"Okay guys, let's get down to business!" Luke said excitedly when Hazel, Julie, and Flynn walked into the studio.

"What's going on?" Jason asked.

"They roped me into performing with them on Friday." Hazel explained, grabbing a chair and sitting down next to the piano.

"We did not rope you into anything!" Reggie said in denial.

"All four of you gave me sad puppy dog eyes."

"That's Hazel's one weakness. Y'all roped her into it." Jason said snarkily.

"By the way, everyone, as far as I know, is meeting at Camp Jupiter on Friday." Hazel said, looking over at Jason.

"Everyone?"

"Percy said that he was going to do his best to give you a hug." Hazel said, smiling as bravely as she could at Jason. "We have to help you move on. It's our duty as your friends."

"Hazel, it's not your job to find my unfinished business."

"I know, but... Your death hit everyone hard. We have to help you move on. You would do the same if it was one of us, we're just repaying the favor."

"We save the world together one time, and all of a sudden, you're in my debt for the rest of my life." Jason teased.

"You know that's not how this works, Jason." Hazel said, rolling her eyes.

"I know." Jason said, bending down and attempted to hug Hazel, everything but his hands going into Hazel's body. "I know that this is a bad hug, but I love you, Hazel. You're like the little sister I never had."

"Love you too." Hazel said, feeling her phone vibrate, Camp Half-Blood's caller ID popping up. Only one person could be calling. Hazel looked over at Julie and the others. "I'll be right back. My brother's calling."

"We'll be here!" Reggie said happily as Hazel got up and walked outside of the studio.

Taking a deep breath, Hazel answered the phone. "Hey Nico."

"Got something you want to tell me?" Nico asked, his voice already wavering.

"Just got off the phone with Leo, huh?"

"HAZEL LEVESQUE!"

"Nico, calm down!" Hazel begged. "I know his death brought up... Unpleasant memories-"

"Unpleasant memories!? Hazel-"

"I know, it was like Bianca all over again. How do you think I felt, Nico? I was the first one to see him, after all... I'm still in the process of wrapping my head around it."

Nico muttered some choice words in Italian, slow enough for Hazel to understand, but fast enough for other people around him to think that he was speaking gibberish.

"Nicolai di Angelo, gimmie that phone!" Will's voice softly said on the other end before it got louder in Hazel's ear. "Sorry about that, Hazel. I told him not to call you."

"It's fine, Will. I don't blame him in the slightest."

"So... Jason's a ghost?" Will asked, then sighed heavily. "How's that going?"

"I freaked out the people he's currently staying with, Julie Molina from Julie and the Phantoms and... Well... The phantoms, who are actual ghosts, and there's a skateboarder ghost who hangs out with them too who kinda looks like Jay from Descendants, or that one werewolf kid from the Twilight series, but with long hair-"

"Time out, are you telling me that A, you've met Julie and the Phantoms, and B, the Phantoms aren't holograms, they're actual ghosts?"

"Yeah..."

"I called it!" Nico's voice softly came out.

"Nico said that he got a weird vibe from the guys. Is Jason... Ya know... Doing okay?"

"I think so. He wasn't expecting to see me yesterday either, so we're just... Eggshells right now." Hazel explained. "I think I've been hanging out with Nico too much, because when I saw him, I started cursing in Italian before Jason and I had a small arguement in Latin."

"Oh my gods... You mentioned scaring the people he's with?"

"They didn't think I could see ghosts, so me talking to Jason and then interacting with the ghosts kinda spooped them a little bit."

Will laughed, rolling his eyes. "Classic."

"Hardy har, Glowstick."

"Really?"

"That mystified Jason, by the way."

"It did?"

"Yeah, oddly enough." Hazel said, laughing softly. "Is Nico doing okay?"

"Well... Chiron is forcing him to drink some hot cider right now to calm him down, but..."

"Yeah."

"How do we help Jason move on?"

"I would be lying if I said I had an idea."

"It's about unfinished business, right?"

"Yeah..."

"What was the last thing he did before dying?"

"He forced Piper, Apollo, and Meg to leave him on the ship, and then his dead body washed up on shore, spear in his chest."

"So he pulled a Percy?"

"It's really sad that Percy's sacrificed himself so many times to the point that we've come up with a joke for it."

