Prologe

15.6K 361 463
                                    

I couldn't believe the news I had just received from Camp Jupiter.

Reyna was dead.

The proud praetor of New Rome was dead? It had to be a cruel, twisted joke.

I had been planning on visiting Camp Jupiter later on today, until Hazel Iris Messaged me.

"I'm sorry, Nico. I have to tell you something." Hazel said sadly,

I laughed.

"What's so important that it couldn't wait until tonight when I shadow-travel there? I promised Reyna I would still be their Ambassador of Pluto, remember?" I said lightheartedly.

Hazel choked back a sob.

"T-thats just it, Nico. Reyna died today." Hazel said softly.

I had paused, remembering that awful feeling I had gotten earlier. But that couldn't be right. Reyna was too strong. The war was over.

"Don't joke like that, Hazel." I had replied seriously, my blood running cold.

"I wouldn't joke about something like this. Reyna was ambushed near our outer boarders today, by some hellhounds. The guards at the door of the Cladeclott tunnel heard her and came, but by then it was too late. She died, Nico. You felt it, didn't you?" Hazel whispered.

It still didn't seem real. Reyna couldn't be dead. She was one of my only real friends.

I knew it would be like this, deep down. It always was.

After the last Titan War, after I had rallied my father and his troops to come to the aid of Camp Half-Blood, I was welcomed. But within a week, people would jump when I was near them. They would give me looks like, Who are you again? Why are you still here?

It had been just like that after the war with Gaia, too. The war had ended almost three months ago, and I had overseen the burials. Reyna and the Romans went back to New Rome. I had made myself stay at the camps for my friends sakes, but Reyna's death pushed me over the edge. This was the last straw.

So I packed a bag and some provisions and some clothes, strapped my sword to my side, and sales unseen to the camps boundary.

When I got to the outskirts of the camp, at the top of Half-Blood Hill, I paused and leaned against Thailia's Tree and looked back on the place that was never truly my home.

I wondered what Reyna would have said if she could see me.

Probably yell at me and tell me to get me podex right back into that camp and stop being such an idiot.

But Reyna wasn't here right now.

I saw the campfire, and remembered the night when Reyna had pulled me out of the shadows and hugged me in the firelight, right after Gaia was defeated. When she hugged me in front of everyone. And I had let myself cry, and I hadn't felt like pulling away from her. Her words echoed eerily in my ears.

"We had one home. Now we have two."

Without realizing it, I spoke out loud next.

"But that was never true, Reyna. Neither of these places were never really my home. But at least I could see you at Camp Jupiter." I muttered sadly.

Suddenly a voice spoke behind me.

"Nico do Angelo. I have come to make you an offer." A deep, smooth voice spoke behind me.

I spun and whipped out my Stygian Iron blade, the cold metal pressed against the speakers throat.

"I'm really not on the mood to talk right now. So you'd better start talking. How do you know my name? Who are you, and what do you want?" I asked, pretty fed up with everything that had happened today. I would have loved to just cut this guys head off.

Geez, maybe I needed anger management. Or therapy.

That guy had an ageless look. He could have been twenty, or twenty thousand. Hard to tell, with immortals.

He had black eyes, black hair, black wings, and skin the color of dark oak.

And people though I was goth.

But the thing that shocked me the most were his wings.

Yeah, yeah. I said wings.

The things were so dark, they seemed to suck all the light from the around him. The man didn't look panicked at all to have a blade pressed against his throat. In fact, be looked faintly amused.

"If you'd kindly not cut my throat, I'll gladly explain." The man said calmly.

I removed my sword from his throat, but kept it up in an offensive stance.

"My name is Chaos, to answer your first question. I am creator of everything. And as I said before, I'm here to make you an offer." Chaos stated.

"What kind of offer?" I asked suspiciously.

"I want you to be my commander. My lieutenant. My second in command. My archangel, quite literally." Chaos said simply.

"Why would you want me? You'd be better off with Percy Jackson, or one of the others. I'm nothing special. I'm certainly no angel." I said with a snort.

"Oh, but you are quite special, Nico. I've been watching you, since your birth in the 1940's." Chaos said.

"Yeah. Cause that's not creepy at all." I muttered to myself.

"I'm not done yet. You would be gifted with powers much like my own. You will be commander of my topmost squadron, The Archangels of Chaos. You amd whomever you choose to join us will be gifted with wings and heightened senses. I will grant you one wish in return. And you may recruit who you like for your own squad." Chaos said, and his words echoed in my thoughts.

One wish... Recruit whom I chose...

"Alright. I'll take you up non your offer. But I must be granted that wish first..." I trailed off, an idea forming in my consciousness.

Nico di Angelo; Angel of ChaosWhere stories live. Discover now