Percy's New Brother chapter 3

Ncalkins does not own anything but the thought, ooc, au, not betaed

The elevator groaned as it descended; its metal walls shuddering. Percy shivered as the temperature dropped; his lungs hurt when he breathed in as if needles made of ice covered them. His knees ached, and his fingers and toes were numb; Riptide slipped from his grasp clattering at his feet. Darkness crowded around the edges of his gaze; he could feel Bianca and Nico press against his sides. His eyelids fluttered feeling as if Mount Olympus hung from them. He couldn't decide if he was hearing the buzzing of overhead lights or the lapping of waves. He shut his eyes.

#

"Wake up!"

Percy's eyebrows furrowed; his cheek was pressed against wood. Why was his cheek pressed against wood? Did he fall asleep in a tree? He drifted off to sleep lulled by a swaying motion.

"Wake up!" Fingers dug into his shoulder, shaking him.

Percy groaned forcing his eyes open as he sat up. It was dark, dark enough he had to blink to check if his eyes were open. He raised a hand to rub at his eyes, a soft glow coated his skin. He waved his hand in front of his face watching the afterimage blur. The hand that had a hold of him released him; he turned to look at the owner. Bianca stared at him with her pale lips pressed into a line; she ran a trembling hand through her hair. "Are?" Percy took in a deep breath trying to scrape together his brainpower and energy to talk. "Are you wearing a robe?"

"Yes." She pulled him close, letting him lean against her. "Don't fall into the water."

"Water?" He snuggled against her, relishing her warmth. His barely opened eye scanned his surroundings; everything beyond their immediate area was black, but thanks to their collective glow he could make out the shabby, wooden, boat they sat on. That explained the swaying.

"We're crossing the river Styx," Nico whispered on Bianca's other side.

"I knew that," Percy muttered closing his eyes; he sighed, relaxing.

"Don't fall asleep!"

His eyes snapped open. "Stop shaking me." He pulled away from Bianca.

"Then stop falling asleep!" Her lips quivered. "Please," she said, swallowing. "I don't know if you'll wake up."

Percy yawned. "Fine." He rubbed his eyes. "Fine." He glanced at Nico, who looked around with alert eyes. Why weren't Bianca and Nico tired?

"I see the shore!" Nico shouted pointing ahead of them.

Percy squinted he could see a grey fog, growing brighter with every passing second, but beyond that, all he could see was the black water and mesmerizing silver foam. He stared at the water, swearing he could see faces in it. Wait, he knew that face. It was his mom! He leaned over the boat's side to get a closer look. His mom beckoned to him. He reached for her hand.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." The ferryman chuckled.

Percy grunted as Bianca jerked him back her nails digging into his shoulders as the boat rocked. The pain jolted through Percy; he was alive. The rush of feeling faded as Bianca released her hold on him; mind-numbing lethargy tugged at him. He grabbed his wrist and dug his nails in, relishing the sting as his mind cleared for a minute longer.

"Why am I wearing a robe?" At least it was soft. In fact, if he couldn't see it, he would swear it wasn't there.

"Standard uniform for all incoming souls," the ferryman said. Though how he could speak was beyond Percy, he had no skin or flesh. "Take a picture, it will last longer." The ferryman jumped out into the water, gripping the dark, wooden, side of the boat. He tugged it onto land.

Percy blinked as the boat scrapped against the black sand; he dug his thumbnail into the palm of his hand. When had they gotten to land? He looked over the side of the boat. He could barely make out where the shore began and the river ended.

"Everyone out." The ferryman pointed to the only dirt road leading from the shore. "Follow the road. It will take you to Hades' castle."

Gingerly, Percy swung a leg over the boat's side, taking care to step as far away from the river as he possibly could. He offered his arm to Bianca to help steady her as she climbed out, and then offered his arm to Nico for the same reason. Nico almost stepped into the water, but a quick yank from Bianca kept him on dry land.

