I don't own Percy Jackson, Kane Chronicles or Harry Potter.

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I decided that the monsters wouldn't kill me. Neither would the poisonous atmosphere nor the treacherous landscape with its pits, cliffs and jagged rocks.

Nope. Most likely, I would die from an overload of weirdness that would make my brain explode.

First, I had to drink fire to stay alive. Then I was attacked by a gaggle of vampires, led by a cheerleader who my girlfriend - who had an IQ of 220 - had killed over two years ago. And I killed them with a broken ankle and only a single knife that I had scrapped up out of a rock, glass and a bit of leather.

And now, I was stumbling through Literal Hell with a broken ankle, countless wounds, a pounding headache and bleeding fingers that were almost scraped clean of any skin from hanging off of a rocky ledge above a massive drop.

Oh, and as if that wasn't enough, I had named the new knife that I pulled together in about ten minutes... Syntyche.

Yeah. I named a knife created in Tartarus 'Fortunate with Fate.'

Sure.

Why not?

I trekked through the wasteland, tracing the route of the Phlegethon as I approached the Storm Front of Darkness.

Ever so often, I stopped to drink firewater, which kept me alive, but I wasn't happy about it. My throat felt like I was constantly gargling with battery acid.

My only comfort was the knowledge that Ginny was relatively safe upon the Argo ||. I also had my Camp Half-Blood necklace. Now and again, my hand would find its way up to my neck, and I would finger the little Owl Charm that Ginny had given me when we started dating.

I sighed. I didn't know what I would have done if I had lost my Camp Half-Blood necklace. Then again, years ago, I never would have thought to make another weapon out of what I had if I ever lost Riptide. Instead, I would have tried to get it back.

The reassuring weight of my Eye of Horus amulet was another motivator. The constant feel of the pulsating magic kept me going whenever I felt like collapsing, which was about every three steps.

I sighed as I thought longingly of the old days, back when the biggest problem I ever had was trying to stay in school for longer than a year.

I missed the days when my life wasn't in danger every single second. I missed being able to sleep at night and know that I would wake up again.

I sighed quietly as I longingly thought of Sirius. I would give anything to have my mirror with me so I could call him - if it worked down here - and spill the beans about everything. I wished that I could talk to him, but considering my luck, it would attract more monsters.
Speaking of monsters, it struck me that I had barely seen any monsters for a lone demigod stumbling through Tartarus covered in blood. I mean, I had fought and killed Arachne and four empousai. Well, technically two, since Kelli killed one of them and another fell into the River Phlegethon.

But, only five monsters? I looked down at Syntyche and smiled. Maybe I had named it well, after all.

Suddenly, I froze. Was that... no, it couldn't be.

But it was.

As soon as I felt it, I realised that I was a bit away from a Shrine. A god's presence is always strong in their Shrines, so demigods can often feel when they're near one. I let out a half-sob, half-laugh, and hobbled faster towards the pulsating - but weak - feeling of love and warmth that I had been craving for so long but denied.

I could tell that it was pretty far away, but someplace I could reach before the day was over. At least, what passed as a day in this hellish place.

I bit my lip nervously as I drew closer to the darkness, and only the thought of finding the Shrine and getting just two minutes of breathing space kept me going through the pain of my broken leg and complaining stomach.

I knew that monsters were unable to come too close to godly shrines without disintegrating. Some of the stronger ones could get closer than others, but Shrines were always a safe place for demigods to stay on a quest. Depending on which God, of course.

I picked my way across the ashen wasteland as red lightning flashed overhead in the poisonous clouds - just another lovely day in the dungeon of creation. I couldn't see far in the hazy air, but the longer I walked, the more confident I became that the entire landscape was a downward curve.

I'd heard conflicting descriptions of Tartarus. It was a bottomless pit. It was a fortress surrounded by brass walls. It was nothing but an endless void.

One story described it as the inverse of the sky - a vast, hollow, upside-down dome of rock. That was definitely the closest to reality, but even that wasn't the whole, horrible truth...

I passed a blister in the ground - a writhing, translucent bubble the size of a minivan. Curled up inside was the half-formed body of a drakon. I hesitated, then stabbed the blister with Syntyche. It burst into a geyser of steaming yellow slime, and the drakon dissolved into nothing, just like I had hoped.

I kept walking.

Monsters are zits on the skin of Tartarus, I realised. I shuddered. Sometimes I wished I didn't have such a good imagination because now I was certain that I was walking across a living thing. This whole twisted landscape - the dome, pit, or whatever you called it - was the body of the Primordial Tartarus - the most ancient incarnation of evil. Just as Gaia inhabited the Earth, Tartarus inhabited The Pit.

If he noticed me walking across his skin, like fleas on a dog... Enough. No more thinking.

And then I saw it.

I realised that, with all my pondering over depressing things, I hadn't realised the feeling of warmth was getting stronger until I was right at the source.

I stood at the top of a ridge. In a sheltered depression like a moon crater, below me stood a ring of broken black marble columns surrounding a dark stone altar, which had a caduceus carved into it.

I gave a sigh of relief.

Hermes, I thought in relief. It's a Hermes Shrine. He's a Patron for anyone who uses the road. In the past, he's welcomed weary travellers to rest in his Shrine and eat the food that shows up when mortals sacrifice to him.

