𝙸 𝙲𝚊𝚗'𝚝 𝙲𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚁𝚎𝚊𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚜

𝚂𝟹𝙴𝟾: 𝙰𝚗 𝙴𝚡𝚝𝚛𝚊 𝚂𝚙𝚎𝚌𝚒𝚊𝚕 𝙴𝚙𝚒𝚜𝚘𝚍𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝙵𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝙻𝚎𝚘 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝙼𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐

"All this and they're making you use a cellphone camera?" she asks.

"Yeah, pretty much," Nico says. "I guess it'll look like one of those apocalypse videos this way."

"Uh-huh..."

"I suppose I should ask you for an interview."

"It's what Leo would want," Annabeth agrees.

Nico clears his throat. He's never actually conducted an interview before. What's he supposed to ask her? He just learned how to adjust the lighting on his phone camera a couple of hours ago when this was still about breaking a world record.

"So uh, how'd you get into this mess?" Nico grumbles.

"WiFi in my apartment went out, so I have to work on my biology paper here at school. I figured since Leo has a literal pillow fort, I might as well make myself at home. I didn't realize Frank has a blanket fort. I didn't mean to take sides or anything."

"When do you think this will end?"

Annabeth scoffs. "Hopefully never. The dean canceled classes when the world record officials were here. I guess he's trying to encourage school spirit."

"Anything to get New Rome on the map," Nico adds.

"Bingo."

Classes are canceled as long as the Pillows and Blankets war continues, and Nico di Angelo is the only person with access to both fortresses, and thus, the only person who can confer with leaders from both parties. Nico very well might have the power to elongate this war.

He finds a cushy corner in the pillow fort against a pillow with armrests. It's a little chilly, but he won't dare bring a blanket from enemy grounds.

He records himself through his front-facing camera.

"I'm taking cover in Leo Valdez's pillow fort where his team is prepping for an attack against Frank's blanket fort." Nico gives all the information he knows to the viewers. He pours his heart out because this documentary is the fastest way to stir the pot and draw this war out. "Friends are turning against each other. For example, on this team, Leo is building all sorts of crazy contraptions. Then you've got Frank and Hazel on the other team, which is expected, and Jason joined them too surprisingly. I think he might have felt bad when Percy joined Leo's team. Piper and Annabeth are on Team Pillows too, except they've been kind of quiet."

You know what can stir this pot? Theories. "I have a couple of guesses as to what they might be doing," Nico says. "None of them are good though. Annabeth's the smartest strategist of the New Rome Seven, and Piper's got a way with words. The combination of the two could be disastrous."

Although the angle is unflattering, Nico continues to film as he crawls through the pillow fort.

"Right now I'm looking for a section of the pillow fort Leo calls Bunker Nine. There, he's working on a weapon of mass destruction," he narrates.

Aha! There he is, along with Coach Hedge, the billiards instructor.

Nico turns the camera around so it faces Leo. "Can you tell us about the weapon you're working on?"

"Just that she's a killing machine!" Coach Hedge shouts.

"Okay, so what does it do?" Nico asks. He'd like to get straight to the point.

Leo cuts a strip of duct take and wraps it around a throw pillow. "We can't disclose that kind of information. Obviously, we trust you, but we don't trust that the Blankets won't hack into your phone."