The hallway was dark, but for the dim glow from a celestial bronze sword.

They only sounds there were the heavy breathing of the 5 people there and the occasional drop of water from somewhere on the ceiling. Percy had suggested sending all the water back up into the sea, but Annabeth had stopped him, saying it would sound more empty with those soft sounds.

Reluctantly, he had agreed. Personally, he actually enjoyed it better that way. The soft hum he got we never he was near water never failed to calm him, and it hadn't stopped yet. He had managed to slow his thumping heart for a few minutes, just laying there and listening to the sound, before annabeth had grabbed his hand and pulled him away.

When they were crawling through the maze, he had only fallen once. Tripped on a smooth rock and fallen flat on his face, the sound echoing through the rest of the cavern. Piper had shot him a dirty look from the from further up ahead before she took off running to the other side. Fair to say, they got out of there fairly quickly.

Percy still had mixed feelings about the daughter of Aphrodite and now, 70 meters under the sea, awaiting a lurring sorceress, he had plenty of time to think about it.

He and Piper had never been that close. There was always thus strain to their relationship. They didn't really get along, but didn't want to cause problems in the seven, so the had agreed to be nice to each other.

But when Jason had died, it was as though she had forgotten all about their silent peace treaty. She would snap at him any time he tried to help her, sometimes even sending him off with her charmspeak. After a while, Percy had stopped trying to talk with her, and instead settled with being silent friends.

The problem was, Piper hadn't even been as bad as he'd thought she would be. She had told him she had broken up with Jason a few months before his death, but he hadn't expected it to be so... true. He had kind if been expecting them to make up within the span of a week, but they hadn't. Then Jason had died and Piper had acted as through she had lost a friend, not a boyfriend.

To be fair, it was a bit disappointing. If she and Jason didn't really like each other like that anyway, then why had they started dating in the first place? Piper said it had felt forced on them by Hera, but Percy couldn't begin to fathom why.

The godess didn't particularly like either of them, so why waste her time putting them together? Also, when they had met her, she had been chained to a prison cell, dying. So how had she had enough power to force them to fall in love. And even if she had, shy had the lis-

"Percy," Annabeth whisper-hissed. "Stand up. Nico thinks he saw something coming thus way."

That grabbed his attention. If Circe was coming, they needed to be quick if she got even the slightest idea that they were there, the whole plan would be a fail and they would probably have to wait a millenia before hey could attempt it again.

But, texhnically speaking, he wouldn't be alive in a millenia.

Annabeth gestured subtly to the side, indicating which direction to flee from if they needed to make a quick escape. A low sloshing sound echoed from somewhere to his left, and the son of Hades materialized to his left, looking noticeably brighter than he had for the past few years.

"The coast is clear. I can't feel a soul anywhere nearby, but we still have to be careful. Monsters don't have souls, and Zeus knows what she has waiting for us there." He said, waving his arms in vague signs as he spoke. It was a habit he had gotten from spending too much time with Magnus and Hearthstone, so much he could now almost understand ASL.

Annabeth nodded in agreement, and together they took off towards the blue pool. Percy could feel it was water, it brought the same humming feeling as every other liquid in there. But it had a strange pulse, as though it, unlike every other source of water on the planet, didn't like him.

He looked yo Annabeth, sympathy in his eyes. She seemed to get the message and turned around to tell Piper the news but was interrupted halfway as a gasp of pain echoed from behind Percy. They all turned back, to see Nico kneeling on the floor with a large spike sticking out of his abdomen, eyes wide and mouth open in shock. Then he crumpled forwards, revealing the hideous monster behind him.

The Manticore, better known as Dr. Thorn, smiled at them. It was unpleasant as the way his lips moved backwards caused his cheek spikes to clatter and scratch against each other in a most unpleasant way. It looked more than a grimace the a smile, as he slowly inched closer towards them.

Percy reacted first, lunging at him with riptide, aiming a slash at his bicept. It was easily intercepted with His tail, though, and was rebounded with a hit twice as powerful. Annabeth was next, throwing her drakon bone sword at him with such accuracy and speed he barely had time to turn away before it struck him at the side of his face where his eye had been mere moments ago.

The blow caused him to stumble backwards and clutch his head in pain. Percy moved for another blow while he was distracted while Annabeth made a wild grab for her sword. Piper used the opportunity to run to Nick's side, cradling his head in her lap.

He let out a pained groan, unsatisfied with His current position.

"Shh." Piper muttered, and Percy felt the irresistible urge to shut his mouth and never talk again. "It's okay. Just stay awake right now. You'll be okay." The charmspeak was so wrong that even from where Percy was standing he felt like he would never be able to sleep again.

But something sliced into his arm, and he tire his eyes away from Piper and Nico, looking back at his grinning opponent. His tail was swinging behind him as he stalked over the unmoving body of Annabeth Chase. Her sword was only a few inches away from her outstretched hand, but she made no movements to get it. Percy wasn't even sure she was breathing.

