The three boys stay stationed outside of Apollo's Music Shop for about ten minutes after they walk out. They had all agreed to go north, as the prophecy said, but where? Where north do they need to go?

They all sit on that thought and make thinking faces and get virtually nowhere, until Calum repeats the line:

You shall go north, to be joined by Death's child.

To which he determines that "Death's child" has to mean the Underworld. So Calum decides that going north would lead them to Hades, which Ashton is definitely less than excited about. The idea of going into literal hell and meeting with literally the king of hell itself makes his skin prickle with goosebumps. He wants to stay in the music store and play on Apollo's gorgeous guitars. Is that so much to ask?

Apparently so, because soon afterwards, they are using Luke's compass to navigate through Nashville's dense countryside, bushes stabbing Ashton's legs and twigs snapping under his shoes. Storm clouds dance over his head and no matter how hard he tries to lighten his mood for them to go away, they stay. Angry weather tends to follow him wherever he goes. At least now he has an explanation.

Ashton flicks curly hair out of his eyes and stomps furiously on a spider that was scuttling under his feet. Calum shoots him a cold look, which Ashton pleasantly ignores.

"How much longer until we get there, Calum?" Ashton asks. He tries not to sound whiney, but he's pretty sure it comes out like that anyway. Calum lets out an audible sigh.

"I don't know. Until we reach a body of water, I suppose. That's where the entrance to the Underworld is. Through bodies of water, I mean," Calum says. He fumbles with his collar, already folded to perfection, but he messes with it anyway. A nervous habit.

Ashton hates bodies of water, but he doesn't say this out loud. He isn't exactly opposed to the proposition that Calum might one day burst and give him a look so poisonous, venom will course straight through his veins. He looks at his feet and stomps on a few more spiders. He hates spiders. For some reason, they seem to be following him almost as steadily as the storm is.

"I can't believe Apollo actually gave us a prophecy," Luke says. His long legs stumble along beside Calum. The dark haired boy gives a half-smile.

"Yeah. Can't say I'm not surprised myself," Calum says. He taps his fingers against his thigh as he walks. "He's known for being a bit of a drama queen. He's very powerful, but he likes attention and making deals between people in exchange for what he wants. Something bad must be happening if he didn't want anything in return."

"I wish we knew what it was," Ashton says. "I thought the prophecy would tell us that."

"Honestly, me too," Calum says. "We'll just have to figure it out on our own."

They walk in silence for a little while longer. Luke trips almost every ten minutes. Calum rolls up the sleeves of his sweater and collared button up. Ashton smashes spiders ruthlessly under his shoes.

Shielding his eyes from the sun, he looks up at the mountains. Tiny rooftops peek over the treetops, little bitty houses in a far away world. Ashton stares at them until his eyes burn.

"You don't suppose those houses might have phones, do you?" Ashton asks. Calum peers at him from where he walks ahead.

"Who would you need to call?" he asks. Not rudely, just curious. For whatever reason, Ashton hadn't expected Calum to answer. He stayed silent for a moment, and then shook his head.

"No one. Whatever."

Both boys know that's a lie, but neither of them say anything further about it. Calum, out of respect; Ashton, out of embarrassment. Luke, on the other hand, doesn't seem to feel the same need to ignore the lie.

"Your family?" Luke asks. Not asks. More of a statement, really. Ashton curses himself for apparently being so transparent.

Luke takes Ashton's silence as confirmation.

"It's not a bad thing, you know. I want to call my brothers, and my parents, more than anything. I haven't seen them in a very long time," Luke says. Ashton hates how kind and understanding his voice is. Ashton's not used to kind and understanding.

And because Ashton doesn't know how to respond, he uses his go-to word: "Whatever." Calum gives him one of his special deadly looks that seem to be specially reserved for Ashton. Ashton, again, ignores it pleasantly.

Luke, however, doesn't seem to be bothered. "Would you call your siblings?"

Ashton thinks through the benefits of lying again and draws a blank. "Yeah." This time, Calum turns his face and avoids looking at Ashton. Sympathy? Pity? For some reason, Ashton hates this even more than the rude looks.

Ashton is about to call him out on it when, suddenly, it feels like all the heat from Ashton's body has been sucked out of him. Extracted, as though something manually stuck a straw in his skin and pulled out all the warmth on his body. Ashton feels cold, icy, and one look at the other two boys tells him that they feel the same thing. Luke's blue eyes look even colder in the moment.

Then the darkness grows. He sees Calum ahead of him, no doubt trying to work this out in his Athena mind, but Ashton can't see any monsters in sight. Can monsters be invisible? Is that possible? Ashton is thinking it must be so, because the world itself was turning black. Not the objects or the sky or the ground, but the air. The air itself is darkening, turning first a light gray, and then a dark brown, and then black. It corners Ashton's vision, destroying his sight, and he reaches out into the blackness for something to grab onto.

