A Part of The Family (Nico Di Angelo meets the batfam)

4

Warning: There may be some panic attacks and creepiness in this chapter. Also I apologize for any cringe things and cliche moments. Spoilers for the Sun and the Star!!!!

Unsurprisingly, Nico had bad dreams that night. It was really a pain being a demi-god. 

He dreamt that he was back at the hotel his mom had died in. He was sitting on the floor in front of his sister, playing. Their mother watched happily as they played, and his father was nowhere to be seen. 

Nico knew this was a dream. He knew they couldn't possibly be his real sister or mother. His mother and sister were dead after all, but he couldn't help but soak in their presence no matter how fake it was. 

His sister looked up from the toys they were playing with. Nico stared at her in shock. Where her eyes should've been were empty, black caverns, as if someone had scooped her eyes out. She smiled happily but her mouth stretched open too widely. She was quite literally grinning from ear to ear. Her skin ripped when it was stretched too much revealing the muscle and her jawbone underneath. She should've been screaming in pain, but she continued to smile happily at him. Nico looked to his mother and, as he expected, she had undergone the same transformation. 

Nico hurriedly stood up and it was at that moment that he realized he was a child. The same age he had been before his mother had died. 

"Nico, you thought you defeated me in Tartarus, but you can't escape. You can't change no matter how hard you try. You belong to the darkness. It is useless to try and change that," Nico's mother and sister said at the same time. Except it wasn't their voices. The voice was grating and raspy, it got on his nerves like nails on a chalkboard... if said nails were a foot long. 

The message, because that's what this was Nico was sure of it, was a little cliche but it did it's job. Besides if Nico was right about who was behind this and he couldn't possibly be wrong, it was so obvious, then no matter how ridiculous the message was the entity behind it was not something to dismiss.

Thunder rumbled outside the hotel. Nico glance at a calendar on the wall. He didn't know the exact date his mother died, at least he didn't know it for sure, but he was pretty sure that this was the most likely day his mom had died. This was bad. In the past the only reason he and his sister had survived was because Hades was there to protect them, but he wasn't here this time. 

Nico knew that this was a dream but for some reason he couldn't push down the panic. It was as if some outside force was messing with his emotions. 

Nico had enough time to look up before the lightning struck. He saw his mother and sister burn. They were still smiling. Everything went white after that. Nico felt like he was burning. He screamed even as some part of his consciousness told him that this wasn't real. It wasn't possible.

He felt something yank him away. It was an unpleasant feeling. The air in his lungs was knocked out of him all at once and his bones bent uncomfortably, not enough to be broken but enough that it was painful. 

He stumbled onto snow and looked around. There were trees everywhere. Nico stood up and brushed himself off. He had a feeling he knew where this was. He looked to the right. Yep, there was Percy, Grover, and Thalia looking over the edge of a cliff. Percy looked shattered. So, Annabeth had already fallen.

The Hunters of Artemis started to set up camp. This time there was no tiny Nico clutching mytho-magic cards in his hands, but there was Bianca, talking with Zoe Nightshade.

Nico cautiously walked over, and they turned towards him at the same time. They had the same smiles just with pointed, bloody shark teeth that crowded their mouths in an unnatural way.  This time instead of empty eye sockets there was smooth skin where their eyes were supposed to be. The skin was slightly dented as if there was nothing behind it, no skull or anything to stop it from caving on a little. It was as if they never had eyes in the first place.