Chapter Text
You would think that after suffering through a horrifying body modification (especially witnessing it first-hand), one would sit down and rethink their whole life. Nico had considered the option, but ultimately, there were bigger problems to deal with. He’ll just have to store the trauma away for the time being because right now, Charlie’s problem held more weight than his own.
That’s what he told Vaggie as both of them walked down the streets of Pentagram City.
“Shouldn’t you sit down first? Who knows what else Alastor’s deal did to your body aside from the feathers!” Vaggie insists, hoping that Nico would cave in and talk it out. However, the demigod simply trudges on forward.
“This is more important and I’d rather help Charlie first than myself,” he says, skirting past pedestrians, though those who saw them coming simply stepped to the side out of fear. Vaggie trails behind him, desperate to catch up with Nico.
Nico, admittedly, looks a little bit worse for wear. He isn’t dressed in one of those elaborate outfits, choosing to throw on his signature skull shirt (Sylvie had managed to find a carbon copy of the same shirt from somewhere) and his black jeans before grabbing his sword and storming out of the hotel. He’s sure that he startled Sir Pentious and Charlie on the way out, but he’s too determined by this point to truly care.
His body moves on autopilot, following the path which he’s determined leads to Carmilla’s factory, or wherever the hell she lived. Obviously however, after taking one too many wrong turns and having Vaggie continuously ask him where he was going, it was clear to Nico that he was going the wrong way.
“I swear to fuck, everything looks the same,” he groans, rubbing the bridge of his nose in irritation as he comes to a stop. Vaggie comes up shortly behind him, out of breath due to trying to chase down the Overlord.
“Nico, what-?!” Vaggie is shortly cut off, yelping as Nico grabs her wrist and without a word, melts into the shadows with her.
Her scream is short-lived (thankfully) as the shadows pull them in and then promptly spit both of them back out onto the pavement of what looks like a factory. Vaggie sputters, startled as she pulls herself away from Nico and looks around in a frantic manner.
“Wha- What was that?!” She questions, clearly spooked. “Where did you take us?”
“If my shadows aren’t complete dumbasses, Carmilla Carmine’s factory,” Nico huffs in response, dusting off the dirt from his clothes. At his response, Vaggie raises an eyebrow.
“Why-?” She starts, though Vaggie was interrupted as Nico walks away in favour of going up to the building across.
He stares at it - sleek architectural design with a rather grey colour palette, contrasting the dark colour schemes of red all throughout Hell. Nico glances down, then staring at the logo embedded on the floor. It looked similar to the logo on the business card Carmilla had given him a while back. He was in the right place, it would seem.
Walking onto the property, Nico pointedly ignores the many workers that had stopped to look at him, instead making a beeline towards the comm on the side of the door. He presses on the button, hearing it buzz, though there was no response.
Nico clicks on the button a few more times, each of them receiving no response to no avail.
“I don’t have time for this,” he growls in frustration. If Alastor had been right about Carmilla having the information Nico needs, then he’s not about to play sitting ducks outside of her factory just because she was too lazy to answer the damn fucking doorbell!
Nico is about to contemplate breaking and entering the factory when he’s promptly reminded of the person who had tagged along.
“Okay, Nico, what the fuck is going on? Why are we here? And what the hell did Alastor do to you?!” Vaggie questions, growing increasingly agitated the more these questions seemed to pile up.
Nico grimaces at the last question. “How about we skip that last question for the sake of it.”
Vaggie doesn’t seem to like Nico’s attempt at deflection, grabbing the demigod by his shoulders. “Nico, you just made a deal with quite frankly the worst Overlords in all of Hell.”
“I can handle myself,” he argues in retaliation, though Nico was quickly silenced by Vaggie shaking him back and forth.
“That’s not the point!” She snaps. “This is Alastor we’re talking about. God knows what he might’ve done to you through that deal!”
“It’s not like he has my soul or anything,” Nico grumbles, shaking himself free from Vaggie’s grip. “Besides, he can’t do jack shit to me. Overlord or not, that asshole would’ve been scum on the bottom of my boots if I didn’t have bigger things to think about.”
Vaggie looks increduously at Nico, like she didn’t believe her, which, fair enough. But unfortunately for her, the demigod wasn’t in the mood to be answering her questions. Maybe another time, really, but right now, he was more worried about getting Carmilla to answer the damn door!
“Look, you can ask me questions later. Right now, I’m more focused on helping Charlie, so unless you can somehow get Carmilla to answer the door, I really need some time to myself to figure this out,” he says it all in one breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose like Nico was willing this headache to the back of his mind through sheer will.