He hears Luke yell, "What the fuck!" Not a question. A statement. Ashton agrees.

What the fuck.

The questions continue when, quite suddenly, he hears Calum start yelling, but his voice is muffled. Like something has been stuffed inside it. He hears a sword being unsheathed, and then the definite sound of the sword being clattered to the ground. Calum falls silent. Ashton doesn't want to think about what that means.

Then he hears Luke. The blonde makes an oof sound, something deep and solid. In the blackness, he blindly searches for him.

Ashton yells, "Luke!" He hears someone fall, their body slamming against the frozen ground. Ashton takes this as his signal to run. So he does.

Chills run down his spine. He isn't sure whether it is because of the sudden coldness, or because whoever, whatever, is the cause behind this, is doing it in complete silence. He doesn't even hear footsteps. It all seems very unearthly. Very other.

Ashton doesn't like it. He runs in the opposite direction, but before he can get far, something hits his shins, causing him to flail and fall. His elbows scrape against the dirt. Before he can move, hands grab his wrist and pull them together, tying them securely with a knot. His ankles meet the same fate. Ashton squirms, but to no use.

The blackness doesn't fade in the least. His mind starts to grow foggy, like he's on the edge of sleep. Which shouldn't be happening, because Ashton is anything but tired. He's wired, actually. In every sense of the term.

But his head swims. His eyes grow painful and dry. The blackness grows to the corners of his brain, and slowly, slowly but steadily, it takes over his mind.

---

When Ashton wakes up again, he feels like he has been dumped in a pit of black paint and spun around in a circle twenty five times until his head was spinning.

His hands and ankles are tied. Something very dry has been stuffed inside his mouth. The world is no longer black, and his heat has returned to his body, but he is completely immobile. The monster who attacked them is nowhere to be seen.

Ashton turns his head and sees Luke and Calum also tied and gagged beside him. Both look just as confused as he is. Calum jerks his arms, but whatever tied them up knows how to tie a knot. Ashton looks forward and sees all of their weapons and backpacks out on the ground, out of their reach.

"Damn, it!" Ashton says, except he's gagged, so it comes out sounding like, "Am eh!"

Luke makes a muffled sound in response. They squirm and toss and struggle but nothing even so much as loosens.

And then, miraculously, the monster comes into view, pointing a very sharp, deadly looking weapon at them. It's a sword, except it's possibly the most deadly looking sword Ashton has ever seen in his life. It's not as long as theirs, but it's sharpened to a point, and is so black and so dark that it seems to be extracting light from everywhere around it. The aura around the sword is hazy and dark. As their captor points it towards each of their faces, he can feel icy coldness radiate from the blade.

Calum is staring at the sword with wide eyes.

Ashton looks into the face of the monster, and then he stops moving. Because it's not a monster.

It's a boy.

The boy is strikingly pale with clearly dyed black hair that sticks in every direction possible. He has light green eyes under furrowed eyebrows, and lips set in a thin line. Everything about him eludes darkness. His clothes are black. Around his neck is a necklace with some kind of animal's or perhaps even a monster's teeth on it. Ashton's blood runs cold.

The sword held towards them doesn't tremble. Ashton makes the assumption that he probably has killed people with that sword before.

The boy doesn't make a noise. In his hair, tucked behind his ear, is a small yellow flower. It is so unexpected and utterly friendly-looking that Ashton doesn't know what to think for a moment. His dangerous expression doesn't change. The flower continues to sit behind his ear.

Ashton decides that he is still nobody to mess with. The guy made the world black and stole all their heat from their bodies and then single handedly defeated three boys with weapons on his own in a matter of five minutes. Not to mention, he's the one pointing a sword at their throats while they sit all tied up and defenseless. Ashton isn't taking any chances.

The boy lifts his chin. "I'm going to ungag you all so you can speak. Don't make any moves or I will slit your throats. Understand?"

They all three nodded their heads. The boy ungagged them and dropped the cloth on the ground beside their weapons. The boy resumed his spot in front of them with the sword.

"Who are you people?" he asks. His voice is oddly soft for someone so dark.

Calum is the first to speak. "We're demigods from Atlanta. We're following a prophecy given to us by Apollo. We promise we don't mean any harm."

The boy considers this for a moment. "How do I know you're telling the truth?"

Calum looks overwhelmed. "About which part?"

"I know you three are demigods. I can sense it. But how do I know that if I ungag you three, then you won't try to attack?" the boy asks. The sword in his hand moves from Calum to Luke. Luke look very stricken.

Ashton stares at the boy. "I'm pretty sure we would be defeated if we tried that. Again."

The boy moves his sword from Luke to Ashton. Then Calum, staring at the sword, speaks up again.

"We can prove we're not lying," Calum says, "because you're in our prophecy."

The boy turns his sword to Calum, but Calum doesn't flinch. "Explain," the boy orders.

Calum explains by repeating the first stanza of the prophecy.

