A/N: Hey guys! I'm sorry if any confusion was created by the splitting of stories. I've given a more detailed note about it in the first story's sixth chapter. Please refer to that if you have any doubts, and if you still feel confused, feel free to PM me or ask in the reviews.

And now onto the story! This one's for the dreamers! ;P

Summary: Nico's day has a strange start, not that the rest of it isn't any better. Nevertheless, he tries to convince his sister to see things his way- but with a stubborn streak the size of Hades running through the family, will he succeed?


Book One

Second Arc: Ab Incunabulis

Chapter 7: Wounds Reopened


Nico was, for once, content.

He was in front of a campfire at Camp Half Blood.

He was surrounded by his mortal kith and kin.

Leo jumped through the fire, pretending to demonstrate the process of how to 'Stop Drop and Roll' to a couple of youngsters.

(Neither the kids nor the instructor took it seriously. In less than ten minutes, they were all of them were rolling on the floor laughing uproariously.)

Calypso pinched the bridge of her nose and asked for patience- but couldn't quite hide a smile tugging at her lips.

Nico had Jason's arm loosely around wrapped around his shoulder and an armful of laughing Hazel.

Reyna was in a heated debate with Clarisse, something about spears being better than swords.

Frank was on Hazel's other side, almost asleep.

Piper was in no better condition, leaning heavily against Jason.

Annabeth and Percy sat together with their hands clasped gently, along the outer edge of his vision.

Their heads were slightly tilted towards one another, and they were talking about something in soft murmurs.

It was a peaceful scene, perfect and picturesque.

And like all things good in the world-

It didn't last.

Nico untangled himself from the comfortable mess of limbs and turned his head to get a better look at Percy and Annabeth.

But what he saw were bare souls shrouded in the Death Mist of Misery.

If they could be called even that.

They looked like the victims of a famine, their limbs like sticks, swollen knees and knobby elbows, ragged clothes, broken nails.

Tear tracks cut clear lines against the dust which caked on their skin and piled on their shoulders.

They were the splitting likeliness of Akhlys herself.

Percy held the slumping figure of Annabeth close to himself.

But Nico suddenly noticed- it wasn't Annabeth.

It was her corpse.

Heart suddenly heavy, Nico opened his mouth to- he wasn't entirely sure what, call him out maybe? Be the bringer of bad news?

But he didn't get any further than that.

Percy's eyes snapped to him.

He lunged at Nico, his demeanor not unlike that of a zombie.

Nico fell back, shocked.

The fire exploded behind him.

He whirled around to see a pale Calypso, unmoving and with a dagger in her stomach; a maniacally laughing Leo, waving his hands about; and writhing tongues of fire, enveloping the screaming demigods in fiery cages.

His mind filled with panic.

The dead sea before him, the crazed fire behind.

Ropes of fire bound him as he tossed about restlessly.

Nico felt a pain he's never felt before.

It ached though his skin, through his bones- down to his very soul.

"Fool child," came a voice.

Nico writhed in agony as the backdrop of fire melted into brazen bronze.

Bianca was throwing levers, pushing buttons.

"You thought you could escape your fate?"

No, no, no. Please, no.

He was in that room again.

He knew what would happen.

He had seen it happen too many times to count.

The all too familiar scene played out again, and when it reached it's climax- just before he saw his sister get electrocuted- he fell.

He fell into the blackness for seven days with electricity sizzling in his ears and brimstone scenting his nose.

"You may leave Tartarus, but Tartarus will never leave you."

The black nothingness was starting to morph into an all too familiar terrain.

Tears ran down his sooty cheeks as desperation clawed at his insides.

He stayed there, still fire-bound and helpless, for who knew how long.

In the end, an orange party pony wearing a strawberry blonde wig and a purple tutu came barging in from nowhere and sprayed water onto the fire-

Washing away burning air, burning ground, burning everything, leaving him thoroughly drenched and gasping for breath.

Nico woke up with a start, falling ungracefully onto the floor.


(…yes, it was a dream)

He blinked the sleepy fog out of his eyes and looked up at his assailant.

A girl with grey eyes, holding a half empty cup of water and wearing a serious expression looked down at him.

He managed to make the gears in his head shift just enough to comprehend who it was.

"…Annabeth?"

Annabeth smiled politely at him and said,

"Hey, Nico. Sorry about that, but you were having a nightmare. You looked like you needed waking up."

Nico took another full minute to wonder by what means of sorcery was Annabeth alive, why did she had such a young appearance and why, in the name of Olympus, was she taller than him.

Not necessarily in that order.

