▬▬▬▬▬ CHAPTER TWELVE ▬▬▬▬▬

OKAY GOOD NEWS TO THOSE WHO READ MY PREVIOUS CHAPTER ABOUT THAT SHITTY TIKTOK THING...

I did some searching around, and the reason it was spreading was because one person posted a TikTok saying that they saw that video with the men wanting to make that terrible holiday on April 24th and a bunch of other people have been making TikToks claiming to have seen it too... BUT THERE ACTUALLY IS NO VIDEO.

People have been searching everywhere for it because they wanted to take it down and/or report the guys, hell even those who work for TikTok have been trying to find it and so has USA Today but the video is gone. As in, doesn't exist and never existed. 

I'm glad that a bunch of guys didn't actually make a video saying all that sick BS, but it still pisses me off because some people DID claim to see it and made a whole post about it (though you should note that they never showed pics of the video or provided a link to it which definitely seems suspicious). If the video doesn't really exist than that means those people just... fucking lied... about something so serious... 

Either way, this just sucks. Because if the video does exist than that means a group of men actually want to make that terrible holiday become real. But if that video isn't real, than that means a bunch of people made it up and caused all this panic (and for what? A fucking JOKE? Smh).

ETHAN'S DAY WAS ALREADY GOING pretty shitty and that was before an empousa set his homework on fire.

He had gotten back home at one o'clock in the morning since his boss had him work the graveyard shift at 7/11, but before he could clock out, some dumbass lady entered the store, walked her dirty shoes over the floor he just finished mopping, then had a temper tantrum when he told her that she couldn't order a slushy since the store was closing. She then tried to steal his mop and threw her shoe at him when she failed.

Then when he finally got back home, he realized one of the Stolls had eaten all the leftover pizza in the fridge and left him a half-eaten bread stick.

He had about a couple of hours of sleep before he woke up at four AM for his morning jog, then freshened up for school. He went to the subway with the Stolls and Percy, where some lady spilled her coffee on him during one of the stops. He would've snapped at her, but there were bags under her eyes and two kids tugging at her arms, so he figured she was already suffering enough and left her alone.

So Ethan walked the rest of the way to school with a huge coffee stain on his shirt. No biggie. Except, he had three annoying kids (Percy, Travis, and Connor) trailing behind him talking about some Buzfeed Unsolved episode they watched last night.

And then the empousa came. She was jay-walking in the middle of the street, easily weaving through the speeding cars. Her blood red eyes were locked right onto them.

"Ugh," Percy said in annoyance, then exclaimed, "Not it!"

"Not it!" Travis said next.

"Not it!" Came Connor's hasty reply.

That left Ethan to deal with the stupid thing.

Travis patted his shoulder with false sympathy. "Have fun, bro."

"Just fuck off," he scowled at them. The three boys gave him a thumbs up before high tailing it out of there.

He turned back to the empousa, his scowl worsening. Honestly, he wasn't very fond of them because they were very first monster he encountered after he ran away as a kid, but the empousai were the immortal, monstrous daughters of Hecate, meaning they were also Essie's half-sisters.

Ethan didn't really want to kill any of her monstrous half-sister unless, you know, he had no choice. So he figured he should be nice enough to give them a chance to walk away.

"Look," he sighed. "I really don't want to fight you. I'm dating your sister, and it'd be kinda awkward if I—"

The fire on the monster's head flared and she bared her fangs at him.

Well then.

He slipped his backpack off and tossed it to the side to keep it from getting damaged. Then he removed his earring and it shifted into his trusty new sword.

Fortunately for him, empousai weren't exactly hard to kill (no offense to Esmerelda's sisters of course). He just had to dodge the claws and fire and get close enough to chop off the head.

Except, the empousa must've realized he wasn't the average Joe demigod because she then set her sights on a new target in order to distract him: his backpack.

She hurled a ball of fire at it, and the whole thing was immediately engulfed in flames.

Ethan's eye bugged out in horror. "No!" He cried out before swiping his sword through her neck.

He didn't even wait to watch her disintegrate, he ran straight for his backpack. Esmerelda had suggested getting it when they were going back-to-school shopping; apparently she found black floral pattern cute and it 'reminded her of him'.

But now it was just a charred lump. After stomping out the flames, he looked miserably at it's pitiful form. Esmerelda could easily fix it, but... all his homework inside were due today.

Not wanting to throw it away, he grabbed onto a not-too-badly burnt section of the bag and carried on his way to school, smelling like smoke and fire. 

(Had he turned around, he would've seen the pile of golden dust rising into the air, the empousa he had just killed being reformed once more.)

Everyone scurried away from him like frightened rats the second he walked through the doors. It was the usual reaction whenever people saw him, but he must have look ten times more pissed than usual and the smokey smell he was emitting probably helped.

