#scaevan-events

The children had taken to Nero’s schematics surprisingly well.... though the self-proclaimed genius did have to spent an absolutely asinine amount of time explaining the terminology. It didn’t surprise him, necessarily, but it did annoy him. Once the little brats understood what he was saying, things came together very, very, very quickly.

The stronger children were charged with moving and holding the pieces in place. The smaller ones were charged with fastening it all together. Nero supervised it all, and was grinning madly by the time it was finished. 

A crude, scrapped-together replica of a magitek anti-personnel cannon. Four in total. Snow shaped into suitable ammunition for the replica cannons, stacked in piles. A child standing at each cannon, ready to load and fire at the former Tribunus’s command. All that remained was to wait for an unsuspecting victim to walk within range. 

It took all of five minutes before a small swarm of other children entered within range. Maintaining his devious expression, Nero looked to the swarm, and then, to his little allies. He then pointed at the swarm, and snapped his fingers-the cue he’d taught them to mean fire. 

And fire they did. 

A proper snowball fight soon ensued, with the non-occupied children creating and throwing their own snowballs, and the “rebels” (as Nero was now playfully thinking of them as) were doing the same. Nero occasionally joined in with his own snowballs, but mostly observed and gave orders. It was honestly very, very, very fun. Even Livia might enjoy this... if she were here. 

Of course, Nero and the brats he commanded achieved victory relatively quickly. The other group of children ran away, and Nero felt rather proud of his accomplishment-

“Excuse me, but are you the one in charge of these children?”

Nero raised an eyebrow at the sound of a feminine voice. A middle-aged, Hyur-esque woman approached him, clearly rather angry. He could only assume it was directed at him. 

What else is new, he thought, someone’s frustrated with me. 

He shrugged.

“Not truly. I have helped and guided them in the construction and usage of these little cannons, but none of them are actually mine.” He answered.

“How dare you order such a brutal assault on my poor baby-”

He groaned, and leveled a deadpan look at her.

“You should know by now that the world is rife with danger. Your ‘poor baby’, as you put it, is bound to get hurt every so often. He just happened to be in the wrong place and the wrong time, and it’s simply frozen water. It’s not going to truly harm your brat, so don’t even bother trying to preach to me, whoever you are.” He interjected, before turning on his heel and beginning to walk away. He could vaguely hear her ranting and raving, but quickly tuned her out.

Some entitled savage did not get to tell him what to do, and he had no interest in listening to her pointless shrieking. So, he left the area, leaving her to howl, probably now at the children for listening to a stranger and attacking her child. Ugh, how pathetic. He was Nero tol Scaeva, magitek genius extraordinaire-above such mad ramblings. 

Nero was going on a casual walk when he felt the air begin to chill. Another day, another walk, and he noticed the snow beginning to fall. A childish yet demonic grin came across his face. As a son of Garlemald, he knew the cold very well. Some of his first creations had been things such as automatic snowball-firing guns and remote control drones that also spat out snow at whoever he decided was worthy of being pelted by the machinations of his genius. 

What would he build this time, he wondered. He had all the time in the world to do so, given the lack of threats to his life (as far as he knew of, at least), the lack of Cid nan bloody Garlond, and just overall peace. A magnificent replica of the snowball gun? Or a remote control turret to rain down frozen hell upon whoever he felt like targeting? There were plenty of materials, if one knew where to look-

Then, he saw a small group of young, Hyur-esque children all gathered around a small scrap heap. Some were arriving, pulling other scrap pieces with them. He knew exactly what he was going to do now. Oh, how proud Cid would be-helping innocent children achieve some cute little dream, he thought bitterly for a moment. He shoved the thought aside, and strode confidently over to the children. They all strained their necks to look up at him as he crossed his arms. 

“Well, what do we have here? A lot of untapped potential... what were you all hoping to make with these little bits and pieces?” He asked. It took a few seconds, but finally, a young girl worked up the courage to talk to him. 

