The hand that grabbed onto him almost killed him quicker than the cold and impact combined considering the heart attack that just about gave him. He had lost his grip on Jason, and he began to sink.

Strange wailing sounds filled his ears – millions of heartbroken voices, as if the river were made of distilled sadness. The voices were worse than the cold, weighing him down and making him numb.

What's the point of struggling? they told him. You're dead anyway. You'll never leave this place.

Then a hand grabbed him, and that scared him more than the voices did. It was only Jason who found his hand while his other held Percy who was holding onto Annabeth. It was kind of an inverse of how they fell in, but together, the four of them kicked upward and broke the surface.

Octavian inhaled sharply, though his lungs protested the sulphurous air. The water swirled around them, and Octavian realized Percy was creating a whirlpool to buoy them up.

'Land,' he could hear Annabeth croak. 'Go sideways.'

The whirlpool began to dissipate, but Octavian followed her orders, tightening his hold onto Jason and struggled across the current. The river worked against him: thousands of weeping voices whispering in his ears, getting inside his brain.

Life is despair, they said. Everything is pointless, and then you die.

Octavian lived so many years with the voices of the heavens whispering prophetic images in his mind that it was easy to ignore them. The same, however, could not be said for Jason or Percy.

'Pointless,' Percy murmured, sinking from the other end of the chain, pulling the others with him. Damn his blood of the sea because it allowed him to pull them quicker.

'Percy!' Annabeth shrieked and the sound of it sent a jolt of adrenaline into Octavian's system. He found the strength to haul Jason back up from where his stupid head had sunk beneath the waves. 'The river is messing with your mind. It's the Cocytus — the River of Lamentation. It's made of pure misery!'

'Misery,' Jason agreed.

'I swear Jason if I lose you to a stupid river, I'll bring you back and drown you myself," Octavian snarled, as he kicked and struggled, but damn was Percy heavy. Someone needed to lay off the kelp jerky or just ignore the voices. Please ignore the voices.

'Tell me about New Rome,' Annabeth demanded. ' What were your plans for it?'

'New Rome ... '

'Yeah, Seaweed Brain. You said we could have a future there! Tell me!'

'Architecture,' Percy murmured, the fog started to clear from his mind. Thank the gods. 'Thought you'd like the houses, the parks. There's one street with all these cool fountains.'

"Jason," Octavian whispered, pressing his lips to the boy's ear. He could see the dark line of the shore about a stone's throw away. "Come on, wolf boy. You promised that we'd stay together. Remember the last time we fought this river. Tell me, what do you love? What makes you happy and makes you smile?"

What better way to beat lamentation and heartache?

"Y-you," Jason replied shakily. Octavian was a bit too cold to blush. "Mother. Thalia."

"Who else?"

"Lupa. Friends. 'Kota. Gwen. Rue. Leo. Drew." Octavian was pretty sure that Leo and Drew situated themselves in the love part, and he wasn't even jealous about that… much. "Percy. 'Nabeth. Frank."

'College,' Annabeth gasped on the other side speaking to Percy. 'Could we go there together?'

'Y-yeah,' he agreed, a little more confidently. "You and Jake would take over the engineering department."

'What would you study, Percy?'

'Dunno,' he admitted.

'Marine science,' she suggested. 'Oceanography?'

'Surfing?' he asked.

Octavian couldn't help it, but he laughed, and he heard Annabeth laugh, and the sound sent a shock wave through the water. The wailing faded to background noise. They used the last of their strength to reach the riverbank, feet digging into the sandy bottom. They hauled themselves ashore, shivering and gasping, and collapsed on the dark sand.

At their feet, the River Cocytus roared past, a flood of liquid wretchedness. The sulphurous air stung Octavian's lungs and prickled his skin. When he looked at his arms, they were already covered with an angry rash and he nearly shot up in shock, but the pain slammed him back into the ground.

The beach wasn't sand. They were sitting on a field of jagged black-glass chips, some of which were now embedded in Octavian's palms and head.

Ouch.

So the air was acid. The water was misery. The ground was broken glass. Everything here was designed to hurt and kill.

Wonderful. They really were in Tartara.

Octavian coughed as he took a breath, and in the next moment, Jason was sitting up, placing a hand on his chest, forcing air—clean air— into his lungs. He wanted to glare at the boy because he should really focus on himself first, but he was a bit too relieved about the clean air that he could breathe.

Next to them, Percy coughed. 'This place smells like my ex-stepfather.'

Jason chuckled, before he clasped his hands together, breathing into them before separating his hands. The air around them was purified for a moment even if it was nothing more than twelve minutes.

Octavian took the moment to look around them, carefully plucking the glass out of his skin while Jason knelt beside him to rummage through the toolbelt. There wasn't any ambrosia in there unfortunately. He looked at the younger blond, taking in his appearance. His T-shirt ripped to shreds, and his fingers were scraped raw from holding on to that ledge before they fell. His hair was plastered to his forehead, and his lips were blue, and yet, he was still the most beautiful person that he had ever seen.

'We should keep moving or we'll get hypothermia,' Annabeth said. 'Can you stand?'

All of them nodded, struggling to their feet. Octavian scanned their surroundings, the black-glass beach stretched inland about fifty yards, then dropped off the edge of a cliff. From where he stood, he couldn't see what was below, but the edge flickered with red light as if illuminated by huge fires.

Above, there was no sign of the tunnel they'd fallen down—just blood-coloured clouds floating in the hazy grey air. It was like staring through a thin mix of tomato soup and cement.

'Look.' Percy inhaled sharply, pointing downstream.

A hundred feet away, a familiar-looking baby-blue Italian car had crashed headfirst into the sand. It looked just like the Fiat that had smashed into Arachne and sent her plummeting into the pit.

