Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson. All my fanfic writings are non-profit. 'Tis all for fun.

Piece of Darkness I - A Knight or a Pawn

Chapter Thirteen

"Soon, we must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy."

–Albus Dumbledore, 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (The Movie)'

"What are you doing here?" I said angrily. I shot out of my chair, and stood glowering at the intruding son of Hades.

My mom slipped away, closing the door behind her. Nico stepped further into the room, not meeting my eyes. He shuffled over to my bed, and sat down on the very edge of it. Only then did he meet my angry gaze, and only then did I realise how obvious the answer to my question was.

"Chiron sent you," I muttered.

Nico nodded glumly.

I sat back down, and stopped glaring at Nico like I was about to beat him up with my chessboard. I couldn't really blame him - if Chiron had ordered him to visit me, he probably wouldn't have had much choice.

And the fact that Chiron had ordered Nico here showed that he wasn't going to let me walk away as easily as I'd hoped. The world of the gods wasn't going to just go away.

"Look, I know you don't want me here—" Nico began.

"Just stop," I interrupted, my anger bubbling up again. "Just stop, alright? I don't want to know, I don't want to freaking hear it."

Nico complied, and stayed silent, watching me pensively.

I rubbed my temples, and sighed, almost groaning. I'd left the camp. Chiron had posed me with the question, straight-out, and I'd answered him. I thought it was pretty clear that my answer was no.

But apparently the centaur, or maybe the gods, didn't care about that.

I thought about it for a moment. I could see that if I dismissed Nico now, he'd be back tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after, incessantly badgering me until I listened to whatever script Chiron had supplied him. My only hope for a little peace was to hear him out now, make it clear I wasn't going to change my mind, and hopefully would that be the end of it.

Hopefully being the operative word.

"Go ahead," I said, waving my hand at Nico.

"What?" he replied, frowning.

"I said, go ahead," I growled. I picked up my chess book again and started to stare at various pages. "Let's hear the sales pitch."

The son of Hades sighed, and I could tell it was a sigh of relief - even he didn't want to have to continually badger me. "Okay," he muttered. "Where do I start…"

"The beginning," I said helpfully. "Well, the end would be better, but then you won't be able to tell me the middle, and Chiron probably wouldn't be happy with that arrangement, so the beginning is a good choice."

"Cyrus, I swear to Hades, you're as bad as me," Nico said, rubbing his temples. "Okay. Chiron basically commanded me to come here, and he said if you wouldn't listen—"

"You'll have to keep coming back day after day, yes, I worked that out myself," I said, waving my hand again. "Skip along."

"He wants you to return to camp," Nico said quickly. "He wants you to come back, and train as best you can, even though you're a…"

"A mortal," I supplied, still staring at my chess book.

"Yeah."

"And what do you think of that?" I asked quietly, slowly leafing through pages.

"What do I think of it?" Nico echoed. "What the hell does that have to do with it? I'm just the messenger."

"I asked you for your opinion," I said, finally looking up. "That means I want to hear it."

He stared at me for a moment, then laughed.

"What?" I said, scowling.

"You know who you remind me of?" Nico asked, still chuckling slightly.

I shook my head.

"Jake Wilson," he said, his tanned face crinkled with amusement.

"What?" I cried, scowling even more deeply this time.

"It's the whole imperious, I'm-smarter-than-you thing," Nico explained, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "It's annoying, but kind of funny."

"You're comparing me to a liar and a thief?" I said flatly.

"Oh, no," Nico replied. "I'm not comparing you to him. But there are a few similar qualities there."

"You're such a great diplomat," I shot back.

He shrugged. "I never said I was here to be diplomatic," he said. "I'm here to tell you that you've made a mistake."

"According to Chiron."

"Yeah," Nico nodded. "He said…what was it? That 'the theft of the Flame of Olympus and the awakening of Mother Rhea signals the beginning of a new phase in the gods' stay in this land.'"

"Wait. Mother Rhea? The mother of the gods?" I spluttered.

"Yeah, her," Nico said quietly. "That's who Jake Wilson was working with."

We sat in silence for a few minutes. I could just about handle the Olympian gods knocking around the modern world, but Titans? And the way Nico had said it, with such a casual tone, showed that this wasn't a first.

That reminded me of the wars people had kept mentioning, back at camp.

