PJO: The Age of Heroes | Chapter 9 - All Together Again
Again, slight spoilers for TLO (in the form of abilities mentioned in it); nothing too bad, though. I have finally finished it (yay!) so while I still don't think anything here is going to require spoilerific comments, it's okay now. XD
I think I've actually come up with the pacing/plot for the end of the story, so that makes me exited~ Of course, I came up with it as I was falling asleep last night, and there are still some things I want to try to work in, but I am hopeful. :D;
Generic PG-13ish rating for this one~ And on to the fic!
“What... was that?” Percy gasped, as Annabeth shrieked in surprise and I tried not to stumble into the metal shelving suddenly inches away from my face.
“Shadow... travel,” I murmured, trying to blink the fatigue and nausea away. I’d only ever tried it a few times before, and I’d usually ended up someplace other than where I’d meant to go (which included, once or twice, somewhere in rural China). I’d known that as a child of the Underworld I could travel through shadows, but I’d found the actual execution was a lot harder than the initial realization. On top of that, the effort always left me sleepy and with a spinning head.
Add to that the fact that I’d never taken a passenger along for the ride before, and I was definitely ready for a nap. But I had to admit, as I took a couple of breaths to try and steady myself, I felt markedly better than I had the first few times I’d tried to shadow travel. And I’d ended up in the right place on the first try. Maybe those sixteen year-old demigod powers were actually starting to come in handy. Maybe, I thought muzzily, I should’ve tried this earlier.
I tried to turn towards Percy, and suddenly found his hands clamped on my shoulders and his face a lot closer than it had been a minute ago. Okay, so maybe it was good that I hadn’t tried this before, because while I felt better than I usually did, I still felt like crap. And at least I’d known where I was aiming for - if I tried to go somewhere I wasn’t familiar with, I always seemed to end up on the wrong side of nowhere.
Annabeth, who’d stopped yelling as soon as she’d realized it was us, appeared to have finally gotten her breath back, but her face was white and she looked extremely nervous. I supposed having possibly just given away our position was foremost on her mind, but given that the telekhine guarding Percy already knew we were gone and was likely to start a search of the area pretty soon anyway, I honestly couldn’t really hold it against her. Besides, it wasn’t like I’d been able to warn her beforehand that we were going to materialize out of the shadows in front of her face.
I glanced at Percy, blinking a few times to get his face in proper focus. “You okay?” I knew how shadow traveling could be disorienting, and it was probably doubly so if you weren’t expecting it.
He was looking a little blindsided, but when I asked him that he frowned. “Am I okay? Are you okay? I don’t think you should’ve done that.” He looked down at himself and then up again. “It was pretty cool, though.”
I shrugged as best I could with his hands still holding me up. “It was that or let the telekhine grab you.”
“I was pretty sure he was going to grab you.” Percy paused, giving me a rueful grin. “Worried he’d touch something that wasn’t his?”
“Guys,” Annabeth hissed, but I couldn’t help grinning down at Percy despite how tired I was. No, I wasn’t jealous - not of some telekhine, that was for sure. But it was pretty nice to hear him say he was mine, even if it was indirectly.
Percy glanced at Annabeth as though noticing her for the first time. “Hey, Annabeth,” he said, then spared a moment to look around the room. “Thanks for coming to get us.”
“Hm,” she hummed in reply, still looking nervous. I handed her back her Yankees cap, which she started twisting in her hands. “Well, it wasn’t easy.”
I frowned. “How did you find us?” I’d never asked, and now seemed as good a time as any; yes, we needed to get out of here, but for the moment we seemed secure and I had to admit, I was in no shape to travel just yet. I needed a few minutes to catch my breath. At least it didn’t seem like anyone had started pounding on doors looking for a couple of escapees just yet.
“I took the train,” she said matter-of-factly. “When you didn’t come back Saturday night I booked a Sunday morning ticket and went to Rockville. I found Blackjack in the park - he was frantic, and he seemed like he wanted me to come with him. When I climbed onto his back, he flew me here.” She shrugged. “After that, I just followed the trail of monsters.” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know how all these college kids just don’t notice them, but I guess that’s the power of the Mist.”
