It had taken a few hours, but with the help of Koh and Leh, the seven Decaylings had all been moved to some proper sleeping quarters, consisting of actual beds, as well as some food. However, no one had seen Teekay, and only one Decay Lord had offered any meaningful information, simply stating that “the League took him”. What that meant, no one was sure, but it was genuinely bothering Elkay, who was currently sharing a room with Eksi and Akah.
“Maybe we should go look for him then?” Eksi almost randomly muttered as he watched Elkay pace up and down. Akah though was ignoring them both, lying in bed and covering himself up with a blanket, too pissed off and tired to care about anything.
“How?” Elkay growled, coming to a halt in front of Eksi. “The Phantai told us to stay here. Do we really want to anger our hosts as our first actions here?”
“They already angered me…” Akah snarled from underneath his blanket. “I am so, so sick of being called a Voidborn. Elkay, can you teach me how to shapeshift?”
“Akah, dear, I can hardly keep my own physical form stable, I cannot teach you…” Elkay went back to sighing and pacing. Akah found it very weird that he’d just been called ‘dear’, but over the last few weeks, he’d noticed that Rethavok like Elkay used it a lot, as pretty much the only friendly term they had. “Either way, Teekay not being here is bothering me greatly. Far, far too many unknowns.”
Eksi shrugged. “We should go find him then. He’s your boyfriend, after all.”
“And how do you suggest we do that, Eksi?”
“We just ask.”
The psionic Decayling got up and made his way to the door. After fiddling with the handle briefly, he opened it up and peered outside. Wandering down the hallway was a colossal, silver Decay Lord. Eksi quickly scanned their mind for their name, then called out to them.
“Heya, Moonblade, can I ask a favour?”
Moonblade drew the massive sword off his back, but paused and put it back, not considering this tiny Decayling a threat. Eksi knew that wasn’t true, he was a powerful telepath and could convince Moonblade to stab himself with his own sword if he wanted to, but Eksi was too nice a guy to do that.
“What is it, Decayling Soulsoother?”
“Where are the bathrooms?”
Moonblade grunted. “Bathrooms?”
“Yeah, to wash ourselves.”
“Why do you need to wash yourselves. You just got here and have not started your testing yet.”
Eksi smiled. “My buddy here, Unender, he has funny powers, and when he’s stressed, he produces this actually pretty neat slime that can heal small injuries. But it’s a bit hard to wash off with just the small packet of tissues we have in here and he doesn’t want to get slime on the bed. Could you tell us where the bathrooms are so I can take him and help him clean up?”
“Uh, sure. As long as you come back here when you are done. Bathrooms are down that way.” Moonblade wandered off, back down the hallway in the opposite direction.
Back inside the room, both Elkay and Akah were glancing at each other anxiously.
“How does he know that?”
“You can do that?”
Elkay grunted. “It is one of my many weird survival mechanisms…”
Akah shrugged and crossed his arms. “Well, they did call you Unender of all things. Which admittedly does worry me slightly, since Unender is a Lanex term for the old Void Lord Kenon… Anyway, do you want me to come with-” Akah abruptly stopped. “No, that is a terrible idea. I will stay here and provide alibis for you.”
“Cheers, mate!” Eksi jumped up and patted Akah on the shoulder. “We shouldn’t be long!”
With another smile, Eksi grabbed Elkay by the hand and dragged him out into the hallway. They headed in the direction that Moonblade pointed them in, and proceeded to walk straight past the clearly marked bathrooms. They kept on walking until they stumbled across another Decay Lord. This one was even more of a heavily armoured mess than Moonblade was, with a sword attached to both hips, but it lacked the familiar crown of horns most Phantai had. Again, Eksi quickly scanned the Decay Lord’s mind for their name. He found it odd that most of the Phantai were so… open to telepathy.
“Hello, uh, Metalblade? Isn’t that… kinda redundant?”
Metalblade growled as he turned to the two Decaylings. “You can call me Jeff. What do you both want?”
Eksi went back to smiling. “Heya! I’m Eksi, codename Soulsoother, and this is my buddy Elkay, codename Unender. One of your bosses told us to find our friend Teekay but we don’t know who he is. Said to collect him from someone called Loopblade?”
“Hmph. That team of freaks. Guess they finally found their seventh…” Jeff glared at Elkay, then tutted. “You got stuck with a dumb name as well, Elkay?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“I feel you, kiddo. I take it, by the lack of the word ‘blade’ in your codenames, you two are with the Thantir guys? Rumour has it you guys survived Voidlord Ahkron, so, uh, kudos to ya.”
“He did kinda kick the piss out of us, but we convinced him to leave!” Eksi beamed.
Jeff grunted. “Good one. He’s murdered way too many Phantai. Anyway, Loopblade 1-6’s quarters are down that way, first left, door should be marked with an infinity symbol.”
Eksi tugged at Elkay and dragged him off. “Thanks, Jeff! Nice meeting you!”
As the two Decaylings walked, Elkay switched to his much weaker telepathy.
“How did you do that? I did not think you to be as much as a manipulator as Litvir is.”
