The Underworld

They stood in the shadows of Valencia Boulevard, looking up at gold letters etched in black marble: DOA RECORDING STUDIOS.

Underneath, stenciled on the glass doors: NO SOLICITORS. NO LOITERING. NO LIVING.

It was almost midnight, but the lobby was brightly lit and full of people. Behind the security desk sat a tough-looking guard with sunglasses and an earpiece.

"Well damn," Y/N smiled, "I'm kind of excited."

"...Are you serious?" Grover asked, "This might be the end of us."

"Look there's a lot of conspiracy theories about hell. I wanna see how it actually is," Y/N said, "I mean yeah I'm scared enough to pee my pants but I'm kind of...curious. It's like the feeling when a new horror movie is released and I finally get to see it."

"...How are you like this when you're the daughter of..." Grover stared at her and said, "You know what? Nevermind, you are one bright kid I know."

"But..yeah I'm scared.." Y/N said, her voice trembling as she stared back at him, "I'm...scared of darkness. Just..a bit maybe."

[ TIME SKIP ]

After they got in, by talking about pay-raise with Charon, they arrived near the entrance to the Underworld, which looked like a cross between airport security and the Jersey Turnpike.

There were three separate entrances under one huge black archway that said YOU ARE NOW ENTERING EREBUS. Each entrance had a pass-through metal detector with security cameras mounted on top. Beyond this were tollbooths manned by black-robed ghouls like Charon.

The howling of a hungry animal was really loud now, the three-headed dog, Cerberus, who was supposed to guard Hades's door, was nowhere to be seen.

The dead queued up in the three lines, two marked ATTENDANT ON DUTY, and one marked EZ DEATH. The EZ DEATH line was moving right along. The other two were crawling.

As they got closer to the gates. The howling was so loud now it shook the ground at their feet, but they still couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

Then, about fifty feet in the front, the green mist shimmered. Standing just where the path split into three lanes was an enormous shadowy monster. They hadn't seen it before because it was half transparent, like the dead. Until it moved, it blended with whatever was behind it. Only its eyes and teeth looked solid. And it was staring straight at them. The dead walked right up to him-no fear at all. The ATTENDANT ON DUTY lines parted on either side of him. The EZ DEATH spirits walked right between his front paws and under his belly, which they could do without even crouching.

Annabeth and Percy both had the right idea. Even here in the Underworld, everybody-even monsters-needed a little attention once in a while. Percy tried to distract Cerberus using a stick but it wasn't useful, but then Annabeth tried with a red rubber ball, and it worked.

She wiped a tear from her cheek as she listened to the mournful keening of Cerberus in the distance, longing for his new friend when they were leaving. Oh, it was painful to hear. Y/N flinched and started humming a tune, trying to block the sound out.

After Grover almost got dragged to the dark pit of Tartarus because of the flying shoes, they finally arrived to the destination. They walked up the steps of the palace, between black columns, through a black marble portico, and into the house of Hades. The entry hall had a polished bronze floor, which seemed to boil in the reflected torchlight. There was no ceiling, just the cavern roof, far above.

"Atleast it's not entirely dark.." Y/N said with a shaky voice. So far she tried her best to not lose her nerves, but she was very scared. Percy looked at her who was staring at the ceiling and said, "Stop looking."

She probably didn't hear him. She was still nervously looking around. Percy stepped closer and said, "We are all here, you know."

Y/N unconsciously stepped towards his direction and held his hand. First Annabeth, and now her. In other circumstances, it would've made him feel embarrassed but seeing his friend like this made him think otherwise. This was the first time he felt her face drain out of all energy. She looked pale, like she didn't know what to do and her brain wasn't working.

He held her hand back in reassurance, and felt her relax just a little bit. It made a smile form on his face.

He felt the need to protect her.

Every side doorway was guarded by a skeleton in military gear. Some wore Greek armor, some British redcoat uniforms, some camouflage with tattered American flags on the shoulders. They carried spears or muskets or M-16s. None of them bothered them, but their hollow eye sockets followed as they walked down the hall, toward the big set of doors at the opposite end.

Two U.S. Marine skeletons guarded the doors. They grinned down at them, rocket-propelled grenade launchers held across their chests.

"You know," Grover mumbled, "I bet Hades doesn't have trouble with door-to-door salesmen."

Percy's backpack weighed a ton now. He couldn't figure out why. He wanted to open it, check to see if he had somehow picked up a stray bowling ball, but this wasn't the time.

"Well, guys," Percy said. "I suppose we should ... knock?"

A hot wind blew down the corridor, and the doors swung open. The guards stepped aside.

"I guess that means entrez-vous," Annabeth said.

