What is this? The god of the pit hissed. Why have you come, my disgraced son?
Damasen glanced at Cressida, a clear message in his eyes: Go. Now.
He turned toward Tartarus. The Maeonian drakon stamped its feet and snarled. "Father, you wished for a more worthy opponent?" Damasen asked calmly. "I am one of the giants you are so proud of. You wished me to be more warlike? Perhaps I will start by destroying you!" Damasen levelled his lance and charged. The monstrous army swarmed him, but the Maeonian drakon flattened everything in its path, sweeping its tail and spraying poison while Damasen jabbed at Tartarus, forcing the god to retreat like a cornered lion.
"Cress!" came Castor's voice from somewhere but she was panicked because she couldn't see her brother's ghostly form presumably from where he was surrounded by a horde of empousai. "Give me your thyrsus!"
"WHY?!"
"JUST DO IT!"
And Cressida drew her weapon, the pinecone with a sharpened point and she sent it flying through the acidic air of Tartarus' breath. And it stopped when Castor's hand closed around the shaft and the weapon glowed purple as Castor spun it in his hands as the empousai were turned to dust.
Bob stumbled away from the battle, his sabre-toothed cat at his side. Percy gave them as much cover as he could—causing blood vessels in the ground to burst one after the other. Some monsters were vaporized in Styx water. Others got a Cocytus shower and collapsed, weeping hopelessly. Others were doused with liquid Lethe and stared blankly around them, no longer sure where or even who they were. Cressida played into that, manipulating the victims of the Lethe with her purple fire as their minds may as well have been mortal with how easy they were to manipulate with nothing in it. Those monsters began fighting towards Castor, helping him hold the line and keep the monsters from the Doors.
Bob limped towards them, golden ichor flowed from the wounds on his arms and chest. His janitor's outfit hung in tatters. His posture was twisted and hunched as if Tartarus's breaking the spear had broken something inside him. Despite all that, he was grinning, his silver eyes bright with satisfaction.
"Go," he ordered. "I will hold the button."
Percy gawked at him. "Bob, you're in no condition—"
"Percy," Cressida's voice broke, "together."
"We can't just leave them."
"I know!" she cried, her tears no longer happy.
"You must, friend," Bob said before he clapped Percy on the arm, nearly knocking him over. "I can still press a button. And I have a good cat to guard me." Small Bob the sabre-toothed tiger growled in agreement. "Besides," Bob said, "it is your destiny to return to the world. Put an end to this madness of Gaia."
Cressida was still crying as she reached up to kiss Bob's cheek before he pushed her down as a screaming cyclops, sizzling from poison spray, sailed over their heads. Fifty yards away, the Maeonian drakon trampled through monsters, its feet making sickening squish-squish noises as if stomping grapes. On its back, Damasen yelled insults and jabbed at the god of the pit, taunting Tartarus farther away from the Doors.
Tartarus lumbered after him, his iron boots making craters in the ground. You cannot kill me! he bellowed. I am the pit itself. You might as well try to kill the earth. Gaia and I—we are eternal. We own you, flesh and spirit! He brought down his massive fist, but Damasen sidestepped, impaling his javelin in the side of Tartarus's neck. Tartarus growled, apparently more annoyed than hurt. He turned his swirling vacuum face toward the giant, but Damasen got out of the way in time. A dozen monsters were sucked into the vortex and disintegrated.
Castor's brightness had dimmed as if his spirit was beginning to fade as he tore through monster after monster with his sister's thyrsus. "Cress!" he called over his shoulder. "You gotta go!"
"But Cas-!"
"You gotta go! We got this!" he promised as he thrust the thyrsus into the air and the pinecone burst into purple flames - a power he shouldn't have been able to wield for a million different reasons. And Castor drove the sharpened end of the shaft through the heart of Tartarus as he screamed, "FOR CRESSIDA!"
How would she get over this? How was she supposed to let go of him after watching him do that and make everything come full circle?
She did it for him and now he was doing it for her as a wave of purple fire exploded from him, disintegrating the monsters closest to him before driving the others insane and the ones after that to kill each other.
"No!" she cried but Not-So-Small Bob stood in front of her, purring as he kept her back, while Percy was in a similar state as he talked to Bob.
"Bob, don't!" Percy said, his eyes pleading. "He'll destroy you permanently. No coming back. No regeneration."
Bob shrugged. "Who knows what will be? You must go now. Tartarus is right about one thing. We cannot defeat him. We can only buy you time."
The Doors tried to close on Cressida's foot from where Small Bob had pushed her back.
"Twelve minutes," said the Titan. "I can give you that."
Small Bob stood in between the doors as Cressida threw her arms around the Titan, squeezing him tight.