He then came to the conclusion that it wasn't an immensely weird sequel to the dream he had, as he had hoped, but was in fact, the rather unfortunate reality he belonged to.

And as the cherry on top, he was still twelve years old.

"Why am I twelve?" He mumbled, thinking out loud, slightly annoyed and mostly exhausted.

"You're twelve?" Annabeth asked with a hint of surprise.

Seeing Nico's confusion, she elaborated-

"Going just by your size, I thought you were younger. Around ten, at most."

"..."

"Thalia could hardly believe her eyes when such a midget speared the Manticore. Neither did I, to be honest."

Nico pouted at the mention of his height, or rather, its lack thereof.

He scanned his surroundings by force of habit.

It suddenly struck him that his sister was nowhere near his side.

"Where's my sister?" he asked, rubbing his eyes, still half-asleep.

"Bianca left with the Hunters just now. Lady Artemis wished to speak to her," Annabeth said.

Ugh.

The water was freezing around his temples- Nico was sure that it would give him a headache.

He hated his life.

But there was something in that sentence that prickled.

He ran it through his head again.

Sister… hunters…

Wait a minute. Did she just say...?

"I need to see her! Now!"

Nico was suddenly wide awake.

He frantically untangled his legs from the blanket which had managed to wind itself around his legs and tumbled off the bed.

He ran towards the opening of the tent, and stumbled at the opening flap because of the sudden cold.

Annabeth barely managed to catch him just before he fell face-first onto the snowy ground.

"Where do you think you're going?" said she, scolding.

"I'm sorry, but this is important."

The cold winter air bit at his exposed skin, and Nico hated himself for going out into the cold in only a shirt and a pair of jeans.

If Bianca was here, she would kill him.

And naturally, the thick bandages wrapped around his head were damp and didn't nothing to keep the cold away.

If anything it made it worse.

As he stumbled out of the tent, many of the Hunters who were tending to the fire, the erection of tents, and other such activities stopped and stared at them.

Well, in their defense, he supposed that they did look strange.

Still, it was rude.

He let it slide to gaze around them, searching for his sister.

"Do you know where my sister is?" he asked those near him.

The Hunters, like the Amazons, were part of the Alliance. They fought fiercely after the Fall of Olympus, even with Artemis's fading.

The silver clad girls would roam through the Headquarters of the Alliance, with new members joining them every week.

They were considered an elite unit, with Thalia Grace leading them into victory in every mission dubbed impossible.

The Hunters had been Nico's friends, his allies.

They had fought by his side.

He had even stopped blaming them for Bianca's death.

But that did not mean that he would allow them to take his sister away from him this time.

At least, not without a fight.

"Your sister?"

"Bianca," Nico elaborated.

One of the Hunters pointed to a tent, and Nico wobbly started to make his way towards it.

Jack Frost nipped at his nose.

His legs felt like they were made out of jelly.

The ground was covered with a thick blanket of snow.

He managed to take a few more steps before he saw the tent flap flip open.

The crowd parted to let Bianca hurry towards him.

Percy followed, not far behind.

Both of them were scowling and annoyed.

But if Bianca's life span was still that of a mortal's, it wasn't for naught.

And it was.

For now.

"Bianca!" Nico called out in a voice that was saturated with relief.

He felt his knees give way as his sister took him away from Annabeth and moved her arms around him.

"Nico!" Bianca cried shocked, as her brother all but fell into her arms.

"You should be resting! Why isn't he resting?" asked Bianca, glaring around at Annabeth and the nearby Hunters.

"Don't join them. Don't join the Hunters," said Nico desperately, clinging onto Bianca's arm in order to reclaim her attention.

"Don't tell me what to do, Nico, you… Wait a minute- How did you know about that?" asked Bianca, narrowing her eyes at her brother suspiciously.

Er, good question.

Um.

"I saw- I had-"

Oh dear, he was panicking.

"Breathe, Nico."

Annabeth looked solemn.

"It this about your nightmare?"

Annabeth.

May you live a thousand years, you lifesaver.

"You had a nightmare? What nightmare?"

Nico gulped in a lungful of air.

"Yeah, I did. I-I saw you leaving me. I saw you join the Hunters and you- you d-died," stuttered Nico, from both desperation and the cold.

Those who heard this gasped.

Murmurs rose up like the jingle of bells.

"What do you mean by that?" asked Bianca, shaken.

"He might have had a demigod dream," said Percy, unusually serious.

"These dreams… they usually come true." put in Thalia.

"I'm sorry, Nico. I know that it must have been scary, but we need to know what you saw. It could be important."