"You shall go north, to be joined by Death's child,
And face the house of the cursed and exiled.
One must be trapped in the depths of the earth,
And one friend's betrayal will soon be unearthed."

The boy has gone very still. His sword remains perched at Calum's throat, but his gaze intensifies. The flower behind his ear slips a little.

"Death's child," the boy says. Calum and the boy look at each other so intensely that it seems like nothing could break it. "A child of Hades."

"That's you," Calum says, except it sounds more like a question than a statement. The boy holds very still for a few more moments, and then he drops his sword, just a few inches. It now points toward Calum's kidneys.

"Yes," he says, and then he drops the sword completely. He plants it into the soil under his feet, hilt still sticking in the air. Ashton releases a breath. He didn't realize how anxious he was until the sword was no longer a threat. "Tell me your names."

"Calum," says Calum.

"Ashton," mumbles Ashton.

Luke's answer is slightly delayed. He starts and says, "Luke."

The boy stares at the three of them. After a moment's hesitation, he says, "I'm Michael."

After the words were spoken, the air brightens a bit and a bit of warmth returns to Ashton's veins. The entire aura of their conversation seems a little less cold, a little less foreign. Michael sits beside his deadly sword and blinks at the three boys. The three boys blink back at him. Then Michael unties all of their limbs.

It's not until Ashton can move again and he sees a spider crawling around his ankles does he realize it.

Michael.

Michael.

Ashton squeezes his eyes shut. He can feel the spiders crawling across his skin. He can feel his body tighten, trapped in that cavity, dirt smeared over his face and his legs. He can taste the name on his lips. The curse he damned it with afterwards.

He opens his eyes. Michael is still sitting there. He looks a lot less intimidating than he did before, all huddled and small-looking on the ground. He fixes the flower behind his ear. His finger traces patterns in the dirt. He has a moody look on his face, but Ashton's not sure if it's because he's Michael or because he's Michael, son of Hades.

Ashton doesn't realize how small-looking Michael is until he isn't kicking all of their asses in three seconds flat. Ashton's mind is at a dichotomy. Michael himself is a dichotomy. Ashton doesn't know what to think.

He looks at the spider crawling across a piece of grass. He leans toward Luke. "Are you sure we should trust him?"

Luke looks at unease as well. "Calum seems to. I'm not sure what to think."

Calum stands up and begins picking up his backpack and weapons. Michael watches Calum out of the corner of his eyes. Ashton sees how close the hilt of his sword is to his hand. The way he subtly watches their weapons with a keen eye. Ashton realizes with a start that Michael is just as at unease with them as they are with him.

Ashton and Luke retrieve their own weapons, and then they sit back down again because Michael still is. His eyes are still lowered. His fingers have gone still in the dirt.

"So. If you're Death's child," Calum says, with a pause. Michael nods. "Then the next line of the prophecy is to go to the land of the cursed and exiled."

"The Underworld," Michael says. His face seems to brighten. "I can take you there. I need to talk to my dad, anyway."

Michael plucks another yellow flower from the ground and puts it behind his other ear. Then he yanks his terrifying black sword out of the ground so suddenly, Ashton's heart leaps into his throat. Michael merely slips it into a sheath connected to his belt.

"How do you get there?"

Michael stands up and grabs what looks like a backpack from a nearby bush. "I can shadow travel us to the shore and we can take a boat to Hades."

"Shadow travel?" Luke echoes. Michael's eyes flicker up to meet Luke's.

"Yeah. There's some shade underneath the tree over there. Enough for me to make it to the shore of, I don't know. North Carolina?" Michael says. He slips his backpack on his shoulder. Ashton wonders where Michael was traveling to before they trespassed over his area.

Calum shrugs. "Okay. Okay, sure. Thanks."

Michael doesn't say anything, but he stands by the tree, stepping into the shadowed area. Ashton half-expects him to disappear, but he doesn't. Michael holds out his hands.

"We all have to be touching," Michael says gently, "for it to work."

Ashton grabs one of his hands. Luke grabs the other. Calum grabs Ashton's other hand, and they all check to make sure they have everything. Michael's hand is absolutely freezing against Ashton's, like ice runs in his veins. Chills travel down his spine.

"Okay," Michael says. His voice is soft. "Hopefully I'm energized enough."

On his last syllable, the shadow seems to start spreading around them, the blackness squeezing through their fingertips and swallowing the air around them. The air grows darker, the same way they did beforehand. The temperature drops.

For the second time today, the last thing Ashton sees is black.

---
A/N: thoughts about michael??? he's extremely dangerous and probably more powerful than all of them combined yet he speaks very gently and loves putting flowers in his hair

went to the zoo today and looked at the giraffes and the first thing i thought of was luke hemmings is that bad?? 5sos is in my blood

thanks for reading. hope you enjoyed! comment your thoughts and leave a vote if u wanna be my bff :):):):) hows that for bribery

see you in the next chapter! love you to the moon bye