As far as everyone was concerned, today had been a good day. As Retvik, Nyssi, Kayel and Tenuk returned home, they all relaxed in the living room, the central hub, filled with soft sofas, covered in cushions and blankets. Sure, the house belonged to Retvik, but after nearly a decade of living alone in a house that was too big for him, Retvik thoroughly enjoyed having company, to the point that he had refused Tenuk’s and Kayel’s attempts to give him money towards rent. It was wonderful having laughter and friendship in a place which had been hollow and cold for so long.
And today in particular had been rather nice. Not only had Tenuk been made an awesome offer to do some solo gladiator work, with a focus on him shapeshifting into terrifying monsters, but the impromptu Capture the Flag match that Xeno Dessaron One had put on fighting Voices Above, a Athren Dessaron team, after Retha Squad Two had to pull out after some unfortunate injuries, had been a lot of fun. It had been admittedly rather one-sided, with the semi-armoured Athrens being unable to deal with their fully-armoured Rethan and Skyavok cousins, but Tenuk was mostly happy that he’d shapeshifted into something new and had completely fooled the younger members of Voices Above. Nyssi on the other hand was priding herself in her newfound speed, having won the battle by grabbing the Athren team’s flag while everyone else had distracted them, and she definitely did not throw up after Kayel shadowjumped her across the arena.
On top of all of that, the Raptor had shown them some initial designs for Xeno Dessaron One’s new, proper, fitted armour. Sure, she’d only had mock ups for Retvik and Nyssi, but the colour scheme, black with gold stripes and a tertiary colour matching their own skin and armour plating, looked amazing.
Now they were home, Kayel was insisting on buying take-out for everyone, as he’d just got a message saying he’d been paid some sort of compensation for having lost his job at the family planning centre where he used to work. The four of them were in the middle of dinner, a large pile of fast food burgers, when the doorbell rang.
“That’s probably our best friend!” Kayel beamed as he got up, keeping an eye on Retvik to make sure he didn’t steal any of Kayel’s chips. “He hasn’t checked in on us for a few days!”
Kayel cheerfully opened the door to be greeted by a familiar black and yellow Skyavok. As far as he was concerned, there were only three yellow-plated Skyavok in Palaestra, and Kayel was one of them. So was Aray Aspidon, even if that was just a mortal alias for the divine being known as Arkay, the God of Death.
“Arkaaaaay!” Nyssi and Tenuk both cheered from the living room. Retvik had his mouth full, currently eating two burgers at once, but he waved as well.
“Hey, guys, I can’t stay long…” Weirdly, the Thantophor looked kinda tired. Well, he looked normal, like a Skyavok wearing too much black, spiky armour, but his glowing, golden eyes were dimmer than usual. He was carrying a particularly sharp-looking staff, had several daggers strapped to his belt and thigh and was holding a heavy duffel bag. Kayel led Arkay inside, to the living area, where he sat Arkay down next to Retvik.
“What’s wrong?” Nyssi asked, immediately picking up on the strange array of pheromones Arkay was unwittingly emitting. Arkay realized what he was doing and immediately stopped.
“A lot. A lot is wrong…” Arkay sighed as he placed the duffel bag on his lap. “I am sorry for interrupting like this, but, well, I’ve just finished meeting with the other gods and Epani is pissed beyond belief…”
“Isn’t she always pissed?” Kayel hesitantly muttered, not sure whether he was inadvertently insulting Arkay or not.
“Well… yeah, she’s always pissed. But she’s even more pissed because it turns out that Kinisis isn’t dead. Which is weird because apparently I killed her and she killed me and there was this whole thing where Epani and Sini and Kairos remade the universe with the specific intention of Kinisis being not alive to fuck it up.”
“But… we killed Kinisis?” Retvik looked confused. Granted, everyone looked confused, but Retvik was the one who spoke first. “We saw the Lady of Light stab her through you, and the angry creature evaporated.”
Arkay tutted angrily. “That’s what I thought! I thought we killed her multiple times! In fact, when the universe was young, Epani and Sini had me destroy a LOT of ancient artifacts that Kinisis could have potentially resurrected herself from, because apparently she could have done that. But it turns out I kinda missed some, because Kinisis had ways of resurrecting herself outside of the universe.”
“And the Lady of Light is angry at you about that?” Retvik was still confused. He also admittedly found it difficult how Arkay would very plainly refer to his matron deity, but that was to be expected from a fellow god. “You do not have any control of things outside this universe, none of you do, I assume?”
“No, Epani’s pissed about two things. The first is that it turns out that one of Kinisis’s resurrection thingies outside of the universe partially worked, and where she resurrected herself from is somewhat connected to my blood-bound partners, even though Litvir and Retvik have done nothing wrong and Kinisis nearly killed them both!”
