Finding Percy Jackson was easy.

After all, he did get in trouble with the government. Plus, he very much matched the description of the guy was caught on camera, without a shadow of a doubt. It was finding Nico di Angelo that was proving to be a difficult task, though. Or the Ghost King, for that matter. The vigilante had the tendency to be able to slip into darkness and disappear easily, according to his enemies.

Los Angeles was a big city, too. Not as populated as New York, but still quite a large city. Jason didn't know where to even begin looking. That was until he remembered a certain person's father who was a star that happened to live in L.A. So Jason called up Piper McLean, asking her what she thought about finally meeting her father and she agreed to have him over for dinner. He wasn't shooting for the weekend, so it was a good time to bring Jason to meet her father. Truth be told though, dinner with her father was just a cover-up to look so they could look in more deeply into this whole Nico di Angelo character, with Piper having a backdoor to the LA local news that they could use so they could investigate deeper, and he made sure to let her know about it.

Dinner was uneventful to say the least, with Jason making conversation with Piper's father by talking about the movies he starred in, which of course, probably boosted his ego a bit. In turn, he asked Jason about his job, which he filled him on as well. But it was hard finding the motivation to talk about his career as a journalist when the guy literally made millions from his movies. Jason had a pretty straightforward and normal job. He definitely would not tell him about his other job, though. And he definitely wouldn't talk about how he picked up Piper and flew them both over to L.A. Why bother with driving when one could fly?

When they finished up with dinner (at long last) Piper and Jason met up in her old room as she pulled out her laptop.

"Let's get to work," she said. "Who'd you want me to find again?"

"His name is Nico di Angelo," Jason said, standing behind her and looking over her shoulder.

"Here we go," Piper said, looking him up using the backdoor. She frowned as she started to read about him. "Um, Jason ... are you sure this is your guy?" She turned to look at him. "It says he's dead."

"Was," Jason corrected.

Piper gave him a weird look. "What are you saying, that he ... came back?"

Jason rubbed his jaw. "About a few months ago, this vigilante started popping up in L.A."

"Oh, I know about him," Piper said. "Ghost King, I think he calls himself. But what does it have to do with this guy?"

"I think ... I have a hunch, that Nico might be the Ghost King," Jason said. "I mean ... here, let me use your laptop."

"Okay, sure." Piper stood up, letting Jason replace her and take her seat as he started to dive in.

"Look at this," Jason said. "Eyewitnesses and victims describe his powers as 'scary'. Says he can raise the dead, blend into the shadows, summon ghosts, that kind of stuff. And if we look into Nico's personal life ..." Jason opened up another tab and looked into an article about the di Angelos, which surprised Jason. "Look, his mom is Maria di Angelo."

Piper furrowed her brow. "Maria di Angelo ... I think I remember her starring in a movie with Dad. That was so long ago though, I must have been like, five years old."

"Well, she was, anyways," Jason corrected. "She was robbed at gunpoint ... and killed. Along with her daughter, Bianca."

"Oh, that's terrible," Piper said. "And that left the poor kid all by himself."

"I kind of get why he goes after criminals," Jason said.

"And he kills them, too, you know" Piper added. "He doesn't just after go after them."

Jason nodded. "Yeah. So we know Nico went on to live his own life, but I wonder ... where? No records of him being placed in orphanages or nurseries or nothing like that."

"He's such a mysterious guy, isn't he?"

"Yeah. Either way, all we know is that he dies in this place right here," Jason said, pulling the foreign article and gesturing at it. "Hades's temple. In Epirus, Greece."

"What was he doing there?" Piper questioned.

"That's what I gotta find out," Jason said.

"And you're sure he's gonna help with your ... thing?" Piper asked.

"I have to at least try," Jason said. "I'd ask you to help but ..."

"Charmspeak won't do much against ancient Titans?" Piper offered.

Jason nodded awkwardly. "Exactly."

"I get it," Piper replied. Luckily for Jason, she didn't sound too annoyed about it.

Jason put his fist to his lips thoughtfully. "What if ... maybe there was a way to tap in to the LAPD network? I know they might be actively searching for him."

"I don't have access to that kind of stuff," Piper said.

"Leo could probably hack it," Jason muttered.

"Who's Leo?"

Jason shook his head. "Friend of mine. Doesn't matter, he's not here right now. He's got his own thing going on."

Piper raised her eyebrows. "What if ... I asked?"

