Sliver Of Shadow

Mental Deception

A/N: One of my favorite parts of the story is in this chapter! Enjoy!

"Seriously?" Nico shouted, slashing down another one of the vile creatures before the thing bit Calypso (who was lying in an unconscious heap at his feet). "Now you go looking for monsters?"

"I only needed one basilisk! I wasn't expecting to find a whole nest of them, honest!" Leo yelled back from across the shallow pit, burning three of the snakes to ashes with his bare hands. "Really, dude - I'm sorry!"

Nico growled in frustration. "Stronzo." He scooped Calypso up and leaped over another puddle of steaming basilisk poison, landing gracefully next to the older boy. "I'll have to shadow travel now. Oh, Will is going to kill me."

Leo had created another one of his "ingenious" inventions - he'd claimed it could rival even the Valdezinator. The only catch? A vial of basilisk poison was needed for it to work. So he'd dragged Calypso on a search for them - a search that had been only too successful, as he'd soon found.

Fortunately, he'd managed to contact Nico via screaming and setting himself on fire - but not before a rogue basilisk knocked his girlfriend out. Now, they were fighting for their lives along with a multitude of exploding zombie weasels, courtesy of the resident son of Hades.

"Grab onto my arm!" Said demigod shouted. Leo obeyed, clutching a flask of burning green liquid (basilisk poison) in the other - hey, a life and death situation could never get in the way of his inventions.

Nico was… irritated upon seeing this - to put it mildly. But there was nothing he could do about Leo's idiocy besides keep it from killing the son of Hephaestus. Sighing, he mumbled a few (colorful) curses under his breath. At least we're safe now, he thought as they melted into shadows.

A demigod should never say that.

As they traveled through the cold nothingness, Nico felt Leo and Calypso being pulled away…

A few miles away, Mesperyian laughed with delight. The plan was working perfectly.
~

Will was, unsurprisingly, livid when Nico told him the news.

"YOU SHADOW TRAVELED?! NICO DI ANGELO, WHEN WILL YOU GET IT THROUGH YOUR OBNOXIOUSLY THICK HEAD THAT THAT IS DANGEROUS?! YOU COULD HAVE MELTED, YOU MORON!" He shouted - then took a deep, heaving breath, about continue his gods-damned rant, when Nico stopped him.

"Look, Will. I'm sorry, and you know that. But right now we have to look for Leo - he could be anywhere in the underworld. And… I have a feeling this wasn't a mere accident." Nico bit his lip, keeping the rest of his suspicions to himself - as that sharp, cold feeling he'd had while the demigods were separated came from one goddess only.

His dear psychotic half-sister.

Joy.

But he couldn't tell Will that - couldn't show how weak and helpless he was against Mesperyian's power; she couldn't capture him, obviously, without alerting Hades, but his friends? No problem… and Nico sensed the capture of Leo and Calypso was only a bonus - the real reason was to lure him in.

Well, it was working.

Nico was going to save his friends, no matter what the cost. He'd just gained someone to trust and be trusted by, and he wasn't about to lose that. Not again. (There was also that small matter of his father being extremely angry at him for not keeping the idiot son of Hephaestus safe - even after all the trouble the god went through… but whatever.) He couldn't tell Will this, though - the overprotective blonde would never consent to him going off to Hades-knows-where again to save another demigod's life from sadistic enemies.