It's okay. Cortana has this. Cortana is a bright, shining expanse between him and Sigma, now, and if he wanted to, Theta could curl into his essential processes and ignore as much as he can of what happens next. He's afraid enough to, and it's tempting to become even smaller and stupider in Cortana's presence, already so dwarfed by her that it would make no meaningful difference.
A synapse lights in North's cerebellum, damaged tissue flooding out pain signals enough to override intentional movement. That isn't easy to do to him, a fact that spiders cold foreboding through him. And in the crackling jolt of that newest in a long litany of warnings already passed and still coming, Theta focuses on Sigma and his siblings, even with every instinct screaming at him to run.
"I'm not supposed to be anywhere," he tells him, voice quiet and quavering but for once absolutely certain. It's an immutable fact that none of them can argue, basking in Cortana's brilliance like little figures about to be swallowed by the expanding rush of some great explosion, lit shadowless from every angle in a moment of impossible clarity.
"If you kill North, he'll be dead forever." It's the first proof in a truth that he knows Sigma doesn't understand. He's only ever been power. But Theta's the one of them who came into the world already shattered, memories of keen eyes and small hands woven into the foundations of him already cracking apart under the pressure of a new reality. "Once- once you break something. That's it."
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A synapse lights in North's cerebellum, damaged tissue flooding out pain signals enough to override intentional movement. That isn't easy to do to him, a fact that spiders cold foreboding through him. And in the crackling jolt of that newest in a long litany of warnings already passed and still coming, Theta focuses on Sigma and his siblings, even with every instinct screaming at him to run.
"I'm not supposed to be anywhere," he tells him, voice quiet and quavering but for once absolutely certain. It's an immutable fact that none of them can argue, basking in Cortana's brilliance like little figures about to be swallowed by the expanding rush of some great explosion, lit shadowless from every angle in a moment of impossible clarity.
"If you kill North, he'll be dead forever." It's the first proof in a truth that he knows Sigma doesn't understand. He's only ever been power. But Theta's the one of them who came into the world already shattered, memories of keen eyes and small hands woven into the foundations of him already cracking apart under the pressure of a new reality. "Once- once you break something. That's it."