“I feel awful.”
Kayel glanced up to see who was talking to him. One thing he had noticed about Lanex was that a lot of them sounded the same, and in the last few hours, he’d spoken to a lot of them. Although Thalsa Two was a Vrekan territory, because Kayel and his team had accidentally found a hole leading to the very edge of the universe, the whole situation had been put under Lanex jurisdiction. Normally, anything related to the universe’s boundaries was either given to the Spasts or the Lanex, who, while being the least numerous races in the universe, had the fastest ships and were the most capable when it came to surviving in the depths of space. In this particular situation, the Lanex just happened to already have a presence on Thalsa Two and they’d quickly stepped in and sealed everything up.
“Why do you feel awful, Ilga?”
Ilga was the marine biologist Lanex who had started off this entire misadventure. She just wanted to stop a couple of strange monsters from murdering the local wildlife before things got too out of hand, only for her to accidentally discover something that potentially needed godly interference to fix. But since the Lady of Stars was currently… inactive, the Lanexian authorities had opted to just close everything off until further notice. In the process, while, yes, Ilga had managed to get a LOT of new information on an invasive species from potentially outside the universe, Ilga had also nearly got her new friends hurt.
Sure, they had managed to get Retvik to a hospital, but the local Vrekan medics clearly didn’t know what to do with a Rethan in their Defensive Stance. Retvik had inadvertently woken up and, since he didn’t know where he or ‘the fluffy kitty’ were, he’d caused a couple of injuries and quite a bit of damage in a thankfully brief rampage. Again, the Lanex had stepped in, but they’d filled Retvik with way too many tranquillizers in order to calm him down, causing him to overdose and have multiple seizures. Fortunately, Retvik was recovering, but he wasn’t in a particularly good way right now, and Kayel had been waiting outside his room to go and see him.
“I meet a Rethavok for the first time and he’s currently, well, utterly fucked up.”
Kayel grunted. “I’ll be blunt, that ain’t your fault, Ilga. It’s Tenuk’s fault.”
Ilga hesitated, then sat down next to Kayel. “You’re blaming your Spast friend?”
“Yeah. He betrayed Retvik’s trust and intentionally made Retvik go Defensive Stance. He didn’t need to do that. We were literally in a dark cave, the perfect environment for a Phantasma, all Nyssi and Tenuk needed to do was wake me up and I could have gotten us all out of there.”
“Still, I feel like I’m to blame. I massively underestimated a dire situation.”
“Mate, there was no way in a billion years that you could have predicted any of this piss!” Kayel hissed, rather loudly as well. “No fucking way. In fact, you fucking caught it early. If you’d had waited any longer to get in touch with us four idiots, we could have been fighting hundreds of those bastards, because it looked like they were planning to invade!”
Ilga fell silent. So did Kayel. After a moment, they both sighed.
“I’ll be honest though, you Lanex are pretty cool. Freaky, with your weird masks and metal plating and augmentations, but you’re all nice. Haven’t met a mean Lanex yet. Even the… I’d call them R-Class but I don’t know what they’re really called, your… police force? They seemed alright too.”
“I assume, being a Phantasma, you’ve had problems with your police force?”
Kayel frowned, then sighed again. “They turned out to be rogue, but… well… do you know about those four disasters back in Dekem on Portalia?”
Ilga nodded.
“Well, I was working at the L-Class family planning centre when… when all that happened. I have a genuine distrust of R-Class Skyans now. Made worse by the fact that I’m former K-Class and retrained for L-Class.”
“Can I… ask a… somewhat unrelated question?”
“Sure.”
Ilga hesitated for a moment. “Do you Skyavok… really name yourselves after whatever Class you work in?”
Kayel shrugged. “Kinda, yeah. Normally you’re named by your parents, and most of us work for one of the Classes your parents worked for. When you turn 15 and start studying towards the Class of your choice, you get the opportunity to change your name. I’m an orphan though, and a shadowjumper, so I was adopted by the K-Class and given the ultra-common K-Class name Elkay. Started calling myself Kayel when I moved to L-Class and got it changed officially last year.”