Annabeth's eyes were a steady grey.

Nico's mind whirled.

Should he spin some yarn?

Hm, no.

He had a feeling that Bianca would be able to tell if he lied.

But he couldn't just tell them about the one he actually had.

Or could he...

There was stuff he wasn't supposed to know about like Hazel, the Roman Camp and Tartarus, but the maybe rest of it…

Maybe he could manage- if he could make Annabeth ask the right questions...

"Umm. What… What do you want exactly?"

"What did you see exactly?"

"In... the dream?"

"In the dream. You said something about your sister?'

Okay. He could work with that.

She didn't specify which dream.

He had seen his sister's death plenty of times in his dreams.

The recurring nightmares were one of the reasons he and Clovis knew each other.


Nico had been reliving his sister's death for the umpteenth time.

Only this time, his dream self had been ripped abruptly from the inside of the burning hot interior of an automaton, and introduced into a comfortable living room.

A blond-haired boy had been situated on a plush armchair, reading a book.

The room was warm from the dancing hearth.

The blond introduced himself as a child of Hypnos.

He gestured to the armchair opposite himself, silently offering him a seat.

Nico took it cautiously.

The boy started reading the book aloud.

He had a melodious voice.

No, not the kind of voice which almost made one seem to sing rather than talk, like the children of Aphrodite had when they charm-spoke.

The kind that made one's words flow fluently, and impart a feeling calm and serenity to those in one's vicinity.

'There was once a story about a wooden toy

That wanted, more than anything, to be a real boy.

He came to life upon a fairy's whim,

And had a strange ailment placed on him:

Every time he spoke a lie, his nose would grow,

This little wooden boy's was called Pinocchio.'

Nico listened to the poem-story with curiosity.

It reminded him of another soothing voice reciting it- the memory as elusive as the others of his childhood.

He found himself letting his guard lower in front of the strange boy of whom he knew nothing of.

As he sunk further into the comfortable armchair, he let his eyes drift close and was pulled into a dream of blue fairies, jiminy cricket and wishes come true.

Later, he'd wake up; all Nico would remember was that the boy's hair was as blonde as a fresh ear of corn.


When he had woken up the next morning, he had felt well rested and calm.

More so than he had been in a long, very long time.

But back to present circumstances.

Annabeth was looking at him expectantly.

It wouldn't be easy to talk about it.

But…

He glanced at Bianca.

If she really wanted to join the Huntresses…

She should know that much.

"What did you see, Nico?" asked Bianca, softly speaking so that he wouldn't be spooked.

Nico took a deep breath.

"I had a nightmare, F-first it was all d-dark. Then a voice told me to look carefully b-because it was the consequence of my actions. The voice was just so c-cold an-and,"

Nico swallowed.

"And then the darkness sort of- shattered like glass and the shards fell on top of me, stabbing me. And then, I was- I was somewhere else."

Nico went with his momentum.

"It was hot, like burning hot. I was… floating next to you, I think, an-and you were in a metal… cage? It was made of bronze, it was weird."

"Weird how?"

"Well, it… it did not have any bars, but it had all these buttons and levers. You were using them, controlling something, though I'm not sure what, but every moment you spent in there, every moment you stayed in there, it was killing you. It was killing you, and you knew it, but you didn't stop. I- I couldn't do anything. I don't know how to explain it."

Nico put a hand through his hair and tugging it in frustration.

"It was like I was both right next to you and far, far away at the same time. I wanted to help you, more than anything in the world, but I couldn't move- I was paralyzed."

He swallowed.

"I wanted to call for help, but I couldn't make a sound. I wanted to cry, for not being able to- because it was just so hopeless, but- but I couldn't even- Wha-what was the point if- if… I just felt- I felt so… useless."

Nico wasn't sure whether he could go on.

But he managed to conclude it.

"And then- and then you seemed to notice me at the last minute," he whispered, "You were just about to die and we both knew it. You looked at me and- and-"

Nico ended with a hiccup.

The group surrounding them broke out into murmurs.

Bianca gripped him tightly as he pulled himself back together.

Percy and Annabeth shared a grim look.

A Huntress stepped up angrily-

And then a sudden silence fell.

There was a movement in the crowd and the Hunters parted soundlessly.

A girl with auburn hair who seemed to be slightly older than Nico walked towards them.

She had a silver quiver filled with arrows, and a powerful, yet graceful bow strung around her left shoulder.

Her eyes were a yellowish silver hue, somewhat similar to the moon, which didn't seem all human.

She had a cold, yet brilliant aura around her.

The Huntresses tilted their heads with murmurs of, 'my Lady.'

