(A/N): Sorry for the LOOOOOOOONNNNNGGGGGG wait, I was busy with life, as most people are. So, how have you folks liked it so far? I think it is going great! Please tell me if I am going too fast and I will slow down a little, although with the length of this one being how it is I doubt it will be. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot.

Chapter 2: Nico

After I got out of school, I ran towards Thalia, who was beckoning to me, her dark hair swaying in the slight breeze. "Yeah?" I inquired.

She pursed her lips, "Come on, Annabeth has a project that she wants you and me to help with."

If you are wondering, I am rather great at microtechnology and computers. I occasionally help other students with their science projects. But I had never helped Annabeth with one of her projects; Annabeth was the smartest chemist anyone knew. I shrugged and acted like I wasn't excited, "Cool!"

"Oh come on, I know you are happy about this, you are always jealous when I go there!" She chuckled. She rolled her eyes at my seemingly dismissive manner.

I grinned, "Yeah, you got me. What is it?"

Thalia didn't explain very thoroughly, as was her way, "I will tell you in the car."

I shrugged again, "Alright, I'll hold you to that!"

"I'll bet. It's as if you wish you were Annabeth's boyfriend and not mine!" She joked.

"What? No!" I spluttered, "I love you Thals, I was just surprised that she wanted me to help her." I then realized she was joking; I glared at her and followed her to her car. She looked back at my flustered form and chuckled.

As we passed Thalia's dormitory area, she said, "Wait here, I just have to get something from my room. Keep the engine running."

"Kay." I settled back into the comfortable seat and waited with the window open. I thought, She will probably be a while. So I took out a project I had been working on for a couple weeks. It was a small device that could be used as a security camera, it was about the size of a pea, but the real trick to it was that it could send messages to my phone. I wasn't too great at building machines myself, but I worked on most of my projects with my great friend, Leo. I and he used an empty dormitory room as a lab where we could do whatever we wanted to. He constructed the stuff that I planned. He could build things faster than you could say Aphrodite. Once, in the middle of the science class, he was paying no attention whatsoever, and just as the bell rang, he launched a helicopter that had been made with paper clips and rubber bands, the teacher had first looked annoyed, but as he realized what it was made of, gave Leo a chocolate bar.

Leo was also the funniest guy I know. He made a joke out of everything you said in a conversation. So after talking to him, you wouldn't come to any conclusion other than rolling on the floor while he looked at you with a surprised look on his face.

When Thalia finally arrived at the car again, she said, "Sorry, I couldn't find my bag." She held up a large silver bag. It held all of her stuff from makeup to screwdrivers. I nodded. She was known to carry that bag around wherever she went. Whenever one of the people from school asked her why, she always said, 'I don't give a pile of Lupa droppings what they think, they can laugh if they want to."

We drove to my place to tell Percy where we were going, but we couldn't find him, I was just about to pull out my phone and text him when Percy walked up the street and called, "Where're you guys headed?"

Thalia answered, "I'm going to Annie's house to check up on her project, and Nico said he wanted to come along."

"Alright, have fun; I'll have pizza ready when you get home!" He called out. I smirked, if he did, then the pizza would be ordered, burnt to a crisp, uncooked, or blue.

As we drove along the highway, I decided it was a good time to get the information I wanted, so I asked, "So, what is this project?"

Thalia sighed, as if deciding how to break some news, "We are doing more than just looking at that project. Let me explain, you know that big robbery that happened a couple months ago? Well, the 'crooks' haven't been found yet, and they have been making copies of the drug that they stole, or, trying to anyway, they are missing one small and extremely rare ingredient."

I was confused, "Ok, but what the heck does that have to do with us?"

Thalia grimaced, "I was there when the drug was stolen."

I was shocked! Was I dating a drug dealer? "How could you lie to me like that?"

"I wanted to tell you so badly, believe me! But first I needed to see if you were the right one. I found two possible hosts for the drug that is necessary for the stolen drug to work properly. You and Percy.

"I have been on the run ever since the robbery because I am directly involved in the process of creating the drugs. Jason and his gang have been looking for me everywhere, which is why I have been so cautious whenever I leave campus."

"Wait, you mean that I and Percy could take this drug just because you say so? And what do you mean by 'hosts'?" I asked, incredulous,

Thalia smiled grimly, "We are giving you a choice of whether or not you and Percy want to have it. It is not as cool as it sounds Nico, being on the run all the time."

I frowned, "I am still not understanding this one thing, why should we take the drug? I trust you; I don't think you would try to trick us into having something that might kill us, but why? Why not just leave it alone?"

