“So who let you two freaks wander around here alone?”
Elkay glanced to his left to see who was interrupting, then rolled his eyes.
“In all honesty, I fit in better around here than you do. I can at least make myself look like a standard Phantai soldier.”
“Yes but then you would spend several days complaining that you do not know who you are…” Akah muttered, not looking up from the bowl of ice cream he had been slowly working his way through. “We keep on having to end your shapeshifting practice early because you get weird.”
Kaytee, better known as Loopblade-6, was the smallest and youngest of the Phantai Decay Lords. He sat himself down next to Elkay, then eyed Akah somewhat.
“Shapeshifting or not, Elkay here is a mimic hybrid and you’re a fleshy Voidborn. Well, you’re not, you’re a… a Toanex, I guess? Not that I ever actually managed to meet one.”
Akah took a deep breath. “I’m a Lanex, not a Toanex, but close enough. I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced?”
Kaytee shrugged. “I don’t think we have. My name is TK0016K, Teekay Theanon, Loopblade-6, but I’m in the middle of changing my name to Kaytee because I hate being the sixth copy of a guy on this stupid ship.”
After a brief moment of confusion, Akah shrugged back, then put his hand out towards Kaytee. “I am Akah Icebreaker, Shattershield. Pleasure to meet you. It’s a bit weird that you have the same surname as Elkay here.”
Kaytee shook Akah’s hand and smiled. “Nice to meet you too! And yeah, it’s weird. I put it down to Time Drake shenanigans, but there’s no relation or anything. In my universe, I was a Ksa, I didn’t actually have a surname so I used the surname of my guard target, who, weirdly, was called Elkay-En Theanon. Elkay for short. I assume the Lanex are what the Toanex from my universe became?”
Akah thought to himself. “Actually, no, the Toanex were a separate species. Less organic, more armour, way more indebted to the Anexartans than us Lanex and the other Nexian races were.”
“Huh… Interesting! In my universe, all you weird Voidborn-like races were called Deitics. Now, back to my original question, what are you two Decaylings doing out here? Normally you lot have a handler or something, like the Life Goddess has, or Moonblade is keeping an eye on you.”
Elkay frowned, then poked at the burger he was supposed to have been eating. Due to the Thantir Decaylings’ increased studies towards their upcoming Decay Lord trials, they had been pushing themselves more than usual. And because Elkay had a lot more powers than everyone else, he’d been studying harder. Someone had suggested that he get something to eat, but he wasn’t hungry.
“The others are all resitting the stupid folded time exam…” Elkay tutted. “Only Elksia, Akah and I passed. Elksia wanted to take the test again for some reason. So we have four hours to kill.”
“Oooh…” Kaytee trailed off, realizing exactly what exam Elkay was talking about. “It’s basically Phantai tradition to have to redo that test five times. I broke tradition by passing on my fourth attempt. You two passed first try?”
“I scored 36%, one above the required score!” Akah exclaimed, smiling a little. “I have no idea how, but I am quite, quite glad!”
Kaytee smiled back. He enjoyed hanging around with the Thantir. After all, he was the youngest of the Phantai, and most of the Phantai were old, having become Decay Lords long before things became more strict. “Heh, yeah, that is what I scored… Apparently they upped the minimum score to 45% then made it 35% again after they got rid of level laws.”
“Hmph…” Elkay seemed less amused. “I scored 46%. I have no idea how Retvik managed to score higher than me when HE did that stupid exam. AND he and Litvir both also somehow managed to pass first try.”
Akah leaned forward, still smiling. “My friend, it’s not the end of the world that Retvik did one thing better than you.”
“Oooh sibling rivalry!” Kaytee jested, only to get a mean stare from Elkay. “What?”
“I am supposed to be the intellectual Rethan out of the three… two of us. It bothers me no end that Retvik is a Decay Lord and I am still a Decayling, and I have to follow his orders, not the other way around. It USED to be the other way around until that damned serpent ruined my life.”
“Which serpent?” Kaytee asked. “Also, I hope you don’t mind me asking all these questions, I’m insanely curious about the universe my ex became a god in.”
Akah glanced at Elkay, not really sure what the Phantai Decay Lord was talking about.
“Kaytee here, back when he was mortal and was called Teekay, dated Arkay, Kinisis’s adopted son.”
Both Akah and Elkay fell silent, then rubbed their heads. Kaytee immediately noticed this.
“You two are weird.”
“We are former Divine Guardians, deified in order to protect Kinisis. Something we failed to do spectacularly…” Akah closed his eyes, then rested his head on the table.
“To be fair, we did do everything we could. It is not our fault that Kinisis ignored every single warning we gave her. “No, Kinisis, do not chase after Arkay after he stated he wanted zero contact, he will get aggressive!” we said to her. “No, Kinisis, do not threaten your daughters and their new universe!” we begged her. “No, Kinisis, leave Epani alone, she will seek revenge!” we cried. But no, Kinisis did not listen and she, uh…” Elkay trailed off, then did the same thing Akah did, before lifting himself back up. “Kal said that we were free from Kinisis’s influence now, but we are still failed Guardians, the death of our guard target and the fact that she also tried to kill us all does bother us greatly.”
“Well, as a former body guard, I know exactly how that feels. My guard target got abducted by the Dragon God and the Golden God and I basically got fired because of it!” Kaytee did his best to be cheerful and understanding. “How was I supposed to know that the God of the Void specifically wanted my partner, my oldest friend, my guard target and my boyfriend’s three siblings to fight my ex?”
