IV

Nico

Nico felt pretty helpless. He was still panting, tired from the shadow-travel just a moment ago. His vision was slightly blurry. Transporting the Athena Parthenos was harder than he'd thought.

"Hiyah!" Coach Hedge yelled. "Take that!"

Shortly after, Nico heard the sound of a baseball bat cracking.

"Hey!" Hedge yelled. "That was my only weapon! DIE!" Nico heard the sound of sand scattering on the ground.

"Nice one, Reyna!" Coach Hedge yelled. Through his blurry eyes, Nico could barely see anything. He saw a giant black bunch of things, but he couldn't get his eyes to focus. Hellhounds, perhaps? He was so tired, he didn't even care about the hellhounds.

Another spattering of monster dust. "Cool!" Coach Hedge yelled.

"Maybe you could come over here?" Reyna asked. "The Athena Parthenos-it's attracting more of them!"

"Fine." Coach Hedge was awfully subdued-he usually was screaming, "KILL!" or "DIE!" at the top of his voice. But since the Necromanteion, he'd been drifting on and off.

Nico really couldn't stand it anymore. He was too tired-he honestly didn't care whether or not he got eaten. There. That's better. He thought as he adjusted himself, drifting off to sleep.

When he woke up, he wasn't in the clearing, or at least he thought he'd been in a clearing. Instead, he was in a giant, moonlit cave. It was probably about as big as a shopping mall, with a giant hole at the top.

Nico had heard about prophetic dreams. Everyone had them. But what Nico was expecting (a giant of some kind and a really powerful enemy) was unfulfilled, and instead, out of the shadows and into the moonlight, came a serene woman.

She was wearing silk clothes. Her face was gentle, with a firm expression, and her arms were spread wide. Her long black hair flowed down her back. Her eyes were both angry and compassionate at the same time.

"So, Nico di Angelo. You have finally arrived." Her voice was full of support and forgiveness, but at the same time, full of anger and despise.

"Who-who are you?" Nico asked. He assumed that the woman was probably an enemy, but she didn't seem like one. He had to be sure.

"I am Aletheia, the goddess of truth." She said.

Nico felt rooted to the spot. This wasn't what he'd expected. He knew something big was going to happen to him, right then, and it would have to do with the truth.

Images of Percy Jackson went through his head. His emotions boiled wildly. He forced them to calm down.

"Nico." Aletheia comforted him. "I did not come to cause you to feel pain. I come with a warning, and the truth."

Nico was trembling. His mind refused to accept the truth. His mind was shoving away every single thought that entered it. He braced himself for the worst.

"Nico di Angelo." Aletheia continued. "You do not know yourself well enough. You have spent too long hiding from the living, not knowing what it truly means to love, care, have friends, have trust."

Nico's heart pounded even harder.

"But you do know." Aletheia said. "Everyone knows. But they let their preconceived beliefs, not truth, guide them. People think they know themselves. How wrong they are."

She fixed her eyes on him. "I said I come with a warning. You will face a great obstacle along the way back to your Camp, and only the truth will manage to clear it."

Nico's heart was pounding against his chest. He was calming down, but he was still on edge.

"You still have much to learn about your real self, Nico di Angelo." Aletheia said. "You belong more than you realize. More people care about you than you think. You have more friends than you believe."

Nico had never felt like anyone was his friend, even Jason, who he barely considered to be one. He'd revealed his secret to him, but now, he was anxious to get back to the others, just to see if Jason had told them.

Aletheia sighed. "Nico. I must leave now. I am being called. But you must remember, only the truth will be able to allow you to overcome your obstacle."

She disappeared back into the shadows.

Nico woke up to the sound of (you guessed it) Coach Hedge screaming, "WAKE UP!"

He jolted awake. Coach Hedge was yelling in his face, spewing Satyr spit, hairballs and some other pretty nasty things all over his face. "Ew!" Nico said, using his sleeves to wipe all the disgustingness off his noggin.

He looked around. "What-" around them was a giant pack of hellhounds. And by gigantic, it didn't mean just about 50 or so-there were probably thousands, and each one was twice as big as a regular hellhound.

Reyna was still fighting, but she wasn't doing very well. Once her sword sliced one in half, another one lunged at her. It was all she could do to avoid getting killed.

Nico cursed and drew his stygian iron blade. The black iron glinted in the setting sun.

Wait… Nico very clearly had shadow-traveled during noon. He'd been sleeping for over 5 hours!

Whatever, he thought. He charged into battle.

Big mistake.

Nico raised his hand, but nothing happened. Shadow-traveling the Athena Parthenos had seriously sapped his strength. He was strong enough to battle, but not enough to summon any dead people.

He cursed again, and sliced a hellhound to bits. Immediately, another hellhound pounced behind him, and pinned him down.

"Sit!" Nico yelled. The hellhound ignored him.

So these hellhounds weren't like the ones he'd ridden before. Usually, he could control them (somewhat) but these were so powerful, so ancient, that not even he could control them.

Nico stabbed the hellhound in the neck. It exploded into dust.

Suddenly, he felt a tug in his feet. He looked down and saw a hellhound tugging at his feet, trying to bite them off. He tried to throw his knife, but as he was priming for it, he heard a giant spattering of dust behind him. A hellhound had pounced at his head, only to stab itself on his knife.

Nico threw the blade. It hit the other hellhound right on the eye. It exploded into dust. Luckily for him, the monsters didn't reform immediately-they'd closed the Doors already.

Nico stood back up. He looked around, trying to get a good view of the battle. To his left, Coach Hedge was busy using his hands to wreck the hellhounds. He was punching, kicking and once even wrangled a hellhound to its death. Nico didn't even wince when he saw what Hedge was doing. Being around the dead all the time really gave you a better stomach for grisly scenes.

These hellhounds were huge. They were basically as tall as half a tree, sometimes even taller. Luckily, they weren't interested in him, since he was a son of Hades, but they were wreaking havoc on his companions.

Suddenly, he heard a loud scream. He whipped his head around, and he saw a hellhound picking up Reyna in its jaws and swinging her around.

Adrenaline rushed through his veins. His mind went blurry. A strange feeling went through his heart. He was determined to kill all the hellhounds. He raised his hands, pretty much sapping every last drop of his energy, and he raised his arms. A giant rumble came, and suddenly, every single hellhound dropped into the canyon that Nico had just created around them. Reyna had been spit out, safely on the ground, covered with dog drool.

Coach Hedge looked at Nico, understandably shocked. Nico had just created a canyon, roughly 40 meters wide, with rushing lava at the bottom, right around them and the Athena Parthenos. He'd killed every single hellhound with one swipe of his hand.

Nico couldn't hold on to consciousness any longer. He had used up every single drop of his reserves to create that canyon. He didn't even have enough time to process what he'd just done. He just closed his eyes and blacked out.