As soon as they were off the boat, the ferryman vaulted himself into it, calling over his shoulder as he guided it away. "If you make it back here, I'll give you a ride to the other side!" He laughed as the fog swallowed him up.

"How will he know we're here?" Bianca muttered.

"Who knows." Percy watched as the boat disappeared; he shook his head and turned toward the dirt road. "Let's go."

They shuffled along the empty road, nothing around for miles around. Percy checked his pockets looking for his sword, relaxing when his fingers wrapped around Riptide. The flatlands surrounding them were quiet, but having Riptide in his hand made him feel better as the fog steadily thickened. He yawned, gripping his pen hard so his nails dug into his palm. He blinked hard, resisting the urge to lay down on the road and sleep.

The hazy form of Bianca rubbed her arms. "I can barely make out the road.

"We'll be fine!" Nico turned to him. "Right, Percy?"

"Right..." Percy sighed. shaking his head. "Hold onto my shirt or something, guys. I feel like if I take one more step, I'll lose you." He felt their hands wrap themselves into the back of his shirt. To strive off the silence he said, "I wished they had a map or something. One that glows and cuts through the fog."

Nico hummed. "That would be helpful."

"Why are you so cheerful?" Percy glanced at the deserted plains around them; he squinted and tightened his hold on Riptide, thumbing the cap. Did he see a shadow moving within the fog or was it just the fog itself? He bit his tongue to sharpen his awareness.

"Just..." Nico looked at his feet. "Just trying to lighten the mood."

Percy winced as Bianca elbowed him in the side. "Well, thanks." He rubbed his side. "For trying. I mean."

Nico sent him a weak smile. He stepped around Percy and went over to Bianca grabbing her arm. "I don't like it here."

Bianca nodded. "It's no place for children."

"Where else would they go?" Percy stopped, tensing as he peered into the fog ahead of them. "Did...did you guys see that?"

"It's souls," Nico said. "How can you guys be so oblivious?"

"Right." Percy rubbed his face. "Do either of you see anything suspicious?"

"No." Bianca shook her head. "I can't see anything besides this fog."

"It's not fog," Nico said. "It's souls." He turned his head to the left and then to the right. "I don't see anything besides them." He looked at Percy. "It's strange. The souls closer to the river seem faded. Almost as if they're still getting used to being dead."

"I can understand the feeling." Percy cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders. "Well, if you guys see anything suspicious, let me know."

As he walked forward, he could hear Bianca mutter. "You mean everything?"

They walked in silence for a few minutes when Percy heard a high pitched sound. He rubbed his numb ear. "What is that? Bats?" He remembered a school trip to the zoo, watching the bats drink blood from a bowl. He shuddered at the thought of monster bats drinking his blood from his dead body.

"I don't know," Bianca said.

"It's the souls," Nico said. "Can't you hear them? They're talking about their lives."

Percy frowned straining his ears; he shivered as words floated out of the bat-like chatter. He resolved to ignore the sounds, but it proved to be impossible the deeper into the underworld they marched. After a minute of walking, he could hear the souls as if they were alive; the sound level was deafening, akin to the New Years' celebration in New York. He wanted to press his hands over his ears, but if he did he wouldn't be able to pull out Ripetide as fast as he'd want to if they were attacked. He bit his cheek, glancing at the Di Angelos.

Bianca had her hands over her ears, facing Nico. "How can you stand this?" she shouted.

Nico shrugged. "I just told them to be quiet." He paused. "Mentally. And they did."

"Well, tell them to shut up!"

Nico nodded and turned to the nearest dense patch of fog; he glanced at his sister before clearing his throat and said, "please be quiet."

Silence. Percy could hear his heartbeat; his mouth dried, and he swallowed. What kind of parent did Nico and Bianca have that Nico could do that? Did they have different fathers? He pushed the thoughts from his mind as he nodded at Nico. "Thanks."

Nico beamed. "No problem!"

Now that Percy knew that there were souls all around him, the fog condensed into human forms. The greyscaled people looked like they stepped out of a silent movie; they stared forward blankly with their mouths shut. He did his best to step around them, but the path narrowed as they walked and the souls funneled together until it was more crowded than Grand Central station.

