Chapter 6: Nico's plan
Will followed Nico's lead down dusty, dirty path. It seemed like the walk to the campfire was never ending. The white stars against the navy sky seemed more amazing than ever. The moon was the only source of light on the beaten path. To Will, this was more than romantic, it was pretty much perfect.
Will wanted to send a prayer to Artemis. Keep up the good work, gurl.

Will observed Nico as he talked. Wow, he used his hands a lot. Sometimes, Will had to ask questions to keep Nico talking, but otherwise, Nico spoke easily and freely. Will was impressed with how much Nico had changed in just over a week since he came back to camp. Nico wasn't as closed up as he used to be. He was still pretty closed up, but still, Will was proud of this little dork.
Will looked at Nico and noticed they had gotten a lot closer together. They had started on pretty much opposite sides of the path and now they were side by side, pretty much touching. Will smiled. Thank gods Nico didn't hate him. Could tonight get any better?

Soon, Will heard the roar of a fire and lots of chatter. Slowly, the light of the the campfire washed over them as they got nearer. The bleachers surrounding the campfire came into view from behind some trees as they turned a corner.
Wait, where would they sit?

Nico stopped for a second, he head looking back from one side of the bleachers to the other. Uniformed to be asking the same exact thing. Did Nico somehow read Will's mind?
Suddenly out of the bleachers, a short, blonde girl came running toward them.
"Whoa, Hanna, what's up?" Will said. Hanna came to a stop in front of Nico and Will. Will turned to Nico and said "This is one of my sisters, Hanna."
Nico nodded at Hanna as Will turned back to her. She grabbed Wills wrist and said "come on, come sit down! One of your favorite songs is coming up."
She started tugging Will toward the Apollo cabins spot in the bleachers.
"Whoa! What about Nico?" Will yelled over the wind.
"He can come too!" Hanna answered.
Will looked back at motionless Nico, getting farther and farther away. "Come on!" He shouted back at him.
Before Will knew it, he was in the bleachers, surrounded by his siblings, who were cheerfully singing a cheesy camp song. It wasn't long before Nico wove his way through all of Will's siblings (he had quite a few of them) and joined Will in the stands.
Will could tell Death boy felt kind of out of place among the Apollo cabin. Nico stood there awkwardly, with his hands stuffed in his pockets, looking uncomfortable. Will decided he was going to break Nico's little protective shell. That was his new goal in life and he wasn't going to be satisfied until he achieved it. All Nico really needed was a confidence boost.

The campers leading the sing-a-long (more of Will's siblings and a few others) started singing Wills favorite camp song, a tune called "welcome to Delphi, may I please take your order?"

Will started singing, loudly and waaay out of tune, but confidently. After all, campfire songs weren't about sounding good, they were about having fun. Nico stared at Will, looking confused and maybe even slightly embarrassed.
Will took a chance and put his arm around Nico's shoulder and started swaying to the song like others were doing. Will watched Nico's face turn redder than the sky at late sunset. Will was probably embarrassing Nico beyond belief, but he really didn't care. This was part of breaking his shell.

The campfire didn't last as long as it usually did to the camp time to play capture the flag. At one point, Percy and Piper snuck over to the Apollo cabin.
"We want to make an alliance." Piper whispered to Will and Nico.
"Sure, we're already teamed up with the Hermes cabin."
"Well," Percy said. "Were already teamed up with Hephaestus."
"Okay cool." Will Whispered back. Percy and Piper snuck back to wherever they came from.
Will, being the counselor of the Apollo cabin, got to decide who his cabin would be teamed up with. Will had made an alliance with the Aphrodite cabin, the Poseidon cabin (A.K.A. Percy), the Hades cabin (A.K.A. Death dork), the Hephaestus cabin, and the Hermes cabin (he pulled a few favors for Conner and Travis he wasn't exactly proud of). He managed to team up with 2 of the big 3, which was pretty good.

On the other hand, this meant Will was up against the Ares cabin, the Athena cabin, the Zeus cabin (Otherwise known as Jason), The Hypnos cabin, The Dionysus Cabin, and the Iris cabin. In other words, things weren't looking too good. They were up against two war gods and the son of the king of everything.

Nico had left Will in order to get armored up, leaving Will with his siblings, still in the bleachers.
As Nico walked off, Will yelled "don't you dare use your powers!"
Most cabins were disbanding to go back to the Cabins to get ready for capture the flag. Will turned to his siblings.
"Okay guys, after getting our butts kicked last week and most of the weeks before that, I think it's time to show that Ares cabin that they can get their butts kicked too!"
Will swallowed hard. His cabin wasn't looking very encouraged. "Look, I'm not good at speeches, but let's go win this thing. We need to put the Ares cabin to shame!"
His cabin gave a cheer and started jogging out of the bleachers. Some even started running. Will had had a good day so far and he wasn't going to let the Ares cabin (or anyone else ruin it.)

Will got armored up and lead his Cabin to the battle field. The Apollo cabin took their positions and waited for the horn to blow to signal the start. Will was in the middle of the woods, by himself, waiting for someone to accidentally stumble across him.

*CRACK*
Wills thoughts were answered. He spun around, searching for the source of the sound.
The horn went off. It had begun.
Will saw a dark figure about 20 feet away and started running towards it. He couldn't tell if they were on his team or not, but he wasn't planning to hurt them anyway, just scare them away.

When will got about 5 feet from the figure, they put their hands up and said "whoa whoa, calm down, speedy."

"Nico?" Will asked.
Will couldn't see Nico very well, but he knew he was rolling his eyes. "No, it's the other son of Hades."

Will crossed his arms. "Well, excuse me. It's dark. I'm not nocturnal like you."

Nico sighed. "Whatever. Let's go find someone to fight, so we can win."
Wills mouth fell open. "You want to go pick a fight?"

"Will," Nico said sternly. "You're never going to when waiting for the action to come to you. That's why you keep losing."
Will thought that over a minute and realized Nico was probably right. But tonight was going to be different. Will was going to win.
Will crossed his arms and said "Fine, but I'm not going to like it."
Nico gave Will a wicked grin and said "no one said you had to."