Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Alright, so another chapter is here, sorry for the delay but I was taking a summer class for extra credit, and before you read it I must ask you guys for a quick favor…

I'm going to set up two polls on my author's page, and I really need every one of you to cast a vote. These particular polls will end in correlation with the near-last chapter of this story, so make sure to cast a vote in that time frame.

The first one will close on August 28th, you have about a week.

The second one will close when "The Oracle's Chest" is over and "The Dragon King" has a few chapters up.

Make sure to vote before the time frames close.

ALSO, A VERY IMPORTANT NOTE. ALL FLASHBACKS WILL STOP AFTER THIS CHAPTER. I'VE DECIDED TO TAKE A…DIFFERENT APPROACH TO MY STORY.

Now that all of that's out of the way, I hope you will enjoy this chapter.

Jazz thought that Olympus was the best place in the world.

She didn't understand why her Mommy and Daddy didn't love it as much as she did, it was so beautiful; especially the gardens she was in now. There were all kinds of trees and plants, and everywhere she turned there was a new flower just waiting to be sniffed and admired. A huge building with lots of tall columns wasn't too far off in the distance, which was glowing due to all the torches that were lit around and inside it.

It was like something out of a dream.

Jasmine let out squeal as she broke into a sprint, putting more distance between herself and her siblings. Before her parents and aunt had gone into that boring meeting, they had told the girls to stay together. But after a while (3 minutes and 37 seconds), Jazz got bored and thought it would be fun to explore the gardens. She was completely unaware that her older sisters were panicking trying to find her along with the nymphs who were supposed to be keeping an eye on all of them.

But even if she did know, it wouldn't have made much a difference. Jazz was a bit too busy having her own adventure, like the ones her family told her about.

Of course, exploring a garden wasn't as exciting as helping save the world like her mom, dad, Uncle Percy, Aunt Thalia, and Aunt Annabeth had.

Jazz inwardly shrugged and continued to run. She had abandoned her sandals when she abandoned her sisters and could feel the cold dew on the grass under the soles of her small feet. Her eyes closed as she sped up a bit faster, enjoying the feel of the wind on her face.

Jazz kept running and running until she ran smack into someone's back and fell back onto her butt. She let out a whimper and slowly got back onto her feet, rubbing her now very sore bottom in the process. The girl glanced up, fully prepared to apologize to whoever she had run into, but her lips clenched shut when she saw just who she had run into.

He was pretty tall, and her being on the ground just made him all the more intimidating. He wore dark jeans, dark shoes, a black leather jacket, and the strangest dark red dress shirt that's color seemed to swirl on the silky fabric. He was a sickly kind of thin, with lanky arms and bony fingers that never seemed to stop moving. His hair was a violent, unnatural shade of red and was short and messy. The shadiest pair of sunglasses that Jazz had ever seen covered his eyes, but even though they were blocked from view, she could tell they were unnatural too.

He reminded Jazz like some kind of mobster spider. And she would have told him so, if her oldest sister hadn't yanked her to her feet.

"Jazzy, Mom and Dad told us to stay together. Why did you run off like that?" Nicole was livid but at the same time so relieved that she had found her younger sister. Olympus may have been beautiful, but she couldn't help but feel that all the shine was just to hide something ugly underneath.

"I got bored," she said with a shrug of her shoulders, as if it was the most obvious explanation in the world.

The oldest Adams daughter rolled her eyes, "Just go back to Imogene and Ilene, they're about this close to crying." She pinched her fingers close together for emphasis before shooing Jazz off. She rubbed her tired eyes with both hands and let out a long sigh. Being the oldest of four (soon to be five) was exhausting, even if you were only 10. Having hyperactive younger siblings didn't help, and not getting enough sleep was only making it worse…

"She was most certainly full of energy, and your lack of it just makes this situation even more amusing."

Nicole jumped at the voice, which was unnatural. It was smooth and flowing, but not like honey, more like lava; fluid, but deadly and destructive. She lowered her hands from her face and looked at the rather odd speaker.

He was disturbingly unnatural, but what was the most unnatural, was that this man was no god. However…at the same time…he wasn't a half-blood. Or a normal mortal, either.

He chuckled and adjusted his shades, "Forgive me, I couldn't help but make that observation."

"Oh! Um…It's okay, I guess."

"Good," he said with a smirk, "because I was never sorry to begin with."

"Uhh," Nicole shuffled her feet. Not knowing who he was made her uncomfortable. She was taught not to talk to strangers, but it was more than that. Is he a monster? Her thoughts raged as she tried to come up with a reason for her uneasiness.

His smirk suddenly turned into a scowl, "I'm not a monster, thank you very much." Nicole's mouth dropped open. Had he read her thoughts?

"I don't have to read your thoughts, Nicole Adams, to understand your composure, which, by the way, is starting to unwind." The taunting smile was back, pulling his lips back just enough for Nicole to see pointed, sharp teeth.

"How do you know my name?" She felt her muscles tense, and the urge to run was suddenly present.

The colors on the man's shirt began to swirl more violently, "Do you like dreams, Nicole?"

The person in question glared, "Sure. How do you know my name?"

"You are a very persistent little girl," the man said with a chuckle, "but then again, he was persistent as well."

