The Demons of Discord, a Percy Jackson fic

Part 1: Nico Crashes a Party

Nico di Angelo was anything but social, and the idea that he would want to take part in the celebratory festivities that marked the one year anniversary of the victory of the Giant War was simply preposterous. It was simply by accident that he returned to Camp Half-Blood on the anniversary. Traveling to and fro from the Underworld and the Mortal Realm often left Nico with a rather murky internal clock, as time was hard to measure down in the Underworld. It was also pure coincidence that he happened to shadow travel inside the Camp boundaries and be bombarded by bright colors and insanely happy campers. He had told himself that it would be a quiet journey, that he was just going to stop in and leave as quickly as possible, but that obviously was not the case.

He had decided recently to make this last stop to Camp Half-Blood. He had a few things of value in the Hades cabin at the Camp, and wanted to retrieve them before he left on his journey. He had no one to say goodbye to there and no one to tell where he was going. He did suppose that he could stop in on Jason and see how he was doing, but Nico always did hate goodbyes. He had planned all of his emotional strength to be used when he stopped by New Rome to tell Hazel goodbye, anyway. He knew that she would try to make him stay, but he simply did not feel like he fit in anywhere. He knew he would be happier traveling around the country - maybe even the world. Perhaps he would actually be able to "find himself," whatever that meant. At any rate, he knew for sure that this would be the last time he would see Camp Half-Blood.

Unfortunately, the Fates had sided against him that day. He had hoped that shadow traveling to the outskirts of the Big House in the evening would leave him some privacy, assuming that most of the campers would be at the campfire. However, he was incredibly annoyed to see that he had appeared into the middle of a cheering crowd. The unexpected landing threw off his balance - he had basically appeared in the same spot as another camper, a boy who looked about his age with very curly black hair and a black hoodie over his orange camp t-shirt.

"Whoa, watch out there," he said as Nico slammed into him and stumbled. The boy grabbed him by the waist and hoisted him back up into a standing position, much to Nico's embarrassment. He scowled and shrank away from the contact, assuming that the moment that the boy laid eyes on him he would recoil in disgust. He didn't expect any less from a camper. Most demigods could sense who he was just by being near him, and would stay far out of his reach. They simply found his presence uncomfortable, or they thought that he was freaky or scary. Stories had quickly spread through the camp about the loner son of Hades whose sister had died, the one who acted like he hated everybody. Nico could always tell when people were talking about him when he entered a room, or when they had stopped talking about him when he walked past them. He was so used to seeing people mime zombies or skeletons crawling out of the Earth to refer to him that he had learned to ignore it. He expected exactly the same from the boy who had just caught him.

But, much to Nico's surprise, his dark brown eyes lit up in recognition. He left one hand resting on his waist, like he didn't want Nico to get out of his sight. "You're that son of Hades!" he exclaimed. It was very different to hear those words being spoken in awe and excitement instead of fear and disgust, so Nico took a while to respond to him through his shock at the unusual greeting he had received.

"Um, yeah. That's me," he said, slowly pushing away the boy's hand from his waist. Nico really wasn't one for extended physical contact.

"Nico di Angelo, right?" he said with a smile, "You're the guy who sailed on the Argo with the Seven of the Great Prophecy. Everybody's been talking about you all week, but nobody thought that you would actually show up."

"Right," he said, looking away from the boy to take in the rest of his surroundings. He was in the middle of a crowd near the Big House. It looked like all the campers had congregated there to watch something, but he couldn't make out what. He was near the back of the crowd, and was too short to see what everybody was staring at in front of him. It seemed like it was something very exciting from the reactions of the campers in front of him, though. Looking to the Big House he saw that it was decorated in both the Greek and Roman colors, with flags strewn along the sides along with balloons and streamers decorating the porch. Hanging from the roof were piñatas in the shape of different monsters. There was one fashioned to look like Medusa with papier-mâché snake hair that looked like someone had busted it open already, along with caricature piñatas of the different giants that were in the Giant War. From what he could tell, it looked like the whole camp had been celebrating for a week straight.