Gotham's Ghost King

1: Mystery City

8-year-old Nico Di Angelo was laying on the living room floor with his sister, Bianca Di Angelo drawing a picture. His dad on the couch with his mom watching TV.

Foosh

Suddenly Nico is outside with his dad, sister, and a burning apartment behind him. He's running. Where is he going? Even he doesn't know.

Foosh

His dad brough him and his sister to a hotel looking place. They were ok, but where is dad going?

Foosh

Now he's with his sister. They're older and leaving a building. She's suddenly wearing a _ shirt. Now she's gone. He's in a weird place, looking for something. He can't find it.

Foosh

And its gone. Just black.

"ugh" Nico grunted trying to get up.

He opened his eyes 'What a dream. I never seem to remember everything about the past.' He thought

He then looked around. He was in an alley. Why was he here? He had shadow traveled out of camp half-blood after an incident with his friends. Right "Friends".

Never mind that, where is he? He stood up and walked out. It looked like a city, but it seemed rather empty. Although it was nighttime most cities would still busting with life. Not that he had time to examine most cities when on demi-god work, but here, it was almost dead. Just his type of environment, except this place gave him the creeps.

"Alright then. We got some exploring to do." Nico said to himself.

He was wearing his typical skull black shirt and his aviator jacket. He had grey cargo pants on with many pockets, and combat boots.

He checked his hands. His ring was there, but his arms. They were wrapped in bandages. Strange. But hey, this is Nico Di Angelo we're talking about. So, like always he just brushed it off as something he would remember later.

His Hades figuring was in his pocket, he for some reason an excessive number of coins for the Iris Message's. And a pocketknife with a red dragon design on it.

'All well.' He thought.

He walked down the city streets. He was surprised to see that the only people outside were drunkards and gangsters. Nico walked along a sidewalk and ran into a drug/convenience store that said "Gotham...". Nico paled after reading the first word. Gotham a city famous for being really dangerous. He was lucky he hadn't run into the Riddler, Poison Ivy or even worse The Joker.

Seems that the fates did hate him because after a while he sensed something. He had a gut feeling that someone was following him. He turned left. Then right. Circled round a few streets. Ok now, he was sure. They were following him.

Nico was slowly speeding up his pace. They sped up too. He was sure they were mortals. There getting closer! He started running. He turned random corners. Yep, the fates hated him. Dead end.

'Shit! Now what? I wanted to avoid fighting.' He turned to face his followers.

There was a tall burly man in the middle he had some metal knuckle fighting weapon. The guy to the right was almost as tall and less burly he didn't seem to have a weapon. The one to the left was short and fat he had a small pocketknife in his hand.

Nico could easily deal with these guys, but he was exhausted from the failed shadow travel.

"Hey guys, uh is there something you need?" Nico said awkwardly.

"Aint your mama ever tell ya not to wonder the streets alone, specially after bedtime?" The gangster looking guy in the middle said.

"Kind of difficult when your mom is dead." Nico said gripping the knife in his pocket.

"Aww, poor kitty aint got no mama cat," The fatty said.

'How did this guy keep up when I was running?' Nico thought.

They started closing in on him blocking the exit and surrounding him.

"Hey, I don't want any trouble."

"Kekeke! Well to bad then, trouble found you!" The right guy said.

What Nico missed was that there was a fourth and fifth presence.