"It is... Just like how it's sad that Percy was a reason for injury when he was fifteen."

"What could his unfinished business be? His friends? The temples on temple hill are almost done, so I doubt it's that..."

"That's why we're gathering, right? To figure it out?"

"And so other people can see him before he moves on." Hazel said, shaking her head. She got on her tippy toes to look inside the studio, seeing that Willie was now inside.  "This is weird, Will. My father's never done anything like this before. Thanatos was freaking out when the spirits were escaping during the Giant War, and I can count five ghosts in this studio right now."

"Well... Is there anything they all have in common?"

"I don't know... They're all teenagers?"

"Maybe that's why they're like this. They're people who died too early through idiotic mistakes or things that could've been prevented, and their 'unfinished business' is them figuring out what makes them want to live. Hades, Pluto, whatever you want to call him, hasn't collected them because he wants to give them a second chance, like how you were given one. Not everyone can have a Nico, though, so this was his solution."

"That's... Not a bad theory." Hazel said, getting off of her tippy toes and went back to leaning against the door. "Only thing is, what do we do to make Jason want to live?"

"What about the Phantoms? Why can people see them when they're on stage."

"Because they lived for music, the three of them were a band before they died, so they can live as long as a song is playing."

"If that's true, then why haven't they completed their unfinished business?"

"Maybe the music isn't enough..." Hazel realized, gears whirring in her head. "You and Nico are coming on Friday, right?"

"Yeah. So's Rachel. She didn't know Jason very well, but she thinks I'm gonna need help to keep Nico under control."

"I'll talk to you then. You gave me an idea..." 

"Happy to be of service to my boyfriend's sister."

"See ya Friday."

"See ya Friday." Hazel said, hanging up the phone. She walked back inside the studio, looking at the three Phantoms. "How did you three die, exactly?"

"It's kinda embarrassing..." Luke said nervously.

"We ate hot dogs out of the trunk of a car and got food poisoning." Alex answered.

"Why would you guys even do that?" Hazel asked.

"Thank you!" Jason said.

"We'd do it again if it meant that we got to keep performing with Julie." Reggie said happily. "I think the three of us would all say that."

"That's easy to say, especially since everyone in this room besides Julie and myself is dead."

"You were dead... At one point." Jason said, sitting down next to Hazel.

"Which is why I can say, with experience, that it is much easier to say that you'll die than to say that you'll live."

"How'd you die?" Willie asked.

"I was thirteen." Hazel started to explain. "If you guys want me to explain my experience, it's important for you to know that this was before World War 2, and that the children of the Big Three, children of Zeus/Jupiter, Poseidon/Neptune, and Hades/Pluto, were the main instigators of that war. After that, the three brothers decided to not have anymore children for the safety of the world. Jason and his older Thalia are the most recent children of Zeus or Jupiter, our friend Percy is the most recent child of Poseidon, and my brother Nico and I are the most recent children of Hades or Pluto."

"You mean Nico is?" Julie asked.

"No, she doesn't. After World War 2 and the deal between the big three was struck, Hades put Nico and his older sister Bianca in this place called the Lotus Hotel. Time moves slowly there, so both Bianca and Nico stayed in the Lotus Hotel until Percy got claimed by Poseidon. Bianca later died while on a quest with Percy, my sister, and some other people to go save Artemis and Annabeth." Jason explained. "At least, that's what I've heard..."

"Did you hear the part about your father trying to kill Nico and Bianca, instead killing their mother, which is why Dad put the two of them into Lotus?"

Jason's eyes widened. "My dad killed Maria?"

"Yeah..."

"Gods damnit Dad."

"Anyway, that little bit about Nico was important for you guys to understand later. My mother wanted riches since she didn't get a lot while selling gris-gris, so she performed a summoning spell to get my father to see her. He told her that he would give my mother what she wanted, but it would be at a big cost. The cost was me. I could summon precious gems and metals, but if we gave them away, that means that the person we gave it to would die. It got to the point where everyone started calling me a witch, not that I blame them, and my mother forced the two of us to move to Alaska on my birthday. From there, my mother got under the influence of Gaea, Mother Earth-"

"She's evil." Jason interrupted. "Just wanted to add that."

