HEY GUYS! I missed you all so much! Did you miss me? I had a great time at the Inauguration Conference. I met so many amazing people, went to the Inaugural Gala with a great (and socially awkward) guy, laughed at the private concert, and met all of those cool actors and Emmy winners and directors. But sadly, when I got home, I got sick:(

So, I've posted a new PJO one-shot called Billow. You should check it out! And chapter 4 of The Asylum on my other account is finally posted!

Sorry for Typos and OOCness! Filler chapter right here! Sorry about it, but I was in a tough position with unconscious Nico and needed to write something…

Happy Reading!

Chapter 22

Nico

The last thing Nico remembered was searing pain to the head and spinning colors, and a guy that look a whole lot like Percy Jackson…

There was no way that had been Percy. His brain said that to him. But his eyes told him, "YOU IDIOT! HE WAS RIGHT THERE!"

When Nico's eyes fluttered open, he automatically knew he was in a dream. He was in that floating state of not here and not there, but somewhere in the middle of all that. His head hurt like someone had hit him with a hammer, and he could hear his blood rushing in his ears.

He looked down at his body. Everything was intact, but his sword wasn't with him. Even though he was in a dream, he still wished that he had the comfort of a blade at his side. But then he thought that was kind of weird. No one else would understand how a death blade could be comforting.

Stretching in a lazy manner, he observed his new surroundings. No longer was he at a sunny beach in Kauai, Hawaii, next to Piper's Barbie Mansion. He was back in the House of Hades… or, at least, outside of it.

The gates loomed over him menacingly. They were closed again and Nico was afraid to try and go inside. But nonetheless, he pushed on the gates. They flew open without any trouble. He cautiously took a step inside, and he didn't teleport across the world to some other island.

Instead, the cavern got even darker, and the more steps he took to get inside, the darker it got. He couldn't see a single thing soon enough.

He put his hands out in front of him to try and see the way through touch, but all he hit was stone. His head knocked against it and throbbed even more. He touched his head and blood rubbed off on his fingers.

Laughter boomed behind him, and Nico whirled around. "Who's there?" he called, trying to muster enough power in voice to sound a little intimidating. Sadly, his voice cracked.

The laughter was the same that he had heard before in his other dreams. Nico forced himself to leave his safe rock wall and walk forward. The laughter didn't stop and got much louder as he approached the voice.

The lights started to get brighter as the torches began to illuminate the cavern again. Finally, Nico left the gates behind him and stood where he and his friends once had only a few hours before.

"Who are you?" Nico asked. "What do you want from me?"

"My name is Tityos, and it's not what I want from you, it's what I can do for you."

"Great, a salesman…" Nico muttered, but there was a thundering in the ground, followed by that same laughter, and the entire place was sent into nighttime.

Nico wasn't sure how longer he stood there in the darkness, but after a while, a single match was lit as footsteps neared him. They echoed through the cavern and bounced off of the rock walls. And a man, fifteen feet tall, approached.

The man was dressed in a suit that looked like it had been ironed a thousand times, with a bright red and dark green tie. The guys face was startling. He had a thousand scars covering his body, all through his dark brown eyes and up into his messy black hair.

Nico had seen this face before, during the Titan War. "Prometheus?" he asked.

"No, Tityos," the man corrected with a chuckle. "But I've heard that the resemblance is startling."

"Tityos?" Nico looked around, then met the man's gaze. He had to look straight up to see him correctly. The brown eyes bored into his own. They seemed millennia old and like they knew everything, kind of like Athena. "I've never heard of you in my entire life."

"Hm, pity," Tityos sighed. "I'm such a misunderstood man. But alas, there's nothing that I can do about that. I will have to leave that up to the Earth Mother."

"The Earth Mother… you work for Gaea?" Nico asked.

"Boy, not only do I work for Gaea," he said, "I'm her son."

"Wait, you're a giant?" Nico asked. He scrambled backwards, wishing that he had his sword again. His hands fumbled in his pockets for something, anything that he could use to his advantage. Every weapon that he had collected was gone, and he had no way to defend himself.

But Tityos didn't seem like he wanted to fight at all. He actually seemed amused by Nico's reaction. "Well, I'm pretty tall, am I not? Usually, that a dead giveaway that I'm some type of inhuman being. But yes, I am a giant. And I have no wish to fight you. It wouldn't be fair, seeing as you have no weapons, and you're in a dream anyway. No damage will be done. "

"You look just like Prometheus." Nico couldn't help himself. The guy took another step closer. He saw the scars again. They looked almost like tattoos. The man noticed Nico looking and took a step backward, like he was self-conscious about them.