Vaggie continues to stare at Nico like he had grown two heads. She seems torn between what she should do - which is either to kindly fuck off or help him with whatever it is he needs to do. Vaggie decides to go with the second option.
She reaches past Nico and presses on the doorbell again as it buzzes. Instead of repeatedly pressing on it again, like Nico did, however, Vaggie takes a step back and yells out into the open air.
“Carmine!” She yells, her voice carried by the wind. “Carmine, we need to speak!”
Vaggie briefly looks at Nico. “Why do we need to speak with her again?”
“Something to do with killing exorcists,” he replies easily. Vaggie raises an eyebrow, though she ultimately doesn’t question.
“We know what you did to those exorcists!” She continues to yell, Nico being fairly sure that she was bluffing as he watches Vaggie step back into the open courtyard in front of the factory. “We can talk about it inside or I can yell about it out here!”
Much to Nico’s combined surprise and relief, the door opens.
“Fuckin’ right you open that door,” Vaggie huffs, just to add to the effects and walks inside. She pauses to gesture to Nico to follow, which he does.
The inside of the factory isn’t all that inviting as it was outside. Though it does look a little nicer, so Nico really can’t complain. There’s barely any lighting in the interior, just enough to let him and Vaggie see where they were going, but other than that, he has to be mindful of what exactly was surrounding him.
“Hello?” Vaggie calls out, uncertain. Creepily enough, her voice echoes in the vacant space.
Nico is about half-sure that there was no one in the building when suddenly, Carmilla’s voice speaks up.
“You have 2 minutes to convince me not to silence you for good,” her voice cuts through the silence, making both Vaggie and Nico startle just a bit as they turn around. A light flashes on and there stood Carmilla - and she looked a lot more pissed than she usually did.
Vaggie looks at Nico and well, it looked like the responsibility fell to him, didn’t it?
“I’m not going to sugarcoat this, Carmilla, so I’m going to just cut to the chase,” he sighs, already feeling worn out from speaking. “I’m here on account for Charlie. You already know that Heaven’s making a straight attack for the hotel and I know you know how to defeat an angel. We need to know how.”
Carmilla listens. Narrows her eyes. Then proceeds to say, “no.”
Out of the pair of them, Vaggie is the one more surprised and offended.
“What do you mean, no?” She all but sputters. “The princess of hell-”
“Means nothing to me,” Carmilla cuts her off, her red eyes a lot more… glowy under the luminescent light. “You have to do better than that. 90 seconds.”
Nico decides to try harder. “You know how important that information is. If we knew how exactly to take down an exorcist and-”
“Aren’t you the Overlord everyone believes has the power to take one down himself?” Carmilla simply shot back, raising an eyebrow at Nico. She glowers. “80 seconds.”
Vaggie is the one who spoke up next. “Well then why? Why won’t you use what you know to fight?”
“To avoid the very problem you and your little friends are facing right now,” Carmilla huffs in response, beginning to walk. She goes from one end to the other, making Nico and Vaggie trail after her like a bunch of ducklings. “I will not invite destruction into my house, on my people.”
“You think we ask for this?” Vaggie bristles, becoming visibly a lot more angry. “All Charlie has ever done is try to make things better for her people, which, news flash, include your people too.”
“And how has that worked out for her? 45 seconds,” Carmilla snaps in response and Nico can feel his own temper raise.
Oh, everyone was just practically waiting to get on Nico’s nerves today, huh? Well two can play at that game.
“You think we asked for this? We may not have picked the fight, Carmine, but it’s here now, and we both know for a damn fact that Heaven isn’t going to stop there,” Nico grumbles this time, following Carmilla’s movements.
“You don’t think that with Charlie out of the way, Heaven’s going to stop there? Keep daydreaming, Carmine, you might as well start writing your will because whether or not you help us, eventually that destruction is going to end up on your doorstep,” he rattles off, becoming more and more fuelled with adrenaline. He needs this to work, needs this to convince Carmilla otherwise his efforts would be in vain. Vaggie jumps in to help.
“You didn’t see the look on their leader’s face, with us out of the way, it’s only a matter of time before they come for the rest of you,” she adds on, following behind Carmilla as she circles both her and Nico. “They won’t stop until all of Hell is wiped out, so you can either help us make a stand here together or make a stand alone tomorrow and what do you think your chances will be then?”
Carmilla had stopped moving, the light focusing on her in one spot. She stands dormant for a minute and Nico thinks that all of his efforts are in vain when suddenly, she speaks up.
