Chapter 1: The New Kid

Shiro's P.O.V.

I gazed up at the school with the feeling of dread in my stomach. Great, I thought, another school where I get to be a loner cause I creep people out. Ever since I was a child, I was a psychic. Now, I know what you're thinking. You think I'm lying, that psychics don't exist and that we're just fakers and magicians. But that's not true. There are real psychics, in almost any community, but most keep to themselves in order to retain normalcy. I'm not able to control my…abilities very well, and at times I'll say or do things that freak people out. It's the reason why I'm a loner and try to keep to myself as much as possible. Unfortunately, I wasn't just any regular psychic, I was born a fucking empathic psychic, as if that made matters easier. Human contact was a BIG no-no. Even being surrounded by people was almost too much for me to bear. But over the years, as I realized this, I steeled my will and it made it so that I could ignore the emotions radiating off others. But human contact was not something I could control; if I were to touch someone I would feel their emotions as my own and learn facts about their lives, which also lead to learning secrets…dark secrets at times. So now, I always wore gloves, long sleeve shirts, jeans, anything to keep as much of myself covered up as to not cause any sort of accidental human contact. This ability I just explained is called psychometry. My other abilities consisted of aura reading, clairvoyance, and clairsentience. Aura reading was simple. I looked at people and could see their aura, see the color, read its meaning. You could learn a lot about people just from this, but it was also something easy for me to ignore. My clairsentience was something I couldn't control, but it really only went as far as being able to see straight through lies. Came in handy I suppose. And as for my clairvoyance, my will power was the only thing keeping visions away. I was terrified of those as a child, feeling like I always had nightmares, even during the day.

My mother was the one who seemed to understand what I was going through, but both my parents died when I was 8 years old. They were murdered when someone broke into our house and they were protecting me. Since then, I've been an orphan, and I was adopted once and only once. The man's name isn't important, but under him, I suffered abuse. He had other adopted children and the only reason was so he could get money from the state and use it to buy beer and cigarettes. He kept us malnourished. I defended the others as best as I could, taking most of the beatings as they became more and more brutal. Eventually, one day, he beat me so bad that I almost bled to death from all the broken bones and injuries. One of the others had the courage to sneak out and run to the police for help. The man was arrested and sent to prison for life and I was taken to a hospital to be treated. After a few months, I recovered and was shoved back into the orphanage. I refused to let myself get adopted again and when I turned 15, I was told about my parents' will. They had left all their money and assets to me and wished for me to live happily. I was immediately given access to this since my parents apparently had friends in high places and I was released from the orphanage and allowed to live in my old house which had, for some reason, been maintained by my parents' friend. That's where I lived now and I had enrolled myself in school.

The whole time I suffered under my psychic abilities, which I couldn't understand. But as I searched my old house after moving back in, I found a chest in the attic containing a book that my mother left behind. It talked about what I was going through and my abilities and what is was to be a psychic. I read it, obviously, several times, and I was finally able to make sense of a lot of things. I was able to start controlling, or at least blocking, my psychic abilities to an extent in order to dampen and lessen their effect. Even after all that, my first year in high school didn't go well; I was being bullied, and the guy made contact by punching me. I instantly knew things about him, things he kept hidden, and I spoke them out loud to him, more from shock than actual intent. This only infuriated him (or embarrassed him) to the point where he and his gang gave me a pretty good beating before teachers were able to put a stop to it. I was dubbed as the freak of the school cause of that scene and people were even afraid of the way I looked. Maybe it was my black as midnight hair, or my alabaster white skin, or even my crystal blue eyes which were described as "seeing through people" instead of at them. Whatever it was, I transferred out after the first year, and from that point on I started wearing dark brown contact lenses so I wouldn't seem scary to people like I did before.

I was in my second year of high school and there I stood, looking up at it, dreading how it would go. It was called Mount Olympus High, and it was apparently a very prestigious and well-renowned magnet school. Its Greek-like architecture was rather intimidating and almost all the buildings on campus were entirely made of what looked to be marble. Wow, a high school that actually had a campus rather than being a single building. This was going to be a rather interesting day…

I looked down at the paper I held. It was a list of my classes, teachers, and classrooms; on the other side was a map. My classes consisted of Honors English 10, College Algebra, AP World History, Lunch, Portuguese 1, Honors Chemistry, and Orchestra. I sighed. Now to find my first class before I was late… I started walking around trying to make sense of things.

Nico's P.O.V.

"Congratulations Percy." I smiled at him after he had just announced that he had made it as captain of the swim team. He, Grover, Jason, Piper, Leo, and I were hanging out at our usual spot on campus before the school day officially began.

"Thanks Neeks," he smiled his lop sided grin and I internally felt rather happy. I, if it wasn't already obvious, had a crush on Percy Jackson. It was rather frustrating. Percy was just so oblivious and dense and pretty much only saw me as a friend. Not that I blame him, Percy wasn't gay. In fact, he had a girlfriend. Her name was Annabeth. She was actually really pretty with her long blonde hair and stormy gray eyes, and I had looked for a reason to hate her but I really couldn't. She was always so nice, even to me. That's not the only reason I didn't blame Percy for not seeing me as nothing but a friend. I didn't think I was anything special. I wasn't handsome, or super smart, or really funny. I was just…

My off topic thoughts were interrupted when Jason bumped against me playfully. "Anyone home? Earth to Nico?" I glared at him and he laughed.