Jason looked up at her, considering her proposal. Her ability to get people to do her bidding could definitely come in handy in this situation. It wasn't a horrible idea, that's for sure. And he didn't have any better ideas in mind.

Jason shrugged in contentment. "I don't see why not. I don't have any better ideas."

Piper smirked and jangled her keys. "Guess we're going for a drive, then."

...

Jason and Piper sat in their car outside the LAPD precinct, eyeing the two police officers outside currently on their smoke break. Despite having a solid plan, Jason still worried for his partner. Anything went wrong and she could end up in a lot of trouble. But she seemed like she was confident everything would go right and nothing bad would happen, and eased Jason's worries, even if by a small margin.

"You sure you got this? I could always just fly in there and take it," Jason suggested.

"And risk making a lot of noise? I doubt you want that, Grace," Piper contradicted.

"Yeah, you're right about that," Jason agreed.

"Don't worry. I'll be in and out, smooth as silk," Piper said. "I'll be right back."

Piper got out and Jason watched her walk up to the pair of police officers outside and to his surprise, Piper got one of them to let her follow him inside. Meanwhile, the other one subsequently hopped in his car and drove off. Jason figured Piper told him to head home.

Piper seemed to take her sweet time and just when Jason was starting to get a little impatient, a smiling Piper McLean walked out of the precinct and hopped back into their car.

"So?" Jason asked.

Piper held up a flash drive. "Here's a flash drive, with everything that you need: a backdoor into the LAPD network."

Jason smirked. "I knew you could get it done." He took the drive from her. "Thanks."

Piper nodded in response. "Just tell me what you find."

Jason inserted the drive and typed into the laptop as he searched into the police network and confirmed his suspicions. "Just as I thought."

"What is it?"

"We're not the only ones looking for the Ghost King," Jason said and raised his eyebrows at Piper. "He's a wanted man, orders are to apprehend on sight."

"I mean ... he's only been going after criminals, mercernaries, bad guys, those type of people," Piper justified.

"Yeah, well ... LAPD see it differently," Jason said. "Oh, what's this? Something just popped up right now. I'm gonna check it out."

Jason clicked on the most recent radio communication. "Dispatch, we have a possible B&E at Nakamura Enterprises. Suspect is possibly armed and dangerous. Request for backup if needed, over."

"Backup request authorized. Units in the area be on standby until otherwise noticed," the dispatcher replied.

"B&E?" Jason wondered.

"Breaking and entering," Piper replied. "At Nakamura Enterprises? The infamous ... well, suspected criminal boss. No one's actually been able to prove that he's done any wrongdoing. And his lawyers are very good at defending him."

"Looks like Nico is going after him anyways," Jason noted. "I should probably go after Nico now. He'll be there. I can feel it."

"You planning on helping Nico or are you stopping him?" Piper asked.

"Guess I'll have to go and see about that," Jason said. "Get back home. I'm gonna go suit up."

Jason opened the car door and walked away. He was just able to hear Piper telling him to take care of himself before he headed into an empty alley.

...

Nakamura Enterprises was quite the tower.

From miles above, Jason could see the black skyscraper that joined the rest of the tall buildings in the center of L.A. With a sound-reasoning boom, he flew over next to a window close to the top floor just in time to spot a familiar wearing all black currently inside the building, and he was whooping some ass, Jason had to admit. Someone had to have trained him from a young age because Nico di Angelo could really fight.

He watched Nico punch the first opponent in the stomach before kicking a second. A third tried to raise his handgun to fire at him but Nico took care of him, grabbing the first opponent and tossing him into the third. A fourth came rushing in and Nico held onto the second as he front kicked the fourth with both legs. Then he returned his attention to the second, sweeping the enemy's legs and making him fall and land on his back.

More guards bursted inside the room and Jason chose that moment to intervene. He rammed straight through the window, the glass shattering harmlessly against his suit as he landed on one knee inside the room.

Everyone turned to look at the new intruder. "Who's this? A friend of yours?" one of the growled, possibly at Nico.

Jason couldn't see his face, but he could almost imagine the Ghost King smirking underneath that hood. "I have never met this man before in my life, but he's yours to deal with now."

With that being said, Nico disappeared into the shadows ... literally. Just dived into the shadow and was gone, just like that. Jason had never seen anything like that before.

With Ghost King gone, the enemies turned their attention to the new threat of the room, raising guns and proceeding to fire bullet after bullet at Jason, emptying their chambers before reloading and firing more bullets. Jason crossed his arms at them, an unimpressed expression settling across his face as he let the bullets ricochet off of him.

