they didn't so he simply nocked several arrows at once to take out several in a single barrage.

It was a strange feeling, fighting alongside another god. Barring Artemis, of course, and memorable occasions like the horrific Typhon fight that had needed all Olympian hands on deck, Apollo tended to fight alone. His brethren didn't assist him, and that was fine because they never wanted his assistance, either. The ease with which he fell into sync with Hades, the older god handling the melee and ground-based opponents while Apollo focused on taking down the arial threats, was weird.

Foreign.

It felt more like when he'd been Lester, fighting alongside Meg, his children, Nico and the other demigods. When he wasn't alone, when he had someone else he could trust – when someone else trusted him.

Admittedly, Hades knew he was fighting to protect his son, that after the fuss he'd kicked up about Asclepius' punishment he wouldn't let anything stop his son leaving Tartarus once and for all, so it was a simple matter for Hades to leave the last line of defence to him considering the situation.

It still felt strange to face his uncle's back and see with his own eyes that Hades never once glanced back to check what he was or wasn't doing.

Instead, Stygian Iron flashed, a dark purple line of obliteration as monster after monster fell to the blade, not one managing to even touch the god of the dead before their existence ceased to be. Apollo's bow sung in harmony, the string humming fiercely as it sent arrow after arrow into anything that dared fly past the line his uncle had metaphorically drawn in the glass shards beneath their feet.

Despite the battle – one-sided slaughter, really – Apollo still kept a large portion of his attention on his son as Asclepius kept scrambling up, so he noticed the instant the younger god reached where the miasma thickened into visible clouds, a glowing spec of white-gold in amongst the sea of crimson.

The monsters seemed to notice, too, throwing themselves all the more viciously – desperately – at Hades and his promise of oblivion. Larger winged things threw themselves into the sky, but they still weren't like the first thing and Apollo downed them all long before they got in striking range of his son.

The bright speck that was his son gradually faded, the miasma concealing him from even Apollo's keen eyes, and by the time he'd brought down another dozen or so of the winged beasts, it was smothered entirely.

No, not smothered. Smothered implied suffering, even death. Concealed, that was a better word for it. Asclepius was concealed, not just from his sight, but from the monsters', from things down at the bottom of the Pit that had no chance of getting so high no matter how hard they tried.

It didn't actually signify safety; Apollo knew that, knew that Asclepius' climb was only just beginning, but he reasoned that with him concealed from the monsters and getting ever-closer to Apollo's own domains, which were desperately reaching down as far as they could get by virtue of Apollo himself being down in the Pit, let alone the discovery of one of his children down there, the higher he got, the easier the climb would be.

He shot down one last monster making a desperate flight for the miasma and watched as it disintegrated into dust. On the ground, Hades despatched the last of the monsters that pressed forwards and sheathed his sword as the rest turned tail and fled, apparently aware that unless he fell – and Asclepius was powerful enough that he should not – their prey was out of their reach forever, and continuing the assault against Hades would be nothing short of meaningless suicide.

Part of Apollo wanted to stay where he was, to make sure Asclepius made it all the way out with no setbacks, but he knew he couldn't – his son had passed from his sight and time was not trackable in the Pit. He would be standing there forever, never knowing if Asclepius was still climbing or if he had made it long, long ago. And if his son fell, Apollo had already proven he could sense him across Tartarus. He would return to his son's side immediately.

He made sure his quiver was fully stocked once more, arrows materialising until it bristled with feathers jostling against each other, and approached Hades.

"Thank you," he said, because he couldn't not thank his uncle for helping defend Asclepius, despite Hades' own less than charitable feelings towards his son.

The older god made a dismissive noise. "Thank me by focusing on the reason we're down here and not getting distracted by any other side missions," he said. "Come."

Without a backwards glance, Hades strode forwards, away from the cliff stained with ichor from Asclepius' hands and feet. Apollo spared it one last look, one last silent hope that his son would manage the rest of the climb and reach the relative safety of the Underworld in one piece, before following.

He might not know the geography of Tartarus as well as Hades, but his memory was flawless and he immediately realised that Hades was striking out in a different direction to the last time.

"Why are we going a different way?" he asked, catching up with his uncle and keeping in step beside him. "Did something happen on the route?"

"I should be asking you that," Hades returned, black flaming eyes flickering over to him and clearly looking at him. Apollo felt his eyes land on his neck, where Orion had torn a chunk of his form away, and resisted the urge to cover it with his hand. It was healed, Orion had lost their last encounter and ended up tangled in his own bowstring, and Hades did not need to know how much Apollo had struggled on his so-called 'side mission' to save his son.

Thankfully, Hades didn't press him for answers, not even leaving him time to answer before continuing to talk.

"Your crossing of the river was pathetic," his uncle told him, clearly not interested in softening the blow to his pride. "Jumping over it like a frightened rabbit like your son is not appropriate for a god of your calibre, and increasing in size is not wise in this place. We are trying not to bring attention to ourselves, as foreign a concept as that is to you, I'm sure."

