Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or Harry Potter.
The Ever Twisting Wind: The Gaean War
Interlude: Escape from the Underworld
Beta: *Beta Wanted*
Hazel Levesque was a teenage girl of Louisiana Creole descent with shoulder-length curly cinnamon brown hair and gold eyes. More important than that, she was a daughter of the Roman god, Pluto. A heritage that allowed her to be one of the few spirits in the Fields of Asphodel, the section in the Underworld where indifferent or ordinary souls who lived a life of neither good or evil are sent to live after death, that had not lost her identity and her memories despite drinking from from the River Lethe before she was consigned to the meadow.
"Mum? Where are you?" Hazel whispered under her breath, both out of exhaustion and wariness of the security ghouls that prowled the Fields, as she navigated the never-ending field of Asphodel, pushing her way through the unending crowds that filled the dreary realm. A dark, silent realm that was characterized by little more than black grass, stunted black poplar trees, and fallen stalagmites, populated solely by innumerable spirits of the dead.
Why was a daughter of Pluto, a god who ruled the Underworld, in the Fields of Asphodel? Well, that was a long story. She had been born in New Orleans in the 1920s and inherited the ability to summon precious gems and metals from the earth, but this power came with a deadly curse: anyone who kept the treasures would suffer misfortune and disaster. More importantly, her mother, Marie Levesque, was manipulated by Gaea, the primordial Earth goddess, into attempting to resurrect the Gigantes, ancient giants who opposed the Olympian gods. Gaea promised Marie wealth and power in exchange for her cooperation. Hazel ultimately thwarted this plan by sacrificing herself to prevent the Gigantes' return, using her powers to sink the island and the cavern where the ritual was taking place.
How did this sacrifice lead to Hazel being consigned to the Fields? Well, when she was brought before the Judges of the Dead, they ruled that although Hazel died for a noble cause, she had acted too late, even if her mother had been manipulated by Gaea. As a result, their lives had not been characterized by enough good or evil to warrant a different fate, so both Hazel and her mother were consigned to the Fields of Asphodel. This left Hazel in her current situation: she retained her memories, but her mother did not and was soon lost in the endless horde of other spirits. Hazel was thus forced to spend her eternal afterlife alternating between trying to reach her father's palace, always visible in the distance but never attainable, and searching for her mother, which was what she was doing now.
When she was first separated from her mother, Hazel searched desperately for her, but after years, she was no closer to finding her. Similarly, she never got any closer to her father's palace no matter how hard she tried. Initially, these failures filled her with frustration. However, like every emotion or thought that might have escaped the effects of the Lethe, the tedium of endless wandering through the Fields of Asphodel slowly drained it away. Hazel might have been immune to the River Lethe, but the ennui of the Fields still eroded her sense of self all the same.
I don't know how much longer I can hold out. Hazel lamented as she let out a desperate whisper. "Mum, seriously! Where are you!?"
Hazel, looking out despairingly at the endless tide of the dead in the Fields, was not paying attention to her surroundings. This lapse allowed someone to sneak up behind her. Suddenly, she was grabbed, her arms quickly pinned, and a knife made of Stygian Iron, the divine metal native to the Underworld, was pressed against her neck. A knife that by its make was one of those issued to the security ghouls, which could only mean that the man had stolen it somehow.
"Who!? What!?" Hazel gasped as she instinctively twisted her head around, narrowly avoiding nicking herself on the soul-sucking blade. She took in her attacker: a man of average height with a robust, athletic build. He had sharp, piercing eyes, dark hair slicked back, a strong jawline, and pronounced cheekbones. He was dressed in a tailored suit, reminiscent of a stage magician.
"Harry Houdini, young lady. Perhaps you have heard of me?" Her kidnapper informed her.
Hazel nodded. He was one of the famous stage magicians back around the time she was born, wasn't he? An escape artist or something, right? She vaguely remembers him being mentioned once or twice when she was a kid.
"Good. Then there is no need for introductions." The dead magician said with a smile.