In the room inside the throne of Hades was occupied. He was the third god Percy and Y/N met, but the first who really struck them as godlike. He was at least ten feet tall, for one thing, and dressed in black silk robes and a crown of braided gold. His skin was albino white, his hair shoulder-length and jet black. He wasn't bulked up like Ares, but he radiated power. He lounged on his throne of fused human bones, looking lithe, graceful, and dangerous as a panther.

They immediately felt like he should be giving the orders. He knew more than they did. He should be the master. But then they knew how to snap out of it.

Hades's aura was affecting Percy, just as Ares's had. The Lord of the Dead resembled pictures they'd seen of Adolph Hitler, or Napoleon, or the terrorist leaders who direct suicide bombers. Hades had the same intense eyes, the same kind of mesmerizing, evil charisma.

"You are brave to come here, Son of Poseidon," he said in an oily voice. "After what you have done to me, very brave indeed. Or perhaps you are simply very foolish."

Percy stepped forward and said, "Lord and Uncle, I come with two requests."

Hades raised an eyebrow. When he sat forward in his throne, shadowy faces appeared in the folds of his black robes, faces of torment, as if the garment were stitched of trapped souls from the Fields of Punishment, trying to get out.

"Only two requests?" Hades said. "Arrogant child. As if you have not already taken enough. Speak, then. It amuses me not to strike you dead yet."

They glanced at the empty, smaller throne next to Hades's. It was shaped like a black flower, gilded with gold. Percy wished Queen Persephone were here. He recalled something in the myths about how she could calm her husband's moods. But it was summer. Of course, Persephone would be above in the world of light with her mother, the goddess of agriculture, Demeter. Her visits, not the tilt of the planet, create the seasons.

Annabeth cleared her throat. Her finger prodded him in the back.

"Lord Hades," he said. "Look, sir, there can't be a war among the gods. It would be ... bad."

"Really bad," Grover added helpfully.

"Return Zeus's master bolt to me," he said. "Please, sir. Let me carry it to Olympus."

Hades's eyes grew dangerously bright. "You dare keep up this pretense, after what you have done?"

Percy glanced back at his friends. They looked as confused as he was.

"Um ... Uncle," he said. "You keep saying 'after what you've done.' What exactly have I done?"

The throne room shook with a tremor so strong, they probably felt it upstairs in Los Angeles. Debris fell from the cavern ceiling. Doors burst open all along the walls, and skeletal warriors marched in, hundreds of them, from every time period and nation in Western civilization. They lined the perimeter of the room, blocking the exits.

Hades bellowed, "Do you think I want war, godling?"

"You are the Lord of the Dead," Percy said carefully. "A war would expand your kingdom, right?"

"A typical thing for my brothers to say! Do you think I need more subjects? Did you not see the sprawl of the Asphodel Fields?"

"Well..."

"Have you any idea how much my kingdom has swollen in this past century alone, how many subdivisions I've had to open?"

Percy opened his mouth to respond, but Hades was on a roll now.

"More security ghouls," he moaned. "Traffic problems at the judgment pavilion. Double overtime for the staff. I used to be a rich god, Percy Jackson. I control all the precious metals under the earth. But my expenses!"

"Charon wants a pay raise," Percy blurted, just remembering the fact.

"Don't get me started on Charon!" Hades yelled. "He's been impossible ever since he discovered Italian suits! Problems everywhere, and I've got to handle all of them personally. The commute time alone from the palace to the gates is enough to drive me insane! And the dead just keep arriving. No, godling. I need no help getting subjects! I did not ask for this war."

"But you took Zeus's master bolt."

"Lies!" More rumbling. Hades rose from his throne, towering to the height of a football goalpost. "Your father may fool Zeus, boy, but I am not so stupid. I see his plan."

"His plan?"

"You were the thief on the winter solstice," he said. "Your father thought to keep you his little secret. He directed you into the throne room on Olympus, You took the master bolt and my helm. Had I not sent my Fury to discover you at Yancy Academy, Poseidon might have succeeded in hiding his scheme to start a war. But now you have been forced into the open. You will be exposed as Poseidon's thief, and I will have my helm back!"

"But ..." Annabeth spoke. They could tell her mind was going a million miles an hour. "Lord Hades, your helm of darkness is missing, too?"

"Do not play innocent with me, girl. You, this girl and the satyr have been helping this hero-coming here to threaten me in Poseidon's name, no doubt-to bring me an ultimatum. Does Poseidon think I can be blackmailed into supporting him?"

"No!" Percy said. "Poseidon didn't-I didn't-"

"I have said nothing of the helm's disappearance," Hades snarled, "because I had no illusions that anyone on Olympus would offer me the slightest justice, the slightest help. I can ill afford for word to get out that my most powerful weapon of fear is missing. So I searched for you myself, and when it was clear you were coming to me to deliver your threat, I did not try to stop you."