"I can be inconspicuous!" Apollo protested, and Hades snorted.

"I do not think that word means what you think it means," he said. "Regardless," he continued over Apollo's outraged gape – he was the god of knowledge and poetry, of course he knew what words meant! – "while longer, this route will bring us across the rivers at their narrower points."

Rivers.

Intellectually, Apollo knew about the five Underworld rivers which emptied out into Tartarus, but having only been faced with the Phlegethon so far, he hadn't stopped to consider the others – or, specifically, one in particular.

Had Styx really let him off the hook for his myriad of rashly made and subsequently broken oaths? She hadn't destroyed him when she had the chance, but it was very unlike her to allow bygones to be bygones like that. He could understand why she would impress upon him the importance of not making further rash oaths, but she had sworn to take payment when he had been out of his mind during the supplication of Trophonius' oracle and so far, Apollo did not feel as though she had taken said payment.

His oath to Will sat heavily in the back of his mind, his first oath since re-ascension – and so soon after re-ascension. It was one he meant with every inch of his essence, one he would fight to keep, but what would Styx think of the fact that he had made another oath on her already? Would she approve, or call it rash and take it to mean that he hadn't learned the lesson she'd tried to impress upon him at the edge of Chaos after all?

Apollo could admit that he was not looking forwards to crossing the river Styx, should it lay in their path.

"You know better than I," he admitted out loud, and tried to stay serious and not at all like he was probing nervously as he asked, "which rivers will we need to cross to reach the prison?"

If Hades thought anything was strange about his asking, he gave no sign of it. "Between us and the prison lay four rivers," he replied. "The first, as you've already seen, is the Phlegethon. After that follows the Cocytus, and then the Styx. Finally, the Lethe passes along the cliffs above the prison."

Was it Apollo's imagination, or had Hades paused slightly after naming the Styx?

How much did his uncle know of his latest mortal trials, anyway? He had not been in the throne room when Apollo had had his vision about his brethren watching – and betting on! – his time as Lester, and he wasn't entirely certain the Underworld had a subscription to Hephaestus TV, either.

No, Apollo decided. It was likely that his uncle had been too busy running the Underworld to bother keeping up with his mortal grievances. He couldn't possibly know about the potential strain in his relationship with Styx.

"Where does the Acheron run?" he asked, noting the one river absent from their route. It was not a river he was particularly grieved to be missing – he had suffered plenty of pain recently without a river god adding to it – but its absence from the vicinity of the prison seemed strange.

"In the deepest depths of Tartarus," Hades said, and this time Apollo knew he was not imagining the pause. The way dark eyes flickered over to him accentuated it. "It flows close to the edge of Chaos."

Ah.

Right.

Apollo had to fight the human urge to swallow nervously. "Not a place on my list of places to visit," he forced himself to say lightly, as though he didn't know that the one part of his trials Hades knew about was his battle with Python on that very edge of Tartarus. How close had they been to the river?

He decided he didn't want to know. It made no difference, regardless.

"I suspected as such," Hades observed; there was no pity in his voice, but it was not devoid of all emotion, either. Understanding danced along the edge of his tone; he knew why Apollo never wanted to return there, and if Apollo was reading his uncle correctly, it was not a place he was keen on visiting, either.

On that, at least, it appeared they were in full agreement.

True to Hades' word, when they approached the Phlegethon (again; the river god must be furious at how many times Apollo had crossed it back and forth by now), its banks were far closer together than Apollo had seen before. That was not to say the river itself was any less vicious – if anything, it seemed more so, violent as it forced its way through the ravine – but it was passable with a brief increase in size and a simple step across.

That did not stop the flames from lashing out and coating his calves with gold which dripped down until Apollo's healing sealed it shut and he willed his appearance clean and free of discriminatory ichor, however.

Hades passed through the flames completely unaffected, just as he had before, visually perfect as Apollo settled back into step beside him.

This far up the slope, the glass was downright vicious as they walked across it. Sharper and more jagged than ever, small specks of gold began to mark the way they'd travelled as ichor succeeded in occasionally leaving the wounds before godly healing sealed them shut again.

The idea that they were leaving a visible, tangible, trail, put Apollo on edge.

Orion was defeated, he reminded himself. All trussed up with his own bowstring and left somewhere far, far deeper down into Tartarus, where Apollo had no intentions of returning.

Still, he couldn't shake the feeling of trepidation as he and Hades continued to trek across the uppermost reaches of the Pit's floor, leaving the tiniest spots of gold in their wake.

Bye bye, Asclepius... Apologies to those of you who wanted more of him in this awkward dynamic, but as necessary as he was for the plot, it would make the slow burn between Apollo and Hades even slower - and it's already glacial! - so something had to go...

Thanks for reading!
Tsari