"What do you want with me?" Hazel asked as she desperately tried to spot one of the security ghouls. Usually she avoided them. They didn't like any of the dead of the Fields that retained their sense of self and memories and treated them accordingly. As a daughter of their lord, Pluto, they tended to treat her with some measure of respect but not much. She was still a prisoner under their care after all.
"You see, I happened to hear some gossip that Lord Letus has been captured."
"Like back in the Mythic Age when Sisyphus escaped the Underworld?"
"Yes, exactly like that." He agreed. "His capture has left things quite chaotic down here. The perfect situation to exploit for an escape, don't you think?"
"And how does kidnapping me help with that?" Hazel asked, even if she had an idea.
Houdini just smirked. "Why, I'm sure having a daughter of Pluto as a hostage will help my escape a great deal, don't you think, young lady?"
Thought so. Hazel thought with resignation as she let Houdini shove her in the direction he wanted to, his Stygian Iron knife never more than a few inches and a single stab away from destroying her soul.
Despite her growing exhaustion over the tedium of her afterlife, Hazel did not want to be reduced to nothingness. Thus as Houdini pressed the Stygian Iron blade that he had acquired somehow precariously close to her neck, she shot desperate looks at the group of security ghouls guarding a fissure in the cavern wall that contained much of the Underworld and that served as a 'secret' exit out of the realm of the dead.
"P-Please let us go! I-I don't want to die my true death!" Hazel cried out honestly as Houdini kept his blade close to her neck and used her as a human shield/hostage against the ghouls.
"You heard the girl." Houdini told the ghouls. "So, back away from that exit and let us through, or I'll cut her throat with this knife. I expect you know what will happen if I do that, don't you? You wouldn't want to explain to Lord Pluto how you were responsible for his daughter being reduced to nothingness, would you?"
The security ghouls hissed angrily at the threat, but nevertheless obeyed Houdini's demand.
"You will not get away with this, spirit." The lead ghoul said, shooting the magician a glare.
"We will see about that, won't we?" Houdini replied with a confident grin as he, with Hazel held at knifepoint in tow, made his way through the parting ranks of the security ghouls. Each of which hissed and shifted uneasily but did nothing except shoot the magician hateful glares.
Not that Houdini seemed to care. He just smiled at them in turn and confidently walked past them and into the fissure, before he and Hazel began climbing the long flight of stairs to the mortal realm within.
"I told you that taking you hostage would be useful to my escape."
Hazel just nodded. She had known that the ghouls in service to her father tended to treat her with respect. However, she was surprised that they would actually let a spirit of the dead escape just because he was holding her hostage. Keeping the dead in the Underworld was one of their greatest responsibilities, to allow an escape just because one of their lord's children's existence was at stake was shocking to her. Did her father really care so much for his children? It seemed unbelievable.
"Sorry about that by the way." Houdini said suddenly, pulling Hazel away from her thoughts as he moved his knife away from her neck but kept it close enough to be threatening nonetheless. "I would not have dragged you into this if I thought I could manage this without taking you along. I might be confident in my abilities in finding an escape but I was less sure that it would be undefended. I needed insurance to get out of there if it was, as it did turn out to be."
"So now that you're out, can I go back?" Hazel asked hopefully.
Houdini snorted. "You want to go back!? Honestly!?"
Hazel was uncertain. The right thing was to go back to the Underworld, wasn't it? She was dead and had been sentenced to her rightful afterlife, hadn't she? Yet…She had not felt so alive, ironic as describing it that way sounded, since her kidnapping! Was it wrong to want to feel more of that? To take a longer break from the tedium of the Fields?
"I-I don't know." Hazel admitted.
"I can't understand why you are conflicted." Houdini said, honestly. "Why don't you go with me for a while and see how being alive again sits with you? If you still want to return to the Underworld after that, you can just turn yourself in."
"You're just saying that because you want me on hand so that you can use me as a hostage should the need arise."
Houdini shrugs. "The two things are not mutually exclusive."
I know. I know indeed. Hazel thought, sorely tempted by the offer to return to life. Even if it was only for a little while.