Octavian tensed and felt Jason curl around him protectively. The two of them shared looks with Annabeth and Percy, and the four of them stumbled towards the wreckage. One of the car's tyres had come off and was floating in a back-water eddy of the Cocytus. The Fiat's windows had shattered, sending brighter glass like frosting across the dark beach. Under the crushed hood lay the tattered, glistening remains of a giant silk cocoon – the trap that Annabeth had tricked Arachne into weaving. It was unmistakably empty. Slash marks in the sand made a trail downriver ... as if something heavy, with multiple legs, had scuttled into the darkness.

'She's alive.' Annabeth breathed, though her voice was filled with horror. Octavian could relate. Annabeth may have tricked her into a trap, but Octavian had tricked her into an alliance and gave her a cursed necklace and when the spider needed his help the most, he turned his back on her. He was too cute to become spider food, but damn if that looked like what was going to be his future.

'It's Tartara,' Jason said. 'Monster home court. Down here, maybe they can't be killed.'

Octavian elbowed him harshly, and Percy coughed, looking away as if he was going to say something similar.

'Or maybe she's badly wounded, and she crawled away to die.' Percy stated with false cheer.

'Let's go with that,' Annabeth agreed. 'This place is killing us. I mean, it's literally going to kill us, unless ...'

Octavian followed her gaze inland towards the cliff, illuminated by flames from below. "Thinking what I'm thinking, Chase?"

'What is it?' Percy prompted. 'You've got a brilliant plan, haven't you?'

'It's a plan,' Annabeth murmured. 'I don't know about brilliant. We need to find the River of Fire.'

The four of them trudged forward, and by the time that they reached ledge, Octavian wanted to say Fuck It and curl up and die. Let Tartara kill him. He would deserve it considering everything that he had done in life. However, he had sworn to get the three of them back to the surface, so he pushed through the pain. Still, the cliff dropped more than eighty feet. At the bottom stretched a nightmarish version of the Grand Canyon: a river of fire cutting a path through a jagged obsidian crevasse, the glowing red current casting horrible shadows across the cliff faces.

Octavian could have sworn that Virgil stated drinking from the stupid river would cause pain, not being around it! Jason's air purifying technique stopped a long time ago, and the air seemed to be killing him now. He was pretty sure that his ribs were if not broken then they were at least cracked, and neither was an option that he preferred. It was a miracle that he had been able to do so much with broken ribs in the first damn place!

'Uh ...' Percy examined the cliff, pointing to a tiny fissure running diagonally from the edge to the bottom. 'We can try that ledge there. Might be able to climb down.'

Jason nodded his head, "Yeah. I'll go first and fly the rest of you down when we are close enough. A drop like that—" He didn't say anything more, and before any of them could argue considering that he may need to save his strength for later endeavors, he had already started to climb down. Oh, well. The quicker that they got it over with the better. Blisters had started to form on their arms from exposure to the Tartarus air. The whole environment was about as healthy as a nuclear blast zone.

The ledge was barely wide enough to allow a toehold, and their hands clawed for any crack in the glassy rock. Octavian wanted to cry from the strain that he put on his ribs, and he could hear every whimper that Annabeth gave when she put pressure on her bad foot.

A few steps above him, Percy grunted as he reached for another handhold. 'So ... what is this fire river called?'

'The Phlegethon,' Annabeth said. 'You should concentrate on going down.'

'The Phlegethon?' He shimmed along the ledge. They'd made it roughly a third of the way down the cliff—still high enough up to die if they fell. 'Sounds like a marathon for hawking spitballs.'

'Please don't make me laugh,' Octavian said. His ribs might come alive and actually stab him.

'Just trying to keep things light.'

'Thanks,' Annabeth grunted, nearly missing the ledge with her bad foot. 'I'll have a smile on my face as I plummet to my death.'

They kept going, one step at a time before Octavian gave a sigh of relief when Jason appeared level with him, the winds solid under his feet to carry him down. He stood still, taking measured breaths as the youngest blond flew upwards twice more to grab Annabeth first at Percy's insistence then go back for the raven-haired boy.

'Just to the river,' Annabeth said, and Octavian wrapped his arm around her to try to take some pressure off her leg though his ribs protested. 'We can do this.'

They staggered over slick glass ledges, around massive boulders, avoiding stalagmites that would've impaled them with any slip of the foot. Their tattered clothes steamed from the heat of the river, but they kept going until they crumpled to their knees at the banks of the Phlegethon.

'We have to drink,' Annabeth said.

Percy swayed; his eyes half-closed. It took him three counts to respond. 'Uh ... drink fire?'

'The Phlegethon flows from Hades's realm down into Tartarus.' Annabeth could barely get her words out. 'The river is used to punish the wicked. But also ... some legends call it the River of Healing.'

'Some legends?'

"Virgil, the roman poet," Octavian explained, trying to stay conscious. "Once said that drinking from the Phlegethon will not kill a mortal and it will heal while causing great pain."

Annabeth swallowed, picking up where he left off. 'The Phlegethon keeps the wicked in one piece so that they can endure the torments of the Fields of Punishment. I think ... it might be the Underworld equivalent of ambrosia and nectar.'

Percy winced as cinders sprayed from the river, curling around his face. 'But it's fire. How can we—'

'Like this.' Annabeth thrust her hands into the river. She cupped the fiery liquid in her palms and raised it to her mouth.

The boys stared at her wide-eyed. She collapsed, gagging and retching, her whole body shaking violently.

'Annabeth!' Percy grabbed her arms and just managed to stop her from rolling into the river.

The convulsions passed and the girl took a ragged breath and managed to sit up. The blisters on her arms were starting to fade. Octavian eyed her and before he could change his mind, he followed her lead, cupping the fire in his hands and gulping it down greedily.

