They stood looking down the pit that Arachne had just fallen down

Tartarus

Annabeth shivered. Even just thinking about it sent shivers down her spine.

Despite this, a victorious smile lit up all of their faces. They had finally done it, the Athena Parthenos was theirs, the camps would be united.

For the first time in a long time, Annabeth was hopeful. Maybe, just maybe, their task ahead wasn't quite as impossible as it seemed.

The euphoric feeling slowly faded and Annabeth once again set her mind to the task at hand.

Looking up, she saw that Leo and Nico were able to get the Athena Parthenos into the hold of the Argo II. Although how they'd managed it was still a mystery.

Smiling, she set off towards the ship. Time to unite the camps and—

At that moment, she noticed three problems. One, there was a strand of cobweb wrapped around her left ankle. Two, that strand of cobweb was still attached to Arachne who was now falling down an endless pit into Tartarus. Three, she was currently being pulled across the floor towards that endless pit extremely fast.

She cried out, but even as her friends looked over at her in alarm she knew it would be too late.

In a last ditch effort, Percy leaped across the room, Riptide appearing in his hand as he did, and swung at the strand.

Thankfully, it worked just in time and she was able to pull herself up just before she was pulled over the edge.

Percy was not so lucky.

Time seemed to move in slow motion as she watched him fly over her head, the victorious smile on his face morphing into something else as he noticed where he was falling.

At the last second she reached out her hand and he grabbed it, it being the only thing keeping him from falling into the pit.

The gravity here was stronger like it was trying to suck him in. The pull increased and his hand began to slip.

"No!", she tried to adjust her grip, but he only fell farther.

He couldn't fall in. He just couldn't. There was no way to get him out again if he fell.

She called for Hazel, Frank, anybody. But they were too far away.

"Annabeth", Percy's voice was strained and his face was red and flushed.

She continued to frantically look around. Trying to come up with a plan, anything to save Percy. She was the daughter of Athena for Hades' sake! Why couldn't she come up with anything?

"Annabeth", his voice held more urgency than before and he slipped down again.

"Promise me. Promise me that you'll meet me on the other side".

"No! No, Percy I won't let you fall. Just hold on. They're coming, okay? Just hold on". Curse her sweaty hands, her grip on his hand wavered.

"If you don't let go than I'll pull you in with me. You have to let go, Annabeth".

She didn't want to believe it, but she could see that he was right. The stone that made up the floor was crumbling underneath her, and even from here she could feel the immense pull on her body.

"Promise me", he was more serious this time. Their eyes met and an unspoken understanding passed between them.

"I promise".

The last thing she saw before he slipped away into the gloom was those brilliant green eyes. She wasn't sure if she was ever going to see them again.

At that thought, she broke down.

She was still sitting at the edge of the pit staring at her hands when she heard Leo call from the ship.

"Percy, Annabeth! Come on! We have to leave before this floor caves in!".

At his name she almost choked up again, but she held back. She had to stay strong.

Finish the quest, rescue Percy, stop Gaea from rising. Simple.

Except it wasn't.

As soon as she reached the top of the rope ladder, she was bombarded with questions.

"Where's Percy?"

"Are you okay?"

"What happened?"

The Argo II pulled out of the cavern just as the floor finally collapsed.

After getting a good distance away from the hole in the ground that used to be Arachne's lair, everybody gathered in the common area for an emergency meeting.

After a few beats of silence, Jason finally asked the question that was on everybody's minds.

"Where is Percy?".

Annabeth has had some time to think while they were flying away. And in that time, her resolve hardened.

They were going to unite the camps, they were going to rescue Percy, and they were going to defeat Gaea along with every last stinking giant.

This reassured, she looked him straight in the eye as she answered.

"He fell into Tartarus. And he's counting on us to get him out".

—

Falling into Tartarus felt like it took forever. All he could see around him was pitch black, and the only sound was the whistling of the air rushing past his ears as he fell.

Percy knew that Annabeth had told him some things about Tartarus during their greek lessons together. He was now cursing his inability to pay attention as he tried to remember any scrap of information that could be useful to him now. regenerated.

A reddish glow began to come up from somewhere below him, steadily growing brighter as he plummeted towards the ground

As the ground grew closer and closer, Percy began to realise that there was nothing preventing him from becoming a demigod pancake once he hit the ground.

The area he was plummeting towards looked to be filled with sharp black rock spiking up at random intervals. When he looked around in other areas, he found that all of Tartarus seemed to be made of this sharp black rock.

