Chapter 3: Reconnaissance
Nico didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to go to the arena to train or to help the Stoll brothers prank the Ares cabin ‘with the undead’, he had already visited and helped Will in the infirmary. Nico was lying on his bed as he was thinking. He sighed and sat up. “You need to go out more” Will had told him, “You don’t look healthy.”, and that’s what Nico did, he had decided to go for a little stroll in the woods.

As Nico got out of his cabin, he was astounded to see people running towards the Big House in a rush. Did something happen? Nico sprinted towards the crowd that was forming in front of the Big House. There was a lot of commotion and excitement. When he reached there, he found Lou Ellen from the Hecate cabin.

“What’s going on?” asked Nico, as he got closer. “I don’t know.” replied Lou Ellen, she was trying to see over the crowd. Nico was also trying to see what was going on but he was shorter than the guys in front of him. He looked around to see if there was any way to get into the crowd, and then he saw Will Solace coming towards the crowd and decided to join him.

“What’s happening? Why is everyone here?” asked Will as he saw Nico approaching him. “I have no idea” said Nico, a bit vexed. He was really curious; this was killing him with suspense.

“What do you think it is?” asked Nico, hopefully.

“Seriously dude? You’re asking me?” replied Will Solace with an are-you-kidding-me look, “How should I know? I’m not even IN the crowd, let alone, close to the source of it.” Continued Will, and then with a serious look added, “Look Nico, I know it’s hot and everything, sometimes the heat can get to your head, and I know how sensitive you are under the sun, but right now it’s the sunset, so tell me are you being stupid or are you being stupid?” by then Will was trying not to laugh.

Nico looked at him, and Will exploded laughing. Nico shook his head, and he did a big dramatic sigh, “Oh yes Will, yes. You are so right.” Said Nico sarcastically, “Hey, doc. Since you’re so good and great, what if you try out for the Nobel prize? Maybe they will award you with ‘Biggest Joke of the Medicine World’ award.”

By then, Will and Nico had started laughing pretty loudly. Their laughter was stopped when Clarisse Larue, daughter of Ares, came, stood in front of them, and glared. If there is one thing that girl can do, is glare.

Both boys stopped laughing and looked at anything but Clarisse.
“What’s so funny?” asked Clarisse, still glaring, “Nothing” replied Will, he was really trying not to laugh, “Just hanging out. Right, Nico?”, “Yeah” said Nico, he was also trying to keep a straight face.

Clarisse looked at them for two seconds, then she turned to Will and said, “Come. We need you.” Will looked surprised, “Me? Why?”. “Aren’t you a healer?” replied Clarisse. “Well, yeah, but…” Clarisse stopped him with a raised hand, “Just follow.”

Both boys decided to follow Clarisse into the crowd, which parted way for them. When they finally reached the source of this crowd, there was Chiron in centaur mode. To his left, Jason Grace son of Jupiter, close by, his girlfriend Piper Mclean, daughter of Aphrodite, and the head counselor of the Hephaestus cabin, Jake Mason. On Chiron’s right, there was Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, his girlfriend, Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena, and the rest of the head counselors.

Chiron turned and beckoned to them. When Nico and Will got to his side, Nico got a clear vision of what was causing this whole commotion, and he was taken away. In the middle of the circle, sprawled on the ground, a girl. A very beautiful girl, she seemed to radiate. Nico was never interested in girls but this time he had this weird need to approach and see if she was real. So he knelt down and started to reach out to touch her hand, when he was stopped by a voice that said “Don’t!” Nico startled, lost balance, and fell on his rump.

“Why were you going to do that?” asked the person. It was a girl’s a voice and she was wearing a cloak like the ones you see in mediaeval themed movies. Her face was covered by the hood which she took off, to show an angry face with red curls falling all the way to her shoulders. Again she asked, “What are you doing? Don’t you see what I am doing here?” she had a very posh voice, and she seemed to be talking down to Nico like he was a child. Nico was about to say something when Will intervened, “Lay off him, Lucia. It’s not like anybody here knows what you’re doing. So, if you may, first explain to us what you’re doing then yell.” Lucia Moneta. From what Nico heard, she was the head of the Hecate cabin.