That asshole poet Dante once stated that the river boiled souls and punished those that committed crimes of violence against their fellow men. If that was the case, which he really doubted; fuck that christian, then Octavian's soul was positively screaming. Gods, he could almost feel his ribs being melted back together, what the fuck.

He was so happy when it finally calmed even if every pore on his face popped.

"Octavian," Annabeth cried. "Jason!"

His head snapped up to see the boy collapsed on the ground. The liquid fire trickled from his mouth as she reached for another handful to give Percy who was slumped against her. Octavian didn't even think, cupping another handful and pouring it into Jason's mouth. "You don't get to die on me, Grace. Not now. Not ever."

The boys trembled, and spluttered, and coughed, and Octavian leaned over Jason almost protectively as he cradled him. The boy patted his face in reassurance, sitting up.

'Ugh,' Percy said, sitting up and smacking his lips 'Spicy, yet disgusting.'

They laughed weakly.

'Yeah." Annabeth said a little breathlessly. "That pretty much sums it up.'

'You saved us," Jason said.

'For now,' she said. 'The problem is we're still in Tartarus.'

'Holy Hera. I never thought ... well, I'm not sure what I thought," Percy muttered as he looked around. "Maybe that Tartarus was empty space, a pit with no bottom. But this is a real place.'

'We haven't seen all of it,' Annabeth warned. 'This could be just the first tiny part of the abyss, like the front steps.'

'The welcome mat,' Percy muttered.

They all gazed up at the blood-coloured clouds swirling in the grey haze. No way would they have the strength to climb back up that cliff, even if they wanted to. Now there were only two choices: downriver or upriver, skirting the banks of the Phlegethon.

'We'll find a way out,' Percy said. 'The Doors of Death.'

How could they wander through Tartarus and find the Doors of Death? They'd barely been able to stumble a hundred yards in this poisonous place without dying.

'We have to,' Percy said. 'Not just for us. For everybody we love. The Doors have to be closed on both sides, or the monsters will just keep coming through. Gaia's forces will overrun the world."

At this point, Octavian was fine with that also. They were in literal hell, and how could they synchronize a meeting with their friends? And the others had mentioned a legion of Gaia's strongest monsters guarding the Doors on the Tartarus side. There was also the fact that time might move at a different speed.

He tried to push away those thoughts. Octavian hadn't gone through so much shit in life just because Mommy Dearest was mad that someone put her kids in timeout.

'Well.' Annabeth said, taking a deep breath. 'If we stay close to the river, we'll have a way to heal ourselves. If we go downstream—'

It happened so fast that Annabeth would have been dead if she'd been on her own and Octavian was very glad that they hadn't fallen on their own because he was sure that he would have been next.

Percy's eyes locked on something behind them. Annabeth and Octavian both spun as a massive dark shape hurtled down—a snarling, monstrous blob with spindly barbed legs and glinting eyes.

Only one thought: Arachne.

His senses were smothered by the sickly-sweet smell though his gaze was locked onto the damn necklace around her neck. Then he heard the familiar sound of a sword being unsheathed, a blade swept over his head in a glowing bronze arc. A horrible wail echoed through the canyon.

He stood there, stunned alongside Annabeth as yellow dust—the remains of Arachne—rained around them like tree pollen and that necklace laid limp.

Jason scanned the cliffs and boulders, on his feet and his own sword in hand.

'You okay?' Percy asked, doing the same as the other, alert for more monsters, but nothing else appeared. The golden dust of the spider settled on the obsidian rocks. The celestial bronze and imperial gold blades glowed even brighter in the gloom of Tartarus.

'She ... she would've killed us,' Annabeth stammered as Octavian bent down to grab the necklace. It might be useful later.

Jason kicked the dust on the rocks, his expression grim and dissatisfied. "She died too easily, considering how much torture she put you through. She deserved worse." He gave Percy an appreciative nod that the boy returned.

'How did you move so fast?' Annabeth asked Percy.

Percy shrugged. 'Gotta watch each other's backs, right? Now, you were saying ... downstream?'

Annabeth nodded, still in a daze. Octavian didn't blame her, watching as the yellow dust dissipated on the rocky shore, turning to steam.

'Yeah, downstream,' she managed. 'If the river comes from the upper levels of the Underworld, it should flow deeper into Tartarus—'

'So it leads into more dangerous territory,' Percy finished. 'Which is probably where the Doors are. Lucky us.'

"Let's go," Jason offered, exchanging looks with Percy once more. Jason took the lead while Percy handled the rear, placing Annabeth and Octavian directly between them. It was completely unsubtle, but Octavian could not find the strength to care. He passed Annabeth, a dagger; one of the last weapons that he had stashed as most had not survived the fall; even some of the stuff in his toolbelt had fallen out. He was just lucky that Livia's wristlet was still secured. He might destroy the giants, titans, and the gods with his bare hands if he lost it.

Tartara clearly operated on its own rules.

They'd only travelled a few hundred yards when they heard voices, and of course, Jason heard them first.

"Everyone down," he hissed.

Octavian was instantly alert.

They hid behind the nearest boulder, wedging themselves so close against the riverbank that their shoes nearly touched the river's fire. On the other side, on the narrow path between the river and the cliffs, voices snarled, getting louder as they approached from upstream.

Octavian took a deep breath—hold for eight, release for seven— and let his mind calm. It was a trick that he used when he scoured through the haruspicies; it had a 35% chance of working because well, if he wasn't fixating on his work, then his ADHD gave him much more interesting things to think about than teddy bear stuffing.

The voices sounded vaguely human, but that didn't really mean anything. The gods sounded human also.

And he wasn't surprised that monsters were heading their way; not only could they smell demigods, but he was sure that Jason and Percy's scents were radiating like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

He shared a look with Annabeth; feeling like he was on the same wavelength as her—when did that happen? — and knew that it would take their specialty to buy them some time.