"Monsters are eternal," she said, repeating the words she was told in her monster-fighting class. "We will never forget you. You will be remembered as heroes, you and Damasen. The best Titan and the best giant to ever exist. We'll tell our children. We'll tell the stars. We will keep you alive. Someday, you will regenerate. Someday you will see the stars again."
Bob ruffled her hair. Smile lines crinkled around his eyes. "That is good. Until then, my friends, tell the sun and the stars hello for me. And be strong. This may not be the last sacrifice you must make to stop Gaia." He pushed her away gently. "No more time. Go."
Percy and Cressida had to pull each other into the elevator, their bodies shaking as they clung to each other and got one last glimpse of the Maeonian drakon shaking an ogre like a sock puppet, Damasen jabbing at Tartarus's legs. The god of the pit pointed at the Doors of Death and yelled: Monsters, stop them!
Small Bob the sabre-toothed crouched and snarled, ready for action.
Castor's spirit was so dark they almost couldn't see him as he let out a war cry and charged a group of arai, with his sword this time as Cressida saw her pinecone back on her bracelet. He'd discarded her weapon so she'd get it back before they left Tartarus.
Bob winked at Cressida. "Hold the Doors closed on your side," he said. "They will resist your passage. Hold them—"
The panels slid shut.
******************************************************************
"Cress!" Percy yelped as he shoved his entire body against the right door, pressing it towards the centre as Cressida did the same on the right. There were no handles, or anything else to hold on to. As the elevator car ascended, the Doors shook and tried to open, threatening to spill them into whatever was between life and death.
"We left them," Cressida croaked, ignoring the agony in her shoulders. "We abandoned them. They'll die for us and we - my brother -"
"I know," Percy whispered, his sea-green eyes almost blue with how hard he was crying. "Gods of Olympus, Cress, I know."
Abandoning Damasen, Bob and her brother had been the hardest thing she'd ever done. And Percy knew that. He knew his pain was significant, but Cressida had always had abandonment issues and he couldn't imagine how this was tearing her up on the inside, to leave people she loved behind as she had been left on her own by someone who was supposed to love her.
She didn't know if she wanted to go back to the mortal world. She would rather stay down there and fight to the death by their sides than leave without them because it was essentially the same. Both of those things would've killed her. And she was falling apart inside the elevator car as it moved, that stupid song about liking pina coladas and getting caught in the rain the soundtrack to the daughter of madness finally being driven mad.
"Cress, the Doors," Percy warned and she saw how the panels had started to slide apart and let in the smell of some chemical that she didn't want the name of.
Cressida pushed on her side as the crack closed, her head tilting back against the Doors as her eyes drifted shut.
"Hey," Percy said as he called his attention to her. "Stay here. Stay with me," he pleaded as he managed to reach for one of her hands. "Remember how when we fought Kronos, you did it for Castor? We're gonna stop Gaia and you're gonna do it for Bob. For Damasen. For Castor."
Percy couldn't describe what the look in her eyes was but whatever it was, they could deal with it together, once they got the hell out of this elevator.
"Gaia is going to know the pain she put me through," Cressida declared. "I'm going to give her my pain, leave her with nothing my by pain before I kill her. I'm going to tear her apart with my bare hands."
Percy squeezed her hand. "I'll help."
Deep down though, he was thinking about Tartarus' boast. He could not be killed. Neither could Gaia. Against such power, even Titans and giants were hopelessly outmatched. Demigods stood no chance. He also remembered Bob's warning: This may not be the last sacrifice you must make to stop Gaia.
He felt that truth deep in his bones and he didn't even want to think about how his girlfriend was going to deal with any more sacrifices. Both of them had already lost too much. Both of them left parts of themselves down there with Bob and Damasen and Cressida definitely left a piece of her heart with Castor.
Percy prayed to his father to give his friends the strength of the sea to hold the button before he thought about what would await them on the other side, back in the mortal world.
If their friends were there...
If Nico hadn't kept his word...
No. Not now. He couldn't fall apart right now. Cressida was already in pieces, he had to stay strong for her. He was the one who had to bottle what he felt for her sake right now. Not forever, just for right now.
"Twelve minutes," he said. "Stay with me. Just twelve minutes."
There was nothing but despair in her eyes as she looked at him. "But-"
"No buts," he said firmly despite the wobble in his voice. "Think positive, remember? We can do this. We have to. For Bob and Damasen. For Castor. So we can see the stars for them."
That seemed to jar her a little bit as she gave him a nod. "Yeah. Yeah, we have to do this."
They held the Doors shut as the elevator shuddered and the music played, while somewhere below them, a Titan, a giant and a ghost sacrificed their lives for their escape.