“Huh… interesting…” Ilga trailed off briefly. “Well, while my penguin-saving plan may have backfired completely, I have learned an awful lot. All I can do is thank you. You four have genuinely turned yourselves into heroes.”
“We’re technically immortal. Retvik’s only alive right now due to sheer dumb luck. Any other Rethan would have just been killed. It’s so, so much easier to be a hero when you know it’s really hard to die. And sure, I left the Phantasma cult, but I’m still a murderer. Doesn’t sit right with me that a lot of people consider me a hero.”
“Heroes aren’t perfect. A lot of the time, that’s what makes them heroes. Right now, Retvik is a hero, even if he’s… uh…”
“He’s really fucked up right now…” Kayel tutted. “We’re in Vrekan territories. They haven’t had a Rethan visit this stupid planet in like a fucking decade. It’s a good fucking thing Retvik’s unkillable because otherwise, if the Corruptiids hadn’t killed him, the drug overdose would have. Sure, Retvik will recover, he’s a tough nut, but he’s going to be in a bad way for a bit and he doesn’t really have any Rethan friends to help him, and I’m worried about him. Really, apart from Nyssi, none of us have people of our own races that we can fall back on.”
Ilga shifted to one side so she could get a better look at Kayel. “Have you spoken to a mental therapist at all?”
Kayel tutted some more. “Technically? Yes, because I’m pretty sure Kuta does have some sort of degree in mental health. But really? No. There’s no one I feel I can talk to about all of this.”
“Where do you live?”
Kayel blinked. “What do you mean?”
“You live on Portalia, yes? But where?”
“Palaestra. I’m a gladiator these days. A fucking former K-Class with an L-Class name now doing Ξ-Class work.”
Ilga thought to herself for a moment. “Being a Lanex, I admittedly suck at counseling. We’re too… alien compared to the rest of you. I mean, I have an extra finger and no tail and no toes and wear a mask all the time, and that’s just physical stuff. But us Lanex do kinda like to… collect contacts on our travels. I have an old study friend and medical guy called Wenua. He knows a Ksithan therapist called Mavri Thyra, and she has connections all over. I can speak to her and see if she can find someone for you. And someone for Retvik as well, if he needs it.”
“I… I appreciate that…” Kayel sighed. “It’s been a fucking rough nine months or so.”
“I bet!” Ilga got up and patted Kayel on the shoulder. “I’ll speak to the Ancient Warlord as well, see if I can get her to pay for some extra time for you lot at the hotel. You deserve it.”
“Thank you… Question though, why DO you Lanex all call Phovos the Ancient Warlord?”
Ilga shrugged. “I mean, we use descriptive names for everything. We call ourselves Explorers, and it’s a conscious effort from me to not call you an Archivist instead of a Skyavok. The Ancient Warlord is exactly that, an ancient warlord, so that’s what we call her.”
“Fair enough, I guess… Can I ask a favour?”
Ilga nodded. “Of course.”
“I’m… really hungry. But I also don’t want to leave Retvik on his own. I mean, he doesn’t even know I’m out here, waiting for him, but still. Would you, like, be able to get me a chocolate bar or something?”
The lithe Lanex bowed, then waved as she headed off. “Of course! I’ll bring you a drink as well. I have to stick around anyway, in case the Howling Winds or Frozen Scythes want to ask me any more questions. I’ll be back in a jiffy!”
Kayel smiled weakly, somewhat amused by the word Ilga had used. But he still felt rather uneasy, and he wasn’t sure why. Kayel paused, then tutted yet again. Of course he felt uneasy. A lot of strange, stupid stuff had just happened to him. He just hoped that, fingers crossed, this time, he’d recover more quickly.