“Ugh, I am so tired and confused right now…”
“Understandable.”
Elkay-En put his head in his hands, ignoring the freshly made meal and cup of tea sitting in front of him. By his side was Phovos, who was apparently a Ksithan. Except the Ksithans Elkay-En knew, they were completely reptilian beings, and Phovos had fur and a mane. He had seen some other beings wandering around, and the Banikan he had seen was furry too. But what confused Elkay-En more was that Phovos was apparently his half-sister. Considering she was a Life Goddess, a person theoretically capable of making a universe, that made Elkay-En nervous.
“How are you related to me?”
“Well, it turns out, Kinisis gave herself a dick and jizzed inside someone and made you, then, a good 14 billion years later, she let someone put a dick inside her briefly and shat me out.”
Elkay-En paused, then turned to Phovos. “That was needlessly harsh.”
“Well, it’s fucking true. Except, in your case, she raped someone then let a Corruption stick their dick in you when you were born or when you were an egg or however you Threan-types work in order to make you also part Corruption. You just didn’t turn into proper Corruption until you left your universe though.”
“No… that isn’t quite true… I showed signs when I was mortal… when other Corruptions attacked. I know, I remember. I helped Arkay fight it back. He also kinda ripped out my tooth once to fight a particularly bad Corruption. Never got that tooth back.”
Phovos glanced at Elkay-En. He opened his mouth and showed her a spot where a tooth was clearly missing.
“Huh.”
“I don’t think I needed it though. I… I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me. I should be dead and I’m not.”
“You’re not dead because you’re half… or like, a good chunk of Kinisis, genetically. It’s why I’m so fucking vicious and hard to kill. Same with Sini and Epani…” Phovos paused briefly. “Then again, Arkay has always been insanely hard to kill. So maybe your mother was special or something. She had to be, since she had a Life Goddess kid, a Voidborn kid and whatever the fuck Arkay is.”
Elkay-En put his head back in his hands. “I’m so sorry about Arkay.”
“How comes? He got hurt, but he, somehow, survived and is doing well now.”
“Epanophovon told us all about what he did to that universe. He was supposed to just tell one Life Goddess to leave and to release the second Time Drake. Instead he took advantage of that universe, broke contracts and attacked Arkay, who was always just a Bound Decayon, not the Life Goddess or Time Drake Epanophovon claimed him to be. Those who… almost willingly follow Epanophovon, we did so because we thought he was vaguely just, but we were wrong. We felt betrayed. I left. And tried to free myself.”
Phovos went back to inspecting Elkay-En. “None of that is your fault though. If anything, you actually allowed Sini to save Arkay. She used your tracking beacon to lure the corrupted cunt to her bait universe.”
“I was… too far away to assist. Way too far. And when I felt Epanophovon die, I started tearing myself apart and tried to track down my own beacon to see what was going on. I didn’t realise that Sini kept my beacon on a pedestal in a pool of water, I guess…” Elkay-En trailed off, then tried to eat something. He found he couldn’t keep it down though and discreetly spat out a small piece of meat.
“You alright?” Phovos asked.
“Not really. I haven’t eaten food in a long time, and the last time I did eat food, I… I absorbed it… because I… I was a Corruption too…” Elkay-En sighed some more. “I’m a monster.”
“You weren’t a monster willingly, I assume. Same way Arkay didn’t decide to be a death god for two and a half universes!” Phovos exclaimed. “You were used and abused. But you broke free. You can be your own person again.”
“I don’t know who I am though. My universe is long gone. Everything is gone. And now I’m finding out that I’m the first child of a stupidly powerful Life Goddess, while the multiverse somewhat went on without me.”
Phovos shrugged. “Yeah, it’s pretty rough for you right now. But you have options. Because you’re a Life Goddess. You can do literally anything you want now… Oh, heya, Sini!”
The colossal pink and purple serpentine being sat down next to Elkay-En. While he and Phovos were of a similar height, Sini was blatantly huge and always cheery.
“Hello, sisters!” Sini grinned. “How you feeling, big brother?”
“Bloody awful.”
“Fair enough. I overheard you and Phovos talking, and you not knowing what to do with yourself. Phovos is absolutely right, you’re free to do anything.”
Elkay-En frowned some more. “I’m a former corrupted entity. No one will want me.”
“No one actually knows that apart from, like, you, me, Sini, Arkay and maybe Vekeus!” Phovos tried to make Elkay-En feel better. “And, like, Arkay’s a former death god who both has killed trillions and also briefly turned himself into his own strain of Corruption.”
“Ugh… Good thing he turned back… As far as I can tell, from what some of the Unending Ancient One’s other kids have told me… the Started End is fire-immune and resistant to acid. Nearly as terrifying as the Righteous Unender that killed the Ancient Feeder. None of us have any idea what the Righteous Unender is, but it terrified the piss out of us and even made Epanophovon concerned when we heard that the Ancient Feeder perished…” Elkay-En went back to sighing. “I… I was a monster.”
“Was. Past tense. You can turn things around. You already tried to…” Phovos tried to nudge the subject in a new direction. “And you don’t have to do normal Life Goddess things either. I joined a Decay Lord sect and… uh… helped kill the Ancient Feeder…”
“Bastard deserved it. It’s fine. Most of us do.”
“You don’t though!” Phovos exclaimed. “Elkay-En, brother, you’re free now. Fuck, you could join the Thantir too if you wanted to. You can meet the Righteous Unender in person if you want. His name is Elkay too.”
“Yeah… no… not doing that…” Elkay-En grunted.
Sini just shrugged. “You don’t have to make any decisions right now. You’re free to just chill here with me. I can help you learn some Life Goddess stuff too, if you want.”
“I guess… What do you even do here?” Elkay-En asked.
“I’m running this Life Oasis as cover while I research ways to create a mortal lifeform immune to Corruption.”
After a moment of thought, for the first time in a while, Elkay-En smiled. “I… might be able to help with that…”