Author's Note: Ok so this is my first fic and I would really appreciate you guys leavings some reviews so I can improve. Constructive criticism is always welcome! This is rated M just to be safe because there will be language, violence, and maybe some sexy stuff in later chapters. This is a Rico fic because I love the pairing and there are just not enough stories about them. Since this is my first fic, I don't know if I will succeed or fail, but please review because I only want to get better! Thank you for reading(:

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson or any of the characters associated with it.

Chapter One:

Nico di Angelo materialized in Cabin #13 at Camp Half-Blood and looked around at the familiar sight. Nothing had changed since he had last been here, except for the impressive amount of dust that had settled over everything. He wasn't surprised. He had protected the cabin by putting up wards around it to keep people out when he wasn't around, including the cleaning harpies. They couldn't get in so the place was never cleaned. Not that Nico minded. He hardly ever stayed here and he had his own helpers.

Nico summoned three skeletons and left them with instructions to make the cabin habitable again. He walked over to the door, his footsteps muffled by the thick layer of dust, and went outside. He looked over his shoulder at the cabin and was glad to see that the torches were still burning green flames. His eyes lifted to the skull above the doorway and thought about the day he put it there. He remembered it clearly because he had to replace one of its ruby eyes and half the side of it when one of the workers on Hecate's cabin dropped one of the magic blocks they had been using to build their cabin and it exploded. His poor skull was the only casualty, though some campers did get burned a little. Nico looked away from his cabin's decorations and to the Big House on top of the hill. He noticed that it had been repainted since he had last been here. It was now a light lime green. Nico could see Chiron and Mr. D playing pinochle on the porch with a couple of satyrs lingering around.

Nico started walking towards the Big House, wondering why he had agreed to come back here in the first place. He had never really liked it here; that's why he hadn't been back in years. He'd hated it as a kid and he didn't like it any more as an adult. The camp always reminded him that he didn't really fit in with anyone, not even demigods. And it reminded him of Bianca. This was the last place he had seen her alive.

Nico stopped that train of thought before it could go any further. He still blamed himself for his sister's death, even though he had only been 10 when it happened. He knew he couldn't have done anything but that didn't stop him from wishing he had done everything he could have to save her. Like following her on that damn quest instead of asking Percy to do it for him.

Nico looked around camp as he walked. Most of the campers he didn't know. It was early October so school was in session and the only people at camp were the year-rounders. Nico hadn't been around enough lately to recognize any of their faces, which he was a little thankful for. Not knowing anybody meant he didn't have to stop to talk. He did wish Percy were here though. Or Annabeth. He hadn't seen either them in a while but he knew they were busy with college. He thought about going to visit them after he finished with whatever he had to do here. Their apartment was pretty close – not that it mattered. He could shadow travel anywhere.

As Nico was walking, he noticed that a lot of the campers were staring at him. He didn't think much of it because he wasn't a familiar face but then he noticed that some of them, mostly the younger kids, were pointing at him and whispering as well. Nico sighed. It seemed that even though Nico didn't know them, they knew him.

He probably should have expected the staring. Even if they didn't know who he was, he still stood out. All the campers were wearing the bright orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt while he was wearing his usual dark colored clothing. He tried to ignore them but he couldn't help noticing one girl as she turned to see who everybody was looking at. As he looked at her, he saw that she was more of a woman than she was a girl. A very beautiful woman at that. She seemed to be one of the oldest campers here – probably a couple years older than him. She had bright, curly red hair and clear, green eyes that almost seemed to shine. They reminded Nico of the grass in the strawberry fields during summer and something else. Her eyes almost seemed to glow the way Luke's mothers had when she was having an episode, which was a disturbing thought. The red-haired woman seemed extremely familiar but he couldn't place her face. Maybe Nico had a one night stand with her a while ago. He hoped that wasn't it – talk about awkward. She studied Nico for a moment before turning away.

