Coming back from a near death experience wasn't as glamorous or eye-opening as I had expected it to be. 

It wasn't anything like the movies; my life hadn't flashed before my eyes and I didn't once see a bright light at the end of an imaginary tunnel of darkness. There was no stairway to heaven, or Olympus, and Hades himself didn't appear to drag me into the Underworld. 

Sure, I was glad to be alive, but almost dying didn't make me any happier to be sitting in the lobby of D.O.A recording studios.

It was just as crowded as before, if not more. The anxious whispers of tired souls filled the small charcoal colored room. There was a frustrated business man trying desperately to get a signal on his transparent cellphone, and a woman sobbing right next to him. 

In the background I spotted a construction worker holding a bloody towel to his bald head. He was mumbling something about a stupid jackhammer. Somehow the ghosts made the bleak room a little less...bleak. Once you got past the fact that they were all ghosts, it actually became kind of fun to watch them; each of them brought a piece of their personalities, making the room almost come alive. No pun intended.

"So how'd a young gal like you manage to kick the bucket?" A woman in her mid thirties spoke beside me while lighting a cigarette pressed between her transparent red lips. Her black hair was short, ending just below her ear. She looked kind of like women you'd see at a Great Gatsby themed party.

"You sure don't look dead, sweetheart," she spoke with a heavy New York accent.

"I'm not dead. I almost was, but I'm not."

"Ah-ha! I knew you looked familiar! Could've sworn I saw you in this joint a couple hours ago. Oh, I knew it was you the minute I saw you but no one around here listens to me," the woman took another drag of her cigarette. 

"Say, has anyone told you that you look just like your mom when she was your age? You got her smile and everything! Just gorgeous."

Before I could respond to the odd woman, Paris hauled me off my feet and began to drag me towards Charon's desk. 

"Well, well! If it isn't my favorite wealthy godlings!" The man couldn't hide his greed even if he wanted to Charon lowered his black Ray Bans to study each one of us individually. His eyes stopped on Nico and Danny.

"Mr. Di Angelo, what a surprise. Figured you wouldn't bother coming through this entrance."

Nico shrugged. "What can I say? I've missed the gondola."

Charon blinked at Nico's sarcasm then turned back to Percy. "Come on, then. No use waiting here."

"Didn't you want some dra-"

Charon placed his hand over Percy's mouth and laughed. "No idea what you're talking about, mate! I'd be happy to transport Mr. Di Angelo and his friends to Lord Hades's palace anytime. After you."

The guy was practically kissing the floor Nico was walking on. Nico rolled his eyes and stepped through the black studio door that led straight to the underworld. We all followed suit.

Our second and final trip into the underworld wasn't any more charming than the first visit. Nico sat at the front of the gondola with his feet propped up near the head of the boat. He even dared to dip his finger into the black waters of the river Styx, creating a smooth line through the opaque liquid. 

Percy had hardly spoken, or barely even looked at me since our encounter with Euryale and Annabeth's army. I fiddled with the handle of Hades's bronze spear in an effort to keep my mind preoccupied for the rest of our time remaining on the gondola.

"Right. Here we are," Charon stopped rowing the boat long enough for us to leap onto the charcoal colored steps leading up to Hades's palace.

"Boats always make me sea sick," Danny clutched his stomach.

"We weren't anywhere near an ocean, doofus. Stop being a baby." Paris swatted the back of his head.

"Thank you, Mr. Charon," I paused behind my friends.

"Death humbled you, Orion Vera. I hope I don't see you back here for a long time." He lowered his sunglasses to get a clear glimpse of me. His eyes weren't cold or menacing. They were actually sincere. I couldn't help but feel a pang of sympathy for the guy. He was stuck in the most depressing place known to man, monster, or god. He ought to have some compensation for his deeds, even if Hades did give him a pay raise.

I fished around the pocket of my jeans for the last two golden drachmas I had and placed them in the palm of his large hand. He studied my face for a brief moment before nodding.

"I hope so too," I said.

With that, Charon dissipated into a cloud of white smoke.

***

Now I knew why Greek gods were depicted as beautiful, muscular beings in their sculptures. They had climbed the steps to Hades's palace once or twice in their lives. I was practically wheezing by the time I made it to the top step, using Hades's spear as a staff for support.

"Are...you guys...ready," I panted in between breaths. Everyone stared at me blankly.

"Uh, yeah. Are you?" Paris asked.

"Yeah, yeah! I'm good, just give me a couple of years to recover. I'll be fine."