“Right,” Percy said; he looked pretty proud, and I didn’t blame him. Annabeth was a smart, capable girl. More often than not, I had to admit that I was glad she was on our side.
“And then when you saw Medea take me to meet Kronos...” I murmured, and Annabeth nodded.
“I didn’t know it was you, but I gathered that you were a half-blood. I didn’t know where Percy was, so I hoped you might help me.” She offered me a small smile, then looked to Percy. “I’m glad you’re both okay, relatively speaking.” She glanced back at me. “Medea can be really dangerous. Especially if she’s working for Kronos.” She huffed a sigh. “And to think, I buy her sunscreen! Well, not anymore.”
Percy and I chuckled, but then all three of us fell silent, looking at each other. Now that the reunion was over, it was time to get moving. I pushed myself gently out of Percy’s grip, testing my balance - I still didn’t feel one hundred percent, but I was okay to move now. And we did need to move.
“So what’s the plan?” Percy asked. “I know we need to get out of here, but...” He flexed his fingers, and I knew why. He still didn’t have Riptide, and I didn’t have my sword, either. Annabeth was the only one of us who was armed, and that was only with the bronze knife that she always carried. Even though I’d seen her use it and I knew she was more than competent, I also knew that one half-blood with a knife would not be enough to get us out of serious trouble if we ran into it. And the likelihood of that was larger than the alternative.
And then I thought of it - the perfect way to get our weapons back. I held up one hand, stopping Annabeth before she could speak. “Wait,” I said, and knelt, placing my hand on the floor again. “I think I can get our weapons back for us.”
Annabeth frowned. “You can?” She glanced at Percy, but he just shrugged as I closed my eyes and concentrated, calling once more to the spirits of the lab rats I’d called earlier. I hoped they were still listening.
They were - after a moment I heard Annabeth gasp; I opened my eyes to see that the three ghost-rats from earlier had appeared before me, and I grinned down at them. You did a good job earlier, I said, petting the leader on the back with two fingers. Do you think you can do one more thing for me?
I sensed its assent. There are two things I need - these things, I told it, showing him a picture of our swords in his mind. I need you to bring them to me. Use your friends - bring as many of them as you need. Do you understand?
His eyes were bright, and he twitched his nose and squeaked excitedly. Apparently he liked my idea; I imagined a good number of rats had died for Medea’s experiments, and they probably wanted to get back at her any way they could. I didn’t blame them - in fact, I felt pretty much the same way. I still felt a little sick to my stomach when I thought about getting out of here without finding a way to turn back. I mean, I didn’t even know if there was a way to turn back. Why would Medea have bothered finding a way to reverse the process? I didn’t think that Kronos had been planning on changing me back and sending me on my merry way, had I refused his offer. No, I was pretty sure he’d planned to have me end up dead on the blade of Backbiter if I refused. I shuddered - dying once had been more than enough for me. I was in no rush to do it again.
In front of me, the rat slipped away from my fingers and, together with his two friends, turned and scurried off through the wall. I pushed myself up off the floor, looking into the curious faces of Percy and Annabeth. “They’ll find our swords and bring them back to me,” I explained, wishing they wouldn’t look so stunned like that. I’d always been able to talk to dead things - it just hadn’t been as easy, I thought, admittedly with another uncomfortable twinge.
Percy spoke first, cracking a smile and nodding. “My boyfriend, king of the dead lab rats,” he joked, and reached out like he was going to ruffle my hair. Only my hair was much higher than it used to be and he stopped mid-motion, settling for running his fingers down my arm instead. “Sorry,” he said a little sheepishly. “It’s gonna take a while to get used to this.”
“Yeah,” I said, starting to feel miserable all over again. It was.
Annabeth coughed a little, and we both turned to her. “Look,” she said gently, looking me in the eye, “even if there’s no way to turn you back... it’s not so bad, right? You’re still healthy, and you’re obviously stronger. If you’re going to be the half-blood in the prophecy...” But then she trailed off. I guessed there was no bright side to that. Now I understood completely how Percy felt - having the weight of Olympus on your shoulders was something no mortal, half-blood or not, should have to carry. I wondered how I could have thought that Percy had it easy, even for an instant.
“Hey,” Percy said, and this time he reached out and took my hand, squeezing my fingers in his. “You said before that I wasn’t alone. And you’re not, either. Okay?”