"When I was at camp," I said, "a few demigods mentioned something about wars? How there'd been big wars years ago?"

Nico's face darkened considerably, and I sensed that I'd hit upon a very sensitive topic. His forehead creased and his shoulders hunched as a cloud of unpleasant emotions settled over him. I'm not being figurative - I could actually see his aura darkening and twisting.

"There have been two major wars in the half-blood world over the last six years or so," Nico said, his voice very quiet and serious.

"Two?"

"Yeah," he muttered. "One was when the Titan Kronos rose from Tartarus, and tried to destroy the Olympians. He used the body of Luke Castellan, but Percy Jackson managed to defeat him."

"Wait a second," I said, holding up my hands. "Did you just say Percy Jackson? The canoeing instructor?"

He nodded.

I shook my head in disbelief. I'd seen and heard a lot of crazy things over the last few days, but somehow I couldn't picture goofy, cheery, helpful Percy defeating the mighty evil Titan. It was like someone saying that Daffy Duck took down King Kong.

"He was helped by a lot of demigods," Nico added. "Me. Annabeth Chase…"

(Well, no surprises there.)

"Then, barely a year after that, we had a second war, even more difficult than the one with the Titans," Nico continued. "This time, Gaia herself waged war against the gods."

"Gaia…" I said slowly. "You mean the earth goddess?"

"Yup," Nico answered. "You can imagine the difficulties involved with fighting a deity who has power over you whenever you're standing on the ground. And who has an army of evil and nigh-invulnerable demonic evil giants."

"Ah," I said, very quietly indeed.

"We managed to win that war," he went on. "But the gods themselves had to partner with their demigod children for the giants to be destroyed. Not even Percy Jackson had the power to single-handedly destroy a giant."

I managed to avoid saying that Percy Jackson didn't seem like someone who would have the power or inclination to destroy a fly, never mind an evil giant.

"Still, they must have been pretty quiet wars," I said hopefully. "I mean, if they'd been really serious, us mortal folk would've noticed them, right? Even the Mist can only cover so much, right?"

Nico scowled deeply, and it was obvious that I'd just said a very stupid thing.

"The Greek gods have kept their existence secret from most of the mortals for more than two thousand years," he snapped. "Mount Olympus itself hangs above the Empire State Building. Do you really think it would be much of a task for a war to be equally well-hidden?"

"Um…"

"I think you're slightly underestimating the Mist," Nico continued, his tone still sharp. He stood up and started pacing about my room. "It's one of the most powerful mythological forces, if not the most powerful. Typhon himself could rage across America, and you mortals would think that it was nothing more than a freak storm. In fact, that's exactly what happened, in the final stages of the Titan War."

He paused, now standing by the window. "And if the gods have to go to war again, do you think you'll know?" he muttered, his tone ominous. "Do you think you'll know what's happening when the world is falling down around your ears?"

"Maybe," I replied. "My clear sight seems to be pretty strong."

"Then maybe, before everything ends, before the darkness overtakes us all," Nico said angrily, rounding on me, "maybe you'll have a moment when you realise that you could have stopped it, that you could have been the one to end the carnage."

He fell silent, and stood there, glaring down at me.

"Nico…" I said quietly. "You don't know that. I don't. Maybe the gods do, but…"

The son of Hades turned away, and instead aimed his glare out the window. I took the opportunity that this moment of respite provided, and calmed myself. I breathed deeply, trying to clear my head. Nico sure was scary when he got mad. Chiron had sent the perfect guy for the job.

"I'm sorry, Cyrus," Nico said, his tone leveling out. "I lost my sister in the first war. I was kidnapped and tortured by Gaia in the second. It's a sensitive issue."

I bowed my head. There wasn't an awful lot you could say to that.

Nico stood there for a few more minutes, and I could see his aura slowly calming down, which was a relief to me. I didn't know what kind of powers a son of Hades had, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to anger him enough to find out.

I thought about what Nico had said. Taken on its own, it was pretty convincing. If some kind of terrible apocalypse really did come down onto the earth, and it turned out that I could've stopped it, would I be able to live with myself? Admittedly I probably wouldn't need to live with myself, because the world would've ended and I'd be dead, but still. I didn't think I was a bad person, or at least I wasn't immoral. If it really did come down to me to help save the world, was it my moral responsibility to do what I could?

