Nico put the tape aside when he was done with it and put the next one in. He made it through a few more finding one more glimpse of Alex, none of the Operator. He put the one with Alex on it aside as well, he wasn't sure if it was important but he thought he should let Masky or Jay decide.
"Where'd Tim go?" Jay mumbled, Nico did his best not to start, he hadn't noticed that Jay had woken up.
"He went out for a smoke." Nico answered "He think's you're right about Alex by the way, and we found a glimpse of the Operator on this tape." Nico tapped the tape with one finger and Jay groaned hiding his head in the pillow again for a minute, Nico chuckled softly.
"I hope that Tim's gone to stock up on cough syrup too." Jay grumbled pushing himself up to a sitting position. Nico didn't understand, but he didn't ask turning his attention to the screen as Jay stumble to the washroom. While Jay was in there Masky slipped back in, he was carrying a bag, maybe he had stalked up on cough syrup the. Without speaking Masky reached into the bag and handed Nico a bottle of pop. Nico murmured a thanks and Masky slumped down onto the edge of the bed next to Nico pulling out a beer for himself then looked at Shade, then offered him the beverage.
"I hate the Operator." Masky mumbled opening the tab on the beer and taking a long drink. "He's such a controlling asshole." Nico gave a noncommittal but sympathetic hum, he didn't know anything about the Operator. Masky lowered his voice even further so that Camera couldn't hear. He wasn't looking at Nico, Nico got the feeling that Maksy wasn't really talking to him, just talking. "I don't want to be here, I want to be with Hoody. He's even more afraid than usual knowing that the Operator might be nearby, I should be close to him."
"At least he's not alone." Nico murmured. "Toby's still staying near him right?" Masky nodded sighing, taking another drink from his beer. Nico opened the bottle of his pop and put it aside waiting for it to go a little flat before drinking it.
"God know Hoody's spent enough time alone." Masky's words were almost to quiet for him to hear so Nico didn't answer.
"Oh you're back." Jay said a minute later hen he stumbled back out of the bathroom.
"Yep." Masky answered. "And I brought beer, and cough drops just in case." He reached into the bag and held a beer out to Jay who took it. Walking over to the window he peaked through the curtain and then sat down in the armchair in the corner.
"I hate that part of this, I was hoping I just had a cold." Jay said.
"What, and you don't hate the rest of it like the bad hotels and the never feeling safe?" Masky snickered. Jay rolled his eyes giving a sarcastic haha that made Nico laugh. Jay and Masky started chatting. They started out talking about what they're next move would be, but quickly slipped into talking about what they had been up to in the years that had lapsed since they last talked.
"I'm going to go for a walk." Nico murmured to Masky so as not to interrupt Jay. Masky nodded and Nico got up crossing the room putting on his shoes and leaving. Jay could ask Masky, "Tim" if he wanted to know where Nico had gone. It was cool now that the sun was setting, the sky was red and it looked like the tops of the trees were on fire. Nico shoved his hands in the pocket of his brown jacket and crossed the parking lot slipping in amongst the trees.
There was shade and shadow here. Even though there were leaves of the trees, the darkness of the ground, and the light of the sky worked together to strip everything but the sky of its colour. Nico watched the sky glimmering between the leaves of the canapé as he walked deeper into the woods until he heard footsteps beside him. Nico looked down and smiled at Toby who was beside him now.
"Hey." Nico said softly.
"Hey." Toby said reaching for Nico's hand and pulling him off the path he had been following.
"Where are we going?" Nico asked, Toby shrugged and kept leading the way . Nico followed stepping lightly and high to clear anything in his path with minimal noise. He made less noise than Toby, but they weren't trying to sneak anyway. Nico noticed when they started to go uphill, climbing up till they came into a clearing and the view was beautiful. Nico gaped and noticed Toby grinning at him out of the corner of his eye.
"The Hesperides are really working overtime tonight." He commented noticing Toby's confused expression Nico smiled apologetically and explained. "Greek goddesses of the sunset." There was a crash of thunder from the clear sky making Toby flinch looking confused. "Ya I know it's not you, you can't keep taking credit for what other gods do!" Nico shouted at the sky, there was another rumble and he sighed. "Honestly I don't know why Zeus still pays attention to what I say, he never likes it."
Nico glanced at Toby and started looking at the shocked and confused look on his face. His mouth was open and he going to say something and then stopping. He looked like a fish, he blushed heavily and Nico laughed even harder.
"I'm sorry but your face there was hilarious." Nico laughed, Toby looked put out for a moment but then shrugged and smiled.
"I'm guess I'm just surprised Zeus answered you with thunder." Toby said waving at the sky. "Aren't Gods supposed to be above paying attention to people or something?".
"A lot of gods keep track of powerful Demigods and their children. Besides I think Zeus watches me a lot to try and find an excuse to kill me." Nico shrugged.
"Why would he want to kill you?" Toby asked and flopped down on the grass pulling Nico down after him.
"He doesn't like any of the other powerful gods having kids because he doesn't trust them. Plus after world war II, the big three gods made a deal that they wouldn't have any more children. Even though Zeus broke that rule twice he still expected Poseidon and Hades to follow it." Nico rolled his eyes.