I bit my lip, looking into his eyes, and I could see that he was sincere - as sincere as I had been when I’d said it to him. I hadn’t been willing to let Percy face his decision alone, and now I could see that if the decision was going to be mine instead, he was willing to do the same. That meant a lot - and it honestly helped to quell the fear starting to pool in the pit of my stomach. The cold, worried feeling wasn’t completely gone, but it also wasn’t as overwhelming as it had been.
“Yeah,” I said, swallowing and nodding. “Okay.”
A second later, I was momentarily surprised as Annabeth put her hand on my shoulder. I turned around to see her watching me, her grey eyes just as focused and determined as Percy’s. She smiled at me, and I couldn’t help but return it. Knowing that she was willing to help, too, squashed down a little bit more of that fear.
“Okay,” she said after a minute, “As soon as Nico’s... um, rats bring back your weapons, we have to get out of here.” I nodded - she wasn’t going to get any arguments out of me on that one. Maybe we should have thought about trying to stop Kronos here and now, but honestly all I wanted right now was to get as far away from him as possible. We were outnumbered and outmatched, even with our swords. If we were going to take down the Titan lord, we’d need a better plan, and right now we just didn’t have the resources. Annabeth knew that, and so did Percy. And so escape became our only option. “We’ll have to be on our guard,” she added, glancing at the door again. “Someone is bound to notice them and follow - ”
She immediately fell silent. An instant later I knew why - there were sounds outside, like shuffling. Someone was walking down the hall. All three of us practically stopped breathing, not moving and trying to stay as silent as possible.
It was hard to tell whether the shuffling was coming or going, or even how close it was. But finally, it seemed to stop, and after a few seconds Percy let out a very quiet breath, glancing over at me and Annabeth.
Annabeth had just started to nod and give him a thumbs-up sign when the door flew open, revealing two large telekhines blocking our only exit on the other side.
One raised its head and shouted, “They’re here!” just as the other lunged forward, intent on grabbing whichever of us he could get his hands on first.
But I wasn’t going to give him the chance. If we were captured, we’d only end up separated. Kronos wasn’t going to be happy with any of us, and me least of all. In my mind, I saw images of him torturing and killing my friends in order to get me to agree to become his new body. Once he knew that I wouldn’t be swayed by his bribes, I knew he’d turn to threats. And he was going to make those threats a reality, and there would be no way I could stop him from doing it.
I couldn’t let that happen. So I did the only thing I could - I grasped the backs of Percy and Annabeth’s shirts and seconds before the telekhine’s hands could touch any of us, we melted backwards into the dark.
*
All I could think was, Up! Annabeth had said we were in some kind of basement, and I thought that if we got to the ground floor of wherever this place was we’d stand a much better chance of actually finding a way out. It was probably too much to hope that we’d end up outside. Or in China. China would’ve actually been nice, right about now.
We didn’t come out in China, though. We came out on the landing of a stairwell between two floors (I guess that’s what I got for thinking up), with the steady sound of people talking and footsteps just below us. I tried to raise my head to look, but then I was falling backwards and it was only Percy and Annabeth, each catching me under one arm, that kept me from collapsing to the ground.
“Ohh,” I moaned, wishing the floor wasn’t trying to pretend it belonged in a disco. It was certainly spinning like it thought it did. “Why is the staircase moving?”
“It’s not,” Annabeth said, and I got the impression that she was looking at Percy over my head. His fingers tightened around my arm as the two of them tried to haul me to my barely-responding feet.
“Nico?” Percy asked, and I felt his other hand touch my forehead. “Shit, you’re freezing,” he said, and then I felt the fingers of Annabeth’s free hand touch my arm.
She drew a sharp breath. “He’s right,” she said, as Percy tried to wipe my bangs out of my eyes. “Are you all right?”
I wasn’t, really. Maybe sixteen year-old powers weren’t as reliable as I’d first thought. “I feel sick,” I mumbled, as someone pushed past us on the stairs; they looked like they were on their way up to a class or something, binders and notebooks clutched to their chest.