Dr. Thorn raised his tail in what Percy knew would be a killing blow. There was no possible wa6 her survive this. Then he turned to the side where Annabeth was and his eyes went wide.

Dr. Thorn turned sideways as well, curiosity getting the best of him, and Percy threw his sword at him in desperation. But Thorn was prepared, and with a swish if his tail Riptide was clanging uselessly to the floor next to him. He turned to Percy, smile fine, a grimace worthy snarl overtaking his features.

"You really thought you could use that trick on me, son of Poseidon?" He snarled, tail flocking threateningly around him. "You really think that I, the Manticore, would fall for a trick that old?" His steps were slow, threatening, but Percy knew that, for the plan to work, he had to stay still.

"You thought that you cou-" his sentence was cut short as a pale white knife emerged from the cremeses of his chest. He looked up in surprise, face twisting from shock to anger, and he made one last swing at Percy.

Just as his tail would have come in contact with Percy's side, he exploded in golden dust, showering the four demigod standing there.

"Ugh," Percy groaned, wiping the good from his eyebrows. "Leo should have gotten it open by now." He muttered, then they set off towards the door.

Within a few minutes they had arrived there, and Percy took moment to admire the pure beauty of the door. Then, he took the next to kick it as payback for holding his friends hostage.

"Khinone's gonna hate me for this." Leo muttered, lighting his hand on fire.

Piper snorted. "As if she can hate you more than she already does."

Leo stared at her for a moment with a look of fair hurt before chuckling softly and turning back to the iced block.

"So, Hazel and Frank are in...there?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

Leo nodded, but didn't turn around. His arm weren't on fire, but they were planted on the side of the giant lump of ice, glowing red. He seemed to be in great concentration, and a sheet of sweat was beginning to form on his face. He paused for a moment to wipe them away, then turned back to his work.

It seemed they had been waiting there for hours before Leo finally stepped back. He looked exhausted, but a wide grin split his face as he stared at the ice block. Not even a dent had been made, but for a few drops of water dripping down the sides.

"Done." He announced, gesturing to the ice.

"What?" Piper exclaimed, staring at it in horror. Her brows were furrowed together and her nose upturned slightly in confusion. "There's nothing there."

Leo grinned. "Well, of course there's nothing there. We need Percy to make an opening. But if my calculations are correct, there's an opening on their side."

Piper didn't look any less confused. "Their side? What's that meant to mean?"

"It means," Leo began. "That there are two dementions. One on our side, and one on Hazels side. What do you expect when an Ice godess and follower of Hecate team up?" He rolled his eyes at the last comment, and Annabeth slapped him on his elbow with her uninjured hand.

Something below took in a sharp breath and Percy was once again reminded of the bleeding son of Hades below him.

"Nico!" He gasped. "He's going to die of blood loss if we don't get him to a hospital of some kind soon. Have you tried some ambrosia?" He asked Piper.

The Kaleidoscope eyes girl shook her head. "Remember what Will told you? Ambrosia doesn't work that well on him. He said Unicorn drought is better. Only thing wrong is, I've already given him some. We're all out."

Annabeth let our an exasperated sigh. Of course they ran out when they needed it most. She was beginning to think leaving Will Solace back at camp was a bad idea.

"Well then, we need to move fast." Leo said, surprising all of them. For a moment, the daughter of Athena had forgotten he was there.

"Okay then, Percy. Do whatever it is you have to do to get us to the other side." Annabeth said, gesturing with her arm to the ice prison.

"Okay so Percy, I need you to feel the water on the other side of this glass." Leo commanded.

Percy nodded, then placed his hand on the partially wet area. His face was emotionless for a moment before his eyes widened in surprise.

"There's a lot of water over there." He warned.

Leo told him to do it anyway.

Sighing, he flattened his palm on the ice, closing his eyes in concentration. His eyebrows furrowed together, his mouth stretched into a thin line. The faint grey hair on the side of his face seemed to stand out now more than ever. Annabeth width realize she had been holding her breath, but felt herself breathe out in sale of when Percy pulled his hand back.

But the water seemed to be following his hand. As he took it away, little threads of water followed it there, swirling and twisting as they became thicker with more water each second.

Then she gasped. The ice seemed to be cracking under the pressure of an unknown force, and the Athena inside her told her that the only things that could do that were water and air. Glancing at her boyfriend, who's face was slowly becoming a light shade of purple, she decided it was water.

"Hold your breath." Percy gasped.

Annabeth barely had time to suck in a breath of air before the ice exploded. The force of the water was so hard she was swept of her feet and pushed backwards with what she guessed must have been a bruised rib.

Then she felt an arm grab hers. The water seemed to be pushing her backwards with less force. Then even less. Then suddenly she was shooting forwards into the hole in the ice.

Then everything went dark.

Not like it was much difference, as her eyes were closed.

●°○•●

Well, that's done. On a rate of 1-10, how bad was that?

I think it sucked.

Well, enjoy that very badly written chapter.

Updates in about 3 weeks.