AN: I'm not dead! Woo! Sorry for the long wait college (parties) have been kicking my butt

This fic is not abandoned just yet. Reviews always welcome:)

"Where are we going?" Hazel didn't need to shout, since there was no wind to whistle in her ears in the middle of space. How she could breath, she didn't know but she didn't dwell on it. What was most important was finding out where she was, and how she was going to get back home. Gaea needed to be stopped before it was too late.

"Hm?" The oddly dressed boy named Dirk said. "Sorry I was arguing with my sprite. What did you say?"

"Uh… I asked where we are going again."

"See the planet down there with the volcano? That's where we're going. Word on the street is that shit is going down there right now." He responded in a monotone.

"Oh." Hazel said, her voice slightly muffled by her face against his back.

Dirk didn't respond after that, seemingly lost in thought. Or… arguing with his sprite? Maybe? Hazel wasn't really sure.

Either way it didn't matter. All of Hazel's attention was now focused on the fast approaching building in front of her. She could make out little things. She saw a large forest, only cut by the streams of water running through it. A large volcano stood out from the foliage and a pool of lava gathered at its base. As they got closer, Hazel could make out several rock slabs in the lava pool, on which there were four figures. Two of the figures were locked in an intense battle. The other two were running towards the large white tower.

"Can you fight?" Dirk asked suddenly, cutting into Hazel's train of thought.

"What? Oh, I suppose so." Hazel answered, slightly thrown by the sudden subject change. "I can control metal with my mind. Why?"

"See that girl down there on top of the tower?" Dirk said with his usual monotone.

"Yeah…."

"I'm going to kill her."

Hazel stiffened in surprise. Dirk has spoken that phrase nonchalantly, stating it as a simple fact. She had to wonder if he ran around killing people all the time or if this was a special occasion. Either way, it was kind of unsettling. "Why?" Hazel finally found the courage to ask.

"She's fucking shit up big time. She's still supposed to be dead. I'm not entirely sure how she got the life ring, but she did and now she needs to be disposed of before she messes up the alpha timeline so badly that we won't be able to fix it anymore. It's high time someone dealt with her." Dirk responded, not breaking his monotone.

Hazel let out a breath. "So she's dangerous then?"

"Very. Anyways, you don't need to worry about fighting her yourself, I'll be doing all of the work. I just wanted to make sure you had some background in fighting just in case she comes after you."

Hazel nodded, then realized he couldn't see her. "Okay." She said.

They were approaching the building quickly now. The girl had noticed them and was looking up expectantly, waiting. Finally, they landed.

It was then that Hazel realized the girl was anything but human. Her skin was pale gray and she had two horns sticking out of her mess of short black hair. Here eyes were yellow with blue irises, although it appeared that one of her eyes had seven pupils.

The girl spoke, her voice soft and feminine. She reminded Hazel a little bit of a librarian. Like, librarians gone wild or something. "Hello again, Dirk. This time I felt your presence. I'm much more comfortable doing battle this way."

"Really? I kind of preferred it when that underwear clad idiot was shouting corny old man phrases at us."

Hazel gave Dirk an incredulous look. She was sincerely starting to believe she was imagining things. Maybe she fell off the Argo II and hit her head or something. Somehow, that made a lot more sense to her than all of this nonsense did.

The alien girl frowned. "Honestly, I don't know why you're trying so hard to stop me. I'm here to help all of you. It's the Jane human and Jade human that need to be disposed of. They're in the way, working as Her Imperial Condescension's pawns. If you want to save that underwear clad idiot, you'll listen to me. I'm going to fix everything."

Dirk scoffed. "You're even more arrogant than I am, which is saying something. Skaia knows what it's doing, and you being here is messing that up. What's dead should stay dead."

"Very well. If you insist on fighting me then so be it. You know you won't be able to win."

Hazel watched as Dirk pulled a sword out of nowhere. "We'll see about that."

She took a step back as suddenly Dirk lunged, attacking the gray skinned girl, moving like a Roman demi-god. She watched Dirk slice at her, hitting every time and flinging a bright blue liquid everywhere. Blood. Blue blood?

To her amazement, every one of the slices through the girl's skin seemed to heal almost instantaneously, making it impossible to truly maim her. No wonder she was so confident.

"I see you swinging for my arm! You know I won't let you get your hands on this ring!"
Dirk only gritted his teeth angrily in response and lunged forward once more, this time with enough force that purple sparks sizzled in the air he left behind as he moved.

"Hazel!" A voice suddenly called from behind her. She whirled around in time to register Frank's mammoth appearance before she was tackled in a bone crushing hug.

"Frank! You're here!" Hazel said, hugging him back. She wasn't alone after all.

As she pulled away from him she noticed another figure standing slightly behind him. Her half-brother Nico, hands in the pockets of his black pants and eyes flicking back and forth between the battle taking place beside them and Hazel herself, as if worried she'd disappear if he looked away from her for too long.