No! No! Doing that is wrong! But maybe I can use Houdini's desire for me to want to be his accomplice to escape.
"Okay. I'll go with you. You can put that knife of yours away."
"Glad you've seen sense but I think I'll keep my knife ready for a little while yet. Just in case you're trying something funny. Wouldn't want to drop my guard and let you use your Half-blood powers on me, now would I?"
Hazel frowned. Damnit! I hoped that would've worked.
"They should be around here somewhere." Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, said as he stretched out his necromantic senses to search their area.
"Are you sure, Nico?" His elder sister and fellow child of Hades, Bianca di Angelo, asked as they rode through the hills surrounding Acton, California on the pair of skeletal horses that Nico had raised for them with his necromancy. "You've been saying that for a while. Are there really rogue spirits of the dead out here?"
"I'm sure there are."
"You absolutely sure?" His sister pressed. "Because we know there's tons of them in Los Angeles. If we're just out here wasting time hunting figments of your imagination, we're letting those get away."
"Argh! Don't remind me." Nico whined. "There's so many escapees lately. The Underworld must be in some kind of crisis, otherwise its security would surely have never allowed so many of them to get away like this. If only we could contact Father…"
Sadly, they couldn't. Thanks to Lord Zeus' edict against contact with mortals, they were unable to so much as I.M. their father Hades or any of the gods for that matter to find out what was going on. Heck! The only reason they even knew about the edict was thanks to Annabeth figuring out a loophole that allowed them to get in touch with Andi.
"You're the one who insisted that the dream you had last night that brought us here was a sign from Father." Bianca reminded him.
"It was." Nico insisted. He was sure of it. He didn't remember much of it to be honest, but he knew it was a sign from his father that he and Bianca were needed here in Acton today for something to do with escaped spirits of the dead.
"I don't know how you can be so sure." Bianca said with a shake of her head. "It wasn't even a demigod dream. You would've remembered it if it was."
"That's true. But I just know it is." Nico said with a helpless shrug. "I don't know why but I just do. Maybe Father is using this uncertainty as some kind of loophole to allow him to get around Lord Zeus' edict?"
"Maybe." Bianca said with her own uncertain shrug. "But whatever it was, I guess it's given us a chance to take a break from hunting the escapees in LA."
Nico nodded. That was really turning into a pain. There were just so many escaped spirits of the dead in the City of Angels right now. He and Bianca had been hunting them for weeks but there just seemed no end to them. And as Children of Hades, as children of the Underworld, it was their duty to stop these spirits from escaping their allotted fate in the Underworld.
"Yeah. This is a good break." Nico agreed just as his necromantic senses tingled. "Bianca, I think I've got something."
"What is it?" His sister asked, her tone serious.
Focusing his senses, Nico tried to discern what he was picking up. "A couple of spirits. Both of them are pretty powerful and one of them is…"
"Is what?"
"Strange. It feels like us but different."
"A Half-blood?"
"I think so." Nico said uncertainly. "That feels like it's not the right answer but close enough…"
Bianca shot him an unimpressed look. "You need more practice."
"Yeah." He admitted.
"Do you have a firm enough read for us to Shadow Travel there at least?"
"Not yet." He said with an embarrassed blush. "We'll need to get a little closer. This way."
Bianca just nodded and followed him as he guided his horse in the direction towards where the spirits he was detecting appeared to be.
"Bianca?" Nico asked as the silence dragged on and got a little too oppressive.
"Yeah?"
"You think Percy's alright?" Nico asked worriedly. The son of Poseidon had suddenly disappeared on them and Nico couldn't help but worry for the older boy's wellbeing.
"Oh? Is widdle Nico worried about his crush?" His sister teased.
"Bianca~! Stop teasing me about that! I'm seriously worried." Nico snapped back. "I don't tease you about your crush on the Stolls, so don't tease me about my feelings for Percy!"
"The Stolls? That's old news!" Bianca scoffed with a dismissive wave of her hand like a princess. "I'm totally over them!"
