(A/N) Hey guys, Nexus here. This is my first time attempting to write a HoO fic, so please be nice and tell me what you think of it!

Disclaimer: I unfortunately own none of the characters, ideas or concepts in the Heroes of Olympus books.

A Shadow in the Sunlight

Nico hesitantly staggered toward the condo, clutching a slightly bloody rag to his right shoulder. The wound itself wasn't really all that bad, just a scratch compared to some of his previous injuries, but it was serious enough in its own way. Grimacing, he tried to flex his right hand and then clenched his teeth at the explosion of pain that resulted from it. It felt like someone had put his arm to sleep and then hooked up a live power line to it. Groaning slightly, Nico blinked away the black spots from his vision and continued to lurch toward the beachside house, determined to reach the one person he wanted to see more than anyone else.

He had been in the Underworld on a mission for Hades when he had been wounded; on orders from his father, he was scouting around the outer rim of Tartarus. After the war with the Giants had ended, the inhabitants of Tartarus had become more and more restless, and the noises of angered Titans and monsters that echoed from the Pit could be heard all across the Underworld. To say the least, the signs of activity made Hades uneasy, so he had pulled out all of the stops and set up a guard duty around the edge of the giant abyss that let to Tartarus, "just in case". In case of what, nobody quite knew, but nobody in the Underworld was brave or stupid enough to question the Lord of the Dead.

When Hades began to set up the newly termed Chasm Guard, the first thing that he had done was to summon his children to the Underworld for recruitment. Nico and Hazel knew that they couldn't ignore a direct order from their father, so they made preparations to leave as quickly as they could. Right as Nico was about to shadow travel them to Hades's palace, Hazel's boyfriend Frank had walked in and wrapped her in a giant Chinese-Canadian hug, causing him to be teleported to the Underworld with them.

As soon as the three demigods had arrived at Hades's obsidian palace, the three Furies had flown up to them and carried them directly into the throne room, where Hades was waiting. He had dismissed Frank completely and briefed his two children on the situation, giving them no choice but to become part of the Chasm Guard. Frank had not taken this well at all; Hades had barely finished talking before Frank had marched straight up to the Lord of the Dead's throne and flat out demanded to be part of the Chasm Guard as well: he refused to let his girlfriend do anything that dangerous alone. Frankly (A/N: ha) Nico was surprised that his father hadn't turned Frank into a muskrat and fed him to Cerberus, but also admired the son of Mars's determination to keep Hazel safe. Apparently Hades had felt the same way, and allowed Frank to join the Guard alongside his girlfriend.

Nico had considered Iris-messaging Will Solace and asking him to join the Guard also, but whenever he pictured the child of the Sun god in the Underworld so far from the sunlight and the sky, he got a pit in his stomach, so he had resigned himself to being in the Guard on his own.

Hades had also recruited several ghosts from Elysium and Asphodel, granting them a half-life in exchange for their services as members of the Guard. All in all, about twenty spirits had joined the Chasm Guard, and Hades had been able to set up a rotating shift between the members. When Nico had gone on his first patrol, he had gone alongside a Huntress named Alyssa who had died in the 1980s and a member of the Roman legion named Arturo who had died in his sleep some 30 years ago. As they walked alongside the edge of the pit, they could hear the shrieks and growls from the creatures within, and though Nico would never admit it, the sounds sent chills down his spine. It didn't help his nerves that Arturo and Alyssa were arguing constantly; Arturo was apparently extremely chauvinistic, and everything he said rubbed Alyssa the wrong way. After about half an hour of heated debate and veiled threats between the two, Nico finally had to use his ghost powers to shut the two up to get some peace and quiet, and as soon as the patrol was over, Nico asked his father if he could patrol alone. Sensing his son's annoyance, Hades had agreed.

The next few patrols went much better for Nico; the half-dozen skeletons that Nico summoned before each patrol were much more agreeable than Alyssa and Arturo were. The noises from the Pit were not any better, however; in fact, they seemed to be getting louder and more frequent. Once or twice, Nico could have sworn that he saw the shadows deep in the abyss move slightly, like they were coiling up to spring.

It was the ninth patrol that he had been on when he was injured.

He had inspected the rim of the Pit several times, and, finding nothing wrong with it, was about to return and report to his father when some type of winged insect-looking monster had buzzed its way out of the Pit. Unfortunately, Nico had been looking the other way and the thing had managed to surprise him. Hearing the buzzing behind him, Nico had managed to move slightly out of the way, preventing the thing from impaling his back with its stinger, but it still scraped across his upper arm, making a long, slightly deep cut.

His battle instincts had kicked in shortly after that, and he had quickly used his Stygian iron sword to slice off the wings on the creature's left side, causing it to list back into the pit, buzzing angrily as it fell. Nico had stared after the falling monster, wondering to himself what the Hades it was, when the scratch on his arm made itself felt.

The unexpected pain had shocked him; it felt like there were tiny red hot ants crawling around inside the cut, making their way down his shoulder to his fingertips. The agony was beyond anything else that he had felt before, even when he had fallen directly into the Phlegethon in Tartarus. The pain was great enough to break his concentration, and the six skeleton guards disintegrated around him. Nico forced himself to take deep breaths as wave after wave of pain racked through his body. Gritting his teeth, he took out his canteen of nectar and tried to wash out the wound with it, but instead of bringing relief from the pain, the golden liquid burned like acid, causing the scratch to turn a dark greenish yellow color. The pain threatened to make Nico pass out, but he managed to stay conscious through an effort of sheer willpower.

