I think Hazel should’ve gone with Nico instead down to Tartarus. Without a prophecy or quest bc Nico and Hazel don’t play by the rule book.
Then we could’ve gotten an adorable underworld sibling bonding book with both of them hilariously being unaware of modern stuff. And telling each other stuff they’ve learned.
They ditch both of their boyfriends who are freaking out because they don’t know where they snuck off to. And since Nico said in HoH that when he and Hazel shared power that anything felt possible, they truly believe they can succeed.
(Also Hazel understands death and wouldn’t be complaining every five seconds like Will was. Maybe it would’ve been more original and less percabeth 2.0 (but worse)
It begins with Nico leaving Camp Jupiter, having visited Hazel (for what he believes could be the last time) and telling Will he would be back in a week or so. A lie Nico tells to keep his boyfriend from coming after him to Tartarus (way more in character of him lol) as he believes a child of Apollo would easily be snuffed out down there.
Nico realizes he’s throwing a good possible future away by sneaking out to do this, but the nightmares have become so twisted and unbearably disturbing that he fears he’s going to lose his mind either way if he doesn’t manage to find the person calling out his name every night.
He also doesn’t like when others are left behind.
Since Will has insisted Nico not use shadowtravel to get back to New York from California, Nico says he’s going to take the train instead.
But Hazel KNOWS someone is off. Knows Nico is hiding something. Something that causes her brothers eyes to tinge red when he hugs her, gives her a wobbly goodbye, and squeezes just a bit too tight. Something that causes the paper thin smile he gives her when she sees him off to board his train.
Something that inexplicably makes her sneak onto that train behind him.
Upon Nico putting his stuff away in the closet of his train compartment and finding a head of cinnamon brown curls say ‘ouch’ when he accidentally throws his suitcase on top of a stowaway sister, being mad is a bit of an understatement…
When Hazel knowingly questions why he’s so upset at her, Nico suddenly has no words.
They eat in the trains dining room, Chinese noodles with strangely large fortune cookies that they save for later.
Hazel doesn’t manage to get anything out of Nico as they sit side by side next to a window, watching the world whoosh by and making idle chatter that Nico only seems to be half heartedly replying to. Seeing her brothers zoned out gaze, thin hands shaking slightly, the ever present tinge of red and fear ringing his large dark eyes, Hazel knows this is something more than wrong.
If the bravest demigod she’s ever met looks this terrified, to her it can only mean one thing.
Her suspicion is proven correct when her and Nico crack open their fortune cookies from dinner and instead of a thin piece of white with a generic quote on the paper… two small black parchments with gold lettering come out instead.
Two warnings. From what god? They don’t know.
Hazel’s questioning dies on her tongue when she sees the thin lines of tears falling from her brothers eyes. She doesn’t ask him anything else that night, just wraps a hug around him as frail shoulders shake in her arms.
The next day Nico acts as if nothing happened and asks her if frank knows she’s okay which she sheepishly replies that he probably doesn’t even know where she is. Nico says the same about Will, and they decide to not tell their current boyfriends anything yet.
Yet…. After the incident of last night and the fortune cookie parchment mentioning a place that hazel has definitely heard of before, she knows exactly what Nico is planning.
And she’s not letting anything happen to him as long as she’s alive. Even if Nico insists on pretending Hazel doesn’t know anything.
After the long train ride and Nico questioning this one random passenger for an hour about the strange gaming device in his hands (a Nintendo lol) and the siblings chatting about mundane things happening in their camps; they finally are in Manhattan.
Hazel is now done with letting Nico pretend.
Before she can get a word out the word ‘No’ has already passed her brothers lips. They fight. Their first actual fight ever. One that ends in sobs wrecking through Nicos body and pangs of guilt, sadness, and anger piercing Hazels heart.
But one thing rises above them all:
Protectiveness.
After making up and Nico realizing Hazels not ever going to back down given the look in her eyes, he realizes he doesn’t have a say in this. She is coming with him whether he likes it or not. Fear plummets in his stomach.