"Wow good going Zeus." Toby laughed, Nico couldn't tell if he was being serious.
"Have you read any Greek mythology? Zeus had kids with everyone, his wife is literally the goddess of faith in marriage and he cannot keep it in his pants." The small roll of thunder from the sky was nearly drowned out by Toby's laughter. Nico smiled at Toby and then frowned at the clouds that were starting to creep across the sky towards them.
"Huh I'm guessing he's not happy with the way you're talking about him?" Toby said following Nico's gaze.
"I guess not." Nico said as the clouds covered the last of the sunset. It was almost completely dark now besides the stars the peaked through the clouds.
"I'm hungry let's go get something to eat. I think there's a McDonalds right on the edge of the woods over there." Toby said gesturing to their left. "But there are some other places farther away if you don't like it?"
"No I like McDonalds." Nico chuckled, "Let go before Zeus succeeds in getting us stuck in a thunderstorm." Nico got to his feet and offered toby his hand to Toby who took it and pulled himself up.
"How many Greek gods even are there?" Toby asked. They weren't holding hands as they walked this time, since it was dark they mostly needed to focus on not tripping over things.
"Oh too many to count really, I don't think anyone could remember them all. I've been doing my best because it's not nice to be forgotten but I don't think I'll ever manage it."
"Weird I can only name, like, five." Toby said, Nico chuckled.
"Well you're not Greek are you? I think that's part of the reason why all the most popular religions right now have only one God. That is really easy to remember and keep track of." Toby chuckled.
"So does that mean all those religions are wrong? The is no god with a capital G?" Toby asked, Nico shrugged.
"I don't know. If one exists I've never met them, but the existence of Greek gods doesn't necessarily mean that other gods can't exist. I seriously doubt that there's a heaven or hell though. I've met Christians in the underworld that believe they are in heaven or hell but they're still in the underworld. Everyone goes to the underworld."
"What's the underworld like?"
"There are different parts of it. There are the gardens of asphodel where good people go. The isle of the blessed where people who have been reincarnated three times and been good in each life. The fields of asphodel where people who are sort of neither good or bad go, and the fields of punishment where bad people go."
"You've spent a lot of time there haven't you?"
"I had to, I'm my fathers ambassador. I'm involved in godly politics and being the ruler of a world populated by everyone who has ever died is not easy. He needs my help fairly often really."
"So he's not really a fatherly guy huh?"
"He does the best he can, he's too busy for me most of the time, I've stopped resenting him for it. I just help when I can, and actually compared to other godly parents he's not bad. He actually pays attention and remembers my birthdays. A few years ago he gave me a zombie chauffeur, it has a French accent it's very strange but you know at least he tried." Toby laughed loudly.
"What about your mom?"
"I don't remember much of anything before I was nine. My father sort of showed me a flashback of how she died. I know her name was Maria Di Angelo. It looked like she was a nice woman and me and my sister loved her very much, but neither of us remembered anything."
"You have amnesia?"
"Yes and no, there's this river in the underworld called the river Lithe that washes away memory. It's almost impossible to retrieve memories if they've been washed away by the Lithe. Both me and my sister were bathed in it. If I had amnesia I might be able to recover the memories over time, but with the Lithe there's almost no chance of that. All I have are vague impressions."
"Why would you have been bathed in a river like that?"
Nico was about to answer, but they came out of the woods then and the lights around the McDonalds nearly blinded Nico after the darkness of the woods and distracted him.
"Awesome I was right about where it was!" Toby whooped and Nico laughed. Toby grabbed his hand again and dragged him inside. They both ordered and this time Nico paid. Tt was one of the ways his father tried to help. He didn't understand the pieces of paper that constituted money for humans, but he did understand it was useful to Nico and since it meant nothing to Hades it was easily gifted.
They could have eaten inside, the place was almost empty, but Nico didn't want to. He had spent too long in darkness and the bright interior of the restaurant seemed overly lit and gaudy to him. He would have been more comfortable in a graveyard which made Toby laugh even though Nico was only half joking. So once the food arrived -Toby had gotten the biggest burger they had with a large fry. He always seemed to be hungry. And Nico had just gotten a regular meal because he had felt weird about ordering a happy meal in front of Toby- they left. They found a park nearby, abandoned in the dark and settled on the swing set to eat. Toby kicking back and forth slightly and Nico staying still.
"So why were you made to forget everything?" Toby asked after a few bites, apparently he wasn't as easily distracted as he seemed.
"It had to do with a prophecy that was made a long time ago about 'the first child of the big three to reach 16'. My father wanted it to be either me or my sister but there were some… problems and he had to interfere. He thought erasing our memories would make it easier on us."
"How did he interfere?" Toby really was curious and he wasn't giving Nico any time to ask anything about his life. Nico was starting to wonder if it was a sort of defense mechanism. Nico got of the swing and sat cross-legged in the sand pit under it instead.
