Here is where the disclaimer is inserted.

CHAPTER THREE.

"Arizona?"

Percy gapes at me, his eyes so wide you would've thought I grew another head or something.

I smile awkwardly then nod.

"Wait—wait—wait—" Percy raises his hands, signaling me to stop, and shakes his head. He ruffles his hair. He looks very confused. "Did I just hear you right? Did you really just say that you need to go on a quest out of camp to Arizona because the Hunters are there right now?"

"Couldn't have said it better myself." I laugh nervously.

"And you know all this because Thalia visited you in a dream?" He clarifies.

"I thought you would've gotten it the second time, but seven's a lucky number, right?" I joke.

Percy just looks at me with a stone-face.

How come no one ever laughs at my jokes? They're pretty funny.

"Yeah," I say, because I know that's what Percy wants to hear—for the nth time.

"Okay, it's official—you're insane." Percy raises his hands once more and looks around, announcing this message to the air.

"Percy! Just get me that quest—please," despite the fact that I'm Nico, I beg. I beg like I've never begged before (fine, that was an overstatement, but still).

"Alright, I have a quest for you." He looks me in the eye. "Find the nearest Mental Hospital or Asylum and stay there until they manage to get your head on right, 'cause I swear to the gods, it's seriously on backwards." He shakes his head, muttering 'Arizona' to himself over and over again.

"Percy, I'm serious," I say with the straightest face I can make.

"So am I," Percy replies, and goddamnit—he manages to look more earnest than me! Which, honestly, I didn't think was possible, because he was—well—Percy Jackson.

"Argh, Percy, I hate you!" I whine.

"I was—" Percy holds up his hand, closing one of his eyes, and staring at the tiny gap he has in between his thumb and forefinger. "—this close to believing you." Apparently, he was half an inch close to believing me.

"Why won't you believe me?" I exclaim.

"Because you've been emotionally unstable when it came to those dreams since day 1, and I'm not going to push you over the edge."

"Too late, I already jumped off. I had a parachute and landed in the ocean, so I lived," I say. "Now will you help me get that quest?"

"NO."

"PERCY—"

"NUH-UH."

"BUT—"

"NOPE."

"I—"

"NADA."

"YOU—"

"ZILCH."

"ARIZONA—"

"ZIP."

"PLEASE?"

"No way, Jose, maybe another day." He holds up his hand, telling me to stop because my attempts are futile and I'm not getting anywhere.

"If I ask you again at midnight, will you say 'maybe'?" I whimper.

"If I say 'maybe' you'll get your hopes up over nothing, Nico," he says. "I can't do that to you."

"I really appreciate you being a big brother to me and all, what with everything we've been through, but—"

"But nothing, di Angelo," he says. He looks me in the eye and his voice is stern and controlling. It makes me want to bow down and kiss his feet. I was half an inch close to actually doing it, but not really. "It's still a 'no'."

"Did you and Annabeth get into another fight again?" I ask, hopeful that maybe I'll be able to convince him by getting under his skin.

"What—no—what're you talking about?" Percy sputters. "Ah—wait—don't answer that, I know what you're trying to do, and it's not gonna work. Nice try, Nico."

"Well fuck you, Percy."

Too bad I never really said that.

I wanted to, but I had enough self-control not to.

And also because if I said that, all the more Percy wouldn't have helped me, just to spite me for answering back, cursing, and everything else I 'could've done'. It's all part of my evil plan, which—thinking positively here—is as conniving and foolproof as any of my father's.

Hopefully, Percy isn't just half the fool I suspect he might me—hopefully he's all of the fool he was the first time I met him.

"See, and because I know for a fact that you're having a whole conversation with the many 'you's' inside your head and the invisible audience who agrees with everything you say about that plot you're creating to convince me otherwise," Percy states. "Just proves how emotionally unstable you really are."

I have two words for you, invisible audience.

DAMN. IT.

Thank you for nodding in agreement.

"Wait, so what you're telling me is . . . " I rest my hand on Percy's shoulder as I attempt yet another negotiation. "The only thing that stands in between me and that quest to Arizona is my emotional instability?"

"Where are you going with this—" Percy mutters, but I cut him short.

"Soo . . . if I prove to you that I'm not emotionally unstable, you'd help me get that quest?" I ask.

"No," Percy says, officially sending my attempt crashing down. "Because I know you'll never be able to prove to me you're stable. No matter how many tricks you use. It might work on someone else, but I know you too well, Nico."

I groan in resentment.

"Besides." He slings his arm around my shoulder and squeezes it in a comforting big brother kind of way. "If I let you go on that quest and you don't find what you're looking for, here's how it's gonna go." He holds his hand up in the air horizontally, mimicking a line by keeping his fingers close together. "This is the surface," he says, moving his hand side to side for emphasis. "A hundred feet under that is—"

"The center of the earth?" I interrupt.

"Nope." He grins. "Rock bottom," he says, dragging his hand down. "When the . . . let's call it the 'Arizona Agreement'. When the Arizona Agreement happens, and you feel that you didn't get what you were asking for, in fact, maybe you got even less than you would've deemed 'not enough' to begin with, you'd be . . . "

"In rock bottom?" I ask.

"Nope," he says. "If this is rock bottom," he says, emphasizing rock bottom. "You're a hundred feet past, with all the pieces of shit in between." He drags his hand down and emphasizes his so-called 'even more bottom than rock bottom'.