"You have always said that you wanted supernatural powers right? Well, that is exactly what this does. The people chasing me have already taken the drug, they are more than a match for me alone, I and Annabeth have been researching ways to isolate the drug, but there isn't a way. Soon the whole world will know about the plant that it comes from and all will be chaos. Already others have made and perfected it. The world is in danger Nico."

I nodded, "We will see, anyway, what is the project?"

Thalia nodded in satisfaction, "We will be figuring out what abilities you would have if you were to accept along with the suit that you would have. Sound good?"

"Sounds great!"

The rest of the drive was in silence, and when we finally got to Annabeth's lab we were greeted with a very excited Annabeth, "Hey there guys!" She turned to Thalia, "Did you tell him?"

Thalia nodded in confirmation, "He has agreed to see what it would be like."

Annabeth nodded and offered a high-five. I didn't leave her hanging. She said, "Shall I give you the grand tour?"

I realized that she was talking to me and quickly nodded and said, "Yeah... yeah I'm ready."

The lab was not too big, but big enough, lots bigger than the one at school, which was meant for the class and the stuff that the class needed. But this one had everything; I saw tons of stuff for mechanics that even Leo would have drooled at. Even I was impressed with all of the stuff Annabeth had here, there were so many things that I would be able to use to make wristwatches that turned into phones and stuff. No wonder Percy had a crush on this girl! (He would never admit that though.) I looked at her and grinned, "Wow! You really have everything!"

She shrugged modestly, "Mom helps. Ironic really."

"Oh yeah! Your mother is Athena Chase! I forgot!" I exclaimed.

Annabeth nodded, "I don't like to talk about her very much."

As we walked into the next room over, I gasped, "What is this?" I ran over to a very expensive computer.

Annabeth nodded, "That is what we will be working with. This is the document that we will work from. I will show you the stuff you would be doing and stuff. We need you to tell us what abilities you would like and we will put together the rest." While she was saying this she was opening drawer after drawer and taking out several small objects that I liked to use whenever I made mods for a computer.

I felt kind of useless just sitting there so I asked Thalia, "Is there anything I can do? Maybe I can go get dinner or something, seeing as we will be many hours yet?"

"Go ahead, you know what I like, and I think that Annabeth would like a bacon cheeseburger. I will text Perce and tell him that we will be a while." With that, she ran off to help Annabeth with the gathering of tools.

-Linebreak-

As I ran out of the building, I heard a rumble of thunder, it started to rain. I sighed, All the stress is going to kill me I thought to myself. I ran towards the car and pulled the door handle. I slapped my forehead as I realized that I had forgotten the keys in the building. I rolled my head to the side and back again in frustration. By now it was pouring out and I didn't want to stay out longer than I needed to.

I stood up straight and sprinted towards the lab. But for some reason, it felt like I was running up to my knees in sand. I looked down, there was no sand anywhere. Suddenly I heard a dark, Batman-like voice, just more evil sounding, "Come to me, Nico, I will give you what you seek. They cannot help you, only I can. Find me and together we can destroy Jason and his gang once and for all!"

I shuddered, that voice gave me the creeps, it clearly knew me, but the scary thing was I didn't know it. That spooked me. Just then, everything was sped up again, I could run normally. That was a relief. I sprinted faster than I had ever run before towards the lab.

I burst into the lab gasping for air and bent down with my hands on my knees wheezing. Thalia saw me and ran to me. "What happened? You look like you've seen a ghost!"

She didn't know how right she was! I don't know why, but I didn't want to tell her what I had heard. It was all too real. I lied, "Well, you know, the rain, it cools down the temperature," I gasped out. I added, "And, I need the keys."

Thalia frowned but quickly shook it off and reached into her pocket for the keys. She produced them in a flash and said, "How about you wait for the rain to stop before you go to get the food. We are ready to test you now." She paused and looked at me strangely, "You are sure you're alright? You look a little on edge."

"Y-yeah, I'm fine," I spoke a little too quickly; luckily, she let it drop. "Let's go see about those tests. They are safe, right?" The voice had said that they couldn't help me and that only he could, that made me think that he had been here before too. Just the thought of the deep, midnight, creepy voice made me shiver. I looked furtively outside as if expecting to see the rain slowing to a stop mid-air.

-Linebreak-

"Yeah, so I think I want the teleporting thing-"

"Shadow travel." Corrected Annabeth.

"Yeah whatever, that, the umm... err..." I couldn't quite put my finger on the name, "The hellfire thing. Hah! Beat you to it!"

Annabeth jabbed me on the shoulder in grudging agreement. "And you said the invisibility. Well, not really invisibility, it's more like bending shadows."

"Does it make a difference?" I asked mockingly.

She nodded, "Yes it does, if there was a guy with light-bending abilities then he would be able to reveal you. You know, light versus shadows."