"What are they doing?" Percy asked.

"They're passing under Cerberus," Bianca said.

Percy looked at her. "What?" He pictured the three-headed dog from Disney's Hercules; hopefully, it was friendly, or at the very least not a poodle.

She held Nico close. "Cerberus, the guard, the–"

"It's a three-headed dog!" Nico bounced in place. "I read that Hephaestus built him for Hades; I wonder if he looks like a machine or like a real dog? Does he eat? Heracles took him for a walk, so I bet he's friendly!"

"Heracles was a freak," Bianca said.

Percy snorted.

"Plus, Cerberus guards the underworld, he's not going to be friendly to us."

That killed any mirth Percy had. "Let's...Let's just go."

"How?" Bianca grabbed his arm before he could take a step forward. "There are guards, plus Cerberus has three heads. We can't sneak around them!"

"Guards?" Percy looked forward. "I can only see the souls."

"That's because it's dark and your eyesight is horrible."

Percy pulled himself out of her hold. "I'll figure it out."

"You're going to get us killed, Fat-head!"

Percy pivoted, seeing Bianca and Nico several steps behind him; he squeezed Riptide's pen-form. "I didn't ask you to come!" He waved his fist toward the souls. "And I don't hear either of you coming up with suggestions!"

"He has a point." Nico wiggled out of Bianca's hold. "Besides, maybe Cerberus is on the beam."

"You just want to pet him."

"Yeah! He's a three-headed dog!"

Percy shook his head as he headed to the outskirts of the thickest part of the crowd. He took a deep breath; the dead weren't cold, but it was disturbing to walk through someone seemingly solid. His resolve strengthened, he dove into the crowd passing through bodies as if they were air. He heard Bianca muttering 'excuse me' and 'pardon me', and prayed she wasn't trying to walk around the ghost.

Percy stopped, spotting what looked like the screening area of an airport. He turned to look at Bianca. "You didn't say there were monsters! Or a checkpoint!"

"What's a checkpoint?" She raised an eyebrow. "And I said there were guards."

"Hey, you!" A nasal voice called.

Percy tensed, turning his head to look over his shoulder. He bit back a curse as a small creature, with horns, boils, and green skin waddled over to them.

"Are you kids?" The creature asked; the boil on its lip leaked golden sand from where he had nicked it when speaking.

"Yes?" Nico said before Percy could decide to cut off the creature's head.

"This way." The creature waved a hand as it walked away. "You don't have to go through the checkpoints."

"Why are there checkpoints?" Percy shuffled after him; he wasn't about to look a gift Pegasus in the mouth.

"It scans the souls, telling everything they've ever done, and compiles the main good and bad things for the judges to look over." The creature led them around the checkpoint. One of Cerberus's heads turned toward them with the sound of grinding gears and growled, a metallic sound that echoed. "Ah, shut up, ya mutt."

"He's not a mutt!" Nico exclaimed. "He's a pretty boy!"

Percy glanced over at Nico seeing him waving at the three-headed dog. He grimaced. How could Nico want to pet that thing? It looked like it wanted to eat him in one bite.

"Why don't we have to go through the checkpoints?" Percy mentally cursed himself for asking.

"Children are immediately sent to Elysium or to reincarnate," the monster grunted. "Lord Hades pays for their trip over."

"I knew it!" Nico bounced on the balls of his feet. "I knew I didn't see any kids in the waiting room!"

"Yeah, yeah," the monster said. "Less work for us." It breathed in through its pug shaped nose-making a noise like a vacuum cleaner trying to suck up a tub full of slime. The road they followed along separated into three. "To your left," the monster said. "Are the Fields of Punishment, straight is the Fields of Asphodel, we're going right."

"Thank goodness," Bianca muttered.

"We need to see Hades," Percy blurted out.

The monster tilted its head to look over its bumpy shoulder, its bulbous eye narrowing. "Why?"

