The Prince of Asgard kneeled in silence. His flank rested calmly on his feet while the tips of his toes and his knees were pressed into the fiery rock floor. The Prince had been locked away in the deepest and darkest parts of the pit, only Tartarus' daunting voice left to keep him company. He'd been stripped to nothing more than the tattered remains of his now ragged black combat trousers.

Heavy chains crafted out of the remainder of his armor were what banded his wrists together, tightly knit indestructible industrial sized chains wrapped his arms together at the hands and trailed up the rest of his recently lashed body. The chains hung around him in an odd majesty as they held his broken bloody wings in place. A thick stygian iron mask was bound around his face, with only two narrow slits for eye holes. The torture meant for him was as extensive as hell itself could give.

The pit rumbled slightly. That was the Prince's cue, he had to move quickly as the building rose up out of the ground around him. After a moment it was evident that he had once again successfully survived the mysterious building that had kept following him. His captors never took long to recapture the Prince no matter how many times he escaped them, there was always the problem of the chains. Fashioned from the remnants of his indestructible armor, the hide of the Leviathan that had been molecularly remodeled to be created out of Chaotic Platinum, the strongest metal in the universe. He was literally unable to break out of them.

He had been stripped of much of his power, the only things that remained were the things that could not be taken away from some such warriors. Pride. The Prince would always have his pride, he knew that no matter what horrors Tartarus instilled onto him, he would forever keep his head high. The Prince was too proud to give hell the satisfaction that he so sought.

It was because of a last minute sacrifice that the world above him was safe, despite how temporary that might be. He discovered that through his successful ploy to take Tartarus with him, that the power needed to keep the Prince incarcerated would require Tartarus to remain in slumber at all times, for the rest of eternity if he wished to keep him down here.

Gaea was forced back into a peaceful sleep, like Hydros. The Primordials were no longer an imminent threat to Olympus, Asgard or anyone else for that matter, all because of the champion of Chaos. He had his duties and he fulfilled them to a text book definition. Chaos picked well, she sought someone who would be selfless enough to take the dive when the proper time came, and he did so, without any hesitation of where it would take him. A major player in Gaea's plans had been permanently taken out of the game, and if Gaea ever forced him to return, the Prince would break free.

The horrors that had been inflicted upon him were not easily forgiven or forgotten. He was saving every moment, every lash and cut that he received in the pit, and when he did eventually break free, he would give every second of the pain right back to Tartarus. A blood debt, to be paid in full.

Tartarus had taken away from him the one thing that mattered the most, Artemis. He knew that she was alive and well somewhere out there, and that was his driving force, the one thing that kept him sane down here.

Time moved slower in the pit, slower than the world above him. One day in here was only a couple of minutes in the world above, and for what that was worth, the Olympians, Artemis, was well aware of that. How much time had passed for them while he had been here? He would have to wait until they captured him again for him to be brought back to his cell, the markings that he'd crudely scratched into the wall were what told him of his passage of time. They were the only thing that had reminded him of the time lost that he could have spent with Artemis. The anger welled deep inside his soul but for one trained so well he let it simmer and it slowly boiled his blood as his anger briefly overcame him. Whenever it did on rare occasions overwhelm him, something else in the pit would die, permanently. Last time it had been a Cyclops unlucky enough to taunt him about rape, something that he could never forgive, and something that he would never condone, not even to his worst enemy.

The Prince knew that the reason for his outburst had been from spending a lot of his time with the hunters of Artemis, girls that had been scared by men and could not waiver in their man hating ways, all except for one individual, the Prince himself. He had become an exception to them, a living piece of evidence that there was at least one man in the world that they all unanimously trusted their lives with.

"Perseus Jackson." A thunderous voice boomed out from behind him. The stygian iron mask prevented him from craning his neck properly to see who the voice belonged to, but he could guess as to who might be the one to call him Perseus after all of his time here. He was thrown into his cell roughly as the one with the booming voice seemed to be slowly closing in on his captors. The Prince paid very little attention to the outside of his cell as his fingers nimbly felt across the scratched wall. Two years? He had been down here for two years? The scars were evidence enough of his hardships. How much time had passed on the world above him if it had only been a fifth of a decade here?

It could only have been a month at the most, surely?

"Perseus Jackson, when the Titan lord of time beckons your attention, you do well to answer his calls rather than play around with a wall." The booming voice called out once again. The Prince slumped against the wall so suddenly that it cracked and the room rumbled slightly. He may have been severely restricted and incarcerated for two years but he still had power, natural power that could not be taken away from him. His physical strength, fortitude and mental resistance were all great factors that had resisted in him being nicknamed 'Defiance' by the lesser monsters of the pit. They would all witness him being tortured but in his entire dreadful time in hell, he never once screamed out, he never once begged. He had never once spoken a word to any being in the pit. The Prince of Asgard hadn't spoken to a living soul in two years.

The Prince was a walking silent rage, his power only ever increased, but it was now common knowledge that no matter how strong he became, his own armor had become his downfall, for it was physically and magically indestructible, no forces in the universe, not even Chaos herself could unbind him, or such was the common thought. There was however an old legend that had been refreshed in the Prince's mind every day of his life in the pit, a small spark of hope that he held onto feverishly. The hide of Leviathan was not naturally a strong material, but it was dependent on the qualities of the wielder. Naturally the Prince was one of the strongest beings in the universe, or he had been at one point, therefore the armor would only have become that much stronger, but he knew for a fact that he would never give up, he would one day break the chains that could not be broken, he would do the impossible. The Fallen Angel would rise once again.

