Hey everyone! First of all, thank you for reading my first story :) It was actually a base for this long story I'm working on here. I haven't really decided on the title… You are welcome to PM or review for any suggestions!

So anyways, enjoy :)

Chapter 1: Mission Failed… Kind of.

Nico stared at the girl in front of him. She had long silver hair shinning in the moonlight, her golden eyes shimmering like drachmas, but the strangest part was her mysterious smile. It looked like she already knew what he was going here, and who he was. But that was impossible. She gently stroked the black American shorthair cat next to her, her eyes still on Nico as if she was deciding how to deal with him. This was even weirder, because most people would start screaming or yelling or at least be in total confusion when a sixteen year old shows up on your roof in the middle of the night.

She was wearing a dark loose T-shirt, a black tank top underneath and a black mini skirt. This was probably the only person who ever "out-wore" him in dark clothing. The only things not black on her was a silver cross belt was strapped across her waist, with a golden star pinned on the left. For some reason he knew that the star was not a usual star. Another similar but slightly smaller star was placed on a hairclip that was holding back her long hair that kept getting into her eyes. She had a dark, magical aura that he couldn't quite identify. Probably Hecate, he thought, although something in the back of his mind told him this girl was stronger than that.

"So?" She asked, finally, impatient to wait any longer.

He was stunned for a while. Her voice brought a certain feeling he couldn't quite describe, it was light, gentle, but somehow… dark. "I'm Nico di Angelo," he said, introducing himself, unsure of really what to do. This was his first mission to bring back a half-blood, usually other kids do this because, well, his appearance isn't really particularly encouraging.

"Melanie Nightingale," she held out her hand, which was decorated with four or five jingling silver bracelets. He took it, and felt her tremble at his touch. He half smiled, the sorry kind, and she nodded to assure that she was ok.

"Nightingale? Like, THE Nightingale? The nurse who ran around and-"

"And saved lives of hundreds of people? Yes. Florence Nightingale was my ancestor. She was a daughter of Asclepius." She said this casually, like it was something everyone knew about.

"So you know all about this demi-god Greek gods stuff?"

"Pretty much. She left a lot of letters explaining, so basically our whole family knows."

Nico raised an eye brow, "And you haven't been attacked by any monsters?"

"Of course I have."

"This is either very good or very terrible," he concluded, "That's how weird things are."

"Is that so?"

Nico just nodded, "So who's your Godly Parent?"

"I don't… know." She frowned at that one.

"It's alright, um, we'll find out at camp."

"And why should I go with you?" she asked, the tone was almost like she was challenging him.

"Because it's the only place safe for demi-gods."

"But I think I'm living rather well like this."

"Not gonna be for long, old spirits are awakening," Nico sighed, "Plus we need as much troops as possible."

"That's not a good enough reason," she concluded, "But I'll go. Because I'm curious."

"So let's-"

"Wait, one last thing," she interrupted, "What about Pixie?" she nudged at the black cat beside her, which did not look very fairy-ish at all. The black eyes met his, and stared at him.

"Um, we can take her too I suppose." Nico replied, unable to stand the cat's eerie stare anymore.

"Ok then. So how do we get there?"

Nico grinned and held out his hand, "You're not afraid of the dark, are you?"

A wave of dizziness swept through Nico as he popped out of one of the shadows nearby, and he had to lean on to Melanie a little to steady himself. He should really stop shadow traveling this much. It drained too much of his energy. Melanie didn't seem to mind, as her midnight blue eyes started scanning the surroundings. They were in a huge forest, endless trees surrounded them, and a few curious glowing eyes were peeking from the bushes.

"Long Island, New York?" she asked.

Nico's eyes went wide open, and all the sleepiness snapped out of him, "How did you-"

"My senses are quite sharp in the night."

Nico clearly didn't take that as a great explanation, because his eyes were still full of confusion.

"Look," she sighed, "I don't know why and I don't know how, it's just-"

"It's ok," Nico interrupted, catching himself, "Just explain to Chiron after we get to the big house."

She nodded and faced the eerie glares in the forests again, "So do we fight our way out?"

"Not we, I do." Nico stared at her like she was crazy, "You don't have any training. Besides, you don't even have a weapon."

"Oh yeah?" she smiled her mysterious smile, and took the star button off her silver belt, "Let's see about that."

Melanie absolutely adored Nico's expression as he saw her Star slowly growing into a full size celestial bronze sword.

"What is- How did you- " He stuttered, completely surprised by what was happening, "What is that-"

"RAWR!" A unknown monster suddenly plunged at Nico, when he realized what was happing, his hand immediately reached to his sword belt, but it was too late. The claws reached out at his face, so he turned and reached for his powers. He felt the earth responding to him, shaking, waiting to be released-

A shadow of silver flashed in front of him, and he felt a wave of hot blood splashed on his face. He opened his eyes, wiping the blood out of them with his sleeves. The monster that attacked him was now lying on the ground, lifeless, its body sliced right from the clawed hands that were outstretched at him to the tail, into two perfect congruent parts.

"Still think I can't fight?" Melanie grinned.

