Both Apollo-kids went into the door Nika had left open, one after the other. Leaving Nika to her own devices was a bad idea in the middle of something like this, so it was best to follow her.

Nika finally managed to get close enough to the guy to tackle him to the ground, quickly moving so she could pin him down.

"What the hell are you doing?" she snarled at him, temped to shake him. But she didn't. Quite.

The guy looked up at her and grinned. "You know, this would be much more fun if you were sitting a little lower."

Nika growled, very tempted to bash his head in. But she restrained herself.

"What are you doing and why is it effecting the monsters?"

"Oh, that. That's nothing." The guy tried to get up and grunted when she shoved him back against the floor. "Although I bet Pan will be happy to tell you."

Nika froze for a moment before someone grabbed the back of her shirt, hauling her off the Aphrodite kid easily and throwing her back towards Jason and Dawn.

Dawn saw it coming a split second before it actually did, so she didn't have time to warn Nika before the Ares girl was tossed through the air. Jason, however, reacted faster than his sister, and moved to catch Nika. He ended up on the ground with her on top of him. While Jason was dealing with that, Dawn already had an arrow ready to go.

Pan smirked at them all, curly hair cut short for the moment, and after a few moments he pulled out a lollipop.

"Well, well. This is an interesting group. Ares, Apollo, and... Hermes. I thought you lot were supposed to hate each other?" Pan grinned. He was clearly not entirely sane anymore.

Dawn tensed, keeping her arrow trained on him. She really didn't like the vibes Pan was putting out, and she didn't want to let him out of her sight for a moment.

"And you think your little hodge-podge group can stop me? Really?" Pan snorted. "Really, kids. Clearly I've been gone for too long if you think it will be so easy." But he didn't make a move to attack them just yet.

"None of us said anything," Jason said carefully once he and Nika were back on their feet. He had his bow at the ready as well, mirroring his sister. It was unnerving how Pan seemed to be responding to things nobody had said.

"You didn't have to. I know. This isn't the first time this has happened, you know. There are plenty of little demigod upstarts like you." Pan frowned. "Or there used to be. Either way, it doesn't matter."

"If it doesn't matter, then why don't you tell us anyways what you're planning anyways?" Jason asked. Hey, it could work. Anything was possible where the gods were concerned.

Pan looked at him, tilting his head to the side a little. "Because it doesn't matter. You don't need to know. You're not invited." He grinned then and started shooing the Aphrodite kid along. "Sorry, this is now a private party. Try back later."

"What if we want in?" Dawn asked quickly. She knew she was taking a gamble, but they needed to know what was going on.

Pan tilted his head to the side. "That depends. How do you want in? And where?"

Nika frowned. Okay, he was pissing her off and he made no sense whatsoever. She was half-tempted to just start fighting him herself to make him shut up.

"What if we want to be part of your plan?" Dawn clarified. Really, it was like talking to a child. A particularly infuriating child.

"Don't have room for all of you. I'd have to kill two of you so you couldn't escape and steal my plan." Pan's eyes glowed, just a little.

"Well how about us two, then?" Nika motioned to herself and Dawn.

"Two... That might work. Why do you want in?"

"Better to be on the winning side."

"Isn't it? It's so much nicer when you can just skip sides. Then no one knows if you're going to win or lose except you. Because I always win." He grinned.

Dawn hesitated, and then nodded.

"It's always useful to have a seer on your side," she added. Without glancing at her brother, she said, almost as an after thought, "a healer, too." There was no way that she could see to entice Pan to keep all four of them around, but she would do her damnedest to protect Seth.

Pan thought for a few moments. "No. Just two of you." He advanced on them. Nika was instantly tense, although she didn't pull her sword out yet. "Two of you stay and two of you go." He fixed his attention on Seth a moment later. "I have no need for a Hermes spawn. You may go."

A moment later there was a dull thump and Seth looked down to find a knife sticking out of his chest. He coughed a little, too surprised to feel any pain, and crumpled.

Nika grabbed Dawn, just in case she decided to do something stupid like try to attack Pan.

Dawn was frozen in shock.

"Seth..." she whispered, dropping her bow. "Seth!" She tried to go to him, but Nika held on too tightly. "No! Let me go!"

Jason hesitated, torn between helping Seth (because he was, reluctantly, kind of friends with him now) and escaping with his life. He decided that his life would be more useful and bolted, leaving the girls behind. He would figure out how to help them once he was sure he wouldn't be killed.

Pan nodded, satisfied with that, and started walking. Even the Aphrodite kid looked a little startled, but he started after Pan.

"Dawn," Nika said quietly, "we have to go. We can go get him later. Come on. It's too late for him at the moment. Once we're done here we'll get him back."

"But--" Dawn's breathing was fast and her eyes were wide, never leaving Seth's body. "We need to find my brother, Jason can fix this, we have to hurry--"

"No, Dawn," Nika said quietly, starting to pull her along. "It's too late. We have to go. We'll get him back later." She half-pulled Dawn along after her, keeping track of Pan, who was still muttering to himself, and the Aphrodite kid.

"We can't leave him here..." Dawn whispered, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I can't leave him here..."

"We have to. Jason will come back for him later and move him somewhere safer." Nika kept dragging Dawn along. "Come on, Dawn. It'll be okay. We just have to get rid of these two and figure out how to reverse the damage and then we can go get Seth."

Dawn resisted for a moment or two longer before finally letting Nika drag her away. Even if she had to drag the bastard to Tartarus herself, they were going to take out Pan for what he did to Seth. She would make sure of it.

Nika stayed quiet as they followed Pan and the Aphrodite kid farther underground until they came to what looked like a control room.

"First stop on the grand tour," Pan said with a little giggle. "Our cosmic control panel."

Nika blinked.

Dawn just watched dully, not really caring anymore, and was like that for several more minutes until a vision slipped across her eyes. She saw Jason sneaking back into the room from before, where Seth had been killed. She couldn't see what he was doing, but just knowing that he had (or would) gone back comforted her enough for her to relax marginally.