NICO

[foreverphantom]

Comments

[resumed]

[ farewell, furniture. hello, property damage. he just kind of raises an eyebrow as he goes but it's not really judgy? he's just vaguely concerned. ]

...so what is it? That we screwed up the vote? That it's your teammate again? Or something else entirely?

[foreverphantom]

[ he laughs a little, like it can be so easily summarized, but... ]

...I guess that's it. That it's a teammate. That we're down to just two now.

[resumed]

[ he's mostly just monitoring him, leaning against the wall carefully to make sure nothing else happens and danny doesn't hurt himself. ]

...Hans wasn't doing himself any favors in today's trial, but we should have caught a lot more about Satan earlier while we had time to focus on both cases instead of panicking back to one with more evidence. [ those are his thoughts on it. ] ...nobody's going to let anything happen to you or Nimona. We can't.

[foreverphantom]

Like you can do anything to stop someone who's out to kill?

If you could, you already would have.

[resumed]

[ he's not sure how to feel about that and it shows. ]

...okay, that doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying though. And with some of the information people found on the other trip and ours, too, I think things are probably going to change.

[foreverphantom]

...How so?

[resumed]

[ give him a second to pull his phone out of the pocket of his hoodie so he can read something. ]

"If any one of these teams would be entirely wiped, those teams will become part of this world. Every member will believe they have always lived in this world, forgetting where they hail from. They'll become citizens who will be powerless and clueless during the next cycle."

I would sincerely hope people are taking that into consideration.

[foreverphantom]

...and you think people will actually go out of their way to avoid that?

[resumed]

Ideally, that's what I'd like. Realistically? [ ... ] I'm going to make sure people know and see what I can do to make sure we actually avoid doing that. Nobody wants to be stuck here forever.

[foreverphantom]

Well, that's a nice plan and all, but I can't just sit around hoping I don't get picked off!

[resumed]

[ hm. ]

Then what are you going to do about it?

[foreverphantom]

I--I don't know. [ grips his hair in his hands ] ...I don't know.

[resumed]

[ he vaguely wonders if this is how he looks when he's having a mental breakdown, but he pushes that thought aside. right. okay. what would... ]

Okay. Look...everything's bad, I get that. But don't do anything rash yet. I know you're probably not going to like this suggestion, but maybe talk to Tiger and ask if there's anything you guys can do to protect yourselves. See if they know about the new notes, too. That's a start.

[foreverphantom]

...right. Right. Yeah, that's...it's something. There's not much else I can do, anyway.

[resumed]

Think less about what you can't do and what you can instead. Which...is really hypocritical coming from me, I get it, but it's about the only thing I can focus on without losing my mind here.

[foreverphantom]

I know. I should.

I just...there's not enough I can do. There's still too much that's just...totally out of control.

[resumed]

I know. Believe me, I know. [ there's a tiny edge of frustration in his tone because he feels similarly. there's too much here that they can't control themselves, and too many things they can't even start to look into to fix. ]

But focusing on those parts means we might miss something smaller that we can work with to get to the bigger picture. That's what we have to try and think about even though it's hard.

[foreverphantom]

[ his expression twists unhappily for a moment before it smooths out again ]

Smaller...right. The way we are right now, the only thing we can do is look for...chinks in the armor.

[resumed]

[ bro. mood. ]

...sometimes that's exactly where you have to start. A small crack that you split open wider when they least expect it.

[foreverphantom]

It's just not usually my style.

I'm much more of a...go in fists blazing type of guy.

[resumed]

You don't say. [ dryly, as he gestures to the property damage around them. ] Not that I don't get that. Usually it's a lot easier to solve my problems when I can use my sword to shut people up. I didn't really get...good, I guess, at the whole biding my time thing until recently. And it still sucks.

[foreverphantom]

[ rubs the back of his neck awkwardly ]

...what changed?

[resumed]

[ hum. ]

The short story? War against the titans. And then the war against Gaea. And then the war against Nero. [ he realizes how that sounds. ] Gaea, especially, forced me to learn how to wait for certain things to happen before I could act and attack.

[foreverphantom]

[ wow, that really is a short story. and he can tell that the long one is MUCH longer. yowza. ]

What'd Gaea do that made you have to sit back and wait?

[resumed]

[ he sort of stares into middle distance like "what didn't gaea do." ]

For one thing, she managed to reopen the Doors of Death when Thanatos was captured. It meant that monsters, demigods, and other previously dead that were killed were no longer staying dead and could just return to the living world. She was raising an army, and I knew about it because...well. Affairs in my father's domain. He sent me to the Roman camp and had me act as an ambassador for Pluto. I couldn't tell anyone I was part of the Greek army. I needed to bide my time and get them to trust me in order to get the warnings about Gaea across. [ and then, idly: ] Plus some of Gaea's forces are responsible for taking me out of commission for a bit to try and bait my friends into coming to rescue me so she could destroy them. There wasn't much I could do but wait.

[ gaea did. a lot. but those are some examples. ]