Nico realized he had stopped walking. He shook himself and began towards the Big House again. He reached the porch after a few minutes and walked up the stairs, which creaked under his boots. Chiron and Mr. D looked up from their pinochle game at the noise and Chiron grinned at him. He looked just like Nico remembered, with a scruffy brown beard, frayed tweed jacket, and warm, kind eyes.

"Nico!" Chiron said, "It's good to see you, my boy. It's been awhile."

"Yeah it has," Nico said.

"Not long enough," Mr. D muttered to himself.

Nico looked over at him. He hadn't changed either. He still wore those hideous tiger-patterned Hawaiian shirts, still had bloodshot eyes, and still looked at Nico with the loathing he felt for all campers.

"Mr. D," Chiron chided, "Nico hasn't been back at camp for years. Maybe you should give him a warmer welcome."

"Bah. He doesn't need a warm welcome, Chiron. He only came back because you asked him to," Mr. D grumbled.

Chiron rolled his eyes. He turned towards Nico and regarded him warmly. "You have grown a lot since I last saw you, Nico. I swear you're two feet taller."

"Well, the last time you saw me, I was 16," Nico replied, smirking a little.

Chiron chuckled, laying down a winning hand of cards. Mr. D glared at him and breathed out slowly. He stood up abruptly, snapping his fingers at the satyrs and walked into the Big House with the poor satyrs trotting behind him.

Chiron turned back to Nico, his brown eyes twinkling mischievously. "He can be such a sore loser sometimes. Why don't we talk inside? I'm sure you want to know the reason I asked you here."

With that, Chiron turned his wheelchair away from the table and rolled through the doorway to the Big House. Nico lingered for a moment, looking around the camp before following Chiron inside into the living room. Mr. D was playing the old Pac-Man machine in the corner of the room and the satyrs were peeling grapes for him. Nico always wondered why Chiron let Mr. D treat the satyrs like slaves, but he didn't question it too much. Mr. D was a god after all. Nico still felt bad for them though. He couldn't imagine the horrors that had to come with being Dionysus's servant.

Nico sat down on one of the leather couches that faced the fireplace, which at the moment was empty. Chiron poured them both lemonade before sitting back in his wheelchair. Mr. D's machine made a noise that sounded like he had just lost which was confirmed a second later when he cursed violently in Ancient Greek and put in another drachma. Nico watched him curiously, wondering how he got the machine to accept the ancient currency.

Nico took a sip of the lemonade and nearly spat it back out again as the stuffed leopards head above the fireplace suddenly snarled.

"Is that thing alive?" Nico questioned Chiron.

"Yes. That's Seymour. Mr. D found him in a garage sale and decided that a life as a mounted head was better than being a stuffed animal," Chiron answered as he rummaged around the side pockets of his wheelchair.

Nico was about to say that he thought being stuffed would have been better than being nothing more than a head when Mr. D started cursing again. Very creatively, too.

"Blast this confounded machine! I am never going to beat my high score!" He yelled at the screen, where the Pac- Man ghosts moved around in a way that almost looked gloating. Mr. D looked ready to pulverize the machine. Growling under his breath he jerked his hand at the satyrs. "Come on then. Might as well go to the meeting the elders decided to call. I swear if this is about that Grover again I am going to…" His voice trailed off as he stalked from the room, two very frightened satyrs in his wake.

"Is Grover ok?" Nico asked Chiron.

"Oh yes, he's fine. He is out trying to preserve the last wild places. The council wants him to take on a protector's job though. Go find some demigods that are in danger and get them to camp, that kind of thing. They keep asking Dionysus to step in, which is starting to get on his nerves, as you can see."

"Yeah I noticed," Nico muttered, as he watched Chiron. He has just found what he was looking for – a pack of what looked to be sausages. He took one out and threw it at the leopard head which caught and chewed it greedily. Chiron set the packet of sausages on the table next to him and turned back to Nico seriously.

"There is a reason I asked you to come here Nico. A very serious one," He stated.

"What is it?"

"A goddess has been kidnapped," Chiron said gravely.

