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The Loss of a Hero: Chapter Eighteen

Percy POV

We emerged from the shadows, and Steven shivered. "You all right?" I asked.

He nodded, and he straightened up. He was shaking, but you could only barely see it, and it was just his hands. He hid his fright well.

"Jake!" yelled Zoe. I turned around, and saw the team, most of them passed out. The only ones awake other than Zoe were Raven and Annabeth.

Raven looked up groggily, as if she'd just woken up. "Where have you been?" she said, a bit sourly. "We've been out here for three days."

I froze. "What?

Will looked at his watch. "Just a minute or two after we left, same day, so it wasn't the shadow-travel."

"But… Ah, crud, that means I passed out for three days?!"

"Apparently so."

I looked at Annabeth, who had dark circles under her eyes. "I'm so sorry."

"It-it's okay," she said, and I could hear the exhaustion weighing down on her.

Raven looked up again tiredly. "Annabeth played Miss Hero and refused to sleep," she said, her words a bit slurred.

"I was watching over Chloe and N-nico," Annabeth protested. She crossed her arms defiantly. She was wrapped up in a purple jacket, and it looked really good on her. My heart skipped a beat, but I kept my expression neutral. Time to think about that later. Focus!

"I am not going to sleep until they're both safe and b-back at camp." She tilted slightly.

"Got a tranq patch?" I whispered to Steven.

"On it," he whispered back. He set the to-go boxes of barbeque on the ground and opened his bag.

I set my boxes beside his. "So, how are Chloe and Nico?" I asked, both out of concern and to distract Annabeth, so that Steven could sneak behind her and apply the tranquilizer patch.

"Chloe is still p-passed out. Nico…" she trailed off. Her sleep-heavy eyes filled with tears.

"What?" I started to panic. "He's not…"

"N-no, but he's not … I don't…" Words failed her, and she covered her face with her hands, weeping.

"Steven, do it," I said. He'd sneaked up behind Annabeth, and had been waiting for me to give the word. He nodded and gently pressed the patch on the back of her neck. She gasped, then slumped forward. I ran forward and caught her.

"…How could you…" she said, then her eyes finally closed, and she went limp. I felt bad, but she wasn't helping anyone, and she was hurting herself, by refusing to sleep like that. The last thing we needed was for her to pass out and have to be attended to – We already had Nico and possibly Chloe, though I figured that all Chloe needed was sleep.

"That was kinda cold, but good work," Raven said. She'd shaken off the grogginess and was fresh and alert.

"I know. She'll give me Hades for it later, I'm sure. She wasn't doing anything but depriving herself of badly needed rest, though." I laid Annabeth gently down on the ground.

She smirked. "Yeah, we already got a piece of her mind a few times when we told her that."

I chuckled. "I imagine you did, that's just like her."

Raven paused, giving me a funny look, and I remembered that I shouldn't know very much about Annabeth. Oops. "Anyway, how's Nico doing?"

She gave me a slightly wary look, but apparently decided to worry about it later. "Not good. We couldn't stop the bleeding too well." She pointed to the sleeping Will, who was wearing Clarisse's coat, which was much too big for him. "We didn't have bandages, so Will sacrificed his shirt. However, the blood soaked right through, so Annabeth used hers as well." She gestured to the purple jacket that Annabeth was wearing. "I let her have my coat." I noticed that she was shivering lightly - it was a cold day.

I slipped my leather jacket off and held it out to Raven. "Here, you can use mine."

She smiled. "Thanks." She took it. Her hands glowed briefly, and all of a sudden she was holding her purple jacket. My jacket was now wrapped around Annabeth. I raised an eyebrow.

"I prefer my jacket, thanks. Besides, I think Annabeth might prefer to be in yours." She smiled mischievously.

"What do you mean by that?"

She chuckled. "I mean that I think she's crushing on you a bit."

My insides turned cold. Uh-oh. "Oh. Well, um… I'm not really interested…"

Raven rolled her eyes. "Yeah, sure."

"I'm serious!"

"Uh-huh, that's totally believable."

I sighed. Annabeth couldn't get close to me. I was dead. I wouldn't age. And not only that, I was weak. The power that had been drained out of me hadn't returned to me when we cut the connection between Nico and the thing possessing him. I remembered my first fight with Luke when I'd started training. I had boundless reserves of raw power, I could do almost anything I could imagine, and many things I never imagined. Now my greatest tricks were making myself look different and shadow-traveling.

Raven looked at me curiously. "Hey, Jake, you alright?"

I scratched the back of my head. "Yeah. I'm fine."

"You sure?"

"Yeah," I said.

We stood there in silence for a bit, until I heard a yell. "Holy cripes! The heck hit him? A psychotic lawnmower?!"

"I guess Steven found Nico," Raven said. "C'mon, he's over here."

I followed Raven a little past where they'd camped. A huge glowing bubble of purple energy encased a floating purple stretcher, and on that stretcher, barely clinging to life, was Nico.

Steven was already inside the bubble, flipping out. "This guy should be dead! Good gods, I think his body has lost the ability to repair itself!"

Raven walked straight through the bubble like it wasn't there, and I followed her. The area inside was big, so we weren't cramped together in the least. It was more the size of a tent, so Steven had plenty of room for his supplies, which he was madly rummaging through. He pulled out a bottle of nectar and tried dripping some into Nico's mouth, murmuring prayers to his father, Apollo, as he worked. At least, most of the time. I was glad that Will and Eve were asleep, because the other thing that Steven was muttering was a vicious stream of profanity. Nothing he did seemed to change anything in Nico. If anything, he was breathing less.

Nico's wounds, as Steven had said, wouldn't stop bleeding. Normally it'd scab over, but nothing helped. Nico had lost a lot of blood, even with all the makeshift bandages. I could feel his life fading away. There were but mere minutes left. Steven continued flipping out quietly as the life slowly left our friend. Raven was quietly sitting aside from us, and I could feel the hopelessness in the air around her. Soon there were only seconds left.

I swore loudly and violently. My mind raced desperately for anything, a sliver of hope.

And then I had an idea.

"Steven, get out of the way," I said, pushing him aside and standing next to Nico. I closed my eyes, calling up the darkness within me. My essence, my heart.

My life.

I touched my mouth with two fingers, and a small ball of darkness appeared there. I touched Nico's chest, and it sank into him. I waited a moment. A minute. An hour.

And then Nico opened his eyes.

End of Chapter 18

Hey, guys~

Woot! Nico! …But is he really saved? At this point, he could live or die equally easy. I hold the life of Nico in my hands. The blind poll I had up earlier in the story decided it, and only I know the fate of the Son of Hades… Dun dun dun!

Oh, the perils of writing. There are so many details that you have to remember, like, for instance, what season it is in your story . I was writing and then I realized that I had no idea what time of year it was. So… I had to go back and figure it out…

…Apparently the story started in winter. I'll say it was February. So, with the time elapsed, (which I have to go back and figure out, again) that means it's only a few weeks past that, so I think it's roughly the middle of March. March is a fairly cold month. No plot errors, woot! ^-^

In case anyone is wondering, the thing where Percy scratches the back of his head, that's one of my mannerisms. It can mean anything from embarrassment to uncertainty to thinking about rough things. It's just kinda a thing, Percy is pretty much the main character, and so he shares a bit of my personality.*shrug*

Irianna Marie, thanks for reviewing again! I will take a look at your fanfictions soon, when I have some spare time.

Keep submitting pairings votes by review or by poll! Remember to read the rules first on my profile. Pairings will start happening soon, so get your votes in quick!

Read and review!

~Ben