It glinted in the sickly reddish glow from the sky, and as he looked out along the horizon, he realised that his destination wasn't even visible.

This was going to be a long walk.

Hopelessness began to creep into his heart.

He had made Annabeth promise to meet him at the doors. It would crush her if he wasn't there. He had to survive, for her.

He was just about to give up hope on that even being possible when he felt the familiar tug in the pit of his stomach.

Somewhere near here, there was water.

He concentrated on it, willing it to listen to him. It responded, but it was cold. Oh so cold.

He vaguely registered something that Annabeth has said about this river before he hit the water with a slap.

Even with his powers the river was not welcoming, seemingly hostile, trying to pull Percy deep into its dark depths.

This wasn't even on his mind, though. As soon as his skin made contact with the water voices began to fill his head. Making him so unbearably sad it was as though the river itself was made out of distilled misery.

Only his memory of Annabeth- her grey eyes sparkling- kept him from just letting the river consume him.

"What's the point?", the voices whispered in his head.

You'll never make it all the way across Tartarus.

You're all alone down here, you know.

You should just give in right now, it's easier.

He almost did, but suddenly, a memory filled his mind.

It was of Annabeth during one of their Greek lessons.

"The River Cocytus, or the river of sadness and despair. It's said that even just one drop of the water from that river is enough to make somebody kill themselves.".

He focused in on the details of the memory, the light reflecting off of Annabeth's golden hair, the faint smell of strawberries in the air, the twinkle in her grey eyes when Annabeth would catch him staring at her.

The memory drifted off, leaving him with a warm fuzzy feeling in his chest.

Using every remaining ounce of will power, he pulled himself out of the water, and collapsed onto the banks.

The black rocks he saw from above were as sharp and hard as glass, and they dug painfully into his hands as he pushed himself into the seated position.

The river had retreated to its banks, the strong smell of sulphur in the air being the only sign of its disturbance.

As of right now, he looked to be alone. But he could never be sure. This place puts a person on edge, you start to feel like you're being watched at all times.

He needed to move.

He scrambled to his feet, hissing at the pain that came when the sharp stones dug further into the palms of his hand.

From his initial drop into Tartarus, Percy had seen that it seemed to extend infinitely in either direction. So, without any knowledge on which way he should walk, he chose a random direction and started on his way.

The crunch of rocks under his shoes as he walked was almost soothing. He had no idea where he was going, but he figured that sooner or later the answer would find him.

After not long of walking, it started to get harder for him to breathe. Each exhale brought with it the metallic taste of blood in his mouth.

The stench of the pit was starting to get to him too. When he first landed, it was masked by the sulphur smell of the Cocytus river, but as he drew further away from it, the sickly smell filled his nostrils. Clogging them with the metallic sweet scent of blood.

In a sudden burst of inspiration that probably would have taken Annabeth thirty seconds to figure out, he realised that the air was poisonous.

"Everything about this place is deadly".

Percy was used to the constant noise of the Argo II, having been on it for the past couple of weeks or so. He missed always having somebody to talk to, so he had taken up the practice of talking to himself.

A foggy memory was hovering on the edge of his consciousness, but a sudden wave of heat pushed it from his mind.

The Phlegethon river. It looked as though it was made from fire, but it flowed like water did. Percy could even control it like water.

He was standing at its banks when he heard voices getting closer.

Not a moment too soon, he dove behind a large boulder and four empousai passed by.

He recognised one of them as Kelli. She had been disguised as a cheerleader at Goode high school and had tried to kill him and Rachel Elizabeth Dare at orientation.

Thankfully, they hadn't seen him, and continued on with their conversation.

"My arm hurts". One of the empousa that Percy didn't recognise was whining, and he peaked around the boulder so that he could see what they were doing.

One of the smaller ones was holding one of her arms which had a large wound in it. It looked painful, and he didn't blame her for whining.

"Just pour some water on it and let's go. We don't have time to just sit here. We have to get to the doors. I need my revenge on that no-good half blood Percy Jackson".

He stiffened at his name. This one he did recognise, it was Kelli. She must have regenerated since he killed her.

Something else about what she had said caught his ear, though.

The doors? As in, the Doors of Death?

It was the best lead he had, and he decided to follow it.

But first, he had to take care of his breathing issue.

It was getting worse. He had to spit blood from his mouth every five minutes or so, now. And it was all he could do to keep from coughing.

The last thing he needed was to get in a fight with three empousai when he barely had enough energy to lift his sword.

Finally, they began walking again. And Percy risked another glance.

The empousai were now gathered around the one with the gash in her arm. One of them kneeled down and cupped some of the fiery water between her hands.

