Finding the Sun

Chapter 26

"We finished it!"

The yell came from Leo, hair still aflame, yelling across the main room to the various demigods and agents dispersed about it.

"Get Garcia over here so we can test if it works," called Nyssa, equally as excited as her brother.

At the words of the two demigods, the room immediately bursted into excited chatter. The new traceable demigod-usable phone had taken longer than Leo had anticipated, as tech never seemed to agree with Nico and the phone kept malfunctioning whenever it was put into contact with mortal technology, but Leo finally thought he cracked it. Now all that was left to do was have Penny track it to see if she could find an accurate location.

"Okay," Leo rushed out, shoving the phone into Nico's pocket, "take this, and go shadow travel somewhere else. Don't go too far, but try to go somewhere hidden or underground or something. I wanna make sure the thing really works."

"I think I should go somewhere high up, actually," the younger boy said, raising some eyebrows. Upon seeing the looks he received, Nico elaborated.

"I'm just thinking, if I'm higher up, I'm further away from the underworld. The less I'm connected to my father's domain, the harder it is to draw on my powers. I know that technically Aster's mom isn't an underworld goddess, but she pretty much made Tartarus her home-away-from-home. If I had to guess, I'd say Jackie would take Aster as far away from it as possible."

It was a good point, actually. One none of the demigods had considered before, and Aaron silently cursed the boy for only thinking of this lead until after the demigods had already dedicated themselves to a ridiculously dangerous plan.

Anyways, it didn't take long for the demigods to agree, so Nico quickly jumped over to some highrise in a nearby major city, and Penelope got to work. It didn't take long before she could get an accurate pin on his location, and Nico returned to them. The demigods were smiling, and while the team was glad it worked, their enthusiasm was less palpable. Aaron was in general still a nervous wreck, although he displayed that particular emotion by emulating a very angry looking stone wall.

Regardless of the hesitancy, Nico was already preparing for what was sure to be a difficult jump. Aster was one of his best friends, so finding her should be easier than it would be for someone else, but it was still difficult.

He was sitting quietly, intensely focused, although any observers wouldn't be able to begin to guess on what, but they knew not to disturb him. Hazel was hovering slightly, shoving extra ambrosia and nectar into his backpack, before Frank grabbed her hand and pulled her away gently. Soon after, Nico opened his eyes.

"Okay, I think I can feel her. I don't think she's too far, she's definitely in this state.," he said.

It all felt a little too final for the team's sake, as Hazel immediately went in for a hug, squeezing her brother tightly and wishing him good luck, and the rest of the demigods followed suit with various wishes of luck and the like. It almost seemed like they weren't confident that Nico would be coming back, and the team didn't like it. Whenever an agent went on a dangerous outing, everyone else made sure to make it feel like a "see you later". It struck the team then, that these kids had just as much experience as they did with running headfirst into their potential doom.

And it wasn't fair. All Aaron ever wanted was to keep his children and loved ones away from the danger that plagued his life, but there was no way to keep Aster from this. All of this was so, so unfair. But he couldn't accept just doing nothing.

"Bring me with you."

The room paused for a second, and Nico, who already had one foot in the shadows, halted.