Percy and Annabeth looked at each other for a second before tightening their grip and helping (well, mostly carrying) me down the stairs and into some sort of large, echoing hallway. They carried me across from the steps so I could lean against the wall; there was a water fountain there and Percy managed to run his hand under the water for a second before brushing cool, damp fingers across my forehead. It felt nice, and I tried to smile at him, but even that hurt, a little.
“Where are we?” Annabeth asked tensely. “And can we not do that again?”
“Seconded,” I croaked, even if I was the one she was asking. We would definitely not be doing that again. Not unless someone had a sword pointed at one of us; and maybe not even then, I thought tiredly. One more trip like that and I didn’t think I’d come out conscious on the other end. “We can’t have gone far.” Bringing two people along for the ride was more than twice as hard as one, and I couldn’t imagine I’d gotten us very far from where we’d been.
“Uh...” Percy looked around, then took his hand away from my face to point to the wall opposite us. There was a sign on the wall that read “10-250” and had an arrow pointing up the staircase. I didn’t know what 10-250 was, but we probably didn’t want to go there. “Near 10-250?”
“Great,” Annabeth muttered, in a tone that said this information was entirely unhelpful. She looked around, her ponytail brushing past my cheek. “From the looks of it, we’re still at MIT... I remember coming this way, I think...” She pointed down the hall to our right. The place just seemed to keep going and going and going... “Massachusetts Avenue is that way - there’s a student center across the street.”
“We should head there - try to get lost in the crowd,” Percy said. He glanced at the steady stream of people flowing in two directions down the long hallway. “Then we can figure out what to do next.”
Annabeth nodded. “I agree.” She looked at me again. “Can you walk?”
I tried to straighten up, taking a slow, careful step as their hands hovered just under my arms. “I think so,” I said, aware of how tired and spent I sounded, but determined not to slow them down. I didn’t want to separate if we didn’t have to, but I told myself the second I became a liability...
“Okay. Then let’s go.” Annabeth turned and took off down the hall, walking slowly enough that I could keep up but still with a sense of urgent purpose. Percy fell into step beside me, the hand that had been under my arm sliding down to my elbow and hovering there as we walked. I noticed that he’d put himself between me and the crowd of people, so the wall was directly to my right and Percy to my left. It was kind of sweet, I thought, smiling tiredly to myself.
“What about the rats?” he asked. “We’re still unarmed.”
That was a good question. “If we’re still close enough... they’ll find us,” I said. “They’ll be able to find me.” I knew that I shone like a beacon to those that had passed on - one of the pros (or, just as often, cons) of being half-lord of the dead. If the rats were anywhere nearby - and they probably were - they’d be able to locate me.
Percy nodded, and then we fell silent as I put most of my concentration into walking as normally as I could.
This place reminded me of the Labyrinth, in a way - it was like a never-ending hallway, with doors on either side and the occasional hall intersecting the main one at a right angle. Most of the doors had frosted glass and were labeled with numbers that changed with the buildings, though not in any order I could discern. There were bulletin boards in between the doors with all sorts of flyers posted up, advertising everything from movie nights to swordfights hosted by something called the Society for Creative Anachronism. I wondered what they’d think if they knew they had an ancient witch and Titan lord plotting humanity’s doom right underneath their noses.
The crowd of people began to thicken, and ahead of us things sounded louder, the sounds echoing back to us. It looked like we were approaching some kind of lobby, and I could just make out doors at the other end with narrow vertical windows letting in the sunlight. But just as we passed a blue papered bulletin board advertising showings by the MIT Anime Club, something happened.
At first I couldn’t figure out what it was. But then I realized that the noise behind us was dying out. I stopped, which made Percy stop two steps later and he turned, asking, “Nico? What - ”
His eyes went wide, and when I turned around, I knew why.
Behind us, at the other end of the long hallway, was Kronos. He was flanked by five telekhines and his two dracaenae guards, all of which were armed. He was carrying a weapon as well, but it wasn’t Backbiter - it was Kronos’ scythe, and he was using it to stop time ahead of and behind him.
The people between him and us were slowing until they’d almost stopped; they seemed completely oblivious to what was happening as the Titan lord who still looked like Luke Castellan walked forward leisurely with his monsters a few paces ahead of him like an honor guard. Papers fluttered off the walls in slow motion as he approached, and then he raised one arm, lowering it as he said, clearly, “Take them.”