A little bit of trickery. A little bit of talking. A lot of delaying.

The monsters got nearer; their voices didn't change in tone. Their uneven footsteps – scrap, clump, scrap, clump — didn't get any faster.

'Soon?' one of them asked in a raspy voice, as if she'd been gargling in the Phlegethon.

'Oh my gods!' said another voice. This one sounded much younger and much more human, like a teenaged mortal girl getting exasperated with her friends at the mall. 'You guys are totally annoying! I told you, it's like three days from here.'

Octavian caught sight of Percy gripping Annabeth's wrist, looking at her in alarm. There was a chorus of growling and grumbling. The creatures — maybe half a dozen — had paused just on the other side of the boulder, but still they gave no indication that they'd caught the demigods' aura.

Octavian wanted to believe that Tartara was just so overwhelming that it masked demigod's scents, but he also knew that humans in general tend to give off a scent after they went swimming and that onto the fact that with the River of Fire behind them… they probably smelt like straightening wet hair.

'I wonder,' said a third voice, gravelly and ancient like the first, 'if perhaps you do not know the way, young one.'

Oh, wonderful. He recognized that voice, and he threw a glare over at Jason for it. The son of Iovis was careful to not look in his direction.

'Oh, shut your fang hole, Serephone,' said the mall girl. 'When's the last time you escaped to the mortal world? I was there a couple of years ago. I know the way! Besides, I understand what we're facing up there. You don't have a clue!'

'The Earth Mother did not make you boss!' shrieked a fourth voice.

More hissing, scuffling and feral moans – like giant alley cats fighting. At last the one called Serephone yelled, 'Enough!'

The scuffling died down.

'We will follow for now,' Serephone said. 'I was there on earth a few years ago myself. That upstart roman demigod, Jason Grace, had almost been mine then his little pet auger killed me."

And I'll do it again, bitch, Octavian thought with narrowed eyes. Jason shifted, his ears reddening in embarrassment when Percy and Annabeth turned to look at him.

Octavian remembered Serephone. Two years ago, when Jason had been helping Liber over in Wine Country, Serephone had decided to "help" him, fixing him food and drinks in a bid to control him and take him to Saturnus. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how one looked at it, Octavian had been crossing through that area himself for a few pickups when he saw that damned pedophile had been trying to seduce his Jason, pulling at his pants, pressing her breasts against him, and letting him touch on her while she kissed alongside his neck.

Octavian pushed Jason into a jug of wine and then cut her damn head off sending her… to Tartara.

He stood by his actions, and he'd do it again if she really thought he'd let her close enough to even touch what belonged to him. Especially since Jason crooned about the bitch for months after even though he had been cleared from all her magicka traces.

"I said fine. The titans will win, and I will petition for their souls. I would rest for a few years, and now you come to us with the perfect opportunity for my revenge. But if you do not lead us well, if we find you have lied about the summons of Gaia—'

'I don't lie!' snapped the mall girl. 'Believe me, I've got good reason to get into this battle. I have some enemies to devour, and you'll feast on the blood of heroes. You can have your Jason Grace. Just leave one special morsel for me — the one named Percy Jackson.'

This time Percy flushed when Jason and Octavian turned to look at him though Annabeth curled over him like a protective older sister.

'Believe me,' said the mall girl. 'Gaia has called us, and we're going to have so much fun. Before this war is over, mortals and demigods will tremble at the sound of my name – Kelli!'

Empousai, Annabeth mouthed as she looked at them. Vampires.

They nodded grimly.

The creatures shuffled off, their voices getting fainter. They crept to the edge of the boulder and risked a glimpse. Sure enough, ten women staggered along on mismatched legs – mechanical bronze on the left, shaggy and cloven-hooved on the right. Their hair was made of fire, their skin as white as bone. Four of them wore tattered Ancient Greek dresses, and another four wore rags of what looked like Ancient Roman dresses; the one in the lead wore a burnt and torn blouse with a short, pleated skirt that looked something like a cheerleader's outfit, and the one right beside her; Serephone, wore a tattered and burned stola; the one that she had been beheaded in.

Bitch.

'They're heading for the Doors of Death,' Percy murmured as he rose. 'You know what that means?'

'Yeah,' Octavian sighed. 'We need to follow them.'

And if Jason somehow fell in love with Serephone again, well, the River of Fire was right there.

Fuck Friar Lawrence and his stupid "Young men's love then lies, not in their hearts but in their eyes". Octavian will pluck Jason's eyes out. He may have reluctantly accepted Drew and Leo due to the circumstances, and he will get in a bitch fight with Reyna, and tear through any of his other damn admirers, but now that the stupid curse was hopefully gone, then he was going to get the boy, dammit.

They followed the River Phlegethon, stumbling over the glassy black terrain, jumping crevices and hiding behind rocks whenever the vampire girls slowed in front of them.

It was tricky to stay far enough back to avoid getting spotted but close enough to keep Serephone and her comrades in view through the dark hazy air. Jason managed to purify the air around them for another twelve minutes, and Octavian really wanted him to stop considering that it was twelve minutes off his life every time he did that.

He still thanked him for the breath of fresh air because he was sure that they were going to be suffering from smoke inhalation and other kinds of nasty surprises from breathing in Tartara's air that no matter how many times they drank fire would not solve.

And the refreshing liquid fire had done wonders for his ribs, and he could actually breathe in the air very well. If he managed to live through this, he might die again at Pranjal's; and maybe Fletch's too, hands too when he learned about the damage that they sustained, but if he bottled some of the fire up for him, then maybe he would just get a nice coma instead? Hopefully.

The healer and his second in command were terrifying, and Will from Camp Half-Blood was no better!

