The rivers of purple water trickled down and faded off into the foggy distance, utterly unaware of the destruction around them. The Soul Fragma was destroyed and the Cycle was now beginning to convert all those souls into new life. Kinisis was lying somewhere under the massive pile of rubble, moaning to herself.
“Did… Did all of that just happen?” Elkay was utterly dumbfounded and confused. He sat on a small floating platform, leaning against the metal rails. “I don’t even know who won. Were there winners, was there anything? Is that really your dad, Veekay?”
Veekay simply nodded and watched as their brother Arkay approached.
“You beat the piss outta her!” Thitaksi cheered. “That was so cool!”
“Kicked her ass all over the place!” Eksi added. “I bet that felt good!”
Arkay tutted. “It was alright, I guess. I just wish I didn’t have to do that sort of thing… All of this could have been avoidable if they had sat down and talked things things through like normal, intelligent beings…”
“Did Stasis really ask if you wanted to take Kinisis’s place?” Elkay asked, his head still spinning. “Like, you’ll BE the universe?”
“Yeah…” Arkay sighed as he tried to explain. “If it’s anything like last time, I won’t BE the universe, I’ll just subconsciously running things while Kinisis buggers off somewhere and does as she wants.”
“Oh… wait, like last time?” Elkay blinked. “You know what? You lot discuss this. I am going to stay over here and look at the pretty rivers because this is all above my head.”
“Fair enough…” Arkay patted his older brother on the shoulder, then turned to the other siblings. “Still… I have a feeling this time will be different…”
“So you’re going to just… take her place?” Veekay asked. “You’re going to become Kinisis for a while? Won’t that hurt you? And what about us?”
“He’s existed for the last ten thousand or so years without us…” Arksi butted in. “Arkay doesn’t need us. You didn’t need us at all. We could have avoided a lot of this if we’d just listened…”
Arkay shook his head. “That’s not true at all. If you six hadn’t imprisoned me, I would have never had the guts to break free from Kinisis’s control and actually fight back, and I wouldn’t have had a nice, relaxing hour with Kairos…”
“So you…” Veekay started but didn’t finish.
“Yeah. I did.”
“Oh.”
“But still, we’re all good, right?” Veekay smiled. “No harm done, we’re all still friends?”
“Of course!” Arkay smiled back. “And while I’m doing all this being a Cycle sort of stuff, maybe you could all come and visit me? After all, I’m going to need advice from normal vok at some point. Can’t let it all go to my head.”
“So you’re going to do it?” Arksi seemed worried.
Arkay nodded. “It’ll be fine. It’ll be better than fine. Maybe I’ll be able to fix stuff Kinisis never got around to fixing. Maybe I’ll be able to make some improvements…”
The Thantophor paused and looked back behind him. Kinisis was crawling her way out of the remains of the Soul Fragma.
“Good luck, brother…” Psiksi waved. “You’ll be fine.”
“Thanks… You lot should head off now. The Veth won’t like it if you’re in the way of their cleaning up duties…” One by one, Arkay hugged his siblings, then watched as the six of them faded away, returning back to the universe proper. Once they were gone, Arkay sighed then headed down to where Kinisis was. He needed to talk to her.
“I hate you…” Kinisis immediately growled.
“No you don’t. You’re just angry and confused and upset and tired. We could have avoided all of this.”
“You’ll never replace me permanently…”
“I don’t want to. I want you to be happy as well. If that means me running the Cycle while you go on a thousand year holiday, then so be it. When you want to rule again, I’ll give it all back to you.”
Kinisis rolled over, tutting and sighing, before climbing to her feet and dusting herself down. “I hate admitting that you’re right. But you are…” She smiled briefly, then tapped Arkay on his snout. “It’s all yours now.”
In a brilliant flash of light, Kinisis disappeared.
Finally, after so much suffering, the Cycle had returned to normal.