Things crash-landing into the parking lot at Savepoint were annoyingly common, but the moment that the strange, serpentine Time Drake hit the ground, dropping a strange, crystalline canister, things became rather… chaotic. The Thantir instantly identified the Time Drake not as a Time Drake, but as a Life Goddess. Sini, the old Allbirther, had collapsed in the middle of the tarmac, tears streaming from her eyes, a black, inky substance crawling up her arm. She was talking nonsense, crying that the Corruption that had broken out of its container didn’t want to hurt her, he was just confused.
Either way, the Thantir immediately got to work. Sini was swiftly moved by Kal to an area meant to deal with Unending Ancient One infections, but as Vikalos and Retvik went to incinerate the Corruption, they were suddenly stopped. By multiple telepaths.
“No!” Nyssi screeched, practically throwing herself in front of Vikalos, while Kuta blocked Retvik’s path. Talok took a more physical approach and wrapped herself around Vikalos’s leg.
“Children, please, move!” Vikalos grunted. “This is a very dangerous strain of Corruption. It needs to be destroyed before it can hurt us.”
“It is not just any Corruption!” Kuta snarled back. “That black splodge is, unfortunately, Arkay.”
Retvik immediately lowered his flames, stepping back as Litvir, wearing one of their standard anti-corruption shield suits, backed up with a telekinetic, approached the capsule. The Corruption, whatever it was, seemed vaguely aware that it was in danger, and had slithered as deep inside the canister as possible.
After a few moments, Litvir turned to Retvik, doing his best to hide his sadness. “They… they are only somewhat correct. This Corruption was, at one point, our poor Arkay.”
“What… what happened?” Retvik stuttered.
“He… traded himself… for the whole universe…” Nyssi finally admitted. “I… I don’t know how I know… This telepathy is hurting my head and I’m… seeing things… but the Corruption got the Whenvern, and Arkay and Blessed Sini made an offer. Sini would exile herself, Arkay would trade his like for the Whenvern’s…”
“I guess Sini could not accept that, and tried to save Arkay after he got corrupted?” Litvir asked.
“She made a promise. To you two. That she’d bring Arkay back to you. She tried to keep it. I dunno about the rest of you, but I worship… worshipped Sini. She always had good intentions, even if she did things in mysterious ways. I… I guess Arkay… didn’t… uh…”
Suddenly, Pah, Kal’s resident flamethrower, appeared, teleported there by Tah.
“Guys, why… why haven’t you incinerated it yet?” Pah clicked in annoyance, noticing that Retvik and Vikalos hadn’t done their jobs. Normally they were very eager to set things on fire. “It’s a stupidly dangerous new strain! We need to destroy it, right now! Actually, we kinda need to get some of Elkay’s blood, mix it with acid and use that, because this stuff’s resilient, but it needs to be destroyed!”
“I’ll go make a mixture…” Tah clicked back and teleported off. Pah however looked up at the two Flames, still annoyed.
“We can’t just… kill it…” Vikalos frowned. “According to all our new telepaths, that blob of Corruption hiding inside that crystalline canister is our old friend Arkay.”
Pah fell silent, then started clicking to himself. He was silently communicating with his siblings and assessing the situation.
“Well… it WAS Arkay…” Pah eventually spoke. “Right now, it’s a brand new, highly resilient strain. Sure, we’ve managed to fix up the strange Life Goddess/Time Drake hybrid who seems to recognize Tah but keeps on calling him Koh, but she’s very lucky, the Corruption didn’t want to really infect her, and she was using her time powers to protect herself. This Started End strain is partially fire resistant, that’s how bad it is. And if… if this thing here is the central source, we… we need to destroy it, before it can spread.”
“But that is Arkay!” Retvik found himself shouting. “I… I know that Arkay is corrupted now… I… I cannot just… kill him.”
“I get that and…” Pah hesitated briefly. “This is going to sound very cold, especially coming from me, someone who is only standing here right now because of Arkay’s actions, but… that… blob is not Arkay. Arkay is gone. Looking at the state of how fluid that blob is, he’s been gone for a while. I know you all care for Arkay, he’s your… uh, partner or something, but, well, he’s dead. He’s gone. The best thing you can do for Arkay is to destroy this Corruption, so it doesn’t become a threat. Because I’m certain Arkay wouldn’t want to be a danger to others.”
“Question…” Litvir raised his finger. There was a clear tremble in his voice. “Was he… infecting Sini? Because… because… you… you claim Arkay is dead… there is something in there… I can feel it. I do not think he is trying to infect anyone, he is just… scared and lashing out.”
Again, Pah fell silent. A quick telepathic chat with his brothers answered Litvir’s question. “No, he wasn’t infecting the Life Goddess, just part of him was crawling across her skin, because it’d gotten disconnected. The problem is, even if it’s not particularly infectious right now, as it gets hungry, it could become more infectious, and since it is fire-resistant, it could become more dangerous than the Unending Ancient One strain, and decidedly more deadly.”
“Yes, but…”
Before Retvik, Litvir or anyone else could argue, a gravitational pull moved everyone away, and a heavy glass and metal box was dumped on top of the crystal container and the Corruption hiding inside it. The Corruption realized that it was trapped inside the glass cage, but didn’t move too much. It seemed to have already accepted its fate and had settled down, leaking out into a strange, amorphous puddle.
“I know you’re all upset, but we need to act…” Nuh butted in, as Gah made sure that the cage was properly sealed. The rest of Kal were busy closing up the place, instructing the younger members of the Thantir to move any patients who were still around into temporary housing.
“Yeah, unfortunately, we need to contain and assess the situation, and we can’t really have heightened emotions getting in the way. It definitely sucks, but we have to, well, do something.”
“But… you can’t just… kill Arkay…” Nyssi whimpered. “He… he has to be in there, somewhere.”
Gah clicked, then turned to Nuh and Pah, who both clicked back at Gah.
“He’s not…” Nuh eventually explained. “But… we get it. Let us decontaminate the area, let us do some tests and make sure the area is safe and clean. Leh and Koh will do some testing and documentation, we’ll work out what needs to be done. Once we’re sure we can… destroy the Corruption cleanly, safely and humanely, we’ll let you all say your goodbyes. If Arkay was in there somewhere, he would understand and, more importantly, he would want a quick, merciful death. But at the same time, based on what we saw when purifying the Time Drake, we can’t put anyone at risk. We’re sorry, but everyone else’s safety is more important right now.”
Retvik took a deep breath, then relented. He didn’t say anything, he just put an arm around Litvir and led him away. Kuta, Nyssi and Talok all failed to hide their sadness, and Nyssi somewhat threw herself into Kuta, who held her tightly and took her and Talok back to where the other new Decaylings were. Vikalos though remained where he was.
“It… it’s a shame…” Vikalos muttered, after a long silence.
“It is…” Nuh dimmed his eyes. “But there’s nothing any of us can do.”
“I… I guess…” Vikalos briefly lost himself in thought. “Do you need me for anything?”
“No. We’ll handle this. Being mechanical, we can’t be infected the way the rest of you can.”
“Alright…” Vikalos sighed. He thought a little more, then wandered off himself, away from the tragedy that lay dormant in the cold, glass cage.