Time was impossible to judge. They trudged along, following the river as it cut through the harsh landscape. Fortunately, the empousa weren't exactly speed walkers. They shuffled on their mismatched bronze and donkey legs, hissing and fighting with each other, apparently in no hurry to reach the Doors of Death.

Once, the demons sped up in excitement and swarmed something that looked like a beached carcass on the riverbank. The empousa attacked it with such relish that Octavian felt a little sick; no table manners at all.

When the demons moved on, they reached the spot and found nothing left except a few splintered bones and glistening stains drying in the heat of the river.

Octavian grimaced, stomach churning.

'Come on.' The boys led the two of them away from the scene. 'We don't want to lose them.'

Octavian looked at Jason as they kept walking, and he allowed himself a bit of hope for the future. If he lived through this, he may have a chance at one after all though he was convinced that the Parcae were using barbed wire in place of thread for his life string and electrocuting it.

It certainly would explain the number of times he had gotten shocked either by Jason's excess lightning or Livia when her storm powers got a little out of control.

Livia.

His little sister. He hoped that she was safe and reconnected with their family.

He hoped that she didn't hate him for killing her.

After a few more miles, the empousa disappeared over a ridge. When they caught up, they found themselves at the edge of another massive cliff. The River Phlegethon spilled over the side in jagged tiers of fiery waterfalls. The demon ladies were picking their way down the cliff, jumping from ledge to ledge like mountain goats.

The landscape below them was a bleak ash-grey plain bristling with black trees, like insect hair. The ground was pocked with blisters and every once in a while, a bubble would swell and burst, disgorging a monster like a larva from an egg.

He would never complain about Lilith's and her siblings' skin treatments ever again.

All the newly formed monsters were crawling and hobbling in the same direction – towards a bank of black fog that swallowed the horizon like a storm front. The Phlegethon flowed in the same direction until about halfway across the plain, where it met another river of black water — maybe the Cocytus? The two floods combined in a steaming, boiling cataract and flowed on as one towards the black fog.

Jason peered over the edge of the cliff looking at the storm of darkness. It could be hiding anything — an ocean, a bottomless pit, an army of monsters.

"I can't fly all of us," he muttered. "We shouldn't split up either."

"Remember Luke's winged shoes?" Annabeth asked Percy. "I wonder if they're still down here somewhere.'

"I'd settle for a hang glider.' Percy murmured as Jason stood contemplating on getting them down and getting them some coverage.

"Maybe not a good idea.' Annabeth pointed. Above them, dark winged shapes spiralled in and out of the blood-red clouds. The cloud part being a bigger issue according to Jason's muttering because other than the demons who knows what the clouds were filled with because he doubted the electrons within them were healthy for mortals.

'Furies?' Percy wondered.

"Or some other kind of demon,' Annabeth said. 'Tartarus has thousands.'

"Including the kind that eats hang gliders,' Percy guessed before moving over to pat Jason's shoulder. 'Okay, so we climb.'

He couldn't see the empousa below them anymore. They'd disappeared behind one of the ridges, but that didn't matter. It was clear where they needed to go. Like all the maggot monsters crawling over the plains of Tartarus, they should head towards the dark horizon.

Jason went down first again, but about halfway down the precipice, Annabeth said, 'Stop, okay? Just a quick break.'

And thank the gods because trying to keep his footing and avoiding rockslides that would alert the empousa to their presence and of course making sure they didn't plummet to their deaths… well he wanted to call for a break earlier, but he didn't want to complain.

They sat together on a ledge next to a roaring fiery waterfall. Octavian leaned against Jason and Annabeth leaned against him and Percy leaned against her. They were all shaking from exhaustion.

"Things could be worse,' Annabeth ventured.

"Yeah?' Percy asked with forced cheer.

"We could've fallen into the River Lethe,' she said. 'Lost all our memories.'

"I'm so over amnesia," Jason groaned.

"And, the Lethe,' Percy muttered. 'Not my favourite.'

"'What was the Titan's name?' Annabeth asked.

'Uh ... Iapetus. He said it meant the Impaler or something.'

'No, the name you gave him after he lost his memory. Steve?'

'Bob,' Percy said.

Annabeth managed a weak laugh. 'Bob the Titan.'

"Wait," Octavian asked. "What happened with this Bob?"

Percy explained to them the most bizarre thing that they had ever heard, but Octavian tilted his head to look at Jason. Was there an amnesiac titan when they searched through the City of Dis? He couldn't really remember; their lives were just filled with things that were more disbelieving than the next.

He could only imagine how it was on the other side for the greeks, and as he gazed across the ashen plains he wondered if they would meet most of their old enemies. There was bound to be a lot from both sides. The other Titans were supposed to be here in Tartarus — maybe bound in chains, or roaming aimlessly, or hiding in some of those dark crevices.

Percy squeezed Annabeth's hand. 'We should keep moving. You guys want some more fire to drink?'

'Ugh. I'll pass.'

They struggled to their feet. The rest of the cliff looked impossible to descend — nothing more than a crosshatching of tiny ledges — but they kept climbing down.

A billion years later, with a dozen new blisters on his feet, they reached the bottom and collapsed on the ground in exhaustion.

Ahead of them stretched miles of wasteland, bubbling with monstrous larvae and big insect-hair trees. To their right, the Phlegethon split into branches that etched the plain, widening into a delta of smoke and fire. To the north, along the main route of the river, the ground was riddled with cave entrances. Here and there, spires of rock jutted up like exclamation points.

Octavian grimaced before channeling his powers into his sight. He was cut off from the heavenly oracles, but Octavian was the most skilled seer of his family in generations. He had practice working with earthly oracles, and oracles of the dead, and because of Livia, he had skill in working with the oracles of the sea.

