Hey, y'all! This is my attempt at Nico explaining his past to some mortals. Obviously, I don't own PJO, and this is my first one-shot, so it might be a little bit long. On with the show!
Nico di Angelo was having a bad day at his new school even before he got a detention.
Which was not his fault, of course.
It had come to his father's attention that Nico hadn't been in a real school since he was ten. Of course, both camps offered exceptional training for monster fighting, but Advanced History or Math? Uh, not so much. So after several hours of fighting, screaming, begging and protesting, the son of Hades was off to middle school. Middle school. His father couldn't even wait until he could go to high school with his friends. No. He just had to be shipped off to a boarding school. Most people would jump at the chance to, quite literally, escape the Underworld. Not this time. Even talking to Demeter was better than Beckfoot Academy, and Demeter wasn't the exact definition of sane, in Nico's opinion. Not that he'd tell the goddess of agriculture that, of course. It would cause full out war between Persephone, Hades and Demeter. Not exactly the prettiest of scenes, and Nico was no stranger to the arguments between the trio. Percy had been right about one thing. Gods could act like three year olds. But back to our story. Nico had handed in his English homework (he'd asked Frank to read it and write it out for him. At least one good thing had come from the Giant War-Nico could actually do his schoolwork) when the teacher bellowed his name. He wasn't entirely surprised, but he feigned it anyway. The first step in not getting into trouble was acting like you had no idea what the teacher was on about.
" Yes, sir?" The son of Hades asked innocently. His teacher, a red faced man who went by the name Mr Smithers (Getting that reference gets you a cookie) glared at him, and held up the sheet of paper Nico had handed in the week before. On it, along with the date and title, was three lines of writing in perfect cursive. Nico had to hand it to Zhang, he was pretty dam good at handwriting. That didn't save him from his teacher though. Mr Smithers had a look that rivalled Hades' death glares, and you didn't want to be on the receiving end of them if you valued your life.
" What do you call this? It is not an essay on your family! It's three lines listing the names of your cousins, how old they are and how you don't see them much!" Nico smirked. He could feel just how angry his English teacher was, and it was all he could do to not double over laughing. However, the more secretive part of him wanted to curl up in a ball and ask his father to vapourise this annoying mortal. Nico groaned. He could practically hear Reyna yelling at him to not lose his temper. Fine. He'd just have to shock the Hades out of his teacher." "
" Sir, I call it the version that doesn't involve horrible flashbacks."
" Nonsense. A boy your age, with your money, can't have been through anything worse than a scraped knee. Detention." Nico took a deep breath. In. And out. Don't kill the mortal. It involves lots of paperwork, that you'll have to file. In. And out. That was what was running through Nico's mind.
" How about I give you an oral report? Will that wipe out my detention, and get me a passable grade?" Smithers grumbled. He knew full well that Nico's father was influential. He made his decision.
" Fine, di Angelo. Ten minutes or more and you get an A. It better be good, or I'm calling your father."
" Should I present it to the class?"
" Go ahead."
