Percy Jackson and The Council's Army

18. The One Where They Make A New Friend

(Recap: "Yeah. Let's go. We move forward, we need to drink flames. To survive. "
"Flames? You mean the river-"
"Well well well, what do we have here!"
That voice froze us in our tracks. We were still weak due to the air here, and we couldn't fight off many monsters before drinking the flames. We certainly weren't ready for a titan.
"Bob." Annabeth said, shocked and with a broken voice.
"Bob! You're alive!" She exclaimed.
"I'm not Bob, I'm Iapetus. And yes I'm alive, but you're not gonna be once I'm through with you." He growled, brandishing what looked like a scythe.
Uhh... Oops.)

Everyone drew out their weapons. I had my twin blades, one of them the modified version of riptide and the other the temporal sword - Skylar's gift. Skylar had an ugly looking black sword that had pointy teeth like scales protruding out of the main body. Reyna had a golden glowing sword, Thalia had notched a silver arrow in her bow, but her shield Aegis was strapped against her back along with her celestial bronze spatha. Only Annabeth seemed so dazed by the titan's apperance that she'd gone numb. She just kept staring at the Titan muttering 'bob you're alive'. She even said 'he would've been so glad to see you alive'. That one hit close. We all knew she was referring to me, but they didn't know I was there. True, I would've been glad to see him, but I had taken stock of the situation. He may have helped us, but upon close observation I could see he was Iapetus, not Bob. His expressions, his regal stance of a proud titan, his furrowed brows, his fixated glare on Thalia Grace, everything. This wasn't the titan me and Annabeth had treaded through Tartarus with. This was the titan that me, Thalia and Nico had defeated and thrown into the Lethe. He was back - apparently with a bllodlust and vengeance, and so were his memories. That explained why he glared at Thalia. If he'd known about me though, I'm sure it would've been much worse.
But I didn't have much time to contemplate my next move, because Iapetus started the attack. He lunged at Thalia with blinding speed. Thalia of course being a hunter with centuries of experience was as nimble as Arion on her feet. Hmm, come to think of that, Arion was supposed to be immortal as well, but didn't see him anywhere with Hazel. Huh. Stupid ADHD, making me think of a super swearing horse during a life and death situation. Meanwhile the fight was on, and Thalia had just been attacked. She raised her bow to block the scythe and tried to lodge her arrow into Iapetus' leg. Keyword being tried. Iapetus saw the move coming and simply put his armored arm in between to deflect the arrow. The force broke the arrow and was enough to send Thalia stumbling back a few steps. Meanwhile Annabeth was out of her daze and had her drakon skin sword out. Iapetus was just about to strike Thalia when Annabeth came in between and met his scythe mid strike to deflect it with her sword and kick Iapetus in the gut. The kick was hard enough to knock Iapetus off balance. Wow. These girls have gotten so much stronger and agile than I remembered them. Reyna stabbed her sword through Iapetus' legs and he roared in pain. Meanwhile Thalia had recovered. As soon as Iapetus tried to get up, he stumbled on his stabbed leg and could rise only one leg, leaving him in a one legged kneeled down position. Thalia kicked his jaw hard enough to deliver a knockdown blow, so he was again on the ground. The moment Iapetus recovered and got up, the three girls attacked the titan in perfect unison, slashing and stabbing different parts of his body and made quick work of him.
Meanwhile me and Skylar both could only watch in fascination. Soon Iapetus was defeated, and all that was left of him was some golden dust, that was already disappearing.
"You've done this before haven't you?"
Skylar asked them.
"If by this you mean killing Iapetus then no, but yeah we've worked together before." Thalia said, not even breaking a sweat let alone panting. Wow. Looks like the Sulphurous air hasn't had a high intoxicating effect yet. Skylar just nodded, a bit impressed at the show of teamwork.
"Before any more monsters or titans find us, we need to get going. Like Annabeth was saying, we need to drink fire. The river Phlegethon."
Thalia said. We all nodded, but Reyna asked the question probably on everyone's mind.
"How do we find it?"
"I think I can sense it. I'll lead the way, follow close behind." I said.
"You can feel it? Are you.. A son of Poseidon?" Annabeth asked.
Damn that Athena brain.
