~ Tнє Pαяα∂σχ Hσυѕє ~ now back to regularly scheduled chaos

It hurt, hearing Hades’ words to Sam. They weren’t terribly different from the words Hades had uttered to Nico after Bianca had died. After Nico had become Hades’ sole living heir. After Nico had failed to earn that title, because he was just a kid, and he never should have been expected to earn his father’s respect and approval. It would have been better if he had died instead of Bianca. Bianca was the better sibling. The better fighter. The more diplomatic. The better person to pin your name onto. Nico was just… well, he was himself. Which was nothing, much, no matter how hard he tried to be helpful. He never quite seemed to be able to succeed.
He wasn’t succeeding now, either. He was just… standing there while one of his closest friends was being hurt by someone Nico had thought was getting better. It didn’t matter that Sam was his friend, at least in Hades’ eyes.
“Okay,” Nico managed breathlessly, moving away from the glass wall to start searching for a way out. He reached up, trying to tell if they were surrounded by glass on the top as well. Unfortunately (probably because Kelsier was Mistborn), they were.
“Shoot,” He murmured, looking for anything that might count as a crack.
It was easier to try to look for something that might be useful to Kelsier than it was to listen to the sort of things his father was saying to Sam. He would have to tell him that none of it was true. He would have to tell him that he deserved to be alive, that the laws of Nico’s world weren’t any indication of what Sam’s was like… he would have to try to undo all of the damage Hades was currently inflicting.
“Nothing!” Nico hissed in frustration, seconds away from slamming himself into the wall again. He couldn’t bear to watch Sam cry. He didn’t want to be a part of it.

“Different worlds,” Hades said after a moment, eyebrow raising. He seemed surprised by this, like he hadn’t quite considered that possibility. It made sense, of course. Different worlds would account for the weird almost human aura Hades had sensed next to Nico when he had tried to scan out a little bit more to determine where any threats might be located. He wasn’t sure he wanted to believe that anything was powerful enough to bring him to a different world, though.
“There’s death, and there’s life,” Hades said after a moment, arms crossing. “There is no room in any world for someone who stands in between. Whether or not you asked for it or not.” That was a bit harsh, perhaps, but he was annoyed. Of course the boy had decided to argue. He had courage, Hades would give him that, but it was the sort of courage that was going to get him killed if he didn’t learn to keep his mouth shut.
“What makes you think I would believe that my son would be friends with a monster from any world?”

Sam | for Sam Room | strider ®Hawkpath®

"There are some worlds were death doesn't exist," Sam said stubbornly. "Or where life doesn't. You don't know everything about everything out there. And I don't know if I fit. I don't. But you don't get to tell me whether I do or not. You don't exist in my world. You don't. And I ... I don't care if you're Nico's father. You don't get to say who he wants to be friends with either. And he is my friend."
The fact he'd just been told he was a monster ... that hurt and it showed. He looked at Hades and the red tears started to drip down his face. And he was shaking a bit.
"I am though. I ... I bet you I know more about what he likes than you do. Because a nice father wouldn't try to treat his son's friends like this. And you'd actually be a bit nicer. Aren't you ... aren't you supposed to be the guy who looks after dead people? Shouldn't those sorts of people be nice? Isn't everyone got it hard enough without you telling me I don't belong or that I'm a m-m-monster? Even if I g-go against w-what you think is right, you c-could act b-better about i-i-it."

Kelsier | for Sam Room | strider mintedstar/fur

There was no point in wondering whether something was possible or not. There was no point in wasting time wondering if you could accomplish something that needed done. You couldn’t let yourself waste time like that. You needed to act, quickly, before it was too late and the victim was dead.
There was a certain irony to this room that wasn’t lost on him. When he’d first met Nico, he’d been filled with rage, ready to lash out and kill the first person who even smelled of nobility. It had been over the death of a child, then, one he hadn’t acted quickly enough to save, one that, even if he’d had time to try to rescue, might have gotten him caught. And here they were, on the same side this time, with Kelsier, Survivor of Hathsin present once again, trying to save another kid.
Only this time, he knew better. This time, the target of his fury wasn’t someone misunderstood. He knew who Hades was. He knew his anger wasn’t misplaced.
He hit the ceiling shoulder first, gritting his teeth as the impact went down his spine. He dropped back down, glancing up to see if there was even the smallest crack.
Nothing.
“Don’t apologize. Not for this,” he replied, voice softening, just a little. He couldn’t erase the hard edge to it, though, one he thought Nico would probably recognize by now as flat out stubbornness, and cold fury. “Why don’t you tell me a little about him?”
He stabbed at the floor. It didn’t give. He paced the length of the glass as he spoke, hazel eyes scanning for anything he might have missed, anything he could use to break through. “Just in case I make it through, but you don’t.”
And also to distract Nico from the problem he didn’t have any way to solve. Kelsier didn’t mention that part, but he didn’t think it was too unlikely that Nico would catch on anyway.

