So I realize I just started yet another fanfiction to add to my growing list of stories, but this idea was too good not to be pursued.

This will most likely be told entirely from Nico's POV unless I decide to have the group split up. I haven't decided yet.

I

Nico wished that he wasn't such a nice person.

Standing in atrociously long lines at eight-o-clock in the morning on a Saturday, the day when the park was MOST CROWDED, was the last thing he wanted to do. But of course, when the idea had come up, Hazel had given him these really big, pleading eyes, and he couldn't bring himself to say no.

Disneyland was, in his opinion, a really big scam. It's supposed to be the "Happiest Place on Earth." Nico had it filed under, "one of the most annoying places in existence." The whole idea that someone could stand in long lines, and go on rides centered around some stupid mouse, AND be HAPPY was completely beyond him. He understood the little children. Children could find happiness in almost anything; it was one of the beauties of childhood innocence. But that was completely unrealistic. Reality is looking the mouse in the face, and realizing that no matter how many songs they stuff down your throat, and smiles they throw your way, ultimately, life isn't butterflies and rainbows. Life is destructive, a war that only ends in death. Any happiness or hope found in Walt Disney's characters is only temporary.

Reyna looked just about as comfortable with the situation as he felt, but when Jason had asked her to come, she hadn't refused. Nico had spent enough time with her carrying that statue cross-country that he knew she still had feelings for him. She hadn't given up hope just yet.

Jason and Piper were up front with Leo, leading their little band. The "cast" members, as the park likes to call their on-site staff, were taking pictures of them on I-phones, and transferring them somehow into the barcode of their park-hopper passes. Nico wasn't good with technology, but he guessed this made it easier for the park to identify customers when they came back through the gate, instead of dealing with the hassle of ID's.

Hazel was standing on his right, hand in hand with Frank, so excited that her curly hair was bouncing despite the fact that she tried to keep herself from jumping up and down. Nico had sudden flashbacks to when he was still really into Mythomagic. Had he really looked so ecstatic about something so childish?

Percy and Annabeth were in front of him, having now replaced Jason and Piper, who had already had their tickets scanned and were inside the park. Percy was getting berated by the photographer for trying to make faces, since he kept contorting his facial features to be unrecognizable. Annabeth seemed to find this scolding funny, and kept teasing him all the way through the turnstile.

"Next?"

Frank poked Nico in the back, which made him grit his teeth. He wondered if it was too late to back out now, but then he glanced over at Hazel, and once again made the mistake of being too nice of a person.

He sighed in defeat and stepped up to the woman and gave her the stupid ticket Jason had forced upon him that morning.

"Okay, now smile!"

Nico clenched his fists to restrain himself from punching this woman in the face. He wasn't even inside yet, and people were already asking him to smile, when he CLEARLY, didn't even want to be here.

"Yeah, no."

The woman looked a little weirded out by his response, but she just shrugged and snapped a picture of his probably unhappy face anyways. He snatched the ticket back from her, and went up to the second staff member who was standing behind a computer, scanning tickets for admission. The man was trying very hard to smile and not look bored, and Nico wondered if they forced all of their workers to be upbeat on a regular basis. No wonder everyone in the ads looked like they were going insane. There was probably a miserable actor underneath that happy fosod screaming "LET ME OUT OF HERE!"

He pushed himself through the turnstile and went up to his five predecessors, thrusting his hands in his jacket pockets. Percy was trying to convince Annabeth that Hercules was DEFINITELY the best movie Disney had ever created, whereas his girlfriend seemed to be of the opinion that Beauty and the Beast was much better. Leo was standing next to the couple, looking a little awkward. Jason and Piper were standing facing the train station, which was elevated on a hill above them. The hill was covered with bright, impeccably kept flowers in the design of a pastel color Mickey Mouse. Branching off in two directions were two tunnels that led into Main Street, U.S.A. which he only happened to know existed because Hazel kept going over Jason's maps before they left.

"You could at least PRETEND that you're going to enjoy yourself."

Nico shook his head at Percy, and glanced over at Jason and Piper, who had been joined by Frank and Hazel. Nearby, Reyna was talking to one of the security guards, probably trying to figure out possible escape routes, should they be attacked by some monster. With so many powerful demigods in one place, it was bound to happen. She was carrying her sword, which Nico hoped looked like something harmless, like a cane or something. Jason had told them that they were sticklers on those kinds of things here.

