Emery had met Nico di Angelo during a deadly session of lava-wall climbing. Since he was his first real friend, he remembered that day better than any other.

The lava-wall was situated in a clearing in a forest with a great view of the lake from the top - that is, if you even made it up there at all. The walls were solid, slippery obsidian and sometimes scalding hot lava poured out of holes hidden here and there, and if you didn't make it up fast enough, the walls shook and threatened to pitch you into the deep pool of water below. Emery had been told that it had been actual lava a few years before until the camp staff had decided that was a little extreme and replaced it with water. But of course, they still had to have some reason to not want to fall into it, so they decided to dye it green.

Not with regular dye, though. Dye that stained you and your clothes for a week, so you walked around looking like a morph between a human being and a leaf.

The two boys stood quite far away, avoiding having to talk to each other, while also avoiding the crowds of people on the other wall. In Emery's point of view, the boy to his left looked threatening in his own way; his skinny figure, pale skin and dark eye circles made him look slightly mad, but in a genius sort of way. Someone who stayed up all night making evil plans and hid in the shadows, watching, waiting. He had been at the furthest corner of the wall, so nobody would have noticed him if they hadn't been looking. But Emery was always looking.

Now back to Nico's point of view. He had glanced to his right vaguely and noticed someone separate from the group of people further on that seemed like the kind of person who could pose a threat if they weren't on your side. They were obviously very aware of their surroundings, as if expecting an attack, and observant of every little detail any other camper wouldn't have noticed; Nico had observed how they analyzed the climbing wall before actually getting on. When they actually got on the wall and started climbing, reaching the top amazingly quickly, he was amazed; he had never seen them before and assumed they were a first-timer. It was only when Nico started climbing that things went badly.

Nico had gotten on at the same time as an older camper from the group further away, a child of Apollo, meaning, a child of the god of the actual sun. But, he knew that the camper, a girl named Alice, wasn't the best at climbing and had come for practice before supper time. But by the time he made that realization, both his feet had left the floor and it vanished into that green water-pool. He had to get to the top before Alice made the wall shake; his hidden corner was the worst place to be in that scenario.

He climbed as fast as he had ever climbed before, shoving his hands and feet into any hole he could find, trying desperately to reach the top where the respectable climber was enjoying the view.

That, he realized soon enough, had been a mistake. He had put his hand in a hidden lava-hole.

"Agh!" He screamed as some of it spilled onto his hand, so hot it felt freezing. He frantically shook his hand, but it was still burning hot. He had to get to the top, quick.

He tried to climb with only his left hand but it was impossible. The walls were already starting to shake and he heard a surprised gasp from Alice, who was still only a third of the way to the top. He frantically searched for a bigger foothold, and when he looked up again, he was surprised to see a hand reaching up to him.

The walls were shaking violently now, and more holes had started pouring lava. Desperate, he jumped up as high as was possible while climbing a vertical cliff, his left hand leaving the handhold as he reached as far up as he could.

For a scary moment, he didn't think he would reach the person, whoever they were, who was trying to help him out. He was at the highest his momentum could bring him and was about to go back down again into the green water that left his pale skin particularly greener for longer. But amazingly, the person on top of the wall reached down further and grabbed his hand.

Furiously kicking upwards at the wall that was now shaking as if there were an earthquake, Nico scrambled up and stood in the centermost spot of the plateau, where he was the least likely to fall of while the ground shook.

"Thank you-" he started, looking up at the boy who had helped him make it up. It was him who had been avoiding the others as well, the person he had watched climb the wall with incredible speed. He had never seen him up close before, even though he was hard to miss. His hair was pastel purple and he was dressed in black from head to toe. His Walking Dead shirt was a little torn in some places but his jeans were obviously ripped on purpose. He was wearing dark grey Vans that looked pretty beaten up.

Nico frowned. This guy dressed similar to him, looked slightly like him except for the hair, which was still long and tousled, except… He was very small. Probably not taller than 5 feet.

"No problem" he answered shyly. "Uh, your hand…"

Nico looked down onto his right hand. It looked very badly burnt and was still throbbing, but otherwise he was fine. Looking up at the boy, he noticed that there wasn't a speck of the obsidian dust on him except for his fingers. It was very hard to climb the wall and still look like that at the end; most people were dark with soot and sweaty.

"It's nothing, Will- the people at the infirmary," he corrected himself, "can fix it right up," he finished.

"Are you sure? How are you gonna get back down?" the boy asked even more shyly.

"There's a ladder hidden in the back, not many people know about it but it's there. What's your name?" Nico asked.

"Um, Emery" he responded. "What about you?"

"I'm Nico." he answered, holding out his hand. Emery shook it uncertainly, his left arm twitching forward but then holding out his right arm. He was left-handed like Nico. How similar could he get? He thought.

"Right, well, the ladder's this way, let me show you…" Nico said as he started walking towards a corner of the top of the climbing wall, thinking about how he would be leaf green right now if it weren't for Emery.

This chapter was extremely edited from its original form, I may have made some editing mistakes and repetitions that might make it hard to read, my apologies!