Percy watched with interest as they poured more and more water from the Phlegethon into the wound. To his surprise, it began to shrink and finally closed up entirely.

The empousai continued walking, leaving Percy crouched behind his boulder considering what he had just seen.

He remembered Annabeth telling him about one of the rivers of the underworld that had healing properties. They used it to heal the wounds from the torture in the Fields of Punishment so that the torture could continue.

Pretty gruesome, but now he was considering it for an entirely different purpose.

Percy had fallen down with only limited supplies. His sword, Riptide, was always in his pocket. But besides that, the only thing he had had with him when he fell was his water bottle which was hooked onto one of the belt loops on his pants.

His breathing was growing more painful, and he could feel himself begin to get dizzy. This was his only shot.

Steeling his nerves, he walked over to the banks of the river and filled his water bottle with the fiery liquid. If the Phlegethon's water had healing properties, it should also be able to heal him from the poisonous air, shouldn't it?

Slowly, he lifted the bottle to his chapped lips and drank.

The water was really hot, and tasted terrible. But as it burned its way down his throat, he started to feel better.

The metallic taste of blood in his mouth was no longer there, and he found that he could breathe much more easily.

With relief, he leaned back against the boulder. The immediate crisis was over, but now he had to focus.

He couldn't lose those empousai, they were his only lead to the doors of death.

So he forced himself to his feet, filled his water bottle with the Phlegethon water and struggled forward again.

It was hard to tell how long he followed them. He remembered Nico telling him that time works differently in Tartarus and what felt like one hour down there could possibly be years on the surface.

They followed along the banks of the river, which was thankfully littered with plenty of large boulders for him to hide behind.

Thanks to their mismatched feet, they moved quite slowly, making it easier for Percy to keep up with them.

The landscape was just beginning to change when he started to once again taste the now familiar metallic taste of blood in his mouth once again.

He forced down more of the burning liquid, coughing slightly as it burned its way down his throat.

Through this he had continued walking, but then he noticed something.

The landscape was now completely different.

He was now in an almost entirely flat plain. The only disturbances for as far as he could see being the boulders that surrounded him now.

One more thing was changed.

Throughout his entire walk following the empousai they had bickered and argued, their voices floating back to Percy and creating a constant noise.

But now it was silent, and the empousai were no longer in front of him.

Where did they go?

The tingling on the back of his neck made him take out and uncap Riptide, letting it extend into his familiar sword.

In one motion, he turned around and swung, his blade making contact with the smallest empousai who had tried to leap at him from behind one of the boulders when he wasn't looking.

She immediately exploded into dust, but the other three emerged from behind their boulders just as fast.

They circled him like sharks, taunting him and licking their lips.

"Oh, a little fallen demigod. Delicious!"

"Now I will have my revenge, Jackson"

"Where's your little blonde princess, hero?"

The last comment made him angry, and he swung at the nearest empousa.

They were faster than they looked, though. And she quickly dodged.

They attacked together, and from all different directions until he could barely keep up.

One drew in closer to try and bite him, but a quick swing of Riptide saw her disintegrate into dust.

The other two screamed in rage and dove in to attack with their long claws.

He killed one more, but not before it got a painful scratch at his back, leaving the back of his shirt in tatters.

The wound burned, and he retaliated by turning her into dust.

Now it was only he and Kelli. She circled him viciously, but his patience was running low.

"Where are the doors of death?", he was surprised to realise that the tough crackly voice was his own. But he soon recovered, putting his sword against her throat.

She stopped her circling.

"You'll never make it, little hero. Mother Earth will rise, and you will be the first to fall".

"Where are they?!", he voice was lower this time, and he stuck his sword further against her neck.

She didn't seem to be affected by the sword, though, and just smiled at him with her fangs bared.

"Why should I tell you?"

He reached out with his mind and took hold of the Phlegethon river.

Calling it towards him, it arched over is head in a wave of fire and basked him in an ominous red glow.

"Because if you don't then I'm going to make you wish I had killed you".

His voice was low and his eyes flashed dark with anger.

For the first time, Percy saw a monsters face blanch in fear as Kelli looked up at him.

"Fine. Just follow the monsters. They're all going to the doors".

She tried to put as much venom into her voice as she could, but Percy could still see her warily eyeing the river behind him.

He nodded his head once, absorbing this information.

"So I can go now?"

He considered this. He had gotten the information he needed out of her. And she would most likely come back later and try to kill him.

"No"

With a swipe of his sword, she turned into dust and he continued on his way.