"He did WHAT?!" Morgania shouted. The veins in Macaria's neck showed through as her pale skin flushed green with anger. Pandora had never seen Morgania so volatile when Hekate was her host; the forced partnership with Macaria must be taking a toll.
"Amalthea introduced Zeus to Promtheus just as I asked, and Prometheus supported your plan to have Zeus infiltrate Kronos's camp... but he gave Zeus the box as a token to win Kronos's favor."
"So now Kronos has the box..." Morgania said, "Before I've had a chance to put myself into it. I suppose secretly trapping myself in the box while it's in Kronos's possession is not so much harder than doing it while it is in Prometheus's possession... The hard part was always going to be getting into the box before Zeus himself opened it..."
"About that..." Pandora said, "I'm concerned that plan won't work out the way you hope it will."
Morgania growled quietly, "What's wrong?"
"I'm sure Zeus will follow through predictably - but I'm afraid that when he inevitably does open the box, it may not be you that pops out."
"I can make it so it is," Morgania said, "I'm sure it's just a matter of will - I just have to focus on my plan before I go in the box..."
"Even if you're right, when we designed the box originally, we assumed that we would never have cause to inter ourselves within it - it was a vessel to hold everyone else, in perpetuity. We tested its ability to store a Legacy temporarily, as you well remember, obviously, but we didn't focus on that as a major design concern."
"True, but the mechanism for releasing the entrapped Legacies clearly still works fine," Morgania said, "Prometheus demonstrated that when he infused his human warriors with Legacies."
"But neither of the humans appear to have completely bonded with their new Legacies. They have become transhuman, certainly, but Amalthea says that they've yet to manifest most of the more distinctive powers of a Titan, and that neither of them can commune with the Legacies they carry. They don't even know who they got from the box."
"Well, it was always reasonable to expect a human would be unable to fully bond with a Legacy or access all of its abilities."
Pandora shook her head, the incompatible graft with Macaria must really be throwing Morgania off. She tried to metaphorically lead her by the hand, "Typhon and Echidna's humanity is one variable that differentiates them from every other Legacy Bearer so far, but it's not the only variable."
Morgania seemed to finally wrangle her dissonant mind, "The other variable being that their Legacies were stored in the box. No... we tested it - I tested it - when we were still in prototype stage. And I went in the box, came back out, and I was fine."
"But you were alone in the box," Pandora said, "We didn't test what would happen if multiple Legacies were trapped in the box together."
"We decided it would be fine," Morgania said, "That the Legacy nanites would be more than capable of sorting themselves out, segregating themselves when the box was reopened."
"That was Coatylinuku's opinion, yes," Pandora said, "But you yourself said that if there was even a fraction of a percent error in that self-differentiation, the Legacies could become damaged or corrupted."
"And you think that's why Typhon and Echidna aren't bonding with their Legacies correctly?"
Pandora nodded, "And what happens, then, if we put you in the box, or if I or Prometheus end up in that box?"
"Can you create more vessels?" Morgania said, "To store individual Legacies?"
"Yes," Pandora nodded, "I can do it with the snap of my fingers, but I can't reproduce the key. It was a one-time-miracle sort of thing. I can make separate vessels for us to serve as lifeboats if need be, but we'll need to get the key back from Prometheus."
"Then that's what we'll do," Morgania said, "Create a vessel for me and then take us to Prometheus. We'll get the key from him, pop me out of Macaria into my reservation-for-one, and then you can give me to Zeus instead of the box."
"Are you sure about this," Pandora said, "About him as a host?"
"I think Macaria has done her penance hosting me," Morgania said, "And Hekate isn't ready for me to return to yet. No, Zeus will do fine - he's bull-headed, maybe, but in a simple way that I can work with."
"And me?" Pandora said.
"Whatever happens to me and Prometheus," Morgania sighed, "Well, consider yourself our rebellion's designated survivor."
"So, just stick to what I'm good at then," Pandora agreed.
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