"I'm a man of many powers Annabeth, yes water is one of mine, but it's also one of the many. It doesn't make me a son of Poseidon just like having thunder powers doesn't make me a son of Zeus." I decided to be a bit indirect in the answer. No lies, no truth. I'm not a son of Poseidon because I have water powers, I have water powers because I'm his son. So indirect.
"Oh. Okay, then. Lead the way." She said a bit dejectedly. At what, I had to no idea.
I just started going with the feeling in my gut. Skylar was following close behind me, while Annabeth, Reyna and Thalia were a few paces behind, with Thalia glancing behind every once in a while to make sure we weren't being followed or surprise attacked from behind. "I'm already feeling out of place here you know, seeing their friendship and teamwork. They don't trust us as much as they should on a quest as dangerous as this." Sky whispered to me.
"I know Sky. Trust me, even I'm feeling a bit out of place. And it eats me that I can't do anything about it. We'll just have to be patient and let time do the trick with those trust issues I guess. " I whispered back. She just nodded.
A few minutes later I could feel something familiar in the air. The smell, the temperature, the moisture, the humidity, everything. We had either passed this place last trip or were very close to Phlegethon.
"We've been here before." Annabeth said.
"No. I think we'd have realized if we revisited such a ghastly place. I for one am pretty sure I've never seen this place. Thalia said.
"Yes Annabeth. Don't worry, we're not going in circles."
"I meant me and Percy had been here before. This is familiar territory. Either we're very close or we've passed through this place the last time we were here." She said, her voice breaking slightly when she said my name. "I can't say about your last trip, but yes we are close to a river." I said.
A few minutes later we reached our destination. The river Phlegethon.
"We have to...drink this?" Reyna asked with nervousness apparent in her voice.
"If you wanna stay alive in this hellhole then yes you'll have to." Annabeth said.
"Is it safe? I mean its fire after all!" Thalia said a bit nervously.
"We won't burn while taking it in our hands to drink it, if that's what you mean." I assured her.
Soon enough we'd drank the fire. And not burnt, to everyone's relief.
"Okay now where are we supposed to go to? Annabeth you remember where you saw those titans the last time?"
"I do. But there's a major problem. We have two very big obstacles on our way." She said, a tinge of fear apparent in her voice. When we all looked at her questioningly, she continued
"Nyx's mansion. We'll encounter her and her children during our journey. And to say that they don't like us would be an understatement. Even if we miraculously got out of there alive, we'd have a far bigger problem then that. The arai." She visibly shivered when she said arai. I couldn't blame her. Most of the nightmares I'd had about this place were either the meeting with tartarus or the encounter with those arai. Even I flinched when I remembered that. So much so that Skylar grabbed my hand and squeezed it to calm me down. Thalia did the same to Annabeth. But my reactions couldn't escape their experienced observations.
"You seem to have a history with these arai things commander. They roam freely on the upper universe somewhere? In another planet or something?" Reyna asked, scrutinizing me.
"No Preator. These creatures are found only in the depths of tartarus. As to my history, I have a history, that is correct. I'd rather not talk about it right now, at least while we're here, if you don't mind." I said. Not that I could tell them either way, that would practically give away my identity.
"Yeah well, even if I did mind, it's not like you tell us everything. Heck you don't tell us anything. So I'm not surprised in the least." She said, staring at me like I'd broken her sword.
"Look Reyna, if this is about that spy problem, I swear I just hid it to make it fair to everyone. My intent was never to hide it because I distrusted you all. I wouldn't even be here if I didn't trust you." I said, trying to make her trust me. "It's not just that commander. You never seem to trust any camper. You never hang out with us even when we're supposed to be fighting a war side by side." She said a bit frustrated. I was about to retaliate when Thalia chipped in "Yeah all I've seen since I came is you act serious all the time. You seem to hold yourself in such high esteem and above ourselves. And you don't give us explanations for anything. You just expect us to take your word for it." This time I had no answer. Turned out I didn't need one because they weren't done yet. Annabeth, apparently feeling left out, added "We don't even know what kind of a person you are. Heck we don't even know what you look like! You just came walking one day with an army and now you act like you're a God and can do anything!"
