The pain was only just bearable, but Arkay had no choice but to put up with it. He had scrambled through Death’s libraries, then raced across the universe finding the things he needed. In his hand, his uninfected hand, was a mace made out of tooth, bone and blood. Body parts taken from beings that weren’t… from the universe. Things that didn’t make sense, that Kinisis did not understand. Maybe, out of the twenty or so beings that Arkay had just stolen body parts from, one of them had to be somehow related to a Corruption or something.
Really, he had run out of ideas. This was his last one. Everything else had failed. Radiation from quasars did nothing. Not even black holes could destroy the Corruption, not as fast as the Corruption could come in. Anything that was of this universe was food to the horrible purple abomination.
As he worked, the Corruption had spread across his body. In some places, particularly his left hand, he could feel it burrowing in. In other places, it was just on the surface, but it was now spreading at a noticeable rate.
Now, Arkay was standing in a barren part of Kinigi. The Corruption had broken in via a new location, one that Arkay felt incredibly uncomfortable about. He couldn’t tell anyone. Not yet. This infection was small and Arkay had to… no, wanted to deal with it himself. He had to try, at least, before he told everyone that the Corruption was essentially…
The Veth Prime paused. He couldn’t go there. It hurt just thinking about it. He had to just get on with it.
Arkay held the mace tightly in his hand. The Corruption here was a single pillar, with small, purple tendrils trailing off it. After a moment of contemplating how stupid this plan was, Arkay swung the mace as hard as he could at the purple tendrils. Some of them recoiled, but only briefly. Arkay hit them again and got the same result. While the tendrils were no longer spreading, they weren’t going away.
With a sigh, Arkay realised he should probably strike the top of the large, phallic pillar. Using the powers Kinisis blessed him with, he grew himself a pair of wings and flew up to the top of it. One of his wings was annoyingly tinted purple.
Once he was in position, Arkay swing as hard as he could. The mace slammed into the pillar, leaving a large dent.
“Great. A couple of thousand of those, and maybe I’ll be able to get you out of here…” Arkay muttered as he struck the pillar again. But after a few more attempts, he realised it wasn’t making much difference.
A voice flickered in the back of Arkay’s mind. The other Veth were trying to contact him. He knew what they were going to say. That they were being driven back. That the Deitics hadn’t done anything. That nothing was working.
The Veth Prime drifted back down to the ground. That was his last plan. Nothing else had worked. No matter what he did, the Corruption would move faster. The only thing he hadn’t done was try and cut the infection out of his body, but everyone had said to him that it would only cause more harm than good.
There were no other ideas though.
Arkay sat on the ground, the mace in his lap. One by one, he took off the bits of bone and tooth and pressed them against his corrupted flesh, each time noting down the reaction of his corrupted flesh. The last one, a vaguely familiar tooth, did the most damage, causing the Corruption to almost flee. Why he said vaguely, he wasn’t sure. Everything was getting a little hazy. As if he was slowly forgetting.
He had to do this. Even if it meant Arkay being destroyed, or the galaxies among the corrupted areas being lost, it was better than everything being swallowed.
Closing his eyes, Arkay stabbed the tooth into his hand, where the Corruption had originated. Once the initial pain subsided, he opened his eyes to see what had happened. A searing heat poured from the wound. The Corruption seemed to shrink and dissolve. Clearly, the tooth was enough, maybe it was even from a being related to the Corruption. Arkay didn’t know, nor did he care. Despite how painful it was, Arkay felt a sick satisfaction in watching the Corruption on his skin suffer and burn, his boiling blood flooding from the wound.
A second time, Arkay stabbed himself. Again, the Corruption hissed and bubbled and writhed. With a twisted smile, the Veth Prime continued to stab himself wherever the Corruption had formed. As he did so, the voices in his head started shouting, saying that it was pulling back. As he moved down his body, the pillar in front of Arkay shrunk down into nothing.
Still, Arkay continued to stab at his body. He couldn’t stop until all the Corruption was gone. He kept on forcing the tooth into himself, until something stopped him. A friendly hand. Kinisis’s hand.
“Thank you…”
Arkay smiled weakly, then passed out. His job was done.
…
“What the fuck happened?”
“Hmmmph!” High General Elkay growled as he removed the bandages. “I don’t fucking know! One minute I’m laying in bed worrying that those damn purple clouds everyone’s going insane about, the next minute I’m on the damn floor!”
Veekay shrugged as he handed his boss more bandages. He was bleeding and it looked like a lot, but that was always the way with head injuries.
“On the floor?” Rethais, the Vice General asked.
Elkay rolled his eyes. “Yes, the damn floor. Some weird thing attacked me! Kicked me out of bed, punched me in the face and ripped my fucking tooth out! Then it disappeared and I blacked out and… I don’t fucking know… How the fuck are we going to cover this up?”
Rethais glanced at Veekay, who was now cleaning up the bandages and throwing them in a bin to be incinerated later. They’d spent a good half an hour making sure no one else knew that the High General had been attacked in his own home.
“Well… I don’t know what to say, Elkay,” Rethais sighed.
“Veekay, do me a favour and cancel my meetings tomorrow…” Elkay tutted as he dabbed his mouth with one last piece of cloth. “Guess I’ll just have to lie to my medic and get a replacement tooth.”
Rethais nodded in agreement as Veekay rushed off and did as he was told.
“There is some good news though, my friend,” Rethais finally smiled as he checked his communicator.
“Hm?”
“Those nasty purple clouds the Cassids were getting everyone uptight about? Those ‘Corrupted Skies’ things? Apparently they are gone now…”
“Huh… weird…” Elkay muttered as he got up and walked to the window. Outside, Rethans were starting to go back to bed, many of whom had been out watching the clouds spread across the night sky. “I doubt it has anything to do with my damn tooth though…”