“I TOLD YOU ALL NOT TO FOLLOW ME!”
The Thantophor roared as he extended his claws, swinging them wildly at the four siblings.
“WHY DO YOU NOT LISTEN?”
Psiksi leaped out of the way of a stray slicker of shadow energy, then rolled over to help Eksi keep his shield up.
“We just want to talk!”
“WE HAVE TALKED ENOUGH!”
Arkay snarled, growing a second pair of shadowy arms and using them to tear Eksi’s shield apart. He had gone full monster, towering over his siblings, filling his mouth full of teeth and covering his body in bloody spikes. With a growl, he slammed his tail into the ground, creating a massive shock wave and knocking the four Time Drakes down.
“Please Arkay!” Thitaksi protested, quickly reorientating himself and getting out of the way of a second tail slam. “We came to talk to you, talk you out of being the Thantophor! You don’t NEED to kill anyone!”
“Exactly!” Eksi added. “We can all live in peace and stop murdering entire planets!”
Rather than calm down, Arkay’s fury only increased. In a shower of lightning and sparks, he changed forms, into a dragon-like being, almost mocking the Children of the Whenvern. He took a deep breath then blasted the area with a stream of electricity and ice. After a brief pause, Arkay growled again and attempted to fly away. Unfortunately, a harpoon through his leg stopped him from doing so.
“Get back here!” Arksi shouted from behind a convenient piece of cover. “You’re not going anywhere!”
“Are you TRYING to get yourselves killed?” Arkay bellowed. “You’re just HELPING HER! WHY CAN’T YOU JUST LISTEN AND LEAVE? I DON’T WANT YOU TO DIE!”
The Thantophor landed awkwardly back on the ground, shifting into a larger, more monstrous version of his normal self, complete with a set of dark horns.
“We just want to talk…” Psiksi immediately stepped forward, seeing an opening. “We just want to talk to you. We don’t want to die, we don’t want to hurt you, we just want to talk.”
“He hurt me…” Arkay grunted, pointing at Arksi as he removed the harpoon from his leg. “Everyone wants to hurt me. I don’t blame you all though.”
“You did kinda kill three billion or so beings yesterday…” Thitaksi whispered, hoping the Thantophor wouldn’t hear. He clearly did. But rather than get angry, Arkay simply sat down and sighed.
“You think I WANT to kill things? I hate it. I hate all of this. I don’t want to be the avatar of death and destruction, I just want to die, like everyone else…”
“So why do you do it?” Eksi asked, approaching slowly from the side. “Surely you-”
“HAVE A CHOICE, IS THAT…” Arkay was about to get angry again, but calmed down. “I have no choice. Kinisis sends me out to kill things. If I don’t do it, then she does it. When Kinisis kills things, you get mass extinctions far worse than that single planet all saw. Solar systems. Galaxies even…”
“You’re stopping her from killing us?!?” Arksi exclaimed. “But you’re still… killing…”
“Better to kill a few million a day than a few trillion a day, yes?” Arkay tutted. “Because that is what she wants. To kill everything and start again. There is only one Thantophor right now, one that can control and slow the mass extinctions while the Whenvern and Stasis work on some sort of plan. But what if there were more? More Thantophors that… don’t have the experience to even try and resist Kinisis?”
The Thantophor suddenly laughed. As he did so, his body twisted and changed, reverting him back into a form very similar to that of his four siblings.
“It’s too late…” Arkay smiled. “I know what you are doing. I welcome it. But you should have listened…”
Arksi activated a button on his belt. “Veekay, do it now!”
Out of nowhere, Veekay’s ship appeared and dropped a dark object. The Whenvern’s Void Cage glowed eerily as it fell and wrapped itself around the Thantophor, sealing him inside.
The ship landed next to the Void Cage, weapons at the ready. Arksi approached the cage cautiously, not sure whether they had succeeded or not. After about five minutes of awkward silence, he turned to his brothers.
“Guys, I think we’ve done it. We’ve captured the Thantophor…”