(And Nico comparing me to Wilson was hanging on my mind. I sure didn't think I was anything like the shadowy weirdo, but then I wouldn't, would I? Evil people don't think they're evil…)

But on the other hand, how did I know if I could believe the gods, believe Chiron? Nico had been real convincing, sure, but that's why Chiron had sent him - he was the perfect recruiter, someone who had been deeply wounded by the enemy and would not flinch from joining the fight. The kind of person who would make me feel guilty about not helping, and what better way to get someone to sign up for something than to use the greatest tricks in the box - emotional blackmailing and guilt-tripping?

I glanced down at my chess book, which had wound up on the floor at some point, then I glared at the chessboard. I sighed, and started putting the pieces back to their starting positions. As I placed each one on its square, I felt like I was laying out another aspect to my dilemma.

The pawns. Were the gods using me as an inconsequential pawn, just another piece of material to be used, manipulated, and, perhaps, sacrificed?

The rooks. Nico didn't seem to be someone easily swayed by sentiment or fervour, but who knew how his experiences in war had distorted his judgement?

The knights. My parents had been told by a mysterious visitor that I would play a crucial role. I was sure they weren't lying, but why should I let someone else's vague predictions affect my choices?

The bishops. Chiron had made it sound like I was going to be the primary figure in a great battle, but how could he know that? Was that merely what the gods had told him, or did he know for certain?

The queens. I'd thought I was free of this, and then it crept into my life again. If I turned away from it again, would it just keep coming back, over and over again, until I was worn down into a more receptive attitude?

As I replaced the two kings, Nico moved away from the window, and crouched down right next to me. He surveyed the chessboard with solemn eyes.

"You play a lot of chess?" he asked me, picking up the black king and inspecting it.

"Yeah," I said. "I don't have a lot of people to play with, but I still like it a lot."

Nico nodded, still examining the piece. After a minute or more, he replaced it, and said, "You know, I only learned how to play last year. Before, I'd known nothing about it, then Annabeth Chase taught me."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. You know the thing that I saw right away?"

I shook my head.

Nico met my eyes. "That life is really just a big, big game of chess. And, whether we like it or not, all of us have to play it."

He picked up two pieces from the board, and held them up.

"We all face the same choice," Nico went on. "We have to choose whether to be a knight," he waved the knight in his right hand, "or a pawn." He waved the pawn in his left.

Then, Nico dropped the pieces back onto the board. They fell over with tiny clatters.

"Those are the choices you have, Cyrus," Nico said, rising to his feet. "I hope you'll pick the right one."

He turned, and stepped into a shadowy corner behind my half-open door. I blinked, and the son of Hades was gone.

"Well, it seems Wilson isn't the only demigod with a talent for drama," I muttered.

I sat there for a while, staring at the rays of sunshine splaying themselves across the wall like wispy hands pressing against glass. Nico had managed to do what I'd been dreading, the one thing that could change my mind. He'd posed the question in terms of right and wrong, and made it clear which choice he thought was the moral one.

Stupid manipulative sons of gods.

I jumped as my door opened, and my mom padded in.

"Who was that, Cyrus?" she asked carefully.

"Oh, just someone from camp," I said, in an unconvincingly nonchalant tone. I stood up, and hurriedly put on my coat. "I, uh. I'm just going out for a walk."

Mom nodded, but her expression made it clear that she knew I was dodging the question, and that sooner or later I'd have to tell the whole story.

I couldn't face recounting the whole thing right then, however. My parents were good, moral people, and if they knew the choice I had to make, I'd find myself being rather firmly nudged down the path of sure Mr. Olympian how can I help you I'll do whatever is needed.

I bolted down the stairs before I could be asked any more questions, and I was on the street in moments. I took off down the road, vaguely thinking that I might visit the library.

As I turned the corner onto the main road, a pair of arms grabbed me from behind. I instinctively kicked out, but my attacker was strong, and held me with a grip of iron. Someone appeared in the corner of my vision, and I could see that he was holding a sponge dripping a viscous liquid which didn't look like a nice health elixir.

The dark-clad figure kept out of my eye-line as he pressed the sponge against my mouth and nose. Immediately, I started feeling drowsy, and my vision began to go black at the edges.

The last thing I saw before I passed out was Jake Wilson looking down at me, wearing an infuriatingly smug expression and mouthing, "Hello again, Cyrus."