𝐌𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐢━━Nico di Angelo

12

Nico was screaming well before he even reached the deck.

Ajax, Leo and Frank looked up from their game of Uno. It had been a slow couple of days. They were still mostly coming to terms with the fact that Percy and Annabeth were gone. Gone. Not dead.

For two days, they had been trying to get through The Apennine Mountains. Their path should have been simple. They needed to get to a place called Epirus in Greece and find an old temple called the House of Hades.

To reach Epirus, all they had to do was go straight east—over the Apennines and across the Adriatic Sea. But it hadn't worked out that way. Each time they tried to cross the spine of Italy, the mountain gods attacked.

At this point, the entire crew was tired. They were already all sleep deprived, add mountain gods throwing boulders at them and you have teenagers with short fuses. 

So they decided to take a break that day, try to come up with a plan. Leo suggested Uno to calm down, but gods know no one is actually calm while playing Uno.

"UNO! FUCKERS" Ajax laughed maniacally, practically jumping to his feet.

His joy turned into horror when Frank produced a +4, the taller guy laid it on the stack of cards, trying not to look pleased. His face dropped even more when Leo slammed another +4 on the table.

"Suck on that, Avery!" Leo high-fived Frank.

That's when everything started to go wrong. There was a loud crash that reminded Ajax of a numinae attack, but they'd left the mountain range a short while ago. Loud stomping, yelling and cursing followed.

The three boys looked at each other quizzically.

Nico di Angelo emerged from below deck, his face redder than ever. Ajax almost laughed out loud at how comical he looked. Almost. He valued his life thought so he settled for a short smile.

Where Nico got the energy to be angry was beyond Ajax. He still looked dead, hollow, his broken looking eyes filled with fury, cheekbones sharp enough to cut diamonds, eyebrows drawn together, his pretty lips spitting out curses Ajax had never even heard off.

He didn't stop until he was right in front of Ajax. He looked insane, sputtering nonsense about some war, something about Luke and titans? Half of what he was saying wasn't even in English. Ajax thought he wasn't even aware of slipping into another language.

He was almost the same height as Ajax, maybe an inch or so taller, which Ajax took personal offense to.

Its not often that death comes knocking at your door, trying to drag you to hell.

But Ajax survived dying once, Nico di Angelo could do nothing worse than killing him, and he had already died once. Ajax had nothing to fear.

Still, he barely managed not to show his fear.

Leo had gotten up from his seat, the uno cards laying long forgotten on the table and fallen on the deck. He was the only thing between Ajax and certain death.

Ajax didn't even know what he did to warrant so much hate. He had been pretty indifferent about the son of Hades, so why did he hate him?

"Nico-"

"If you tell me to calm down, so help me gods I will throw you overboard, Leo"

Ajax didn't doubt he would.

Hazel came bounding up the stairs next, her eyes wide in confusion and fear. Piper followed her. Everyone had one question on their minds- what the fuck was going on?

Coach Hedge was at the helm, he turned back around, rolling his eyes muttering about teenagers.

"Nico, what happened?" Hazel was the one to approach him. That was probably the smartest idea. At least Nico wouldn't throw his sister overboard.