Oh, shnikey-shnikes! Yay, the very first double-digit chapter in the story! Woohoo! Countdown to Philippines: 7 days! Gosh, really hope I can finish this story. Thanks for reading...
ps. if u read, please review
Chapter 10
Nico's POV
"Looking for this?"
It was him. The tall brown-haired boy from my dream. It was unmistakable, there was no way it could have been anyone else.
I felt the world closing in on me with that realization and the air was stolen right from my lungs. I realized now why the grotto was so familiar, why the hair on the back of my neck rose up with the very sight of it.
Percy said before that half-blood dreams were always different, and mine were no exception. They were visions, and mine was playing out right now.
"Landon!" Posy said, as she stood straight up. Landon. That was his name!
"I think this cat belongs to you," he held the white cat in his arms and then handed it back to her.
"Thanks!" she said. Her silvery cat meowed softly as it was returned to its rightful owner. Its eyes glowed in the dark.
"Posy," I called, but I don't think she heard me.
"Wait, what are you doing in here, Landon? This is a cave." Posy asked.
Landon didn't answer her question. Instead, he stood up straight, showing his full height and stared straight at me, his fists clenched and his jaw tight. His skin was pale, but colored by the flow of blood underneath and dotted lightly with the beginnings of facial hair. His shoulders were angular and were perpendicular to the rest of his body. His eyes were dark brown, and they burned as they closed in on me. He was a fierce presence.
I was torn in half; part of me wanted to turn around and run, but my more prideful side refused to let me.
"Landon?" Posy asked again. Landon broke his eyes away from me for a second and faced Posy once again.
"I just have a few things to take care of," he asnwered.
"In here?"
"You didn't tell me you were friends with a Half-blood, Posy."
Posy stopped talking for a minute. She turned around and looked at me with a questioning look on her face. I stared blankly at her and swallowed. She turned her head so that her cheek was parallel to the tall boy in front of her and looked sideways at him.
"What's going on?" she asked, her voice shaking and dark.
Landon's eyes were back on me. I looked up, but kept my eyes off his face. I stared at his neck, instead. "You've kept us waiting, Nico," he said. "Do you know how much valuable time we've lost?" He took a step forward.
I grabbed onto the back of Posy's shirt and pulled her back a little, away from him. "How do you know my name?"
"No one forgets a child of the Big Three." He takes another step, and I take another tug on Posy's collar.
"Big Three?" Posy whispers to me. "What's he talking about?"
"Shh!" I say to her as I grip tightly onto the hilt of my Stygian blade. I redirect my attention to Landon. "Who are you?" I ask.
"Why don't you ask Posy," he says with a smirk. I decide against it; I know enough about him to know that nothing good can come from my meeting him. Water continues to drip from the ceiling.
"Never mind," I say. Posy tries to wriggle away from me, but I keep holding onto her. "Let go!" she says.
"We have some...business to discuss, Nico," Landon says, continuing to advance forward. "It's very serious and it's important, too. Just follow me and we'll get right to it. Don't try to fight your way out of it; if you be a good boy and do like I tell you to, it'll end comfortably for you. Don't think I won't force your cooperation if you do, because I will."
I looked from Landon and then to Posy.
"We're leaving now," I say to him with a harsh guttural voice. I grab Posy's wrist and begin pulling her along back to where we entered through.
"Oh, I'm afraid no one's leaving just yet," Landon says after us. As soon as I turn, I see that our way been blocked by two other boys who're just as tall and threatening as Landon. One of them takes a step forward and grabs my shoulders. He pushes me backward with such force that the wind is knocked right out of me when I fall on my back. I land on the side of my hip where my sword is at. It clangs against a rock and against my hip. My elbow is scraped.
"Nico!" Posy yells. She tries to run toward me, but one of the guys behind her grabs her hair. "Let go!" she turns around and tries to punch him in the gut, but her grabs her elbow and pushes her back.
"Let go!" She yelled. She turns around and tries to punch the guy in the gut, but he grabs her elbow and pushes her back. I grab my sword and jumped back up. I run toward the one who's holding Posy and swing the sword sideways. It made a whirring noise as it sliced the air, but just as it was going to hit skin, someone reached over from behind me and stopped it with their sword.
"You're making this much harder than it has to be, demigod," Landon says in my ear. His voice is wet.
He presses the blade of his sword against mine so forcefully that I barely push back against hard enough to keep my own sword from slicing my head off. My arms shake, and with one last burst of energy, I push against his blade sideways and slip out from his hold.