"And they made me raise up this... This egg for months. I didn't know what I was doing, but by the time it was fully formed, my mother said that in order for the egg to hatch, it needed a human sacrifice. My mother. My choice was either to live, start World War 2 early, and be by myself, or I die with my mother, take down whatever I raised, and figure out my punishment."

"You chose death?" Willie asked.

"I chose death. What normally happens is that you go to the Underworld and you stand before judges, and they decide where you go based on your previous actions in life. There, I was given two options. Either go to Elysium, since my actions were overall heroic, get a chance at rebirth, leaving my mother to go to the Field of Punishment for the rest of her dead life, or we both go to the middle ground, the Fields of Asphodel."

"You chose Elysium, obviously." Luke said, crossing his arms. "You couldn't be here otherwise."

"And let my mother get punished for being manipulated? I couldn't do that to her. We both went to the Fields of Asphodel. After a while, Mom forgot about me and the rest of our life, like most spirits do. I didn't forget anything. Fast forward about eighty years, and Nico goes down to the Underworld to try to sneak Bianca back up to the world of the living. By that point, Bianca had chosen rebirth, so Nico started wandering until he found me. He figured out that we were related, and he brought me up here. I had flashbacks to my old life, but after a while, I found something to live for." Hazel concluded, looking over at Jason. "My newly found family."

"What's the point of you telling us this?" Reggie asked.

Hazel shrugged. "Just something to think about."

Julie turned around when she heard knocking at the studio door. She got up and opened the door to see Nick holding a bouquet of dahlias. "Nick, hey!"

"Hey Julie." Nick said, looking through the gap. "You busy?"

"This guy..." Luke said, rolling his eyes.

"You jealous?" Jason teased.

"Shut up Jason."

"Hazel, come here!" Julie said, waving Hazel over. Hazel walked over, waving hello to Nick. "Nick, this is Hazel. She just started this week."

"Nice to meet you, Hazel." Nick said, holding out his hand.

"Nice to meet you too." Hazel said, shaking Nick's hand. Instantly, she felt something lingering beneath the surface. Something... Something dead. Something borderline evil. Hazel was quick to release her hand, looking over at Julie. "We... Um... Practice."

"Right. Hazel is performing with us on Friday. I gotta teach her her part before she has to go back home."

"I'll leave you guys alone then. I just wanted to give you those flowers." Nick said, his eyes drifting to the ground. He bent down and picked up a ball of silver. "What in the-"

Hazel reached forward, snatching the ball of silver and the out of Nick's hands. "Nice meeting you, but we gotta go. See ya!"

"BYE!" Julie yelled as Hazel yanked Julie into the studio, slamming the doors shut. Julie looked over at Hazel. "What was that about?"

"Nothing..."

"Hazel, if it's nothing, then why is silver and random jewels popping up around your feet?" Jason asked, crossing his arms.

Hazel looked down, realizing that she was ankle deep in silver and sapphires. Hazel quickly made them all vanish back into the ground, smiling brightly at Jason. "Nothing to worry about! I'm good!"

"Hazel..."

"It's nothing, Jason!" Hazek repeated, setting the ball of silver on the ground, watching it dissolve. "Let's just learn this song, okay?"

Through concerned glances, the group spent the next hour learning the song. When it was time for Hazel to go back home, she walked over to her school bag that Willie was guarding. "Can I talk to you for a minute? Outside?"

"Why?"

"I have a couple questions."

"I'm gonna walk Hazel to the door. I'll be right back." Willie said, following Hazel out of the studio. Once they were outside, Willie crossed his arms. "Hazel, what's going on?"

"How does poofing work? Do you need to see the place in order to poof to it?"

"Why?"

"I need to talk to you where the guys can't hear. I... I felt something when Nick was here, and it scared me. Jason is too new to the group, so I doubt he'd know anything. You're close to the guys, but I feel like you'd tell me the truth. Willie, please. I'm begging you."

Willie sighed. "You don't typically need to see it, but if I've never been there, visualizing the place helps. Why?"

Hazel dug into her backpack, grabbing a sketch of the forum from her bag and handed it to Willie. "I want you to poof here. It's near where I live. The guys don't know where this is. Meet me there at seven tonight. I promise I won't be wasting your time."

"It sounds important."

"Julie and the guys might be in danger."

Willie's eyes widened. "I'll be there."

"Thank you. See ya then."