Nico di Angelo was woken up way too early. He liked to sleep in for as long as possible and his reaction to being woken up was less than pleasant. Bianca had been smart enough to never do that to him, but nowadays, all he had were his friends at camp.

"Hey Nico! You're going to miss breakfast!"

Nico rolled over, trying to block out the sound of the human alarm clock outside his door. He wondered if he could just smack this person on the head like a normal alarm clock. The banging and calling his name started again. Nico groaned and got out of bed.

"I'm coming," he said. "You can stop abusing my door now." He grabbed his orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt and pulled it over his head. He looked in the mirror hanging against the far wall and realized he had serious bed head. It almost made him look like Percy. He smoothed out the bits that were sticking up and finished getting dressed.

"Nico, everyone's heading up to the pavilion. Hurry up in there!"

"I told you I'm coming," Nico said, throwing the cabin door open. Somewhat unsurprisingly, Percy was the one who was banging on the door. "Why didn't you just head up without me?"

Percy gave Nico a friendly pat on the shoulder. "I can't let you be late for breakfast. They won't start until everyone's up there."

"Thanks, I guess," Nico said.

"Come on," Percy said, giving Nico a gentle shove forward. "Don't keep the campers waiting."

Nico headed toward the pavilion, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. The weather at Camp Half Blood was always wonderful, but that morning the air was humid. Nico's skin itched and he started sweating. Mornings like these always made him want to stay in bed.

He sat down at his table. He had to have an entire table to himself, like Percy. He was basically the only member of the Hades cabin. He didn't mind too much. Having a lot people in the cabin would be a bit too much for him. Still, it was times like these that he missed Bianca. He missed having his older sister standing next to him, laughing or telling him that everything would work out. Thinking about it created a cold lump in his stomach.

A nymph set his breakfast in front of him. It was waffles today. They looked delicious, just like everything else they served. Hopefully, warm waffles would stop him from thinking too much about his sister.

Nico put a waffle from his stack into the brazier for his dad. He hoped Hades liked waffles.

Nico liked spending time alone. Percy and Annabeth were awesome friends, but ever since they started dating, he realized it was best to give them their space. When he couldn't stand all the lovey-dovey stuff, he went to hang out with Mrs. O'Leary instead.

Mrs. O'Leary was always affectionate, which could sometimes result in Nico being pinned by and covered in drool. That was the only part he minded. As a son of Hades, he got on well with hellhounds.

"Hey girl," Nico said, scratching behind one of Mrs. O'Leary's ears. Mrs. O'Leary responded by giving him a friendly lick. Nico wiped the spit off with his shirt. He picked up the shield that they used for a Frisbee and tossed it. Nico had small arms, but he managed to get the shield gliding through the air. Mrs. O'Leary caught it and brought it back so Nico could throw it again.

"Yo, Nico!"

Nico launched the shield again before he looked in the direction of the shout. Percy was waving to him. Mrs. O'Leary caught Percy's scent and bounded over to him, knocking him flat.

"Hey!" Percy laughed. "Down girl!" When Mrs. O'Leary freed him, his face and the collar of his shirt were covered in slobber. Percy made a face, but the spit was off of him in a millisecond. Percy was lucky to have powers over water.

"Did you just come to visit Mrs. O'Leary?" Nico asked, helping Percy to his feet.

"No," Percy said. He looked a little worried for a minute. "I think something's happening. We need to head to the big house."

"Is it good or bad news?" Nico asked, getting worried.

Percy shrugged. He waved an arm for Nico to follow him as he loped off. Nico tried to keep up, despite having shorter legs.

A meeting was being held. All of the cabin leaders had showed up except for the Hermes, Iris and Ares cabin leaders. Nico took his seat at the game table. Percy and Annabeth got seats next to each other, as usual. Slowly, the missing leaders finally got to the table and sat down. Connor and Travis Stoll hadn't turned up yet.

Finally, Connor came into the big house, alone. This was surprising. Wherever there was Connor, there had to be Travis with him. The Stoll brothers were as thick as thieves (pun might have been intended). Connor sat down without a word and stared at the opposite wall.

