Chapter Text
It should have been an ordinary day at camp. Really. Lots of sunshine, no weird incidents, no monster attacks - well, at least until Capture the Flag was scheduled.
Everyone in Camp was excited for this Capture the Flag since it was Nicos real first one, and it seemed like somewhat some normal activities for once.
The Son of Hades was already at the border of the forest, securing his armor and listening to the senseless chit chat. Will jogged to him from his siblings with his usual flashy grin. “Hey, Deathboy! Did you sleep well?” Nico shrugged. “Not really, just the usual.” Will gasped. “What? Nico, you gotta start taking care of yourself! I can’t be always around babysitting you-” but Nico just rolled his eyes and smiled slightly. “But as long as I got you I can enjoy it, right?” Will pouted and sighed before he helped Nico with his armor on his back.
Chiron started to blow his horn as a signal for everyone to get to their spots.
The teams were rather balanced this time, but the usual Athena vs Ares fight. Hades and Apollo were both on Athena's side with the Aphrodite and Demeter kids while Hermes, Hypnos and Hephaestus were on Ares' side.
Most cabins were empty, or at least as good as, since the summer break hadn’t started yet and most kids went to mortal school.
Nico positioned himself near their flag, and he didn’t really mind, since Will volunteered to stay with him. Something along the lines of not being good at archery anyways, but Nico wouldn’t complain, why would he?
Will had just positioned himself with his bow as Chiron blew the horn a second time, signaling the start of the game, (though not being as good as his siblings, he could still hit a target if he concentrated enough), before he looked over at Nico and grinned again. “So…. you wanna do something after this ends? Like, take a walk around the sea?” Nico wanted to answer but a rumble stopped him. “what-” the Son of Hades started, but the earth was shaking. They both heard screams from the other campers and started to run towards the noises when suddenly a hand shot out of the ground. “Nico! What is happening??” Will screamed as a zombie started to crawl out of the earth. Nico tried to concentrate and send the zombie back underground- but it didn’t work. “I-I don’t know! I can’t control it!”
It didn't take the zombie long to be all out of the dirt, then it started to walk slowly at both Nico and Will. The Son of Hades had never seen a zombie like this, it didn’t seem like an... ordinary zombie.
The fingers of the zombie were pitch black, some were even cut off or probably had fallen off at some point. The face was full of bright red spots and one eye - or were its eye used to be - was hidden under a pustule which pulsated at the zombies eyebrow. Besides the black and red spots the zombie didn’t seem ‘that’ zombie-like as Nico was used to.
“Something is very wrong with this thing… we need to get to the others!” Nico finally lifted his stygian sword and tried to cut the zombies legs away, hoping that this would slow it down with following them. He took Wills hand and dragged him along to where the noise seemed to come from.
The first thing they saw were more of these weird zombies. Clarisse was fighting against 5 at once, but they seemed to regenerate once she cut them down.
Clarisse looked around frantically and when she recognized Nico and Will she snorted. “Hey di Angelo! Can’t you do anything against these zombies?!” Nico just shook his head before he charged in to help fighting. “I can’t control them for some reason! We have to find a different way to get rid of them!”
Meanwhile Will ran to some injured campers to help them up and heal their wounds. He knew the wounds of these zombies, but it didn’t make any sense to him that Nico couldn’t control them. Why were all the zombies victims of plagues? They all had the same marks, like the black finger tips, fallen off limbs or those red spots and pustules. He didn’t think anything when he saw the first zombie, but now that he looked at all the other zombies - there were at least 20 - every single one seemed to have died by some plagues?
One of the injured campers breathed heavily which made Will snap out of his thoughts and he continued to send some silent prayers to his father, while he gave the kid some ambrosia.
When Will healed most of the campers he got up slightly exhausted, but still ready to fight and help. It actually seemed that there were more zombies now. Did they even have a chance to beat them at all?!