The oracles of hell were unsurprisingly the worse, and the images that flickered across his sight—

There was a man screaming as fire licked his skin, he turned over and over and over again, and when the flames extinguished, he hung his head in exhaustion… It was only mere moments of relief before the wheel turned towards the River of Fire, and once more he screamed.

Women carried judges of something as they trudged across the plains, but the jugs leaked and washed over the land and took away the ashen ground showing off a single vast membrane ... like skin.

A giant of a man laid stretched out on the ground, groaning and pleading for reprieve as something feast upon his body.

A man twitched and flailed on the ground as if he were having a seizure though it was obvious that he was being electrocuted if the sparks of lightning that danced across his skin meant anything.

A female sprawled on the ground, crying as she reached for her back where the blood stumps sat, consistently bleeding with no hope of stopping.

A man was weaving a rope of strew, but it was being eaten by a donkey. Why was a donkey in hell?

Another man, entombed in a rock as a lavish feast laid before him, screaming and yelling to the monsters that gave him a wide berth.

Octavian came back to himself with a sharp inhale.

"You're back," Annabeth stated, and Octavian turned his head from where it had apparently been placed in her lap. "Jason said that you were looking into the future."

"Where…?"

"He and Percy are doing a bit of scouting around the caves. Just trying to get a feel for which ones to avoid if we need to take another break."

"Oh," he murmured before forcing himself to sit up. "Okay."

"What did you see?"

Octavian paused, thinking over his visions. "About what you would expect. A whole bunch of suffering."

It was quiet between the two of them for a moment as they let those words hang, so he wasn't surprised when she spoke up. Though he was surprised by the topic that she chose: "How did you and Jason get together?"

Octavian couldn't help it. He blushed.

"We're not together," he murmured before clearing his throat. "We're not together, but before everything happened, we were talking things over. I wasn't ready for a relationship. I'm still not, I think. I just know that I like—love him a lot. Then there was the Necromanteion of Acheron quest, and I thought he was going to die there. Not the one in Epirus at least I don't think so. It was probably a part of Labyrinth. I didn't want him to go on the quest, but he wouldn't listen to me, and we were arguing. Jason has a lot more power brewing under his skin than he shows, and when his emotions get out of control, well ... he was angry and hurt because he thought that I doubted him, I guess. He was very cold with his words and well… There was snow in Camp Iupiter in California. He walked off so he could calm himself down and not hurt me, but I wasn't finished speaking. I thought he was walking to his death so I … I threw a snowball at him."

Her hands paused in his hair. "He was walking away."

"I wasn't finished talking," Octavian shrugged. "I wanted... I needed him to hear me out completely before he decided I wasn't worth listening to. And then he had the audacity to throw one back! And I realized at that moment, that I could never love anyone the way that I loved him."

Annabeth began to laugh and giggle and Octvian felt his own face twitching into a smile. "That's actually very sweet. It was something similar with me and Jake. I was going into the Labyrinth, and he didn't want me to go. It was… a very confusing time because I thought I had a crush on Percy at the time, but well…"

But well, she ended up with Jake Mason and Percy ended up with Lord Apollo.

By the gods, did that make the boy his stepfather since Lord Apollo was his ancestor?

No, that was just too horrifying to think about.

The boys came back moments later, and the two of them stood.

'We're going to be completely exposed, crossing this plain.' Jason said.

About a hundred yards ahead of them, a blister burst on the ground and a monster clawed its way out ... a glistening telkhine with slick fur, a seal-like body and stunted human limbs. It managed to crawl a few yards before something shot out of the nearest cave, so fast that Octavian could only register a dark green reptilian head. The monster snatched the squealing telkhine in its jaws and dragged it into the darkness.

Reborn in Tartarus for two seconds, only to be eaten.

The circle of life.

"Yeah, that's one of the caves to avoid," Percy said awkwardly.

"How fun," Octavian said dryly.

They started walking, trying to avoid the cave entrances, sticking close to the bank of the river. They were just skirting one of the spires when a glint of movement caught Percy's eye – something darting between the rocks to their right. A monster following them? Or maybe it was just some random baddie, heading for the Doors of Death.

'The empousai.' Percy suddenly said, grabbing Octavian's arm. 'Where are they?'

They froze.

Annabeth scanned a three-sixty, her grey eyes bright with alarm. Electricity crackled around Jason.

Maybe the demon ladies had been snapped up by that reptile in the cave. If the empousai were still ahead of them, they should've been visible somewhere on the plains.

Unless they were hiding …

Too late, they drew weapons.

The empousai emerged from the rocks all around them – ten of them forming a ring. A perfect trap.

The cheerleader limped forward on her mismatched legs. Her fiery hair burned across her shoulders like a miniature Phlegethon waterfall. Her tattered cheerleader outfit was splattered with rusty-brown stains and she fixed Percy with her glowing red eyes and bared her fangs.

'Percy Jackson,' she cooed. 'How awesome! I don't even have to return to the mortal world to destroy you!'

"Jason Grace and his pet seer too," Serephone cackled at her side. Octavian flipped her off.

Gods, he hated her. Now she had nine friends with her.

Two for each of them. And two extras for a two-man.

"'And your friend Annabeth is with you!' the cheerleader hissed with laughter. 'Oh, yeah, I totally remember her.' She touched her own sternum, where the tip of the knife had exited when Annabeth had stabbed her in the back. 'What's the matter, daughter of Athena? Don't have your weapon? Bummer. I'd use it to kill you.'

"Are you blind," Octavian drawled, "or do you not see the imperial gold dagger in her hand?"

"No one was talking to you, pet," Serephone crooned.

"You sure can run your mouth for someone whose head I chopped off," Octavian snarked.

Fighting was a long shot, and none of them were in good shape for battle. However, if they played their cards right then there was a chance that they could get out of this alive.