"You didn't try to stop us? But-"

"Return my helm now, or I will stop death," Hades threatened. "That is my counterproposal. I will open the earth and have the dead pour back into the world. I will make your lands a nightmare. And you, Percy Jackson-your skeleton will lead my army out of Hades."

The skeletal soldiers all took one step forward, making their weapons ready.

At that point, Percy probably should have been terrified. The strange thing was, he felt offended. Nothing gets him angrier than being accused of something he didn't do. He'd had a lot of experience with that.

"You're as bad as Zeus," He said. "You think I stole from you? That's why you sent the Furies after me?"

"Of course," Hades said.

"And the other monsters?"

Hades curled his lip. "I had nothing to do with them. I wanted no quick death for you-I wanted you brought before me alive so you might face every torture in the Fields of Punishment. Why do you think I let you enter my kingdom so easily?"

"Easily?"

"Return my property!"

"But I don't have your helm. I came for the master bolt."

"Which you already possess!" Hades shouted. "You came here with it, little fool, thinking you could you threaten me!"

"But I didn't!"

"Open your pack, then."

A horrible feeling struck him. The weight in his backpack, like a bowling ball. It couldn't be....

He slung it off my shoulder and unzipped it. Inside was a two-foot-long metal cylinder, spiked on both ends, humming with energy.

"Percy," Annabeth said. "How-"

"I-I don't know. I don't understand."

"You heroes are always the same," Hades said. "Your pride makes you foolish, thinking you could bring such a weapon before me. I did not ask for Zeus's master bolt, but since it is here, you will yield it to me. I am sure it will make an excellent bargaining tool. And now ... my helm. Where is it?"

He was speechless. He had no helm. He had no idea how the master bolt had gotten into his backpack. He wanted to think Hades was pulling some kind of trick. Hades was the bad guy. But suddenly the world turned sideways. He realized they'd been played with. Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades had been set at each other's throats by someone else. The master bolt had been in the backpack, and he'd gotten the backpack from ...

"Lord Hades, wait," Percy said. "This is all a mistake."

"A mistake?" Hades roared.

"A-And a misunderstanding!" Y/N quickly added in a small voice.

The skeletons aimed their weapons. From high above, there was a fluttering of leathery wings, and the three Furies swooped down to perch on the back of their master's throne. The one with Mrs. Dodds's face grinned at him eagerly and flicked her whip.

"There is no mistake," Hades said. "I know why you have come-I know the real reason you brought the bolt. You came to bargain for her."

Hades loosed a ball of gold fire from his palm. It exploded on the steps in front of Percy, and there was his mother, frozen in a shower of gold, just as she was at the moment when the Minotaur began to squeeze her to death.

He couldn't speak. He reached out to touch her, but the light was as hot as a bonfire.

"Yes," Hades said with satisfaction. "I took her. I knew, Percy Jackson, that you would come to bargain with me eventually. Return my helm, and perhaps I will let her go. She is not dead, you know. Not yet. But if you displease me, that will change."

He thought about the pearls in his pocket. Maybe they could get him out of this. If he could just get his mom free ...

"Ah, the pearls," Hades said, and his blood froze. "Yes, my brother and his little tricks. Bring them forth, Percy Jackson."

Percy's hand moved against his will and brought out the pearls.

"Only four," Hades said. "What a shame. You do realize each only protects a single person. Try to take your mother, then, little godling. And which of your friends will you leave behind to spend eternity with me? Go on. Choose. Or give me the backpack and accept my terms."

Percy looked at his friends. Their faces were grim.

"We were tricked," Percy told them. "Set up."

"Yes, but why?" Annabeth asked. "And the voice in the pit-"

"I don't know yet," he said. "But I intend to ask."

"Decide, boy!" Hades yelled.

"Percy." Grover put his hand on his shoulder. "You can't give him the bolt,"

"I know that."

"Leave me here," he said. "Use the fourth pearl on your mom."

"No!"

"I'm a satyr," Grover said. "We don't have souls like humans do. He can torture me until I die, but he won't get me forever. I'll just be reincarnated as a flower or something. It's the best way."

"No." Annabeth drew her bronze knife. "You three go on. Grover, you have to protect Percy. You have to get your searcher's license and start your quest for Pan. Get his mom out of here. I'll cover you. I plan to go down fighting."

"Shut up you idiots, I'm going to stay," Y/N said looking forward at Hades, "It's...what I think was meant for."

"No way," Grover said. "I'm staying behind."