He was nearly late to his first period Japanese class, but arrived just as his teacher, Mrs. Maeda was getting ready to start the class. She peered at him through her glasses, brow raised.

"Mr. Nakamura," she crossed her arms. "You are nearly late and—what is that smell?"

"Smoke," he grunted. "Some crazy guy set my bag on fire." He lifted it up as proof.

She blinked. "Unfortunate, but I guess that's a good excuse. Take a seat."

Classes droned on by longer than he liked. The only good thing was that he was given an extension on the assignments that had been ruined. It helped that he had legitimate proof of his story (the burnt backpack and homework) and that he was an excellent student to them (grade-wise, of course).

In P.E. the one period he shared with Percy and the Stolls, he spent his time leisurely pelting them with dodge balls while keeping mind of Percy's Achilles Heel.

And then after school, he had to tutor Percy again.

"No," he said for the millionth time that hour, praying to his mother for sanity. "m∠ABC is equal to m∠ADC because of the Definition of Congruent Angles."

"What?" Percy said despairingly.

"Do you know what a congruent angle is." Ethan deadpanned.

"Um..." Percy flipped through his notes, which were an atrocious mess in Ethan's opinion. He then stopped at one page and looked up at him sheepishly. "Oh... I wrote the definition on the wrong page... Sorry."

Ethan nearly snapped his pencil in half.

"Right," he forced himself to stay calm, though his eye kept trailing over to the clock at the far back of the library. He had about fifty minutes left until it was time to go to work. "So what do you do next?"

"Substitute," he answered.

"Huh, you're actually right for once," he said flatly, and Percy scowled at him before going back to the assignment.

Suddenly, someone's phone beeped. Ethan glanced at his own, but it was still dark, so he turned over to Percy's phone (which had on a silicon cartoon shark for a case). There was a text message notification on the screen.

Percy's eyes brightened. "Oooh, it's Annabeth!"

Ethan snatched the phone away before he could get it. Percy looked at him in astonishment.

"Dude!" He complained.

"Don't 'dude' me, finish your goddamn homework first and then you can text your girlfriend."

Percy's jaw dropped. "That's not fair, I never stop you from talking to Essie!"

"That's because I've never even texted her while tutoring you. There's no service in Hogwarts, remember?" Ethan shot back. "Now stop bitching and finish your homework. No wonder you can't get anything right, you're always on your goddamn phone." 

Percy grumbled under his breath and picked up his pencil, muttering something about how he was 'so gonna tell Essie about this later'. Ethan just ignored him and continued praying for patience.

They just barely managed to finish with the tutoring session and Ethan had to leave the school in a hurry for work. He was put behind the cash register, his least favorite job because all he did was stand all day and night.

It was pretty dull. Nothing interesting really happened except for that one kid getting stuck in one of the freezers, but other then that, everything was uneventful.

But things got weird when he walked back home. It was another monster encounter, but this particular monster was very familiar to him.

Ethan stared at the empousa before him, his brows furrowed.

"Didn't I just kill you?" He questioned, more so to himself because he doubted she would be nice enough to answer.

He knew that monsters never permanently died per se, but they never reformed this quickly. For a minor monster like this, it would usually take a couple of weeks, maybe days if they were lucky. But he had killed this monster just hours ago. This... was not normal, even for a demigod.

He killed her again with ease (this time keeping his already damaged backpack safe). He stared down at the pile of golden dust at his feet, his stomach churning with dread. He didn't want to think about it, but there was something seriously wrong going on.

"Did you guys encounter any monsters today?" He asked the Stolls when he got back.

Neither of them looked up, mainly because they had headphones on and he could hear the loud gunshots coming from them. Rolling his eye in annoyance, he strode up and snatched both headphones away.

"Hey!" The brothers complained.

"Shut up," he said as an automatic response. "Did you guys encounter any monsters today?"

"Hmm," Travis hummed to himself. "Dunno."

"There was that one monster at work," Connor told him.

"Oh yeah!" Travis snapped his fingers. "Yeah, that guy. We killed him already. What about it?"

"Did he..." Ethan tried not to sound apprehensive. "Did he come back again?"

Naturally, they gave him weird looks.

"Like... did he reform? No, we just killed him a couple hours ago."

Ethan's frowned deepened. He tossed them back their headphones and walked away after reminding them to finish their homework.

He didn't believe in coincidences, and he was certain the empousa he faced just now was the same one he killed while walking to school. He didn't know why the monster the Stolls had faced didn't come back, maybe he just decided they weren't worth it or whatever. Either way, the quick reformation was a concern.

He could hardly focus on his assignments and studies, nor could he focus on making dinner and nearly burnt the eggplant he was cooking. After a fulfilling meal, he retreated to his room, shut off the lights and just managed to crawl into bed when a chilling feeling struck him.

He turned his lamp on and whipped his sword out at the same second, ready to tear apart whoever intruded in his room until he realized who it was.

