A Cat Who is Now to Our Rescue

Nico appeared in the Athena cabin a bit drowsy. He found Annabeth sitting on her bed drawing in a notepad some kind of plans. She jumped as she noticed him watching her. Picking him up carefully, Annabeth sat him on her lap.

"And where did you escape off to?" she asked with a stern voice. Nico meowed his answer but unsurprisingly she didn't understand. Suddenly remembering why he had shadow travelled here in the first place, he dragged his paws across her arms and whined noisily.

"What is it that you want Neeks?" she stroked his fur trying to calm him down but it didn't work.

After a few minutes of consistent shouting – well it was supposed to be shouting, but when you're a cat it doesn't always sound like that – he realised trying to get people to help him save the others would not work and he was on his own. He jumped off of Annabeth, to cries of her telling him to stay put, and disappeared into the shadows of her cabin.

The pavement was dirty and filled with rubbish that floated in the wind. It was sort of calming although as Percy sat on the ground with a knife against his neck that wasn't really what he was thinking about. The young men who were keeping them captive didn't seem to be demigods or monsters, but just normal mortals which made it a bit embarrassing when you realise that they had taken them down so easily.

Percy was trying to come up with a plan but then again to be honest, plans aren't his strong suit. Give him a Minotaur and he can easily defeat it however give him a couple of mortals and he's stumped. He was starting to wonder if he could somehow create a rainbow and Iris Message Argus or even some kind of distraction, when he noticed the unmistakeable darkness that comes when Nico is shadow travelling.

He quickly wiped the smile off his face as his captor turned to look back at him. He then repeated the same question for the fifth time.

"Tell me the truth this time," he said, knife so close to Percy's neck is drew a drop of blood, "Where are your wallets?"

Will replied as he had done the previous times, "We lost them an hour or so ago and were trying to find them when you found us."

The actual truth, which they weren't telling the crooks, was that the mist had been hiding them since they first asked to have them. Percy wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because of the drachmas they contained, or perhaps it was just the fates way of making their life harder.

"Right then. You leave me no choice but to-" he stopped what he was saying and looked down at the ball which was rolling towards his feet. It was blue with light dots covering it and when he kicked it, bounced against the alleyway wall. The man glanced to where it had come from but saw nothing out of place.

By the time he looked though, Nico was already onto the second part of his plan. With the three men distracted slightly, he raised a few skeleton mice who he ordered to creep up behind them. They brushed their bones against the young men's legs and when the man who was holding Jason captive saw it, he dropped the knife and ran away screaming. I'm sure he still has some dignity.

Jason picked up the knife and stood up, facing the other two men. The one who was supposed to be watching Will turned to point his knife at both of the boys who were standing up. He kicked the bones away from him, much like the guy holding Percy had done. They looked paler and slightly freaked out, but were trying to keep a strong front.

Suddenly though, Nico fell out of a shadow and onto the crook who had the knife against Percy's necks face. He scratched at the man's face who stumbled back trying to pull off the dark tabby. When Nico finally came off, the man was left with two big scratches that were bleeding badly, across his cheek. Before any of them could say anything he had disappeared, running away like a coward. There was only one criminal left and after a few seconds he also ran away, chasing after his boss.

The boys high fived each other and Will picked the sleepy Nico up, victorious. Taking a drachma out of his pocket, Jason tossed it into a rainbow nearby and asked for Argus. Five minutes later they were all back in the van on their way back to camp.

When they got back, and were greeted by Annabeth and Piper (who were annoyed to see that's where Nico had been) they were questioned about where the stuff they bought had gone and it was only then that they realised in all their haste, they'd left their bags somewhere in New York's many streets.

They had made it back to the big house where Chiron and Mr D were playing pinochle and somehow Mr D seemed to have heard what Percy had mentioned about forgetting everything somewhere in New York.

"You know Peter, John and Wally that you could have just come to me in the beginning and I would have been able to do this," Mr D snapped his fingers and a box of cat supplies, some of which were like what they had bought, appeared on the grass in front of them, "And saved you all that trouble of going shopping."

"I'm never going shopping again," Percy decided.

A/N – Thank you for taking your time to read this, I hope you enjoyed it! Sorry it's a bit delayed but hopefully next time it will be quicker.

Thanks for the reviews, favourites and follows!

JustARandomNerd – Thank you! I'm so glad you're enjoying this!

I hope you're all well and I'll see you all later!

~a-halfblood-with-attitude