(Chapter 1) Nico

"Duck!" Reyna's shout pierced into Nico's head and wrang around in it for a while. Luckily, falling forward felt like a more natural movement to him in his weakened state than standing up. He tumbled over and Reyna's sword swung over his head, whistled through the air and sliced through the stymphalian bird, exploding it to dust.

More kept coming out of the sky, taking a nip at them, and shooting off before any of the three of them could get a clear shot. Nico was still exhausted; they had only landed here a few minutes ago and it always took at least an hour for him to recover from shadow traveling. He, Reyna, and Coach Hedge had been travelling via the shadows for a few days, and there was a monster at every turn. You would think they could afford to wait at least a few minutes before instant attack, but this time as soon as the three of them had set foot in Barcelona they were greeted by feathers and talons.

Nico felt like an absolute nuisance. He could barely lift his arms, let alone battle.

"DON'T THINK YOU'LL GET AWAY WITH IT YOU LITTLE FURRY JAYBIRDS" Coach Hedge took a flying leap at a gaggle of them that was swooping down to attack and got his fair share of scratches and cuts, but managed to drive them away again with sheer force, or possibly loudness. Nico had the uncomfortable feeling that they might just be going to get all their friends to see this crazy goat guy and the wimpy rag doll of a son of Hades. And the birds weren't even furry, they were feathery. Reyna was the only reason they hadn't all been killed already, and she fought valiantly as more birds swooped down.

Of course, just as Nico was reflecting on her importance about ten of the stymphalian birds swooped down at once, all headed for the obvious threat. She tried to do a kind of ninja swipe with her sword and take them all out at once, but they weren't in a straight line and she miscalculated the angle. They swarmed around and under her blade, and jabbed her in the middle, ripping and tearing.
"Reyna!" Nico tried his best to deflect the birds with his sword and get them away from her. After turning a few to feathery white glop, the others, possibly spooked by his general aura of death, went off. In a few seconds, however, screeches in the distance made it apparent that they had only gone to get reinforcements.

Reyna was on the ground, clutching her stomach in pain. Her sword lay unattended on the ground. Coach Hedge was braced for the battle, but there was no way they could take them, not without Reyna, while Nico was weak. He knelt down next to her and tried to clumsily examine her wounds. A small moan escaped her lips. "We have to get out of here. We can't defeat them."

Nico knew she was right. But they also couldn't run with the Athena Parthenon. And shadow travelling was very unlikely. Every inch of Nico's skin already felt like it had taken a personal beating from Coach Hedge's baseball bat. He just didn't have the energy.

"I don't know if I can do it, I'm not recovered." The swarm of birds had appeared in the distance. There was no help possible; all the mortals just milled around minding their own business. Honestly, they could have at least seen people getting pestered by ordinary birds. What did they think the bleeding and scratched up kids were doing, feeding them bread crumbs?

"You have to try, Nico." Reyna said sharply. She never sounded defeated, even when she so thoroughly was. I know, he thought exasperatedly.

"I can take 'em," Coach Hedge primed his baseball bat.

"Get over here" Nico said. he grabbed Reyna's hand and touched the Athena Parthenos. How was he supposed to do this without even enough juice to raise a sword? Coach Hedge backed up. They only had a few seconds at best before the hoard reached them.

Come on, Nico thought desperately. He tried to force them through the shadows, but they wouldn't budge. He had nothing. You have to do this, he reminded himself. Think of the camps, they can't go to war. Everything will fall, millions will die. This is depending on you right now, Nico. Come on, think of Bianca, she'd hate it if you came this far just to fail now. Hades would be so disappointed. Think of Percy…

Nico sucked in a breath and clenched Reyna's hand tighter. He shut his eyes hard and he could feel his body trembling. The shrieks of the imminent danger were always present, growing louder and louder.

And then they faded away, and the ground fell from beneath their feet. As the cold enveloped them, Nico thought he could actually feel his life force draining away. Against his will, he felt his hands go slack, and he nearly forgot how to breathe. Just until we land, he thought. We're almost there, just a little longer. You can do this, concentrate, invigorate yourself, don't fall asleep. Don't lose-

He lost consciousness.

His brain awoke before his body. At least, that's what it felt like. He wasn't sure of an exact point in which he regained consciousness but he found himself remembering a time that already felt like it was from a different life. In all honesty, he woke up thinking about Mythomagic and one time in which he'd beat someone using a combination of Demeter, who most players underestimated considerably, and a hydra. It was so exciting…

Reyna. Coach Hedge. Athena Parthenon. Percy. Quest. Can't move.