“Mate, you can do a ton if you just act cute and ask nicely. And maybe sprinkle in a few lies here and there…”
“Yes but…”
Eksi stopped for a moment. “Elkay, we’re fucking powerful. You’re unkillable and I’m just as powerful a psion as both Litvir and that Soulblade guy, I’m just normally too nice to actually use my powers. Actually, if anything, I’m pretty sure that I’m way stronger than Soulblade. These guys have pretty much no encryption on their telecomms, even worse than Kal. And Kal are well aware that their telepathy is the equivalent of tripping over and smashing your head into a concrete bollard.”
Elkay smirked at the thought, then let the subject drop. “Very well. Let us find my partner.”
Thankfully, they didn’t need to walk far. Jeff’s directions were perfectly usable and they quickly stumbled across an orange door with a silver infinity symbol on it. Considering that all the other doors were grey, it seemed weird that Jeff had mentioned the symbol and not the obvious coloured door that really stuck out. However, as the two Decaylings listened in, they could hear a LOT of shouting and teleporting around. Elkay suddenly found himself summoning a golden psionic blade and a handful of floating daggers.
“That was fucking cool, but you really need to learn to better control your powers, dude!” Eksi hissed.
“I know, I hope to do so while we are here…” Elkay couldn’t help but agree. “Especially since I now seem to permanently have Galyn’s powers…”
Eksi shrugged, then knocked on the door. The chaos inside immediately faded away and the door hesitantly opened up. After a long, awkward silence, Teekay teleported into Elkay’s arms and planted a kiss on his cheek.
“Thank fuck!” Teekay gasped, clinging on to Elkay for dear life. “These cunts are trying to make me one of them!”
Standing in the room were six other beings that looked way, way too much like Ekay’s partner. However, five of them were silent.
“Huh. Guess you weren’t lying about Elkay being a standard-type Rethan…” one of the Teekays muttered. He didn’t get much of a response from his friends though.
“That is the first time in my nearly eighty years of life that someone has called me a standard Rethan…” Elkay blinked. “Dear, uh, what is going on?”
Teekay took a deep breath, feeling uncertain himself. “They’re all the same person, from a universe that looped constantly, hence why they call themselves Loopblade, and while, yes, we have a lot in common, including our name and code, they don’t seem to get that I’m not the same as them and they keep on asking me how their loop broke and I don’t fucking know!”
Five of the six other Teekays though still hadn’t moved. They were all staring rather blankly, but not at Teekay or Elkay.
“Uh, guys…” Loopblade-6 nudged his friends. “Guys, it’s just… it’s just another…”
A single word finally left the mouths of the other Teekays.
“Eksi?”
Eksi blinked. “Uh, hi, do I know you?”
Loopblade-6 snarled. “I don’t! Sure, you look like my old partner, before he got dragged away by the Dragon God of Time, but MY Eksi was yellow and black, not yellow and cream! I guess Seven… uh… other Teekay is right, you’re NOT a Threan-type Rethan.”
The other Teekays remained motionless. Eventually, one of them spoke.
“Eksi, my dear partner… you are… alive…”
“Um, I don’t think I’m your partner, mate. I think I just happen to look almost exactly like him. Me and Teekay have never even dated and he’s busy trying to marry the short adapta-Rethan hunk here…” Eksi hesitated, then reached out with his mind once more. “Huh, didn’t know you knew Arkay before he became a death god!”
All six of Loopblade edged backwards, stuttering and blubbering.
“Arkay… the Cycle took him, made him into the Thantophor… the Dragon God of Time took his godly siblings and made them fight him, but he would always kill them, before the Dragon God would kill him in return…” one of the Teekays shuddered.
Eksi smiled, then rubbed his head. He felt a small tingle in the back of his mind as his more… complicated godly abilities kicked in. “They didn’t die. Kinisis realized what she was doing was pointless. The loop was broken because Arkay chose to not be Kinisis’s slave and not kill his siblings on her command. So Kinisis let the universe continue for a bit longer, then remade it herself, making Arkay into a proper death god.”
“H-how do you… know this?” the most heavily armoured Teekay was crying. “We spent… years… mourning after Arkay died… Then we fell in love with you… and you died too…”
“I’ll be honest, I’m not your Eksi. I don’t know what happened to Arkay’s siblings, I just know that Arkay was a pretty nice guy, he’s still alive and he’s a death god for a new universe now. However, if you all want to, I’m… happy to pretend to be your Eksi for a bit!”
Five of Loopblade smirked, then grabbed Eksi and pulled him into the room, slamming the door shut behind them. However, one of Loopblade teleported out, standing next to Teekay and Elkay.
“I see why Galyn called him Soulsoother…” Elkay grunted as he put Teekay down.
“He’s… not our Eksi though…” Loopblade-6 sighed, before turning to Shocktrooper Teekay. “I’m really sorry. The others are… well, we’re all fucked up, but they’re all even more so. It hurts, seeing your universe end and knowing that you’re one of the only survivors. Doubly so when you know it’s a loop.”
Teekay though shook his head, sighing back. “Eh, it’s fine. I know what seeing your universe die is like. Happened to us as well.”
“I guess… Still, I feel a bit better, knowing the Loop is finally over and I’m the last Loopblade. Do you two want to get something to eat and just, like, chat? Because I’d love to know more about your universe. And Arkay, if you two knew him.”
Teekay glanced up at Elkay, who just shrugged.
“Yeah, sure. I was getting hungry anyway…”