Hello! This is a mega chapter hence the fact it is late but I think that can be excused, I just really wanted all this in one. So it is kind of two chapters in one, so really only the first half is late. Can I just say, you lot are amazing I can't believe how many people have read this story and it makes me so happy. And even though I'm terrible at updating you all stand by me. I seriously love you all, have some cookies (::) (::)
Darkness Death and Riches: Yep I am back and you never know the fight might be on… That's a good guess, but you'll have to read on to see what will actually happen. We are now getting towards the Percico parts and I'm going to try to write it all cute and stuff but it might have to bear with me for a bit as I've never written in that way before.
Deadly Huggles: Don't worry they'll probably figure out something. And he's not still at Mt Othrys the titans have made a forward camp a few miles away from Camp Half Blood so it will be slightly easier for them to reach him.
Tori Chase: You have some great ideas and you are actually going along the same lines as me for the plot, there will be a little bit of action in this chapter but the next chapter is going to be the main action focus as it would've been too long.
Guest: Oooo I'm sorry I cant tell you what will happen to them next you'll have to read on and find out. And don't worry I will write more.
WolfMistwood: I love your ideas and you might notice I am actually using one of them in this chapter, I don't know how you've managed it but your ideas about Annabeth are exactly what I am planning. P.S. I love Percico too.
DISCLAIMER: I only own the story line everything else belongs to Rick.
Nico POV
Gold dust rained down as I cut the monster in two, its red leathery hide peeling away before crumbling into ash. I shook my head to dislodge all the monster dust before signalling to my team that it was safe to move. We had been slowly making our way through the camp for an hour quietly sneaking into all the fortified buildings in our half to check for Percy. We tried to kill as few monsters as possible so we didn't alert them to our presence but we still had to kill some. Leo and I kept watch while the others snuck into the stone tower to search, so far we'd had no luck and if we didn't find him soon we were bound to be noticed. We had to hurry up and find Percy soon. Or we would lose him.
Not five minutes later Thalia and Piper came running back out and joined us in the shadows. "He isn't here." Thalia hissed. "We need to hurry they are going to notice that the monsters are disappearing soon." I nodded in agreement, after all I had just been thinking the same thing. "I think it's clear he isn't in these smaller out posts." Piper interjected. "Maybe we should focus on the bigger buildings and then check these after if we don't find him." I thought about her proposition. On one hand if she was right we would find Percy much quicker, on the other hand if she wasn't it would be much slower and we might not get time to find him. I looked at the others; they looked as conflicted as I felt.
After a few silent moments Leo spoke up "I think she's right guys. It's clear your grandfather finds Percy valuable and after showing him to us, he knows we are coming for Percy. He'll be somewhere protected. I say we go to the central fort and work our way outwards." I looked at Thalia, her electric blue eyes flickered with anxiety but she nodded at me. "Ok then, Thals lead the way." I decided. However, I wasn't sure about it we were mostly likely to be found in the fort but then again if Kronos valued my cousin that much he could be there. We had to try, despite the risk.
For the next half an hour we carefully picked our way through the camp; scurrying from shadow to shadow. It was difficult but we managed to stay hidden from most of the monsters and the ones that did see us were killed before they could alert anyone else. Once we turned a corner and ran straight into a group of dracaena. Before the snake ladies could unsheathe their weapons we had halved their numbers leaving only four to fight. We took one each and I easily killed mine by disarming her and cutting her throat, next I dispatched Piper's who she had convinced in was a good idea to walk towards my sword. That just left Thalia and Leo, but they both destroyed the monsters before we could step in and help. After giving Leo some nectar for his injured shoulder we quickly carried on towards the fort. Luckily no one else had been injured worse than a bruise.
Soon we found ourselves at the edge of the clearing. The good news, the doors were straight ahead. The bad news, monsters were patrolling the edge of the fort and we couldn't get through without being seen. 'For this many guards there must be something important in there.' I thought. 'It must be Percy.' Silently we all slipped back into the darkened alley to discuss how we would reach the captured hero. "He's got to be in there." Thalia whispered urgently. "If I know my grandfather, and unfortunately I do, he'll be keeping Percy close to him. And by that number of guards, this is where the Titans are staying." I nodded, she was right the Titans knew we would come for Percy – although they probably didn't expect us to get past the front gate.
"I agree he's definitely in there, we need to call the others and find out how we can get in." Piper decided grabbing a prism and drachma from her own pack before moving away to call Jason. "That's just the issue though isn't it." Leo complained. "We can't get into the fort without being seen." Lovely, thank you mister optimism. That's all we needed to know. I sat down on the floor to think, nobody spoke so they must've been trying to come up with a plan too. Suddenly I remembered the seeds in my pack. Quickly, I scrambled to get it off my back and dug them out of the bottom. I had a plan, it wasn't good, it wasn't safe, and it could be classed as suicidal. Percy would be proud.