From somewhere right next to him he heard an unfamiliar voice that would have made him jump had he been fully conscious.

"Hey, are you okay?"

No, was his immediate thought. But someone was there and had seen him. It was probably some mortal who just saw a guy lying there and thought he should help. Or maybe it was a god or a monster trying to fool him. It was probably the latter. Even if it was a mortal, though, it wouldn't be long before Nico's scent attracted monsters from all around wherever he was. He had to get up.

He forced his eyes open and found himself staring up into the face of a strikingly normal looking teenage guy with blonde hair, brown eyes, and freckles. The guy looked relieved.

"Good, you're not dead," he said. "What happened? You look like you've been beaten. Can you sit up?"

Nico tried to prop himself up on his elbow but immediately fell back to the ground again, hitting his head and feeling ridiculous.

"I guess that's a no," the stranger slipped his arm under Nico's shoulders and pulled him into a sitting position. All of Nico's instincts screamed to push him off, but he physically couldn't. He tried to hold himself up, but he kept falling back against the guy.

"Take it easy," he said, sounding concerned, and then again "What happened?"

Nico wondered if he even had the strength to open his mouth. He tried and only managed a low groan. Where was he? Where were Reyna and Coach Hedge? Where was the Athena Parthenos? How do you lose a fifty foot statue? He had to find them, somehow, and pray to the gods that one or the other had the Athena Parthenos. And also that neither was dead or suspended in shadow space.

"You wouldn't happen to have a golden drachma on you, would you?" Nico muttered. He figured if this was a monster or a god he might; it wasn't a completely stupid question. But then again, he shouldn't overestimate his luck.

The guy's brow furrowed. "You mean like the greek coin? Sorry, no."

How does he even know what a drachma is? Nico reflected vaguely. Well, it didn't matter, since he didn't have one. Nico needed to find some place that would, though he had no idea where. Maybe Reyna and Coach Hedge hadn't landed too far away. Maybe Gaia would decide that she loved the demigods and would cancel the war. He smiled weakly at the thought.

"Look, um not to pry," the guy said in the tone of voice that obviously meant prying. "But you just appeared out of nowhere all beaten up and I'm kind of confused…"

A shot of adrenaline in his stomach made Nico sit up straight and look at the kid. "What do you mean, appeared out of nowhere?"

"Uh, I mean you just appeared. Like, in a flash of black, poof. There you were. Out of nowhere."

Nico stared at him more closely. He didn't seem to be lying or feining innocence. Nico supposed that had he been a monster, he would have eaten him already. But how could this guy see the truth of how Nico had arrived? Was he a demigod? Maybe in all the chaos going on between the camps he hadn't been discovered. But still, he was old enough that they might have found him before the war started. Then what…

Oh, of course. This guy was like Percy's mom and Rachel Elizabeth Dare: a mortal who could see through the mist. That made sense. There couldn't be that few of them around; it was a bit of a surprise that he hadn't run into one before.

"It's called shadow travelling." Nico figured there was no point in lying to the kid. He would be able to see anything crazy that leaped out at Nico anyway, and it seemed like it would be a while before Nico would be able to walk around on his own.

The guy looked even more puzzled, but didn't ask anything else yet. He could probably hear how weak Nico's voice was, since Nico could barely force the words out.

"We should probably get you off of the ground at least. Can you stand? I can help you get over to that bench and then maybe you could recover a bit more?"

Nico just nodded. He sincerely doubted his current walking abilities, but he couldn't just lay there on the ground like monster bait. He might as well put this kid further and further into unknown danger. Ruin as many lives as possible. Just run around everywhere, generically spreading destruction.

The guy pulled Nico's arm around his shoulders and hoisted him up. Nico felt utterly useless. His feet actually dragged on the ground, they were so useless. The two of them managed to get him half walking and with a few minutes of desperate dragging and shuffling along they reached the bench, which had only been twenty feet away in the first place.

"Okay," the guy deposited Nico as carefully as possible on the bench and sat next to him. "So, do I get a story or what? Do you need help? What do you mean by shadow traveling, and what are those monsters I always see everywhere? What-"

"Shh" Nico's brain wasn't even keeping up with the rapid-fire questions. One at a time was all he could handle at the moment. He just needed to recover. He glanced over and saw the guy kicking his legs, looking impatient. With an internal relenting sigh Nico finally spoke. "Have you heard of Greek Mythology? Well, basically it's all real. Roman mythology too. I'm a demigod. And monsters are greek monsters. You're not crazy. Theres a mist covering everything from mortals, but some like you can see through it. Answer your questions?"