Nico di Angelo stood at the end of his bed, a duffel bag in his hand.

"My father kicked me out of the Underworld," he said in a painfully dull tone. He dropped his bag onto the floor. "So I'm moving in."

You've gotta be fucking kidding me, Ethan thought.

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

Esmerelda had finished getting dressed for the day, preparing herself to meet up with Umbridge before breakfast to order her to undo her punishment on Harry, Fred, and George.

But then a misty Iris Message showed up above her bathroom sink and she forgot about everything.

"Ethan!" She said brightly, making sure to keep her voice quiet since her roommates were still asleep in their room.

Ethan was grasping onto a water gun in order to keep the message constant, but she couldn't help but focus on the background. It looked a lot like the interior of the Shrieking Shack...

She gasped in realization. "Are you here right now? It's a school day!"

"It's important," he replied. "Can you come here? I know you have classes but—"

"—I'll go!" She said quickly. She'd literally rather be anywhere then school right now anyways. "Just give me a moment!"

She swiped her hand through the IM and hastily dried her hair off with a spell before styling it the way she liked. Then, she Mist traveled to Shrieking Shack where she was met not just with her boyfriend's face, but with Nico's as well.

"You're here too?!" She cried out joyously, squeezing him onto a hug and pecking the top of his head. She then moved on to peck Ethan on the lips as well, much to Nico's disgust "I missed you! But don't you both have classes to be at right now?"

She tried to give them a stern look, but it kind of failed since she was so happy at the moment.

"Father kicked me out," Nico said monotonously. He looked stoic, but she could see the hurt in his eyes by Hades' actions.

Her smile slipped right off her face. "What?"

Nico just shrugged and plopped down on the antique couch, eyeing his dirty shoes with disinterest in order to keep up the facade of nonchalance.

She sat beside him and gently ran a hand through his soft black locks.

"Nico," she called out to him quietly. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"I dunno," he mumbled. "I was doing math with Alan Turing when I was summoned to the throne room by my father. He just told me that I couldn't stay in the Underworld anymore and to pack my things. He even shadow traveled me out and I couldn't come back."

Esmerelda stilled. "...What do you mean you couldn't come back? You tried?"

He nodded, looking even more miserable if that was possible. "I tried shadow traveling back, but it was like... like..."

"Like there was something blocking you," she finished for him. "Were you thrown back after it failed?"

He looked at her in alarm. "It happened to you too?"

She leaned back against the couch. "Yes, last night. I tried to Mist travel back but it was like there was a wall in the way and it knocked me back. My back still hurts from thinking about it. I couldn't even IM my father anymore, like I was disconnected..."

Wait, did that mean she couldn't work anymore? Was she still getting paid?! Was this an unpaid leave?! Dammit, Hades, he needed to discuss things with her first before pulling stupid stunts like this! And to kick poor Nico out of the palace too! What the absolute fuck?! 

She turned to Ethan, who was standing by and listening to their conversation with crossed arms and a steely look on his face.

"Was this what you wanted to talk to me about?" She asked.

"No," he shook his head, pacing around the floor. "But it might be connected to whatever's going on in the Underworld."

Nico sat up a little straighter. "What do you mean?"

"Yesterday, on my walk to school, I got attacked by an empousa. I killed her, but the stupid bitch set my backpack on fire—"

"—Oh no!" Esmerelda said sadly. "The one that I liked?"

He nodded grimly. "I'm sorry, babe, I couldn't keep it safe."

"It's okay," she assured, but she was still a little saddened. "I can fix it. Do you have it here with you?"

"Yeah, but we'll deal with that later," he promised. "Anyways, I killed the bitch. Fast forward several hours later, I'm walking back home after my shift and I get attacked by another empousa, but it's the same one from before."

Esmerelda blinked, frowning. "Wait, what? That... how is that possible? The same exact one?"

He nodded in confirmation, "On the same day too, just several hours apart, maybe even less than that. Monsters shouldn't be able to reform that quickly, can they?"

Nico was looking concerned now.

"No, they shouldn't..." He said carefully. "Not even the weak ones reform that fast."

"Did Percy and the others experience the same thing?" Esmerelda asked.

"So far, no." Ethan answered. "But this isn't a coincidence, is it? You guys getting barred from the Underworld and the empousa reforming in such little time? They gotta connect somehow."

She nodded in agreement. "Yes, you're right... Hades must have put the Underworld on lockdown, no one gets in or out. All attempts of communication will fail too. The same as when you trespassed to steal his sword. Something seriously bad must be happening for him to put it under lockdown again."

"And it has something to do with why that empousa reformed so quickly," Nico added. "But... I don't know what it could be. Monsters reform in Tartarus, so maybe—"

Esmerelda didn't like where this was going. "—No," she said before he could finish his thought. "Tartarus is off limits and you know that. It's best to let your father handle this one, it might not even have anything to do with Tartarus."

