Disclaimer: I do not own any of Rick Riordan's characters.
A/N: Warning: ReyNico
The howl carried through the forest. Nico di Angelo, the son of the Greek god Hades, just stood there, while Reyna, a Roman demigod with the war goddess Bellona as her mother, tugged at his arm.
"Come on Nico, do you want to get killed?" she shouted. Nico rolled his eyes
"Reyna, hellhounds are creatures of the Underworld!" Nico told her. "I can control them."
"Nico, I've seen what your Underworld magic does to you!" She reminded him. "You almost melted into a puddle of shadows. And that was only a week ago!"
"It was Will's idea that we try to build my powers back up by using them on easy things!"
"Well, controlling an uncontrollable creature isn't exactly 'easy'," Reyna said.You still can't summon a rat skull without passing out!" Nico turned towards her.
"Reyna, this a highly supervised game of three-legged capture the flag. What could go wro-" Nico stopped abruptly, probably because the hellhound pounced on him. He scrambled out of the way, dragging Reyna with him. She moaned.
"After this, I am so going to kill you!" But Nico wasn't listening. In fact, it looked like he was sleeping while standing up, but then Reyna noticed that his face was screwed up in concentration. The hellhound, meanwhile, was still advancing. Reyna easily slashed through the monster, which effectively turned him into a pile of dust. When she looked back at her friend, she saw that Nico had passed out. Bellona's daughter smirked.
"I told you so," she muttered to herself. She cut the rope tying their ancles together, then turned Nico over to see whether he had been hurt. Reyna immediately noticed a nasty-looking cut about the length of one of her fingers across his back that she would need an Apollo camper to heal. She gave an exasperated sigh, then tried to wake Nico, but failed when her hand went right through him. Once she managed to touch him, she pried his mouth open and trickled in a few drops of unicorn draught, which she knew from experience was the most efficient way (other than hours of sleep) to heal Nico.
After a couple of minutes, he groaned and looked at Reyna. "Guess you were right," he said as he got back up. Reyna laughed. "Well, we'd better get back to Camp, the game ended while you were unconscious."
"How long was I out?" asked Nico.
"Only a couple of minutes, but Ares and Athena were on the same team." Nico nodded as they started back to Camp Half-Blood. Neither of them said anything, but they silently agreed on taking the longer trail. About halfway there, Nico tripped over a rock. Reyna helped him up, but then she realized something strange about the rock he tripped on. It wasn't a rock at all, but a magenta storybook!