Nico frowned. It was hard to kidnap a goddess but it had been done. Artemis had been kidnapped once and Hera too. "Which goddess? One of the Olympians?"

"No, no, a minor goddess. Tyche, the goddess of luck. We don't know why she was taken, or by whom. But we have had a prophecy about it. One that mentioned you."

"Me?" Nico asked, shocked, "It mentioned me?"

"Well, not by name, per se, but it definitely mentioned you," Chiron admitted.

"What was the prophecy exactly?" Nico asked warily. He had had experience with prophecies and they hardly ever forewarned anything to look forward to. Unless you looked forward to death and the end of the world.

"It was 'The child of Fate and the son of Death, shall travel east with the lucky breath, find the lucky mother chained in earth, held by the one born a cursed birth, one shall perish or live forever, another shall lose a beloved tether,'" Chiron recited.

"Well that sounds cheerful," Nico said dryly.

"Indeed. You are of course the son of Death," Chiron said, ignoring Nico when he rolled his eyes at him.

"Yeah, I got that. So who exactly is the child of Fate and the lucky breath?"

"Rachel Elizabeth Dare is obviously the child of Fate, as she is the Oracle. As for the lucky breath, I would wager a guess that it's one of Tyche's children at camp."

Nico considered that for a moment. And then it clicked. The woman he saw outside had been Rachel Elizabeth Dare. Well shit. How had Nico not recognized her? Nico had known her when she was a lot younger, just before she became the Oracle. Nico remembered her as a quirky 14 year old with marker stains on her cheeks and frizzy red hair. She grew up a lot in the past decade, apparently.

"Isn't it kinda dangerous to send the Oracle out on a quest? I mean…what if something happens to her? She is technically mortal after all," Nico asked slowly, looking up at Chiron.

He chuckled. "Don't let her hear you say that. She may be mortal, but she has been through as much training as any other demigod. And while normally I wouldn't let her go out on a quest like this, she is dead set on doing it and she is going to find a way to go whether I allow it or not. And she also has an advantage in the situation. She is getting flashes of where Tyche is. It's almost like Tyche is calling out to her."

Nico nodded. It made sense to have her come along if she could find out where Tyche is being kept. "What about the other? Tyche's kid I mean. I didn't even know there were any at camp."

"Yes, there are 5 currently at camp right now, and two others who are in college. I have contacted both who are in school. I thought you and Rachel might be more comfortable with someone closer to your own ages since you will be spending so much time together," Chiron said.

Nico was thankful for that. Gods know he doesn't want to spend who knows how long with a whiny preteen questioning his every move and annoying the shit out of him.

"Do I know either of them?" Nico questioned.

"No. Bryan, who is now 22, was at camp when you first came here, but I don't think you would remember him. Diane came about 5 years ago. She is 23. Neither of them has replied to my message yet so I do not know if they will be able to come, but I think Diane will be able to. She never got to go on a quest while she was here and I think she has break coming up soon. She will be eager to come."

Great. Nico would get to spend a couple weeks in the company of two older women who would probably treat him like a baby. Awesome.

"Alright, sounds fun," Nico said, sounding a little sarcastic. "But there is one thing I still don't get. Why Tyche? I mean she is a pretty minor goddess. Why would someone want to kidnap her? If whoever kidnapped her wanted to prove a point, why didn't they go for Aphrodite or Demeter or one of the other major goddesses?"

"Like I said, we do not know. And I don't think they weren't trying to prove a point. If they were, they would have tried for a major goddess. No, they kidnapped Tyche for a reason. I just don't know what that reason is."

"Oh, well that's great. So we don't have any clues or anything? We're just completely in the dark about this? Do we even know where Tyche might be?"

"Rachel believes Tyche is being held in China. It will be hard to get there because you cannot shadow travel directly into the country," Chiron told Nico.

Nico frowned. "Why can't I shadow travel there? It wouldn't be that hard, even if I had to take two other people with me."

"It's not that, Nico. You can't shadow travel into China because the entire country is sealed off from entry like that. It has been sealed off from all types of godly communication," Chiron told him gravely.