"I'm only here because Hazel asked me to be. That doesn't mean I have to enjoy myself."

Percy made a face at him, "What's the fun in that? It's DISNEYLAND not the deepest pits of hell."

"All the more reason for me NOT to be here."

"Why do you have to always be such a downer," Percy complained, and Annabeth poked him in the side.

"Come on Percy, leave him alone. It's his choice if he decides to be unhappy."

Nico wasn't sure what he would have said, because at that moment, Jason came up behind him. Nico stepped aside to make room for him, and the nine of them formed a small circle, as out of the way of the tourist groups as they could get. Jason knelt on the ground and spread out a map of the park.

"Okay, so once we fight our way through Main Street, we can go straight to the castle and go through to Fantasyland. Or we can veer right and go to Tomorrowland. On the right there is Frontierland, which branches off into New Orleans's Square and Critter Country. Also to the right, is Adventureland."

"What about this one, in the back?" Hazel asked, leaning over just enough to tap a spot on the map, and then straightening.

"That's Mickey's Toon Town," Annabeth answered, "It has a couple of really tiny rides for kids and such. That's also where they have these little houses with the characters so tourists can take pictures."

Percy was kneeling next to Jason, studying the map with interest, "What's Space Mountain?"

"It's a roller coaster," said Piper, "It's all indoors, and it's supposed to create the sensation of flying through space."

"Let's go there!" Percy said excitedly, standing up, "That sounds cool."

Annabeth sighed, "You know if we were to do this efficiently we would be better off just getting Fast Passes for all the big rides, and doing smaller rides first."

"What are Fast Passes?" asked Frank. He didn't seem particularly interested in the conversation to Nico, but he did look happy. Probably because he was with Hazel, and this is the most relatively normal thing they've done since Gaea's defeat.

What a depressing thought.

"Fast Passes are these little tickets that you can get for certain rides that allow you to come back later on in the day, within a certain time slot, and get on rides first," said Annabeth.

"I like that idea," said Reyna, "We won't have to wait in lines as long."

"Okay so how about this?" Jason said, "We send one or two people to go get Fast Passes for Space Mountain and Star Tours, since they're both in Tomorrowland, and then they come back and meet us in the line for the Astro-Blaster, which is in the same area."

"Astro-Blaster?" Hazel asked, looking a little skeptical.

"It's a Toy Story ride that's kind of like a life-sized video game."

Percy was nodding, beginning to look impatient. Nico tried not to notice that he looked kind of cute. His eyebrows were kind of scrunched together and he had started bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Snap out of it Nico he chided himself. He couldn't think about that.

"So it's decided," Jason stood and folded the map, "Lets see if we can fight our way to Tomorrowland."

The group set out, and Nico found himself hanging back away from the couples with Leo and Reyna. Leo was glancing around them, looking a little nervous, and fiddling with parts from his toolbelt. Reyna's gaze was cool and calculating as she scanned the buildings and trolley carts. The whole place looked like it had been pulled straight out of an old movie.

"I heard that Walt Disney designed this part of the park to look like his hometown," said Reyna nonchalantly.

"So?" Nico asked. Reyna wasn't the type to spout of meaningless facts. If she felt the need to point out something, it was probably for a good reason.

"Well, I was just thinking, of all the places for a potential enemy to hide out, this would probably be the best one."

Leo was nodding, "Yeah, it's the most crowded. Much easier to hide. Cause you know, a lot of potential demigod meals come to Disneyland on a regular basis."

Nico had to agree with Leo, sarcastic or not. What were the odds that some monster would be hanging around a place crawling with so many mortals? It was too bright and sunshiny for any monster to want to hang around for long. Not to mention, no sane person would want to spend more than five minutes in this place. Then again, they were all still here.

"We'll just have to keep a wary eye out," Nico said, fingering the pommel of his sword.

Reyna nodded and Leo suddenly stopped.

"What? Do you see something?" Reyna asked, fingers itching towards her sword.

Leo shook his head furiously, "Look!"

"What? What am I looking for?"

Leo got this really big grin on his face that made Nico's senses instantly go on high alert. He didn't have much of a relationship with Leo, but he knew a troublemaker when he saw one. Whatever idea was going on inside his little head wouldn't end well.