As soon as I grabbed the seeds I shot to my feet. "I have a plan. You might not like it, but it's the best I've got." I announced. "So a usual day then." Smirked Thalia. "What's the plan cuz?" "Ok, for one don't call me that. But right the plan. I have these seeds they're from Persephone's garden; they turn people invisible." Leo began to grin and opened his hand for one. "No Leo, unfortunately only children of Hades can eat then without dying – I'm not even sure Hazel would survive." His face fell. "But, if I eat this I can go in when someone opens the door. If you look the guards keep changing over so they have to open the door. When I'm done telling you the plan I need you, Thalia, to go see how often that is."
She nodded at me. "Then when they are going to open I'll eat a seed and sneak across. Frank will come too as some type of rodent and once we are in and it's clear he will burrow back to you. From then I will keep all the monsters out of the passage while Hazel creates a tunnel following Frank's path to get you all inside. Any questions?" I asked, it seemed like a good plan to me. "Yes, how are you not going to die in there alone?" Questioned Piper who had arrived back while we were thinking. "I have five seeds, every time I turn visible I'll eat another. If you're quick, I'll not run out. So, please be quick or I'm dead." I informed her, she turned a little green at the thought but she didn't argue - it was our only chance.
No one had any more questions so we all sat down to wait for the others while Thalia studied the guard changes. After around 20 minutes Hazel, Frank, Jason and Calypso arrived. We quickly greeted them and told them the plan. They didn't like it, obviously, but they couldn't think of anything better so after a bit of convincing they agreed. Once we were done I crept over to Thalia and signalled for us to go back to the others. "What've you found out then?" I asked urgently when we were away from the guards. "The guards move around every ten minutes, the door is only open for a short window though and currently you have four minutes if you want to get in there this time." She informed us. "We need to get in this time, Percy could be running out of time." I answered determinedly. "Frank, are you ready?" I asked while taking the first seed out of my pocket. Instead of answering me he closed his eyes and after a moment began to shrink and sprout light brown fur until he looked like a field mouse. Perfect camouflage. I nodded solemnly to the others before turning around and swallowing the seed; slowly fading from sight.
Time to rescue a hero.
Quietly I tip toed across the open space, careful not to make a sound in case they heard me, and pressed myself up to the cold stone wall next to the door. I tilted my head down to see Frank the mouse perched next to my foot, ready to spring forward as soon as the door moved. After what felt like an eternity, but in reality was only a few minutes, the oak door swung open with a loud groan. Not wasting a second Frank darted into the fort leaving me to follow as quickly as I could when there was room. As I slipped through the door I accidentally got hit on the foot by the door, I moved as quickly as I could but it was too late the door had stopped for just a second.
I scrambled away to the far wall and watched in trepidation as one of the two monsters inspected the door. The Telkhine peered at the door closely, shuffling closer. After a moment it looked back towards its larger companion, probably it's superior. "Did you see that?" It asked in a gravelly voice. "Did I see what?" The other replied in an annoyed tone. "The door it paused for a second, it could have been a breach." The younger one informed in an enthusiastic tone. "Or it could have been an unoiled hinge." The second said sarcastically. "Now move on or Kronos will kill us and we'll never make it around to the prisoner's cell." When they left the room, I let out a breath I didn't know I had been holding. That monster didn't know just how wrong he'd been, but that was fine by me. Silently I checked the coast was clear before telling Frank to get back to the others as quickly as he could.
Not long after the mouse had turned into a mole and was furiously digging towards our friends. When he was out of sight I started to patrol the stone grey corridor while contemplating what the Telkhines had said "the prisoner's cell" that had to be Percy I decided. But the monster had almost sounded excited about guarding him for ten minutes, was it really that much of an honour to guard a famous demigod or was something else happening? I guessed I would have to find out for myself, at least one good thing had come out of the experience. I knew the son of Poseidon was definitely there.
It didn't take the others long to reach me, I didn't even have to use the final seed. The guards had changed once while I was invisible but I just let them pass, knowing someone would investigate if they didn't show up and that they would move on quickly. That was the only run in I had had with monsters, which didn't seem right – surely at least a few were just walking around out here. And if they weren't out here it made me worry that there would be a lot lower into the compound. Once then others had all climbed out of the tunnel Hazel quickly covered over the tunnel as if nothing was there but left the rest open for a quick escape route.