"To..." Percy shifted, grabbing hold of Riptide's cap. Should he cut his losses and attack?

"To thank him!" Bianca stepped in front of Percy. "We want to thank him!"

The monster hummed. "You can do that in a few centuries. Hades always takes a personal tour of Elysium."

"Centuries!" Percy's heart skipped a beat.

"Don't worry," the monster said. "They'll pass in a blink of an eye."

Before Percy could insist on seeing Hades, the smell of barbecues, cotton candy, and funnel cake hit his nose. He turned his attention from the monster. "Whoa." A few feet ahead of them was a gated community filled with large homes, smiling families, amusement parks, and a dazzling lake with a splattering of islands in the middle.

"Yep," the monster grunted. "Go on in." He motioned toward the gates. "The doors should unlock as soon as you get close to them. A family will adopt you and take you in if you want parents." It turned to waddle away.

"Where are you going?" Nico called. "Don't you want to come in?"

Percy whacked the back of his head. "Don't invite him!" He hissed.

"Can't," the monster said. "Got to get back to work."

The demigods watched as he walked away, waiting until he was far enough to turn to the gates.

"I don't suppose we could find Hades in there?" Bianca asked.

"Probably not." Percy took a step away. He wanted to go in there, but at the same time..."Come on, it reminds me too much of the hotel."

Bianca looked at it. "You know, it wasn't so bad until they tried to eat us."

Percy snorted. "Yeah. Being taken out of time and lulled into false security sure is great." He turned toward the road. "Come on, I bet his castle is in the Fields of Asphodel." He took a few steps before realizing there was only one pair of feet following him; he looked over his shoulder. "Nico?"

Nico hummed from where he stood in front of the gates.

"You coming?"

"Yeah, yeah," Nico said turning slowly. It seemed to take an effort for him to look away from Elysium. His smile looked fake. "Let's go!"

Percy glanced over at Bianca, but her eyes were on Nico, so he nodded. "Alright." He led the way to the fork, and then down the center road to The Fields of Asphodel. The gravel under their feet was as loud as gunshots in the silence; after several minutes of walking down a barren road, gray wheat grew alongside it. Percy wondered if the wheat was an attempt by Persephone to grow something in the Underworld or if wheat had souls?

"Hey, Bianca," Nico whispered.

"Yeah?"

Percy tried to block out their talk sensing it was private, but because of the ever-pressing silence, he had zero choices.

"Do you think Mom's in Elysium?"

"Yeah...yeah, I do," Bianca said. "We'll meet her someday, Nico, I promise."

"Yeah," Nico said. Three minutes of silence passed before he spoke up again. "Hey, Bianca?"

"What?"

"You won't leave me like she did, right?"

"She didn't leave us on purpose."

"Then why were we in the hotel alone?"

"I-I don't know."

"Woah," Percy said, feeling as if he was spying on someone getting dressed and wanting the conversation to stop. "Look at that!" He pointed at a large stalactite embedded into the flatland. "What is it?"

Bianca glanced up. "It looked like it fell from the ceiling," she said. "We should keep an eye out."

"Right." To keep from overhearing more personal conversations, Percy motioned for Nico to walk beside him. "Nico, what do you know about Hades? Do you think we can convince him to give us the lightning bolt?"

"Definitely," Nico said. "Hades is a stern but fair god. He just didn't like people messing with his work."

"Well, then he shouldn't have taken the lightning bolt then," Bianca said.

Percy kept an eye out for a big castle, but with the wheat fields, it should have been easy to see, so far it was all ghosts and giant rocks.

Nico shook his head. "It actually doesn't make sense that he did that," he said. "Hades usually keeps out of godly affairs." He motioned toward the hordes of ghosts. "He's too busy with the dead."

Bianca wrapped her arms around herself. "It does seem overly crowded, doesn't it?" Her grip tightened.

Percy noted a path branching off. He stopped. "Do you think that's the way to Hades?" He pointed, praying it was the other way. Just the sight of the path left an icy, metal, ball in his stomach.

