In answer to everyone's questions: this would be after everything currently happening in the Heroes of Olympus series. (I haven't even read most of them, I'm so awful; but I really just miss the old days minus the new kids.) Percy and Annabeth are both full-grown adults; I've placed them at the ages of twenty-two, twenty-three, and Nico is eighteen. Also, Sam and Dean should be considered around their current ages in season 8 (thirty and thirty-four).

As far as the trio's reasons for isolating themselves, everything will be revealed. And all six will meet very soon, believe me.

Here's the new chapter for you, hope you enjoy it! x

6/Nico

When he and Percy stepped out of the shadows, it was dark. Moonlight seeped through the needle-like leaves of the trees, casting eerie silhouettes onto the forest floor. To him, they looked like fingers. Save for the midnight stirring of animals in the black, it was silent.

His fingers sought the hilt of his sword for reassurance. Even strapped to his hip under the cushion of his jacket it was cold to the touch, as it always was. Colder than the air around them, which was no summer breeze.

The low tones of Percy's voice sounded like a shout in the quiet though it was little more than a whisper. "You sure about this?" His eyes looked more blue than green in the dim light. In his fingers Riptide twirled back and forth in pen form, like a nervous tick.

"Pretty sure," Nico replied. Percy's eyebrows rose in skepticism, but thankfully he decided not to retort. They stalked through the trees, footsteps silent, hardly breathing. Nico strained to catch every sound, every flutter of movement. This was what he hated about hunting: the waiting.

However, it wasn't long before a stick snapped in the distance. Both men tensed. There was only silence when they surveyed the trees, but they weren't alone. Nico unsheathed his sword, grateful for the soft light illuminating their surroundings as Percy uncapped Riptide. The most prominent sound was his heartbeat in his ears.

His head snapped to the left just in time to see a dark shape barreling out of the darkness at breakneck speed. On pure instinct he took a swing, only to hear a deafening clang. He froze in confusion, and found himself being batted aside like a rag doll. He skidded hard, scraping a good chunk of skin off his hip, and then rolled to his feet with sword in hand.

Percy was having a real contest with the thing. He was dodging every attack and forging his own, though he wasn't getting many hits in. The creature was low to the ground, to its advantage large feathery wings as powerful as wings could get, and a bronze set of beak and talons. Something long and thick was swinging almost lazily behind it—a tail.

Come to think of it, those talons might've gotten a taste of him. His fingers sought the wet warmth blooming under his clothing and he cursed. He felt no pain, but that wouldn't last long. Mustering his energy, he sank into the ground and resurfaced under its feathery belly. His sword prevented it from taking another breath.

The dead weight was quickly rolled off of him by a struggling Percy (who clearly did not work out as much as he claimed). He was panting, and there was a deep laceration running down the length of his arm. "You okay?"

Nico gasped for air. "Yeah," he managed. "At least we won." They managed to share a moment of breathless laughter for a moment before Percy's voice cut off and he stiffened. Nico struggled to get to his feet as they heard the collective sound of a hundred bowstrings being drawn taut.

"Great," Percy muttered.

An exasperated sigh emitted from the thicket. "Nobody fire!" a girl's voice called. "It's only the prince of seaweed." A figure pushed into the clearing—tall, blonde, and armed. Her thick lips were twisted into a smirk.

Nico pursed his lips at the blatant sarcasm. "Hello Phoebe," he greeted calmly.

She gave him one of her grudgingly appreciative looks (her version of a smile). "You stole our kill, your highness."

"You're welcome."

"What's this?" a second voice demanded. Leaves crunched loudly, and branches gave way to someone Nico hadn't seen in a very long time.

Thalia Grace, unsurprisingly, looked almost exactly the same. Her black hair had grown, no longer spiky, and still bore the silver tiara marking her status. The camo pants and parka Nico came to know had vanished in favor of leggings, a tunic, and a fur-lined cloak—not doubt a uniform change done without her permission. (Thinking on it, Nico did recall hearing about a raging argument between the divine twins on whether or not to return "classical." Artemis hadn't seemed to care, but Apollo was adamant that the old days were the better days.) Her face was just as young as the day he first met her. She was grinning. "Well, Dumb and Dumber, right on my doorstep."

"Shut up," Percy scoffed, and dragged her into a hug. "You're so short," he said to her hair.

"You're so tall," Thalia's voice was muffled in Percy's jacket. She shoved him off. "Where's Annabeth?"