"But—"

"—I said no Nico," she said more sternly. "If your father needs our help, he will summon us to him like Persephone had done. But for now, you leave it alone."

"Father's too prideful to ask for our help," he pointed out.

Well, he got that right...

"Just listen to her," Ethan sighed. "At least your dad's aware of the situation unlike with when I stole the sword. He should be able to fix whatever the problem is soon..."

But Ethan still couldn't help but feel like something was dangerously wrong. However, he couldn't voice it out. Not when it would just egg Nico on to continue searching for answers when Esmerelda had already put her foot down about it.

What he had said about Tartarus though... It was true that that was where monsters end up whenever they were killed, and that was where they would reform. If monsters were reforming quicker than normal, then Tartarus would be the best place to find out why...

But that would be suicide. Tartarus was no joke. No sane person would ever go there. It was worse then the Fields of Punishment, it was true Hell. There was no way he would ever go there, and there was no way he would let Nico or Esmerelda go there either. Like his girlfriend had said, it was off limits.

He watched with bated breath as the determined glint in Nico's eyes finally faded away and allowed himself to relax.

"Fine," Nico said in defeat. "I'll leave it alone. You're right anyways, father can probably deal with this without me..."

The disappointment was very evident in his voice.

"Oh Nico," Esmerelda crooned. "Don't worry, you know your father is only doing this for your safety. I know how much he cares about you."

Ethan scowled as she cooed on about Hades and 'how much of a good father' he was. Yeah, because dumping your kids in an eternal casino and bringing them out in a whole new time period for the sole reason of using them as tools for war was just such a fatherly thing to do. Did Hades ever cut the crusts off of Nico's stupid sandwiches like he (begrudgingly) did? No. Did he ever introduce him to Law and Order like he did? No. The old guy probably never even heard of that awesome TV show before, which was lame.

He let out a grunt, "Okay, yeah, Hades is great, sure, can we move on now?"

"Oh right, your backpack!" Esmerelda smiled. "Where is it? I'll fix it."

She fixed it in less then a second. After that, there was really nothing else to do, but neither of them wanted to leave, especially since Esmerelda and Ethan were already playing hooky. Since all three of them skipped out on breakfast, Esmerelda Mist traveled over to a restaurant to get some food to eat.

"I can't believe you didn't even bother to feed him before coming here," she sent Ethan a deeply disappointing look.

"I was in a hurry..." Was his excuse. His shoulders sank in defeat. "I'm sorry."

"He wanted me to starve to death," Nico said in a surly tone as he shoved a plastic fork full of fish and chips into his mouth.

Ethan sent him a glare, but didn't say anything and just resumed eating.

Esmerelda made the mistake of asking how school was going for them (or had been, in Nico's case) and both boys were more then happy to share their complaints.

"I always get nervous when I have to attend class," Nico admitted. "It's nerve-wracking to have a bunch of geniuses as teachers when you're just some dumb kid who can barely read. I keep getting the feeling that I'm annoying them when I don't understand a concept the first time."

"You're not dumb, Nico. You're very smart. It was your plan that helped us save the world, remember?" She cooed, but then her smile turned deadly. "Were your teachers being mean to you?"

"No," he answered. "I just get nervous. It's not their fault."

She relaxed. "Oh, okay."

Ethan was a little disappointed. He would've liked to see her go crazy on a bunch of dead peoples' asses. He always enjoyed watching her brutally butcher people and monsters.

"I'm still stuck tutoring Percy," he grunted when it was his turn to share.

Nico snorted, knowing he was having a terrible time dealing with that.

"What kid doesn't understand how proofs work?" Ethan fumed. "That's, like, the easiest part about geometry!

Esmerelda stared at him with wide eyes. "It is not! Do you know how many times I failed my geometry exams back at camp because I did my proofs wrong?" She was around thirteen during that time, and she had probably cried enough tears to fill up a river during that summer.

"Well, not like you're gonna need to worry about that since your school doesn't even provide any math classes." Ethan shrugged. "Good luck with college, by the way."

Nico turned to her with wide eyes. "Hogwarts doesn't have any math classes? Wait, what's one plus one?"

"Two!" She glared. "And would you relax, I'm still getting my math, science, and history lessons from camp over the summer. They just weren't available last summer thanks to the war and all, so I'm not... that behind."

"Just behind enough to not realize that there were Greek letters in math," Ethan deadpanned.

She waved a hand dismissively, "I'm sure I'll learn about it this summer or whatever."

"If Hogwarts doesn't even teach math or science," Nico began. "Then what do you guys learn?"

"History, but wizarding history. Then there's potions but my teacher's an asshole. A bunch of other classes that have to do with spells. Oh, and I'm taking Divination but my teacher's weird. And my Defense Against the Dark Arts class is taught by this one heinous bitch. She likes to torture students during detentions and doesn't properly teach us anything so we can't defend ourselves."