Varian | Living Room | <Raintalon>

Varian blinked. “What? Oh, no, he’s really not. I mean...he doesn’t exactly get the whole thing...he sort of...banned? Me from any more experience after the explosion that happened last time but it’s alright, because I think I figured out the main problem that caused the instability. And it’s not like I’m going to just stop trying, so what he doesn’t know probably won’t hurt him.”
He smiled a little. “I would love to! Speak with the authors I mean. Hey! Do you have any books you wrote?”

| Loki | Fireworks Room | Open to everyone! |

Loki blinked into the House, appearing on a hill covered in grass. A few blankets were spread out on the grass, and a blue box filled with ice and cans was nearby. It was nearly dark, with only a few shadows of the evening clouds discernable in what they assumed was the western sky. The sun had already set. A nametag had been pinned to their clothes (a green and black outfit, of course, with hints of gold) and they squinted down at it. It read:

Loki
Pyrotechnics Squad

That sounded promising. They started looking around and saw a platform at the base of the hill with various objects gathered around it, quite far away from where everything else was set up.

They held open their hand and let a few blue and silver sparks start rising from their palm, offering a soft gleam of light to the surrounding area.

Hange | Pyrotechnics Squad | @ anyone! |

Hange blinked into the House, flying at top speed through the air thanks to their maneuver gear, their hair blown back and their eyes narrowed in concentration.

"I'M GOING TO LOOK AT THE ONE OVER THEEERE, AAAH!" Their shout was cut off in a huff of breath as they hit the grass like a meteor, sliding about ten feet and leaving a long, muddy skid mark in their wake as the impact tore straight through the grass. The slide ended as they hit a small tree root and bounced several feet, before finally slamming their back into a nearby crate, heavy with whatever was inside.

"Ghhhhhhg..." they said, sitting up and swaying slightly as they processed their landing. They looked a mess - their hair stuck out in every direction, and they were completely smeared with mud - their face, their clothes, and everything in between. They didn't seem bothered, though - they simply threw their hands up in the air and began to yell, letting the energy out of their chest as they bellowed into air at the top of their lungs. Simply for fun, or maybe to bleed off some of the adrenaline from their crash.

Tachibana Asami | Fireworks Watching Crowd | @ anyone! |

Asami blinked into the House, standing tall and still, illuminated momentarily by the soft twilight in her long black hair before she turned to look around, her face splitting apart and forming into her true form.

She sat down and folded her hands in her lap, and then stretched out her tendrils in several directions at once, feeling the grass and curling one around the nearest blanket. She lifted it up and shook it out a little, then held it up to her eye, curious. "Soft," she observed out loud. "This texture is soft."

| Eurydice | Blanket Fort Room |

Eurydice tied together two fleece strips, then smoothed the tassel out. She paused in her work to push some hair away from her eyes. Her movements made the blanket ceiling ripple, but it was in no danger of falling. She scooted over again, keeping herself close to the section she was working on as the tassels formed along the edge of the blanket, moving her closer to the corner.

"My world?" Eurydice asked. She felt like Orpheus' question was a little like asking What is the world like? After all, how was she supposed to know how to describe it? What made it different from his? She wasn't sure. She could only say what the world was like to her.

"It's... well, I want to say it's just normal. But it's just normal to me, and different from here. There's towns, and people, and people grow crops and celebrate when the gods give them a good harvest and go hungry if they don't." Eurydice said. She didn't realize that the gods existing in her world made hers closer to Orpheus' world than most others' worlds.

She looked down at the clothes the House had placed her in. "Our clothes are different, though. These are so brightly colored, and we don't have these." She lifted an edge of the hoodie, looking down at the cupcake screen printed on it. "Our designs are woven in, not over the top of the cloth like this one is."