Nico wanted to retort that she was far from it! As her brother, she knew for a fact that she still occasionally pined for attention from the sons of Hermes. However, before he could say a word, his necromantic senses finally zeroed in on the two spirits he was tracking.
"Bianca, I've got a lock on the spirits." Nico informed his sister as he forged a Shadow Travel portal.
"Right." She nodded, drawing her Stygian Iron lance as she had it shed its disguised form. "Let's go."
Nico nodded and the two of them walked through the umbral portal side by side. They emerged on the other side atop a ridge that overlooked a small gully and at the bottom of this small valley were the pair of spirits of the dead that they had been hunting. One was an adult white man in a stage magician's outfit and the other was a girl with a dark complexion that was as brown as a roasted coffee bean.
"Spirits of the dead! In the name of our lord father, Hades. god of the Underworld, I demand your surrender!" Nico shouted with the full weight of his authority as both a son of Hades and a necromancer.
"A son and daughter of Lord Pluto!? What a coincidence, eh, Hazel? It seems you have some living siblings." The male spirit said as he pulled the girl close and pressed what Nico recognised as a Stygian Iron knife to her neck.
Pluto? Isn't that Father's Roman aspect-
Nico and Bianca knew about the Romans of course. Before contact with him had been cut off - stupid Uncle! -, their father had been teaching them more about their new world. Including some of its secrets, like the existence of the Romans and New Rome. In fact, he'd even sent them to New Rome as his Ambassadors to learn more about its culture
Wait! Did he just call us that girl's siblings!? Nico thought with a gasp as the full weight of what the man had said caught up with him. Bianca was just as surprised if her own whisper soft gasp was any indication, but unlike him, she mastered her emotions quickly and turned to address the man with firm determination within moments.
"Let our sister go." Bianca demanded, exuding her own authority as a daughter of Hades. Without Nico's added power as a necromancer, it was far weaker though and since the man had already shaken off his command, hers did nothing at all to the spirit. Though her leveling her lance threateningly at the man did manage to get him to eye it warily.
"Oh ho! You're recognizing her as your sister already? This makes things so much easier."
"Y-You're children of Pluto too?" The girl asked, looking at them in shock.
"It's a long story." Bianca said evasively. "Right now, the important thing is getting you away from that man."
"Is that so?" The man said with a smirk. "Then how about a deal? I give Hazel over here to your custody and in exchange you let me go."
"And if we refuse?" Bianca demanded with a commanding air of a general.
The man adjusted his Stygian Iron knife meaningfully. "Oh, I think you know exactly what will happen then, my lady. Seeing as you wield Stygian Iron yourself, I imagine you know full well what will happen to your precious sister if my blade so much as nicks her, don't you?"
Just the thought had Nico paling. Stygian Iron absorbed the essence of those it defeated in battle, growing stronger each time. If it touched the unprotected essence of a spirit of the dead, even one that was steadily becoming embodied by its presence in the mortal world like his newly discovered sister was, then there was a good chance the blade it had been forged into would rend her essence asunder as it drew it. There was a reason why he'd stopped using his Stygian Iron sword since he began specializing in osteomancy. He wouldn't be able to collect the bones of his defeated enemies for his power if he kept using it. The blade would just absorb the essence of his foes and leave nothing usable behind. Thankfully, in an act of understanding, his Father had responded to this change by converting his sword into a shield.
Though now's not really the time to be thinking about that. Nico chided himself even as he finally added to the conversation.
"Are you an idiot? Do you really think that we'll let you get away with taking one of our sisters hostage?"
"Exactly! Time to go back where you belong, escapee! Nico!"
"On it!" Nico shouted as he reached out with his burgeoning osteomancy and seized control of the bones in the arm that the man was using to hold his knife. Owing to his heritage and his own preferences, Nico's osteomancy was largely limited to the manipulation of the bones of the dead. However, he was capable, if only barely, to manipulate the bones inside the living. Add that to the fact that his current target was a partially embodied spirit of the dead and Nico was just capable of using his power to jerk the hostage taker's hand roughly to the side. An opening that was all his still unnamed sister needed to sprint out of his grip.