"The trolleys!" he said excitedly.

"There are no trolleys. Those are automated, horseless carriages," Nico said. He glanced over to where he had last seen Percy and the others, and realized they had been left behind. Oh well. They would catch up. This place couldn't be THAT hard to navigate.

Leo seemed incapable of speaking with any sense, "How can you NOT see it?!"

"See what?!" Reyna looked like she was about to pulverize Leo, "You're not making any sense?!"

"Look, on the side. There's the symbol of Hephaestus! It's really small, almost blended into the metal, but it's definitely there."

"So?" Nico stepped out the way of a tourist who had been intending to push him out of the way, "Come on, we're holding up traffic flow."

"SO I just had this crazy thought," Leo said "What if this whole place was created by demigods?"

"Come on Leo, don't be ridiculous," Reyna said, "Walt Disney was an ambitious mortal man. Nothing more. Let's just go."

"You don't know that," Leo countered.

Nico let out an audible sigh of exasperation, "Look, it doesn't matter. We're here for the day. So let's just get it over with, instead of trying to find godly influence, where there CLEARLY is none."

"You're such a downer," Leo stuck his tongue out at him, mimicking Percy's earlier statement, which Nico chose to tactfully ignore. Leo was enough of a pain as it was. No reason to encourage him.

They started to make their way to Tomorrowland, which took much longer than Nico would have liked. By the time they arrived, the rest of their group was already in line, except for Annabeth and Percy, who were collecting Fast Passes.

"What took you guys so long?" Jason asked as they stepped over the makeshift, plastic chain link railing.

"Leo kept seeing things that weren't there," Nico replied.

"Oh come on, just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it wasn't there!"

"Like Santa Clause?" Piper asked, obviously teasing.

"Shut up, Pipes."

Hazel pushed Jason aside so that she could stand next to Nico, who was thinking how the line was moving frustratingly slow, for a "small" ride. She looked embarrassed about something.

"What's wrong?" Nico asked. He wondered if Jason or Frank had said something scandalous. Then decided that probably wasn't it, because neither of them were likely to curse, much less be vulgar. Piper on the other hand…

"Um, Frank said I was crazy for not knowing what Toy Story was. And now he's pretending not to speak to me."

"Pretending?" Nico asked. Hazel nodded, smiling a little.

"He'll come crawling back in a few minutes," she said.

"So what's the problem?"

"I don't like not knowing what most of this stuff is. I mean, I've seen some Disney movies with Piper but not very many. It's not like we've had all the time in the watch them."

"If it makes you feel any better, I haven't seen any Disney movies."

"None? Ever?"

Nico thought back to the Lotus Hotel, and the one night when he and Bianca had turned on the television in their room, and there had been some sort of bright cartoon playing. It had nearly given his older sister a heart attack, but Nico remembered which movie it was.

"No, I've seen Aladdin. But that's it."

"Wow," Jason said, "If you weren't you, I would probably question your life choices."

Nico sent him a glare as Leo snorted behind him, "What's so funny?"

"Nothing. Pretend I never said anything."

Nico shrugged it off. Percy and Annabeth came back, and he and Hazel separated to make room for them. His back ended up pressed against Jason's chest, which was uncomfortable, to say the least.

"That didn't take half as long as I expected it too," Percy said happily, waving the Fast Passes, "A lot of people don't seem to realize that these babies exist."

"That's because they're so enamored with the Disney image and trained to stand in line, they don't realize there's a better option," Frank said blandly.

"Ah yes. Oh Disneyland, you're so wonderful! Let me bask in your glory and hot sun at the sake of my aching feet and crying children! This is so wonderful!" Leo waved his arms dramatically, almost whacking Nico in the face.

"Hey! Watch it will you!"

"Sorry!"

Nico noticed a space opening up between their group and the people in front of them. He took the opportunity to break free from the crowd and enjoyed a few moments of freedom, before the line pressed up against him again. In place of Jason, Percy came up behind him, so close his arm was pressed up against his back as he turned to the side so he could keep up animated conversation with Annabeth.

Nico wondered if it was always this hot outside, and tried to squirm away. The line didn't seem to be moving anytime soon, and no one else seemed to be as bothered with the crowd as he was.

This was going to be a long day.