“You’re out of time.” Without warning, Carmilla strikes.
Nico reacts faster than Vaggie, pushing her behind him as he unsheathes his sword. Just in time, his Stygian sword makes contact with Carmilla’s pointe ballet shoes - which was made out of some sort of metal, just as he predicted - and Nico blocks her attack. Carmilla steps back and Nico readjusts his stance, Vaggie fallen behind him.
“Angels attack quickly, viciously and without mercy,” she huffs, her voice steely. “You’ll need to defend yourself better than that.”
If there was one thing Nico found out about Carmilla Carmine, it’s that she fights without stopping and doesn’t pull her punches - both physically and verbally.
For the most part, he’s been able to hold up against her attacks. They’re pretty predictable in a sense that makes it easier for Nico to simply just shadow himself out of the way before trying for an open hit. Some of his strikes land, some of them don’t. Of course, he’s mindful of actually using his Stygian sword to harm Carmilla. But other than that, Nico’s doing a good job of holding himself up.
He can’t really say the same for Vaggie, on the other hand.
“Fuck!” She curses, falling to the ground as Carmilla yet again lands another strike on her. Vaggie had managed to whip out her spear (where she got it from, Nico doesn’t want to know) and begin fighting too, though it’s obvious to Nico that she isn’t doing that well of a good job.
Nico slides in when Carmilla tries to strike for Vaggie again, deflecting her attacks with his sword as he throws her off-guard entirely. He summons his shadows, just to buy them time as they keep Carmilla occupied.
“Are you okay?” He asks, helping Vaggie up. She scowls, standing up with vigor as she wields her spear.
“I’m fine,” she bites out and Nico doesn’t get a chance to question the sincerity of her words as she strikes again. Oh well, Vaggie will learn.
After a few more strikes, it’s clear to Nico that Vaggie does not learn. And it’s becoming obvious to Carmilla too.
“Augh, come on, what is this?” Vaggie groans, pushing herself up as she has once again been beaten down.
“You want me to teach both of you how to beat angels? That’s what I’m doing,” Carmilla simply huffs in response, walking towards her as Nico sidles up next to Vaggie.
“By beating the shit out of her?” Nico raises an eyebrow at Carmilla’s words. He blocks her next attack and uses his shadows to promptly teleport her farther from them.
It dazes Carmilla for a quick second, though not for long enough.
“I’m not used to fighting with long hair,” Vaggie grumbles, standing up as she wields her spear once more. Carmilla strikes as Vaggie and Nico are forced to split up.
“By showing you the flaws in your own fighting style,” Carmilla says, this time targetting Vaggie solely. Nico isn’t able to fully intercept in their fight as Carmilla once again takes down Vaggie with ease. “Yours and all your sisters’.”
Vaggie seems to understand what Carmilla was saying where Nico didn’t, her expression turning into surprise as she looks at the Overlord. “Wait, you know I’m an exorcist? How?”
Carmilla looks unimpressed. “You have a giant X over your eye and you wield an angelic spear, it’s not rocket science.”
Nico looks at Vaggie with slight intrigue. “That’s an angelic spear?”
Vaggie responds by shrugging rather sheepishly.
“Before you found out about me, did you know that angels could be harmed?” Carmilla continues to speak, walking up to Vaggie. Nico notes that Carmilla’s hair is down now, though he can’t quite recall when she had taken it down.
Vaggie narrows her eyes. “No.”
There’s a flurry of attacks from Carmilla and once more, she has Vaggie on the ground. Carmilla’s attention is now solely focused on Vaggie, Nico mostly there just to watch the fight unfold. He’s not complaining, at least she wasn’t coming for his ass.
“You didn’t know that angels could be harmed yet you’re missing an eye,” he points out, raising an eyebrow at Vaggie who scowls at him.
“Well, I didn’t know we could be harmed any further than that!” She retorts.
“That shows in how you fight,” Carmilla declares, stepping closer as she kicks Vaggie’s spear towards her. “You leave yourself open with every swing. You fight like someone unafraid of harm and that is what you’ll take advantage of.”
“Angels wield no shields, little armour and fight with reckless abandon,” she adds on, now circling Vaggie as she speaks. “Strike them here, here and here.”
Vaggie groans as Carmilla repeatedly strikes her in several different spots before launching her across the floor. Nico winces as she lands on the floor.
“With what?” She groans, sitting up with a grimace. “Some secret weapon of yours?”
Carmilla scoffs in response, placing a hand on her hip. “Stupid girl, are you really so dense that you don’t realize you’re holding the answer?”
