So this chapter is a story about a fight for survival, not! Its mostly fluff about the day before they leave for their quest, Andrico, and Sheo (I don't know, It sounded better Lennon, sounds too much like lemon). OH MY GAWDS! House of Hades come out tomorrow, is anyone else freaking out about this? Unfortunately, my copy doesn't come till Wednesday, so I am not going to have any spoilers in the next chapter, probably. If Rick ends up killing off one of the seven: 1: he will receive a lot of hate mail from me, and 2: this story will not conform to some details of HoH. K? I hope you enjoy my fluff chapter and please review. Normally, I'm not good at fluff so, tell me if I'm off a little. And don't think that this chapter is all fluff, there is a little plot motion in here that is necessary to the survival of your very essence. Hasta Luego, I mean, leyendo (ok, how ironic is it that read on in spanish looks a lot like leyna?)

Nico: Whatever you may think, I'm not a creeper, just because I'm about 80 and dating a 15 year old doesn't mean I'm creepy.

Andromeda: Nico, you were frozen in time, and I thought that you were supposed to do the disclaimer?

Nico: Right! Well, I just wanted to say that, and thank you for all th-

Andromeda: Nico!

Nico: Someone Help Me! Anyways, *gulps under Andy's glare* Sarah (thats my fake name) doesn't own PJO or HOO or anything except the plot, my girlfriend, Leo's soon to be girlfriend, Lisa, and Britt and any other characters you don't recognize.

Chapter 9

He shook her hand, "Nico, Nico Di Angelo." She had on a cute smile that, OH MY GODS! She was flirting with my boyfriend. Luckily, Nico noticed and followed up with, "And if you were wondering how I treat your friends, Andy is my girlfriend." Smart move boy, smart move. Lisa seemed a little disappointed, but she kept her smile on.

Shannon's hands flew up in triumph, "He admits it! Finally. They won't tell us anything!" We chose to ignore the comment.

"Well, who is the questing team?" By that time, Travis was gone.

"Us," Shannon answered. "This was the prophecy:

'You shall journey to the deadest land
With the thief, the ghost king, and the dam
To a land without love, or a single wise thought
The wisest and the loving will save you of all
You will find the lost and expose the traitor
And soon all will know whom is greater'"

Lisa nodded.

"What does it mean?" I asked.

She answered, "Well, my best interpretation is the deadest land would be the Underworld. The thief would be me, the Ghost King is Nico, and love would be Shannon. I remember that a couple years ago there was a son if Hades who helped out Percy and Annabeth in the Labyrinth and he called himself the Ghost King."

"Uh, yeah, that was me." Nico stated and I was shocked. How long had he been doing this sort of stuff?

Lisa continued, "The dam, hmm. It could be a cursed person..."

"Its me." I stated and that shocked all of us, even me.

"What?" Shannon screamed.

Nico had an idea, "You're right. A dam stops water, you can control water, so this quest may have something to do with water. Dam!" I had to giggle. Everyone stared at me like I had lost my mind now. I had to admit, I may have seemed a little bonkers. Finally, Lisa and Shannon caught on and joined me. Nico asked, "Why are you guys all giggling like idiots?" He just made us laugh harder.

"Maybe I can find some clothes for you Lisa, or maybe the dam can," Shannon replied, while still laughing.

"You know this isn't really a funny joke because my sister died on a quest that went through the Hoover Dam and Percy, Zoe, Thalia, and Grover already made this joke." That shut us up. We all sat there looking a little guilty. I walked up to Nico and hugged him. He seemed surprised at first, but he relaxed. I heard a bunch of footsteps and looked up. It was Percy, Annabeth, Jason, Piper, Thalia, a girl who looked about my age with dark skin and chocolate hair, a boy who looked maybe 15 or 16 and had a bow, and some hispanic dude. They were staring at Nico. Percy had his mouth open and Thalia looked at us like she had never seen anyone give Nico a hug before.

"You actually let... I'm gonna die!" was all anyone said, and by anyone, I mean Piper.

"Nico!" Thalia sounded almost excited, "You've grown social! You let someone hug you without them getting a death threat!" The girls in the group all started smiling and the boys still looked confused.

"Who are you people?" Lisa asked. She seemed impatient, not a typical of the normally calm Lisa Davis. With her orange hair and freaky green eyes, she looked a lot like the oracle, Rachel.

The hispanic dude answered, "My dear children, this is Frank Zhang, the son of the almighty Mars Ultor. This is Hazel and I'm sure she can introduce herself once Jason and Thals here start arguing again about who is older. And of course, I am yours truly, Leo Valdez. Son of Hephaestus with awesome powers over fire, also know as Supreme Commander of the Argo Dos. And I," he winked at Shannon and she stifled a giggle, "am available."

The dude was pretty funny.

"Well, this is Shannon, daughter of Eros or Cupid because I noticed you introduced Frank as the son of a Roman god as well as Jason was introduced to me. This is Lisa, she is the daughter of Hermes or Mercury. My name is Andromeda Jackson, I'm Percy's sister, and I'm the daughter of Poseidon or Neptune." We had a nice little chat which Shannon and Leo were flirting with each other through and made me want to gag. Thankfully, the horn blew, signaling it was time for dinner.