Clearly, Percy was on the same wavelength because he said: "So … I guess you're wondering what we're doing in Tartarus.'

The cheerleader snickered. 'Not really. I just want to kill you.'

'Too bad,' Annabeth said. 'Because you have no idea what's going on in the mortal world.'

The other empousai circled, watching the cheerleader for a cue to attack, but the empousa only snarled, crouching out of reach of their swords.

'We know enough,' the monster said. 'Gaia has spoken.'

'You're heading towards a major defeat.' Annabeth sounded so confident, even Octavian was impressed. She glanced at the other empousai, one by one, then pointed accusingly at the cheerleader. "This one claims she's leading you to a victory. She's lying. The last time she was in the mortal world, Kelli was in charge of keeping my friend Luke Castellan faithful to Kronos. In the end, Luke rejected him. He gave his life to expel Kronos. The Titans lost because Kelli failed. Now Kelli wants to lead you to another disaster."

The other empousai muttered and shifted uneasily.

'Enough!' Kelli's fingernails grew into long black talons as she glared at Annabeth as if imagining her sliced into small pieces.

'The girl lies,' Kelli said. 'So the Titans lost. Fine! That was part of the plan to wake Gaia! Now the Earth Mother and her giants will destroy the mortal world, and we will totally feast on demigods!'

The other vampires gnashed their teeth in a frenzy of excitement. They acted like Blowtorch when he came with fresh calamari.

'The demigods have united!' Annabeth yelled. 'You'd better think twice before you attack us. Romans and Greeks will fight you together. You don't stand a chance!'

The empousai backed up nervously, hissing, 'Romani.' and 'Graecus'.

Octavian allowed a smirk as he, Jason, and Percy — the false claimer — bared their forearms; their SPQR marks seemed to shimmer in the air while Percy and Annabeth showed off their beads.

'Yeah, you bet Romani.' Percy snarked. 'You mix Greek and Roman, and you know what you get? You get BAM!'

Lame.

Percy stomped his foot, and the empousa scrambled back. One fell off the boulder where she'd been perched.

They recovered quickly and closed in again.

'Bold talk,' Kelli said, 'for four demigods lost in Tartarus. Lower your sword, Percy Jackson, and I'll kill you quickly. Believe me, there are worse ways to die down here.'

'Wait!' Annabeth tried again. 'Aren't empousai the servants of Hecate?'

Kelli curled her lip. 'So?'

'So Hecate is on our side now,' Annabeth said. 'She has a cabin at Camp Half-Blood. Some of her demigod children are my friends. If you fight us, she'll be angry.'

"Her daughter is one of my friends," Octavian added. "Medea Williams of the Wilhelm Coven!"

The empousai backed hissing furiously. Yeah, that's right. The Wilhelm Coven was infamous if one knew where to look; filled with different practices of the passing centuries.

"Trenton Williams. He was of that coven," Serephone started, looking confused and unsure. "He was one the side of the Titans in the last war. He and his Mother."

"Medea is his younger sister! A more skilled practitioner than himself. She was the one that defeated him! She was the one that took control of Pherse, wise son of the Titan Megamedes and Qerasia, father of Trivia, her own grandfather, to lay waste to the Titan army."

Serephone growled, backing away though it was clear that she did not want to. 'Is this true, Kelli? Has our mistress made peace with Olympus?'

'Shut up, Serephone!' Kelli screeched. 'Gods, you're annoying!'

'I will not cross the Dark Lady.'

Annabeth took the opening. 'You'd all be better following Serephone. She's older and wiser.'

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Octavian drawled.

He shrugged when Jason whacked him on the shoulder.

'Yes!' Serephone shrieked. 'Follow me!'

Kelli struck so fast that none of them had the chance to raise their weapons. Fortunately, she didn't attack them. Kelli lashed out at Serephone. For half a second, the two demons were a blur of slashing claws and fangs.

Then it was over. Kelli stood triumphant over a pile of dust. From her claws hung the tattered remains of Serephone's dress.

Good riddance, Octavian thought.

'Any more issues?' Kelli snapped at her sisters. 'Hecate is the goddess of the Mist! Her ways are mysterious. Who knows which side she truly favours? She is also the goddess of the crossroads, and she expects us to make our own choices. I choose the path that will bring us the most demigod blood! I choose Gaia!'

Her friends hissed in approval.

The four of them glanced between each other, and Octavian saw Jason gearing himself to step forward, sparks of lightning dancing over his skin, and illuminating the litchenberg figures that he already had.

'For two years I churned in the void,' Kelli said. 'Do you know how completely annoying it is to be vaporized, Annabeth Chase? Slowly re-forming, fully conscious, in searing pain for months and years as your body regrows, then finally breaking the crust of this hellish place and clawing your way back to daylight? All because some little girl stabbed you in the back?'

Her baleful eyes held Annabeth's. 'I wonder what happens if a demigod is killed in Tartarus. I doubt it's ever happened before. Let's find out.'

Jason and Percy sprang forward, their swords slashing through the air. Octavian had seen Percy fight before, and he had been impressed by what he saw.

And well, Octavian had yet to see anyone survive when faced with the intent to kill from Jason. Even if Tartara gave them a power boost, Octavian gave them at best 2 minutes and that was still him being generous.

Percy cut one of the demons in half, but Kelli dodged and charged Annabeth. Jason speared two with the same strike; one of which had been trying to jump on Percy's back. Annabeth was holding her own against Kelli, who realized how dangerous the child of Athena was with a dagger in her hand which she had been sure to get rid of first.

Unfortunately for Eeyore, Annabeth was nothing but adaptable. She tumbled to one side, evading Kelli's claws, and came up with a rock in her hand, which she smacked into Kelli's nose.

