Fatal Flaw: Empathy (Nico di Angelo)

Chapter One

(Disclaimer: I only own Aletha, her mom, and the plot. Everything else belongs to Rick Riordan. I can wish, tho...)
(And the song is Soldatino by Paula Bennet.)

Aletha was on her way home, listening to loud music. She'd always been a good singer, a big talker, and a permanently high volume. That volume became more evident when she entered her home, shut the door, and found her mother being strangled against a wall by a tall woman with snakes for hair. The snakes were green and slimy, with red eyes that almost glowed, and the woman seemed as though she were a snake herself, with glittering, slimy looking scales. Lila Fárence pulled out a dagger, and stabbed the snake-lady with it in the neck. Aletha screamed and the snake-lady turned to see her before promptly turning into dust.

"Mom! Mom, what was that? Why was it here? A-are you okay?" She cried, tears desperately streaming down her face. Their hotel room looked fine, no signs of struggle, but her mom looked like she belonged in a murder scene.

"Go... Long Island... coins... closet...Chiron... explain... I'm sor-sorry..." Lila Fárence stared with a sickening, far-off look, as though she knew all the secrets of the world.

"No!" That one word held too much power, more than it normally would, and Aletha repeated that word with screeches a banshee would envy. Her sorrow was thrown out in such ferocious waves, that the people in the building came to see what happened. Aletha didn't know how much time passed as the police came, and asked her if she needed to get anything. She lied smoothly through her teeth telling them that her mom had left her something in her closet and that she needed to meet her "Uncle Chiron" at a camp on Long Island.

She went into the closet and asked for privacy. She looked around her mom's closet until she found some weird tokens. And when I say weird I mean absolutely bizarre. They were solid gold with words in Greek written on them. How she knew it was Greek, Aletha was more stumped than you are. In the bag that held the coins, there was a message explaining what to do with them. She went to the bathroom, made it damp enough in the bathroom to see mist, and threw in a coin. "Oh, Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, show me Chiron at Camp-Half-Blood, er... please?"

The mist gave a chuckling laugh, muttered something about 'please.' The mist cleared to show a man with shoulder length, well groomed hair. He looked worriedly at her.
"M-my mom is- was named Lila Fárence, and she's just been k-killed," Aletha choked on a sob, and continued, whimpering. "And I... She left me a note telling me how to contact you. This is just s-so sur-surreal, and I-..." She paused to get her breath back. "I told the police that I have an uncle, Uncle Chiron who lives on Long Island... C-could you do something about that?"

Chiron nodded, looking understanding and sympathetic but she saw something in his eyes say that Lila Fárence was more than just another camper. "Your mother was a adept student of mine. She was one of the best of her kind in our camp... Alright. I will send someone to get you. I will have Clarisse La Rue accompanied by Annabeth Chase bring you to camp. Okay?"

Aletha didn't know who these people were, but her mother trusted Chiron with her, and Chiron trusted Annabeth and Clarisse. So Aletha nodded.

The Iris Message faded, and Aletha, with her tear stained face, went to tell the people she was going to be picked by her cousins Annabeth and Clarisse.

——AFTER THE FLIGHT FROM ILLINOIS TO NEW YORK——

(Aletha P.O.V)

I was looking for people I didn't know. I didn't know what they looked like, but Chiron said that the girls would find me. I didn't know how but they would. Two girls caught my eye. A girl with blonde princess curls, tied back in a ponytail was bickering with a girl who's mousy brown hair was shoulder length and choppy. They were interesting characters before I saw them point toward me. 'They must be Annabeth and Clarisse!' I thought. I probably should have waited for them to come to me, but I was too impatient.
Blame the ADHD.

Anyway, I walked over, but I lost the spring in my step. I realized that wherever I was going, I'd be staying there forever. That is a very long time. Because Mom was never coming back. Before I could help it, the tears were flowing full force again. Less than a minute later I was shakily accepting the comforting hugs of Clarisse, and Annabeth's distracting words.

Once I settled down, Annabeth told me that my father (who was not lost at sea, though I kept that detail to myself,) was a Greek God. Yep, plain and straight, an immortal Greek God. Probability was, that though he wanted to visit, he wasn't allowed to.

"Why would a god, with powers, not be allowed to visit?" I said incredulously. We were traveling through the woods, and so I kept my voice down. They said monsters would show up, and that I didn't have a good enough weapon yet. Yet.

"It's in the Ancient Laws. They aren't supposed to be broken, but just two years ago, a demigod.-"

" Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon-"

"Led us in two wars. One against Kronos, one against Gaia. After Kronos, all gods swore to claim their children by the time they turned 13. We just beat Gaia, and the Romans have been sent to their camp. How old are you?"

"I'm fourteen years old." I said, voice wavering. "My birthday was the day after my mom died." And I was crying again. I was bawling my eyes out, and suddenly three monsters were in front of us. Clarisse and Annabeth fought the ones chasing themselves, and Clarisse handed me a sword before running after her monster to kill it.

I couldn't do anything. Clarisse was out of view but Annabeth was in front of me. I missed my mom, and I just needed to breathe. She used to sing me an Italian lullaby her father would sing to her. And I needed to physically hear it in my head.

"Tu sei a mio soldatino,
La regione per cui vivo,
Non ti scordar di me..."

I broke off to see the monster Annabeth was fighting explode into dust, though there was no arrow nor was Annabeth nearby. She was holding her hands over her ears in pain. My monster was screaming a yard away from me.

"Io vegliero su di te." I sang. The image afterwards was priceless. I was tearstained, again, and covered in monster dust. Annabeth was about four yards away from a pile of monster dust. Clarisse had a bit of monster dust in her hair, and had a disheveled look. She'd run back having killed her monster and heard Annabeth screaming, because her ears had almost started to bleed.

"Annabeth?" Clarisse asked, "what happened?"

"Aletha!" She shouted a little too loudly than normal for people. "I think I know your grandmother, and possibly your father."

I barely heard her before I had a splitting headache and promptly fainted.

(Percy and co are 16, Nico is 15, and Aletha is 14.)