That was when Percy grabbed my elbow, and together with Annabeth we turned and ran for the doors.
I think I've actually come up with the pacing/plot for the end of the story, so that makes me exited~ Of course, I came up with it as I was falling asleep last night, and there are still some things I want to try to work in, but I am hopeful. :D;
Generic PG-13ish rating for this one~ And on to the fic!
“What... was that?” Percy gasped, as Annabeth shrieked in surprise and I tried not to stumble into the metal shelving suddenly inches away from my face.
“Shadow... travel,” I murmured, trying to blink the fatigue and nausea away. I’d only ever tried it a few times before, and I’d usually ended up someplace other than where I’d meant to go (which included, once or twice, somewhere in rural China). I’d known that as a child of the Underworld I could travel through shadows, but I’d found the actual execution was a lot harder than the initial realization. On top of that, the effort always left me sleepy and with a spinning head.
Add to that the fact that I’d never taken a passenger along for the ride before, and I was definitely ready for a nap. But I had to admit, as I took a couple of breaths to try and steady myself, I felt markedly better than I had the first few times I’d tried to shadow travel. And I’d ended up in the right place on the first try. Maybe those sixteen year-old demigod powers were actually starting to come in handy. Maybe, I thought muzzily, I should’ve tried this earlier.
I tried to turn towards Percy, and suddenly found his hands clamped on my shoulders and his face a lot closer than it had been a minute ago. Okay, so maybe it was good that I hadn’t tried this before, because while I felt better than I usually did, I still felt like crap. And at least I’d known where I was aiming for - if I tried to go somewhere I wasn’t familiar with, I always seemed to end up on the wrong side of nowhere.
Annabeth, who’d stopped yelling as soon as she’d realized it was us, appeared to have finally gotten her breath back, but her face was white and she looked extremely nervous. I supposed having possibly just given away our position was foremost on her mind, but given that the telekhine guarding Percy already knew we were gone and was likely to start a search of the area pretty soon anyway, I honestly couldn’t really hold it against her. Besides, it wasn’t like I’d been able to warn her beforehand that we were going to materialize out of the shadows in front of her face.
I glanced at Percy, blinking a few times to get his face in proper focus. “You okay?” I knew how shadow traveling could be disorienting, and it was probably doubly so if you weren’t expecting it.
He was looking a little blindsided, but when I asked him that he frowned. “Am I okay? Are you okay? I don’t think you should’ve done that.” He looked down at himself and then up again. “It was pretty cool, though.”
I shrugged as best I could with his hands still holding me up. “It was that or let the telekhine grab you.”
“I was pretty sure he was going to grab you.” Percy paused, giving me a rueful grin. “Worried he’d touch something that wasn’t his?”
“Guys,” Annabeth hissed, but I couldn’t help grinning down at Percy despite how tired I was. No, I wasn’t jealous - not of some telekhine, that was for sure. But it was pretty nice to hear him say he was mine, even if it was indirectly.
Percy glanced at Annabeth as though noticing her for the first time. “Hey, Annabeth,” he said, then spared a moment to look around the room. “Thanks for coming to get us.”
“Hm,” she hummed in reply, still looking nervous. I handed her back her Yankees cap, which she started twisting in her hands. “Well, it wasn’t easy.”
I frowned. “How did you find us?” I’d never asked, and now seemed as good a time as any; yes, we needed to get out of here, but for the moment we seemed secure and I had to admit, I was in no shape to travel just yet. I needed a few minutes to catch my breath. At least it didn’t seem like anyone had started pounding on doors looking for a couple of escapees just yet.
“I took the train,” she said matter-of-factly. “When you didn’t come back Saturday night I booked a Sunday morning ticket and went to Rockville. I found Blackjack in the park - he was frantic, and he seemed like he wanted me to come with him. When I climbed onto his back, he flew me here.” She shrugged. “After that, I just followed the trail of monsters.” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know how all these college kids just don’t notice them, but I guess that’s the power of the Mist.”
“Right,” Percy said; he looked pretty proud, and I didn’t blame him. Annabeth was a smart, capable girl. More often than not, I had to admit that I was glad she was on our side.