Akah still looked a bit blank. “So… you are saying, you dated Arkay, Arkadin, the Thantophor, before he became the Thantophor?”
Kaytee nodded. “We used to sleep together. Granted, it was only a handful of times because Arkay had genuine issues and we kinda didn’t last very long after the whole Temthianic Invasion thing, but still.”
“Everything Kinisis told us about Arkay suggested that he was only very recently interested in romance…” Akah blinked some more, then turned to Elkay. “You knew Arkay better than a lot of us, do you, uh, know?”
Elkay shook his head. “I do not know what happened between Arkay, Retvik and Litvir when they were Decaylings, and Retvik and Litvir do not know what happened to Arkay when he was sent to Deathven.”
“But didn’t Arkay consider you a friend before our universe broke or something? That was why Yisini, the Allbirther, stole you away, right?”
“Nothing ever happened between Arkay and I. He would visit at night after work, we would talk and that was it. Retvik, Elksia and Tenuk know more than I do, only because Arkay worked alongside them as the Dessaron during the war against the Whenvern, which I think we both fought in.”
Akah immediately fell silent, then went back to his ice cream. Kaytee leaned forward, closer to Akah.
“You can talk.”
“I don’t want to. I didn’t fight on the right side of that war.”
“Akah, dear, we have been over this, you were a slave, you had no choice!” Elkay smiled reassuringly.
“I killed Rethans.”
“I killed Lanex.”
“I killed two Rethan Generals, and was captured and, uh, killed for it. I respawned, because of the fact that I’ve always been a Kiniseon Being, but…”
Akah froze, then stared at Elkay. Elkay hesitated too.
“I was promoted to General of the 471st Legion after my unit tracked down, captured killed the Lanex mercenary team that killed General Teridos. I do not know why I am only just putting this together now.”
“I thought winged Rethans were more common than they were, I guess…” Akah trailed off again. However, Elkay no longer seemed too bothered.
“It was a war. You are not to blame, you were a slave, following orders, risking death yourself, to the point that you did actually die. You have already paid for your crimes. And that is ignoring the fact that we are among a collection of beings who have been waging an endless war that has gone on for longer than both our universe and Kaytee’s universe have existed.”
Kaytee turned back to Akah. “So you ARE a Deitic, actually immortal?”
Akah shook his head. “Not really. I was, uh, cursed, I guess, to be reborn from icy ashes instead of actually dying. Phovos, Tahvra and myself, we’d all resurrect ourselves in the same way. I assume Elkay, Teekay and Tenuk all would have as well, but Tenuk never actually died and Elkay and Teekay are… I think you are both too young to have actually died of natural causes, yes? You are 82 years old, a Rethavok can easily reach 150 years old.”
“I assume Cycle… uh, Kinisis did that to you lot? You Divine Guardians, anyway? Uh, former Divine Guardians… So what was the Cycle like? I never actually met her. Most of us never met her. Only people in living memory who did were the Exaron, and apart from Tahnaiious Tonaravenion, who was a Kronospast and saw things differently from everyone else, it was all rather fleeting. According to Tahnaiious and Arkay, after the Cycle took him, she was a bit of a bitch.”
Elkay couldn’t help but snort in amusement. “Arkay was always right. She was a bitch. But I take it Kinisis had a different role in your universe?”
“Kinisis was the Cycle, the Goddess of Space, Life, Death, Birth and Rebirth.”
“Hmph. I guess she made Arkay do the death stuff, then made Epani and Yisini to to the other half…” Elkay paused. “Who were Epani and Yisini in your universe then?”
“Uh… I don’t know who they are.”
“They were our Goddesses of Space and Life.”
Kaytee shrugged. “We only had three and a half deities. The Golden God of Stasis, the Dragon God of Time and the Lady of the Cycle. The half a deity being when Arkay became the Veth Prime and killed in the Cycle’s name. No one was supposed to know what happened to the third dead member of the Exaron, but, well, the three remaining Exaron all knew, and Elksonios and Tahnaiious were not as good at keeping quiet as General Retvikalios was.”
“Bloody void, the beings in your universe had long names!” Akah exclaimed. “Why do you and Arkay have such short names?”
Kaytee took a sharp breath, then tutted. “Because my name isn’t Teekay, it’s TK0016K. And Arkay’s name was RK0019K. We were Ksa, we had codes, not names.
“Did you choose to be a Ksa?” Elkay asked.
“Hah! No. I was born and made into one. I’ve… not had much choice in my life at all. Which is why I want to join you Thantir, so I can make my own decisions for once…” Kaytee sighed some more, then checked his wristband. “Well, break time’s over, I gotta get back to work. You two have a nice couple of hours, alright? This has been rather… weird, I guess…”
Elkay and Akah glanced at each other, then both laughed awkwardly.
“I guess. Have a good one, Kaytee.”
“Thanks, guys!” Kaytee smiled, then teleported off in a puff of orange sparkles. Neither Akah nor Elkay spoke, for a little too long.
“I think our Teekay is better…” Akah eventually muttered. “Kaytee is nice, but I think he is just as insane as Arkay was. Their universe was weirder than our universe.”
Elkay sighed, silently agreeing, before going back to his now cold meal.