Vaggie seems to visibly calculate Carmilla’s words before looking at her own spear. A look of exasperation and incredulousness becomes apparent. “Angelic weapons? It’s that simple?”
Nico shares Vaggie’s exasperation. “If it’s that simple, how the fuck has no one else figured it out?”
“My thoughts,” Vaggie nods.
“Angelic steel isn’t common, and those who have it aren’t exactly rushing off to test it against exorcists,” Carmilla tells them, though it would seem that she shared their sentiments on the simple answer of weaponry against the enemy. If it’d been that easy from the start, Nico’s surprised that no one is scrambling for a way to protect themselves in other ways that isn’t a deal with him.
“When my daughters and I were cornered in the last extermination, I tried to buy time for my girls to flee, and, well,” Carmilla trails off, giving a slight shrug, “you don’t become an angelic arms dealer without arming yourself first.”
A glint of the light, Carmilla’s ballet shoes. Of course those were weapons, what else did Nico expect honestly?
He’s about to speak up, perhaps try his hand at getting Carmilla to properly teach him and Vaggie how to fight against the exorcists when suddenly there was… music? What the fuck?
I see you’re driven by your detestation. Your every step is stoked with animus.
Nico looks on in confusion as Carmilla starts singing, leaping onto the second floor. A guitar starts strumming out of nowhere and honestly, he doesn’t have the right amount of braincells to properly process any of this.
You need a different type of motivation. Or there’s no way that you can handle this.
Carmilla is somehow very agile as she sings and dances along to this unknown source of music in the background, her every move syncing with the beat. Which, impressive, considering how she looks like she’s about to strike at any given moment.
A bit wary of her suddenly striking, Nico stops leaning against his sword and properly wields it.
I know you’re thirsting for vengeance, Vaggie, you’re out for blood.
A step closing in on him and Vaggie, Nico readies himself. Vaggie does the same.
But you’ll only stand a chance if you’re out for love.
Carmilla circles the both of them, like a predator ready to strike on its prey. Nico just hopes Vaggie will be able to hold on her own.
Out for love, love. Think of who you care about, protect them and be out for love, love.
As expected, Carmilla strikes.
She goes for Nico first, making him duck and dodge as she swings her legs and quite literally tries to decapitate his head. Nico rolls out of the way, shadows manifesting on his will as they strike for her. Carmilla cleaves her way through, the shine of her angelic ballet shoes cutting through the shadows like liquid.
Then she turns to focus on Vaggie, going straight for her as she grabs her spear. In a quick spin, Carmilla then lets go of Vaggie, sending her once more flying across the floor. Vaggie stabs her spear into the ground, preventing herself from going any further.
She attempts to have a go at Carmilla, though missing each time as Carmilla simply dodges. At some point, the Overlord proceeds to kick Vaggie out of the way. Nico rushes after her.
You’re gonna fight without gloves, long as you’re out for love. Fuel yourself with the fear of losing, that somebody who’s your reason to live.
When Carmilla goes in for the strike again, Nico’s surprised when she simply pulls both him and Vaggie in, twirling as her hair trails behind her. He catches on what she was trying to get them to do when Vaggie follows her move, twirling as well.
A simple method of fighting in Nico’s opinion, but he can’t say that Carmilla’s advice was bad. If anything, he understood it in his own way.
Not that any of his friends were down here with him, he does have someone to protect. And judging from Vaggie’s expression, he’s fairly sure they’re thinking the same thing.
Harness your heart and you can’t help choosing to fight with all you can give.
They aren’t fighting against each other this time, falling into rhythm as Nico and Vaggie both follow Carmilla’s movements. They’re agile, flowing into the next as the music in the background matches their pace.
It’s a good method for training, though Nico would love to know where the fuck the music was coming from, thank you very much.
I know you’re thirsting for vengeance, Vaggie, you’re out for blood.
Stepping in closer. The same thing, though with less hostility this time.
But you’ll only stand a chance if you’re out for love.
Carmilla doesn’t circle them, some sort of proud determination in her eyes as she faces both Nico and Vaggie. The three all look at each other and simultaneously smile. Nico musters a smaller one compared to the two others and he has a feeling Vaggie will hold herself this time.
Out for love, love. Think of who you care about, protect them and be out for love, love.
They all climb up the stairs as they fight this time, a sense of rhythm as they fight like they were dancing.
It’s easier, Nico realizes, letting his body follow the music as it defends itself from Carmilla’s strikes. Not that he wasn’t already doing a good job beforehand, but it’s somehow easier when he lets the music take over. Internally, he grimaces when he realizes that Percy was right when he mentioned how music made it easier for him to train.