Ethan dropped his fork. "Tortures the student?" He echoed. "Does she do anything to you?" He and Nico were exchanging dark glances.

"Umbridge? Nah, not anymore at least," she waved a dismissive hand. "Ever since you caused the breakout to happen, Umbridge hasn't been bothering me as much. And when she does bother me, I remind her of her place."

But Nico wasn't letting this go. "What do you mean 'anymore'?"

"I see you didn't tell him about the Daily Prophet articles and how people have been treating you because of them," Ethan drawled before slurping on his soda.

"I'm not going to push my problems onto him," she glared at him before giving Nico a reassuring look. "Don't worry, sweetie, the people who caused all this are mostly dead now thanks to Ethan. They can't do anything to me anymore."

The younger boy nodded slowly, but when Esmerelda wasn't looking he shot Ethan a look that basically demanded for an explanation at a later time. Ethan responded with a nod.

"But anyways," she continued. "I'm pretty disappointed that the Underworld's under lockdown. Talk about bad timing. I was in the middle of creating a new spell and I was using the dead souls in the Fields of Punishment as test subjects."

Ethan was intrigued. "You're making a spell?"

She explained to them about her hopes of making a sensory scrying spell and even showed them her notebook that was full of pages and pages of research and even observations from her attempts of trying the spell out.

"'Attempt #116: Eddie's eyeballs accidentally exploded, but at least he didn't die this time'," Ethan read aloud from one of the pages. "Aww. You even drew a little smiley face. Cute."

"I'll have to use live test dummies now that the Underworld's closed," she said miserably.

"You can use Umbitch. Or that Cormac jerk," he suggested.

"Hmmm," she let out a thoughtful hum.

"Or," Nico added. "I can summon some dead guys to act as your dummies instead. That way, you can test your spell and I can practice my necromancy."

"Ooohh!" She really liked that idea. "That's brilliant!"

"Great, we'll get started right now." Nico rose to his feet. "It's not like we've got anything else to do."

Ethan frowned. "Wait, what am I gonna do then?" It wasn't like he could help her with her spellcrafting or Nico with his necromancy.

Esmerelda pecked him on the cheek affectionately. "You can stand by and look pretty."

"Fun." He said flatly as he watched her wave her hand over their trash. It vanished into thin air. He wondered if wizards could use that spell to get rid of the world's pollution.

"You can be my note taker?" She offered.

"Awesome."

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

She Mist traveled with them over to the forbidden forest, deep and far enough that nobody could overhear them. Nico summoned the undead from the ground and promised that these were damned souls from the Fields of Punishment, so it wasn't as if she was hurting innocent people at least.

"Stay. Still!" Esmerelda snarled, punching one of the undead in the face and taking him down. Ethan was watching her with an expression full of pride.

She shoved her hands over his eyes and said, "Communis oculos."

She felt his eyeballs burst and recoiled in disgust. His eyeballs had turned into mush, and it looked like it was eating the rest of his flesh alive like some sort of acid.

"Ew," she made a face, standing back up to clean her hands.

"'Attempt #408,'" Ethan droned as he wrote this down on her notebook. It had a bunch of cute cartoon penguins on the front. The pencil he was using—also one of hers—had a pastel purple koala topper. "Geoffrey's eyeballs blew up.' Should I mention the flesh-eating part?"

"Yes," she chimed.

"Got it," he muttered, writing that down too.

"Bronson, you're next," Nico called out to a frightened looking young man he had just recently summoned.

Bronson tried to run away, but it was kind of hard to do when you were a serial killer who died from blood loss when one of your victims pushed you out of the window of three story house and you landed legs first.

Ethan barely needed to look up from his notebook. He merely stuck his leg out and tripped Bronson with it.

"I hate it when they try to run," Esmerelda sighed in frustration. She used her leg to flip the guy over so his face was towards her. She then dropped down and straddled him to get a better reach of his eyes.

Ethan scowled. "Do you seriously have to do that, babe?"

She looked at him in confusion. "What?"

He sighed and turned to Nico. "Could dead dudes get boners?"

"Ew, Ethan!" She squealed, quickly getting off of Bronson much to her boyfriend's satisfaction. "You're so gross! And don't use that word around Nico! Gods, I've told you to watch your language around him a million times!"

"Sorry," he muttered, but then sent Bronson a death glare when she wasn't looking. Bronson was beginning to miss the Fields of Punishment now.

Thanks to Ethan's comment, Esmerelda now resorted to kneeling on the dirty ground instead. Her poor skirt was probably going to have so many dirt stains after this, but at least she could easily clean it.

Before Bronson could get fussy, she placed her palms over his eyes and muttered the incantation. She could feel something warm on her palms. It wasn't hot enough to burn her, so she didn't recoil away. Then, there was a brief flicker of green light that made her gasp until the glow died out.

