... That most of you knew about already.

Trapped.

Oh gods of Olympus, Nico was trapped inside of a small metal container. By Hermes, this could not be happening! His joints groaned as Nico tried to move, sore from being scrunched up so long. "Where am I?" Nico wondered aloud in a panic? "Okay, we'll take this one step at a time."

"Even worse," Nico realized, "I'm talking to myself again."

It took a great deal of painful maneuvering, but eventually Nico managed open the small sliding door to his left and tumbled out of his horrifying prison. Once free, he decided to take in the scenery. It was not especially lovely. Boxes littered the dusty floor, cobwebs thick as Nico's thumb laced the room, giant spiders perched on the webs, crates housed eggs the size of a human head, and packages of food lay open on the floor. "What a waste of food." Nico commented, "Are you guys responsible for this?"

One of the abnormally sized arachnids cocked its head and scuttled closer to the son of Hades. The large bug gave Nico an once-over before calling the rest of the spiders to join the party. The creatures found themselves perplexed by the young human. How meaty was he? What was his blood type? Did he have a lot of blood, or only a little? Would he resist, or be stunned into submission? How should they ask such odd questions without their prey running away? The Racnoss needed answers!

All the while, Nico merely stood there, awaiting judgment. He decided to use the spare time to examine the monsters. They had human faces, torsos, and upper arms, but yet they had the bodies of spiders and crowns such as on a triceratops. At the base of each crown blinked simultaneously four beady black eyes which were briefly covered by yellow eyelashes. With a bright red exoskeleton and menacing black lips, the enemies surrounding Nico looked overall…

… Silly. They could also be described as hysterical, clownish, funny, or entirely unthreatening. At which point, our hero began to laugh. And laugh. And laugh.

Obviously, the Racnoss did not understand what the human could possibly find so funny. Finally, one of the aliens gathered the courage to ask, "And just what is so terribly funny to you, human?" The way he said the human made it sound worse than the black plague. All of the other arachnids nodded in agreement.

Nico righted himself and just waved at the spiders—as if that explained anything. "Just what in Hades are you guys… or girls?" he questioned curiously.

"We," said a different creature, "Are the Princes and Princesses of the Racnoss. We will rebuild our species, starting with this ship and we will devour the universe so that the Racnoss may reign again! And now, we shall have an appetizer, human boy."

Nico blinked a few times, unable to understand. What did these weirdoes mean my "devour the universe" or "have an appetizer"? Just what—or who—was the appetizer? Then it hit him. As realization grew across Nico's face, horror also began to settle in. He became prey, and his predators surrounded him. The Racnoss looked delighted to know that their prey was so stunned by their short speech that they quite quickly moved in for the kill.

A sharp pain exploded in Nico's left calf. He snapped to attention and flicked open a once pocked switch blade. He slashed the Racnoss who was currently sucking his leg, making the foul beast hiss and draw back. He stabbed one and rolled right under the legs of another. Two down, eleven more to go. Nico tallied mentally. He gave his best effort to sprint away, limping as he went. Pluto's Ambassador struggled to climb atop a crate, and from there he soon reached a solid height of five boxes.

That didn't appear to be high enough. Nico groaned, "Why can't I be normal guy? Why was born demigod, of all annoying, useless things to born as?" Sighing, he pulled his weight to a platform half a level up from the floor. Then he noticed the stairs. "Why did I not just climb those!? Nico yelled at himself, feeling quite frustrated. Turning around, Nico came face to face with what might have been a futuristic elevator. He couldn't be too sure aboard cruise ship sailing about the Milky Way. Whatever it happened to be, Nico decided it couldn't be any worse than staying with these Racnoss crazies.

"Perhaps I should feel guilty." Takana reasoned with herself. "Maybe I should go back for him. I could go down the lift and, and, uhhh, ummm…" Takana sighed miserably. "Just what am I supposed to do?" The Silurian woman paced in front of the lift, as she had been doing for the past forty-five minutes. "Alright, I know what to. I'll go down the lift, find Nico, and then—"Ding! The lift rang as it arrived on Takana's floor. The doors slid open to reveal a young, lanky, white, human boy standing in the middle of the lift, and cocky glinting lit up his eyes.

"How did I get in the service elevator?" Nico asked.

"Your leg!" Takana dove to the ground, automatically worried, and yet relieved. Nico limped into the hall and plopped down on the ground as Takana began to tend to his wound. "What happened to you?"

"I found out what killed the woman from before." Nico said, his voice stained from all that had gone on.

"What?" Takana pressed down on the bite.

"They call themselves the Racnoss. They're like giant spiders or something. We should warn—Ow!"

"If you hold still it won't hurt so much." Takana scolded. Nico glared at her, but relented and let the lady continue treating his leg. She ripped off the hem of her dress and used it to bind the wound. Nico gasped in pain, but refused to cry out. "How does that feel?" She asked.

Nico nodded, but it wasn't hard to see that he needed a tad bit of rest. She pulled over a nearby couch helped the poor boy lay down. He sighed as he fell against the cushions, and was fast asleep.

a/n: Ciao, mi amigos! I finally updated, so enjoy the short chapter you've got. Happy Easter!