Kelli wailed. Annabeth scooped up gravel and flung it in the empousa's eyes.

Octavian paid no more attention to that, focusing on his own enemies as he summoned Livia's sword from her bracelet; he could almost feel the entirety of the sea that lingered on the surface land channeled through it. He moved quickly, took one out by their metal legs and another one lost their head when she placed her stupid mouth by Percy's neck.

Yeah, should have asked Serephone how he got down.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kelli lunge, raking her talons across Annabeth's arm. Annabeth screamed and fell.

The smell of ozone filled the air, and Octavian was startled to realize that it was coming from him… or more specifically, his sword. Livia's sword.

A great rumbling came from somewhere above, echoing across the plains of Tartarus, and then a clap of thunder sounded so loud one would think that Jove himself was standing by their ear.

The winds were tyrants, roaring and groaning as they attacked the ground with its sharp blades. Rolling clouds came crashing down, and streaks of lightning danced connected with the sword; all of it twirled this and that way, following where he pointed as if the weapon was a guiding stick.

It tore into the vampires, ripping apart the empousa that managed to scratch Percy and electrocuted the fuck out of the one that had her stinky teeth near Jason's neck. It twirled them into the sky before the sword elongated into a whip, circling the cyclone and looping around the monsters before harshly ripping them to pieces.

Dust fluttered around them, and they all stared as the whip shrank back into a sword and the sword shrank back into a charm.

"Octavian….?"

The boy startled at the sound of Percy's voice. "This is… this is Livia's bracelet. All of her weapons are on here, but I didn't think her powers…"

"No time to think about it now," Jason stated, head tilted and nose flaring as he heard and smelled something different. "The fight and the storm show caught some unwanted attention. We need to go before whatever that is find us."

"We don't know where to go from here," Annabeth protested, but she still moved with urgency, grabbing the dagger that he had given her.

"I have good hearing and sense of smell. Percy has the instincts and better sight. You have the best instincts, and Octavian has his own sight. We head for the smokey mass, and the four of us will have to find something to hunker down in if we need to hide, but we have to go. Now."

And really, what could they say to that?

WORD COUNT: 8595

The Roman Gods Named:

1) Pherse- Pérsēs

2) Megamedes - Kreios

3) Qerasia- Eurubíē

THINGS TO KNOW:

1) The people in the visions that Octavian sees:

1A) Ixíōn: the king of the Lapiths, the most ancient tribe of Thessaly. The one who tried to sleep with Hḗrē, got tricked by her cloud clone, and Ζεύς punished him by tying him to a winged flaming wheel that was always spinning: first in the sky and then in Tártara. Only when Orpheús came down to the Underworld to rescue Eurudíkē did it stop spinning because of the music Orpheús was playing. So, while it stopped spinning, he was still burning. I decided to just continue to add the spinning.

1B) In some versions, the Danaïdes murdered their husbands and were punished in Tártara by being forced to carry water in a jug to fill a bath which would thereby wash off their sins. But the jugs were filled with cracks, so the water always leaked out.

1C) The giant Tituós attempted to rape Leto on Hḗrē's orders but was slain by Apóllōn and Ártemis. As punishment, Tituós was stretched out in Tártara and tortured by two vultures who fed on his liver. This punishment is extremely similar to that of the Titan Promētheús.

1D) King Salmoneus was also mentioned to have been imprisoned in Tártara after passing himself off as Ζεύς, causing the real Ζεύς to smite him with a thunderbolt.

1E) Árkē is the sister of Îris who sided with the Titans as their messenger goddess. Ζεύς removed her wings following the gods' victory over the Titans and she was thrown into Tártara with the Titans.

1F) Óknos was condemned in Tártara perpetually to weave a rope of straw which, as fast as he weaves it, is just as quickly eaten by a donkey. There is no mention of what he did to deserve this fate.

1G) When his pregnant daughter Korōnís was killed by Ártemis for Apóllōn, King Phlegúas set fire to the Apollonian temple at Delphi and was killed by Apóllōn. He was punished in Tártara by being entombed in a rock and starved in front of an eternal feast as he shouts to the other inhabitants not to despise the gods.

COMMENTS FROM AUTHOR:

1) Rick writes in British English, and it confuses my word doc and me because aint this man from texas?, but Im too lazy to switch it to American English so you all get a blend of both.

2) I feel like the TOA should have come before the HoO plot. How Rick would have worked it in. I dont know and am I ignoring Jason's death? Yes. But going from Krónos to Gaía to Pū́thōn as another child of Gaía doesn't make it sense on a power scale for enemies. I guess the whole rewriting fate thing is the issue, but Rick contradicted himself a lot so that really holds no weight. Maybe Kháos would have been a better enemy as being tired of the discordance from the god and mortals and wanting to take the world back to a nature state of nothing and when Apóllōn fell in remembering the good and bad times with mortals and over the eons and something about fate made Kháos "sleep". But other than that, TOA could have fit better between PJO and HoO where the first thing Apóllōn does upon returning to Ólumpos is announce that the second great prophecy was underway.

2A) I think I said this before I just need to reiterate it again.

3) I keep having to go to prev chapters and edit out the canon parts because like these chapters are long asf so some lines snuck pass me.

4) Octavian: stupid this and stupid that.

4A) But who was the idiot to try to save someone falling over a cliff with broken ribs, huh?

5) Octavian, you did NOT kill Livia. You set her free by... gentle stabbing... through her heart... with the power of the sun... um. yeah.

6) Livia, Octavian, and Percy: they got a taste for brothers. they are siblings (Tav & Liv)(Liv&Percy) and dating or would have dated siblings (Tav&Jace)(Percy and Apóllōn)(Liv and Mercurius) siblings and in laws. Jason, Liv, Percy, Apóllōn, and Mercurius take after their dads fr.