She pulled her hand away, mouth wide with amazement. "This one didn't die! Again, I mean. And look! His eyes are intact!"

Ethan and Nico knelt beside her. They joined her in peering at Bronson's eyes, and said man was cowering away from them.

"Hold still," Ethan demanded, wrapping a hand around his neck.

Nico then reached out to pry open his eyelids and let out a thoughtful noise. "Huh. Good job. This is progress."

"Yay!" She squealed, jumping with joy and clapping excitedly. "Ethan, Ethan! Write it down, write it down!"

Ethan chuckled, but did as he was told.

"'Attempt #409,'" he said aloud. "'Brandon—'"

"—Bronson," Bronson choked.

Ethan swiftly kicked him in the face to shut him up. "Thanks. 'Bronson survived the spell with no injuries. Minor success. Brief glow appeared.'"

"Alright!" Esmerelda grinned, looking back down at Bronson. "Let's go at it again! Maybe this time it'll work!"

Unfortunately, attempt #410 did not go as well as she planned. She ended up re-killing Bronson much to her great despair. She nearly burst to tears at her failure until Nico hastily summoned a whole army of dead bad guys to test on.

After that, the results kind of varied. According to Ethan, only about 17% of her attempts ended up similarly to her first attempt with Bronson, the other 83% ended in the usual: eye damage and/or death.

It was disappointing, but like Nico said, at least there was some progress...

Ethan looked down at her notebook, "That's 500 attempts in all. Impressive."

"I still failed," she moped, looking like a kicked puppy.

"Only about 415 times," he tried to comfort her.

Nico snorted before glancing down at his watch. "Oh. It's almost four o'clock in New York now."

Esmerelda grimaced. "Shoot. I should probably head to school, dinner's starting already." But she couldn't just let them both go without thinking of some sort of schedule to take care of Nico. "Nico, since you'll be living over at the penthouse, Ethan's in charge."

"What?" He began to protest.

Ethan was smirking like a smug bastard.

"Ethan is in charge," she repeated firmly. "You listen to him, alright? And do not listen to the Stolls."

Ethan strongly doubted the Stolls would dare to try and pull Nico into one of their schemes. They feared her motherly wrath way too much to ever risk that.

"Since Ethan has school to go to, you have to stay in the house during those hours. You can also visit me during that time if you want." She continued. "Make sure to ask Ethan for permission if you ever want to go out though and behave yourself, please. Ethan, as for you—"

"—His bedtime's at eleven, I have to feed him fruits and vegetables every day, don't let him watch inappropriate TV shows, modern day songs, and video games, don't let him get influenced by the Stolls, watch my language around him, and be nice." He said the last word in a dry tone.

"Yes!" She said brightly, nodding in approval. "Also, when you guys get back to New York, can you maybe take him to a hairdresser? His hair's gotten so long..."

Ethan looked down at the nest on Nico's head.

"Your dad seriously never had someone give you a haircut?" He asked.

Nico shook his head.

"Fine, I'll do it then," Ethan said automatically. "I'll ask them to give you a nice bowlcut."

The young boy's eyes widened in horror. "No!"

"He's just joking," she assured, sending Ethan a pointed look.

When Nico left to go use the bathroom, Esmerelda took the time to take discuss some other important matters with Ethan.

"I know you can't watch him 24/7, but please make sure not to let him go to the Underworld," she whispered seriously. "Something tells me he's still thinking about that Tartarus idea."

"I know," he muttered darkly. "Kid seems way too determined to just let that go too easily. I'll try to keep my eye out and if he brings it up again, I'll shoot the idea down. But Essie... about the reforming thing, I seriously think something bigger is going on behind the scenes."

She pursed her lips, silently voicing her agreements. "I think so too... But I'll trust that Hades can fix whatever the problem is. Maybe you should encourage him to visit me when you're out at school, that way, he'd be too busy to try anything."

He quirked a brow. "But don't you have school?"

"I could care less about that at the moment," she snorted. "Just stay safe and watch out for each other, okay?"

"Got it," he hummed, leaning down to give her a chaste kiss on the lips just before Nico exited the bathroom. Thankfully, the kid didn't see, else he'd have to deal with his constant whining when they got back home.

"Well," Esmerelda smiled, squeezing Nico into a hug. "I'll see you guys later. And Nico, you stick with Ethan, okay?"

He nodded. "I will."

Esmerelda was the first to leave the Shrieking Shack, wanting to get back to Hogwarts on time for dinner. Before Nico could shadow travel them back, Ethan grabbed his shoulder to stop him. 

"You wanna help me get revenge on one of the guys who tried to ruin your mom's life?" He asked. 

Nico's eyes glinted viciously. "Yes." 