I stumble backward a little and turn to face him, but before I can do anything else, Landon kicks me square in the torso. I fall and bang my hand hard on a rock. I stayed down for a bit, and felt a sticky warm liquid dripping down the back of my head and neck.
The one who isn't holding Posy grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me up and holds me so that I'm an inch from the ground. I grab tight to his wrist and kick his shins, but his grip is like iron. He doesn't budge.
"Landon! Why are you doing this?" Posy yells. Landon doesn't answer. His face is expressionless, not a trace of malice nor remorse on his visage.
He said: "Bring them." His words were as cold and and colorless as his young face.
They continued to walk and bring us further and further into the dark passages of the cave. I continued to struggle from the guy holding me.
"Let go of me, you fat-ass!" I yelled into his face. I wasn't lying; the guy holding me was more horizontally advanced than most other people. He slapped me hard across the face and my world went dark for a minute there. Then I saw a light at the end of the cave.
When we got there, the man holding me threw me back and I landed hard on a gold tile floor. A pain shoots up my spine as I land. When I sat up, I saw that a pool of my blood had collected where my head was.
Posy was thrown in after me. She sat up, too, and scooted closer to me, whimpering almost. A crowd of people had started to form around us, and they closing in on us.
They're all young, I can tell. No older than twenty, at most. They're all angry, too. Everyone yells, everyone points. A few bolder ones point weapons at us.
"Demigods!"
"What are they doing here? We should kill them!"
"Have you come looking for us? Well you found us! There are hundreds of us!"
"Where's Landon! He'll know what to do!"
Posy scoots in closer to me and holds onto my arm.
"Where are we?" she asks.
I feel the heat coming to my as I turn to her. I pull my arm from her. "This is all your fault!" I yell into her face.
She looks at me and her jaw drops. Her face turns red with anger, too. "My fault? How is this in any way my fault!"
"Yes! Your fault! Because you wanted to go in the cave and rescue your stupid cat! And I said no, but you went on!"
"Well, you're the one who followed me! And I'm not the one they're looking for! I'm not half-god like you are, I'm just another victim here!"
"A victim? A victim of what? Idiocy? Yes, you are, Posy! Oh, yes you are! You SO are!"
"I don't know what the hell you did to get them so pissed off at you! Whatever you stole, give it back or apologize!"
"Me? I didn't do anything, you're the one who knows him!"
"Well, he knows you! This mob is right about ready to hang you by the neck from the Empire State Building!"
"Argh!"
"Well, fighting won't get us anywhere now!"
"You're the one yelling!"
"Ugh!"
The mob quited down when Landon, dressed in Greek armor, entered the room. It was recognizable, too. It was the temple from my dream; the tapestries, the torches, the pool, the gold floor, the Grecian urns, the burning incense. There was no mistaking it.
Landon stood int he center of the room, not far from where Posy and I were. He scanned the room, looking at everyone's faces. Then he spoke:
"Brothers," he said. "Allow me to introduce Nico di Angelo, son of Hades," he turns and looks at me with an evil sort of smile. "The lucky demigod who gets help us complete the mission."
I let out a sort snarl as I stood up. "I'm not helping you with anything. You're crazy if that's what you're thinking."
"Kill him!" One of the guys from the crowd says, and a bunch of others yell in agreement, but no one moves when Landon puts a hand up.
"There's no need to resort to violence... at least not this early in the game," he says. He takes a step forward and looks down at Posy. "I'm sure we can make him see reason." I didn't like the way he was looking at her. Posy stood up and put on a brave face. She walked over and stood a little behind me.
"What do you want from me?" I yelled. My voice echoed in the hall.
"I'll give it to you plain and simple; I want you to take me to the Underworld."
"Yeah, that'll happen," I said facetiously. Landon frowned. He looked over at someone from behind me, one of his henchmen I suppose.
"Το κορίτσι," he said. The girl. The blood drains from my face. I turned around just as two of his guys grabbed Posy. They held her back by the arms and pressed a sword to her neck.
"Hey!" I yelled as I tried to run toward them, but from nowhere Landon pointed a sword at my chest and kept me where I was at. He pressed it a little harder and made me back up, closer to the middle of the gold floor. I stared him down the entire time.
"Should we try that again?" Landon said. I looked down and noticed that the sword he pointed at me was my own, which only provoked my anger further. Behind him, Posy struggled with her captors.
I pushed the sword away from my chest. "She's not even a Half-blood, she's not involved in this. In fact I don't even know her."
"Not very convincing at all, Nico. I'd say you two know each quite well, judging from your little date." It's not a date.