“Umm... we were gonna... use this stuff to make a really big snow... thing. We... we honestly aren’t really sure what we want to do with it. Just something reeaaallllyyyy big!” She admitted. Nero chuckled, took off his helmet dramatically (followed by his sunglasses, because such was his nature), and knelt down to their level. 

“Well, fortunately for you all, you have the great fortune of having the genius of yours truly, Nero tol Scaeva, on your side! We will make something that will triumph over any other creation of snow and ice your little heads could even remotely begin to imagine!” He told them. The children all collectively gasped.

“You’re gonna help us out, mister?!” The girl who had previously spoken asked in disbelief.

“It would be mere child’s play! Now, let’s see what we have here...” He answered, before standing back up and walking closer to the pile. It was nothing too extraordinary-a small variety of assorted bits and pieces, likely raided from nearby garbage dumps. Some metal, some plastic, but all had potential in Nero’s eyes. 

He walked over, picked up a nearby stick, and motioned for the children to come over. They all swarmed around him, and he got down on his knees. 

“We will all need to work together for this to succeed. Watch what I do, and then, we will delegate tasks as needed. Then, we will relish in our success!” He encouraged.

“Um... what does delegate mean?” Another child asked.

Nero was often rather bored from day to day as of late. There wasn’t too much for him to do on this strange island, in this strange parallel dimension. It was the same boring monotony for him. He woke up, got ready for the day, took walks to survey the area, occasionally would tinker with something if the mood struck him (the mood often did strike him), return back to his shared apartment, change out of his armor, and head to bed. Oh, how he wanted something exciting to happen-

He could barely finish his thought before a strange, glitchy, pixelized wave passed over the city. Instinctively, he shielded his eyes, and was fully ready to fight his way back to his shared apartment-

Nothing happened. He waited several minutes. Still, nothing happened. He lowered his arms, and stared in abject horror at the sight before him. 

It was all ruined. The walls had turned from their normal appearances to twisted, smoldering, remnants of the dark, black metal walls he knew since he was young. Twisted, metallic plating was littered throughout the streets. Chunks of throughly scorched cerment were tossed about just as carelessly. Ruined remnants of magitek vanguards were partially fused to ruined remnants of magitek colossi. Charred remnants of low-ranking Imperial soldiers could be seen throughout, with what wasn’t destroyed being chewed and lapped at by strange creatures. 

Their sizes were as varied as could be. Some were massive, lumbering, bear-like creatures, while others were small, swift, and looked more like damselflies. But they were all a bit... pixelated. Too pixelated for Omega to let them continue to exist. Thus, Nero eliminated the idea that this was yet another one of Omega’s little experiments. But if it was not the ancient war machine’s doing, then who was to blame for this sudden anarchy? Nero did not know, and he did not like the fact he did not know the answer. 

Still, he did not want to take any chances. What if these creatures were hostile? Fearing that idea, Nero retreated swiftly to his apartment, and noticed another odd phenomena-the pixel creatures did not seem to go within one-thousand yalms of the apartments. 

In other words, he could hide until this passed, or until he could get a helping hand. Though he was loathe to admit it, even he knew that attempting to fight these mystery creatures with naught more than a toy and his wits was a bad idea. Cowardly as some might call it, the move was also quite intelligent. And Nero was a very intelligent man.

The decision was an easy one to make for the former Tribunus. He hastily retreated into his part of the shared apartment he was forced to reside in, and breathed a sigh of relief once the door to the whole apartment was closed and locked behind him. He then began scrounging around until he found a small array of pencils, pens, and any other writing implements he could get his pale fingers on, and brought them to his room. He then returned to the main area, and scrounged around again until he gathered up all the paper he could find that was suitable for drawing. He then returned to his part of the apartment, and placed the paper on the same desk as the pens, pencils, and whatever else he had managed to gather up.

He then sat down, turned on the desk lamp, and began sketching out rough ideas for improvised weapons. Specifically, weapons he could improvise from whatever he could find in the ruined city. He may not have his proper gunhammer, but he still had his intellect and overall genius, and that would be enough to make it through. Not to mention he had his innate Garlean strength and third eye to help him gather whatever materials he could.