Come to think of it, they actually had a point. I was so engrossed in hiding my identity I took all of their trust for granted.
"Okay. Yes, I accept full responsibility for whatever you said. I did all that, and I'm truly sorry. You'll understand one day why I did what I did, but until then I promise I'll avoid hiding things from you as much as I can. I'll start right now in fact. I'll tell you something I should have told you a long time ago. I've been here before."
I expected either complete silence till they let it sink in then an outburst, or an immediate outburst. But to my surprise, it never came! Instead of being angry, the girls just rolled their eyes at me.
"Wh.. What? You think I'm lying?"
"Of course not. But we figured this one out the moment we saw you leading us to the river."
"But I said I could feel the river, and that was true!"
"We're not talking about the path you led us through. We're talking about your eye expressions and your body language. When you shivered at Annabeth's mention of the Arai you just confirmed it for us."
"Oh." I felt dumb. I looked at Skylar for support but she looked a bit irritated.
"As much as I'd love to praise you girls for playing flawless Sherlocks, I think this quest is kind of a time bound mission. We should hurryup. We can have this conversation later."
We all nodded. I hadn't completely recovered, but decided to put it at the back of my mind. We all headed towards where Nyx's mansion was supposed to be. We had our weapons out, but we all hoped it wouldn't boil down to a fight. Soon enough we reached our dreaded destination. We realized that because the terrain started getting much darker and colder than from where we'd come.
We could barely see a thing.
"Where is she? Last time we were here some of her children were here as well." Annabeth said.
"Children? You mean there are kids here? Hey then they must be friendly! If we get them to like us maybe Nyx will let us go!" Thalia suggested.
"Trust me, even if miraculously Nyx let's us go, their children won't. They're anything but friendly." Annabeth said.
"Why thank you young godling! We always love when people praise us, don't we my brothers and sisters?" came a cold voice from somewhere to our left. Then came the muttering and whispers of many voices, but the sickening thing was all of them were discussing of various and very painful ways to torture and kill us. We were clearly outnumbered. We couldn't fight off all of them, this was their own domain after all. To add to all that there was Nyx herself. A primordial in her own domain. No, if it came to a fight I was certain it would end badly for us. I needed another approach altogether. I passed on this message to the four girls through mind message. Skylar nodded, but the other girls were a bit taken off guard about me suddenly talking inside their heads. Nevertheless, they recovered and nodded. I could already see Annabeth had that 'thinking deeply' look, the one with her signature frown and furrowed eyebrows. But it was Skylar who spoke first. "Nyx! Show yourself, or are you too scared to face us?"
To our surprise, no Nyx came. Instead, her children started laughing loudly at us.
"Ya'll finally gone insane living in the dark for too long?" Thalia asked.
"You dare not call us insane you stupdi huntress. It's our mother who's gone insane. But we took care of that."Now that my eyes had adjusted to the darknesd, I could see that the speaker was a boy who looked around my age. He was smirking evilly.
"Took care? What do you mean took care? Where is Nyx?"
He smiled cruelly at us, snapped his fingers and suddenly we were engulfed in a dim light. The light made us realize that we were in some sort ofa dungeon. That however wasn't what gobsmacked us. What we saw in front of us did. There was a huge cage right in front of us. I realized it was made up of temoporal steel. Virtually unbreakable. The shock though, was the person sitting inside the cage. Nyx. The power emanating from her was also not as much as we'd expect from a primordial deity.
"What! What is the meaning of this?" Reyna asked looking at the children of Nyx. They just faux smiled at us.
"Oh well mommy herr didn't think end's side would be a good side. Something about 'not making the same mistakes twice' or something. But we wanted to be with the winning side, so we decided to give dear little mom a break! Isn't it great!" One of the girls said.
"You're all crazy. We'll show you who the winning side is." Skylar growled.
And we did the natural thing demigods do when they're outnumbered and stand almost no chance of winning. We drew our weapons and charged. They charged back. There were eight of them. Me and Skylar took five of them while the three girls had one for each of themselves. Fighting with our backs to each other just like me and Annabeth used to, we defeated them. It took us a little longet thanthe girls, but we did it. They were Nyx's children, but staying here in the dark didn't give them much time or opportunities to train themselves. When Skylar stabbed the last one and he faded, we turned to the girls to make sure they were alright. They just stared at us. "What? Is there something on my face?"