Lucia wasn’t like her siblings, she rarely smiled, she had that superior look that only a royal would have, and she acted like the stereotypical Ancient Greek sorceress. Mysterious, mean, and egotistical. Well, that’s what people told Nico, other than that, he didn’t have his own opinion.

Clarisse answered Will’s question, “She is checking if this girl has any dangerous spells that she may have activated.” “And how do you know she does?” Will argued, “She has fainted. There is no way someone can protect themselves…” He looked at Lucia, “Physically or magically when they have fainted, they’re vulnerable.” This time Will addressed everyone, “How come no one took her to the infirmary? This is a potentially...”
Chiron stopped him, “Will, don’t you think that, by now, we would have taken this poor girl to the infirmary by now?” He turned to look at Nico, who had gotten up by then, “Is she dying?”
Everyone looked at Nico. He looked at the mysterious girl sprawled on the ground, he checked if he can sense her soul and how strongly he can sense it. Took him a couple of seconds but he turned to Chiron and said, “No.”

Chiron, obviously relieved, said “Alright, now that there is no risk of death…”, “I can continue searching for dangerous spells.” Interrupted Lucia, whilst glaring at Will. “Don’t want anyone else getting burned or turned into a frog.” Then she put on her hood, knelt down, and continued chanting.

“What do you mean ‘getting burned’?” asked Piper, Clarisse answered, “The reason we couldn’t get this girl to the infirmary was because when some of us tried to lift her up, some people got burned or were…” “Turned into frogs.” Lucia interrupted again.
Clarisse scowled, “Aren’t you supposed to be searching for dangerous spells so you can deactivate them, or something?”,
Lucia got up and took off her hood (seriously, what’s up with the hood?), and with an annoyed look, replied, “Alright, let’s clear one thing up, you cannot ‘deactivate’ spells. Don’t mistake spells with machines, okay?” She looked at Chiron, “And the reason it’s been taking me such an amount of time to even find out WHAT these spells are, is because the girl is channeling them through her mind.” Seeing the confused looks of her comrades, Lucia sighed dramatically and continued, “When I mean channeling through her mind, I mean there are literally NO runes to… urm… ‘deactivate’, hence, I cannot abolish the spells or make them less lethal, AND” She really emphasized this word, “We cannot move her. If we even touch her, someone might get burned or something else.”

“Does that also mean we cannot search her, you know, for an ID or something?” asked Connor Stoll, head of the Hermes Cabin. “Yeah, to know who she is.” Said Travis Stoll. “NO!” yelled Lucia, startling everyone, “When I mean don’t touch her at all, I mean don’t touch her at all.” “Yes, but why does she have those protective spells, anyway? Does she believe she is in danger?” asked Nico. Everyone turned to look at Nico, even Chiron.

“What do you mean, Nico?” asked Chiron. Everyone was looking at him, waiting for an answer. Nico regretted ever saying a thing, he didn’t like having so much attention on him, but he continued anyway.

He turned to Lucia, “You said that she is channeling these spells through her mind?”
“Well, yes, but…”,
“And I’m guessing these spells are, like, protection spells?”
“Yes, but…”
“So this means that she feels threatened.”
“Yes, but, wait a seco…”
Nico turned to Chiron, “We need to convince her that she is alright and that no one’s here to harm her.”
“Wow, what a direct answer.” Said Annabeth. Everyone nodded. “So how do we do that?” asked Pollux, Head of the Dionysus Cabin.
“Well, we have Piper.” Said Jason, looking at Piper. Piper blushed.

“I can try” she replied. “Ok, then please do it sometime today. And don’t blush!” snapped back Lucia. It was clear she didn’t like Piper. Nico wasn’t sure if it was Jason or she just really didn’t like any girl that was above her level.

