AN: This Story Is Far From Finished, I'm Only Posting To Know Whether The Story's Good Or Not, All Comments And PM's Welcome, BTW: I'll Change The Story's Format Into One More Comfortable To Read And Split It Into The Chapters You're Accustomed To After I Know If I Should Keep Writing Or Modify It

Nico di Angelo, Master-Shabti-Maker

Nico had placed Hades' key on the guard of his sword. That meant that even the simplest, dumbest, and harmless touch of his blade and I'd be dead. I drew my sword and got ready. I could see Cathy and Angel reach for their weapons but I said: "No. This is my fight. I'm the one who's going to kill Nico di Angelo." Cathy was about to say something but I cut her off with a deadly look that made her put her ivory boomerang back into wherever the hell she keeps it. I faced Nico and charged. Nico sidestepped and slashed at my sword arm. I used my left hand to shoot bolts of lightning at his chest before his sword could make contact, sending him a couple of feet back and making him grunt and almost scream in pain as I shot an electric missile at him while he was in the air. He got up and charged me. I blocked his every strike with an amount of speed and energy that I've never seen come out of me before. At one point, Nico tried to sidestep my attempted stab through his stomach but I just ended up slicing the side of his ribs. His blade met mine and I conducted electricity through the metal, making him fly backwards yet again. I seem to be doing that a lot. When he got up a ball of fire was speeding towards him and a bolt of lightning hit his right shoulder, making him drop his sword. I dug my blade into his throat. He deserved to die. He killed Moon-Moon. He was going to rise Apophis. But I couldn't kill him. That wasn't part of the quest. I wanted to, and I knew it wouldn't really make much of a difference with the Greek, Romans, or the Egyptians, but it wasn't right. I couldn't kill my own kind; a fellow demigod. When Nico saw that I wasn't going to kill him he reached for his sword in one last attempt to kill me but stabbed my sword on the ground, centimeters away from his fingertips, separating him from the sword. I grabbed Nico's sword by the handle, careful not to touch anything that might kill me and handed it to Cathy. "Here," I said. "Put this with you stick." She took the sword just as carefully as I and dropped it. Before it could touch the ground, the sword vanished. Cathy looked up and gasped. "WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO?!" she screamed. I looked over and Nico was dead. No. Not dead. He had turned into clay and his face had caved in. A red orb of light raised from his open mouth into the air, and out of sight. Cathy and Angel looked horrified, and I couldn't blame them. "I didn't do it, I swear!"

"Just look at him he–" Angel was cut off by Carter, who stepped up and said: "He didn't do it, Nico was using a shabti. It's kinda like a clay clone. For all we know he was never here. Someone must have tipped him off." The three of us looked around grimly. None of us could have done it, but that meant someone back at camp was an Egyptian spy. I racked my brain, thinking of anybody who might have a reason to spy on us. A voice behind me said "Luke." I looked over and there was Nico. He dropped to the floor from the pillar of black stone that he was standing on. "No shabti this time." He said, spreading his hands matter-of-factly. "And I'm trying to raise Luke, then I'll rise Apophis."

"Why do you even want to raise Apophis? What could you possibly gain?"

"Why power over the lands of course! Apophis promised me that if I help him rise once more, I'll have a land of my own, power of my own, entire legions of the dead all at my command. All if I raise Apophis!"