"Do you enjoy crushing my dreams?" I complain.

"Maybe I do, maybe I don't, the point is," he explains. "It'd be better for you to just stay away from Arizona."

"But if I don't go to Arizona, what chance do I have of ever seeing Thalia again?"

Percy chuckles. "The Hunters always seem to end up here anyway. You'll see her the next time we have a friendly game of Capture-the-Flag with them."

"But—"

"Nico—I don't wanna have to go through this again. You know what I'm going to say."

I stick my tongue out immaturely and sink into the shadows, the last thing I hear are Percy chuckles and him saying, "And doing that won't work either. I turned the Guards on yesterday."

Three years ago, Chiron requested for Hephaestus to create a special shield that can be put around the camp to prevent me getting out of it through shadow travel. Hephaestus did, because Chiron is a very good negotiator, and the 'Guards', a giant force field that can be turned on and off by choice was built around camp, preventing me from shadow traveling beyond 30 feet of initial campgrounds. The Guards also prevent anything from shadow traveling its way inside too, which has gotten on my nerves more times than I can count whenever I do get to escape.

They don't keep it on all the time, especially because a lot of the time the counselors in charge of it (there's a schedule) forget to turn it on after I've tricked them to turn it off temporarily, but Percy always makes a point to rub it in my face when it is turned on, because he never forgets.

And unfortunately, I've never convinced any of the counselors to teach me how to turn the Guards off and on, so whenever Percy is in charge of it, all I usually do is just sit in my room, or go around messing with other campers, like ordering their shadows to do something they aren't to scare them. But I've never needed to go out of camp more in my entire life.

Styx.

Styx.

Styx.

I want to kill Percy so much right now.

I grumble as I shadow travel through the campgrounds, tripping any campers who accidentally stepped on me, or sucking them in, and then spewing them out at a random spot in camp.

"WHOA." I hear a camper shout as I push their heel of the ground. I turn a bit to peek at who my latest victim was, and I see a mop of unruly brown hair, and a pair of skinny arms trying to push themselves up off the ground . . .

"Connor?" I whisper.

"Yes Invisible Voice I have a strange feeling is actually Nico?" Connor replies sarcastically.

"I like the Invisible Voice better," I joke. "I.V. for short."

"Psh." Connor laughs as he gets up from the ground. "You're lucky you're a friend, and that your cabin already reeks of 'Underworld', or else I'd totally break in and wreck it."

Then it hit me . . . along with Connor's foot.

I got up from the shadows so I was standing right in front of Connor, who's foot was still frozen in a 'ready to stomp on the spot my face used to be' position.

"Connor," I say.

"Nico," he repeats.

"I need your help," I say, with as much seriousness I could put into both my words and my expression. I sure hope this works.

"So, you trip me, mess with me, and then ask for a favor?" Connor arches his eyebrows. "What're you on?" he asks with feigned sincerity.

"Um." I jump twice in panic. "I'm on the ground." I grin nervously. "I really need your help."

Connor looks at me suspiciously and chuckles. "Depends. We'll negotiate."

"I'll let you use a dragon's spirit for one of your pranks next Halloween," I say immediately.

His eyes widen and he smiles from ear to ear. "Deal! What do you want me to do?"

I pause for a moment and swallow.

I take a deep breath.

Am I really going to do this?

Is this worth all the risks I'm sure I'll have to take, and the risk I'm taking right now by trusting Connor?

Fuck.

I'm sure as Hades it is.

"I need you to help me get past the Guards." I look him in the eyes. I clench my fists and take steady breaths.

"I guess I could turn it off . . . " Connor's voice trails away.

"That won't work—Percy's in-charge. We'll both get in trouble if you do that," I explain. "And besides." I wink. "I want to make a grand exit."

Connor strokes his chin in contemplation. "Sure, sure," he mutters. "I just need you to shadow travel into the Hephaestus cabin and steal me a few things, oh, and steal me Jake Mason too."

I smile then nod.

Connor claps his hands together. "Awesome! We've got some work to do, then. 'Operation: I.V.' is now in action!"

REVIEW!

Holy shitballs... how long as it been since I last updated? It's been so long, the process of "updating" has become quite foreign to me now ): School's been hogging up most of my time, and whenever I DO have time, I usually spend it with my friends, or catching up on some long-awaited naps.

I'm reading the Lost Hero right now, and DAMN, is it amazing! I really love Rick Riordan's humor, and his talent with twists is amazing. He does it so well! So far, it's been 335 pages of a-w-e-s-o-m-e.

I hope you guys all like this chapter! It's mostly dialogue, character development, and it's sort of the chapter that will lead to what I call the "Revelations of Arizona", which I promise will be a lot more... dramatic? Yup, yup.

I have two more stories left to update. Homigash. Wish me luck!

I promise I will try to update more often. Maybe I should make a schedule? Hahaha.

Oh, and Happy Halloween! BWAHAHAHAAH! I really wanna go Trick or Treating, but I can't. I get so lazy on Sundays :P

From - Schoe! (:

PS. Review and tell me what you think! Ideas are always welcome. Like, ideas on how Nico's "Grand Exit" should be like, or what you think should or will happen next ;)

PPS. I apologize for any grammatical errors. I just finished Frankenstein for school and my brain is confused with which type of "English" to use - old English sticks to your brain like superglue sometimes... :D