The Ambassador

THE BRIDGE

[EDITED VERSION 2.0]
All of his thoughts came to a halt when he heard a growl behind him. Hellhounds.

Twisting his ring, his Stygian Iron sword grew as Nico crouched into a fighting stance. There were five, a pack. One charged and Nico quickly sliced through the first one. The next wasn't as easy as it was patient, unlike the first one. The others ran around him, trying to claw and bite at him. He was surrounded.

He stabbed another at his right that tried to take a nasty bite out of him. The one on his left took that chance to try to rip him to shreds with its claws. Fortunately, he was fast enough to duck under it and stab it, making it turn to dust with a howl.

The other three backed up a bit, "Stay back!" Nico yelled, waving his sword in a wide arc, horizontally.

After a minute of just glaring at each other, a hellhound was brave enough to leap at him, unfortunately Nico was not expecting it so he went crashing to the ground, the hellhound putting nearly all of its weight on his rib cage. He then did a movement to stab the hellhound in the stomach, disintegrating it. The last two were easy as Nico just sliced a hound's head off and stab the last one in the eye.

He was exhausted, and wandering around in New York City at night wasn't good either. Crooks and the homeless was almost in every alley, which made it difficult for Nico to find a place to rest. After the rushed shadow jump from Camp Half-Blood he had accidentally ended up in an alley, in a dumpster. So now, he was smelly and tired. Plus, fighting five hellhounds at once wasn't easy. Nico was actually lucky that he lasted as long as he did outside of camp borders.

Now, it was time to find an actual place to stay temporarily. Just living in one spot was like building a neon sign saying, "Hey look at me, vulnerable and lone demigod ready to be eaten for supper!" So yeah, staying in one place is not an option. Well, not an option he would like to pick anyways. His next best option is to either find a spot in an alley, where someone wouldn't bother him (which would probably be next to impossible), or he could find an empty roof. Not something too high up though, staying on Zeus's good side was pretty much his top priority, other than pleasing his father of course.

After another hour of wandering the streets of New York City, he just about lost it when another person gave him a weird look. Sure, he might look a bit odd to other mortals, but this was New York for the gods sake. Him being dressed up in the cloak, that Thanatos gave him on his birthday, and his black shirt, black jeans, and combat boots shouldn't be all that strange. It wasn't like he had his hood up.

Nico sighed in frustration and kicked a small rock just as he was about to pass an abandoned building. Approaching said building, all the doors and windows were boarded up. He went toward the back of it to find a possible entrance that wasn't blocked. Fortunately, the fates must have been giving him a small break because he found a small hole over by some trash cans. Nico slipped through carefully and found that he ended up in the kitchen.

Nico got up, dusted off his clothes, and started to wander the mysterious building that he came across. It was dark, that much he could tell at the moment, however he didn't sense any ghosts, lares, or poltergeists within the hotel so that was a good sign. He really didn't want to deal with any rogue ghosts at the moment.

As soon as he found the cleanest room he could find he shook out the pillow and blanket (because of dust and he isn't about to lay down in a mysterious bed with a blanket that hasn't been washed in who knows how long), then crashed onto the bed.

As soon as his head hit the pillow, he fell asleep, praying to the gods and fates that his dreams wouldn't be ridden with nightmares.