“And then when you saw Medea take me to meet Kronos...” I murmured, and Annabeth nodded.
“I didn’t know it was you, but I gathered that you were a half-blood. I didn’t know where Percy was, so I hoped you might help me.” She offered me a small smile, then looked to Percy. “I’m glad you’re both okay, relatively speaking.” She glanced back at me. “Medea can be really dangerous. Especially if she’s working for Kronos.” She huffed a sigh. “And to think, I buy her sunscreen! Well, not anymore.”
Percy and I chuckled, but then all three of us fell silent, looking at each other. Now that the reunion was over, it was time to get moving. I pushed myself gently out of Percy’s grip, testing my balance - I still didn’t feel one hundred percent, but I was okay to move now. And we did need to move.
“So what’s the plan?” Percy asked. “I know we need to get out of here, but...” He flexed his fingers, and I knew why. He still didn’t have Riptide, and I didn’t have my sword, either. Annabeth was the only one of us who was armed, and that was only with the bronze knife that she always carried. Even though I’d seen her use it and I knew she was more than competent, I also knew that one half-blood with a knife would not be enough to get us out of serious trouble if we ran into it. And the likelihood of that was larger than the alternative.
And then I thought of it - the perfect way to get our weapons back. I held up one hand, stopping Annabeth before she could speak. “Wait,” I said, and knelt, placing my hand on the floor again. “I think I can get our weapons back for us.”
Annabeth frowned. “You can?” She glanced at Percy, but he just shrugged as I closed my eyes and concentrated, calling once more to the spirits of the lab rats I’d called earlier. I hoped they were still listening.
They were - after a moment I heard Annabeth gasp; I opened my eyes to see that the three ghost-rats from earlier had appeared before me, and I grinned down at them. You did a good job earlier, I said, petting the leader on the back with two fingers. Do you think you can do one more thing for me?
I sensed its assent. There are two things I need - these things, I told it, showing him a picture of our swords in his mind. I need you to bring them to me. Use your friends - bring as many of them as you need. Do you understand?
His eyes were bright, and he twitched his nose and squeaked excitedly. Apparently he liked my idea; I imagined a good number of rats had died for Medea’s experiments, and they probably wanted to get back at her any way they could. I didn’t blame them - in fact, I felt pretty much the same way. I still felt a little sick to my stomach when I thought about getting out of here without finding a way to turn back. I mean, I didn’t even know if there was a way to turn back. Why would Medea have bothered finding a way to reverse the process? I didn’t think that Kronos had been planning on changing me back and sending me on my merry way, had I refused his offer. No, I was pretty sure he’d planned to have me end up dead on the blade of Backbiter if I refused. I shuddered - dying once had been more than enough for me. I was in no rush to do it again.
In front of me, the rat slipped away from my fingers and, together with his two friends, turned and scurried off through the wall. I pushed myself up off the floor, looking into the curious faces of Percy and Annabeth. “They’ll find our swords and bring them back to me,” I explained, wishing they wouldn’t look so stunned like that. I’d always been able to talk to dead things - it just hadn’t been as easy, I thought, admittedly with another uncomfortable twinge.
Percy spoke first, cracking a smile and nodding. “My boyfriend, king of the dead lab rats,” he joked, and reached out like he was going to ruffle my hair. Only my hair was much higher than it used to be and he stopped mid-motion, settling for running his fingers down my arm instead. “Sorry,” he said a little sheepishly. “It’s gonna take a while to get used to this.”
“Yeah,” I said, starting to feel miserable all over again. It was.
Annabeth coughed a little, and we both turned to her. “Look,” she said gently, looking me in the eye, “even if there’s no way to turn you back... it’s not so bad, right? You’re still healthy, and you’re obviously stronger. If you’re going to be the half-blood in the prophecy...” But then she trailed off. I guessed there was no bright side to that. Now I understood completely how Percy felt - having the weight of Olympus on your shoulders was something no mortal, half-blood or not, should have to carry. I wondered how I could have thought that Percy had it easy, even for an instant.
“Hey,” Percy said, and this time he reached out and took my hand, squeezing my fingers in his. “You said before that I wasn’t alone. And you’re not, either. Okay?”