"Sorry, it's just that you looked like you were off in your own world." He looked knowingly at me but I looked away. He was right. Jason was one of my close friends and he knew about my crush on Percy.

"Yeah! What were you thinking about? Was it Will?" Leo teased me before being smacked upside the head by Piper. "Hey! That hurt!"

She rolled her eyes. "It was supposed to idiot! Leave Nico alone." I had sort of blushed at the mention of Will but hid it well and silently thanked Piper. Will Solace was a guy who had an interest in me. He had tried to get me to date him last year but I had rejected him and he smiled and made it perfectly clear that he wasn't going to give up so easily. It had left me quite flustered and soon became a known fact among my friends.

"Anyway, we'll see you at lunch but Leo, Piper, and I need to get going." Jason excused himself before grabbing Piper's hand and dragging Leo off as well who was complaining about being manhandled.

"Shit! That reminds me. I need to go find Juniper! I'll see you two later!" Grover ran off in some direction leaving me alone with Percy. Awesome, I sighed inwardly. It was always awkward for me being alone with Percy, not that he ever noticed of course. He smiled at me and draped his arm around me. I immediately winced and pushed him off. I cursed to myself cause Percy noticed and looked at me with concern.

"Nico? Are you ok? I didn't hurt you did I?" His voice obviously showed that he cared and I gave him a fake smile

"Yeah. Sorry. It's just my shoulder aches." He looked at me a second longer but nodded, believing my lie.

"Oh, I'm sorry. So, anyway, I was thinking. We haven't hung out in quite awhile. Can I come over to your house after school today?" He smiled at me, waiting for an answer. I had recently stopped hanging around Percy by myself cause I couldn't stand the awkwardness and the way I felt towards him but there was no way in hell I would ever let Percy come over to my house.

"Uh, no, sorry, mother doesn't like me having company over." I lied again. Okay, maybe it wasn't a complete lie. My mother did hate me having anyone over, friend or otherwise, and I didn't want Percy to meet her. I unconsciously held my jacket around me, trying to hide the already hidden bruises and cuts on my body.

I noticed Percy frown. "But I feel like you've been…I don't know…avoiding me… Did I do something wrong Nico?" I looked up at him and instantly felt guilty. I hadn't meant to give him that vibe. Shit.

"What? No! You haven't done anything Percy. How about you, a few friends, and I go out today? Would that be ok?" I knew Percy enjoyed hanging out with me, of course I knew. I just didn't want to be alone with him.

He started smiling again and nodded. "Yeah, that's cool. I'll make plans before the end of the day. I gotta go now though. See yah Neeks!" He waved at me as he walked off.

"See yah." I turned around and started walking. I was deep in thought, mulling over my stupid feelings for Percy and thinking about Will and how I was totally gonna fail the College Algebra course I was shoved into. I wasn't what you would call super smart, I could get by, especially if I bothered to study, but I probably scored a bit too high on last year's exam, which qualified me and the school put me in…

My train of thought was interrupted once again. But this time I had bumped into someone while I hadn't been paying attention. My reflexes kicked in and I grabbed them before they fell down.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry! I should've been looking where I was going…" I trailed off as the boy pulled away and regained his balance. He was taller than me (but then again, who wasn't? I internally growled) and had black hair and unusually pale skin. It wasn't albino pale but was still pale, alabaster actually, and it was actually…pretty? I looked up at him, his bangs covering some of his face. He appeared to be frustrated, but whether it was with me or something else I wasn't sure. He finally looked at me with an expressionless face.

"It's alright. It's partly my fault. I wasn't looking where I was going either. I think I'm lost…" He mumbled that last part but I still managed to hear him.

"Oh, so you must be new here. Do you…uh, want me to help you find your way?" I kept looking at him, still stunned in a way. This guy…was different. Something was off about him, but at the same time I kinda wanted to get to know him. I didn't usually care much for strangers but something about him…connected with me. He had a kind of mysterious aura surrounding him, I would say dark but he wasn't menacing; he seemed rather placid.

"Well, if you wouldn't mind. I don't want to impose." His voice was soft, just like his face, concealing any form of emotion. But it wasn't exactly monotone. Trust me, I'd know monotone.

I nodded and looked at the paper he was holding. English 10 was his first class. So he was a sophomore, just like me. "Well, you're actually rather far from your first class. This building here is the 1100 classrooms; you're looking for the 1700 classrooms which are over there." I pointed it out on his map.

"Damn lenses… I misread it." He mumbled to himself again. I studied him. Just as I thought, no glasses, what was he talking about?

Before I had the chance to say anything else, he spoke. "Thank you very much. I appreciate your kindness. I'll be on my way now." He walked around me and made his way to the correct building. I stared after him, shocked. He spoke so strangely, way too polite. Was he an aristocrat? Wouldn't actually be surprising at this school; little did I know how much he would actually impact my life.