"Nico? Nico?" Hazel whispered urgently. "I'm here don't panic I just need to wait for the seed's effect to wear off." I told her in a hushed voice. "Ok, but it wasn't just that. When I was in the tunnel I could feel a series of tunnels under the middle of the fort, I think they must be the cells." She informed us all. "I agree," I told them, noticing my body was beginning to return. "He is definitely here two of the guards were talking about the prisoner." Frank nodded in agreement. "I heard them too, it's true. We should go get him now." I knew that the son of Mars hadn't known Percy very long but they had gone on a quest together with Hazel while he was at Camp Jupiter, so they must've gotten quite close. Desperately I tried to push down the feelings I was getting, I was so close to Percy yet I felt like he was slipping straight through my fingers. There was so much I didn't know about him, for Zeus's sake I knew nothing about the last 100 years, how was I supposed to help him like this much less – 'No Nico stop.' I scolded myself before the thought went too far. 'He isn't yours.'
"Come on we should go." Jason piped up quickly diverting the others attention from me as they had all begun to stare. I didn't know what I looked like but they could clearly see I was thinking about something bad. "Hazel lead the way and be prepared for anything." He concluded quickly. The roman demigod shot me a concerned look before following Piper and unsheathing his weapon like the rest. I shook off my feelings and tried to clear my head to focus on the mission before I hurried to catch up to them all.
The group moved silently through the halls dispatching of monsters the moment we saw them. Over a hundred years of practise and quests turning us into a perfect fighting unit, a force that could only be made better by the return of our leader. A cause to which we were all fully committed. A third prophesised war was coming and we needed to be at our best, we needed a commander, not only that we wanted our friend back and none of us were prepared to come this close only to lose him. Especially me, I'd bring him home - even if it was never going to change anything between us, he deserved to be home. So we carried on coughing and hacking on the smokey air that filled the fort, following Hazel towards our friend.
Eventually we made it to the place Hazel said the nearest entrance to the tunnels were. This was where it would get difficult. Silently I looked around the corner, only to see a group of monsters milling around in front of a door. The entrance. The door looked like nothing more than a simple metal door but with my enhanced senses I could tell it had several high tec locks along with a magical seal. The Titans really didn't want us in there. We would have to fight to the door I realised, we would have to kill as many monsters as quickly as we could before we engaged in open combat. And we had to keep it quiet or we were busted. Slowly I made my way back to the others. "The door is there but there are lots of locks and a magical seal so we need both Calypso and Leo to unlock it, there is also ten monsters in there at least that we will have to go through. So, who has a plan?" I asked.
Seven dumbfound faces stared back at me. "They are going to set off an alarm or something! Or someone will find they are gone, we can't save him!" Exclaimed Piper. "If you want to leave you can." I told her. "I'm not leaving the hero who saved all our lives so many times in there to be tortured or die. You can go back and explain to Annie, your best friend, why you are back early if you want." I growled out before I quickly reigned in my raging emotions at her shocked face. "I'm sorry, I'm just worried about him." I apologised after realising how harsh I had been. "No." She said sternly, setting her face in a determined look. "Thank you, I needed to hear that. He needs us."
"If you two are done," Thalia broke through our conversation "I have a plan." Quickly she explained to us that Piper would stay out here to stop the monsters inside from getting out and setting off the alarms and also to cover us if more beasties arrived. Frank and Thalia would shoot a volley of arrows first in the room to kill them before they saw then Jason and Hazel would join them using lightening, gems and the mist to cause confusion and kill monsters while me, Calypso and Leo attacked with our close-range weapons and powers. After a bit Thalia and Frank would join us. Finally, we would all defend while Leo and Calypso popped the door open for us. Simple. Right?
It turned out there was more than ten monsters in the room, but I only realised that while fighting. The plan had started off well with Frank and Thals killing two monsters each before they were seen, then Jason and Hazel joined in sending a huge wave of crackling killing power towards the beasts. The lightening instantly vaporised some and the gems shot straight through them tearing flesh and letting the monsters die slower. However, some monsters were only bruised or burned and a few were completely missed. Next me, Leo and Calypso entered and started killing the monsters left and right. I fell into a repetitive pattern slash, stab, duck, cut, roll, repeat. The others seemed to be doing the same all around me except Leo who seemed to have set himself completely on fire and was just diving at the terrified beasts. I almost felt sorry for them, almost.
Soon though all the monsters were gone and I stood against the far wall impatiently tapping my foot waiting for Caleo to get us in. "Ba-da Boom!" Leo suddenly shouted, causing us all to jump. "Translation, we're in." Calypso stated in an amused voice as she opened the door and lead us down the ladder.
The next chapter was published at the same time as this I just didn't want an extremely long chapter but I wanted it to be read together, so please just move along. See ya in a minute.