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

Cormac woke up to a slap in the face. He shot up, only to realize that he was no longer on his comfortable hospital bed at St. Mungos. Instead, he was out in a dark forest in the middle of the night. It was freezing cold and he was only in his hospital gown. 

But nothing could compare to the iciness that ran through his veins the second he saw the two figured standing before him. One was a tall, menacing figure with East Asian features and a fucking eye patch over one of his eyes. Beside him was someone much shorter boy, a kid by the looks of it, but the glare on his face was way too murderous for a mere child. It equaled with the hate in the other boy's eye, and Cormac briefly wondered if they were related just because the dark expressions they wore were that similar. 

"W-what are you—"

"—Shut up," the taller one ordered and Cormac quickly obeyed. "You called that thing already, Nico?" 

"Give me a moment," the kid—Nico—scowled before turning his attention back to Cormac. "So you're the one who made my mom cry?" 

"Your—your mother?" Cormac stammered, his heart hammering away at his chest. He had no idea what these people were talking about. 

"Answer the question!" The taller one barked. 

He flinched away. "I don't know who you're talking about—I-I didn't make anyone cry!"

"Bullshit!" The older boy snarled, stomping his foot over Cormac's crotch. It had been heavily bandaged since his... procedure and he was still trying to emotionally recover from it. 

Cormac cried out in pain and tried to crawl back, but he felt cold restraints wrap itself around his wrists and ankles. He looked down in panic and saw shadowy tendrils keeping him forced on the ground. What sort of magic was this?! Neither of them had a wand! 

"I'm talking about Esmerelda Black, remember her?" The boy continued to shout. "First you can't handle a rejection and then you spread lies about her to make yourself look like the victim? Well, you're gonna get what you want soon enough, you stupid cunt. You'll be a real victim soon."

It took him several seconds to register what he was saying. These guys were planning on killing him.

"W-w-wait, no, please, wait—!" 

"—It's here now," Nico murmured, the shadows of a nearby tree rippling ominously. And then, a creature stepped out. A gigantic, menacing dog-like beast with sharp canines and glowing red eyes. 

Desperately, he strained against the shadowy bonds to no avail. The great beast stalked closer, his growls growing louder before finally... it pounced. Cormac could barely let out a scream before the claws came down on him. 

Meanwhile, the two figures were already walking away from the scene. 

"What do you think the Prophet's gonna say when they find his dead body?" Nico wondered aloud casually, as if they were talking about the weather. 

"Hmm, dunno. 'Dickless white boy found murdered in a forest'?"

"Would they see it as a murder though? They'll probably assume he was mauled to death by an animal or something." 

"Good point. Oh well, it doesn't matter. Come on, let's head back to New York so you can get that haircut your mom was asking for." 

"...No bowlcut though, okay?" 

A sigh. "Fine." 

╞═════𖠁𐂃𖠁═════╡

Esmerelda's rules for her son were pretty easy to follow. They were basically: be good, eat healthy, stay safe, and no sneaking to the Underworld to try and find more answers about Tartarus. 

Pretty reasonable, right?

Nico had no plans on disobeying his mom. He was a good kid, honest!

For the first week, everything went well. He ate his veggies, bathed regularly, and spent most of his time reading books. He didn't even antagonize Ethan that much (though the older boy might say differently).

The second week though... Well, that was different.

"I won't be back home until midnight at the latest," Ethan said as he set down a plate of paleo steak and egg salad in front of Nico.

Before Ethan could finish what he was saying, the Stoll brothers finally reached the dining room, sloppily dressed and their hair still wet from their showers.

The older boy scowled at them. "Do you know what time it is?"

"Chill, dad, we still got time left before school starts," Connor yawned as he took a seat.

Travis followed suit. "Oooh, what are we having for breakfast?" Then he saw the plate and his shoulders sank. "Veggies again?"

"Don't make me whoop your ungrateful asses," Ethan glared. "You don't like my food then you can either starve to death or eat from the school cafeteria."

The color drained from their faces. "Sorry," they said in unison.

Ethan snorted. "Yeah that's what I fucking thought. Now back to what I was saying," he turned back to Nico. "I got club activities and work, so I won't be back until maybe midnight. The Stolls have nothing to do after school so they'll be watching over you. I already made your lunch, it's in the fridge so just microwave it, got it?"

"Kay," he replied through a mouthful of salad.

"As for Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum," he sneered over at the brothers. "You're both in charge of the brat. I got your dinner prepared too, so make sure to actually serve it tonight. Don't drag the kid into any of your stupid ideas, don't let him play any of your gory video games, don't walk around the house with your dirty ass shoes, and for fucks sake, do your homework for once.

"Yes, sir," they nodded, grinning.

"Good." Ethan said, but his face was still set into a scowl.

After that, the three older teens headed out for school. Travis and Connor came back at around four o'clock, but it was as if all of Ethan's rules went flying out the window.

