Fate Withstands

Chapter 13

Nico spent the days, or what he assumed were days (the sun didn't exist in the land of the dead), thinking about Percy Jackson and the war on the horizon.

He was guilty, guilty beyond measure, and he still couldn't believe that he had betrayed Percy. Would they ever go back to the friendship level they had? He wasn't sure if they would ever even be friends again.

But Percy had left him with a task. He wanted him to get Hades to fight. So that was what Nico busied himself with doing.

"You have to!" Nico insisted. He was following his father around the dinning room, hands moving as he spoke. Demeter and Persephone sat behind them at the breakfast table.

"I don't have to do anything!" Hades' eyes blazed. "I'm a god!"

"Father," Nico said, "if Olympus falls, your own palace's safety doesn't matter. You'll fade too."

"I am not an Olympian!" he growled. "My family has made that quite clear."

"You are,'' Nico said. "Whether you like it or not."

"You saw what they did to your mother," Hades said. "Zeus killed her. And you would have me help them? They deserve what they get!"

Persephone sighed. "Could we please not talk about that woman?"

"You know what would help this boy?" Demeter mused. "Farming."

Persephone rolled her eyes. "Mother-"

"Six months behind a plow. Excellent character building."

Nico stepped in front of his father, forcing Hades to face him. "My mother understood about family. That's why she didn't want to leave us. That's why she didn't want me to leave her when I went to war. You can't just abandon your family because they did something horrible. You've done horrible things to them too."

"Maria died!" Hades reminded him.

"You can't just cut yourself off from the other gods!"

"I've done very well at it for thousands of years."

"And has that made you feel any better?" Nico demanded. "Has that curse on the Oracle helped you at all? Holding grudges is a fatal flaw."

"For demigods! I am immortal, all-powerful! I would not help the other gods if they begged me, if Percy Jackson himself pleaded-"

"You're just as much of an outcast as I am!" Nico yelled. "Stop being angry about it and do something helpful for once. That's the only way they'll respect you!"

Hades's palm filled with black fire.

"Go ahead," Nico said. He was already dead, wasn't he? He didn't have anything to lose. "Blast me. That's just what the other gods would expect from you. Prove them right."

"Yes, please," Demeter complained. "Shut him up."

Persephone sighed. "Oh, I don't know. I would rather fight in the war than eat another bowl of cereal. This is boring."

Hades roared in anger. His fireball hit a silver tree right next to Nico, melting it into a pool of liquid metal.

Nico flinched, saw it come toward him just as a bullet once did. But he didn't see it melt like the others did. No, his eyes flickered to an old battlefield, and he felt bullets once again rip through his flesh.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The boy has PTSD, I've seen some other demigods do work with it. It's from trauma, Hades."

Nico kept his eyes closed but took in the sounds and smells around him. A strong feeling of home had washed over him.

"Even if he does, what am I supposed to do? I am ruler of the Underworld! There is a war above our heads!"