“The glowing lights are back.”
Phovos grunted as she stepped outside, where Teekay was standing with a pair of binoculars. Due to their location at the bottom of the universe, technically hanging upside down, the view was quite unusual. They could see a vast distance south (at least south of the universe), but their view up north was mostly obscured. Not just by the large, crystalline-like walls, but also by the universe itself.
“Again?”
“Well, they’ve been pretty constant…” Teekay grunted. “Akah saw them on his shift. So did Elkay. We sent reports. They got ignored.”
“I should have expected as much…” Phovos rolled her eyes. “We’re here to look out for threats, we see something and report it, and Kinisis just ignores us? No wonder this universe ended up the way it did.”
Teekay laughed awkwardly but loudly. Phovos gave the Skyan an odd look.
“What’s so funny?”
“They had the perfect defender. An overprotective death god who would happily give his life a thousand times over to protect this place, its mother and all the cute little mortal vok inside it. And they treated him like an unwanted pet. Kicked him, hurt him, punished him and pushed him away. If it wasn’t for the fact that we’re all here as well, I’d say the gods deserve what they get.”
Phovos sighed, knowing that Teekay was rather… accurate in his rambling. “Well, we are protecting a lot of beings.”
“We’d be protecting way more beings had Kinisis’s asshole boyfriend not constantly attacked and belittled Arkadin, to the point that he created a fucking art gallery filled with all of Arkadin’s former romantic interests.”
The Raptor paused. “Oh… I… I forgot about that… Amazing that Kayen is even still alive, to be honest…”
Teekay frowned as he put the binoculars down, then turned his attention back to the topic at hand. The glowing was visible without any extra help, Teekay didn’t really need the binoculars, but he had them anyway.
“We’ve all already reported it up top and they’ve done nothing?”
Phovos nodded. “Kinisis flat out ignored it. Lissandra told me it was nothing. Only Atteh’Kus actually gave me any information, and he said it was some sort of construction going on above the universe. Another project of Kinisis.”
“That she’ll get bored and ignore?”
“Actually, we seem to be the outliers here. Kinisis stuck with the project for the Northern Guardians and just ignores us because we’re not as useful.”
“At least she did not let the Allbirther “upgrade” and experiment on us…” Relkir interrupted, his heavy, armoured feet plodding behind Teekay and Phovos. “I have done that once, I would rather die than have it happen again. And you both know how much I hate death. Anyway, I have just got off comms with Kayenus and he flatly told me to not worry about the glowing lights, as it is part of a new construction project Kinisis is working on.”
“What sort of construction project?” Teekay asked.
Relkir grunted. “Did not say. Mentioned something about a mall.”
“What, like a shopping mall?”
“What other types of mall are there?”
Phovos and Teekay both shrugged.
“True… So, from what I can tell…” Phovos thought for a moment. “Kinisis is building a mall? On the outside of the universe? What for?”
“She needs somewhere to sell off bits of dead Voidborn…” Relkir nearly spat on that last word. “After all, was that not the reason why we came back here?”
Phovos sighed, not really sure what to say or think. She knew Relkir was right. They were stationed at the bottom of the universe to protect not just it, but its resources too.
“So we just… sit here and ignore it?” Teekay asked. “That feels… wrong.”
“I guess…” Phovos frowned. “Not really much else we can do about it…”