Me and Nico have spent the last half-hour looking for a weapon. Seriously, at first we tried a few swords, no balance, then we looked through some guns, too flashy, after that we tried hammers, too heavy. We were both starting to get tired when I saw a black blade peeking out of a pile on the left. I dug through to find a sheathed black sword, I smiled as I saw it.

"This one." I said, Nico turned to look. When he saw the sword, he frowned.

"You sure?" he asked, "That sword's made from Stygian Iron, and it looks like a Roman Spatha."

"So?" I said, "What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well..." he started, but he stopped as I drew the spatha out to test it. "Never mind, I guess that'll do."

We started walking towards the Arena when I asked, "So what is this Capture-The-Flag game? And why does Chiron have a rule of not maiming and/or killing people?"

Nico looked amused when I said this, "Well, it's an old Camp Half-Blood tradition, the cabins are split into two teams. Red and blue, we're on the blue team by the way, we're allied with Athena."

"And the maiming and killing part?" I asked.

"Er... you see, the Ares Cabin have the tendency to be...over-competitive," he replied.

"Over-competitive? But-" I began to say, but Nico interrupted me.

"We're here." he said.

We finally arrived, when we came in, we saw Annabeth and, I guess the Athena Cabin? Sparring with each other.

She looked at us, smiled, and walked towards us.

"Hey Nico," she greeted Nico and turned to me, "you're name's Alisa right?"

I smiled, "Yeah, and you're Annabeth, and that's the Athena Cabin, right?."

She lifted her brow, "Good memory, and yes, they're the Athena Cabin and they're my siblings. Anyway I guess you guys are here to train with us, but maybe Nico should teach you the basics first."

As she left to go back to her training, Nico motioned for us to go to a unoccupied corner in the room.

I unsheathed and held it, slightly awkwardly.

"Here," Nico moved toward me, "hold it like this."

I felt heat coming to my cheeks as he adjusted my grip on the sword. I looked at him, memorizing how he furrowed his brow as he worked on my grip. He turned to me and saw me staring at him, I quickly looked at my hand, but when I sneaked a peek through the corner of my eye, I could see that his face was slightly red too.

"Umm.. well... there." he said.

I smiled as I felt the sword's weight on me, perfect.

Nico started teaching me how to parry, and feint and stuff. I tried to pay attention, but every time we got close to each other, my heart would do that stupid tap-tappity-tap dance and I'd mentally tell it to shut up.

After a few more hours, a bunch of pretty good-looking guys and girls walked in. Most of them had bows strapped to their backs and quivers with gold arrows in them, a few others had long-swords hanging from their belts.

Nico looked a them and then turned to me, "Huh, I guess training's over. Apollo Cabin's here."

Oh, so they were the Apollo Cabin. I guess I should've known, bows, the gold arrows, the air of popularity.

Nico sheathed his sword expertly while I clumsily put my black sword in it's case.

A few girls from the Apollo Cabin came up yo us. Really, they came for Nico because they barely registered my presence.

"Hey, Nico! Can't you stay for a little bit?" A blue-eyed, blonde-haired girl said. She touched Nico's shoulder and looked at him with big, pleading eyes. While this was happening, a monster was clawing my insides, telling, no screaming at me to attack the idiot.

Nico shook his head, but the tips of his ears were turning red. "S-sorry Solana, er... can't." I almost choked on her name, Solana, Daughter of the Sun God. A hysterical giggle bubbled from me.

Solana narrowed her eyes at me, "So, this must be the new girl."

I looked at her, "Yeah, so what, Solana." another hysterical giggle bubbled up.

She glared, "And what is so funny?"

"Oh nothing," I said "J-just, Solana? Daughter of the Sun God?" I started laughing.

"What did you just say, you Cabin jumping unclaimed freak?" She glared at me, harder, if that was possible.

I was annoyed now, I glared back, "Are you deaf? Do you want me to repeat it? Solana, Daughter of the Sun God. How about I just call you Little Miss Sunshine, your name means the same thing."

We glared at each other for a full 2 minutes before Nico said, "Come on Alisa. We better go."

"Fine." then I smiled at Solana and said, "I hope I see you soon, Sunshine."

As soon as we were out of hearing range, Nico whispered, "Are you crazy? Why in the world would you taunt Apollo's best healer?"

"She asked for it." I mumbled, I was so not about to explain that it was partially because of the whole monster-screaming-to-attack thing.

He shook his head, "Watch yourself in battle, Solana won't forget the whole 'Sunshine' thing. And she's our healer in Capture-The-Flag."

"Aw, don't worry about me, Nico. I can take care myself." I said.

Nico looked at me, his brown eyes were soft. He raised his hand to my cheek and leaned in close enough that I felt his breath on my face as he said the next few words, "That's too bad, I was hoping I could take care of you."


A/N: So, what do you think? My first Alisa/Nico scene. I know, it's weird and slightly OOC-ish for Nico, but it seemed spontaneous and sweet to me.

Disclaimer: Well, let's see, I'm not a guy... I don't know what will happen in the Mark of Athena soo... Nope, not Rick Riordan and definitely not the owner of PJO.