"Hate to break it to you, Ri," Danny rolled up the sleeve of his navy sweater and checked his watch. "But we have exactly three minutes and thirty two seconds to get that pointy thing back to Hades."

I nodded and walked up to the entrance of the palace, guarded by the same two confederate soldiers I'd seen during my first visit. Nico merely waved his hand and the two soldiers stepped aside, the heavy doors to the palace moving with them. No one said a word as we walked directly past them and into the bronze entrance room.

"Hades?" I called out and waited for an answer. 

Nothing. Just the distant crackle of a fire. 

"I completed your quest! We've brought you your spear, as promised!"

The god of death descended down his winding bronze staircase. His heavily adorned fingers were rubbing his temples. 

"No need to yell. It's bad enough with the souls of the damned right next door," Hades motioned for us to follow him from around the corner.

I tightened my grip on the spear as we made our way into the familiar crimson colored living room. Nico's entire demeanor had changed in the presence of his father; he stood up a little straighter and held his head up a little higher. It was like he wanted to impress his dad or make him proud. I couldn't relate to the feeling. There wasn't any part of me that remotely cared about what Zeus thought of me. 

Was there?

"First things first," Hades opened the palm of his hand. Instantly, his spear began to gravitate towards his hand like a magnet. Upon touching its owner, the spear began to crackle and spark with red energy. The air around us dropped about twenty degrees.

"Splendid, isn't it?" Hades smiled. Seeing the the god of death smile was kind of like seeing a ninety nine year old woman do a cartwheel; you don't know if you should be confused, worried or smiling at the pure sight of it.

"Now, what is it that you'd like in return? Surely there's something you wanted from all of this."

The entire room stared blankly at Hades. Was he actually offering us a reward, or had the guy had too much to drink? Either way, I didn't know whether to believe him or run the opposite direction.

I cleared my throat in an effort to regain my composure. "Wait, really?"

Hades rolled his eyes and plopped down in his gothic chair. "My offers do have expiration dates, you know."

I looked over my shoulder to face my friends. They all looked tired and uneasy. Percy had violet colored bags under his eyes and virtually no color to his skin. Paris and Danny both looked paranoid. Everyone just wanted to be home– at Camp Half-Blood. I knew what I had to ask for.

"If you could grant us a direct and safe passage to Olympus, we'd really appreciate it...sir."

Hades stroked his goatee for a second and glanced over at his spear as if debating the pros and cons of my request.

"Very well," the god rose to his feet and gestured for us to get in line. "You'll have to shadow travel. Farewell, godlings."

My eyes flickered to the eerily familiar painting behind him. I had to ask Hades if he knew my mother. It was now or never.

"Wait," I protested before Hades could dismiss us. "Why do you own one of my mother's paintings?" I gestured towards the painting of the woman being dragged away from her husband. Every time I looked at the painting it evoked new emotions inside of me.

"She's very talented. I've been a loyal client for years."

Then Hades sent us plummeting into an obsolete and all consuming darkness.

Shadow traveling was relatively easy–at first. Imagine you were driving down an empty highway at two in the morning with absolutely nothing around you but complete darkness. There were no sounds except those of my heavy breathing and wind whipping through my hair. After a minute or two I began to fly faster and faster until it began to feel like I was traveling through space and time on a killer roller coaster going a thousand miles an hour. 

Everything in and out of my body felt loose and disconnected. It was like the shadow traveling was tearing me apart and bringing me together all at the same time. Before I could fully process what I was experiencing, the darkness stopped. All of a sudden I was hurling towards a giant chunk of green at lightning speed. I landed with a series of grunts and groans.

"He couldn't throw in some padded landing gear?" I groaned and tried to scrape clumps of grass from my tongue. The whir of speeding taxi cabs and obnoxious honks of cars stuck in traffic gave away my location perfectly. I was in Central Park in New York City. This wasn't exactly Olympus. Not even close.

A massive black hole opened up only a couple of feet from where I had landed moments before, spitting out Paris, Percy and Danny.

"Does Hades not know what a first class airline ticket is," Danny groaned, "or does he just enjoy putting us through this?"

"I think my face is detached from my skull but I'm not sure," Paris poked and prodded every inch of her face with her fingers.

"Amateurs," Nico shook his head as if he were completely unaffected. 