Chiron wheeled over to the table in his wheelchair. He usually came to meetings in wheelchair form because it was easier to sit at the table.

"Everyone," he said. "This meeting has been called because Travis Stoll has gone missing."

The cabin leaders all reacted in different ways. Some of them just looked shocked. Others talked amongst each other. Nico stared at Connor, who seemed to be tuning out all the noise. It was weird to not see Travis sitting next to him. It was like one of Connor's arms had been cut off.

"What are we going to do about it?" Clarisse said. "If he's missing, he's missing." She shrugged. "People go missing all the time."

Annabeth stood up, leaning against the table. "But if he's just missing, then we should assign a quest to find him. If any campers go missing, we have to find out what happened. Who knows? This could affect all of us."

The other cabin leaders groaned. "We can't deal with another crisis!" someone said. "We just recovered from the war."

"Let's hope this is nothing as serious," Chiron said. "But we should assign a quest." He turned to Connor, who had stopped staring off into space. "You will be the leader for this quest. You'll have to consult the oracle, of course and choose who will come with you."

Connor nodded. "Sure, I'll get right on it." He stood up and left right then. He was probably headed to the cave or whatever where Rachel stayed when she was at camp.

After that, the meeting ended. Nico could imagine what Connor was going through. Even though Travis was possibly alive, the situation was like when Nico lost Bianca. Suddenly, there was this empty space in the world and everything felt unreal. Then you started talking about that person in the past tense and it felt like any moment they would just step out and say, "Hey! I'm back. Did you miss me?"

He wandered back to his cabin. There was a summer reading book waiting for him in there. As much as he didn't want to waste time reading it, he knew he had to. He'd been dodging school for a while, but he'd been re-enrolled at Westover Hall aka the stupid military school that he'd been glad to get away from when he was ten.

He flopped back onto his bed and opened the book. Being a demigod meant having dyslexia and ADHD, which made reading assignments more than a little difficult. The book was okay, from what he could gather. He hadn't picked it up in a long time, so he'd forgotten what happened in the chapters before and he had to start all over again.

Nico was almost halfway through when he heard someone knock on his door. "Come in," he said, assuming it was Percy.

Connor Stoll stuck his head through the door. "Nico! Get up and get packing!"

Nico dropped the book and sat up. "W-What? What are you doing here?"

"You're being drafted, soldier," Connor said, walking further into the room. He snatched the book up and flipped through it. "Looks boring," he commented, tossing it over his shoulder.

"Hey! I have to finish that for school!"

Connor looked around the room. "Pretty swank cabin you got here, Nico," he said. Then he folded his arms across his chest and said, "What are you still doing sitting down? Get started!"

Nico groaned and rubbed his temples. He had a bad temper, like his father. Connor liked to push the limits of his patience. He tried to stay calm as he said, "Let me get this straight. You want me to go on the quest with you?"

"Yeah," Connor said. "If you're worried about the book, I've read it already. I can tell you how it ends."

That's not what I'm worried about, Nico thought. "Who else is going on this quest?"

"Just us," Connor said. "I think we'll be enough."

"But why me?" Nico practically shouted.

Connor sat down next to Nico and put an arm around his shoulders. He shook him in a weird "buddy" type way. "Nico," he said. "We're friends, aren't we?"

"No."

"And you'd go to bat for me, right?"

"Did you hear me? I'm not your friend."

"It's because we're friends that I chose you to go on this quest with me. Plus, I know you're capable and you've never been on an official quest before. This will be a good experience for you."

"You're not listening to a word I'm saying, are you?"

"You understand?" Connor asked. Nico wanted to shake Connor a little bit. But Connor had chosen him for this quest and he obviously wanted Nico to come with. And Nico couldn't let him go alone. Even though Connor was older than him by about two or three years, Nico felt more grown up than Connor sometimes.

"Yeah, I understand."

"Good!" Connor stood up. "Now get packing! We're leaving as soon as possible." He waltzed out of the cabin, finally leaving Nico to enjoy the silence.

Nico grabbed his duffle bag from under the bed and started getting his things in order. Well, at least he was going to have something to do for the next week or so.