The Prince slowly turned his head to the one who had decimated his guards. Kronos, the once morally decaying Titan had become an ally to the Prince on a very special visit to the pit where he had delivered Otrera the ex-Queen of the Amazons. Kronos had promised to make her time painful but he doubted that she would ever receive a fraction of what Tartarus himself had set out to instill on the Prince. Kronos had long since set himself on the path to redemption.

"That's right Jackson, you remember me do you not? It has been a long time since your arrival, your arrival which was hidden from me. I only found out when your very captors came after me. They try so hard to defeat the once great Titan King, but they always fail. I heard your name uttered and pressed on it." Kronos continued to speak as he extended a finger at the obsidian prison cell walls that kept the Prince confined. A slow caress burnt the door to black ashes that was swept away with ease.

"Of course, there is nothing that can be done for your binds, not by me at least, but I would not have the one person who does not belong in the pit, the one person whom I have come to be fond of, spend the rest of eternity down here from a turn of events that had unfairly been placed on him." Kronos kept explaining his reasons and all the Prince could do was raise an eyebrow, not seen by Kronos because of the stygian iron mask that encased the Prince's body.

"Come, we must get you to the death springs, from there I am certain that I can do something about the sorry state you seem to be in." Kronos told him, leaving the prison cell immediately. Something was wrong, something wasn't right for the Prince, excluding the fact that he didn't belong here, he felt incomplete. He hadn't had his armor for two years but it had never truly left him, it was just refined into his permanent incarceration, and no longer served to become his protection. It was his weapons, Yggdrasil and Baninir. They had been firmly out of his grasp for two years, but he could feel their power all around the pit, the unique signal bounced off of the rocky cavernous walls as if seeking their master. It had always called out to him, never able to become one with him. The Prince had never been able to get to it for every time he tried he was stopped with some new daunting punishment. The pure power that rolled off of Yggdrasil was enough to draw anything remotely near it. The Prince could not do this alone, but maybe with the help of Kronos, the two of them could triumph.

If he could reunite with Yggdrasil, then he could break free of the indestructible chains that tormented him just as much as the monsters of the pit. "Once we get to the death springs I can summon energy from Zeus' master bolt. The unlucky souls who get sent here from the master bolt never have the capacity to outlast that wretched thing, so the excess energy bounces, it reflects until it can be contained within the death springs. The black water is more dangerous than the Styx or Lethe combined and throughout the ages had contained the bolts that Zeus had directed here. I believe that it can heal you to a state where you would be able to defend yourself here like me." Kronos continued. The Prince had been planning on bolting towards the source of the energy signals the moment he was clear and free of the building that constantly chased him, every time it emerged from the ground there was a fresh supply of monsters to try their hand at capturing him.

The Prince silently nodded in agreement as Kronos led the way to the death springs that held the rivers of black waters and universal powered lightning bolts.

Line Break

It was over, he was gone and there was nothing left for her, no shred of armor, no weapons, not even a final kiss. She felt her cheek subconsciously, hoping that some way his lips had still been pressed there firmly. If she could get an imprint then she would never let go of her face again. The stream of tears that poured over her fingers were enough to tell her that it wasn't going to happen, no matter how hard she tried, she could not pull him free of Tartarus' grasp.

Artemis felt a set of warm hands wrap around her shoulders before the feeling of disorientation had washed over her. They had teleported out of the throne room, but she shouldn't have felt disorientation unless they traveled to a new realm, one that she had never been before. Looking up she found herself staring into the obsidian black eyes of Lady Chaos. The Primordial creator of the universe stood up and slowly extended her hand to the crying Goddess. Artemis took the hand but nearly fell to the floor, she was too weak with her shattered heart and emotions to be taking things quickly. Chaos pulled an arm over Artemis and they walked silently to a small room that looked like a forest.

"Why am I here?" She asked Chaos very quietly as they both sat down in a comfortable silence in a perch under a tree.

"You do not need to be in that realm at the moment. It will bring you nothing but pain and suffering. I brought you here because honestly I need some emotional support as well right now. I had slowly begun to see Percy as a son. I picked him did you know? You were watching in the throne room when my essence first appeared, but I'm omnipotent Artemis, even though Odin suggested his son I performed an unbiased scan of the entire universe, and yet I picked him above all else." Chaos admitted. Artemis' head shot up abruptly only to see Chaos with weeping eyes herself.

"My daughter, Nyx. She had always seen him as a little brother. A little brother that she could help get into trouble and help get him out of trouble. She was there when he brought Ares to my realm. They had become so close. He means a lot to all of us Artemis, that's why I brought you here. We know your pain, we feel it too." Chaos explained quietly. Artemis could hear nothing but the sad truth in her words.

"I have already set in motion a plan for his freedom, but nothing we do will affect it in any way. It is something that they must do for themselves Artemis, and only when he has found what has truly empowered him this entire time will they be free of Tartarus' grip." Chaos wiped a tear from her eyes as their gazes met slowly.

"They?" Artemis asked her through a snuffled breath.

"Yes. Perseus has met an old friend in the pit. Kronos the Titan of time and the ages." Chaos explained. Artemis didn't know if she could handle anymore bombshells at the moment and silently waved it away to continue her crying.

"An unlikely friendship has been started and together the Prince and the King will escape the pits to save us all once more." Chaos said wistfully as she looked towards the artificial sky.