( + Grover Underwood, Will Solace and Nico!)

It happened too fast to make sense. One moment, the battlefield was fire and chaos — the crack of lightning, the sting of metal, the crash of waves. Screams swallowed by thunder. Then nothing.

No pain. No weight. Just… silence.

When they opened their eyes, they were no longer standing on scorched ground. The air was cool here, almost damp, carrying the faint echo of voices that weren’t there. A velvet curtain loomed ahead, drawn across a stage they hadn’t noticed until now. The floorboards beneath their feet gleamed black, polished to a shine, and overhead a single spotlight burned, too bright to ignore.

Jason blinked, his hand going instinctively to his weapon. It wasn’t there. Hazel whispered, voice shaking, “Where are we?” Will pushed up from the ground, pale, scanning the empty rows of seats beyond the stage. “What… happened?”

No one answered.

They all turned slowly, drawn by the weight of a gaze. At the edge of the stage, lounging in the shadows as though he’d been waiting for this exact moment, was Hades. Dark robes curled around him like smoke, a faint, smug smile playing across his face. His eyes glinted with something that wasn’t quite warmth, wasn’t quite cruelty.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to.

The silence pressed down heavier than the battlefield ever had.