"Guys, come on, let's not do this," Jason pleaded.

To no avail, the guards whom were probably Nakamura's men did not listen to him and continued to fire bullets, even stepping closer as if that would do anything. Jason eventually got impatient and finished them off by raising his hands, electricity bolts shooting from his fingers and blasting Nakamura's men across the room. A few more men bursted inside the room and stopped in their tracks at the sight of Bolt standing in a room with bodies laying everywhere.

"You should run while you can ... or this is gonna get real ugly," Jason warned.

To his surprise, the extra men took his advice and sprinted back out of the room, prompting a smirk out of Jason before he started hearing commotion in the floor above him, the familiar sound of more gunfire being spread muffled by the walls. With Jason, it was no problem getting to the floor on top of his as he quite literally bursted through, breaching a hole through to see Nico making his way to the main man himself, Ethan Nakamura.

Ethan Nakamura was usually mean-looking, with the eyepatch slung across his left eye combined with a ragged scar topping off his austere appearance. But with the Ghost King making his way towards him, he didn't look very dangerous anymore. He looked downright afraid.

Especially with the bodies that laid around his office.

"Hello, Ethan," the Ghost King greeted. "Remember me?"

Ethan looked afraid but he became even more so when to Jason's surprise, the Ghost King took off his hood. Even more surprising, as Nico held it in his hand, it morphed into an old-fashioned Greek war helmet, very similar to that of Hades's helm as it was told in the legends. Jason could see him clearly now with his hood off, his long and shaggy black hair, pale skin and dark circles under his eyes, like he didn't sleep much. That was all that Jason was able to see before Nico put the helm back on, and it molded back into a hood and mask, as it were part of his outfit and not a separate entity.

Ethan looked downright shocked. "Nico?"

"Heh," Nico said humorlessly. "I'm surprised you actually remember me."

"Listen, buddy, that whole thing was all a misunderstanding," Ethan said.

Jason knew he probably should have intervened but he was actually kind of curious to see where this went. From what he was seeing right now, it was clear that Nico and Ethan had some history.

"Misunderstanding?!" Nico said in outrage. "You fucking shot me and left me to die!"

Jason's eyebrows raised at this newfound information.

"Wait-"

Ethan didn't get another word out before Nico drew the black sword from the sheath strapped to his back. "You, my old friend, sent me to Hell. It's time for me to return the favor."

Nico plunged his sword into Ethan's stomach before Jason could even think about reacting. Ethan screamed as he crumbled to his knees and Nico took out his sword and dragged his hand across the dark blade, wiping the blood before he inserting the sword back into its sheath. He then stood still and tilted his head to speak to Jason.

"You should've stayed out of this," he said, his first words spoken directly to Jason. "But thanks for the help, anyways."

Nico disappeared once again to the shadows, leaving Ethan's corpse to fall flat against the ground. Jason had so many questions about him and Nico and the relationship they had that he had completely forgotten that he was supposed to talk to Nico about this whole Titan ordeal. And now Ethan was dead, just like that. The underworld empire he built ... gone, with a stab of Nico's weapon.

It was the sound of rushing footsteps that shook out of his thoughts and he remembered that the LAPD had been alerted of the B&T on Nakamura's tower and they would be coming up and breaching inside any minute. Jason shot upwards, bursting through every floor and leaving holes through the roofs of each floor. Just in time, LAPD forces breached through to see the multiple unconscious bodies that laid across the room.

With Nico gone, Jason was back at square one. But if there was one thing that tonight proved, it was that the past would always catch up to you. Ethan thought he had Nico taken care of. For whatever reason, he saw fit that Nico be killed and well ... he came back with a vengeance. The past was always going to come back and haunt you. That gave Jason an idea.

He started to fly towards the Hollywood Hills.

Surprise, surprise, Nico is wearing Hades's helm as part of his suit. And now it's time for him to face his past. So that's where Nico and Jason both are headed, Nico's old home. And with the helm in possession, you can bet that trouble will befall.

Kind of a short AN, I don't really have much to say, so I just hope you stay enjoying this. As you might know, superheroes are "it" right now. I mean, there's the Marvel and DC universes and then there's The Boys and Invincible both on Amazon Prime. It's what given me this idea to make an AU for the PJO like those. Hope you guys enjoy and stay tuned for Chapter 8.