"A very relatively small portion of them." He didn't look satisfied but he seemed to get that Nico wasn't exactly up for a long explanatory conversation.

An idea occurred to Nico. He might have packed some ambrosia, just in case… he could really use some now. He started digging around in his pockets for it.

"What are you looking for?"

Nico ignored him, he was trying to reach under the folds of his giant jacket pockets. There had to be something in there. Hah! Nico triumphantly pulled a small square of ambrosia from his pocket. It wasn't much, and something nagged at the back of his mind that he should save it. But if a monster attacked him by surprise, he would be no good. He would just end up leaving Reyna and Coach Hedge with a giant statue to drag around half the world. This was an emergency, people would probably die if he didn't eat it now.

He popped it into his mouth and slowly chewed and swallowed. Warmth spread through him awakening him a little. It wouldn't fully heal him this quickly, but he thought he might be able to stand up now, at least. The guy was just watching him curiously.

"Ambrosia," Nico finally answered. "It heals demigods, but it's deadly to mortals."

"Wow… so if you're a demigod, one of your parents is a god?" Nico nodded. "Which one?"

He was tempted to just reply "my dad" and not give which god it was. But then again, it didn't matter really. It was probably a good thing if the mortal was repelled by him. It might save his life.

"Hades."

"God of the dead right? Wow, no wonder you wear so much black. So what, all the gods and myths are just casually real? This entire time? And nobody's noticed? Mist must be pretty good. What if all schizophrenics are actually just seeing this? Wait that doesn't make sense they have different delusions. Oh well. So are you healed yet?"

"Not entirely, but I'm better." Nico felt strange about the way he talked. It was in a constant babble, easy to tune out but also sort of easy to listen to. He thought he could almost hear Bianca's voice. Remind you of someone?

Nico forced himself to stand. "I guess this is goodbye then."

"Wait what?" He sounded shocked. It wasn't like Nico could afford to have a noisy mortal following him around. If death was what the kid wanted, then Nico would be a great option for him. He was the expert on death.

"Don't go, not yet. I want to know more about the Greek myths and how everything works. And besides, you're still pretty weak I can tell. You may need my help."

"I'm fine" Nico cut in harshly. He didn't need anyone. "For your information, the only reason you haven't been attacked and killed by those monsters you see is because you're a mortal. They only have an appetite for demigods, which would apply to me. Don't be an idiot."

With that Nico adjusted his footing and walked away. He still felt faulty in his steps, like he might fall over at any minute. He tried not to let it show, and just focused on not looking back at the mortal.

The farther he walked, the more sure he was that the guy was still following him at a distance. He kept hearing footsteps in accordance with his own, that stopped when he stopped. He knew he should really turn around and tell him to stop, but he honestly didn't want to deal with it. He had more pressing things to worry about, namely finding Reyna and Coach Hedge. Why was he so stupid, he should have packed extra drachmas in case something like this happened. Come to think of it, he should have eaten the ambrosia before trying to shadow travel away from the stymphalian birds. None of this would have happened at all. You will always be a disappointment won't you, he thought wryly to himself.

He started looking around for somewhere he could get a map of this place, wherever he was. It occurred to him that his covert follower would know, but Nico just wanted to avoid him. Interacting with him the little that he already had was risky. Where did one find a map shop walking the streets of a random city?

Nico was beginning to feel nervous that he hadn't had enough ambrosia to heal him completely. His footsteps still felt unsteady, and his arms hung limply at his sides. The thought of even moving them seemed taxing. It really was pushing what he could take, shadow travelling twice in a row. Especially since he'd been doing it so often recently, barely allowing himself time to recover before moving on so they wouldn't have to face too many monsters. Slowly, his condition had been deteriorating, and now he'd gone too far.

He walked among the tourists, trying to blend into shadows and make himself less noticeable. It worked easily on humans, but he knew that the real threat would be able to smell him, and hiding would be worthless. If he met anything, he would have to fight. Hoping to reassure himself, he tried clenching his fists to prove to himself he had the strength. The amount of energy that drained from him resulted in the opposite effect.

Just then, there was a commotion not too far in the distance. Nico's ears were suddenly assaulted with bangs and screams. His heart beat sped up uncomfortably fast; it seemed to take a leap into his throat. Maybe it was just normal, city noise. A car crash?

But a car crash normally didn't let out an ear-splitting roar.