Nico Di Angelo

Nico looked out of his cabin window to make sure no one was watching him. He'd locked his door and put most of the curtains over the windows so as to make sure no one could see or hear what he was doing, he needed to be secretive.

He looked down at his phone. He'd gotten a text from Jason a few hours prior.

'Can we talk?' Jason's text read.

Nico quickly pulled the last of the curtains shut before going ahead and calling the son of Jupiter. He paced around nervously, if he got caught calling Jason, he'd be in for a fight.

The phone rang for a bit before Jason picked up, "Hey."

"Hey," Nico answered, "What's up?"

"Are you alone?" Jason asked.

"Yeah, just say whatever you need to say."

Jason sighed, "We're coming to New York, I need you to make sure this goes as smooth as possible."

Nico knew what Jason was talking about. A few weeks ago, Jason had called him to let him know about an upcoming Roman invasion. Nico was concerned at first until Jason revealed his plan for minimizing casualties.

Jason and the Romans had apparently made up some gas that would put people to sleep. Nico knew that camp was woefully unprepared for any sort of gas attack, they didn't even have gas masks. The way they planned on using the gas was pretty ingenious too, they were going to shell the camp with mortars. Nico had warned them against using catapults, large rockets, and artillery shells; those projectiles were far too big and would be detected by Leo's defenses and they'd be shot out of the sky before they could do any real damage.

"Alright, what do you need me to do?" Nico asked.

"If you can, try to get everyone in the same spot. If you can do that, the gas should be able to knock everyone out in one go." Jason said.

"Got it." Nico said, "We don't have gas masks, do you?"

"Yeah, we picked some up along the way."

"Alright, how far are you guys?" Nico asked.

"We should be crossing the entrances into Long Island in about two hours."

"Two hours?!" Nico exclaimed.

"Something wrong with that?" Jason asked.

Nico knew the Romans moved fast but this was insane. They made it from the west coast to the east coast in a few weeks. He wondered how long they were marching for but then he realized they had probably brought transport for their equipment.

"I don't think—" Nico started to say but he quickly shut up when he heard someone pound on the of his cabin.

"Nico!" Will said from the other side of the door, "Hektor's called a war meeting, you need to be in the Big House!"

"What was that?" Jason asked.

"War meeting." Nico whispered into the phone, "I gotta go."

Nico hung up his phone and shoved it in his pocket before making his way to the door. His heart pounded and he shook a little, that was a close call. He thought he'd been caught.

He opened the door to find the camp was in utter chaos. He didn't see Will, he had probably run off after calling him. Everyone was running around camp, even the satyrs were panicking. He watched as a group of Hephaestus campers lugged a box of arrows from the armory to Half-Blood Hill.

Nico walked outside, he had an idea of what was going on. Hektor or one of the camp's scouts must've seen the Romans crossing into Long Island and now they were preparing to defend the camp.

"Get a move on, we don't have time for games!" Clarisse shouted at her siblings as they ran past.

The Ares campers ran past him, their armor clinking together as they shuffled past him. Their spears were pointed towards the sky, their shields were clutched to their sides. They were clearly ready for battle, Nico was willing to give them that, but he doubted they were ready for the surprise Jason had waiting for them.

As Nico walked past all the campers who were either arming themselves or helping prepare everyone for combat, he couldn't help but wonder if they really thought they had a chance at winning this fight.

He'd been around the Romans before, and he knew that Camp Half-Blood was hopelessly outmatched. Sure, they could hold out for a day or two, but the Legion would eventually emerge victorious and from what he knew now, they wouldn't have to kill a single person to win. Even with Leo and his siblings cooking up new gadgets, he knew they were only delaying the inevitable.

Regardless, he needed to attend this war meeting. If there was anything worth finding out, he'd find it out in the meeting.

The Big House was buzzing with activity. The Apollo campers were loading medical equipment like cots and first aid kits into the Big House, Nico figured they were probably converting some of the rooms into makeshift infirmaries. It was a good attempt on their part, but he knew those infirmaries would never be used.

Nico pushed past the campers and made his way into the Big House. He heard panicked yelling coming from outside as the campers desperately tried to prepare themselves. He walked into the rec room, which was far emptier than he expected. Aside from Hektor, Katie Gardner, and a few minor cabin counselors, everyone else was basically gone.

"Where is everyone?" Nico asked.

"I sent them to prepare their cabins. I called you all here so you could spread the word." Hektor said as he looked out the window at the campers.

"Spread the word about what?"