I could have cried with relief. I did, in fact. I climbed down the crater and sobbed in happiness as I felt the warmth of the Godly Presence surround me. Hermes knew I was there. He was welcoming me to stay as long as I needed.

Thank you, I thought gratefully to every god I could think of - especially Hermes since it was his Shrine - as I collapsed on a broken slab of marble, too exhausted to take another step. I scanned my surroundings as I caught my breath. The inky storm front was less than a hundred feet away now, obscuring everything ahead of me. The crater's rim blocked the view of the wasteland behind.

I'd be well hidden here, but if monsters did stumble across here - depending, of course, if they were strong enough to come close enough to see me - then I was screwed. All they had to do was wait for me to come out, and I could hardly afford to stay here forever.

I bit my lip when I remembered something that Chiron had been trying to teach me after the Titan War. I closed my eyes, determined to succeed, even though I had never done it before.

I don't know where I found the strength, but perhaps Hermes' Shrine was helping me. Whatever the case, I found myself as the first Son of Poseidon to ever Vapour Travel.

I felt my body dissolve into vapour and steam as my senses stretched out for what seemed like the whole expanse of Tartarus. I could feel the bone-chilling darkness of the Mansion of Night. I felt the heat of the River Phlegethon and the hopelessness of the River Cocytus.

And as my vapourous body rose to join the blood-coloured clouds, I felt everything that the moisture in the air could sense, as if our minds had joined. Because unbeknownst to most gods even, water does have a conscious, and it does have memory.

Ever since I was a baby, the water had been attuned to my emotions and often started acting up if I was unhappy. That's because of its conscious sensing that its Prince was upset.

I let my emotions flow into the haze as our minds seemed to meld together. All of a sudden, I understood that it was indeed Hermes helping me accomplish this since usually this kind of Power Extension would kill me.

I was too focused to thank Hermes, but he could feel my gratefulness. I knew he could. I could feel his protectiveness.

Having a God for a cousin can be pretty cool.

I focused and allowed my consciousness to wander and expand. I felt light and airy, high above reach. Finally, I understood the feeling of 'Cloud Nine'. And that's when I sensed it: the hatred, the anger, the pain.

An army of monsters led by Polybotes.

And they were after me.

Damn it.

Now I understood why Hermes was feeling so worried and protective. Why he was helping me so much. He wanted me to know about the army.

I closed my eyes and extended my powers as much as possible without killing myself. If there was anything else out there that I needed to know about, I would find it.

And find it I did. It was so far away and so deeply buried in the darkness that I nearly missed it, but there was a small area in the darkness that was a bit lighter than the rest, and that's where I found her.

Akhlys, Goddess of Misery.

I remembered something Ginny had told me about her.

She could use her Death Mist to hide demigods from monsters, but she usually didn't. If I could convince her...

I had a plan.

I felt Hermes support me as I drew my power and pulled my vapourous form together into 17-year-old Harry Potter.

"Thanks, Hermes," I breathed as I leaned against a pillar as my form continued to solidify.

I couldn't believe that I had just done that! With help, sure, but I did it! And Holy Unholy High Olympian Council Of Gods was Tartarus big! I hadn't even seen the fullest extent of it! I promised myself that if I got out of here alive and we saved Camp, I would tell Chiron about what just happened. He would be so proud of me!

Suddenly, as my re-formation was fully completed, a wave of nausea hit me, and I gripped the pillar until it passed. I needed to sit down.

I winced as my broken ankle screamed at me, and I bit my lip to keep from doing the same.

I gasped as I lowered myself to the ground and leaned against the altar. My whole body was shaking, and I realised that I had exerted myself too much.

I need sleep, I thought, and at that word, my body betrayed me, despite my protests. My eyelids became heavy, and I let out a sigh of relief as I slipped into a deep slumber.

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Please leave a review! I hope that you enjoy this mass-loading of this series... actually, you know what? It's 1:10 in the morning when I should be sleeping so that you can wake up tomorrow with a brand new completed story to read. You better like it, and you better be grateful. Joking, of course, but seriously, please leave a review; it would mean so much to me!

... That being said, I'm going to sleep now. I'll finish uploading tomorrow, hopefully. Or at least get some progress in. This full story has 27 chapters - too much for one night when you consider that I have to find pictures for all of them, proofread them all one final time, make grammar adjustments, check for spelling errors, etc. 

When I mass-published the first couple of chapters of the Ice Queen that I had already written, I thought it would be easy to make consistent updates. I now owe a mental apology to all the fanfiction authors who irregularly update and who I thought I could do so much better than - they now have my everlasting respect for never giving up.

It is a lot harder than it looks, and if you are reading this and have never published any fanfics, I would suggest mass-publishing. Write it all out beforehand on Google Docs or Word or something, then mass-upload it if you have a few spare hours.

It also means that there is never any pressure to update, and you can abandon it at any time without the risk of disappointing anyone. You can go back at any time and make major changes - this story has been sitting on Google Doc as a completed work for months now, and I have gone back multiple times and made huge changes.

Please have a look at The Ice Queen, and leave a review!

-AWO