Nico tried to focus as he went through his options. For whatever reason, field medicine wasn't working, so he had to get somewhere where someone could heal him. Obviously, staying where he was wasn't an option; it would be several hours before the next patrol would come along, and Nico doubted that he could withstand the pain that long. Besides, he could already feel the dark gravity of the open Pit next to him trying to pull him in. No, staying put was definitely not an option.

He could try to shadow travel back to Hades's palace, but he wasn't sure if he had the energy to go that far; it was taking all of his energy to stay conscious as it was. Ignoring that fact, he didn't want to see the disappointed look on his father's face when he came into the throne room wounded and begging for relief. Nico would rather die than have his father be disappointed in him again. So, no, returning to the palace was definitely not an option.

He didn't want to try to go back to Camp Half-Blood either, though. He could see the looks that people gave him when they thought he wasn't looking. No matter how many times he made a difference in the world, no matter how many different times he had saved the campers's butts, they would always look at him like an outsider. It didn't matter what Will said..

A small hope bloomed in his chest. Will was the best healer at camp, and had actually proclaimed himself Nico's personal physician. Admittedly, there was nobody else that Nico wanted to heal him anyway, and he had been missing Will for a while. Nico tried to think; Will had talked about maybe going home after things had settled down a little, because he had missed his family. If he remembered right, Will lived in Oriental, North Carolina in a condo on the harbor. Will had actually shown him a couple of pictures from home, of his family and stuff...

A fresh wave of agony swept through Nico's arm again, causing him to grit his teeth. That cinched it; he was going to Oriental. Closing his eyes against the pain, Nico focused on the memory of Will's house and stepped backward into the darkness. As the shadows folded themselves around him, there was only one thought on his mind:

"I reeaally hope he is happy to see me."

Will Solace, son of Apollo, Senior Healer for Camp Half-Blood and Head Counselor of the Apollo Cabin, was officially bored out of his mind. He had thought that after all of the stress of the Giant War, it would be nice to be able to slow down his life a little; go back home, visit his family, maybe enroll for his sophomore year at the local high school. After all, all of his friends had moved on with their lives when the war ended; Percy and Annabeth went to New Rome to meet with representatives for the university there, and Leo had gotten special permission from Poseidon to go study with the Cyclops under Krakatoa in Hawaii. Jason and Piper were both busy with camp, and according to Chiron, Frank had apparently gone with Hazel and Nico to the Underworld for whatever reason.

Nico.

Will heaved a sigh, running his long slender fingers through his golden hair. If he was being honest with himself, Nico's absence from the camp was probably one of the biggest reasons that he had decided to take a break from the whole "being a half-blood" thing. In the weeks following the end of the Giant War, the son of Hades and Will had gotten a lot closer; they had gone from being aquaintances to friends to close friends pretty quickly. Then, right as Will had realized that he might have felt something more than just friendship for Nico, the dang kid had to up and move to the Underworld without so much as a hug goodbye. No, instead all he got was a hastily written note explaining that he had been called to his father's palace and had to leave immediately. The guy was infuriating, to say the least.

Of course, Will had to admit to himself, Nico was definitely worth the annoyance. In all of his 15 years, Will had never met anyone as stubborn or as deep as the Ghost King. His deep brown eyes held so much sadness and insecurity, and the healer in Will wanted nothing more than to find the cause of Nico's pain and fix it. Not to mention the fact that his shaggy black hair, strong wiry arms and lightly olive complexion all made Will's heart skip a beat.

Shaking himself out of his reverie, Will made a mental note to send a strongly worded prayer to Aphrodite. No matter what his feelings for Nico may or may not have been, they were not relevant now. In the month and a half since he had returned home from Camp Half-Blood, he hadn't gotten so much as an Iris message from the son of Hades. Will grinned wryly to himself; Nico might have been the strongest demigod that he had ever met, but he was definitely not the best at staying in touch with his friends.

Will looked down at the trigonometry homework on the desk in front of him and groaned softly. When Nico had left camp, the son of Apollo decided to talk to Chiron about going home for the school year to spend some time with his family; after all, he hadn't seen them in almost a year. Chiron had seen the look in Will's eye and agreed that maybe a change of scenery was for the best. At first, Will had been really excited to be home- he had missed his mom and his twin younger brothers, Marcus and Mitchell, while he was at camp. But after about the third week of school, his enthusiasm had worn off.

He had traded days of hunting monsters in the woods and relaxing by the lake for afternoons of math homework and late nights trying to conjugate Spanish verbs, and the transition was not going well. Over the last year, he had gotten used to the excitement that was part of everyday life at Camp Half-Blood, and all of the fun that he had with his fellow campers (especially Nico). When you compared that with the everyday life that he had signed himself up for, well, it was obvious which lifestyle was more interesting to Will's ADHD brain.

Will was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of his mother's voice calling in from the living room. "Will, could you get the door please? I need to keep your brothers from killing each other." Rolling his eyes slightly, Will yelled back in his smooth tenor, "Sure, mom, just a second!" He stood up hastily; any excuse to get away from his cursed trig homework was a welcome one. Stretching himself like a cat, he padded to his front door and opened it, already greeting the person outside it. "Hey, can I help you...?" he trailed off and his eyes widened as he took in who was standing on his porch.

Nico let a smile spread across his pale face as he waved slightly at the son of Apollo in front of him. "Hey, Will, what's going on?" he croaked, and then pitched forward, going limp as a ragdoll as Will barely managed to catch him.

End Chapter One