"Hey, Um... If you guys want to come down to the forge after dinner, I'll be there. I can help you out with a few magic weapons. My sister's 'friend', John from the Hecate cabin helps out with magicing the items up and he's coming down after dinner. I can get you guys suited with some more weapons before tomorrow morning. Trust me, you'll need them. With a child of Poseidon, a kid of Hades, a powerful kid of Hermes, and a beautiful archer like Shannon, you guys 'll be sending up monster flares like crazy. I have something that'll help you when your setting up camp to sleep and stuff, but other than that, there's not much I can do to help you guys." He flashed Shannon a crazy grin and she blushed.

Percy, Annabeth, Jason, Frank, Hazel, Leo, and Nico all headed up the hill. We waited for them to get out of earshot before basically screaming at Shannon, "Oh, you so like each other!" Piper gave a girly squeal and I wondered if she was still hyped up on the Mountain Dew from a few days ago. Shannon blushed an even deeper shade of scarlet.

"You think so? I mean, Leo is really hot, why would he like me?" We stared at her for a second not believing that she just asked that question.

Lisa answered, "Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? You are like, drop-dead gorgeous. Why wouldn't he want to go out with you? Your funny, smart, capable, and absolutely stunning. Of course he would want to go out with you!"

"I mean Leo flirts with like every girl he sees," Piper chided. "But I have never, not once, seen him flirt like this. Normally he'd try his cheesy pick-up line 'hey babe, hows about a hot date with team Leo' and be done, but that is like the most intently I have ever seen him flirt."

"Yeah, I know, Leo needs to get a better pick up line," a different voice said from behind us. It was Nico.

"How much of this conversation did you hear?" I asked.

"I heard everything from when Shannon called Leo hot." I grabbed my boyfriend by the shirt collar and pulled him down so he was eye-level with me.

"You didn't hear any of this conversation." I stated firmly. If he told Leo about this before Shannon got asked out, we would have a major girl code red on our hands. (My girl code reds are getting stood up, a guy overhearing a couple of girl conversations and he knows who the girl has a crush on, or a break-up over a text message. We girls are sensitive!) Wow, I'm turning into a major Aphrodite chick.

"Ok, but only if you promise to let go of my shirt." I kept my gaze locked with his. I was not going to back down.

"Swear it on the Styx you wont tell Leo, indirectly or otherwise."

"You know I think you like this a little too much." I turned red. We were almost nose to nose. He laughed a my reaction, "Fine, I swear on the river Styx that I wont tell Leo Shannon thinks he is hot until after they go on their first date, indirectly or otherwise." That satisfied me. I let go of his collar, but he didn't pull back up. Nico was about 3 inches taller than me. "Are you coming to dinner now?" he asked. I broke his gaze.

I realized the three girls were still there when they shouted, in unison, "Just kiss already!" Nico turned a deep shade of red that I thought was impossible for a human of his pale complexion to be, apparently not. I was probably still blushing by the time we got to the dining pavilion. Everyone was just sitting down as we came in, so it wasn't like we missed anything. Lisa went to go sit with her siblings from Hermes and apparently started joking around with them.

"What happened between you and Nico?" Percy asked.

I responded, "Oh, nothing. Just leave it to Lisa, Piper, and Shannon to make me defending my friend's honor an awkward moment. Why do you ask?"

"Your face is as red as a tomato," he said and I must have blushed harder, because he continued, "Its even redder now."

"What are you, an Aphrodite girl?" I asked. Percy was acting more like an Aphrodite girl than Piper was a few minutes ago, and thats hard to do.

We finished dinner (grilled chicken salad for me, YUM!), and headed to the forge. Percy left us to go hang out with Annabeth (go figure!) and he basically left the safety of us in the hands of Leo. To be honest, after I caught on fire, I didn't really trust the guy. We were about to knock on the door when it swung open. Leo came waddling out. He yelled, 'I told you they were coming Nyssa' and motioned for us to come in. I actually didn't realize I was on fire until Nico grabbed my hand and pulled aways quickly. It tickled. I must have looked like an insane idiot, with my arm on fire and giggling uncontrollably. Leo quickly smothered the flames with his hand and we realized my arm actually wasn't burnt. Yeah, it was a little pink, but it wasn't burnt. Nico's hand had only touched mine for less than a second, and already a white blister was starting to form on his fingers (I've been burned by a stove fire before so I know how it feels and how it looks, don't ask me, I have no idea why I would put my finger on a gas fire stove while it was on).

"Dude! You need some ice!" Leo exclaimed.

"I'm on it," I said. I concentrated and there was a thin layer of frost on Nico's hand.

Do you like it or hate it? Normally, I'm not good with fluff. Anyways, If you go on facebook there is a poster of Eros/Cupid. He looks really creepy right? Well, please review and please review honestly, and I totally know I was using the dam joke from titan's curse that reappears in MoA. Have a nice life and please, if you have already read HoH and this story doesn't match up, let me know and I'll do my best to fix it, but without reading the book, its kind of hard. Live, Laugh, Love. Wow, I feel more personal now than i did when I started this story, *shrugs*, whatever. I hope you enjoyed the story, and if you didn't, please tell me. Just review in general. Peace, live long and prosper y'all (Yeah, I'm also a trekie). So brief overview of all the couples I have mentioned (or are rooted for) in this story:

-Frazel

-Tratie

-Percabeth

-Jasper

-Sheo

-Andrico

Thalia and Rachel are still *all the single ladies, all the single ladies* (sorry, just had to). Nico Di Angelo is my favorite PJO character and I couldn't stand to see him all alone and sad, so I gave him a girlfriend and made him a little less... depressing.

I'm gonna stop my tangent and do my math now (see what I did there?)! Bye!