Suddenly Chiron came running to them, he had brought the younger kids back to Camp to safety. “Chiron! What is with these weird zombies? Why are they all victims of-” Will stopped when he saw Nico being surrounded by several of these zombies. He was heavily injured and exhausted and probably couldn’t even shadow travel out of this. Out of despair and anger Will took three arrows and shot all of them in one of the zombies head. He locked eyes with Nico for a short second and smiled relieved when suddenly the Son of Hades opened his eyes wide before he fainted and fell to the earth. Several zombies jumped at Nico, and Will was suddenly filled with a rage he never felt before. Before he could do anything his world turned black…
(...)
When Nico opened his eyes he found himself in the infirmary. He tried to sit up carefully, half expecting Will to annoy him to stay down laying on his back but he wasn’t there.
Instead Austin, his halfbrother, was sitting beside his bed, focused on some musical instrument. “Austin? Wh-Where is Will?” Austin looked up surprised and got up. “Nico! How are you feeling? You were blacked out for days, man!” Nico blinked confused. Days? He couldn’t recall anything that had happened at Capture the Flag.
“What… what exactly happened? I know we started the Capture the Flag game and then-”
“Zombies. Zombies you couldn’t control. You were really exhausted within the fight for some reason, we all were. It felt like all my life was drained by these weird things… Anyways, when you fainted Will- he… Well he freaked out? Kind of. It was really scary. Suddenly black fog came from… from Will, from his eyes and mouth and he started to float and-” Austin stopped and Nico was shocked. Obviously. This had never happened before, not in any way. Black fog? Floating?
“And? Where is Will now?” Nico didn’t notice first that he dropped the temperature by accident, but he took a deep breath and calmed down. Austin sighed before he answered. “Please… promise me to stay calm okay? If not for me then for the injured people in the next room.” Nico scowled, but nodded. “Fine, whatever. Where is Will??” Austin gulped.
“He… when the black fog appeared all zombies came closer to Will. But they didn’t attack him for some reason. He lifted his arm and a black light came out of his hand and all zombies dissolved in nothing. And with them disappeared Will without any tra-” Austin couldn’t finish this sentence because Nico jumped out of bed and ran outside to the Big House to Chiron, but he had to catch his breath halfway - he still wasn’t on his full strength. Once he stumbled through the door Nico saw Chiron and Mr. D in a serious looking conversation. “Sir! Where is Will?!” Nico demanded immediately, making Chiron turn slowly around, sighing heavy. “We don’t know. We can’t find him. But please calm down and sit down.” Nico breathed heavily before he sat down as asked. “We’ll be having a Headcounselor Meeting to see what we can do. All the others should arrive soon, so please do not worry.”
Mr. D just rolled his eyes and turned around, mumbling something about getting some snacks and Diet Coke for himself.
(...)
Once most of the older campers entered the house and sat on the table Chiron began to talk.
“So, what do we know? Does anyone have any ideas?” Nico jumped up. “Yes? I will go look for Will! He has to be somewhere!” Chiron sighed. “I am sorry, but i can’t let you go. Especially not alone. We don’t have any information on where he could be and-” - “And? I’ll ask around! Someone HAS to have seen him someday! I won’t let this happen!” He looked at the others who just looked elsewhere, but not in Nico's face.
“The hell is wrong with you?? How can you let Will down like this? He always helped you all, no matter what it was about!” Nico hit his fist on the table, but Travis Stoll stood up. “You didn’t see what he did! What if he summoned those weird things? Unnecessary if he did it on purpose or not. He just disappeared with them! He’s not a small child, Nico. And he’s not stupid. Will is able to get back on his own and you know this.”
Nico was filled with rage, but Chiron raised his voice as well. “Enough! We’re not here to fight. Nico, i can’t let you go without a prophecy from the oracle, you know this. Please calm down now and-” but Nico didn’t listen. He looked at everyone angry before he made his way to the exit. “I’ll be visiting my father for some days, maybe I’ll find some Information since you all are happy to not have another weirdo at Camp.”
He heard Chiron sigh and a noise as if someone slapped someone's face, followed by Travis' painful shout as he left the building. This was satisfying for a second, but then Nico remembered the situation and he scowled again. Quickly he grabbed some essentials from Cabin 13 before he shadow travelled to the Underworld and his father, Hades. Hopefully he would find at least something there...