NICO

[foreverphantom]

Comments

[resumed]

[ a tired sigh. ]

Exactly. And I've done it before and I understand why it happens, but at least we usually have some guidance of what messes we're cleaning and how to take care of it instead of being thrown a problem without context.

[foreverphantom]

[ blinks ]

Oh. You do?

[resumed]

[ ... ]

I...probably should have mentioned that you and I kind of have some other stuff in common. It's just that you're half-ghost, and I'm half-god? So cleaning up messes and solving problems is sort of what we do.

[foreverphantom]

What? Okay, wait, hold on--I just meant that "guidance" and "context" are like, never things I got to have with anything I dealt with.

But--you said half-god? That's a new one for me.

[resumed]

They're sort of tied together because I think if I said "we're given quests and prophecies from the Oracle and it's the one of the only ways we're aware of what's going on" it would open even more questions. But yes.

[foreverphantom]

Oh. Uh. Okay.

Sounds helpful, at least. The quests, part, anyway. I don't think I'd wanna hear any prophecies.

[resumed]

I don't give them out. [ no!! ] The quests aren't always good either. Actually most of them are pretty dangerous and there's a good chance you'll die or be eaten by a monster or eaten by a monster and then die. But it's still more than "here is this vague information of something found, go look in these places and hope you find something relevant."

[foreverphantom]

Huh.

Yeah, the most I ever got was "run towards the screaming" or "hey there's a ghost in the general vicinity." Extra info would've been...nice.

[resumed]

Hey, never underestimate "run toward the screaming", that's really useful. Sometimes we don't even get that and we just hear the screaming while doing something else. [ dry. ] Extra info is always good when we can interpret it right away. Some of them take a little time, and some of them...I've purposefully ignored because I didn't want to deal with it at the moment.

[foreverphantom]

[ nods ] And some of them are just small fry leading up to something much worse and you just don't know it yet.

Unfortunately, ignoring things like that just end up making everything worse for me.

[resumed]

Yeah, don't I know it. We've had a lot of small fries that turned out to be leading us to the extra large fry without warning. Sometimes in the span of the same day.

[ he could continue, but he's getting tired of talking about himself and he's curious. ]

...can I ask what sort of stuff you're usually up against? Besides ghosts, I got that. But I mean what kind?

[foreverphantom]

Pretty much all kinds? Sometimes it's small stuff like little blobs and ectopusses. Sometimes they just really wanna wreak havoc around town. Sometimes it's ghosts pretending to be humans. And sometimes...they might as well be gods.

[resumed]

[ he's kind of cataloguing all of the different levels here, nodding along and filing the information away. ]

Vengeance is a powerful tool, usually. [ but he frowns briefly. ] There's seriously nobody else helping you?

[foreverphantom]

...my friends. And my sister, sometimes. But they're all human, so there's only so much they can really do.

[resumed]

[ ...well. that sucks, actually, and his expression seems to say that. ]

Even the mortals we spend the most time with have their own ways of helping. Sounds kind of--[ he does not say lonely, but he kind of pauses. ]--frustrating, in its own way.

[foreverphantom]

Mmm. Well, they have ghost hunting equipment, and they do cover for me when I have to go take care of things, which...does help a lot. I wouldn't be able to do it without them.

But at the end of the day, they can't fly or go intangible. I have to do the big stuff. And ghost weapons don't work on them, just me.

[resumed]

Which is both a good and a bad thing. [ yeah. that's understandable. but there is some confusion in that as he's filing all of this away as "stuff to know about danny fenton." like. is it appropriate to ask him about his friends or his sister? they obviously know he's a ghost, so that's a good thing, but this is nico's daily struggle of "how the hell to you talk to people sometimes."

so he sticks with something easier. ] Kind of the first time I've ever heard of ghost weapons though.

[foreverphantom]

[ fuck around and find out, nico. ]

Oh man, seriously? You're lucky, if you're like...ghost-adjacent and don't have to deal with them.

Ghost hunting and building weapons for it is like, my parents' life goal.

[resumed]

Half-mortal and half-god means that instead we've got our own kind of weapons we're weak to. [ heh. but also. hm. h.m. ]

...your parents have no idea you're a ghost, do they.

[foreverphantom]

Nope. [ pops the p ]

[resumed]

[ a frown. ]

Wow. And I thought my family situation was awkward.

[foreverphantom]

[ laughs

and then, almost fondly: ] You get used to it.

[resumed]

I'm going to be honest with you, I have no idea how you could if they're still working on stuff like that.

[foreverphantom]

It's actually helpful, most of the time. If I didn't have access to all their gear, it would be a lot harder to catch ghosts, and my friends wouldn't be able to help much at all.

Plus, they're only like, good at it about half the time. So it's not exactly that hard to avoid getting ripped apart molecule by molecule by them.

[ he does not sound bothered by this in any way whatsoever ]

[resumed]

...huh. [ don't just sound fascinated about it, nico. ] Nobody's perfect, I guess, but that does prove to be pretty convenient for sneaking around under their noses to actually fight the things they're trying to hunt themselves.

[ ...then again to be fair he's done enough sneaking around while hades wasn't watching so why wouldn't that make sense. ]

If only it were as easy here.