After a trip to Target for food and supplies for the trip that neither of them currently want to think about because what they are planning to do is… insane. Literally insane. But as Nico remembers that feeling of the time he and Hazel shared their power that one time, a thread of hope starts to weave in his heart. Psychotic hope, but still hope nonetheless.
They shadowtravel to Central Park, Nico not feeling nearly as woozy with Hazels help. He also delightfully finds out that coffee seems to cure the fatigue from using that side of his powers lol.
They manage to open the doors of Orpheus’ by ‘borrowing’ a guys phone as they see him jog by, and play some random song called ‘into the dark’ (by death cab for cuties lol) from the guys playlist holding it up to the opening.
The song sounds like another warning. They both ignore it.
They travel down dark steps, hands clasped. They talk in the quiet empty smelling air, comfortable in the underground silence. Until faint light hits their faces. The ever constant line of fresh souls lead them to Charons boat where they are taken to the land of the dead.
They now must avoid detection from their father at all costs. Nicos not worried about Charon tattling on them to Hades since he doesn’t get paid enough anyway (lol). Nico takes Hazel to meet the trogs new home down in the underworld (one thing I liked in tsats).
Hazel adores them and their funny outfits.
The trogs tell Nico that his ‘really deep tunnel’ he requested they dig is almost done, and Hazel is hurt that Nicos been planning this so long without telling her or anybody. They make Nico and Hazel spend the night with them before they go and they play with the baby trogs and dance together, trying to forget what they’re going to do tomorrow. They fall asleep to the sound of baby trogs giggling next to them.
The next day Nico attempts to sneak away from Hazel one more time and Hazel explodes at him. Anger making her say some things she doesn’t want to and Nico apologizing profusely but saying he’s angry at himself for allowing her to come with him.
They are interrupted by the trogs leader saying the Tunnel Into the Dark is finished. They can feel the intense suction of The Pit even from several feet away. Memories of the first time Nico was sucked down threaten to spill over and embarrassingly makes him want to run and hide somewhere.
But he feels Hazels hand in his and that strange, wonderful feeling of intense power. And love. And then they are straddling a boat the trogs pull from the river of forgotten dreams (the Styx I think) and with one final push… they are falling.
On the boat it feels like they’re floating.
They fall for a very long time. But Nico notices it’s not as long as the first time. Or maybe it doesn’t feel that long bc someone is here beside him.
They use their shared geokinisis powers to make an enormous slide of bones, black dirt, and stone.
When the boat hits the ground Nico almost gets flung face first into the Phlegethon river. They drink from it and begin the search.
They devastatingly find out the voice was never Bob bc Bob was absorbed into tartarus’s breastplate (like in actual canon HoH) but that it was something else entirely.
Something that makes Nico perhaps the angriest he’s ever been.
They find Jason’s soul down there. Something that shocks both Nico and Hazel to the core. Nico thinks it’s a trick but soon can tell that the soul that is looking at him so coldly and unfamiliar is actually Jason.
A different Jason. One with hatred illuminating every thread of his form.
That’s why Nico didn’t know where Jason’s spirit had gone. It had been intercepted by something and Jason has turned into a mania like his mother. A spirit that fumes on hatred and forgotten dreams. The one thing he never wanted to be.
Nico cries over the horrid inevitable fate of Bob and promises that he will ALWAYS be remembered. He doesn’t have much time to think on this though because right now a livid son of Jupiter is rising higher and higher above Nico and Hazel, the threat is obvious.
In Jason’s manic state he blames Nico for not checking on him and seeing that he got a peaceful afterlife and greives the fact that Piper and Leo and Nico ‘never bothered’ to attend his funeral. He blames the gods, his father especially, for being unworthy of their demigod children. He blames the underworlds justice system not following up on his missing soul and dismissing his entire life as if it was nothing.
As if he was never a hero. Never anything at all.
Nicos is crushed, but realizes that Jason’s being manipulated by something. A dream demon that wanted to trap Nico the entire time in order to consume his energy/power and shadow travel out of his prison and into the mortal world bc it would’ve taken him years to get out otherwise.
The dream demon used its powers to intercept Jason’s soul thanks to Caligulas cursed blade that had killed him, and reached inside his mind to find out about Nico and figure out the best way to get Nico to come back to his worst nightmare.
