Teekay growled as Elkay suddenly climbed out of bed and stood up straight in a rather panicked state. They were supposed to be snuggling and making out, but Elkay had abruptly stopped and stared at the door, looking rather anxious.
“Hey, babe, what the fuck are you doing?”
“There is someone here.”
“Whoever they are, they can wait! We’ve got twenty minutes, enough time for you to dick me twice, and you’re suddenly not interested?”
Elkay sighed. “Normally, I would tell the multiverse to fuck itself so I can fuck you, but the person who is here is both here for you and… they are triggering my weird, mimicky senses.”
Teekay blinked. “What do you mean?”
“One of the people you invited to our wedding is here.”
“Ohhhhhhhhhhhh! Dunno who it is, the rest of Loopblade aren’t coming until like a day beforehand, so we ought to see who it is!” Teekay immediately perked up, then hastily threw on a stomach wrap and loin cloth. He watched as Elkay put some, but not all of his armour on, mostly his chest plate, neck piece, knee pads and some upper arm plates. Having done this most of his life, Elkay could don and doff his armour very quickly when he wanted to.
Once they were both presentable, Elkay opened the door for Teekay and they headed over to the landing pad area, where a small ship had just left. Weirdly, Kaytee was already making his way over, but Teekay wanted to speed things up and teleported himself and Elkay right there. Kaytee tutted then teleported nearby as well.
There was one being standing there, carrying two bags, a suitcase and a carrier for a laptop. The being was clearly Threanic, and looked a LOT like Kaytee and Teekay, but they had odd, glowing rings running up their arms and legs and no wings at all, not the demonic wings Kaytee had tucked away on his back, nor the psionic wings Teekay had floating behind him.
“Hi! You must be Telecharm, I assume?” Teekay immediately asked.
“I am! I’m TK0019K, Teekay Dy-Theanon! You can just call me Telecharm though. I work at a high level Deathven sector and everyone kinda just calls each other by their codenames. It’s a pleasure to meet you!”
“Dy-Theanon… Kaytee muttered. “You… You married Eksi?”
Telecharm Teekay nodded. “I did, actually. Sure, I, uh, died, like a week later, but yeah, I was married. I-”
The stranger abruptly paused as two other members of the Thantir arrived to greet him. Eksi immediately realized he had made Telecharm Teekay upset.
“Oh. Sorry. I’m… I just happen to look like your… uh…”
Telecharm sighed and shook his head. “It’s not you, Eksi, even if you do look like my long gone partner… Skyan Teekay and the Loopblades already told me about you. It’s… Who are you, Life Goddess?”
Phovos eyed the new Teekay. “I’m Phovos Tromou, codename Lifetaker. You’re part Life Goddess yourself, why are you so shocked?”
“Well, uh… when I died, I was made into a Veth by Kinisis, the Lady of the Cycle. And you look a LOT like her. But furrier.”
“I’m one of Kinisis’s daughters.”
Telecharm turned to Kaytee and Teekay. “You didn’t tell me Kinisis had daughters! I… I guess she eventually slept with either Kairos or Stasis? I assume Stasis, because Kairos stuck around trying to save the universe from Corruption…”
“You didn’t tell us you were part Life Goddess!” Kaytee exclaimed. “Like, you said you became a Veth, I didn’t think that made you some sort of hybrid!”
“How about…” Elkay butted in, wanting to calm things down. “How about we all sit down and have a drink and a chat and all those more social things? Just the Teekays and Phovos though. You are supposed to be working, Eksi.”
“Ah piss, yeah… I’ll see you guys later!” Eksi frowned, then shrugged. He waved and wandered off, before disappearing into a nearby security booth.
Once Eksi was gone, Elkay led everyone to the little canteen area, pulled some tables and chairs together then sat everyone down. Telecharm quickly realized he had been rude and hadn’t even acknowledged Elkay.
“So, uh, sorry, are you Teekay’s partner?” Telecharm asked.
Elkay nodded. “I am.”
“Huh. You’re a standard-type Retha… wait, sorry… you’re a Rethavok. Skyan Teekay did explain this. You do kinda look like Elkay-En if he was a standard-type Retha though.”
“We’ve been through this before…” Kaytee muttered.
“We’re going to have to go through it all again!” Teekay countered. “Telecharm here is the same guy you are, Kaytee, he just went a bit further ahead and saw your universe die in a different way. But yeah, Telecharm, this is my wife-to-be, Elkay. And yes, he’s a Rethavok while I’m a Skyavok.”