That was when things started going bad.

But it was mostly the Stolls' fault.

Like he'd warned, Ethan was gone the entire day thanks to a combination of school, debate club, and work, so he wasn't around to stop the pair of mischievous brothers from introducing Nico to this horror game called The Evil Within. It was definitely the sort of thing Esmerelda probably wouldn't approve of, but Nico thought it was cool so he gave it a go.

And then he came across the scene of Ruvik's sister dying in a fire and that was when he was suddenly struck with an epiphany.

Bianca.

What if it wasn't just the monsters that were coming back to life quicker then normal? What if the same could be said for mortal souls as well?

I can bring Bianca back to life, he thought, his heart racing in his chest. His sister could live the life she deserved to have, Esmerelda would be happy, and he could even introduce her to their dreaded new stepdad, Ethan (who would probably tolerate her a lot more then he tolerated him).

But the Underworld was still under lockdown, he couldn't shadow travel there anymore... Unless he tried another way. A manual way.

He shot cautious glances at the Stolls, who were sitting on each side of him, and slowly rose to his feet, ideas coursing through his head.

"Be right back, I gotta go to the bathroom," he lied, handing the controller to Travis, who didn't think twice to wave him off to resume playing.

He hurried up the stairs and barged into Ethan's room. He always got surprised whenever he saw the inside of it. He honestly expected to see blood on the walls, and the floor to be lined with the entrails of his victims.

Instead, it was always freakishly neat and organized. The hardwood floors were cleaned since Ethan vacuumed it every week, his desk was free of clutter, and every surface was dusted off. He was surprised all the law books lining his bookshelf weren't organized in alphabetical order.

He found the post-its easily since his desk was so organized. Whipping out a pen, he wrote a hasty apology note in Ancient Greek:

Left for the Underworld. Don't get mad at the Stolls

Tell mom that I'll be fine. I'll be back soon.

Sorry

— Nico

That should be fine, though he inwardly snorted at the second sentence. Ethan would definitely get pissed at the Stolls. Especially if he found out that they let him play violent video games and eat junk food all day.

He left the post-it at the center of the desk where Ethan would definitely see it and shadow traveled away, mentally apologizing to the Stolls for the wrath they were about to face.

He had a plan anyways. He'd get into the Underworld, grab Bianca and run before their father could catch them. Then he could go back home and introduce her to Ethan and the Stolls, and their mother.

But he wasn't planning for Bianca to already be gone—reincarnating herself just like their mother had done—and he certainly wasn't planning on finding his other sister and the secret existence of the Romans. He wasn't planning for his father to swear him to secrecy and to order him to take his new half-sister—Hazel Levesque—to Camp Jupiter.

For fuck's sake, he wasn't planning on being gone for so long.

"Nico?" Hazel called out to him nervously.

They had barely interacted after Nico essentially resurrected her. After Hades made them swear an oath to keep silent, he had Nico's personal zombie chauffeur, Jules-Albert, immediately drive them over to the Roman camp, Camp Jupiter.

They were currently standing right outside the border of the massive camp. Several campers—dressed in purple tee-shirts unlike Camp Half-Blood's orange ones—were already there, watching them warily with their weapons out.

"I'm fine," he mumbled. "You remember what father told us?"

She nodded, but her face was ashen grey as she stared at all the Roman campers with their swords drawn at them. She didn't have her own weapon. The only one armed between them was Nico, but she didn't know him well enough to judge his skills.

"Introduce ourselves as children of Pluto," she said quietly. "Tell them that we were sent here by our father."

"I can do all the talking if you want," he offered.

"No, I..." She trailed off, taking a deep breath. "I can handle it. Let's go."

He nodded in acceptance and took the lead. His face was set in his usual blank expression, but one thing kept running through his head:

Mom and Ethan are so gonna kill me.

— author's note —

Our favorite trio 😂:

Ethan: *just wants a good night's rest after a busy day*

Nico at the foot of his bed: 

Nico realizing that Essie and Ethan are gonna ground him after all this BS is over with and send him to a farm:

This chapter... even though I had a lot of Essie, Ethan, and Nico scenes, I was still kind of disappointed by it 😕 I admittedly sped through the end of it but that was because I just REALLY wanted to get the October month over with because in November, Zeus closes Olympus, and then in DECEMBER, all the fun action starts :D

So according to my many timeline sources (and my own timeline for this book), October is when Thanatos is chained and the Doors of Death are put under Gaea's control. I don't think it's canon that Hades put the Underworld on lockdown, but I wrote about it anyways to give you guys a hint on what's going on and to keep Essie clueless (as always lol). Anyways, Nico managed to get in, found out Bianca already choose to be reborn, but got Hazel at least!

Also, I figured that October was when Hazel was brought back because the book stated that she knew Jason for about a month or less before he disappeared (which was canonically sometime in October).