Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Thank you everyone who read my story. I ended September with a bang and began October with a great start. All of you who took the time to read, review, and favorite/follow are spectacular and remind me that people out there like the products of my imagination.

I hope you all like this next chapter, it will give you an insight on what will happen in the future (or past, I suppose).

Now sit back, relax, and enjoy.

June: 15 years ago

They'd left him here.

They'd left him.

Percy and Zeke had left him at their camp, completely alone, at night.

Okay, so it wasn't that bad. It was the concept of the situation that bothered Nico.

So far in their quest, he'd pretty much been useless. He was too weak to do anything of actual importance, and his powers had practically gone kaput.

Nico groaned and snuggled further into his sleeping bag. This night was uncharacteristically freezing, cold enough to the point where he could see his breath. He was beginning to lose feeling in his fingers, only adding to Nico's irritation.

But what annoyed him the most was that Acacia's warning kept repeating over and over again in his head.

'…If you don't get some help soon, you won't have control over your abilities and it will be dangerous...'

'…won't have control…'

'…dangerous…'

Nico began to recklessly make his way out of his sleeping bag, grumbling under his breath the entire time.

He had control, he always had control. Just because they weren't working right, did not mean he didn't have control over his powers.

He trudged over to the fire pit, where there were only embers burning now. Zeke had lit a small fire before he left with Percy and it had begun to go out about an hour ago. Nico sat down in front of the pit and stretched out his hand. In a matter of seconds, a fire was burning once again.

Nico smirked and pulled his knees up to his chest. So his powers did still work and he had control. His smirk turned into a grimace and he scowled. Of course he had control, and there was no reason for some mad sorceress to lead him to think otherwise.

The flames in the pit glowed brighter and grew larger, feeding off Nico the energy from his anger.

A strange burning sensation was suddenly present in his stomach, but he was too upset to notice.

'Why does everyone think I can't do things,' he thought sadly, 'is it because I'm smaller then I should be? Is it because I'm younger than Percy and Zeke?'

He became bitter at that thought and the burning in his stomach grew hotter.

Nico was constantly being referred to as Percy and Zeke's "baby cousin", and if it wasn't that name then it was "Hades' kid". It annoyed him to no end, and as of late he'd felt crosser toward it than usual.

'Why do people feel the need to compare me to them all the time? I'm my own person,' his fists clenched as he remembered all the conversations he'd overheard where campers would say how they felt bad for him because he wasn't as great as Zeke and Percy, or how he was destined to grow up to be some dictator.

'Well, of course I'm not as amazing as they are,' Nico thought. 'I'm younger than they are and practically half their size. I hate how everyone thinks I should be exactly like them. I hate being prejudiced just because of who my dad is. I hate how everyone thinks I'm a freak and that I'm evil. They tell me that's it's all in my head, but they don't know what it's like to be looked at as if you're some psychopath! Nobody understands! It's not fair that I don't get respect, or admiration, or even friends like the others do. What makes me less a hero then they are? It's not fair, it's not fair, it's not –"

Nico cried out in pain and clutched his midsection. The burning inside of him was white hot, almost as if someone had lit a fire in his system. He gritted his teeth and blinked back the tears that were beginning to well up.

Oh, gods, it hurt.

It hurt more than any pain he had ever felt.

He tried to stand up, tried to get back to his tent to lie down, but he fell onto his hands and knees. He took a deep breath and attempted to relax; panicking wouldn't do him any good.

Nico closed his eyes and concentrated on what he needed to do…

That was when he felt the heat on his face.

It was the same heat he felt when he first lit the fire with his powers to warm himself from the cold. Only it was much, much hotter.

His eyes snapped toward the fire pit and he jumped back, causing his stomach to clench in more pain.

The flames from the fire he'd lit had fed off his temper, causing them to grow the more his anger grew. The fire had spread out to at least 10 times its original size. The rocks that had surrounded the now engulfed pit were consumed by the flames, scorched black and beginning to crack apart. The fire's height surpassed the tree tops, causing some of them to catch sparks and be set aflame.

The sheer size and power of the fire scared Nico, but what frightened him the most was the color of the inferno.

The flames were blue, not the normal red-orange color it had once been

They'd occasionally flicker to different hues, but always hold a bit of the same eerie, ghost like blue.

Nico blinked rapidly, trying to comprehend what was happening.

Had he done this?

No, that was impossible. He wasn't strong enough to cause something like this indirectly, not even close. But whether he was really capable or not was something he had to worry about later, Nico currently had to extinguish the flames before they burnt the entire forest down.

He stretched out his hands and tried to call them off, but nothing happened. He tried a second time, only to get the same results.

The burning in his stomach intensified and Nico doubled over; more panicked now than he had been this whole powers fiasco.

He didn't have control.

It was just like Acacia had said, and now people's lives were in danger because of him. He'd been too busy wallowing in his misery to notice what he was doing, and now he was paying for it along with innocent people in the town near the forest.

Nico was desperate to do something now, he couldn't harm all those mortals, even if he didn't mean to in the first place. He grabbed his hair and began to pull as hard as possible when he realized there was nothing he could do. There was no way to contact Percy and Zeke, no way to get help, and no way for him to stop the flames.

The fire had spread quickly from one tree to the next, causing more and more smoke to fill the air. It was becoming difficult for Nico to breath and his eyes and lungs stung.

"Stop…" He called out toward the flames feebly, trying to get them to die down. When they didn't obey, Nico began to feel his temper rise…and something else; something like determination. He refused to let something like control issues beat him at something this important. There were innocent people with lives that still needed living at stake and he refused to lose.

He looked directly toward the fire, which was now larger than before, and screamed, "STOP!"

With one final roar, the fire went out, including the ones on the trees. The night air was once again cold and the only thing to show that there were once out of control flames were the scorched tree tops and the large black circle in the middle of the camp site.

Nico's breathing was ragged and constricted, and the scorching ache inside his gut had still not subsided. He'd expected to feel relieved, but all he felt was fear.

That was his doing.

That was his power…power he had no control over.

Where had all that power come from? He didn't have any strength like that before.

Nico was definitely scared. He had been fine with the power he had before all this, it had been enough. He'd always wondered what it would be like to have more, but now that he had it, he was terrified.

Nico felt his body start shaking, and it wasn't from the cold.

He was dangerous, just like Acacia had said he would be. How she knew was beyond him.

But he had to find her now, she had answers. If she knew what was going on then she could help him; she had to.

If there were more of these…these power surges and he had no control, then nobody was safe from him.

…

When Zeke and Percy got back just as the sun was starting to rise, they found Nico still staring at where the fire pit once was, surrounded by charred trees and bushes, shivering and paler than he ever had been. They'd asked what'd happened, but Nico didn't say anything.

What could he say?

"The measure of a man is what he does with power." ― Plato

Well, another chapter is finished. I hope you liked it and please do review, they help me to see what you think is going to happen and your attitude toward characters and such. They help me to better understand how to make things work and put them together.

I hope you all enjoyed and thanks for taking the time to read,

~Fantasila~