"Maybe?" Nico scratched his neck looking around. "I mean, this place doesn't have signs to guide us."

"I don't think so," Bianca said shifting her weight. "Think about it. Would you put your castle out of the way? Or in the center of everything?"

"I don't know, I'm poor." Percy huffed. "Let's just go that way." He pointed at the center road.

Bianca rolled her eyes. "Why did you ask if you were just going to decide anyway?"

Mostly to keep the silence away. "I just wanted your opinions."

Nico nodded. "Let's just go."

Percy winced as the boy walked past him. "You alright, Nico?" He seemed weary, which was understandable considering what they've been through.

"Fine." Nico kicked a pebble on the path. "Just...I wanted to try to find, Mom."

Bianca bit her lip. "I'm sorry, Nico, we don't have time."

Percy frowned, hating seeing Nico so depressed. "Maybe you can ask Hades?"

Bianca shot him a sharp look but stayed quiet as Nico perked up.

"Maybe!"

The air pressed down on them the further they got from the side path. The ground trembled. Percy stumbled into Bianca, grabbing onto Nico. "What's happening?"

"Earthquake?" Bianca dragged the other two down into a crouch.

"Do they get earthquakes in the underworld?" Nico asked.

"Apparently!"

A loud crack came from above and then a rumble like an airplane taking off; Percy peed his pants as a piece of ceiling landed near them. "Run!"

The demigods held hands as they ran; the warm wind tugged at their clothes, increasing in speed until they were lifted off their feet. They screamed as they flew toward the stalactite that a second ago tried to crush them; Percy's breath was knocked out off him as they hit the rock, he gasped for breath as he slumped.

"What's happening?" Nico screamed over the howling wind; his pale face staring at Percy. "I didn't think the Underworld had weather!"

Percy shook his head, unable to speak as he caught his breath. He stared as pebbles rolled away from the stalactite; what kind of weather was this?

The wind died down as suddenly as it came; the demigods crouched behind the stalactite, waiting with wide eyes. Percy pressed his hand against the rock and pushed off of it after a few minutes. "I think it's over."

They inched away from the stalactite, clasping each other's shaking hands. They glanced around as they left the safety of the Stalactite; Percy's stomach tightened as he felt a warm wind tug at his clothes. "Get to cover!" They rushed back to the Stalactite as the wind increased in speed, roaring all around them pressing them against the rock.

"It's breathing!" Percy yelled.

"What is?" Bianca shouted, her words were barely audible over the wind.

"I don't know!"

The Stalactite shifted. They slammed against it; panicked brown eyes met his eyes as their feet left the ground and the Stalactite flew toward a chasm.

"Tartarus!" Nico screamed as the wind dragged them closer.

The kids screamed as Percy fumbled to take off Riptide's cap with his thumb. The cap flew away as Riptide formed. He stabbed at the ground, but the blade glanced off of the rock. The closer they came to the edge, the more violent Percy's thoughts became; visions of blood on alters from suicide sacrifices, vicious wars, and unspeakable acts that made his stomach turned filled his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut, tears leaking out, as he lost all sense of directions. Monstrous snarls and roars filled his ears as he sped toward an unknown destination. A cold, giant, hand encased them and pulled them in a different direction, and Percy whimpered. At least he was already in the Underworld, maybe that makes death an easier process?

He landed on his knees; his arms taking some of the weight from his fall. Rough stone cut into his skin making his hiss. Pain. He was alive. He opened his eyes; black stone laid beneath him. They were in a thrown room the length of a football field; skeleton warriors from different times were stationed along the towering walls. Large fireplaces blazing with green flames spotted the walls every one-hundred and eighty feet. At the very end of the hall, on a throne of obsidian and bone, sat Hades.

"Nico!"

Percy's attention whipped toward Bianca; she sat beside her brother, shaking his unconscious form.

1920s slang:

Fat-Head: a stupid/foolish person

On the Beam: on the right track, cool.

Nico shadow traveled and Hades pulled them to him.