"I'd like it if you didn't stare. It's rude," he scolded like an angry father. "But I suppose I am like Prometheus, in a way. I was chained and stretched in the Underworld, brought there by Apollo and Artemis, and then tortured by two vultures who fed on my liver, repeatedly, for all eternity."

"Then why do you have scars on your face?" Nico asked.

"Sometimes they missed," Tityos admitted. He held up one of his hands in front of the match. It too was covered in horrid scars.

"Why did they do that to you?"

"I did many… wrong things back then, but I hope you'll forget about those wrongs and hear me out for a few minutes. I have a proposal for you, Nico di Angelo, son of Hades."

"How did you escape the torture?"

"I have a few allies and friends, if you can believe it. They saved me from my punishment a few months ago, and I escaped the Underworld for the first time in such a long while. But enough on that. There's a war coming, Nico. And I'm afraid that you might not live to see the end of it."

"What?" Nico was sure he hadn't heard the giant right. "What do you mean that I might not live to see the end of it? And what war?"

Tityos held up a hand to silence Nico. "You sure ask a lot of questions. Instead of explaining this, I think it would be much easier to show you." The giant waved his hand in a high arc, and then motioned for Nico to look at the ceiling.

A video had begun to play. Nico couldn't make it out that well, but he could hear the muffled voice of a girl, reading a poem of some sort. "What is that supposed to be?" Nico asked. "I can't hear a thing!"

The video disappeared, and Tityos sighed. "It was your good friend Annabeth. There's a prophecy, son of Hades, and it involves you. I'm sorry, but if the prophecy is right, a sacrifice will have to be made, and that sacrifice might just be you."

"Me?" Nico's vision was getting black. His head hurt even more, and everything seemed to be spinning. "Why me?"

"I'm not sure. But here's what I can do about this. I can offer you a deal, and deal in which your friends, Percy and Annabeth, will live, and so will you. My mother asked me to tell you about this."

"If it had anything to do with Gaea, then I am not interested," Nico grumbled.

"Well, that's selfish. This could save yourself and your friends. All we want is your support in this war. We want you to be our spy."

"A spy?" He had to have been bit in the head by vultures a little too much.

"Yes, a spy. You are a son of the death god. You can shadow, can you not? You could go back and forth between us and enemy forces, translating information. You could help us, and none of your friends would get hurt. I think you would be selfish to turn down an offer like this."

A horrible memory appeared in Nico's mind. A dead Silena lying on the ground, and watching the camp burn her pink shroud after the war was over. Was this what had happened to Silena when Luke recruited her? Was she given these types of promises? Nico remembered her dead body on the ground. That had been such a lie, and so many of her friends had ended up dead.

"I would never be a spy for Gaea. You must think I am crazy."

"No, you must be crazy." Tityos didn't sound desperate or scared. He still sounded bored and a little amused. "This proposition could help you and your friends. You could all die unless you take this offer. Why not do it?"

"Because I don't trust Gaea at all. It's her fault that Percy and Annabeth are in Tartarus in the first place. And speaking of Percy, why in the name of Zeus did I just see him relaxing in Kauai?"

Tityos waved his hand. "That was just Triton, Percy's half brother. That doesn't matter right now though. What matters is that you could be a spy. I urge you to think about this a little bit. You would be saving lives."

"No thank you," said Nico. In his gut, he knew he was making the right decision. He had seen what had happened when Silena became a spy, and he didn't want anything like that to happen to him. "I'll find a way to save my friends and defeat your forces, and if that means I am going to die, then so be it."

"You are a fool and a child," grumbled Tityos. "Do you realize that the Greeks and Romans are lining up on the battlefield right now, preparing to kill each other off, one by one in a massive battle? Obviously you don't."

"There's a battle?"

"Yes, and people are going to die! You could prevent that by becoming a spy."

Nico felt nervous. He was starting to sweat. What if was making the wrong choice? It might be his fault that all of his friends, both Greek and Roman, would start to kill each other. He didn't want anything like that to happen, but he didn't want to join with Gaea. He had a feeling that more people would that way.

"My final answer is no. And we will beat you, and Percy and Annabeth will live."

"And you will die. I'm so sorry, Nico di Angelo. You could've been a great ally. But I see you choice had been finally made. The next time that we meet, I will no longer be a diplomat. I will be a giant, and you will be a demigod, and we will be enemies on the battlefield."

The a whoosh of cold wind, the burning match went out.

Reviews and ideas are loved. Review challenge! What's the weirdest movie you've ever seen? For me, it's the Cat Returns. It's a 2002 Japanese anime movie, and it is so… weird…

-BBH