"So, which way to Olympus?" I looked around the park. There were children rolling around in the plush grass and an older man feeding breadcrumbs to a couple of pigeons in front of his bench. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted two lovers hand in hand taking a walk. He was pointing to a building in the distance while the girl laughed at whatever joke he must've cracked. Deep down, and though I hated to admit it, I longed to share that moment with someone. Mortal life seemed so...easy. And here I was trying to find the quickest route to Olympus so I could return my father's lighting bolt and my uncle's trident, disguised as a fountain ink pen to compliment his son's sword slash ballpoint pen. 

Normal didn't exist for me anymore.

"Piece of cake! All we have to do is go straight down fifth avenue. Follow me," Percy began to lead us out of the prosthetic green maze placed in the center of a concrete jungle.

Honestly, I couldn't get behind the New York City hype. The streets were so crowded you could hardly walk without getting run into, shoved or bumped by some random stranger. People didn't smile, or even make eye contact for that matter; their eyes were merely glued to the tiny worlds that lived in the palm of their hands.

"Come on, it's not that bad," Danny jokingly bumped my shoulder with his. I forgot he could practically sense when I was upset. He says he can "smell" it, but I highly doubt annoyance or frustration has a smell.

"It's pretty bad."

"All you have to do is learn how to tune it out–the noise, the people. Just tune it out."

"I can't. It's not that easy...I'm not used to being close enough to smell people!"

"Okay, well then...people watch."

I cautiously looked at Danny. "People watch?"

"Yeah! Everyone in the city has a story. Think about it. You're in one of the biggest cities in the world. The possibilities are endless! I like to make up little stories for and about people inside of my head." He pointed to a man in his mid forties selling hot dogs on a street corner ahead of us. "See that guy? He sells hot dogs to pay for his daughter's college tuition."

"Oh really? What school?"

Danny paused for a moment. "She got into Harvard Law."

"So her dad is paying for her tuition in hot dog stand money?"

"Hey, don't knock it. It's the most successful hot dog stand in all five boroughs."

I snorted a laugh and punched my best friend's shoulder playfully. It had been a while since we had been able to talk like we used to back at home. We used to be the losers that ate by the dumpsters at school and made fun of girls who wore bell bottom jeans; now we were walking through the most crowded city in the country on our way to meet with the most powerful beings on earth.

Upon arriving to the Empire State Building, Percy opted out of taking our last route and suggested we wait in line for the elevator. Standing behind fifty or so tourists seemed a lot better than taking a secret underground elevator guarded by unknown bloodthirsty monsters, if you asked me.

"Wait, how are we going to get to the six hundredth floor if we're in an elevator full of people? They can't all go up with us," I nervously whispered.

"They'll get off on the hundredth floor or so," Percy said. It was the first time he had even spoken directly to me since California, and he hadn't even turned in my direction.

"Oh," my voice wasn't heard over the loud ding of the elevator and the excited murmurs of tourists. "Sweet."

As usual, Percy was right. Every tourist got off on the hundredth floor of the building to take pictures of the New York sun beginning to dip behind the thousands of buildings in the horizon. I watched their fascinated faces up until the golden elevator door shut.

"Ready for shadow travel part two?" Paris's finger hovered above an elevator button with a Greek Omega etched onto it.

"Oh please, don't insult shadow travel like th-"

Nico never got a chance to finish his sentence. The elevator kicked into overdrive, sending my stomach plummeting to the floor. Danny latched onto the elevator's rails for support as his legs began to give underneath him. Then just as quickly as our crazy elevator ride had started, it was over.

With a simple ding, we were back in Olympus. The land of the gods. I don't know how anyone could ever get used to waking up and living in an absolute paradise. In the distance, behind a ivory cloud I could see lights coming from the Olympian throne room.

"Come on, they're probably expecting us by now." Percy adjusted the strap on his backpack and began to head down the–literally–cloudy pathway leading to a massive Greek temple. The closer we got, the brighter the lights became.

In the center of the throne room stood Zeus and Poseidon, exactly as we had left them four days ago. Poseidon had swapped his magenta Hawaiian shirt for a tiffany blue colored shirt covered in palm trees in flamingos. Where did this guy shop at? Zeus was in his traditional business attire–a simple navy silk suit and a platinum tie. The blinding light was coming from a hologram in the center of the room. They were speaking to Hades.

"What is that, like, FaceTime for the gods?"

"Kind of. They're called Iris messages," Danny whispered. "Hades is probably telling them we're on our way."

"Perseus, Orion. Show yourselves," Poseidon's voice rang throughout the throne room like a warm, yet very intimidating, bell.

"Or he could be telling them that we're here. Either works."

I gulped and stepped into the spectacular dome shaped room accompanied by my friends. Immediately, the Iris message faded, leaving the five of us alone with two gods.
 