"This is not you!" I yelled out, even though I didn't know Nico before today, I was sure that this wasn't him. "It's the curse of the children of Hades! You have a never-ending hunger for power. Even if you rise Apophis and he keeps his promise, you'll still want more! It'll be the death of you!" Nico suddenly got furious. "WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME HUH?! WHAT MAKES YOU THINK THAT YOU COULD EVER UNDERSTAND WHAT I FEEL?! YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING! STOP ACTING LIKE YOU UNDERSTAND!" As he was yelling an earthquake had begun and I suspect it was he who made it. Bones started popping up around the floor, shadows got thicker, and, much like his father, he radiated fear. It didn't phase me one bit. The fifth of our seven days was running out. Carter had made sure all of the Egyptians went back inside then closed the door behind him. Real helpful. Nico drew his sword, and judging by the power it radiated, I could tell that this was the real deal. Nico fought way better than his shabti, and honestly, I could barely keep up with him. One touch of his sword, and I was dead. Cathy and Angel were helping me this time, but that didn't make it any better. Angel's light was useless against Nico, the darkness of his sword simply absorbed anything Angel threw at him. Cathy lobes fireballs at him but there were chinks of black stone swirling around him and they gathered in one spot to protect Nico from Cathy. At one point, Angel and I made eye contact for a second, just a second, but we knew the battle plan by that one second. Angel started glowing, then the glow moved from his chest, to his hands, leaving the rest of his body vulnerable, but making the palms of his hands an extremely powerful weapon. Two giant lasers were fired at Nico and I used the split second it took Nico to absorb Angel's attack I used to fire that blast of polarity that was supposed to make Nico fly backwards. What happened was I discovered a new power that reminded me of the Doctor Who 50th Anniversary Special: "The Day of the Doctor." In the episode, the 11th Doctor (Matt Smith) tells the 10th Doctor (David Tennant) to reverse the polarity on something I'm not taking the time to explain right now. The point is that polarity can be reversed, so if my blast of polarity sent other people flying backwards, my new power was a reversed polarity, meaning I propelled my self. Funny the things one thinks about when they just blast themselves with what they were supposed to hit their enemy with. I somehow managed to spin in the air and fly towards Nico. Flying like this is so much easier than using the air. The polarity didn't look the same when it was reversed though. This time, it looked as though I had two small balls of lightning in my hand, which I did, and a bunch of stray arks of lightning were coming from the balls, trying to connect themselves to anything available. As I flew towards Nico, he raised his sword, ready for me to get there. I realized I my sword was now a ring again and before I got within striking distance for Nico's sword, I stopped the electric thrusters/propellers, spun in the air, landed and blasted a shot of polarity at Nico. The good kind. Nico was blasted back and Cathy took that time to make tendrils of pure black form around her, and engulf Nico. I've never seen her do anything like it and I doubted she could teach me that. Nico was now encased in a circling sphere of black tendrils and his sword, still flying towards the mansion. I guess it has a bigger impact on conductors of electricity. Right before anything happened, Carter appeared encased in a golden warrior/chicken avatar and caught the sword. Apparently the avatar was protecting him. "Great timing," I said. "Hey you wanna take on the Manticore we killed two and a half weeks ago?"

"Sorry." He said chuckling slightly.

"What do we do with him?" I asked Cathy. "Do we like keep him in that thing till we get to camp or what?"

Cathy already looked tired so I said to Carter. "Is there any way that you could help us take him to camp?" Angel looked at me like I was crazy. "Are you seriously suggesting that we take him to camp?" asked Angel. "I gotta agree with Angel, I really don't think we should do this." Said Cathy, though she was barely keeping the spell active. "We know the location of this mansion/warehouse/Egyptian training ground, so why not?" I asked, turning to Carter. "Please," I said. "Help us." Carter, who had switched to his non-avatar form a while ago, yelled out: "Freak!" I was about to bitch-slap him across his black-ass face when I heard another voice screech: "FREAK!" A giant bird with feathers like daggers and a boat tied behind him that somehow didn't dangle, just followed him (some kind of spell I'm sure.), appeared flying over us, it's wings moving with unbelievable speed, making a sound somewhat similar to that of a hummingbird. Cathy collapsed, drenched in sweat, panting. I ran to her side to see if she was okay. "I'm fine," She said before I even asked the question. "Just tired." We set her down on the boat tied to the back of the griffin named "Freak," just as Nico was beginning to stir. Carter pointed his sword at Nico and said: "Ha-Ri!" A green hieroglyph burned between Carter's sword and Nico's face and the guy dropped unconscious. As we were on the boat ride, Angel had fallen asleep and I was about to, for a griffin this guy sure flew slowly. I leaned close to Carter and said: "So...let's just, hypothetically, say that a non-Egyptian wanted to learn some Egyptian magic, could he?" Carter looked dumbfounded for a couple of seconds but said. "Um...yeah, it's happened before with Moses, you don't want to know. Do you have any experience with magic?" He asked, which of course resulted in my hand bursting into flames, I love doing that. "I like combat magic," I said. "Know any spells?"

"Are you kidding?" he asked smiling. "Let's get to work." Cater pulled out little wax men from thin air and threw them into the little free space there was on the boat. "Ha-wi!" he shouted at the shabti who had grown to full size, pointing his sword at it. A hieroglyph blazed green, and the little man was blasted backwards. "Your turn." He said, producing a bowl of blue ink and a stylus from thin air. "Let's tattoo you're tongue."

Underworld Magic Ain't The Only Magic This Puto Knows!