The Quest Against a Titan

Chapter Five

It's been a while I guess, but here you go.

~Will POV~

A fierce looking girl with short, black hair met Nico, Reyna, and I on the top of the hill and roughly greeted us. I can sometimes decipher peoples' feelings, and this girl definitely guarded her emotions, like she was used to it, but she seemed almost... scared.

"So what do we do first?" the girl asked.

Nico replied with a smile, "First, we make sure that everyone is introduced. Will, I don't think you know Thalia."

He pointed to the girl. She explained who she was, "I'm Thalia, daughter of Zeus. I used to be a pine tree," she smiled, then continued, "To let Percy turn 16 and be the one to fulfill the prophecy, I became a huntress of Artemis. I'm the leader of the group right now, though I had to put someone else in charge because someone called for my help."

I laughed, "Your life sounds much more exciting than mine. I'm a son of Apollo and not a huntress. I basically just work in the health center here at camp and, well... heal people."

Thalia said, "Well I already know Nico and Reyna, so I guess that takes care of stuff."

Reyna spoke up, "So Nico, since you're the group leader, what do you think we should do as far as recruiting more quest members?"

Nico smiled, "I think I have just the right people in mind, and, lucky for us, they're right here at camp."

The three of us went back to Nico's cabin and waited for him to get back with his mystery people.

I sat on my bunk and helped Thalia get settled. When she sat down, she looked at me and raised her eyebrows. "Soooo. Do you and Nico have a thing orrr...?"

I felt my face get hot and I just said, "I... um... bathroom," and left the room quickly. I sat down on the closed toilet cover and thought for a moment about Thalia's question.

Was it obvious that Nico and I had something going?

What did Nico and I have going?

Do I like Nico?

I shook the thoughts out of my head and reminded myself that Nico was much too busy leading a quest, and I was a part of it. I needed to focus on the task at hand and worry about my personal feelings and crushes later. Nico needed me.

I walked out of the bathroom, but stopped when I heard Reyna saying, "... just need to give him and Nico some space. I don't know if there's anything going on between them, but I do know that it's none of my business. Who knows, maybe they'll decide to talk to us about it."

I entered back into the room just as she finished the sentence. There was an awkward silence for a solid 20 seconds, and then Nico walked in the door.

When I saw who he had brought with, I realized that this quest was going to get much more interesting than I had thought. Following him were Leo, Butch, and Piper.

They all waved at us.

"Hey," Piper attempted.

Nico led them each to their own bunk bed to get them situated, and then walked into the middle of the room, "Okay. I think that seven people on this quest should make a lucky number, so this is our crew. Introduce yourselves, whatever. I'm going to get things set up for more people in the kitchen, because we can only be in here, not the dining pavilion."

He walked out and I followed him, "Nico, wait. I'll help you."

He shrugged and said, "Fine with me."

When we were in the kitchen, I helped him move the table into a proper seven person seating arrangement, and then confronted him, "Nico, we need to talk." I sat down and pointed at the chair across from me.

I sighed. "So I feel kind of awkward bringing this up, at this point in time, but..." I could feel my face getting warm again, "I was wondering if you'd maybe like go out sometime or something."

After Nico didn't answer for a few seconds, I freaked out and started babbling, "I mean if you don't want to that's okay I probably shouldn't have brought it up right now I mean with the fact that we could probably die soon and you know what just forget I said anyth-"

"Will," Nico cut me off. He smiled, "I would love more than anything in the world to go out with you. In fact, I can't believe that I haven't asked yet. We can sneak out tomorrow night and do something?"

I relaxed, relieved with his answer, "Great. I can't wait."

We both stood up, grinning from ear to ear. He said, "Alright. So it's a date."

I called out into the next room, "DINNER TIME EVERYONE!!!!"

It wasn't long before they all came trudging in, apparently tired. Nico waved Leo over and whispered something to him. Leo saluted, and then went back into the bedroom area. There were some loud clanking sounds, a few rings, and one big bang, and Leo came back into the room with a stack of plates and glasses.

"May I present to you... dinner 2.0! Just think about what you want to eat and drink, and it should appear in front of you. They'll be good for bringing with us on the quest."

He passed them out and everyone dug in immediately. Plates were clear and glasses were empty within five minutes, and no one had even said anything yet.

Nico cleared his throat, "As we all know, we have a lot to discuss, but before we can talk about anything, we'll need to have full stomachs, and a good night's sleep."

I sleepily nodded and excused myself from the table. I quickly slipped off my pants and shirt, and climbed into bed with just my boxers on. My aching muscles relaxed, after a day of stress and worry, and I drifted off to sleep.