"Shit!" The man cursed as Bianca raised her lance skyward in a sharp motion. Tapping into the geomancy that was her speciality at the same time, she had a pillar of earth shoot out of the ground and slam into the man's chin. A blow that would have smashed the head of a mortal man open but which only served to send the already dead man staggering.
"Nico, hold him!"
"Got it!" Nico responded as he used his osteomancy to summon dozens of tusk like bones out of the ground in a configuration reminiscent of a ribcage that proceeded to trap the man. Bones that pierced the man in multiple places as to hold him in place.
"Begone! Back to where you belong!" Bianca ordered as she used her geomancy to open a fissure to the Underworld right under the trapped spirit. Unable to escape, the man could only scream in fear as he fell into the depths of the earth and back into their father's realm.
"Now that that's dealt with." Bianca said as both she and Nico turned to the other escaped spirit of the dead, their sister. "What should we do with you?"
"What should we do with you?" Bianca asked, eyeing this unknown Roman sister of hers that had been seemingly kidnapped from the Underworld.
"I don't suppose we could just, you know, send her back?" Nico asked, earning himself a glare.
Honestly! Why were boys always so insensitive!?
"Is that what you want? Uh? Sorry, I don't think we caught your name." Bianca asked the girl who looked about her own age, give or take a year.
"It's Hazel Levesque." The other girl introduced herself nervously.
"Right. So, Hazel, what do you want? Do you want to return to the Underworld?" Nico asked bluntly, earning himself another glare that he annoyingly once more just shrugged off.
"Uh? Shouldn't you be doing exactly that? Like you did with Houdini?"
Houdini? So that magician guy was Harry Houdini? Bianca thought blinking in surprise. Well, considering the guy's reputation, that might just explain how he managed to escape the Underworld. I can't help but still feel like that's something fishy about all this though.
"Wait! That guy was Harry Houdini?" Nico asked with a frown. "The famous escape artist?"
Even as Hazel nodded, Bianca exchanged a skeptical look with Nico. They could both sense there was something odd about this whole thing. Houdini might've been a famous escape artist but it was doubtful that he was good enough to escape the Underworld.
"And how did he manage to get you two out of the Underworld?"
"Uh, he took me hostage using that Stygian Iron knife of his-"
"The one that looked like he got it off a security ghoul?" Nico asked with a frown.
Hazel nodded. "Yeah. He used it to take me hostage and threatened to kill me whenever we ran into security ghouls."
"That worked?" Nico asked, surprised. Bianca was too. Normally, the security ghouls wouldn't have been as spineless as that. They'd have at least made some attempt to rescue Hazel, she was sure of it!
Hazel nodded.
"And where was Father? Or the other chthonic gods? Did none of them intervene?" Bianca pressed.
"No." Hazel said with a shake of her head. "I guess I wasn't special enough."
Bianca and Nico exchanged another look. That didn't make sense. Father loved all his children. There was no way that he would have let one of his kids be taken hostage and not either intervene directly or at least influence events. Things weren't adding up unless…
"This sounds like this was nothing but a set up." Nico said with a sigh, voicing Bianca's thoughts.
"With Houdini as a patsy?"
Nico nodded. "It would fit with the dream I had last night. Father wanted us to find Hazel."
"But make it seem like he wasn't the one releasing her from the Underworld." Bianca added with her own nod.
Hazel looked between them in disbelief. "Would Father really do that?"
"Normally, I don't think so. He prefers to be more direct than this." Bianca said with a shake of her head. "But there's this edict issued by Lord Zeus against contact with the mortal world to consider. I'd imagine releasing you from the Underworld either falls under it-"
"Or is close enough that Father doesn't want to risk it." Nico finished for her. "The question is why release you now?"
"Hazel, I'm sorry if this is a sensitive topic, but when did you die?" Bianca asked as gently as she could.
Her sister winced at the mention of her death but after taking a deep breath, replied. "1942."