"Just trust me, Chiron said something back at the camp and I think I know what it means, I can't be a hindrance in your path this way. It's for the best! Besides, I have a goal and-"

"Exactly. Think again, about him. He trusted you for this right?" Annabeth said, eyes going down at the moon necklace Harris gave her.

"No just listen. I'll get my answer this way, Get out of here and give him a message on my behalf. About why.." Y/N looked at Hades, and felt uncomfortable speaking about it in front of him but continued, "If he comes back for me, or does anything for me, I would know where the gods stand when it comes to kids like us. If he's busy again then I know how it's gonna go for me."

"Y/N you can't be for real..." Grover looked at her with pleading eyes.

"Besides just like I said before," his eyes went to Hades and she said, "He isn't what everyone thinks him as. He's misunderstood and, the gods and everyone else should acknowledge the amount of help he is. He manages death. He knows it's gonna cost his reputation but he still chooses to do this."

"Stop it, all of you!" Percy felt like his heart was being ripped in two. They all had been with him through so much. He had spent thousands of miles worried that he'd be betrayed by a friend, but these friends would never do that. They had done nothing but save him, over and over, and now they wanted to sacrifice their lives for his mom. He did feel suspicious of Y/N for a moment because she tagged along even after knowing about the consequence of travelling over three people. But, she tried her best. She's suggesting of staying here and she absolutely HATES darkness. She even laid a plan before them, as if she had a strategy.

But he knows better. She was planning to stay back. Y/N didn't deserve this.

"I know what to do," he said. "Take these."

Percy handed them each a pearl.

Annabeth said, "But, Percy ..."

He turned and faced his mother. Percy desperately wanted to sacrifice himself and use the last pearl on her, but he knew what she would say. She would never allow it. He had to get the bolt back to Olympus and tell Zeus the truth. He had to stop the war. She would never forgive him if he saved her instead. He thought about the prophecy made at Half-Blood Hill, what seemed like a million years ago. "You will fail to save what matters most in the end."

"I'm sorry," Percy told her. "I'll be back. I'll find a way."

The smug look on Hades's face faded. He said, "Godling ... ?"

"I'll find your helm, Uncle," Percy told him. "I'll return it. Remember about Charon's pay raise."

"Do not defy me-"

"And it wouldn't hurt to play with Cerberus once in a while. He likes red rubber balls."

"Percy Jackson, you will not-"

Percy shouted, "Now, guys!"

They smashed the pearls at their feet. For a scary moment, nothing happened.

Hades yelled, "Destroy them!"

The army of skeletons rushed forward, swords out, guns clicking to full automatic. The Furies lunged, their whips bursting into flame.

Just as the skeletons opened fire, the pearl fragments at their feet exploded with a burst of green light and a gust of fresh sea wind. They were encased in a milky white sphere, which was starting to float off the ground.

Annabeth, Y/N and Grover were right behind him. Spears and bullets sparked harmlessly off the pearl bubbles as they floated up. Hades yelled with such rage, the entire fortress shook and he knew it was not going to be a peaceful night in L.A.

"Look up.'" Grover yelled. "We're going to crash!"

Sure enough, they were racing right toward the stalactites, which they figured would pop their bubbles and skewer them.

"How do you control these things?" Annabeth shouted.

"I don't think you do!" Percy shouted back.

They screamed as the bubbles slammed into the ceiling and ... Darkness.

For a few moments, they couldn't see anything outside the smooth walls of their sphere, then their pearl broke through on the ocean floor. They soared upward through the water. And-ker-blam!

They exploded on the surface, in the middle of the Santa Monica Bay, knocking a surfer off his board with an indignant, "Dude!"

Percy grabbed Grover and hauled him over to a life buoy. He caught Annabeth, who was holding onto a hyperventilating Y/N and dragged them over too. A curious shark was circling them, a great white about eleven feet long.

Percy said, "Beat it." The shark turned and raced away.

The surfer screamed something about bad mushrooms and paddled away from them as fast as he could.

Somehow, Percy knew what time it was: early morning, June 21, the day of the summer solstice.

Annabeth tried to calm Y/N down, who was shivering experiencing the sudden darkness.

"S-Sorry, I sleep with lights on," Y/N blurted out.

"Why don't you sing to yourself? It'll calm you down right?"

Y/N closed her eyes and sighed, "...Right." She started humming a tune to herself. A song she found comfort in. (A/N - Comment your comfort song! Mine's Epiphany by BTS)

In the distance, Los Angeles was on fire, plumes of smoke rising from neighborhoods all over the city. There had been an earthquake, all right, and it was Hades's fault. He was probably sending an army of the dead after him right now.

But at the moment, the Underworld wasn't the biggest problem.

They had to get to shore. They had to get Zeus's thunderbolt back to Olympus. Most of all, They had to have a serious conversation with the god who'd tricked them.