Solangelo

Chapter 8

Nico

It was just as I remembered it. Pain and heat the second I slipped through the passage into Tartarus. It wash like breathing in slivers of glass in every gasp. Still, it somehow hurt less than it did the first time I was in this hell-hole (literally).

And yet, there was a since of relief as I went through the passage. I could feel again. Not emotions, I've felt that before I entered (unfortuneately). Now, I could feel the rough ground beneath my feet. The thick air around me. My hand didn't go right through the boulder when I touched it.

As I stood atop the cliff over Tartarus, I saw the swarms of monsters, demons and evil. That hallucination of Will was right. This was going to be a lot harder than I thought.

Right about now, I was really wishing I had my sword. At least then, I'd have something to protect me. But nope, I just have my charm and wits to protect me here. I guess it wasn't much less than I had the first time I was here. Granted, I had my powers (which at this point, did not seem to be working) so any monster attacks could easily be avoided.

As I stumbled through Tartarus, keeping under the cloak of the shadows, I thought of Bob. It was possible he has regenerated but in his day, he was a crazy powerful titon and anything with that much raw power would take years. Besides, who knows if it would be Bob that regenerated and not his worse half, Iapetus.

In retrospect, Tartarus wasn't all bad. Little dark, little gloomy and as always, full of dead people! It was much like a physical embodiment of my mind. All fucked up in all the wrong placed, surrounded by hate and horror. Yup, sounds accurate.

It is now, after spending apporximently 8 minutes here that I was near giving up. The last time I was here, I was just a lad, spry and able-bodied. Now, I have the spirit of an elderly man with bedsores from laying on the couch watching Grey's Anatomy and Doctor Who all day long. The struggle was all too real.

But in all seriousness, I had no supplies. If I don't get a drink of water in the next half hour, I will die and my body will be feasted on by some derranged criminal of the gods. Pleasant.

Suddenly, I tripped, falling hard against the ground. "Fuck a duck!" I cursed, probably a bit too loud. I looked up and what's when I saw him. Erebos.

Okay, don't get me wrong. I am not one to get involved with godly affairs or people affairs in general. I don't talk to people. I'm an anti-social nerd that dresses in all black and doesn't give two rips about anyone but my boyfriend. I know. I've been told all of these things many times. And they are all mostly true.

Keeping this in mind, I had one immortal being that I knew personally that didn't want me to fling myself off the closest tall building. Erebos was not this immortal being.

What Erebos and I have a complicated relationship. My father and him weren't friends (my father doesn't have any friends) but they agreed on many things and despite being on opposing sides in practically every war ever fought from the begining of time, they didn't constantly want to kill one another. The brought an idea to my father's pea-sized and narrow mind. When I first discovered my powers, I was kind of freaked out (as one would be if one minute they were standing at the urinal at the local Ruby Tuesdays and then end of with your pants down in the middle of the highway). My father, the wonderful and caring man he was took it upon himself to train me - or he called Erebos, the creator of shadow traveling to.

Erebos was a bit of a character. Loved pulling pranks and goofing off (one of the qualitites that my father loathes by the way), that sort of thing. Of course, he never did these things around Hades but you get the picture. Anyways, Erebos somehow got it in his mind that we were best friends. I don't have friends so you could imagine how I feel about this narcissitic buttcheek.