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It’s not every day that you find Death waiting for you outside your cabin door. Which, Percy supposed, was probably actually a good thing. Death was definitely not his favorite person, even if she was cooler than he expected her to be. But still. They were never going to be BFFs, and it was better for him and people he cared about if she stayed far away.
Yet that night, as he headed back from a late training session with Grover and Annabeth, yawning and dreaming of bed, he came up short as he got a look at the figure on his doorstep.
“Hello, Percy,” she greeted him, as if he had been expecting her arrival. Which he most definitely had not.
“What are you doing here?” he asked warily, before it occurred to him what she must be doing there, especially since there was no one else around. He began to shake his head. “Oh no. I’m not ready yet! I didn’t even finish high sch…”
But Rio was already rolling her eyes at him. “I am not here for you,” she said, as relief swept through him. “Well, actually, I am here for you …”
His stomach plummeted to his feet.
“But not like that. I need your help.”
He gaped at her, trying to keep up with this conversation. “What could you possibly need my help for?”
“I need you to save someone from the Underworld who’s not supposed to be there.”
He stared at her to see if she was kidding. She didn’t look like she was kidding. Did Death kid?
“Can’t you just …” He waved his hands around. “Free this person?”
Rio sighed. A little too dramatically if you asked him. “Death cannot free someone from the Underworld,” she said. “How would that look on my performance review?”
“You get a performance review?”
“Are you listening to me, Percy Jackson?”
“Yes,” Percy said. “Performance review unclear. But you want me to free someone from the Underworld. I’m guessing I should be secretive about it. Don’t die in the process. Who am I freeing anyway?” He frowned. “Who is so important Death herself wants them free?” He frowned more. “Is it Agatha?”
Rio scoffed. “Of course not. It’s the Slayer.”
Percy blinked at her. “Buffy?” he asked. He had never met her, but he knew about her. Everyone who could see monsters did. If he had a hero, apart from his mom, she would be it. “She’s dead?”
“Saved the world. Fell through a portal. Ended up in the wrong spot.” Rio waved her hand. “It’s why I need you to free her. It’s not her time yet.”
“Okay,” Percy said. “So I can just walk into the Underworld, free the Slayer from wherever she is trapped and then we walk out and everyone’s happy?”
“Oh, Percy Jackson,” Rio said, and she cackled. Actually cackled. “You know it’s not that easy.” Then she grinned at him, gave that awful cackle again, and was gone.
--
The first stop was finding Nico. A person who knew the Underworld like the back of his own hand. Or something like that. Luckily, Nico wasn’t hard to track down. Percy found him by the lake, throwing stones into the water, looking morose.
“Want to go on a quest?” he asked before laying out the details.
“Better than staying around here,” Nico said, which wasn’t exactly an enthusiastic agreement but it wasn’t a no either, and so a few hours later — after getting advice from Annabeth on all the things he should be aware of and all the other things that could go wrong — Nico and Percy gathered on the edge of the ocean that bordered Camp Half-Blood.
“I’ll try to get us to a spot where you won’t be detected right away,” Nico said, and Percy tried to seem happy. He knew what that meant, though. They would have maybe five minutes before the monsters were attacking, and they still had no idea where they actually needed to go. Where did Slayers who fell through portals end up anyway?
He hadn’t needed to worry. The minute they landed in an Underworld that almost seemed deserted, Percy had felt a bit of unease. A few moments later they discovered the line of monsters and Percy knew just who they led to. Fortunately for them, and mostly for Buffy, it appeared she was being protected by some sort of magic bubble. Maybe hers. Maybe something leftover from the portal she ended up in. Or, something whispered in the back of Percy’s mind, maybe it was actually from Rio. Whatever it was, though, it wouldn’t last long. They didn’t have too much time.
“How are we going to do this?” Percy asked Nico.
“I have an idea,” Nico said. “But it’s dangerous.”
Percy almost laughed. “What else is new?” he said. “Tell me the plan.”
--
The plan in theory was simple. Percy would serve as a distraction for all the monsters while Nico saved Buffy from whatever was holding her in the magic bubble and get her to some place as safe as possible in the Underworld until he could go back to get Percy.
In execution, the plan was not that simple. There were too many monsters. Sure, he got some good monster flaying in and it did bring warmth to his chest to see them turn into dust, and he was also able to use the many rocks and crevices of the Underworld to get a few of the slower ones off his trail by leading them astray, but after a few minutes he knew he was most likely a goner.
And honestly he would have been if it weren’t for Rio. He rounded what looked like a wall of rocks and there she was, stretched out on a boulder like she was getting a tan at the beach.
He pulled up short. “What are you doing here?”
“Why are you always asking me that? What sort of greeting is that, Percy Jackson? And what does it look like I’m doing here?”
“Getting a tan in the Underworld?”
Rio rolled her eyes. “I’m saving your ass,” she corrected.
“Nico saved Buffy.” He said it confidently, even though he had no idea if that were true.
“Yes, he did,” Rio said, and Percy tried not to let his relief show on his face. “It’s why I’m saving you.”
“So this makes us even or something?”
“Oh, Percy Jackson. We are far from even.”
--
Camp Half-Blood was in an uproar. An actual Slayer among them! The line of people to shake her hand and talk to her was longer than the line for food on ice cream cake day.
“This place is never going to be the same again,” Nico sighed.
Percy smiled. At him, at Buffy through the crowd and to the darkness where he knew Rio was lurking.
“No,” he said. “It’s not.”