Bianca di Angelo & The Olympians

Ares + Athena? What in the....

Percy POV

My day was going perfectly normal until Nico di Angelo arrived.

Maybe I should back up.

It was any other April morning for me. I had gotten up 10 minutes late, and neglected to shower or eat so I wouldn't miss the Subway. Tyson was scared to go in the tunnels alone.

Tyson. Right. I'll explain him in a moment.

So I, for 7th grade, have been going to Merriweather College Prep, which is a progressive school. Due to this, the teachers are always wearing casual clothing, having us all sit on bean bag chairs, and being so upbeat that I wanted to throw myself off a cliff. The kids actually made me want to throw myself off a cliff, for very different reasons.

One, they bullied me everyday. It wasn't that I gave a crap about that, but they bullied me because of Tyson. Tyson was this Community project, and he was homeless. Tyson was big and strong, I'd say about 7 feet tall, had a face so ugly I couldn't bear to look above his nose, and a total softie. Of course, as soon as the kids figured that out he was shunned by everyone except for me. In turn, I was shunned.

Two, they managed to get good grades despite their behaviour, while I had to fumble with my constant pen clicking (Not Riptide, although it'd be interesting to do someday), inability to read, and constant fear of being attacked by some rabid chihuahua (It's happened before).

So yeah. My day was going good as ever, and I hauled myself out of math class, with Tyson in tow. "I gotta go to the bathroom, Percy." I sighed internally, and followed him into the bathroom. Usually I kept guard for Tyson so there wouldn't be any incidents. But in the off chance, I had to go too.

I elected to just hide in one of the few stalls, for more privacy, so you could imagine my surprise when I heard a "Psst." from above just after I had done up my fly.

My head shot upwards to see none other than the Son of Hades himself. "What in-"

"Shh." He put his fingers to his lips. He pointed across the stall to where Tyson would be standing, in a 'get rid of him' manner. I walked out of the stall, now noticing that there was a broken light in the corner, where Nico stood. I asked Tyson to meet me in our next class, saying I'd catch up with him in a second. He eventually agreed and made his way out.

"Camps in trouble."

I quickly turned to the boy emerging from the shadows. He was wearing the trademark orange tee with black camo pants. His hair had grown out, as had he; the quite a few inches I'd had on him last year was now only a couple inches of height. The guy would probably be tall growing up. "What's wrong? And why couldn't you have told me this at home?" I asked, irritated. One year, is that so hard?

Nico hesitated. "Someone poisoned Thalia's tree." My eyes widened, not at the news itself, but the implications of it. That tree was what kept Camp safe, if it were to be poisoned... Who would do that?

"I never spoke my suspicions out loud, especially in front of Ann, but Luke seems the most plausible, don't you think?" He replied to my internal monologue (I swear, that kid could read my mind). "Oh, and to your second question-"

"My mom would never let me leave before finishing the school year."

Nico clapped his hands together. "You got it."

I bit my lip, "How long until the tree dies?"

"At this rate I'd say-" he scrunched his eyebrows, "-I think a few months, according to Katie. Oh, I have a question too." I shrugged my shoulders, "When did you meet that cyclops?"

I nearly choked. "Cyclops? Wha- no, Tyson, h- h- he..."

Nico cocked an eyebrow, "You couldn't tell." He concluded. "Why do you think he trusts your judgement on every decision? He's a monster son of Poseidon." I went to interrupt, but he forged on, "That is not important right now. Tantalus, he's been keeping an eye on me and my sister; he knows we can shadow travel, and I don't think he want us warning the demigods at home-"

"Stop." I put my hands up. "Cyclops? Really?" I asked weakly, and he nodded. "Okay, okay, er... Who's Tantalus?"

He put his arm out. "You'll see." I knew he wanted me to shadow travel with him; it was something Bianca had done on our quest last year with Annabeth. When I had left, Nico had only barely been able to manipulate the shadows, but I assumed he had improved.

I bit my lip in thought. There were no cameras in the bathroom, so it would look as if I had vanished into thin air. My mom would be frantic, but she also knew of the life I lived. And I should be defending camp if it's that bad there. So I linked my arm through Nico's, ignoring how awkward it felt standing this close to him, and followed him into the shadows.

I had never shadow travelled before, and I could only describe it as a void; no air, ice cold, wrapping around me. No wonder Nico was so pale all the time. We emerged just outside of Camp borders. The camp looked nearly the same as it had when I had left, except for the loosely placed line of people on the hill. Thankfully we were out of their view.

"Border Patrol," Nico whispered to me, "Annabeth was able to convince Dionysus and Tantalus to add it 24/7."

I asked, confused, "What about Chiron?"

"You'll see. Now I'm going to travel to my room in The Big House, where I've been having a nap on my free hour. You are gonna strut up there, confidently, and say you had a dream that bad things were happening at camp so you decided to come see what was wrong. Got it?" I nodded. "Good luck." he vanished into the darkness.

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." I whispered into the air. I stood from my spot and began my trek up the hill. Eventually one of the patrols spotted me.

"Percy?" I heard  voice.

"Of late, that's my name, yes!" He instructed a son of Dionysus to alert the head of camp of my arrival, and they ran off.

He looked at me in confusion, "It's the middle of a school day, why are you here?"

I debated telling him the truth when I remembered that, y'know, Greek mythology existed. And with my luck someone and/or something would be listening. "I had a demigod dream. Something about the camp being in trouble. Seeing as there's border patrol now..."

He sighed, and responded, "There's a lot happening right now. The pine tree, it was poisoned, hence border patrol," I nodded along, though I already knew this, "And the gods seem to think that..."

"What?" I asked, fearing the tone in his voice.

"...That Chiron may have done it." Beckendorf shook his head rapidly as he spoke, "But they're only saying that because his father is Kr- The King of Titans." I guess I could see why the gods might think like that. After all, our entire quest last year was based on assumptions we had about certain immortals. I still wasn't happy about it, but I grit my teeth and kept listening. "And then, of course, there's some prejudice between the Ares kids and the Di Angelos." I frowned, wondering why Nico hadn't mentioned it. "It seems silly, but in practice, it feels like you have to pick a side constantly. Even capturing the flag is now led by those two, with the Athena kids, if you can believe it, on Ares' side."

We finally hit the Big House. "Good luck with Tantalus, he's here from the fields of punishment to fix his curse, so the gods are letting him be Activities Director." Beckendorf walked back to his border patrol shift, and I turned to the door. Good luck, me.