"We were born in the wrong time period to be useful so he took us out of time for a while after our mother died. There are places in the world where time runs differently, some places much faster, some places much slower. Me and Bianca were actually born in the 1940's. Thanks to the place our father hid us we only aged about 3 years while the rest of the world did sixty. That would have been a real shock to us, I mean we would have gone from a world at war with hardly any technology to this." Nico waved at the world around him even though there were no real examples of what he meant nearby. "I think he was probably right about that but still I wish I could remember, you know having a family."
"Maybe it's better that you don't remember it because then you also can't remember it being torn apart." Nico glance up at Toby at the note of coldness in his voice. Toby had eaten half of his burger while Nico had been talking but had suddenly stopped eating completely and was staring that ground just in front of his feet.
"What do you mean?" Nico asked shifting closer to lean against the one of Toby's legs that wasn't twitching. He was surprised Toby had latched onto that and not the fact that Nico born over sixty years ago. Though maybe it wasn't that surprising, Nico had no idea how old some of the other Creepypasta really were. Toby didn't answer for a minute, staring into the middle distance and staying completely still besides the twitches Nico knew he couldn't control.
"It's just. I do remember when my family but I also remember when it started to fall apart, when my dad… changed. He said it was my fault, because I was such a fuck up and my mom needed to be punished for giving birth to me. People with my disorder don't usually live long, he said he wished I hadn't either. That if I had just died like I was supposed to the rest of the family would still be happy. My sister would try defend me but then he would turn on her so eventually I just told her and my mom to let him take it out on me. After all it was my fault for living." Toby sighed softly. "And now he and my sister are dead and I'm still alive."
"I'm glad you're alive." Nico said softly reaching up to put his hand gently over one of Toby's, which were now gripping the swing chains so hard they had gone white. "Things like that don't make good people go bad, your father had that in him the whole time, Toby it isn't your fault." Toby looked down at Nico like he wanted to believe but couldn't yet. Nico didn't care, he knew hearing it helped at least a little even if Toby couldn't believe it yet.
Suddenly Nico started coughing violently. Toby's head snapped up and looked around his gaze fixing on something to their left. He swore and dug in his pocket pulling out a camera and Nico saw him pointing it in the direction he had been looking before Nico doubled over. He was having trouble breathing between coughs and his vision was getting a little blurry. He felt an arm wrap around his waist and drag him up and away. Unable to understand through the coughing and blurred vision he struggled weakly.
"It's okay just come on!" Nico recognized Toby's voice and started following blindly instead. After a few minutes of running the coughing began to subside. Toby slowed, then stopped letting Nico lean against a wall and gasp for air. They were outside of the woods now, back in the town.
"What happened there?" Nico gasped once he had enough breath back as Toby backed up the tape in the camera. He turned the small screen to face Nico so he could see the brief distorted glimpse of the creature Masky had called The operator. "Huh so that's why Jay said he wanted cough syrup." Nico commented dryly and Toby chuckled.
"We need to find a way to get this tape to Jay. Probably one of Hoody's as well so that Jay knows we're watching him again. Will you help?"
"Of course I will if I can." Nico answered quickly.
"Great, let's go meet up with Hoody, he's still outside the hotel Jay and Masky are in keeping an eye on them. Though they might be starting to worry about you by now, I think that might be good. I don't know, I have an idea but I need to ask Hoody first considering about fifty percent of my ideas are dumb as hell." Toby grinned crookedly and then slipped his mouth guard, which had been hanging around his neck, back on and led Nico out of the ally and back towards the hotel.
They found Hoody exactly where Toby had thought he would be and they showed him the tapes.
"We need to make sure Jay and Masky see this don't we?" Hoody nodded. "And one to let them know we're watching right? A new ToTheArk?" Masky nodded again.
"But they're not using youtube again yet so we need to find a different way other than uploading them online?" Hoody nodded and then traced a question mark in the air, Nico didn't understand but Toby seemed to.
"Ya I'm getting to my point. What if we plant the tapes on Nico? I mean Jay things that Nico is Masky's cousin. What's stopping us from pretending Nico has the same thing Tim did with a "masked personality?" We already have a spare mask remember? The skull one? All we need to do is wait for them to come looking for him. Do a little running, make sure the tapes are in his pockets when they find him, and then as long as Nico can pretend not to remember anything we're good. It should work right? Nico are you okay with that?"
Nico nodded. He could easily pretend not to know anything since he had spent so much time actually not knowing what was going on. He was very familiar with how he acted in that position. It took Hoody a little longer to agree as he was thinking it over but then he nodded slowly. Toby gave a soft cheer and through his arms up.
"I had a good idea." He said with muted enthusiasm making both Nico and Hoody chuckle. Hoody reached into a small bag next to him and pulled out a mask and handed it to Nico. Nico studied the rough skull design on it for a minute. It was oddly appropriate, he thought, considering his nickname of the Ghost King and being the son of death. After a minute he slipped it over his face. Hoody helped him tighten the strap that held it on and when it was properly adjusted it was almost comfortable. It had a very slight smell but it wasn't unpleasant and it limited Nico's peripheral vision but that wasn't very dependable anyway. He could deal with this.
"We h-have work to do t-to finish the t-tapes." Hoody told them and stood up leading them back deeper into the woods, Toby and Nico following.