Nico stared at him. "How can someone block an entire country from magical entry? Is that even possible?"

"Obviously, since it has been done. We found out when I tried to Iris-message a friend in Hong-Kong. Iris herself told me that the entire country was sealed; even she doesn't know how it happened. Something very strong must have done it."

"Great. That's just great. How are we supposed to get there if I can't shadow travel?"

"Well, I think you can shadow travel to India. And from there it is only a matter of getting into China, finding Tyche, freeing her, and returning home safely."

"Oh, well that sounds easy. When do we start?"

Chiron grinned. "I'll let you know when I hear from Diane or Bryan. Now I think it might be good for you to go find Rachel and hash out a plan. You could probably find her at the stables."

"Alright," Nico stood up and walked out of the Big House but instead of going in the direction of the stables, he went back to his cabin.

When he walked in, he would have thought he was in the wrong place if he didn't know any better. The obsidian walls had been polished and there wasn't a speck of dust to be seen on the floor or any of the furniture. His skeleton cleaning ladies were standing at attention and after thoroughly checking over the cabin, he dismissed them. Then he sighed. He was probably going to be at camp for a while. He walked over to the bag he had left on his bed, which was now made nicely, and poked around the top, looking for his iPod. When he finally found the thing – at the very bottom of his bag – he laid down, put his music on shuffle, and closed his eyes.

Rachel Elizabeth Dare. He could remember her clearly now. He had met her when he was twelve and she was fourteen and, of course, he had developed a huge crush on her. Nico hadn't talked to her much and what he had said, had made him sound like the biggest geek on the planet. Nico shook his head at the memory. He had had no idea how to talk to girls back then – he still didn't sometimes, especially when it came to older women. Nico hoped Rachel had forgotten what exactly he had been like as a kid, because he didn't think he would be able to survive this whole quest if she burst into laughter every time she remembered it. Nico was just lucky he had gotten over his crush. He had a feeling this quest was going to suck anyways and he saw no reason to add unrequited love to the equation.

Nico sensed someone at the door to his cabin and propped himself up on his elbows. It was Rachel, hovering at the threshold. And the second Nico saw her there he knew he was totally fucking screwed. All the attraction he had felt for her as a kid came roaring back. Nico knew he was fooling himself if he thought he had gotten over that crush.

Up close, Nico could see that she was even more beautiful than he had thought when he saw her earlier. Her curly hair was a red as fire and her bright green eyes sparkled. Nico could hardly see any resemblance in the woman he was looking at and the girl he remembered. Sure, Rachel had been pretty then but now, now she was gorgeous.

Rachel continued to look at him, not saying anything while Nico stared at her, noticing the finer details of her appearance. She had full, soft pink lips, a dusting of freckles over the bridge of her nose and her cheekbones, and a slender figure that was still somehow curvy. She even managed to make her paint splattered camp shirt look good.

Nico decided that his staring was probably getting a little creepy so he sat up, pulling his headphones out as he did so. He looked back up at her and found that she was still looking at him. He blushed slightly, hoping she didn't notice.

"You know, you don't have to stand in the doorway," he said, breaking the silence.

"I know. I was waiting for you to invite me in," She answered, in a slightly husky voice that Nico found way more attractive than he should have.

"Maybe I shouldn't. It's against the rules for you to be here alone with me, you know," Nico smirked.

"I don't care," Rachel said, rolling her eyes.

"Well, come on in, then. Welcome to my humble abode."

Rachel walked in, looking around. "Humble? You call this humble? Is that a mini fridge?"

"Yes."

"Something wrong with the food they serve here?" She joked.

"Who could live off of all that shitty healthy stuff? I need junk food."

Rachel laughed. "Of course you do," She paused, still taking in his cabin, "You know you're lucky you can do whatever you want with this place. I've always felt kinda bad for the Hermes and Athena kids. They barely have any room for their beds."

"One of the perks of being a kid of the Big Three, I guess."