Bianca and Nico exchanged looks.
"Okay. Something's definitely up." Nico voiced their concerns with a frown. "If that's when you died, Father had plenty of time between then and now to release you if he had a mind to do so."
Bianca nodded. "Even with the Pact of the Big Three being in effect… Yeah, it doesn't make sense. We were released from the Lotus while it was in effect too after all."
"Which can only mean that Father released Hazel now for a reason." Nico concluded.
"Yes, but why?"
"Uh… That's interesting and all… But maybe you can figure that out after you decide what to do with me?" Hazel suggested hesitantly.
Bianca exchanged yet another look with her brother and received a nod in return.
"Alright." Bianca said, offering her sister the kindest smile she could and clapped her hands merrily. "So~! What do you want?"
Hazel frowned at the question. "I honestly don't know. The last time I was alive, it wasn't that great. But being dead wasn't any better…"
"Then why not give being alive a chance?" Nico suggested. "While Bianca and I haven't been dead, we know about life not being that great and being given a new lease of life."
Bianca nodded in agreement. "Yes, and we have personally experienced how having a go at a new life can lead to wonderful results."
"Really?"
""Really."" Bianca said at the same time Nico did, causing her to look at her brother with an arched eyebrow. Unperturbed, he just shrugged. An exchange that had Hazel giggling in amusement.
"Look at it this way, Hazel, if you ever feel like living is too much for you, you can just turn yourself into Father and return to the Underworld."
Nico nodded and added his two cents. "So why not give living a try in the meantime?"
"Houdini said the same thing." Hazel said, still looking uncertain.
"Well, he wasn't wrong." Bianca said with an encouraging look even as her mind raced with whether that was genuinely what the spirit thought or if it was Father who had told him to tell Hazel to coax her to return to the realm of the living.
Hazel pondered the matter for a long moment before finally giving a nod. "Okay. I think I want to give living a try."
"This is the Wolf House?" Hazel asked her two siblings as they stood in front of the imposing, unfinished mansion made from volcanic rock and redwood logs. Despite being in ruins due to a fire, its grand size and architectural details, such as large arched windows and multiple stone fireplaces, were still evident. The house sat in a lush, wooded area surrounded by redwood trees, adding to its mysterious and historical feel.
"Yup." Nico, the younger of her two new siblings, said with a childish nod. "This is the place where Ro-I mean, where demigods like us and legacies start their demigod journey. This is where Lupa decides if they are tough enough for her training. If they pass her tests, she takes them in as her cubs, just like she did with Romulus and Remus, and trains them until they're ready to become Legionnaires of Rome. When they're ready, she gives them directions to Camp Jupiter and sends them off to make the dangerous journey on their own—where they either succeed or fail."
Hazel almost missed the way Nico stumbled over correcting himself before he brought up the distinction about Roman demigods and Greeks like him and Bianca. Yes, she'd figured out that her siblings were children of their father's Greek aspect, Hades. It wasn't hard when they'd both announced themselves as such and Nico kept forgetting that he needed to keep it a secret and kept having to stop himself from bringing it up.
And Bianca knows I know. Hazel thought as she saw her sister sigh at their brother's inability to keep a secret before turning to shoot her a look.
Hazel nodded and mimed zipping her mouth shut. She didn't know the reason, discussing the entire topic was taboo it seemed, even why it was such. However, she knew when to keep her mouth shut and so she would.
"So this is where I start my new life, huh?" She said, pretending the preceding interaction had never happened.
Nodding both in agreement with what she said and her commitment to keep the secret, Bianca replied. "Yup. It is."
"So what should I do?" Hazel asked, looking around whilst feeling both curious and apprehensive.
"Just wait. You'll see." Bianca said, her tone teasing.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Now, now, Hazel, that would be spoilers." Nico told her with a teasing grin. "Just relax. Like Bianca said, you will see what it means."
Hazel shot her siblings an uncertain look but they returned it with smirks.