I bit my lip, looking into his eyes, and I could see that he was sincere - as sincere as I had been when I’d said it to him. I hadn’t been willing to let Percy face his decision alone, and now I could see that if the decision was going to be mine instead, he was willing to do the same. That meant a lot - and it honestly helped to quell the fear starting to pool in the pit of my stomach. The cold, worried feeling wasn’t completely gone, but it also wasn’t as overwhelming as it had been.
“Yeah,” I said, swallowing and nodding. “Okay.”
A second later, I was momentarily surprised as Annabeth put her hand on my shoulder. I turned around to see her watching me, her grey eyes just as focused and determined as Percy’s. She smiled at me, and I couldn’t help but return it. Knowing that she was willing to help, too, squashed down a little bit more of that fear.
“Okay,” she said after a minute, “As soon as Nico’s... um, rats bring back your weapons, we have to get out of here.” I nodded - she wasn’t going to get any arguments out of me on that one. Maybe we should have thought about trying to stop Kronos here and now, but honestly all I wanted right now was to get as far away from him as possible. We were outnumbered and outmatched, even with our swords. If we were going to take down the Titan lord, we’d need a better plan, and right now we just didn’t have the resources. Annabeth knew that, and so did Percy. And so escape became our only option. “We’ll have to be on our guard,” she added, glancing at the door again. “Someone is bound to notice them and follow - ”
She immediately fell silent. An instant later I knew why - there were sounds outside, like shuffling. Someone was walking down the hall. All three of us practically stopped breathing, not moving and trying to stay as silent as possible.
It was hard to tell whether the shuffling was coming or going, or even how close it was. But finally, it seemed to stop, and after a few seconds Percy let out a very quiet breath, glancing over at me and Annabeth.
Annabeth had just started to nod and give him a thumbs-up sign when the door flew open, revealing two large telekhines blocking our only exit on the other side.
One raised its head and shouted, “They’re here!” just as the other lunged forward, intent on grabbing whichever of us he could get his hands on first.
But I wasn’t going to give him the chance. If we were captured, we’d only end up separated. Kronos wasn’t going to be happy with any of us, and me least of all. In my mind, I saw images of him torturing and killing my friends in order to get me to agree to become his new body. Once he knew that I wouldn’t be swayed by his bribes, I knew he’d turn to threats. And he was going to make those threats a reality, and there would be no way I could stop him from doing it.
I couldn’t let that happen. So I did the only thing I could - I grasped the backs of Percy and Annabeth’s shirts and seconds before the telekhine’s hands could touch any of us, we melted backwards into the dark.
*
All I could think was, Up! Annabeth had said we were in some kind of basement, and I thought that if we got to the ground floor of wherever this place was we’d stand a much better chance of actually finding a way out. It was probably too much to hope that we’d end up outside. Or in China. China would’ve actually been nice, right about now.
We didn’t come out in China, though. We came out on the landing of a stairwell between two floors (I guess that’s what I got for thinking up), with the steady sound of people talking and footsteps just below us. I tried to raise my head to look, but then I was falling backwards and it was only Percy and Annabeth, each catching me under one arm, that kept me from collapsing to the ground.
“Ohh,” I moaned, wishing the floor wasn’t trying to pretend it belonged in a disco. It was certainly spinning like it thought it did. “Why is the staircase moving?”
“It’s not,” Annabeth said, and I got the impression that she was looking at Percy over my head. His fingers tightened around my arm as the two of them tried to haul me to my barely-responding feet.
“Nico?” Percy asked, and I felt his other hand touch my forehead. “Shit, you’re freezing,” he said, and then I felt the fingers of Annabeth’s free hand touch my arm.
She drew a sharp breath. “He’s right,” she said, as Percy tried to wipe my bangs out of my eyes. “Are you all right?”
I wasn’t, really. Maybe sixteen year-old powers weren’t as reliable as I’d first thought. “I feel sick,” I mumbled, as someone pushed past us on the stairs; they looked like they were on their way up to a class or something, binders and notebooks clutched to their chest.
Percy and Annabeth looked at each other for a second before tightening their grip and helping (well, mostly carrying) me down the stairs and into some sort of large, echoing hallway. They carried me across from the steps so I could lean against the wall; there was a water fountain there and Percy managed to run his hand under the water for a second before brushing cool, damp fingers across my forehead. It felt nice, and I tried to smile at him, but even that hurt, a little.