"How long have you two been fighting together?" Reyna asked.
"Centuries. Why?"
"That explains it. Your teamwork is flawless. Good job there."
"Yeah good job killing my children, all of you." came Nyx's bitter voice from her cage.
We'd totally forgotten about the imprisoned primordial.
"Nyx. I'll be pretty straightforward. On whose side are you?"
"Yours of course! Why else do you think I'm rotting in this cage?" she snapped.
"Even after we killed your children?". "They were not my children! They were a disgrace to my legacy! And like I said, I learn from my mistakes. I'm not going to support end in this one."
"We can't take your word for it, I'm sorry but you don't exactly have the reputation of being trustworthy. We'd however like to give you a chance." Skylar told her in a matter-of-fact tone. "I'm willing to take that chance your majesty! Just let me prove myslef to you!
"Swear on the styx that you're on our side, swear that if we let you out of here you won't attack us or try to extract revenge on any of us. Then perhaps we can get you out of here." Skylar put forth the condition.
"I swear to abide by the terms just as you described them. But in case you haven't realized, thie cage is temporal steel, unbreakable. I don't think I'm ever getting out of here." She said sadly.
"I can take care of that for you Nyx. But first you must swear that you'll never tell anyone what you're about to witness." I said seriously.
Once she swore, I concentrated and my palm lit up. Purple flames started dancing on them. Everyone exceot Skylar looked awestruck. I melted the temporal steel cage using the fire. Eventually I created a big enough hole for Nyx to get out. But even Nyx looked too taken aback to move. I had to shake her out of her reverie.
"That's hellfire. She whispered as if talking to herself. Meanwhile the three girls were also letting it sink in. Realization seemed to dawn on their faces. Annabeth was first to speak "You're Assassin hellfire." She breathed. "You're the Commander of the Council's Army! You're the one Fritz reports to!" Reyna said.
"Yes. I am all of that. Sorry for not telling you earlier, but it was for your own safety."
"We understand. It's okay." Reyna said.
Once Nyx was out of tha cage, she said "Thank you. You've done me a favour and I owe you one now."
"Yeah well, you could repay us by helping us in this journey if you can." Annabeth said.
"Annabeth Chase. So you're immortal now huh. Where's your boyfriend? He dead?" She said to Annabeth. It hit a sore spot for Annabeth. Her muscles tightened and she gripped her sword so tightly her knuckles white.
"That's none of your business Nyx. Just tell us if you can help us." She responded with clenched teeth.
"Well, I can't help you on your journey within this place, but I can give you these." She said, handing me 5 black pearls.
"What are they?"
"They're your getaway out of here. Crush then and you'll be transported directly out of tartarus. I know you don't have a way back, so this saves all of your lives if you succeed. Also, take this wool." She produced a wool roll out of thin air and handed it to me. "What's this for? You want us to sew when we get bored?" I asked a bit puzzled. She rolled her eyes and said "No. This will lead you to the titans. You will face many monsters on the way, but not the ones you most dread."
"Ones we most dread? Wait you mean we won't encounter any-"
"arai yes. You won't. Now go, you don't have much time, neither do I. I'll go to my realm in Celestio and make ammends with Chaos and my husband Erebus.
"That's very helpful. Thank you. Also Nyx before you leave can you tell us what this beast guarding the titans is?"
"Why of course I can. But I thought you'd have figured out by now. End couldn't get the most powerful monster to do his bidding because you ride him. So he went for the second best." She said and left.
Reyna, Thalia and Annabeth looked confused but me and Skylar had pale faces. When they looked at us confused we said "The gypsican dragon. The most violent and feared of the predators in the univerese. I told you about Filos didn't I? Well just imagine a dragon almost that powerful but million times more dangerous and voracious than him. You'll get a fair idea." They nervously gupled.

(A/N : PLEASE BE PATIENT, UPDATES MIGHT BE SLOWER TILL THE TARTARUS QUEST IS COMPLETE. VOTE, COMMENT AND SHARE YOUR VIEWS. LIKE ALWAYS CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IS APPRECIATED.)