Bianca stared at her with wide-eyed wonder.

"Lady Artemis," greeted Nico, his back and shoulders curving into a bow.

Artemis and Apollo were his acquaintances in the past, or perhaps the future would be more apt, when they had been the most powerful of the few remaining Olympians.

While Apollo had been the friendlier of the two, Nico shared a feeling of mutual respect with his twin.

And now that he stood in front of her, he felt a bit self conscious.

He stood barefoot and freezing in a pair of jeans and a simple cotton T-shirt in the middle of winter.

Furthermore, he stood in front of an Olympian Goddess with a penchant for turning men who irked her into jackalopes.

The fact that he had puffy red eyes and a few bandages around his head didn't help his impression at all.

It just made him look more pathetic.

Why was he bandaged anyway?

"You must be the boy who defeated the Manticore before my Hunters arrived," she said.

Her voice suited her.

It was calming and beautiful, yet had an undertone of pure power.

"Nico di Angelo."

"Yes... ma'am," added Nico, as an afterthought.

The Goddess seemed to consider him.

"Come into the main tent, it is cold and you look as though you are freezing. We have much to discuss."

Nico followed the Goddess into her tent in a rather dazed manner.

As he had settled down after appreciating the furnishings, Artemis said,

"Now that we have settled down, would you care to tell me why you are so against your sister joining the ranks of my Hunters?"


After the boy left her presence with blazing intensity, Zoë Nightshade stepped out from the shadows of the tent.

She walked precisely around the room to take her place at the side of her Lady.

Artemis stared at the entrance of the silver tent for a few seconds before turning towards her lieutenant.

While it wasn't often that one of her newly-joined Hunters had kith and kin that cared deeply about them, it certainly wasn't unheard of.

It was always a struggle to free them from the tangles of family.

Nevertheless, she had persisted.

He had given his consent, though greatly reluctant.

So that matter should have been settled satisfactorily...

But something about this child was unnerving.

She beckoned her next in command closer with a flick of her fingers.

"Keep an eye on the boy," she murmured,

"He seems to be capable of saving the world, or razing it to the ground. And with the Great prophesy looming over the horizon…"

She gave her Lieutenant a significant look,

"He will be either a powerful ally or a formidable foe in the forthcoming war. Make sure it is the former."

Zoë Nightshade nodded once and left the tent, leaving Artemis to wonder which God could possibly sire the enigma that was Nico di Angelo.


Preview:

The bus swayed alarmingly.

...His monosyllabic answers (mostly 'huh?') only served to add fuel to the fire.

...Oh gods, what now?

...On top of that, Apollo had been acting weird. Well, weirder than usual.

...Something about enchiladas?

...Were they gaining altitude?

...He felt like he had plunged headfirst into a bucket of ice-cold water.

...If Apollo was here and Thalia was there then… Who was driving the Sun-bus?

...But why?

...As if he needed the extra trouble.


A/N: And now for the anon reviews! Thank you guys so much!

SimplySauve: *is blown away by sheer coolness* Thanks dude.

Matt: He he, sorry if it confused you! I hope it was clarified in the sixth chapter, but here's a general overview:

Jason was not introduced, per se. He was indirectly mentioned twice- once in a flashback and then just lightly touched upon, gentle as a feather :P. He will have another, more proper introduction when the time comes. But you can expect a few more cameos.

As for Nico's decision- it refers to when Nico decided to search for Jason.

Now, a note on Nico's decision:

Nico wasn't in a stable state of mind. He had just gone through a lot of emotional and physical trauma. He wasn't really ready to use his powers. Note that this takes place in his childhood body- this searching for a person thing is pretty advanced level stuff. Who knows what kind of a backlash it would have.

Also, from what we see, canon, the backlash of these Underworldly abilities can be severe. Compare Nico after his shadow travelling spree with Reyna, Coach and the Athena Parthenos with Percy after blood-bending Akhyls. There is a vast difference in the aftermath. While Percy was let off with emotional scars (albeit deep ones), Nico legit melted into shadows. And it was at it's worst stage after his job was done. What would have happened if it had started going really bad at the beginning?

That was what could have happened when Nico decided to search for Jason.

It wasn't smart, but luckily, the Fates were on Nico's side.

This time.


A/N: Do you like it? I sure hope you do!

Don't forget to vote!

The options are: vagabond, evil army or unconsciousness.

Please poll or review.

Up to two options are allowed.

And I have officially decided to give up on having any semblance of an update schedule. I have a newfound respect for all those people who can resist the temptation of posting all of their completed chapters at once. Ganbare!