06:40 A.M. - Icefall, Serac Zone.

"How far now?" I shouted over the wind to Aaron.

Aaron looked at his watch. "We're not far now - just another three hundred feet! Just keep going!"

Jason groaned. "Three hundred? I could fly up this thing faster than climbing it!"

"Jason it's not that bad," Nico shouted, though he was shaking from the cold.

The weather started to pick up after the last twelve minutes. The snow literally ploughed into our faces, and I was afraid that we would all go snow blind from it. I heard once before that Jon Krakauer himself suffered from it from his time on Everest - it renders the person almost completely blind.

"Just keep going!" I screamed over the roaring winds, making my way slowly across the snow. 

We came to a ledge that was almost six metres high - without hesitating, I jumped up and swung my axe high. It just about reached the edge and I hung there. I reached up with my free hand and started hauling myself onto solid ground. Well, when I say ground, I meant more snow and ice which was starting to really irritate me.

For once, I just wished it was just one bare mountain without the snow and blocks of ice and that it was sunny. I just...wished Annabeth was here, supporting me in person. For once after being here for no more than a couple weeks, I was just tempted to say "Fuck it," and go home to her and the baby. 

Now that I mentioned it, I wonder how Annabeth was doing with coping with this. I was still slightly mad that Hera was there - I still had the nervous feeling that she was planning to do something with Annabeth. I decided to push the thought out of my mind and tried to focus on what Annabeth would look like now. I could see her blonde hair and her intense grey eyes; that small sly smile of hers (I wasn't the only one with a trademark smile); she wore a white blouse and light blue Levi's jeans and one of her hands was constantly on her stomach.

I dragged myself over the ledge and rolled over onto my back, the snow surprisingly cool on my back, somehow absorbing the sweat off my back. The others followed suit, but I was already getting back on my feet. No time for rest now, just keep going. I shouldered my bagpack.

"Going somewhere?" a new voice muttered behind me.

I turned around, as did the others and we were, I think, a bit surprised to see a well known mountain climber. 

Edmund Hillary was standing right in front of us.

He looked about thirty four, with short black wavy hair and a sort of crinkled face. His eyes were a shade of grey though it wasn't like Annabeth's eyes - his were the colour of grey marble. He wore an old fashioned mountain climbing suit and his black boots had spikes right underneath them.

He looked slightly annoyed.

I must admit, I was taken back - I knew that this wasn't THE Edmund Hillary; he died back in 2008 from a heart related topic. But this guy looked so like Edmund Hillary that it was starting to put me on edge.

"Who are you?" Jason demanded, his sword already outstretched. The sword sparked with live energy. "What are you doing here?"

Hillary cocked his head to the left, as if he was a curious dog. He even spoke in that New Zealand accent. "You know, you have a lot of nerves to be on my mountain. I must admit that it's been a while since children of the Big Three came here. If you must know who I am, my name is Everest - as in it's immortal spirit."

That immediately made Jason lower his sword. Not a good idea.

"Jason, keep the sword up," I ordered. If there was one thing that I've learnt over the years, is that you should always keep your guard up when coming up with new potential enemy.

Jason looked confused but he did as I said.

Everest didn't look like much but he did look strong - I could clearly see the muscles on his arms and legs. I had to admit, I didn't have any training against mountain spirits like Everest and I knew that his kind would have millions of years more fighting than I had. For all I know, this would be a problem - I couldn't even read his body language which is what I could normally do.

"Stay back Everest," Nico told the mountain spirit. His black sword was drawn and it was pointed in the direction of Everest.

Everest's face grimaced. Hazel once told me that mountain spirits hate all children of Pluto and Hades, mainly because they radiated the underworld's power. Everest didn't do anything to raise alarm, though he did give Nico a baleful look before he replied to the son of Hades.

"Don't tell me what to do, Underworld spawn," he spat. He turned to me. "What are you doing here, son of Poseidon? Don't you realize that the open air is dangerous for you?"

"That's none of your business," I snapped. "What are you doing here?"

Hillary - Everest - raised his hand and swept at me. I didn't know what good that would do, but instantly I was knocked off the snow and landed hard on my back. When I looked at what did that, I noticed that the snow was hovering in the air, and it seemed to be looking at me. It went to Everest's side and stayed there.

"Wondering what you're doing," the spirit answered back. "When demigods come around, it's my job to know what they are doing. The last demigod to reach the top of my mountain it was Hillary, and he was the one who deserved to reach the summit the most. I had no concern for Norgay, but from that point on I decided that maybe some people should complete their mountaineering dream of climbing me."

I goaned as I got back to my feet. "Then why are you here?"

Everest smiled. "I know you're here for the bolt."

My eyes widened. Jason's jaw dropped and Nico's eyes showed that he was alarmed. Aaron was several feet below us, possibly not knowing what we've ran into.

My shoulder radio buzzed and then Reyna's voice spoke. "Reyna to Percy. Percy, we've got a reading on the location board, but it appears that you and the others have stopped. What's the hold up?"