Wylan appeared, goggles over his face as he worked to set up something that was… no longer there anymore. Ah. He sat up, pulling the goggles off and wiping at some soot that had gotten onto his face. It wasn’t ideal, especially if he wanted to make a good impression here, but he didn’t really mind. He frowned, looking around as he tried to figure out what was going on.
Someone was screaming. Screaming was usually bad, but this didn’t sound like bad screaming, it just sounded like excited screaming. So it was potentially not as bad as he had originally thought. He kept having to remind himself that this wasn’t Ketterdam. There weren’t likely people dying or mugging each other on every street corner. This was… well, he wasn’t really sure what this place was. Matt hadn’t really explained much, and Xander had been just as clueless as he was. So he was still rather confused by the whole business. This seemed promising, at least. He did like pyrotechnics, especially when they weren’t just to keep him alive. It was fun to explode things every now and then, especially the metals that turned different colors when heated… he especially liked copper, the way it made the flame burn blue and green… he shook the thought off, instead focusing on the other two in the pyrotechnics area.
They seemed… busy. Wylan was content to just… wait on the sidelines for a bit.

“Sam, or Hades?” Nico asked, voice small as he looked out the glass at the confrontation. He didn’t want to watch this. He didn’t want to see Hades hurt Sam. He didn’t want to see Sam cry. There was one he would much, much rather talk about, and he had a feeling Kelsier had already heard as much as he needed to about Hades. He didn’t know all of the details, but he knew… well, he knew enough. Enough to know that Hades wouldn’t go easy on his own son, let alone a strange boy he had judged to be a monster. That hurt… that hurt more than Nico had the words to express, because he knew that Sam wasn’t a monster. The difference between a monster and anyone else wasn’t what someone was, it was how they acted. Usually, that translated to ‘anyone attacking me is a monster, and anyone on my side isn’t,’ but that was just for battle purposes. It was actually a lot more complex than that. The thing with the monsters that Nico faced on a daily basis was that so many of them had gotten used to the world seeing them as monsters that they had decided to become them. Medusa had been a normal woman, at first. Then the world had decided she must be a monster, so she became one.
“Sam is… he’s really nice,” Nico managed, kicking uselessly at the glass. “He’s nice in the way he really doesn’t have any right to be, because the world hasn’t exactly been kind to him, but he’s kind anyway. And he’s brave, braver than he thinks he is… he’s doing a lot of things that most kids his age would be terrified of, and… I guess he’s scared, too, but he’s still doing them. And he doesn’t like that he’s a vampire, but I want him to know that it’s not bad, that it’s just what he is and it doesn’t mean he has to be a bad person, but… I dunno. I guess I was there, too. I thought being the son of Hades meant I had to be the bad guy. I want him to know he’s not.” Nico blushed, realizing he had been rambling for a while. He hadn’t… really meant to, but he was stressed, and the words just… came out.

Hades scoffed, rolling his eyes as he looked at Sam. “Clearly,” he began, dark eyes not leaving Sam’s, “you’ve never had children before. Clearly, you don’t know what it takes to keep them alive. Now, Nico doesn’t need me to do that. He’s perfectly capable of staying alive by himself, but he has, in the past, made questionable decisions about who to befriend. His loyalty doesn’t always lie in the right place. You’ll forgive me if I believe that fraternizing with you will just cause him further pain. You wouldn’t want that, now would you?” Hades’ tone had changed, becoming sickly sweet instead of the hard, uncaring façade he’d had on earlier. Truth be told, he didn’t actually care about Sam’s feelings. He didn’t care if vampires were normal or not in whatever version of the world Sam came from. The only reason that Samuel Salinas wasn’t dead where he was standing was that Hades had discovered he couldn’t actually use his powers to kill him. He had tried, after this most recent bout of impertinence. It didn’t matter to him if the kid was important to Nico, he should have learned not to argue with gods.
“I don’t particularly enjoy,” Hades began through gritted teeth, “being taken from my home, weakened, and tossed somewhere with a kid that shouldn’t exist. Especially not one that is actively endangering my son with seemingly little care for the effect he might have. The worst monsters are the ones who refuse to believe they are ones.”

| Loki | Pyrotechnics Squad |

Loki threw their hands up as Hange grabbed at their hair and clothes, swatting them away. "Hey hey hey- ever heard of personal space?"

They pulled back, a golden bracer slipping over their right hand and remaining in Hange's grasp as the scientist pulled at their armor. Loki reached up their hands and grabbed at Hange's wrists, hoping to hold them off for a moment. Loki didn't mind the excitement so much, but they didn't want Hange to decide to go overboard and try to grab a blood sample or something.