"Home," Nico cut in. He didn't bother smiling at her when she turned, but he was fairly surprised to see she made the effort. "Hey, Princess Pinecone."

She hugged him too, even more surprisingly. "Death Breath. Why are you interrupting my hunt?"

"We brought you a little gift," Percy gestured to the creature at their feet. "Since when are griffins back in the country?"

"Since it's gotten a little crowded back home," Thalia said wryly. She eyed the thing. "And we don't need charity."

"Take the pelt, Grace," Nico rolled his eyes.

Thalia pursed her lips. After a moment, she snapped her fingers. A few girls rushed forward and carried the creature out of sight, mindful of the talons. "Wanna answer my question?"

"We have a favor to ask," Percy said, glancing at Nico.

The daughter of Zeus quirked an eyebrow. "I'm listening."

When a team of seven was dispatched into the trees later that night, the two demigods were not with them. At the lieutenant's insistence, they agreed to allow her to handle the situation as she pleased. This was in part because of their exhaustion, more because neither had the patience to argue.

Thalia was confident that the creature couldn't get far in this neck of the woods. "Too many ways to get caught," she remarked, but Nico wasn't so sure. It wasn't often you stumbled across monsters living so domestically, so without orders. Every creature was someone else's servant. Empousai happened to work for Hecate, goddess of magic; yet, these ones didn't show an ounce of loyalty towards her. That meant they had either escaped or been freed. Both explanations were…highly improbable.

Nico wasn't so confident. Glancing across the ring of tents, he could see that his cousin was having similar thoughts. His brow was knitted low over his green eyes, and Riptide was being flipped from finger to finger absently. He didn't appear to feel the girl stitching his skin together, despite the lack of anesthesia. Nico was definitely aware of the burning pain in his shoulder. The Hunter patching him up was a lot rougher than necessary in her quest to extract the bit of bronze in his flesh.

He was itching to leave. The plan was to drop Thalia a line, then go home. That's what he thought, anyhow. Percy seemed to have different ideas, which Nico did understand. He would want to see this through to the end, no matter how skilled Thalia's troop was.

The truth was the younger demigod misliked Hunters. They were all utterly beautiful—the result of eternal youth and prolonged exposure to their mistress's divinity—and equally as stony. If they had their way, he'd be turning on a spit over the fire as a snack for their wolves. It was a rude awakening for him the first time he entered camp since Bianca. Male children were gray areas for Hunters; not quite pariahs yet, in their eyes. He hadn't know that; he remembered being cold and scared and without a mother, and he remembered the Hunters being kind. But he was ten years old then, he'd had Bianca. Now, he was not so naïve, and he was more or less alone.

A small clearing of the throat made him look up. His healer had finished. She was one of the younger girls, around the age of thirteen (though in reality he had no way of telling how old she really was). She looked displeased at being saddled with the unfortunate task of fixing him, much less addressing him. "The lieutenant has requested you and the other one in the main tent," she said, all-business. Hardly waiting for a response, she turned on her tiny heel and stalked off.

Nico had to shake Percy out of his stupor. "Perce, c'mon." His friend still looked troubled, but followed Nico without question, cradling his arm to his chest.

They had been in the main tent enough times to know that the doeskin spread on the ground was not for them, nor was the ornate bowl of fruit sitting atop it. Judging by the age of them, they had been waiting for Artemis's return for quite a while, Nico observed.

Thalia herself was sitting cross-legged with a hide covering her lap. She waved at a second, duller plate of fruit in the middle of the tent as they sat, indicating to help themselves. Percy took a handful of grapes. Nico touched nothing.

She eyed the younger with an expression he couldn't place. Maybe it was worry, or thoughtfulness, or a cross between the two. With her, he never could tell. "My girls are good trackers," she said to him. She popped a grape into her mouth. "You can have their skins, if you want." Nico did not recall her having such a wolfish grin.

"Pass," he replied. His eyes drifted to the untouched bowl of fruit. "Where's the silver lady?"

He was quick to catch the slight turndown of Thalia's mouth. "Probably still on Olympus with the others." She was careful to keep her tone light, a fact that did not go unnoticed. Percy flicked up a dark eyebrow in silent question; Nico raised and lowered a shoulder as an I don't know. She rolled another grape in her fingers with more force than necessary. It was squashed.

"What do you mean, still?" Percy asked.

The grape was released from its torment as Thalia blinked. "You don't know?" Her eyes flicked from one man to the other. "You don't know," she repeated, a realization this time.