""Trust us!"" The di Angelos chorused before they turned to glare at each other. It was honestly cute how the two of them got so frustrated by the fact that they were so in sync that they often said the same things at the same time.
"Please don't start bickering." Hazel told her siblings teasingly, prompting both of them to freeze and after exchanging one last glare, nodding and turning to face her.
"Sorry about that Hazel." Bianca said as she pulled Hazel into a hug. "We're just a message away."
"Yeah. Just send us a message by giant eagle and we'll be there as soon as we can." Nico assured her.
Hazel nodded. "I will. Thank you, Bianca, Nico. For everything."
Hazel was serious about that. She was truly grateful beyond words to the di Angelos. Especially Bianca. Her sister just got her. Not only was she, thanks to chronological hijinks courtesy of her being trapped out of time for years in a place known as the Lotus and Hazel's own time in the Underworld, the two of them were now the same age and thanks to that they were on the same wavelength for a lot of things. Thus, whenever she had questions, it was Bianca who she turned to. Sure Nico helped but he was not only two whole younger than them, but he was also a boy! There were some things about a fifteen year old girl that their thirteen year old brothers couldn't get, so Hazel was beyond relieved she had Bianca. For one, having her first period in more than sixty years! She was dead and hadn't had to endure it for so long that she totally didn't know how to handle it. Without Bianca, she was sure she'd have been a wreck handling it on her own.
"Don't mention it." Nico said with a dismissive wave. "You're our sister. Of course we'd help you out."
"What, Nico said." Bianca said, giving Hazel one last squeeze before pulling away from their hug. "You're our sister."
"Thank you."
"You said that already." Nico reminded her cheekily. He could be such a brat sometimes. She wondered how by the Pit did Bianca stand him!
Rolling her eyes at him, Bianca offered her one last smile. "Okay. We're going now. See you soon, Hazel."
"Yup. See you in New Rome, Hazel." Nico added as he came forward to give her a quick hug before stepping back to join Bianca as their sister opened up a Shadow Travel below them that they slowly sunk into.
"Bye, Bianca, Nico!" She offered them a wave.
""Bye Hazel!"" Her siblings said with a wave of her own as they disappeared into their portal and the unnatural shadows that it was made out of dispersed.
Hazel was on her own now. Alone with whatever challenge Lupa would throw at her to prove her worthiness to be a Legionnaire of Rome. To be a proper demigod of New Rome.
No pressure. Hazel thought to herself. You can do this. Bianca and Nico have faith in you.
It was comforting but nowhere enough to drive away her nerves as she surveyed the ruins around her.
"Well, Hazel, you did say you wanted to give living again a try." She reminded herself with a sigh. "Being uncertain about things is exactly what it means to be alive. So suck it up. It's time to live."
Done and done! Thanks to Nameless as always!
Well dang, look what that Harry boy did now! I guess taking a side job from the Lord of the Underworld will help him get that second wing in his mansion in Elysium! Still, didn't it feel like he was too comfortable with the act of basically kidnapping a princess? Maybe it was just another feat to add to his list of accomplishments? He does have an impressive resume! Still, Nico and Bianca getting to meet their 'older' sister was pretty fun, even if Hazel and Bianca are the same age. Time to help her adjust to the modern world. After the Wolf House of course.
Nameless: So~! This is our take on how Hazel escaped the Underworld in the TETWverse. It's at once close to canon and not. At the very least, I think it's a lot more fleshed out. In canon, it was basically just Nico found Hazel whilst looking for Bianca and decided to revive her and so brought her to New Rome. Here we add a little more depth to it and strongly imply (we never offered any definitive proof ;) ) that Hades set things up to see to her release. Why now? Well, I'm sure anyone familiar with the Heroes of Olympus will know already so there's no point beating around the bush: it's because of her part in the Prophecy of the Seven. That's enough rambling from me, I think. Before I hand things back to E4E, just a small request to let us know how you thought of our take on Hazel's revival. Okay, it's all yours, E4E!
You know what to do! Smash that review button and tell us what you love! No flames and peace off my peeps!