Disclaimer: I don't the characters, they belong to Rick Riordan. I don't own the plot, it belongs to MBC. I just joined them for fun.

Episode 14: Part 1

As soon as Nico found where inside the hospital was Will, everything became blurry.

He could see the doctors working around him, rushing to get things and speaking to each other. For Nico, their words were blurred, spoken as if they were far away instead of the two feet separating them, he couldn't distinguish to whom the voices belonged to.

Nurses and doctors worked but Nico's eyes were fixated on Will's bloody hand hanging from the side of the bed.

"Hand me the defibrillator."

"Charge it at 150 joules."

"Move away. One, two, shock!"

"One more time. Move away! One, two, shock!"

"Doesn't show pulse! Going into cardiac arrest!"

All Nico could do now was to watch, helpless.

Meanwhile, Zeus Olympia wanted to know exactly what was happening.

He drove to the direction he sent both Orcus and Nico di Angelo.

He arrived late enough for Nico to disappear- not that he knew that -but soon enough to see the cars crashed against each other and the engines still showing signs of the struggle. Smoke came out of them and Zeus decided to investigate.

Getting out of the car- and wearing gloves -, he approached the closest one. Besides the holes made by bullets in the front window and the engine still making smoke, there was no one there. Inside the car, Zeus distinguished the note he had written for Nico di Angelo... but no signs of Nico di Angelo. He took the note with him in case it served as evidence.

The other one showed the gruesome sight of a dead Orcus on the driver's seat. Zeus immediately began searching his pockets until he found his phone. He took it and continued to search the car, finding something really interesting in the truck of it.

After taking care of the cars, he investigated around. He was sure that his thugs had reached the place but with Orcus dead and di Angelo missing, where could they be? He walked into the only warehouse that had light and saw two of his thugs dead on the floor while the third one was fighting to survive.

"Damn it." He mumbled to himself. Which of those bastards did this...? Glancing to the side, he thought he saw movement and grabbed one of the discarded weapons on the floor. When he went to investigate, all he could find was a long and slightly fresh stain of blood. He immediately returned to his still alive thug. "What is that bloodstain over there?"

"Some man... he shot her." The thug replied, coughing a bit.

"What do you mean man? I don't see a man." Zeus admitted to him.

"He collapsed though." The thug insisted, leaving Zeus even more confused about what was really going on.

Just as Nico was watching how nurses were saving Will and Zeus was finding out more, Apollo returned fully to his senses.

His first reaction was the shock of watching his loved drawing tablet destroyed in pieces. He got even more scared when he saw he had the hammer on his hands. Slowly, the memories started to come back to him and rushed out of the room.

"Kayla!" He started to call around but there was no one in the house. "Will." He mumbled and was ready to call him but he remembered what had happened to his son. What had looked as if looking from the reader's point of view was soon turning into the character's point of view, making Apollo more and more shocked by the minute, making him realize the truth.

He had shot Will.

His shock was immediately cut by Will's phone ringing on the floor. He picked it up and answered it, a familiar voice on the other side.

"Hello? Hello! Big Bro! Where are you? Are you alright?" Apollo was greeted by an anxious Kayla who was talking without listening. "Are you alright? What happened? Big Bro? Hello?"

"Kayla?" Apollo managed to ask, though it was more to Kayla to stop talking.

"M... Master?" Kayla stuttered a little bit.

"What about Will?" Apollo wanted to know but both people had different priorities.

"Master, where are you? Where are you?" Kayla inquired to him.

After both mentor and student caught up with the events that had happened, Apollo took what little control that he had and drove directly to the last known address of the killer, Kayla riding along. The hope of finding Will there was too big to miss for him and decided to take any chance he could.

There, a worker told them that a man was found with a gunshot and taken away by an ambulance. Neither Apollo or Kayla asked if Nico was with him. The worker gave them that information without asking. They simply couldn't imagine anywhere else where Nico would be.

Kayla tried to calm down Apollo during the ride, assuring him that Will would be alright but Apollo's silence and mental breakdown were not helping the situation, making Kayla nervous now.

As soon as they arrived at the hospital, Kayla took control of the situation, as Apollo wasn't even fit for it.

"E-excuse me." She stopped a passing-by nurse.

"Yes?" She answered, kindly.

"Perhaps, is a male patient here who has been shot..." Kayla started and the nurse seemed to know who she was talking about.

"Are you Will Solace's guardian?" Apollo became hopeful by hearing that though Kayla was still making the talk.

"Yes. That's right."

"Will, where is he?" Apollo asked the nurse, who suddenly became nervous about it.

"That..." She began before doing her job. "He had surgery and came out well but before the surgery, he had temporary cardiac arrest caused by excessive hemorrhage while he was in the ER." Apollo was turning a bit pale. "We've performed CPR for over 30 minutes and didn't regain consciousness after the surgery-"

"You mean... brain dead?" Kayla interrupted her and the nurse rushed to correct her.

"It's still not a sure state, but if she continues to be unconscious then-" The nurse was interrupted once again but this time was by Apollo losing balance and falling to the floor.

"Master!" Kayla tried to hold him up.

"Are you alright?" The nurse checked on him.

"My Will. Where is my Will?" Apollo begged the nurse, who looked nervous once again.

"That... after we informed his husband, the police came to investigate, since it was a gunshot... but they went to talk to them, they were gone!"

"What?" Kayla repeated, not believing her ears.

"They suddenly disappeared within a few minutes." The nurse explained but Apollo's mind was running miles per hour away from that place. "Along with her husband. We still can't find them. I also find it so strange."

Wherever Nico went, he took Will with him...

That gave Apollo hope.

That night, the wait was long.

Apollo was on a short fuse, especially since his ex and mother of Will, Naomi, called to know where Will was. He dismissed her immediately, forcing Kayla to lie to her. How do I explain to her all this situation without making her think I'm insane...?

Apollo only blamed himself for this whole situation. In his mind, there was no one else to blame. His despair grew so much while waiting that he took painkiller followed by a large sip of whiskey... until the half-filled bottle was empty.

All he could do now was to wait.

As soon as the doorbell rang, everyone in the house jumped into action. Apollo could hear Kayla shouting around.

"Big Bro Will! Big Bro Will! Big Bro Will- Nico."

He would soon get the answers he wanted.

As soon as Nico's eyes set on Apollo, he could not distinguish any emotion from him. They just stared at each other for a minute before Nico spoke up.

"I see you returned." Apollo noticed that even Nico's voice had no emotion. But that wasn't important right now.

"What about Will?" Apollo wondered. He had held to the wall in support and stayed there, listening to Nico.

"I took him there." 'There', to everyone present, was inside the manhwa. No one needed more explaining.

"Why? What for?" Apollo kept asking.

"Since they said there was no hope." Nico explained, still serious. "If something goes wrong here, there is no turning back." He reasoned before explaining what happened during the last hours. "He stayed at the hospital for 3 days. Even there, they said there was no hope, so I moved him to a hotel. Because I couldn't explain the gunshot. He spent another week there. He squeezed my hand and opened his eyes just once. Very- Very briefly." Finally, Nico started to crack and Apollo feared to make the question.

"And so?" He stuttered, looking at Nico. "What about now?" Apollo noticed how a lonely tear fell from Nico's eyes before answering.

"He's dead."

Right then, Apollo's world turned black.