And now that Hazel and Nico are both there that’s double the power to consume.
Turns out the entire thing was simply about a selfish monster playing with demigods. A tale as old as the beginning of mythology.
The demon taunts them saying he used Jason - son of the King of the Gods - as a little toy in order to easily bring his meal to him. Remarking how easy and quick it was to bait someone like Nico.
Someone who can never leave someone behind.
And Hazel, how easy it was to get her to follow her brother. Taunting that she’s just as stupid, gullible, and selfless…
The children of the underworld snap.
And all Hades breaks loose. Signaling to every monster within a 100 mile radius to know exactly where they are.
They battle together but the waves and waves of monsters is just too extreme. On the brink of inevitable death, a certain goddess appears.
The one who gave them the warnings in the form of fortune cookies. The one that sensed Nicos need for vengeance.
They escape with Nemesis help, but she wants something equally valuable in return for helping Nico and Hazel escape. Nico breaks down and agrees to relinquish all of his precious memories of Bianca and his past life in return for Hazel and a new possible future. A true balance in his heart.
Choosing Hazel over memories of Bianca makes Hazel cry and they bond stronger.
Strangely enough Nico becomes happier without the constant grief of his older sister on his shoulder.
In a way choosing to let her go the same way she did when she chose to be with the hunters.
And then once again when she chose reincarnation.
They still have to worry about Jason though who is constantly causing blood thunderstorms across Tartarus’s sky and wrecking havoc all over the place.
(Also it would be so funny to see Jason literally just… chase Nico and Hazel all over the place… flying after them screaming while they run for their lives bc they can’t see or hear due to the bloodstorm & huge booms of thunder and shit lol.)
Hazel manages to trap Jason in a kaleidoscope of his own storm and shadow with her mist magic and her and Nico manage to shadowtravel him to the ghostly boat that will lead them out. She lets him out but he’s struggling so much in his metal binds that Nico has to knock him out with a punch to the face bc he’s the only one that can touch ghosts.
They ferry up the river Acheron out of Tartarus and chat about what the fuck just happened down there.
Hades awaits them when they arrive.
He’s very angered that his two only living children disobeyed his strict order of not going down there, but relinquishes it eventually when he realizes how tired and beat up his kids look and praises them instead. Hades turns to Nico and states that his older sister would be proud of him. Which Nico replies with confusion saying he doesn’t have an older sister which saddens hades as he figures out what Nico had to give away.
He offers them both something they want.
Anything.
Hazel wishes for Jason to be cured of his mania, and Nico wishes to give Jason back a chance at life. As he still had so much work to do for the gods and goddesses that did not have shrines and action figures to respect them.
Both of these things surprise hades but he grudgingly does so (bc Jason is a son of Jupiter/zeus) saying that Nico and Hazel are indeed very special children.
Although Hades honors Nicos wish he can’t simply let a soul leave the underworld without a final test (hazel being the exception) and does something he did thousands of years ago with another hero begging for his wife’s soul back.
He tells Nico and Hazel they can lead Jason out of the underworld but only if they don’t look back at him. Across the fields of asphodel, across cerebus’ cavern, across the river styx, the journey on Charons boat, back up the many steps that lead to the mortal world…. If they look back once their friend is gone forever. Again…
They distract themselves with a deck of mythomagic cards Hazel stole from Frank (cause she wanted to know why her brother and boyfriend liked the game so much) much to Nico’s embarrassed delight. Nico’s so into explaining the game to Hazel, that the intense need to check if Jason’s still behind them dissipates a bit.
They only notice they’re outside when a wave of sunlight blinds them both and a large figure grabs them from behind.
Jason hugs the daylights out of Nico & Hazel crying like a little kid as months of memories of torment in Tartarus resurface into guilt.
Hades thinks it’s slightly amusing to see a tall muscular son of Jupiter being consoled by his two smaller children as he mentally watches the scene play out from his godly throne.
Nico says he kept the plans of the shrines Jason wanted to build and says maybe he can help with decorating (lol)
I’m gonna have to get an artist to draw a fancomic of this to heal my soul.
Also…. What the fuck did I just write?