I rolled my eyes. "Why do you want to go to the Underworld, anyway? You're not dead, you've got no business there." I racked my brain trying to remember my dream. And then there it was: "You know the consequences if you fail me, Landon. Do not return without that urn."
The knife-scraping voice. The depths of Tartarus. Landon was was helping the Titans.
"You're with the Titans? You're with the Titans!" I said.
"You must be god at math, Nico, you're good at putting 2 and 2 together. Now about our agreement. I have your pretty little girlfriend with a knife on her throat. We can fix that if you can get me what I want."
I swallow a lump in my throat. There was a lot to consider. Maybe this is what Percy meant by a hard decision to make. I wasn't the only one I had to consider now; there was Posy, and all the Half-bloods, and the gods, and my father. A million thoughts went through my head all at once. I had a few ideas.
"Let's go, Nico, time's-a-wastin'," Landon said with a smile, still waving the sword in my face. Behind him Posy was watching me, curious about what was going through my head. Worried.
"You're running short on options here, Nico," Landon said. "So what's it gonna be?" he said in a sing-song voice.
I blinked a couple times. "Fine," I said. Landon smiled, and I pushed the sword away from my face.
"I knew you'd see it my way," Landon said as he walked closer to me and shoved the hilt of my sword back at me. I caught the Stygian blade before it could fall.
"And that's how it's done, people," He said. The guys behind let Posy go and she ran over to me.
"Nico, what the hell is going on? I did know Landon, but I didn't know he was evil like this!"
"Shh," I said. "Start running towards the exit."
"What are you doing?"
"Just go. Go find Robbie or my friend, Percy. One of them and tell them everything."
"Why? What if you don't get out of here? This guy is crazy!"
"Just do what I say. I'll be fine." I tried to smile, but I couldn't.
I grabbed my sword and whirled around and swung it at Landon's back. At the last second he turned back around with bronze shield and stopped the blade from cutting him. It made a loud clatter noise as it hit the brown metal.
Landon, with a sword of his own, rushed at me and swung his sword with a full arm. I blocked it my sword and took two more swings, both of which Landon blocked with his shield. I rushed forward and swung my sword down from above my head aiming for his shoulders. Landon quickly stopped it with his shield and then kicked me in the chest again.
I wavered as I stepped back from him. His face held a dangerous scowl and his eyes were burning once more. I ran to him again and swung my sword at his head. He dodged the blade by ducking down. My heart was racing then. I swung at his head again in the opposite direction, he dodged and then pushed me with his shield.
I fell back. Around me, I saw that the crowd was getting worked up by the fight. My heart was still pounding in my chest. Landon ran at me with his sword pointed my chest. Thinking fast, I grabbed a shield that someone behind me was holding and stopped him. Landon took the sword back and swung down against my blade, hard. I didn't see what he did next, but next thing I knew, he was swinging the sword at me again and again from either side. Before I could dodge, I backed up a little, and then his sword had cut threw my shirt.
"Agh!" A slit of bright red was seen from the side of my shirt. He had cut me.
"Agh!" I gripped my side in pain. There was a burning sensation flooding that side of my body and when I looked at my hand, I saw blood.
I looked back at Landon. He had the same evil glower that was plastered onto his face since the beginning of the fight. I backed up a little.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked him. I had to know. "You're half-blood, too. You're a demigod, all of you! Why are you trying to help the Titans? If they promised some kind of reward for betraying the gods, don't trust them, they're all lies-"
"Nico," he said. His eyes looked into mine. "Who said anything about my being a demigod?"
The whole world went quiet in that single moment after his sentence. I was confused. There was no way Landon could be a regular mortal, I knew that much. He was much too powerful to be mortal, too Greek, too other-worldly. My first guess was that he was like Luke, a demigod betraying the gods and his family. But now, he claimed not to be. It just wasn't possible. If he's not a half-blood, he couldn't be a god or an ancient hero from the myths. But if not god, demigod, hero, mortal, or titan, then what was he. The answer came to me.
"No," I said. "Y-You're half.." I couldn't bring myself to finish the sentence.
"I'm not like you or your friends, Nico. None of us are."
"All of you," I said, looking around at the small crowd of people who had gathered to watch us fight. They were all the same. "You're half Titan."
Landon smiled a cruel smile.
To be continued...
Sorry guys, I know, another cliffy... But I really just wanna save what I've got next for a separate chapter, alright? Sorry, sorry, but please review and tell me what you think about the whole half-titan thing. I wasn't sure whether to include it or not but i didn't want landon to be another one of those betrayal-demigod peoples so i had to do something about him. it's not weird, is it? not stupid?
-monay