The Daughter Of Bellatrix And Ares

Chapter 4

Piper POV:
We ran through the halls of the House of Hades hoping to all the gods that we were going the right way and that Nadia was all right wherever she might be.

We finally got to a large open room in what looked like just in time.

Hazel was fighting a shadowy giant by herself with what looked like the goddess Hecate standing to the side watching. Leo was force feeding a mostly unconscious Percy ambrosia while he murmured "Bob Bob Bob" and Annabeth was watching Hazel, struggling to sit up.

Coming to the rescue Jason flew at the giant kicking him in the head, Hazel and Frank attacked his feet, Nico sucked the darkness coming from the giant out of the air with his sword, Leo blew fire at his chest, and I slashed through the chains at the doors on Annabeth's command.

To end the giant's life Hecate turned her torches on his head and the flames swallowed him whole. Then she disappeared, with a nod towards Hazel, leaving us to find our own way out.

We all ran to Percy and Annabeth greeting our friends with hugs and smiles.

"It's good to see you guys again," Annabeth said smiling at us.

We all agreed but before we could talk more the ceiling groaned once again.

"We have to get out of here," Jason said.

"How?" Nico asked, "the way back is blocked off and I don't have the strength to shadow travel all of us right now."

"I'll help you" Hazel said "it can't be that different from manipulating the mist."

"What about Nadia" Frank asked "we still don't know where she is."

The people that weren't with us when she disappeared looked around in confusion.

"What happened to her?" Leo asked, looking worried.

"In the middle of the battle she disappeared and we don't know what happened" I explained "Nico says she not dead but she's also not here"

The ceiling groaned again and dust and bits of stone fell on us.

"The ceiling's going to fall, if we don't go now none of us will survive" Nico observed.

"But we can't just leave Dia," Percy argued.

"She might not even be here anymore, she could be perfectly safe somewhere else but if we don't leave now we're not going to be!" Nico shot back.

We all joined hands and then the shadows overtook us just before the ceiling collapsed and tons of rocks crumbled where we were seconds before, no one could survive it.

~~~

Leo POV:
We landed on a grassy hill a couple hundred feet in front of the now collapsed house. As we walked towards the Argo ll we exchanged stories.

Apparently Frankie got a good ol promotion while I was running through a fake maze, fun.

Percy and Annabeth didn't want to share what happened in Tartarus quite yet but it's okay because we got to my baby without any time for them to do so anyway.

Noticing us Coach Hedge poked his head over the railing and yelled down at us "took you long enough! You kept your visitors waiting!"

"Visitors?" Jason asked as two people moved into view.

One was a dark haired girl dressed in gold armor and a purple cloak. I recognized her as Reyna, the praetor of Camp Jupiter, you know the camp I bombed? Yeah fun times.

The other was a man with dark red hair tied at the nape of his neck, sunglasses, and a leather jacket. He was smirking slightly and I disliked him immediately, he was scary.

The three of them walked down to us and as we got a closer look at them Percy said in a hateful tone "Ares?"

"Jackson" the god replied in the same tone, "you all survived, I'm glad" spoiler he didn't sound glad.

"What are you both doing here?" Hazel asked carefully.

"Annabeth said that if I wanted peace I had to come here and bring the parthenos to Camp Half-Blood" Reyna replied looking at the statue with admiration. "It looks new"

"It wasn't hard" I replied with a shrug "just a bit of Windex and wahla"

"And you?" Nico asked looking at Ares like he didn't quite trust him.

"I just thought you kids might want to know what happened to my daughter" Ares replied with an easy grin that set my nerves on edge.

"You mean Nadia?" Piper asked, taking a half step forward.

"Who else would I be talking about?" Ares replied.

"Well?" I prompted impatiently.

Ares waved his hand and, probably with the help of Iris the rainbow goddess, an image appeared in mist.

We saw Nadia fighting with her twin swords moving so fast they were just flashes of bronze. She had her fighting smile as I like to call it on and was twirling and flipping around as she cut down monster after monster. She was even a better fighter than Percy although not a lot of people know it, being a daughter of Ares it comes naturally to her.

She was just about to attack some empousai when the ground opened up beneath her and swallowed her closing immediately after she fell looking like nothing happened.

The scene changed and now we were looking at a brightly lit expensive looking hall/room full of kids in robes. Suddenly the ceiling opened and Nadia fell out landing in the middle of the hall on her back with a groan. She jumped to her feet swords in hand then froze as she noticed where she was. "this is ancient Greece" we heard her say.

An old man with a long beard stood up and started talking to her. Nadia refused to tell him her name or go with him until he told her what was going on but he didn't seem to know either. She finally left the hall with him after glancing towards the ceiling seeming to hear something in her head.

The last image we saw of Nadia was her leaving the hall glaring at the students and gripping her swords.

The mist disappeared and Ares turned towards us once again. "See she's perfectly fine"

"She's not perfectly fine she doesn't know where she is or what's going on and neither do we!" Annabeth said glaring at Ares.

"She's at the school she should have been going to since she was eleven. It will be good for her."

"But why would you bring her there in the middle of a war, in the middle of a fight? Couldn't you have waited until we beat Gaea?" Frank asked, looking confused.

"No" Ares replied simply "this couldn't wait, you guys don't understand."

"Then explain it to us!" Percy said angrily.

"No" Ares said again, "I can't."

"Well why not?" Piper yelled.

I understand how she feels. I'm angry too. Although Nadia always rejected me she still laughed at a lot of my jokes and even joked and pulled pranks on the others with me. I stopped asking her to go out with me after she told us she was asexual but we were still really good friends.

"You all will understand in time but until then continue to fight Gaea and let me worry about Nadia"

I opened my mouth to argue as did everyone else but before we could even say a word Ares disappeared leaving us confused, conflicted, and hurt.

Written January 14 2021
Published February 5 2021