I raised my eyebrows, "I didn't think of that! Maybe you are the Wisegirl after all!" I grinned, "That could be your superhero name! Wisegirl, solver of many riddles, opener of many dumb people's minds, and defender of our city! For some reason that last one wouldn't fit in so well. Maybe instead it would be finisher of many people's homework!"

Thalia laughed, she didn't notice but Annabeth was glaring poison ivy at her. It was as if she were trying to get under her skin. (Ok, sorry, that was just bad.)

When Thalia had finally stopped laughing she said to me, "And what did you say you wanted for a suit? If you agree with this mess, that is."

"I don't really care, just surprise me. And Thalia, I don't know if I will even take the drug in the first place. It just seems a little too sudden. I will help out for sure, but I don't know if I can keep up with all my classes and do that at the same time. Listen, if you get someone else to be the superhero than I will do the suit upgrades among other things because this will pay better than the workshop." I took a deep breath, "I could also try to get Leo over here to help too. He's been trying to get more money to pay off his debts anyway and this will be more than enough. If I change my mind, which I doubt, then I will tell you. But don't get your hopes up.

"I guess I am just realizing how real this actually is because believe me, I want to help. I just don't like to think that I am locked into this. Now, if we had another super that would help our cause, then I would do it because it would be a more flexible position."

They both nodded, Thalia smirked, "What is with the speech, huh? Seriously, you couldn't do a talk on your workshop opening and now you are spewing out words like you have been saving them for years!" She laughed.

I shrugged, "That was not nearly as real as this. That was just two guys trying to pay off their debt. This is the safety of the world. For this, you are either all in or not. You can't quit midway through."

"Wiseguy." Muttered Annabeth.

"What?" I asked, whipping my head around.

"Hmm? Oh, nothing." She continued typing on her computer.

I shot her a frown and turned back to the paper that I was filling out. I finished, clicked the pen, and chucked the file over to Thalia, who quickly examined it and then started putting it into the computer.

"Ok, you are all set, I will get you your card and then we can see about dinner." Informed Annabeth, She added, "Do you want Big Belly Burger, KFC, or Red Robin?"

"I personally like BBB better than the other two, but I will go for either one of them." I put in.

Thalia shrugged, "Eh, I don't give a rip what we get." She grinned slyly and added, "Just so long as Wise Guy here likes it." I raised my eyebrows in a 'you wanna go?' way, standing up out of my chair. Her dark eyes flashed, daring me to make the first move. I shook my head and sat down again.

The moment I did, I heard a sound that sounded suspiciously like a fart coming from my chair. But I hadn't done it, Thalia looked shocked, Annabeth looked hysterical, she could barely breathe, she was laughing so hard. I looked behind the chair and found her iPhone on the desk. I whipped around and started running toward her, to find that she was not there anymore, but was sending an email on one of the computers; her shoulders were shaking so violently that I got the sneaking suspicion that she had recorded it on the computer and was sending it to someone. She clicked the send button before I could reach her and she gasped for air.

"What did you do?" I demanded suspiciously, "You didn't send a recording of that to someone did you?"

"Hah, I would never do such a thing." Thalia snickered, and then assumed an innocent face. I looked at them, wondering if this was some sort of trick or something. Then I shrugged, I would find out eventually. Hopefully.

We eventually decided to order some pizza from a nearby shop. When it arrived five minutes later, Thalia said, "We should probably get going after this, we still have an hour drive to go yet, including traffic. We will finalize the results in a week. Then you have a bit of time to think over it, as well as see if Leo would like to come take a look at it over here."

They sliced up the Meat-Lover pizza and dug in. Five minutes after they were finished, I chanced a look outside; it was still raining a little bit. But I couldn't tell exactly because it was growing darker and darker by the minute.

It was almost eleven by the time we finally reached campus. Most of the lights were off because the next day was a big day. I stepped up and knocked on the door to my dorm. I heard the lock turn and the door opened to reveal Percy, looking a little tired, but excited to see us. We talked for a bit, then Thalia had to leave and we all went to bed, thinking about the next day already.

(A/N): That was my longest chapter yet on this site, ten pages, over 3,000 words. I really hope you guys liked this, if not loved it. I dropped some hints of the protagonists and antagonists in this, that way, I don't need a cliffie, :(. As I said at the top, I have been dealing with a bunch of life stuff, so I haven't been able to update in a few months. That was a mistake because whatever ideas I had for this story have mostly been lost. However, I still have a fairly good idea of where I want to go in this. I am still trying to figure out whether or not to drop one character a few notches in power because I don't want it to get more popular than the main characters. I will update you on that when I have decided, or when something slow happens, in which case every one of you will know, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHA! That was a long author's note!