"We'll see girl," he replied, his tone clearly amazed by what he saw, and drew out his Stygian Iron sword, "We'll see."

The fight was almost over. Pixie the cat has already disappeared to gods-know-where, but Melanie has assured him that it was okay, since she was a really smart cat.

Nico stabbed his sword at the monster that was coming at him, right in the forehead, and watched it explode into dust, adding to the already thick layer on the ground. He heard Melanie breathing heavily behind him.

"Not so easy huh, Princess?"

"I could say the same to you," she replied, eyeing at the rips and tears on his clothing, and raising her left hand to slice off a head of the monster that was lunging at her.

"Your situation is much worse than mine, actually." He examined her clothing. The dark T-shirt was already tore in half, falling off, the tank top inside was not too good either – there was a huge rip near the bottom, where blood was bleeding out. The mini skirt looked ok though. "How DO you even fight with a mini skirt?" he asked.

"I just do?" she said and shrugged her shoulders.

He wanted to ask something more, but then decided the topic would probably be embarrassing, so instead, "Oh." was all he said. But he still heard her chuckle as he turned and sliced through another monster that jumped at him.

"Almost done?" Melanie asked as she finished off one of the few remaining monsters.

"Yeah, I got the last one," Nico replied, as he raised his sword preparing to defend himself from the only remaining monster that was dashing towards him. But just when he was about to bring his sword down to cut off the creatures head, its yellow devilish eyes went wide open and it just turned and run. "What the Hades-"

"Something's wrong," Melanie interrupted, her golden eyes shimmering with worry. She looked nervously around the forest, as if she was trying to pick out the source of danger.

The night was suddenly silent, and the only thing they could hear was each other's heavy breathing.

Nico started, "Do you think-"

That's when the long howl broke through the silence. That was also when Nico spun around and found himself facing a mouth full of disgusting rotten sharp teeth. And last, that was when Nico realized that he would die before he got the chance to stab the monster with his sword or use any of his underground powers.

He heard Melanie scream and force knocked him so hard that he fell flat on the ground. He felt the grass brush across his cheek, and he knew some part of him was bleeding. The ringing in his head was so loud that he couldn't hear anything but his own heat beat and the feel of blood rushing through his veins. Something clear and sparkling flew across him but he couldn't recognize what it was. His blood was draining from him, slowly, slowly… And then the world went blank.

Melanie screamed when she saw the two-headed hound bared his teeth and lunged at Nico. It just popped out of nowhere so suddenly. One minute it was all silence and the next the word was messed up.

She was too far away to help. What can she do? There had to be a way. There HAD to. Anything, anything! Suddenly she felt something hot against her forehead, almost burning.

The hair clip.

But it was just a hair clip! What could it do? It wasn't magical like her sword was. It was just some ordinary ten dollar hair clip bought from a random shop in some random place. But then she remembered the way it "pulled" at her when she saw it. Maybe there was something special about this thing.

It was a maybe, but it was her only chance. She yanked it off her hair and threw it as hard as she could at the creature.

To her surprise, the shape shimmered and the tiny star hair clip shimmered and turned into a sparkling crystal dagger. It drew right into the creature's neck and knocked it sideways.

But not sideways enough. The left paw sliced through Nico's body and sent him crashing down on the floor, hard. She rushed at Nico, wanting to get him out of there before the monster could stand up again. But she wasn't fast enough. The hound staggered and managed to hold itself up, the dagger still around ten centimeters deep in his neck. It raised its paws again, ready to bring it down on the boy.

"NOOO!" She screamed and focused on the dagger, pushing all her anger on the creature. Nico can't die. He just can't.

Something dark enveloped the dagger, the hound took a few steps back and stared at it in surprise. It shivered, as if something icy cold was pressed upon its skin. Then the dagger started to vibrate like crazy, and blood kept leaking out from its body. The monster panicked and tried to reach the dagger with one of its heads to pull it out, but it was too late.

The dagger exploded. The creature howled in pain as its left head got blasted, hard, and ripped itself right from the middle. A waterfall of blood was now pouring out, right at the large tear between its head. The creature raised both of its head and stared at Melanie. There was so much hate in those devilish red eyes that Melanie trembled and her knees couldn't hold her up anymore as she collapsed on the ground. Then it turned and disappeared into the forest.

A few tree nymphs came out from the forest and rushed to Camp to call for help. Some stared in horror at Nico. A few tried to talk to Melanie but she just kept shivering and her lifeless eyes couldn't seem to get in focus.

A soft breeze of wind blew gently through the woods, sending the monster dusts away. There were merely any signs of battle left, except the girl with the blank stare kneeling on the ground and the boy lying in a pool of blood.

Author's Notes:

Sorry for my poor grammar :/ Didn't really have time to fix them but since someone was waiting for my story I decided to upload it first :)

Apparently the idea of the hairclip was stolen from Rachel's plastic blue hairbrush XD

Might be a while before the second chapter comes out because I'm a little stuck on how it should begin.

Feel welcome to point out any mistakes or give any suggestions on the story!

And um, one of my friends said it wasn't very clear, but Nico and Melanie shadow traveled to Camp Half Blood's forest.