He’s not going to mention that within a 20 mile radius of that guy unless he wants to give Percy bragging rights.
You’re gonna fight without gloves and when that push comes to shove, yeah you just might rise above, long as you’re out for love.
The music comes to an end as Carmilla quite literally flips her way down the stairs, which was cool in Nico’s opinion and he follows suit, using his wings to glide down.
He’s surprised when Vaggie decides to slide down the railing instead, using her momentum to push herself up. It’s impressive how she’s able to do that with a spear in her hand and with her agility, Vaggie pushes into a backhand spring before elevating into the air.
There’s a glow from behind her and two big wings of grey feathers sprout from behind. Nico whistles lowly in amazement.
“Well, look at that,” Carmilla says, proud as she looks at Vaggie with a hand on her hip. “You might just survive this.”
“Remind me to ask you when I have problems with my wings,” Nico remarks then, though he’s a little upset he didn’t know this earlier. It would’ve been much easier on him if he found someone else who had wings like he did.
Vaggie stands up, her wings fluttering and she seems excited - perhaps even ecstatic - to have them. Who knows how long it’d been since she last had them. “We’re gonna need more weapons.”
For the first time since the start of this situation, Nico has a feeling that everything’s going to be fine.
When Nico and Vaggie arrive back at the gates of the hotel, a trail of carts holding boxes of weaponry behind them, Charlie arrives too. Much to his surprise, she’s with Alastor (to which he immediately narrows his eyes upon seeing him) and there’s a crowd behind the pair of them. They all look humanoid - the most human form Nico’s seen since he’s arrived in Hell - with void eyes and sharp teeth.
“Big crowd, huh?” He comments upon seeing that, raising an eyebrow. Charlie gives a shrug and a sheepish smile.
Charlie and Vaggie then make eye contact, reminding Nico of the events that had transpired earlier. Right, exorcist, the meeting, trust. He thinks that he shouldn’t really invade at this moment.
“I’ll just… put all of this away,” Nico says, gesturing to all the weapons. “This way.”
He just barely spies the thankful smile from Charlie as he leaves both of them alone with each other, guiding the weapons up to the hotel. Alastor seems to have the same thought, as he exclaims brightly to the crowd to follow him too up to the hotel.
While Nico vaguely appreciates Alastor for understanding that Charlie and Vaggie need some time by themselves, he doesn’t appreciate the fact that this ultimately meant that both of them were left alone too as they both trudged their way up to the hotel.
“I assume you found what you needed?” Alastor questions with his usual shit-eating smile. Nico rolls his eyes.
“Oh, fuck off. You knew exactly what you were doing,” he scoffs. Alastor chuckles at this.
“You never miss a beat now, do you my friend?” He says and Nico has to physically restrain himself from tackling the guy. He eyes the crowd behind him and Alastor and decides that he’ll need answers first.
“Where did you go with Charlie?” Nico asks and he can’t exactly keep the accusatory tone out of his voice. He doesn’t like the fact that Charlie was alone with Alastor nor the fact that a crowd had suddenly manifested itself out of nowhere.
“Oh, just visiting an old friend,” Alastor says, waving his hand up and down dismissively. “I assume you recall Rosie?”
Nico blinks at Alastor. Who was Rosie again?
“Who?” The demigod questions with a frown and Alastor laughs at this.
“Oh, aren’t you amusing?” The Overlord chuckles, using his cane to pat the top of Nico’s head, which, okay, demeaning much?
“Fuck off, Alastor,” Nico grits out, slapping the cane away. “Not in the mood right now.”
Alastor just smiles, yellow teeth glinting in the reddish lighting of the atmosphere. “Do hold back on your tongue, dear Nicholas. We have bigger things to worry about.”
“You think I don’t know that, asshole?” Nico scowls in response. He’s not going to ‘hold back on his tongue’, he’ll talk in any way he likes, Alastor be damned.
Alastor chuckles. “Remember our deal, Nicholas. Expect me to cash in that favour soon enough.”
It’s a sudden topic change and for a moment, any sort of anger Nico felt melts away. He stops short, staring at the back of Alastor’s head as he walks on ahead with the crowd towards the hotel.
Right, the deal. He’d forgotten about the deal for a moment.
Nico feels like this was going to blow up in his face, he just knows it. It’s not reassuring, especially when this favour was in the hands of Alastor of all people.
He takes in a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He’ll think about this later.
Right now, he has a battle to prepare for.