"What?" Now Nicole was just confused. This situation was getting more and more confusing. This guy was confusing.

The man raised his eye brow, "Are you telling me you don't know his history? The history of the person you were named after?"

"I-I wasn't named after anyone," Nicole stuttered, "My parents picked the name because they thought it would suit me. They told me so."

"Do you believe everything your parents say?"

"Are you saying they lied to me?"

The man laughed out loud, "Let me answer your question with another question." He leaned down close to Nicole's shaking form and whispered into her ear, "Who is Nico di Angelo?"

Nicole froze, her heart skipped a beat, and the world seemed to stop.

The question the man asked had actually become a very popular expression among the younger generation of half-bloods. It was started in her parent's generation, about 10 years ago, and was used in response to a question that didn't really have an answer. An unanswerable question with great meaning, the statement held a lot of power. Nicole didn't know much about it, only that it upset her parents a lot whenever someone said it, which is why she wasn't allowed to say it.

She still remembered the first and last time she had said it in the Adams home. It had been during an argument with her mom and dad. It had slipped out, by mistake; she didn't even remember what they were arguing about but it sure didn't end well. Those mysterious words slipped out of Nicole's lips and suddenly everything exploded. Tears were suddenly present in her mom's eyes and she had never seen her dad so upset before up till then. After that night, it was against house rules for anyone to even talk about that one statement.

"Oh, so you aren't completely naïve."

The man's voice broke Nicole out of her silent trance. She tried to make eye contact with him, but all she saw were his dark black sunglasses staring back at her.

"So, who is Nico di Angelo?" He said this again while standing back up to his full height.

"No one," she said quickly, "the saying – it's just a saying."

He chuckled, "You must be tired, what with all that has been going on." He smiled sardonically and crossed his arms, "I bet all those dreams aren't helping, either."

Nicole narrowed her eyes, "How do you know about those?"

The smile got wider, pointed teeth becoming more visible, and he just looked at her.

It was true about the dreams. They were so strange, as if she was watching a movie in her sleep. Each night it was a different 'scene', with a collection of different 'characters'. An awkward girl with mysterious power, younger versions of her parents, Uncle Percy, Aunt Annabeth, and many other people she knew.

But the person who all of them seemed to be centered around was a dark young boy who was ill with power she had never seen before. But his name…

"Ah, you do know what I'm talking about." The man uncrossed his arms and reached into the inside pocket of his jacket, "It's a shame, to know that one god would censor the history of the most important, most famous, most virtuous, and most honorable hero of all time. And just because he is jealous and afraid of someone he should be grateful to."

Nicole blinked, "You sure do seem to like this guy."

"Well, of course, I helped make him into who he is!" The man all but screamed this, causing Nicole to jump. His voice was just so…wicked, in a way.

He took a deep breath and scoffed, "But, that's beside the point. So, I will ask you again: Who is Nico di Angelo?"

"I don't know," she said softly and the man chuckled.

"Would you like to find out?"

Nicole watched as he pulled his hand out of his pocket. In his hands were five books, books that would have never been able to fit in his pocket normally. There was no title on any of them, each was the same size, and the only difference was that they were different colors.

"Go on, take them," he said while holding them out to her, "but you must promise not to tell anyone about these, and you must do me a favor sometime in the future. That is my only condition."

She didn't know what came over her, but for some reason Nicole felt really tempted to take those books. It was like something had possessed her. She took the books slowly into her own hands, and they felt surprisingly light.

The man smiled that slimy smile and said, "Congratulations, Nicole Adams you are the first person in your generation to know the truth about that ever popular statement." He stretched and turned around, "Start with the green one, you'll know which one to read after that," he said with a wave of his hand as he walked away.

"Wait," Nicole called out after him, "what do I do when I'm done?"

He stopped walking and turned around. He looked right at her and pulled his shades down just enough to look at her over the brim of the sunglasses.

Nicole's heart stopped when her soft green eyes met his horrible red ones. They had no iris, or pupil, they were just a terrifying, almost glowing, blood red.

"I believe you'll know what to do," he pulled his shades back up onto his face before fading into the air, leaving Nicole alone in the gardens.

She looked down at the books in her hands, the temptation to open the green one starting to creep up on her. Nicole couldn't deny that she was kind of scared, what had just happened was a bit creepy. But, at the same time, that man had really made her curious about the shadowy Nico di Angelo. It may have been a saying, but there were a lot of rumors and legends about this guy too. Some people even said that he was real.

Was he real? Were all those amazing stories and legends true?

"Who is Nico di Angelo?" Nicole whispered this to herself as she slowly lifted the cover of the green book.

Before she could even look at the pages, Nicole felt herself begin to fall backwards as the world around her went dark. The multicolored books clattered to the floor along with a blacked out Nicole, who was now starting her insight into the life and times of Nico di Angelo.

"Information is the seed for an idea, and only grows when it's watered." – Heinz V. Bergen

"Who is Nico di Angelo?" I came up with that from the movie Atlas Shrugged. It's one of my favorite movie series.

So, another chapter is up, sorry for the wait, but I tend to work better during the school year since I'm forced to manage my time well.

Hope you liked it and remember to vote in the poll before the deadline.

Till next time,

~Fantasila~