The two gods studied each of us individually, but paid particular attention to Nico Di Angelo. I turned to face my friend who was now nervously fidgeting with his skull ring and trying not to make eye contact. Hades already wasn't welcome on Olympus, so Nico probably didn't feel all that great here either.

"Father," I decided to speak first. "I've retrieved your lightning bolt, as promised." Bowing my head in respect, I slung my backpack off of my shoulders and pulled out the crackling lightning bolt. It felt like pure energy in my hands; its currents ran naturally through my body, making me feel confident and powerful. 

No, that wasn't the right word. Invincible. 

I launched the bolt through the air, where Zeus caught it perfectly in his hand. The room shook and boomed with loud thunder as the bolt beamed with power and electricity.

"And your trident, Lord Poseidon." I motioned to Percy, who had the fountain ink pen in his hand. He tossed it up to his father. As soon as the pen came into contact with Poseidon, it transformed into a giant three pronged trident.

"You've done well, Orion."

I felt a heavy weight fall on my chest. Zeus probably didn't know I had stolen his, and his brother's, most cherished weapons from under their noses.

"Thank you, Zeus. But I...I don't deserve your gratitude. I was placed under a spell and ordered to steal from you both. I'm sorry."

I stood still with my head bowed, waiting for Zeus to blast my head off with his lightning bolt or for Poseidon to zap me into the arctic ocean and feed me to killer polar bears and penguins. But nothing happened. In fact, they both began to chuckle under their breath. I turned to look at Percy, but he was just as bewildered as I was.

"I-I don't understand. Why are you laughing? Shouldn't you be mad at me?"

"Orion, we know full and well who is the real culprit was. The daughter of Athena." As soon as Zeus said Athena Poseidon rolled his eyes as if he had known all along.

"We should have known it was that girl to begin with-" Poseidon began to speak but Zeus raised his hand.

"Peace, brother. Yes, it is true you were placed under a transition spell. Someone took over your body and used you as a pawn to get through magical barriers while placing the blame entirely on you."

"Why would someone do that?" I shook my head in disbelief.

"We do not know, child. All we can do is wait for Annabeth's army to strengthen and prepare to fight when she attacks again."

"She's working for Chaos. She's going to use Luke Castellan's body to house Chaos."

"Poseidon," Percy cut in. His voice was tight. I knew this was a touchy subject for him. "It's not Annabeth in there. Someone...or something is using her like they used Orion."

"It's true, her life aura is similar to a god's. She's immortal right now." Nico backed Percy up.

There was a tense pause while Poseidon studied Percy and I with wary and uncertain eyes. "People change, Percy. Power, pride and ambition change everything. Do not let your mortal emotions cloud your better judgement."

Percy looked defeated as Poseidon began to walk past him. His father set a hand on his shoulder and looked at his son one more time before the god excused himself and left.

"Please excuse me, Lord Zeus," Percy's voice was strained. My father nodded in his direction and Percy immediately left.

Paris, Nico, and Danny all followed suit, leaving me alone with my father once again. An almost comfortable silence filled the room.

 Things were different. This time, I wasn't angry at him or confused. In just a week, I had almost completely come to terms with the disaster that had become my life and the series of unfortunate events that had plagued it. I knew my father hadn't' abandoned me, but instead gave me an opportunity to be raised. To have a father who did care, and who loved me all the same.

"I sense your anger with me has faded," Zeus studied me with his electric blue eyes.

"Look, you're not exactly father of the year–or any year, for that matter. But I can't hold you accountable for everything that's gone wrong in my life."

"I see," my father simply responded.

"I'd better go. My friends are waiting for me out there."

Zeus stepped down from his throne and began to walk towards me. This was the second time I was within more than ten feet of the guy, but he was still intimidating all the same. His eyes were even more intense up close.

"I know you already have a father. One that has cared for you deeply your whole life, but remember that you are mine as well. You are my daughter and you have made me immensely proud, Orion."

I wasn't on a quest for Zeus's approval, but I couldn't help but feel a lump in my throat at the sincerity in his strong voice. Something told me he didn't have heart to heart conversations often. It took every bit of courage and strength inside of me to do what I did next. I wrapped my arms around his waist and hugged him. 

He responded with a small and surprised oomph before gently wrapping his arms around my small shoulders. I tried my hardest to take a mental snapshot of the moment and soak up every detail. 

He smelt like the sodden earth after a heavy rainstorm.

"Thanks...dad."