They narrowed their eyes, looking down at Hange, still holding their wrists. "Cease. And then I'll answer some questions."

In their peripheral vision, they could see two other blinkers appear near the pyrotechnics area, though they didn't recognize either of the blinkers.

Zuko had been gentle, once. He hadn’t known that he wasn’t supposed to be. Ursa had nursed that part of him, had told him that it was alright to be kind, that it was better to treat those around him with grace… he had learned to see the world as something wondrous. That gentleness had been burned out of him. He had just been trying to save lives, but saving lives had gotten him burned and his own life ruined. He didn’t know if he really believed that. He didn’t want the citizens of the Fire Nation to keep dying needlessly. He tried to keep his crew as safe as possible even with the difficult places he needed to go. But the lesson was there, scalded onto his face: caring for people is weak. Caring for people will get you hurt. It does not pay to be gentle in a world like this. It is better to be hard. It is better to be the blade that others cut themselves upon.
“Oh,” Zuko replied, pulled back into the present as he beaded another trans flag. “Yeah. I uh… I was Crown Prince.” Was. The word didn’t sit with him right, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to go into it. He was banished, now, and though he did have a way to get home, if Ozai were to die now, it would be Azula who became Firelord. Zuko told himself that would be fine, as long as he could get home, but he knew that wasn’t quite true. He didn’t want to see the Fire Nation ruled by Azula, even if she did have all the technical know-how of the position. She would just… make the war go on longer. She would make sacrifices she didn’t need to make. Or… no. Her people would make sacrifices because she asked them to. She wouldn’t suffer at all with the decision. Zuko wasn’t sure he wanted to end the war, but he did want to make sure those fighting in it were given a fair shot in every battle.
“But… yeah. I agree. It’s annoying when it brushes up against your skin in weird ways, too.”

Hange | pyro squad |

Hange held the bracer up in the air for a moment, staring at it in awe before returning to Loki, only to find their wrists held firmly in place. They immediately began to move their wrists, distracted from Loki's actual words by the potential their predicament gave them to find out the limits of this person's strength. They began to thrash and pull, using first a more normal, human amount of strength, then letting themself rely on their vampiric abilities to get free. Would they be able to hold them?

Asami | watcher squad |

Asami stared at Juuzou for a long, long moment, processing. She was thinking fairly quickly - to a human, her mind would be a blur, leaping from topic to topic, drawing connections in a split second. To her, it was normal. And none of it was visible on her slack features.

"I do not know 'ghoul''s word'," she said, her mistaken use of grammar unnoticed in her attempt to convey meaning. "Human. Parasite. Irregularity. What is your meaning?"

Wylan gave Loki and Hange a sideways glance, uncertain what the two of them were getting up to. In all honesty, he wasn’t entirely certain he wanted to be involved. Sure, he liked blowing things up. Sure, pyrotechnics were right up his alley. He didn’t particularly like to be grabbed, though, and he had a feeling if he stuck around too much longer he might get caught in the crossfire. He was, however, interested in the other boy who had appeared. He took a deep breath, then moved forward, kneeling besides where the boy was stuck to the ground.
“Hi,” he said after a moment, giving a small smile. He didn’t think the sticking had been the House’s doing… it seemed more like whatever it was the other kid had been holding when he had appeared. “I’m uh… I’m Wylan. Do you need help getting out of that?” He poked lightly at the substance that was holding the boy to the ground. It would have been easier if he knew what it was. Or if he carried a knife or other sharp object with him that he might be able to use to at least lever the kid free…

Wylan glanced over his shoulder, half curious what sort of antics the other two had managed to get themselves into. He hoped they weren’t going to get too hurt, but if they did… well, then it would be their own fault. He hoped that at least one of them knew how to deal with the sort of injuries that came with getting into scrapes like that, because Wylan sure didn’t know. He just knew how to set up explosives.
“Uh… yeah, sure!” he replied cheerfully, hesitating for just a moment before reaching into Varian’s pocket to pull out the way out. He twisted the top of the vial, peering into it for a long moment before he dusted it over whatever it was that had gotten the other boy stuck to the ground.
“Nice to meet you, by the way,” He added with a small smile, capping the vial and handing it back. “What’s in that stuff, anyway? I mean the sticky stuff. It seems… well, I think it would be useful if I knew how to make it. If… you don’t mind saying, of course.”