Hektor turned to him and the counselors, "I am leaving. The Romans are after me, I know they are. There's a mortal ship coming to pick me up, I want everyone here to hold the Romans off for as long as they can."

Nico wanted to call him a coward, but he held his tongue. He couldn't imagine being that cowardly, he caused all this trouble and now he was going to just run away. That wasn't going to happen, not on Nico's watch.

"We'll hold them off." Katie promised.

Hektor nodded, though he didn't look too reassured. It was by now that Nico realized he wasn't wearing his typical royal robe, he was wearing cargo pants and a black shirt with a purple hiking bag on. He had a feeling Hektor wasn't planning on coming back to camp, even if the Romans retreated.

"Can I trust you to lead the defense, Nico?" Hektor asked.

This was it, this was Nico's moment of truth.

"I'll do it." Nico lied, he was going to set the camp up for defeat.

"Good, I'll be leaving now. You all should get to your cabins and prepare." Hektor said as he left the rec room.

As soon as the door closed, Nico turned to everyone and said, "Alright, we need to all form columns on the hill with Thalia's tree. If we can hold the Romans there, we can buy ourselves some time."

"But what if they have catapults?" One of the counselors asked.

"That's what Leo's defenses are for." Nico said, "We just need everyone to be at that hill."

"Even the medics?"

"Especially the medics." Nico confirmed.

The counselors looked at one another and for a moment, Nico thought that maybe they had figured out what he was doing, maybe they realized he was setting them up for failure.

"We'll get it done." They said as they started to stand and file out of the rec room. A few of them looked rather skeptical of the plan but Nico didn't care as long as they did it.

As soon as the last person left the rec room, Nico walked over and shut the door before locking it. He went to the very back, as far as he could from the door. He took out his phone and dialed Jason's number.

Jason picked up almost instantly, "Hello?"

"Jason, listen, you don't have much time. Hektor is trying to make a run for it!" Nico said urgently.

"Shit, we're moving as fast as we can." Jason said, "I'll try to hurry everyone along, but I can't promise that we'll be there soon."

"Do whatever you can, I'll watch him to see where he goes." Nico said.

"Alright." Jason said before hanging up the phone.

Nico quickly slipped his phone into his pocket, he wasn't sure fi the Romans could make it to camp on time. He knew Jason wanted Hektor, if they took too long, it would be much harder to try to capture the guy.

Nico ran through the Big House and out the front door, he looked around and spotted Hektor patting a few campers on the back as they carried weapons towards the hill. Nico walked over to an open weapon crate and acted like he was inspecting it but really, he was watching Hektor.

It was about five minutes later when Nico saw Hektor disappear into the woods. He sprinted into the woods and eventually found the path that Hektor must've taken. He followed the path, hoping to find some sort of clue that he had gone here. Sure enough, he found footprints, fresh footprints.

Nico followed the trail like it was nobody's business, he wasn't going to let Hektor get away.

The trail led him to the beach, which was where Hektor happened to be. The demigod was standing on the sand as a black rubber boat with a purple flag on the back sped towards the beach, four men in black uniforms were on the boat as they sped towards Hektor.

Nico looked out over the sea and his heart dropped. The ship Hektor was taking wasn't some cruise liner, no, it was a gray warship that was anchored out at sea. He knew Camp Jupiter didn't have any naval weapons, they were more focused on fighting on land. They had started developing a navy, but they had only started after they had met Percy, which meant their triremes were full of engineering flaws, plus they didn't have anywhere near the firepower to destroy a modern warship.

Nico took his phone out and snapped a picture of the ship, if he could get it to Jason, maybe they'd be able to find the ship. As for now, he had to go back to camp and make sure everyone followed his instructions. Jason trusted him to make sure the invasion went smoothly, it wasn't his fight to capture Hektor.

Nico's footsteps were loud as he sprinted along the trail and back to camp. He almost wished it was darker so he could shadow-travel but considering it was in the middle of the afternoon, there really wasn't much he could do. Contrary to what people thought, he couldn't just magically will himself from place to place, there were set conditions for shadow-traveling.

When Nico made it to camp, he nearly let out a yell of victory as he watched everyone march towards the hill, this was going to be easy for the Romans, all they needed to do now was make sure they didn't miss.

He felt a little guilty when he saw Will amongst the crowd, he was about to watch all his friends get gassed but at least the gas wouldn't be lethal. Hopefully they'd forgive him if they found out. There was a chance his role in all this may never be known and if he was being honest, he didn't really care, he just wanted this whole charade to be over.

Nico opened his phone and texted Jason.

'We're ready.'