Breaking the Gods

chapter 2

The comic store trip turned out to actually be pretty fun, much to Sadie's surprise. She wasn't much into Mythomagic, or other card games, RPGs, or other stuff she considered geeky, but she had to admit there was something adorable about watching Nico/Anubis and Felix getting so excited about a simple game.

They might have taken it a bit too far though, by challenging this really big, foul tempered guy to a few matches, then beating him every single time. And rubbing it in his face, how he'd been beaten by kids who were only about a third of his age. Taunting him and teasing him until the guy looked ready to flip the table over on top of them.

"Boys, I think that's enough," she said hastily, trying not to stare at the peculiar shade of red that the man's face had turned as Nico and Felix gave each other some sort of complicated high-five hand-shake thing that ended in a bro fist.

"You're right," said Nico, smirking deviously.

"We are getting kind of bored just beating the same loser over and over again," said Felix.

Sadie fought down the urge to shake her head at them. If they were anyone else, she'd probably be worried, but Felix was extremely fast when he wanted to be, and Nico was probably the most dangerous person she knew. If the old, red-faced uber-geek decided to start something with them, she was sure Nico would finish it for him.

"Come on, boys," said Sadie, grabbing both of them by one arm and pulling them away from the tables that seemed to have been set up just so people could play games at them. Sadie found the whole concept interesting, having never thought about it much before. It was almost like the game store was as much a meeting place for gamers as it was a business to sell them stuff.

She released Nico when he pulled away from her near a rack of comics, and drifted over to look through them. Then she released Felix when he pulled away too, and ran after Nico, trailing him like a baby duckling.

"What're you reading, Nico? Is it any good? Does it have any penguins in it?"

The look on Nico's face was priceless as he raised one eyebrow, then gave Sadie an accusing look, like it was her fault Felix had started tailing him.

"Wonder Woman? But isn't that for girls? What would you want to read about her for?" demanded Felix, reading the title of the comic Nico was holding.

"It's not just for girls," Nico said defensively. "And Wonder Woman's a daughter of Zeus. And she reminds me of one of my cousins, who's also a daughter of Zeus."

"Oh, that's cool I guess. Hey, do you –"

"Here. Look at this." Nico handed another comic over to Felix, who immediately snatched it and started leafing through it.

"Whoa, this looks cool."

"So you're into comics too, huh?" asked Sadie.

Nico shrugged. "Not hardcore. I just read them from time to time. Some of them are interesting."

"Well what about all this other stuff I see around here?" asked Sadie.

Nico shook his head. "A lot of this stuff takes a long time to learn and get into, and I'm kind of short on time these days, what with the world being about to end fifty different ways and all. Maybe after we avert all these apocalypses I'll take up another game."

"We should try Dungeons and Dragons!" said Felix.

Nico raised an eyebrow at him again. "What do you mean we?"

"Well, you need a group of people to play, yeah?" said Felix. "And getting lots of people together isn't really easy. But since we both live in Brooklyn House, we've both got one person we know we'll always be able to get ahold of."