A/N. Hey guy's, I redid the first (and only) chapter, the only reason it good is thanks to my amazing new beta shadowkat678 , seriously this girl is awesome, and probably the only reason this is worth reading. Any way happy reading!
Disclaimer; I don't own.
Hal walked along the beach, not quite sure why he was there at this time of night but unable to sleep. He couldn't ignore the strange voice in the back of his head guiding him, so he followed. There really was nothing else he could do.
Hal heard a cough that sounded as if it was just around the bend so he ducked low and stealthily slipped around. His eyes widened at the sight of a boy laying sprawled on the grass.
His clothes were soaked, and...strange. The strangest clothes he'd ever seen actually. Every article on him was black. He had a shirt with a skull drawn on it, a jacket that seemed to be made out of leather, boots, and a sword hanging on a belt made of iron links. It was bizarre. His shaggy hair was plastered to his head, and his skin was so pale he looked on the verge of death. Hal had never seen anybody so pale!
Hal walked over warily. The boy didn't seem to be breathing, so he knelt down and put his hand below the boy's nose to check. He nodded. The stranger was alive, if only barely.
Hal sighed. He needed to get this boy back so his mom could take care of him. For a normal person his age this wouldn't be a problem but, though he was sixteen and about to go into brother band training, he was small. What he lacked in size he made up in brain, but his brain wasn't gonna help him carry the boy all the way to his house.
He sighed again and heaved the boy up, surprised he was so light. Hal draped the stranger's arm around his neck and proceeded to drag him towards his house, and after about forty-five minuets he made it to his back door and left the boy slumped up against the wall while he went in and cleared a path to a table. As soon he had placed the boy onto it's wood he went and got his mom. She rushed to the boy as soon as the news left her son's mouth, Hal hot on her heals. His eyes widened in shock when he saw a pool of blood growing rapidly on the table. He hadn't noticed the boy had been so injured earlier.
"Hal, go boil some water. Quickly." Hal nodded as his mother started working, mouth suddenly dry, and was off like a shot.
When he finally returned with the boiling water the boy lay on his stomach, still unconscious. His shirt had been removed to get to the wound and the kid's black hair and pale back was covered in blood, some of it was dried and some seemed fresh. A sword and a pile of knives and sheaths lay beside him. They obviously belonged to the stranger. The blades were black as night and seemed to radiate cold even from a distance. It gave him the creeps.
As he helped his mother get the blood off he noticed dozens of scars, as if a five year old had decided to draw a picture on him with a knife.
At that moment Thorn stumbled in to see what the fuss was, and his eyes narrowed when he saw the boy, but he came over and helped clean the wound which looked like some crazy guy had cut an X in the boy's back with a sword then knocked him out with a rock, (which was close to what happened if you changed crazy guy to mercenary monster, sword into claws and rock into mountain)
"Strange," muttered thorn, sitting down when they had finally finished bandaging the boy.
"What's strange?" Hal asked
"His scars" Thorn explained "They're teeth marks, or at least half of them are, but they're bigger than any teeth I've ever seen on man or beast!" Hal nodded thoughtfully
"Do you think he'll live? He lost an awful lot of blood"
"Considering those scars I think he's been through worse." Thorn said quietly, then suddenly whipping around to where the boy lay behind them, his eyebrows rising in surprise. Hal turned around and bit back a gasp. The boy was sitting up and studying them. His eyes, which Hal had expected to be brown, was the same color his hair. Black. Pitch black.
They seemed so full of different emotions that he couldn't read them, except the distrust. That shinned through clearly. His eyes were alert to his surroundings, though not even seeming to notice his injuries.
"Where am I?" the boy's voice matched his appearance. Strange. It was smoother than glass and colder than the north wind. Thorn raised a quizzical eyebrow
"Skandia"
"And where's that?" the boy asked, Hal's jaw dropped. Everybody knew where Skandia was, no matter how sheltered a life they may have lived!
"North of Aurulan" Thorn answered patiently. The boy pursed his lips in frustration, the first real emotion he had shown since waking.
Hal's mother came in and gasped when she saw the boy sitting up, hurriedly rushing over to him.
"Come now, lay down. I can't have you going around making those wounds worse." she scolded and shoved a shirt into the boy's arms "Put that on, then sit right over there and I'll bring you some food." She pointed at him to stay on the table. The boy raised an eyebrow at the order, then just shrugged and struggled into the shirt Hal's mom had brought him. Hal watched curiously as the boy reached over and grabbed his sword, proceeding to strap it onto himself along with the knives, stashing them, it seemed, everywhere he possibly could.
"What's your name?" Hal finally blurted. The boy gave him a strange look, as if calculating how much of a threat he possessed, what all he could say.
