“I want to leave the Phantai.”
Lightblade looked down at the small Decay Lord sitting on the other side of his desk. The last time Lightblade had heard someone say that to him, they had taken one of Lightblade’s best soldiers and left to form their own sect. Most of the Phantai were simple, happy beings, content to endlessly murder Voidborn monsters and Corrupted entities, to avenge the gentle Mothers, the Life Goddesses that used to reside in this sector. Even the smaller, weirder members of the Phantai, who weren’t built to fight hulking black suits of death, they all had jobs that suited them and they seemed satisfied with. So to have the youngest member of the Phantai, come to Lightblade’s office all of a sudden making this weird statement seemed… odd.
“You do realize no one leaves the Phantai, yes, Loopblade-6?”
Loopblade-6 was a very odd being. While they did have armour plating somewhat similar to the more normal members of the Beh’evok, the main species of beings among the Phantai, they were also very small, barely 1.7m tall, with a pair of wings off their back and wearing additional silver armour on their orange and grey plates. Without the armour, Loopblade-6 would have looked like a female Beh’evok, but apparently Loopblade-6 was both male and female. Something the Phantai hadn’t really come across before until recently. Loopblade-6 was also technically the same person as Loopblades 1 through 5, all of them having come from a universe that was stuck in some sort of temporary time loop. Hence their name.
“Please, sir, can you not call me Loopblade?”
“Well, what do you want me to call you? Your team calls you Six.”
“My name is TK0016K, common name Teekay Theanon. I know I’m the sixth Teekay here, I know I’m the sixth Loopblade, but I’m tired of being nothing more than a number. I’m sick of my duties here, I hate the fact that I don’t even have a unique code name, I don’t like how I’m treated less than everyone else because there are other Loopblades, and I am desperate to get away from the alternate versions of myself.”
Lightblade tutted. “You do not like the rest of Loopblade.”
“No, they’re all assholes. I mean, I’m an asshole too, but they’re fucking insane. First thing they did was kidnap one of the Thantir Decaylings, and when Shocktrooper calmly explained he wasn’t one of us, that the Loop ended, and the others attacked him and tried to make him one of us anyway.”
Teekay didn’t like how Lightblade smirked at his words. “They take after Voidblade a little too much. It is weird that you do not. Have you ever considered that there might actually be a Loopblade-7 out there that isn’t Shocktrooper? Or perhaps a Loopblade-0 or even a Negative One?”
“I fucking well hope not…” Teekay muttered under his breath. “Still, this is all a distraction. I want to leave.”
“No one leaves.”
“Shatterblade and Leafblade left. They formed the Thantai with that weird, furry yet armoured Firestorm guy.”
Lightblade leaned forward. “Shatterblade and Leafblade fled. They stole a ship and ran when we were distracted elsewhere. Had they not formed a new sect, and had the young Thantir leaders not persuaded us to let him go, Leafblade would be permanently locked within the belly of Brokenblade Keep, slaving away in perpetual darkness like the traitor that he is.”
Teekay shifted in his seat awkwardly. “You really don’t like Leafblade. I thought he’s probably one of the nicer Phantai around here.”
“Leafblade essentially tricked one of Voidblade’s best soldiers into running away. Someone Voidblade considered making into one of his own Black Blades. I think you can understand our annoyance.”
“Eh, that was well before my time…” Teekay admitted. “I’ve only been here for 6 year-strings, and before that, you didn’t have a new Decayling here for 25 year-strings, that Decayling being the previous version of me…” Teekay trailed off, then tried to push the subject along. “Still, whatever happened with the Tattered Navigators, that’s got nothing to do with me and my unhappiness.”
“Why ARE you unhappy? Every other Decay Lord who decides to join the Phantai is happy.”
“I told you why. And I never chose to join the Phantai! You just automatically made me one because Loopblades-1-5 are all Phantai. They grew up here, they settled down, they don’t know any different, since they all lost their minds. I’m still somewhat sane, and now I get that there’s more out there than just, well, this! And it’s not like the other Loopblades need me, I can do their jobs quicker than they can but they’re all set in their ways and I spend most of my stupid existence on guard duty!”
Lightblade frowned. “If you do not like your current duties, we can always give you new ones, allow you to try something new. While you may forever be a Phantai, you are not bound to-”
“I don’t want to be a Phantai!” Teekay snapped. “I want freedom and equality! You know what Shocktrooper told me? Once he becomes a Decay Lord, the Thantir leaders said he is free to do as he wants! He can leave the Thantir if he wants, and he can rejoin them later if he so desires! He can even change his code name if he wants! Or his real name! And at the same time, they ALL have the same rights!”
“They do not. They have a clear hierarchy.”
“Yeah, sure, Flamebearer and Souldrainer are the leaders of the Thantir, but they all have the same freedoms. Toxicclaw and Shatterblade are the smallest and biggest members of the Thantir but if either of them have a problem, they get the same protections. I want what they want. I want…” Teekay hesitated. “I want to join the Thantir.”
“You do not want to join that sect. They are held together by rubber bands and tape. They came here, to us, for safety.”
“Because they got attacked by the fucking Ancient Collector! You know, the bastard that nearly killed Voidblade! And they didn’t lose anyone! We lost like 25 Decay Lords, and we nearly lost Loopblade-4!”
Lightblade took a deep breath. “Loopblade-6, little Teekay, you know I cannot let you leave, nor can I let you join the Thantir.”
“Yes you can. You’ve not given me a single reason as to why I can’t, except for “oh it goes against our traditions” and your traditions are stupid. Sure the Thantir are weird, but they’re fair. If I was a Thantir Decay Lord and I went up to Souldrainer and said “hey I wanna leave”, I’d bet my left testicle that Souldrainer would say yes, then ask me where I wanted to be dropped off.”
Lightblade frowned. “Why would you ask Souldrainer and not Flamebearer?”
“Flamebearer scares me a little. Reminds me of someone from my old universe, who attacked the Golden God of Stasis with his teeth and claws. But my point still stands!”
Teekay waited for Lightblade to react. He expected anger or hatred or something. Maybe even punishment. But eventually, Lightblade sighed.
“My fellow Great Blades would kill me if they heard me say this, but you are right, Teekay. However, I do not want you to flat out leave and I cannot singularly give you the right to do so. Instead, when Flamebearer and Souldrainer are both back on their feet and no longer ill, I want you to speak to them, ask them if you can work with them on a temporary basis and prove that you have some use to them. While the Phantai cannot let you leave, we can be persuaded to give you up to another sect should they need you.”
Teekay gasped, then immediately straightened himself out, to not look unprofessional. “I… I… thank you… Wait, what do you mean, ‘no longer ill’? What’s wrong with the Thantir leaders?”
“They currently seem to be suffering from the effects of acute radiation poisoning.”
“Oh…” Teekay thought to himself for a moment. “When did they complete their Decay Lord trials?”
Lightblade leaned forward and eyed Teekay. “Why do you ask?”
“I… might know why they’re ill.”
“How?”
“Well, depending on when they completed their trial… the same thing that’s happening to them? It happened to me…”