"Go ahead," Everest taunted. "Tell them you're in trouble. Let them come to pick you up - you're friend Frank Zhang won't get to you in time."

I knew that he was right - if something were to go down, Frank wouldn't be able to reach us in time and we would be long dead before any one else reached us. I had to get us out of here, as far away from the spirit of Everest as I could.

I spoke back through the radio to Reyna, putting on a forced tone of calmness. "Nothing to worry about Reyna. We just ran up to a huge wall of ice, but we're trying to see if we can scale it."

"Okay, just be careful up there - we don't need to call Annabeth and tell her that she might need to visit you in the hospital, do we?"

"No, we don't want to do that," I forced a smile. I turned the radio off and looked back at Everest.

"Where is the bolt?" he demanded. "Tell me and I'll let you pass."

In answer, I brought out Riptide - my fabled celestial bronze sword. As soon as it was brought out, it started making that riled rattle snake hiss. It glowed like it normally did.

"I ain't telling you, Everest," I told him. "No way."

Everest smirked. "Then you leave me no choice."

He lifted his left leg and stamped down hard into the snow. A shudder went through the mountain and the next thing that happened was unbelieveable.

A massive serac, the size of a million dollor mansion, broke from the massive wall of ice and snow and rock and crashed into the Icefall. The Icefall cracked and broke into a moving avalanche of doom. The Icefall collapsed under us and the whole thing left us falling on our backs. I looked at Everest, but the man vanished without a trace.

All of us screamed, "WHOA!" and fell onto our backs as the mountain shook and groaned. We tried our best to get back up but we ended up falling down again. Just then, Aaron came up after struggling to climb over the icy ledge. 

"What the hell is going on, mate?!" he screamed over the howling wind and crumbling Icefall. The mountain was literally groaning and roaring as I tried to shout an answer back to Aaron.

"We have to get out of here!" I screamed, pointing up to the mountain peak. "Keep climbing as high as you can, before we're really screwed!"

"What are we waiting for then?" Jason exclaimed, standing up and running to the next ledge. "Let's get out of here!"

"I'll drink to that!" Nico shouted, also joining Jason as they started to climb higher.

Before I had the chance to get to the next ledge, the ground shook harder than ever and the ground beneath me and Aaron collapsed. Jason and Nico yelled in shock and dismay. I quickly shot my arm out and grabbed the edge of the ice and held on for dear life. But I quickly underestimated the force of Aaron's weight when I grabbed his hand and my left arm snapped loudly.

I screamed in agony as Aaron started swinging back and forth. He was clutching my left forearm tightly, making my arm send trendils of pain through my whole body. 

I looked down at our current situation and I could see the massive slide of ice falling down the Icefall and I saw it head straight into Base Camp. I watched in horror as it collided with the camp - even from a distance, I could hear the screams of all the campers as the snow slide smashed into them.

"No!" I roared. "Damn you Everest!"

My voice sounded right through the roaring of the mountain. If Everest's spirit heard me, he didn't show it. As I watched, a massive cloud of white vapoured snow rose from Base Camp, like the souls of all the people who might have died in the avalanche were trying to form a group all the way to the Underworld.

Jason and Nico had gotten to the top and were frantically yelling at us to hurry and get out of there. It wasn't as easy as I thought. I tried to pull Aaron up, but my evidently broken arm didn't have the strength to do so and we were both hanging there in open air, with only me holding onto the edge of the Icefall.

"Percy, you got to let me go!" Aaron shouted at me.

I looked at Aaron, shocked. "What! There's no way in Poseidon's name am I letting go of you!"

"You have to!" the son of Hepheastus told me.

Another chunk of ice broke off to our far right. As soon as it fell from the never ending wall of thick ice, the icy ledge started to crack - it was evident enough to tell me that it wouldn't take mine and Aaron's combined weight. I knew it would break at any moment.

Aaron looked down at his belt and brought out a small radio. He clipped it to my belt. "That's the other radio for Command Tent! It's one of two that works better than the others! Now let go!"

"Aaron, I'm not -"

"Tell my girlfriend I love her! Tell my brother I'll watch over our family!"

"Aaron, please don't -"

Aaron didn't listen to me - he grabbed my left arm and forced my fingers off his. He slipped from my grasp and, with a final smile, he fell into the Icefall avalanche.

"AARON, NO!" I screamed, but it was no use. Aaron vanished into the collapsing Icefall, the snow smashing into him as he went out of sight.

Jason flew over to me and grabbed my right arm. "Come on! We need to get out of here!"

He pulled me up and without me saying anything, he flew us over to the ledge which was dangerous for him to do - the howling wind would've steered us off course. But he managed to land us next to Nico and without pausing to breathe, we ran up the wall.

I took one look back, somehow thinking in the back of my mind that Aaron would be there. But the kid wasn't. He died because I let him go.

I let him go...