Telecharm glanced back at Elkay. “You don’t use the term poten-partner?”
“It is a Rethan term, not a Skyan one, and, frankly, none of us Rethans here really use it anyway because the three of us all lean masculine,” Elkay explained. “Not that it matters, Teekay and I generally lean towards Skyavok terms and traditions, because I am beholden and honour-bound to Teekay and, well, I prefer some Skyan traditions anyway. Hence why we are inviting extra people to our wedding.”
“I have questions though…” Teekay interrupted. “Telecharm, why don’t you look exactly like Kaytee and why are you Life-Goddess-y enough for Elkay and Phovos here to both pick it up?”
Telecharm glanced at Elkay again. “How can YOU tell I’m a partial hybrid?”
“I am an Amalgam Mimic, better name pending, I… I pick up on these things, because I can mimic being a Life Goddess, or, well, anything.”
“Can you mimic Corruption?”
Elkay hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, unfortunately. That is how we discovered the source of the Corruption that was trying to kill us during our Decay Lord Trial.”
“Well… that’s terrifying…” Telecharm frowned. “I’ve seen what Corruption can do first hand. I assume, as purifiers, you see it a lot too… Either way, the reason why I have Life Goddess traces is because that’s how the Cycle made her Veth. She, uh, puts parts of herself into you. But when I was made into a Veth, I was one of many, many Veth that were made in part of a rush job because of the Corruption and because of the conflict between the Cycle and her Three Deities.”
“Her… three?” Kaytee looked confused. “So… like… from what us Loopblades worked out, what happened to you is that Arkay didn’t kill the Six Siblings, and he went back to work as the Veth Prime, but… we… we only had three Deities, Cycle, Kairos and Stasis?”
“You’d be absolutely right, but after the whole Six Siblings thingy, Cycle decided she wanted a holiday, and she made Arkay and two other ancient Veth do her job for her while she took a holiday. From what I could tell, things were fine until the other two decided to try and make changes that Cycle didn’t like, she killed both of them and every Veth that took their side, then the Corruption attacked and she had to scramble to make new Veth like me to protect herself, before she said “fuck it” and decided to let the Corruption take hold so she could start again.”
Phovos, Elkay and Teekay all turned to each other, then sighed.
“Yeah, that sounds like the exact sort of shit Kinisis would do!” Phovos snarled. “Make a huge mess then leave. I mean, that’s why I fucking exist. Kinisis went out, made a huge mess, got pregnant somehow, had a fucking baby and abandoned me!”
“How did you escape though?” Kaytee asked. “Because us Loopblades, we all… somewhat fell out of a hole in the universe. I rented an inter-system ship and was just flying and suddenly this hole opened up in front of me. One said he was trying to kill himself after he found out about Eksi’s death because most of the universe was dead at that point, but the rest of us, we were trying to get to the moon Eksi apparently died on in the hopes of saving him.”
Telecharm frowned, then shrugged. “Same way you did. Fell out of the universe. Although I was trying to stitch up a hole in the universe’s side and got thwacked out by a tentacle of Corruption. Because I was a Veth, I didn’t need to breathe or anything and I kinda just… floated for a really, really long time.”
“How comes you didn’t join the Phantai though? You were in that area, right?” Teekay was still confused.
“I got picked up by a passing ship on their way to a Deathven sector. I assume this happened before Loopblade could find me. Deathven sector-based Decay Lords get it way easier than you sect guys but they really super-charge the Decayling process. I became a Decay Lord in like 8 evs.”
“Took us 8 evs to confirm a date for our Trial…” Elkay tutted. “Just for them to throw us into an altered version of the same trial Retvik, Litvir and Arkay did.”
Telecharm raised a finger but quickly lowered it. “I… I totally forgot your leaders are two thirds of a Hidden Named Trio. Also weird that one of them is called Retvik.”
“He’s scarier than General Retvik was!” Kaytee exclaimed. “Like, General Retvik had that indomitable will, Flamebearer Retvik has that but will just, like, incinerate everything. I mean, we can meet him, but he’s working right now.”
“Speaking of work!” Teekay butted in yet again. “I thought you had work!”
With a large smile, Telecharm lifted up one of his bags, the one with a laptop in it. “I can work remotely.”
“Oh… so you can stay for a while?”
“Yep.”
“Alright, that’s pretty awesome…” Teekay smiled back. “Well, everyone finishes up in a few hours, and we’ll introduce you to them in, but in the mean time, what do you want to drink?”