Rachel sat down on one of the couches. She was right. Nico had a lot more freedom with what he did with his cabin than most of the other campers. They all had a lot of siblings which meant more room needed for beds and more opinions on how the cabin should look and what should be in it. The Hermes cabin still had people sleeping on the floor and Nico had more room than he knew what to do with and nobody to tell him how to use it. He liked the freedom, but he did feel guilty when he thought about how cramped some of the other cabins were. He didn't understand why Chiron didn't have them rebuilt to be bigger, especially the Hermes and Athena cabins.

Rachel was still looking around his cabin. He didn't have much in it, actually. He had a mini fridge in the corner, a couch, a coffee table, a TV mounted on the wall, a dresser, and a place to keep his weapons. The cabin had a very impersonal feel to it, much like the other cabins that were hardly ever used.

"Is it always so dark in here?" Rachel asked.

"Yeah. It won't get much brighter than it is right now. Not unless I decided to add some extra lighting or something," Nico answered. All the corners of his cabin were in shadow, but that was how he liked it.

"Huh. Why do you keep it so dark?"

"Easier to shadow travel when there are a lot of shadows nearby."

"Shadow travel? Is that one of your freaky demigod powers?"

Nico raised an eyebrow. "'Freaky demigod powers?'" he repeated and Rachel stuck her tongue out at him.

"Yeah it's one of my freaky demigod powers. Basically I can use the shadows to travel. Since they are all made out of the same stuff, if you know how to use them right, you can go anywhere in a few seconds," Nico explained.

"Kinda like apprating in Harry Potter?"

Nico laughed. "Yeah, something like that."

They fell silent and Rachel started staring at him again. It didn't make him feel uncomfortable exactly, but it did make him feel a little weird. Rachel looked at him like someone would look when judging a painting – like they were looking for flaws. Nico looked around at anything but her and his gaze fell onto his bag which was still on his bed. He sighed and picked it up. He was going to be here a while and there was no need to live out of a suitcase. Nico walked over to his dresser and started putting his clothes in the drawers.

"So I guess you want to talk about this whole quest thing?" He asked Rachel without turning around.

"You're gonna do it?" Rachel asked.

"Well, I don't really see a choice in the matter. I mean, if we're the only ones who can go save our goddess in distress, we had better go do it."

"True. Did Chiron tell you the whole prophecy?"

"Yeah. All that stuff about cursed births, beloved tethers, and lucky breaths," Nico said, folding his shirts.

"You make it sound so eloquent," Rachel commented.

"I'm not here for eloquence. That's your job," Nico replied.

Rachel laughed. "I guess that is my job."

Nico turned around a looked at her, leaving his half unpacked bag on top of his dresser. "So are you sure you're up to this? This quest is gonna be pretty hard."

Rachel scowled at him and Nico remembered what Chiron had said. "Look just because I'm mortal doesn't mean I'm weak. I've been through training, probably more than you ever had and I know how to take care of myself. I'm not gonna be a liability throughout this whole thing. And besides, I am the Oracle. I do have some protection even if I'm not half god."

Nico held his hands up in surrender. "Hey, I wasn't trying to say you're weak. I remember when you nailed Kronos in the eye with that plastic hairbrush. I just know you haven't really been on an official quest, especially one like this."

Rachel's glare softened, but she still looked pretty scary. Nico made a mental note to never use the words 'weak' and 'Rachel' in the same sentence.

Both Nico and Rachel looked in the direction of the mess hall when they heard the conch shell that signaled dinner sound. Rachel stood up and looked at Nico "See you later, then. Maybe tomorrow we can actually figure out a plan." She didn't wait for a response as she walked out the door.

Nico watched her walk away, trying to not stare at her ass. He sighed. This quest just got a lot harder than it had to be, and it was going to get worse if he didn't get a grip on himself. He had talked to her for all of five minutes and she had already managed to get him to act like a horny twenty year old that got a hard-on every time he saw a pretty girl. He groaned and fell back onto his bed again, closing his eyes, and trying to banish thoughts of the beautiful Oracle out of his mind.