" Okay. My name is Nico di Angelo. I was born on the 19th of January, 2001, in Italy. My mother's name was Maria di Angelo. When I was eight years old, and my sister Bianca ten, my family was on the run. My father's brothers were angry at him. More specifically, me and my sister. Why? Because we existed. Despite my uncles having various illegitimate children of their own, they thought it was scandalous that my father would sire not one, but two children to the same lover. My father, you see, was already married, but his wife lived abroad for six months. He got lonely, and he had a thing for Italian women. A few months later, my sister was born, and later, me. Another reason we were on the run was because my father refused to send me to a self defence camp that was, ah, heavily influenced by my two uncles. My father wasn't stupid. He knew that Bianca and I would be turned against him. So after my seventh birthday, my father started taking us to various safe houses. A month after I turned eight, my parents had just had an argument, because my mother didn't want to raise her children in hotels. She went upstairs to get her handbag, and my father was watching us. The ceiling collapsed. It killed her instantly, and my father only just had enough time to get my sister, himself and me out. Afterwards, he was in grieving. He loved my mother. So he got a surgeon involved, and wiped all memories of my mother from Bianca and I. Afterwards, he sent us to live in a hotel, and got one of his men to pretend to be a lawyer. We thought our parents were dead. Two years later, my father sent someone else to get us out, and we were told that we would be provided for via a trust fund. Obviously, it was my father paying, but we were only ten and twelve. We didn't think it was suspicious. Shortly after Bianca turned twelve, we were sent to military school. A few cousins of ours busted us out, and took us to their school. My father noticed things had changed, and allowed us to go. Anyway, at that school, a certain amount of people could go on a field trip. That year? Five people. Bianca, her friend Zoe, our cousin Thalia, a friend of my cousin's, Grover, and my cousin Percy. He kind of snuck out of school without permission. Long story. But they were in Arizona, I think, and they went through this scrap yard. Bianca found this suit that was like a robot. She put it on, because it went a little haywire, and she tried to deactivate it. The machinery collapsed, and crushed her to death. I was upset, to say the least, and ran away. A few visits to my father's house and a maze later, I was kidnapped. And to put a long story short, my cousins and their friends Annabeth and the guy before, Grover, saved my butt." Nico took a deep breath. Mr Smithers looked stunned.
" All right, that's en-"
" I never said I was finished, did I? My father used me to try to achieve power. His wife and her mother were arguing. There was a massive family fight, and my father wanted to stay out of it, let it blow over until his family eventually lost everything. I couldn't let that happen. So me and Percy, my cousin, went to go convince him. My father looked him in a room, because he wanted me to be the one to stop the war. I was twelve, and a kid who didn't know too much about people skills. Percy was sixteen, and his best friend was one of the most logical people I've ever met. Who do you think was going to break up this fight? So after I pushed my cousin into a river, by accident, duh, he made some major headway. I eventually convinced my father to help out. We were both heroes. Bada bing, bada ba. Annabeth and Percy finally started dating, and then about a month later, my father took me to this, um, rival school. My school and theirs had been fighting for centuries. Now, neither knew about each other, thanks to some clever things Annabeth's mother and a few associates of hers had cooked up. My father had founded both schools; I differentiated between the two schools, acting as his representative. That's when I discovered I had another sister, Hazel. She'd been in hiding, and I'd only just found her. There was something to do with her mother's contractor, and my father begged Hazel's mother not to move to Alaska. He had no love for Hazel's mother, but he loved Hazel. Anyway, Hazel's mother forced her to work with her. In the end, Hazel forced her mother to go into hiding with her, because she knew what her mother's employer was planning. The place they were hiding had a system-good people went to one place, bad to another and those who'd been neutral went somewhere else. Hazel was offered to go to the good place. Her mother was to be sent to the bad. Despite all she had done, Hazel didn't want her mother to suffer. She asked if she could balance it out-both of them go to the neutral place, the good and the bad cancelling each other out. The people who decided reluctantly agreed. After I brought Hazel back to the second school, I managed to get myself kidnapped. Again. I nearly died, and that was before the place I went to before. That was twice as bad. By this point, the two schools knew about each other, and we were being chased, because people thought us people from the first school had kidnapped Hazel and her boyfriend, Frank, because of a minor misunderstanding that would take way too long to explain and isn't really relevant to this subject. Our group, the runaways, split up, and I was stuck with my friend Reyna, and a teacher, Coach Hedge. Imagine that. Not knowing if one of your only relatives is dead or alive. We managed to resolve everything, but I nearly died, which seems to keep happening. A jerk blasted himself to the sky, and since he was the one who initiated the war, that was the end of that. Happily ever after. For everyone but me. So no, I don't like talking about my family. Most of them are dead. My stepmother tried to send me away. Most of my cousins end up dragging me into nasty situations. My dad prefers my dead sister, Bianca, over me. But hey. Nothing worse than a scraped knee. Right?" Nico smiled at the staring class, and walked away. Time to go back to CHB.