POSSESSION
Thalia played with her food at the dinner table.
"You need to calm down, Thalia. I've never seen you act this way. You never got this depressed with Luke, so why with Nico? Stop moping and just tell him how you feel. Besides, I've seen the way he looks at you. There is no way he isn't head over heels for you," Annabeth said, brandishing her fork.
Thalia looked up from her food. "Why are you even here? Aren't you supposed to be with your cabin? It's against the rules for you to be over here."
"Since when have you ever been one to follow the rules? Besides, you seriously looked like you needed to talk to someone and me being the only one who knows why you're gloomier and scarier than usual, I decided to come over and talk to you and maybe give you some advice."
Thalia laughed. "Advice? It took you, what, three years to admit your feelings to Seaweed Brain and finally start dating?"
Annabeth looked down at her food, suddenly shy and out of character. "Five," she whispered.
"Exactly," Thalia said, pointing her fork at Annabeth
"Still, you have to tell him," Annabeth insisted.
"How?" Thalia demanded.
"You could just kiss him," Annabeth suggested.
"Really? That's the best thing you could come up with?"
"It's what I did with Percy."
"There is no -"
Suddenly, a loud roar cut Thalia off. Annabeth and Thalia looked up from their plates toward the woods. What they saw left them speechless. Out of the woods came skeletons, evil harpies and hordes of hellhounds all roaring a battle cry and at the head...
"What the hell is Nico doing?!" Thalia yelled.
"Oh gods," Annabeth muttered. "All campers, rally to me!" she yelled as she stood up from the table.
As Annabeth quickly sent out all battle ready campers, Thalia could only sit in shock. Right before the hellhounds reached the pavillion, Thalia snapped out of her astonishment.
"Come on, Annie. Let's go kick some skeleton and hellhound ass." Annabeth and Thalia lept into the battle with weapons drawn. Thalia's lightning flashed and Annabeth's knife flashed.
"Why do you think he's doing this?" Annabeth asked.
"How should I know?" Thalia answered. "We need to get closer and stop him."
The duo started hacking their way through skeletons and hellhounds to get to Nico. Twenty feet from Nico, Annabeth gasped.
"Look at his eyes, Thalia. They're glowing green."
Thalia looked up at Nico. Sure enough Nico's were as green as radioactive sludge. He was moving mechanically as if possessed.
"What do you think is possessing him?" Thalia asked.
"No idea, but we have to stop it. We need to get closer." Suddenly, Annabeth was swept up by a hellhound and carried thirty feet before Percy leapt out of nowhere and cut it down with his sword. Thalia forged on ahead toward Nico. She quickly got close enough and started fighting him. Thalia and Nico's weapons clashed over and over as lightning kept incinerating new skeletons that appeared from the ground at Nico's feet.
"Nico, you've got to stop," Thalia said as they fought. "You need to stop before you destroy the whole camp." But Nico kept on fighting and summoning more skeletons and hellhounds.
Suddenly Thalia saw an opening. Her spear flashed out and Nico's sword went flying. She grabbed him by the shirt collar.
"Nico, you've got to fight it. Fight what ever has a hold on you and stop this madness," Thalia pleaded.
Nico sneered. "We've already won. There is nothing you can do useless mortal."
Thalia stared dumbfounded.
"Nico," she whispered. Then she did something she thought she would never do. She pulled him forward and kissed him. She kissed him in the middle of the battlefield as if they were the only two people around. She dropped her spear and shield and put her other hand on his shirt to steady herself. Suddenly, she felt arms wrap her waist and surprisingly felt Nico kissing her back. Her hand wandered up into his hair and brought him closer to her. She pulled away desperate for air.
"Thalia. I love you," Nico whispered. Thalia looked up into Nico's now normal colored eyes.
"I love you, too, but now is probably not the time."
Nico looked up at everything that was going on around them.
"What in the name of Hades is going on here?" he asked.
"You attacked Camp Half-Blood with skeletons, hellhounds and evil harpies," Thalia stated simply.
"Yikes. I'd better go stop that."
Two hours later...
"So what made you stop trying to destroy the camp?" Thalia asked Nico, sitting on his bed in the Hades cabin.
"I fought off whatever was possessing me, I guess," Nico replied.
"What made you fight it off?" Thalia asked.
"I heard something," Nico answered cryptically.
"What did you hear?" Thalia asked, leaning toward Nico.
"My name. You calling my name," Nico answered. He leaned forward and kissed her. As the minutes went by, the kiss deepened until both were gasping for air.