Piper ignored her and knelt down, next to the fainted girl’s head, and started talking, using charmspeak, “Hello, there.” Her voice melted everyone’s hearts. So sweet, so kind, so friendly. “We want to help you. We wish to take you to the infirmary so we can be sure you’re definitely alright, and maybe to find out who you are, and also contact your friends or relatives.” Pause. “But you see, we have a problem. Your protection spells have harmed some people who want to help you. We would be grateful if you could take them down. We only want to help you.” Nico had had no idea how powerful Piper’s charmspeak was. She could take over an entire alien planet by just saying ‘we are here to help you’. He had to restrain himself NOT to take down any spells.

Everyone waited. Piper got up. “This should work” she said, now with a worried look on her face. Everyone waited still.
“Uhh.. should we check now if we can take her to the infirmary without burning ourselves?” “Or being changed into frogs?” the question came from two Ares guys, who were behind Clarisse, trying not to get close to the mysterious girl.
“Yes,” said Will, as he was edging forward from the crowd, “and while you’re at it bring a stretcher.” The two campers scampered off to get a stretcher. And before anyone can stop him, Will knelt down next to the girl and touched her hand.

Nothing happened. “What were you thinking?” exclaimed Nico, “What? Making sure that the protection spells have been lifted off.”, replied Will, with a cocky look.

“By making yourself the test subject?” that was Lucia, “Back off from the girl before she changes her mind and zaps you.” Lucia herself seemed ready to zap Will. “Aw, relax, Lucia. Besides, the guys brought the stretcher.” He turned as the guys brought the stretcher and set it down on the ground. “C’mon, this girl isn’t going to lift herself up.”.

Jason summoned some wind which levitated the girl gently up in the air and into the stretcher. “Thanks.” Said Will, “now that I think of it, we should have done that in the first place.” He grinned and helped the two guys from the Ares cabin take the mysterious girl to the infirmary.

Nico watched them go. The crowd had dispelled so it was just him standing and looking intently at Will and his group carry the mysterious girl to the infirmary.
He was watching them so intently, that he didn’t notice Jason approach him. “That was some awesome work back there.”, remarked Jason. Nico turned his gaze to Jason, “What are you talking about? Piper did all the work.” He said.
“Yeah, but without you we would have never figured out how to… well, ‘dispel’ the spell, get it?” replied Jason, with a smile. He continued, “And besides, thanks to you, I think you saved everyone time and energy by figuring all this out, otherwise, we’d be dealing with Lucia’s ego-peppered ‘Magic 101 class’”

Nico chuckled, and returned his gaze to the team taking the girl to the infirmary, glad that they didn’t by accident tip over the stretcher. Would be a shame if the girl decided to… ‘channel’ those defensive spells again. Nico’s thoughts were interrupted by Jason.
“How did you figure it out, though?” Jason asked.
“What?” asked Nico.
“How’d you figure out that we had to, you know, convince the girl she was in a safe place so she can take down her defensive spells down?”

Nico scratched his head. Yeah, honestly, how DID he know they had to do that?
“I honestly don’t know” he answered, “Intuition I guess?”
“Huh, then you’ve got pretty good intuition.” Jason said. “Hey come on let’s go eat. It’s dinner time." Jason turned around and started heading to the dinner hall.

Nico stayed for a minute more, up until they finally managed to get the girl inside the infirmary. He turned around and started heading for the dinner hall.

After sitting down with his dinner plate, Nico was still trying to figure out how DID he figure out what was the mysterious girl’s problem… “Intuition. Instinct.” Nico told himself, “Just good instincts.” He thought as he ate his burger alone at the Hades table.

Notes

P.S.: You are not obliged to read the notes.

.... Soooo... Yes, I admit. It was a long matter to get her defenses down, and blah, blah, blah. You were hoping for some juicy action or something by now. So sorry. I am not going to explain more about Alexandra. Or of how she knows of Nico. By now, I think and believe. I've helped you catch on to some of her past. Will be writing Chapter 4. Till then!