Loki practically pranced into the living room, clearing enjoying the faces on my friends' faces contort into frowns.

"Who the Hel is that?" Magnus asked, looking completely and utterly confused.

"Loki," I answered, adding to the wave of confusion misting up the air.

"That's not Loki," Alex said slowly, studying the guy dressed in a sharp green suit.

"You mean, I'm not your Loki," the man corrected, the faintest hint of mischief sparkling in his eyes.

Alex frowned.

"You're not my mom," she said, slowly in case of a mistake, "at least I don't think so."

Loki's brow rose in false shock. "Heavens no! I am not the Loki you know."

"Gee, thanks for clearing that up," Magnus drawled, his patience clearly coming to an end.

Loki shot a look at him, probably mad about Magnus destroying his dramatic speech or whatever.

"As you may or may not know," Loki continued, "Loki is a shapeshifter and mischief maker."

Magnus, Alex, and Hearthstone nodded.

"Well, quite some time ago, Loki developed a way to split his body, making different versions of himself, as to fit the different versions of him that people knew and understood. These versions, ie, me, live interchangeably within religion, imaginings, the media-"

"That shouldn't be possible," Annabeth interrupted. "The different versions of yourself would get confused, and therefore creating new and different versions of yourself, which you would then have to replicate."

"Don't your Greek and Roman gods live together in peace?" Loki asked, making Annabeth scowl.

"That's different," she said, "that's normal."

"Well, just think of me as normal, and we should get along just fine."

Annabeth scowled, and I could practically see the cogs spinning in her mind as she theorized and used that Athenian brain cells of hers.

"What do you want?" she sighed in exasperation, fixing a hard glare at him.

"Ah, well you see, Percy is now able to see my friend without potentially dying."

"I'm not letting Percy leave without me," Annabeth said, in a tone that warned people not to argue.

"No mortal could survive where we're going," Loki stated, immediately getting hit with another glare.

"I'm a daughter of Athena. And without me, Percy would probably leave his brain on the kitchen sink."

"Hey!" I protested, dodging the playful slap my girlfriend sent my way.

Loki hummed, looking away as he weighed up the consequences.

"I'm going," Annabeth said, "and there's nothing you can do about it."

"ThisplaceisinHel," Loki blurted, saying the sentence even faster than Eminen's raps.

"Hel?" Annabeth repeated, not looking phased.

"Hel," the trickster confirmed.

"Well you what?" Annabeth whispered dangerously, "Percy and I have been to the Underword when we were twelve. That was nothing. Not so long ago, Percy and I fell into freaking Tatarus. We survived."

The room went silent as I realised that not many people knew about the true reasons for the nightmares, and how I couldn't pass any dark place without flashbacks, and that we were two of the only three to ever survive.

"Fine," Loki said, begrudgingly, "you can come, but you better not go into spams as soon as we get there."

"We'll be fine," Annabeth promised, putting and arm around my waist.

I wasn't so sure.

***

If we had thought that the quiet table was awkward before, it was even more so when Loki was here.

He couldn't stand the quiet, so he kept making jokes, and telling us weird stories to which we laughed nervously, not really listening or caring to what he was saying.

Meanwhile, Magnus' eyes kept flickering to the door every three seconds or so. Even though he claimed that Blitzen was fine, even I was starting to get worried.

I shot a apologetic look at my mom, who somehow managed to be hosting a group of misfits, each one giving off a monster-attracting scent.

My leg twitched as a scratch at the door proved my theory right, for once.

"Why hello there," I said, making my way to the door as I swung it open, meeting the blank, golden stare of our disturber.

Its shiny scales glistened in the light, hissing as it thrashed and attempted to slash me with its horns.

I automatically jumped into defence as its snake-like body circled me, making it almost impossible to attack.

Finally, I managed to prick it hard enough to draw blood, and that was my mistake.

It howled, yes howled, loudly in pain and started circling around me even faster, its body contorting into seemingly impossible shapes.

Then, rising up in front of me, it glared at me with its slitted golden eyes and spat.

The poison splattered on my face, momentarily blinding me as I used my powers to draw it off as quickly as I could. Still, it sizzled and burnt my face, placing me in utter agony as it came off.

Somewhere nearby, I heard the sound of a weapon unsheathing, and a loud thump as something fell to the ground.

I managed to look up, to see Annabeth cleaning her bloodied sword, and seeing me staring her, smiled a goddess-worthy grin.

"You couldn't even kill a caterpillar without my help, Seaweed," she said, playfully punching me on the back, making me double over. Whoever said that girls couldn't hit hard, hadn't met Annabeth. And perhaps that was a good thing.

"What do you want me to do with this?" I asked, holding up the shimmering bubble of poison.

Annabeth emptied out a flask she kept at her side.

"Put it in here," she ordered, "and maybe the Apollo cabin could do something with it."

***

I hummed as we sat back at the table, Magnus looking up with a forced smile.

"Good fight?" he asked. "Not that fighting is good but-"

"It was a cerastes," Annabeth replied. "They aren't usually a big threat to demigods, but with so many of us here, it must have set it off."

"We really should go," Magnus said, standing up and tapping Hearthstone on the sleeve to get his attention.

From the corner of the room, Loki's eyes gleamed bright green.

"I'll take you," he piped up.

"We're fine," Magnus insisted, stubbornly not meeting the trickster's eyes.

"No, no," Loki said, "I insist."

Magnus met his eyes, giving him a long and hard look.

"Fine," he said, "take us."

Loki grinned as he grabbed onto Magnus's arm, to which Magnus flinched, and with a slow hissing sound, they all disappeared.

"Well," I said, "that was fast."

"Suspiciously so," Annabeth growled. "I don't trust this Loki guy."

"No one does," I replied, "but for now, we just have to."