“Where are we?” Annabeth asked tensely. “And can we not do that again?”
“Seconded,” I croaked, even if I was the one she was asking. We would definitely not be doing that again. Not unless someone had a sword pointed at one of us; and maybe not even then, I thought tiredly. One more trip like that and I didn’t think I’d come out conscious on the other end. “We can’t have gone far.” Bringing two people along for the ride was more than twice as hard as one, and I couldn’t imagine I’d gotten us very far from where we’d been.
“Uh...” Percy looked around, then took his hand away from my face to point to the wall opposite us. There was a sign on the wall that read “10-250” and had an arrow pointing up the staircase. I didn’t know what 10-250 was, but we probably didn’t want to go there. “Near 10-250?”
“Great,” Annabeth muttered, in a tone that said this information was entirely unhelpful. She looked around, her ponytail brushing past my cheek. “From the looks of it, we’re still at MIT... I remember coming this way, I think...” She pointed down the hall to our right. The place just seemed to keep going and going and going... “Massachusetts Avenue is that way - there’s a student center across the street.”
“We should head there - try to get lost in the crowd,” Percy said. He glanced at the steady stream of people flowing in two directions down the long hallway. “Then we can figure out what to do next.”
Annabeth nodded. “I agree.” She looked at me again. “Can you walk?”
I tried to straighten up, taking a slow, careful step as their hands hovered just under my arms. “I think so,” I said, aware of how tired and spent I sounded, but determined not to slow them down. I didn’t want to separate if we didn’t have to, but I told myself the second I became a liability...
“Okay. Then let’s go.” Annabeth turned and took off down the hall, walking slowly enough that I could keep up but still with a sense of urgent purpose. Percy fell into step beside me, the hand that had been under my arm sliding down to my elbow and hovering there as we walked. I noticed that he’d put himself between me and the crowd of people, so the wall was directly to my right and Percy to my left. It was kind of sweet, I thought, smiling tiredly to myself.
“What about the rats?” he asked. “We’re still unarmed.”
That was a good question. “If we’re still close enough... they’ll find us,” I said. “They’ll be able to find me.” I knew that I shone like a beacon to those that had passed on - one of the pros (or, just as often, cons) of being half-lord of the dead. If the rats were anywhere nearby - and they probably were - they’d be able to locate me.
Percy nodded, and then we fell silent as I put most of my concentration into walking as normally as I could.
This place reminded me of the Labyrinth, in a way - it was like a never-ending hallway, with doors on either side and the occasional hall intersecting the main one at a right angle. Most of the doors had frosted glass and were labeled with numbers that changed with the buildings, though not in any order I could discern. There were bulletin boards in between the doors with all sorts of flyers posted up, advertising everything from movie nights to swordfights hosted by something called the Society for Creative Anachronism. I wondered what they’d think if they knew they had an ancient witch and Titan lord plotting humanity’s doom right underneath their noses.
The crowd of people began to thicken, and ahead of us things sounded louder, the sounds echoing back to us. It looked like we were approaching some kind of lobby, and I could just make out doors at the other end with narrow vertical windows letting in the sunlight. But just as we passed a blue papered bulletin board advertising showings by the MIT Anime Club, something happened.
At first I couldn’t figure out what it was. But then I realized that the noise behind us was dying out. I stopped, which made Percy stop two steps later and he turned, asking, “Nico? What - ”
His eyes went wide, and when I turned around, I knew why.
Behind us, at the other end of the long hallway, was Kronos. He was flanked by five telekhines and his two dracaenae guards, all of which were armed. He was carrying a weapon as well, but it wasn’t Backbiter - it was Kronos’ scythe, and he was using it to stop time ahead of and behind him.
The people between him and us were slowing until they’d almost stopped; they seemed completely oblivious to what was happening as the Titan lord who still looked like Luke Castellan walked forward leisurely with his monsters a few paces ahead of him like an honor guard. Papers fluttered off the walls in slow motion as he approached, and then he raised one arm, lowering it as he said, clearly, “Take them.”
That was when Percy grabbed my elbow, and together with Annabeth we turned and ran for the doors.