Again guys, bad case of Writer's Block and obsession with ME3: Citadel, so sorry for the horrible few chapters.

XXXIII

Nico

Nico wished that he wasn't so close to the Reaper. As Leo suicidally dived and chucked the thing towards the mouth of the thing, it exploded and everything within a 250 foot radius (which unfortunately, included Nico) was flattened.

Nico didn't even have to time to block the dust from entering his eyes as he blacked out.

Sometime later, he woke up to stinging eyes, throbbing headache, and a very painful body all around. The dust was still thick in the air, which meant that Nico wasn't out for very long.

He pushed himself into a sitting position and quickly checked himself- a few cuts, headache, dust in his eyes, but nothing life threatening. Nico found he could stand up without much difficulty, and did so.

Everything was eerily quiet, except for a little groaning and shuffling around. There was no sign of the purple squid thing. Nico coughed a little and stumbled forward a little, and the dust began to disappear. A few more steps and he could see clearly, more or less.

A gigantic cloud of dirt was surrounded something big and unmoving, which Nico hoped was the squid. There were a few people that could be seen running towards them about half a mile away near the ships, but mostly Nico was on his own.

Then someone from behind him coughed and appeared from the heavy dust in the air. It was Jason, looking like a cat had just used him as a scratching post.

"Hey," he rasped and Nico opened my mouth to reply, but instead felt a choking feeling and coughed out some dust.

"What…. What happened?" Nico asked once he cleared his throat.

Jason shrugged, quite a bit of dust tumbling off him in the process.

"Leo chucks stick into that video game thingy. Monster goes boom. A lot of smoke," Jason said bluntly and Nico snorted.

"Thanks. Never would've known," Nico muttered sarcastically.

He started trudging around the now-starting-to-clear pile of dust and smoke and came upon a lot of debris.

"Wow," Nico said and picking up the Hercules Bow at his feet, began walking through the Reaper remains. He found many very useful tools, including sweet guns, celestial bronze parts that could be used to repair, and a curious ball about the size of a kickball.

The metal ball looked like a basketball Transformer with many cuts in it, and it glowed slightly blue. When Nico tried to touch it, he felt a clear wall around it. Curious, he kicked the possible force field.

Result: A very hurt foot.

"Damn you," Nico said and without thinking, stabbed the thing the piece of the bow.

What happened next Nico took full blame for. Even though He wasn't really sure what happened at all.

But after a very loud explosion, next thing Nico knew, he was on the ground with his ears ringing, blinking black spots out of his eyes and a very bad headache.

He sat up woozily and blinked, gaining his bearings. That ugly chunk of metal that had done all of this sat untouched about 20 feet in front of Nico, and the bow thing was lying next to him, smoking but undamaged.

Nico stood up slowly and grabbed the stick, walking over to the shield again. He probed to feel where the barrier was, and when the Hercules bow touched it, he stumbled back several feet from the piece shooting backwards. And in doing so, he found a still figure behind it with a familiar face.

"Shit," Nico swore. He dashed to Leo, who was unconscious with a short, but deep cut all the way through his arm and bleeding profusely. Nico tried to think about first aid Camp Half Blood had given him. He quickly ripped off a bit of his shirt sleeve and pressed down hard on the injury, and did the same to the other side.

Leo stirred slightly.

A few moments later, one of the medics from Apollo came and took over and Nico began walking around aimlessly, without much to do. Then he remembered the small stick of metal in his hand. There was no note attached, at least not now.

Nico silently cursed Leo for doing something so stupid. Now, they could be stuck here forever. He considered going back to the demigod and demanding answers when the piece shined slightly.

Anyways, Nico was r-

Wait, he thought. This piece of metal is thousands of years old. How could it possibly be still shiny?

That's when he realized the markings etched onto the piece, very recently, anyone could tell as the lines were sharp and clear against the sun. It was a very short note, and the ancient Greek read:

No time. Go to the tip of Africa, on the ruins where the world's greatest city, greater than Athens and Alexandria, stood before-

And the rest was unreadable, smudged beyond recognition.

xXx

"I have an idea," Jason said nervously, tapping his fingers on the table. "But I don't like it. They say that city is cursed after what Rome did to it. Most would refuse to go to arguably the most dangerous place in the world for modern Romans."

He voiced his idea.

Immediately, the Roman leaders began shouting, while the Greeks just nodded their heads.

Octavian (who Reyna insisted on keeping for traditional augur purposes, despite his cohort's dishonor) pushed forward and screeched to the Roman centurions, "You see! The Greeks and their indoctrinated leader wish to lead us to our deaths!" He shouted and turned to Jason. "You of all people know what happened there. After all, your dead relative, Scipio caused it! The name itself is tabooed!"

A few Romans mumbled angrily in agreement. Reyna stepped forward slightly.

"Wait!" Jason shouted. "If you refused to go there, you can stay offshore and let the Greeks, who have nothing against the city go on."

Once again, Octavian scoffed. "Ha! And you wish to let those Greek scum-" Cue a lot of angry protests, "-steal what is rightfully a ROMAN spotlight?"

Jason attempted to growl angrily, but in his nervousness, failed. To the point where Nico had to stifle a laugh.

"Hear!" Octavian shouted. "Listen up, Greeks. WE are taking control of the fleet, and from now on, WE decide where to go! And WE want to go home!" His voice wasn't very moving, but it got the Romans riled up, who drew their swords and stepped forward, pushing a distraught looking Reyna with them.

Nico took out his own Stygian Iron sword and pointed it at the angry Romans. "This is mutiny," he growled.

Octavian's smile twisted into a cruel sneer. "And YOU, son of Pluto, and your Greek friends are no longer in control. The Romans are the rulers here, now."

Nico had a cruel retort ready to shoot back, but suddenly his vision blurred and his ears buzzed slightly. He had a sense of Déjà vu when he had felt his sister, Bianca die. He quickly looked around the meeting. Nobody was on the floor, bleeding.

Which meant either Percy or Annabeth had just died.

Quote of the chapter- Isn't it funny how the word 'politics' is made up of the words 'poli' meaning 'many' in Latin, and 'tics' as in 'bloodsucking creatures'?"

Song of the chapter- Dead Man Walking by The Script. I got addicted to Script around the time the Jason chapter was posted

Entertainment of the chapter- Arma III. I just want it to stop crashing whenever I try to join a server.