An iron fist curled around Nico's stomach. Out of the loop was an understatement at this point. When they asked to be left alone, their request had been honored, but it never should have gone this far. This was something big, something they never should have missed. Even in what Annabeth liked to call witness protection.

"What's happening?" he demanded.

The Hunter's mouth hardened. "We're not exactly sure," she admitted. "Twelve went up to the 600th floor, none came down." She sat up. "Some think they're having a particularly long debate. The rest of us—me, Chiron, the Elders—we think they're having an emergency council."

The last time they had one of those, the human race had almost been wiped out. That was an unfortunate Christmas. "For what?" Nico urged.

One silver-clad shoulder rose and fell. "Hell if I know. A threat, maybe. Or a big decision." She shook her head. "There's no way to know. Besides a couple of minors, they're the only ones in that throne room."

Nico's appetite was gone. "How long?" he asked.

"Thirteen days." Thalia's eyes were bluer than ever in the torchlight. "Needless to say, we're a little worried." She sank back into her pillows again. "I talked to Rachel a few hours ago; she's been trying to listen in through Apollo's ears."

"And?" Percy pressed.

She exhaled through her nose in exasperation. "It isn't easy to sneak into a god's brain unnoticed," she sniffed. Then relented, "She's gotten a few snippets here or there, not much. She thinks something's been stolen again."

Percy and Nico both opened their mouths for more questions, but were interrupted by the arrival of Phoebe. She clumped in, stooping to accommodate for the tent's lack of room for her high build. Her attire was stained messily with the remnants of her kill. She handed Thalia something with a gloved hand and whispered a few words to her. With a nod to the two men, she exited silently.

Thalia's expression was troubled. She rubbed at something in her fingers, staring at nothing for a second before she remembered she wasn't alone. "Caught and executed," she informed them. At the others' questioning gazes, she reached out and let a long gold chain dangle from her fingers. A small medallion was strung onto it. "They found this on one of the empousai. Went down screeching about apples." She snorted, but Nico was paying her no mind. He was tilting his head, peering at the trinket. It winked prettily at him in the torchlight—bronze, it looked like.

He took it from her silently. It was cool to the touch, which it shouldn't have been. Empousai burned as hot as their flaming hair; anything kept too close to their skin would boil. It was covered in a lattice work of markings. He recognized Ancient Greek among them, but most were languages he had never seen before.

Thalia was watching them study it. "Mean anything to you?" she asked.

"I'll be damned," Nico said to himself. He looked up at the other two. "This is a protection medal."

A shadow passed over Percy's face. "So they were working for someone."

Nico squinted closer at the medallion's surface. "Yes, but Hecate's sigil isn't here." He rubbed at the metal. Underneath all the etchings, there was a faint stamp. Very small, and very light. His eyes widened in realization. "It's a peacock."

The three of them stared silently at each other. Thalia shook her head. "No. No way." Her expression flickered. "Hera?"

Percy looked brooding and unhappy. "She's done worse."

Nico had to agree. "See but the thing is," he said, "this is incredibly powerful. If you had this, you'd be untouchable. Invisible to the gods, invisible to everyone." He looked at his friends, puzzled. "Why would she give this to an empousai?"

Thalia said, "You know, Rachel did hear one word for sure at the council. Apple."

A daunting look darkened Percy's features. "You don't think—?" He broke off. "The apples?"

Nico hated to visit that option, but it made sense. The lightning of Zeus was a sword; this was an atomic bomb. Several atomic bombs, by the sound of it. It certainly was Hera's type of move to pull an investigation of her own on the side, right under the council's noses. And her number-one suspect would be… His breath caught when he reached the conclusion. Fearfully, he watched as Percy came to the same bottom line. The change in his expression was sudden and final. His fingers jerked, and he was scrambling to his feet. "We have to get to Annabeth," he threw to Nico over his shoulder, and then he was pushing his way out of the tent with the determination of a mad man.

Nico ran after him, leaving a worried Thalia with a quick, "We'll call you as soon as we can." He tugged his cousin back by the shoulder. "Percy, she's fine. The empousai are dead; I've been keeping tabs on her through the sha—" He was cut off by Percy seizing him roughly.

"Take me home," he ordered. His eyes were wild. "Now."

Percy's fingers were digging into his shoulders sharply, but Nico bit back a complaint. With little else to do, he drew them through the shadows, completely oblivious to what they were walking into.

(Chapter 7 coming v soon, get ready.)