“Still find it weird that you know two Retviks…” Kayel muttered. “But honestly Epani always seems pissed at anything you do no matter what.”
“That’s because she is!” Nyssi butted in. “The Starbringer is the bitchiest of the gods, we all know that! Right, Arkay?”
The Thantophor awkwardly agreed, before continuing. “Thing is, that’s not even a major problem. If it wasn’t for Litvir letting me know, Kinisis could have made her return without us being aware at all. Thing is… the whole incident in which you four became immortal and we fought Kinisis together? Well, the four of us weren’t ever sure what exactly happened. Sini and I thought it was just a Corruption pretending to be Kinisis to confuse us. Epani on the other hand thinks it genuinely WAS Kinisis. Except it turns out we’re all right. Kinisis failed to resurrect herself as a Life Goddess, so she turned into a new strain of Corruption…”
The four former mortals all glanced at each other.
“That’s bad, right?” Tenuk whispered.
“Yeah…” Arkay sighed. “It means she’s just going to keep on coming back. And because she’s fucking ancient, at least 30 billion years old, it means she’s scarily infectious and hard to get rid of. And that kinda brings me back to why I’m here, because you four are immortal and thus can potentially help out if things get really bad…” Arkay paused for a moment, then began rummaging around in his bag again. “I should clarify, things aren’t that bad yet, nothing for mortals to lose sleep over. I just want to make some contingency plans, just in case…”
Finally, Arkay found what he was looking for. Kayel caught a glimpse of inside the bag, then wished he hadn’t, because it made no sense to him. Somehow the bag was infinitely dark and infinitely deep. The Thantophor pulled out four daggers, all in different sizes. He inspected each one, then handed them to his friends.
Each dagger had a shimmering, black blade, but the handles were colour-coded, matching the colour of their wielder, with a secondary metallic trim. Nyssi’s curved dagger was green and gunmetal grey, with a couple of fangs dangling from the end as a charm. Tenuk’s blue, red and silver dagger was oddly straight and short, with a sapphire embedded in the end of the handle. Kayel’s dagger was yellow and metallic black, just like him, and rather plain, the handle being wrapped in black leather, although the blade had a slight curve to it and the pommel was almost sharp. Retvik’s gold and red dagger could have been used as a full-sized sword by Tenuk, but was also oddly plain aside from a ruby red line that ran up the golden blade.
The daggers all also had a leather sheath, but the sheaths were all made from the same black leather, decorated with a silver emblem that Kayel recognized as the Skyan symbol for the Thantophor.
“Well, these are nice!” Nyssi grinned, twisting her dagger around in her right hand.
“Yeah, they fucking are nice, because they’re made of a mixture of my blood, the inert bones of an ancient Corruption and metal taken from dead Voidborns, forged by Kairos and myself within one of Epani’s star forges!” Arkay explained with a vague hint of anger. “Please, for the love of my fellow deities, keep those daggers close and don’t lose them. They’re designed to kill literally anything. I really hope I won’t need you four to help me, but, well, I’m… kinda worried…”
“Worried about what?” Tenuk blinked his four eyes. “You normally have a handle on things. Most of the time.”
“Normally? Sure. But right now, I am doing constant patrols of the universe and so is Kairos, because we know Kinisis is coming, but we don’t know how and when and how powerful she’ll be…” With a sigh, Arkay got up. “I’m sorry for interrupting, and I’m sorry for potentially worrying you.”
“Do you not want to stay for dinner?” Kayel asked. “You seem stressed.”
“Yeah! You’re always welcome here, right?” Nyssi added.
“I’d like to, but I have to get back to work. Sorry for bothering you.”
With one last frown, Arkay gathered his things and disappeared, not bothering to use the front door. The four mortals sat there, sitting in silence at first, before returning to their meal. Well, three of them did. Retvik remained completely silent, staring at the dagger he had been given.
“You alright, Retty?” Nyssi prodded Retvik in the side.
“Yes…” It took a moment for Retvik to respond. “I wonder if Arkay is aware that gifting a dagger to a Rethan is considered a marriage proposal?”
Tenuk glanced at Retvik, then abruptly laughed, before quickly apologizing. “I’m pretty sure Arkay doesn’t want to marry you! If anything, I bet he’s more into Kayel, what with them both being yellow-armoured Skyans.”
“You would be surprised, actually…” Retvik grunted. “Still, I must admit, I am… somewhat concerned.”
“Eh, we’ll be fine!” Tenuk grinned. “We’re always fine. Arkay’s probably just overreacting. He’s killed this Kinisis bitch before, he’ll do it again.”