"Nico Di Angelo." the boy finally answered "and you?"
"Hal Miukkel."
Nico nodded "How did I get here?" Hal recounted his story while Nico just nodded along from time to time, showing that he was following.
"I'm Thorn, by the way. You can thank Hal for introducing me." Hal shot him a look, not appreciating the sarcasm, which Thorn ignored. "How'd you get that wound, boy?" Thorn asked and Nico scowled.
"It's Nico, not boy, and that's none of your business."
He glared and Hal felt a shiver of fear, but his mother chose that time to come in with a bowl of some kind of soup. She set it down in front of Nico and crossed her arms.
"Eat," she ordered. He eyed the door as if he might try and get past her, but then he sighed, picked up a spoon, and began to eat. While he ate Hal studied him closer. The way he sat suggested that he might be in pain, but didn't really care. It was if this happened all the time to him. It was strange, just like everything else about the boy.
Too soon, his mom shooed Hal off to bed. He was reluctant to go, as he didn't quite trust Nico, but his mom insisted it would be all right. Just then there was a knock at the door, and a lady who looked about eighty years old came in without invitation.
"Hello, have you seen my nephew? He's got black hair and- there you are." the lady said so fast that Hal could hardly understand the lady. She rushed over to Nico and started talking so fast no body except Nico understood. He nodded and got up.
"Thank you for your hospitality ma'am, and thanks for bringing me here," He said, bowing to Hal's mom and nodding to Hal he turned on his heel and followed the old lady out. Hal stared after him, shook his head in wonderment then sighed.
"I'm going to bed" he told his mom, but even as he headed toward his room he knew he wouldn't get much sleep.
Nico followed the lady up the hill with his mind preoccupied with questions, but he had to put them aside for the moment and focus on the present. He followed the lady who, Nico knew, was actually a god in disguise, for her aura was way too bright to be anything else. The lady led him up to the top of a hill, over looking the small sea town the Nico had been in. The goddess led him to the edge of a forest where she transformed into a young teenage girl, dressed in a dark green cape with silver trimming. Her hood was swept back, revealing her face. Her skin was pale like the moon and her hair dark with a silver band circling her head. She looked at Nico with distaste, then sighed as if tired
"Nico Di Angelo, you have been brought here for reasons unknown, at least for the most part." she started hurriedly as if just wanting to get it over with and leave. Nico raised an eyebrow at her hurried attitude, but didn't say anything, just listened intently. "My brother Apollo has refused to reveal anything at the moment, and so I will tell what you need to do until I contact you again. First of all, you are in the past, very far in the past, where there are long boats and animal skin clothes, the very prime point of nature. You must stay in this time and protect a very important treasure which resides in this town." the goddess paused for a moment and gazed at Nico a light of sadness in her eyes that Nico had never seen before. The goddess took a deep breathe and continued. "You will be here a while, so I suggest you do some training. This town in particular has a training program for all sixteen year old boys. You are sixteen, correct?" the goddess asked, Nico just nodded. "I thought so." the goddess stated,
"You will of course have an under cover identity, which I'll leave to you to make up, besides that, I don't know what you have to do, just, wait, I guess." the goddess hesitated then looked at him again, "You look so much like your sister." she murmured, and Nico flinched slightly, and realized who the goddess was: Artemis.
Nico bit his lip and looked away, he had always harbored a slight grudge against said goddess for offering to let Bianca join the hunters. "Well, good luck." the goddess said abruptly, and Nico nodded and bowed to her. He closed his eyes as the goddess switched into her true form, there was a flash of light, and then she was gone. And Nico was left standing on top of a hill, by the woods, staring over the town. Nico leaned up against a tree.
This sucks! He thought angrily. His whole day had been horrible. He started listing it all off in his head. First, his dad sent him after a mass murderer and kidnapper, and when Nico had finally found the guy he was on a boat about twenty-five miles out to sea, with a dozen hostages. Hades had demanded that Nico made sure no one else was killed besides the actual killer, so Nico had had to shadow travel to the ship and retrieve all the hostages and take them back to land, then he had to go back to the ship and kill the murderer, and all the shadow traveling made him exhausted so he had planned to just ride the boat till he got his strength back up, but Poseidon wasn't happy with a son of hades on the water so he had sent a sea serpent to get him off. Nico had "accidentally" killed the serpent, which made Poseidon angry, and he had sent a whole family of sea serpents after Nico, and all in all, Nico had had a pretty horrible day.
Nico glared at the town he was stuck in, then turned to the woods, he decided to find a place to make camp and start his new quest i
A/N. And there it is, hope you like it. Please review, it will make me update faster, again a huge thank you to my beta, your awesome!
Jesus Christ bless ya!