"Nico!" Hazel exclaimed, unable to hold back her enthusiasm as she tackled her brother.

"Hey." He smiled slightly in her embrace before pulling away again and schooling his expression back into blankness. "So… what's going on here?"

"Oh right. The guy in the purple is Dirk. He gave me a ride down here from some odd floating golden planet in the sky. I have no idea who the alien is though. She's bad and that's all I've got."

"Should we… help?" Frank asked.

The three demi-gods briefly looked over at the battle.

"It looks like Dirk's handling everything fine on his own." Hazel commented, sidestepping a slew of blue liquid that came flinging off the end of his sword. Frank was not as lucky, and the cobalt blood hit him squarely in the face.

"Ugh disgusting!" He squirmed, wiping the blood off his face with his large hands. "As if seeing it jarred and sold to us by a clown with a boner wasn't enough!"

Nico nodded with an expression that clearly said 'tell me about it'.

Hazel was too disturbed to even ask what they were referencing. She didn't think she wanted to know. She drew the line at clowns with boners.

"Dammit!" Dirk said, taking a step back and panting slightly. The alien was looking very smug. Clearly all of his efforts had been for nothing.

"Don't you see now, Dirk? You can't beat me. Not while this ring is on my finger."

"Hey Hazel…" Frank suddenly whispered, drawing her attention away from the spar.

"… yeah?"

"Dirk's the good guy here… right?"

"…yeah…."

"So… how much do you want to bet that ring is made of metal?"

Hazel's face lit up. Oh yeah… metal powers duh. This fight could have ended ages ago. With a smile on her caramel colored lips, Hazel lifted her hand and concentrated and retrieving the ring from the alien's finger. With a slight pull and a few mental tugs, the ring catapulted from the alien's hand and landed in Hazel's open palm.

Aranea's eyes went wide. Dirk looked completely unemotional and only acknowledged Hazel's action with a slight nod of his platinum blond head. Hazel would take that as a 'thank you'.

"What… how?" Aranea said, clearly exasperated. "Give me that back you meddling human! You don't know what you've done! I'm going to fix everything!"

"What's dead should stay dead." Hazel quoted Dirk. "As a child of the underworld I think I know that better than anyone."

After that, the battle was intense. It lasted for a while, but Hazel, Frank, and Nico had nowhere to go, really, so they just watched, catching up in the meantime and trying to avoid the flinging blood. Frank still had a smudge of blue on his face and Hazel didn't have the heart to tell him.

"So… we've been transported here for good?" Hazel asked as her friends finished the story.

"It seems that way." Frank said, looking glum. "Last we saw of our Earth it was being ripped to shreds by cancerous red strings from the sky."

"Most of the others are here in the world somewhere too. We're just not sure where." Nico added. "The goddess Jade is being possessed, so even though she seems nice enough we should watch out. She's incredibly powerful."

Hazel nodded. All of this seemed rather complicated. Even though they had escaped the destruction of their own world, they were going to have to battle to claim this one as their own, alongside the new gods and goddesses.

"None of the others we've run into so far seem to know what's happening." Frank continued. "John is as confused as ever and Jade has gone AWOL. Do you think Dirk will be able to explain anything to us?"

Hazel shrugged. "Even if he does know what's happening it'll be difficult to get anything from him. He's always distracted… talking to his glasses…."

"…what."

"I think they're actually a communication device of some sort but I'm not really sure. Maybe when he finishes off the crazy alien chick we'll be able to have a decent conversation with him. We should probably try to regroup, though. We need to find the others." Hazel said.

"They could be anywhere." Nico added in a monotone. "I don't feel their presence anywhere near. Do you?"

"No I can't feel them either…." Hazel sighed in defeat. "There are like… seven other planets too…. They could literally be anywhere. I doubt we were all transported to the same place."

Both boys nodded.

"Let's just hope they're okay…." Frank said. "Some of these aliens are really crazy."

Crack.

There was a gratifying snap as Dirk finally managed to defeat the offending alien girl. Her corpse seemed to disappear right before their eyes, fading into nothingness until it disappeared entirely. Her blood, however, remained spattered on the concrete.

Dirk's sword dematerialized and he walked casually over to the watching group of teens. A little too casually, considering he'd just killed someone.

"So." He stated, his voice as unemotional as ever. "You're Hazel's friends?"

"Yes." Frank answered for them.

Dirk nodded. "Okay then. Do you know how you got here?"

"We escaped the miles and used a rift to get into your dimension, I believe." Frank said. "Annabeth and Leo would know better. They're the people you really should be asking."

Dirk gave a slight nod. "Okay."

He opened his mouth as if to say something else when a shrill scream from somewhere down below cut him off.

All four exchanged glances and their decision was made at once.

Without a word they rushed off in the direction of the scream.