“So, boyos, this is my adopted son who was kidnapped by a crazy ex who wanted to sleep with me and held him hostage for one and a half universes, and his two insanely cute not-Retha boyfriends. Arkay, these are my assholes-in-chief, Ignasi, codename Voltshift, and Yatre, codename Smokecloud. Also, Yatre, I owe you a twenty.”
Arkay, Retvik and Litvir weren’t really sure what to say about Mimicblade Tenuk and his two friends.
“Hi, nice to meet you!” Arkay smiled.
Tenuk was an old-old-universe Kronospast, who switched between a four-eyed skinny blue Beh’enu form and that of kinda an Ethran-type Retha (a massive, 3.5m tall Rethavok-like being). He seemed to fit in somewhat, among the locals, at least while shapeshifted. Except right now, he wasn’t shapeshifted at all, he was his original self, and looked more like a four-eyed Vohra but more upright, standing at 1.3m tall. Arkay wanted to say that he looked like a naked, furless, armoured version of the third Tenuk he knew, but that would have been mean. Instead, he focused his attention on Ignasi and Yatre.
“Nice to meet you too!” Ignasi bowed.
Ignasi was a Zarian, a member of an uplifted race from the Tennoraka Pentacluster, but the reason why the Zarians were uplifted was because of some sort of strange time loop event called Eternalism, where multitudes of possibilities became reality at the same time.
There were many, many different types of Zarian, in a complete rainbow of colours, but they were always humanoid beings, completely solid all the way through, with bones made out of metal and covered in a strange, organic matter melded with less organic bits and pieces, something called sword-steel skin. Many of them wore capes and some clothing, but a lot of that was all made out of the same material as their skin. Despite how heavy they looked, Zarians were incredibly agile beings, and the Justar regularly referred to them as “space ninjas”.
While Ignasi WAS a Zarian, he was a specific type of Zarian, known as a Volti-Lokian, apparently a merging of two much more common types of Zarian, one type known for their electric powers, the other renowned for their stealth abilities. Ignasi’s bottom half (including a large codpiece and a cape that covered his butt) and the rings of armour around his arms were mostly Voltian, but his head and torso were Lokian, somewhat wide, horned and shark-like, the two horns jutting out from the side of his head. Gold trims ran down Ignasi’s body and cape, but his sword-steel skin was black and purple, close in colour to Litvir.
“Nice to see more royal purple around here!” Litvir bowed as well. “You are both shapeshifters? I assume you are both better than our mutual friend Tenuk here.”
“We are, oui!” Yatre nodded.
Igasi was odd, but somewhat average. Yatre… well, Retvik and Litvir had no idea what they were looking at. Arkay did, and, despite Litvir’s telepathic suggestion to not say what he was thinking, he went and said it anyway.
“Are you, uh… what’s the word for it… French?”
Yatre nodded some more, then put out his cigarette and pulled a fresh one out of a tin. Inside the tin were a screen, some buttons and a label which read “SPYTRON 6900”.
“Oui.”
“And you’re… a Spy… but… furry.”
“Indeed. I am from a dimension de la poche which mimicked a section of a much larger, more insane, more… fractured universe.”
“One where everyone is a cat person?” Arkay asked.
“Yes.”
“And is your team’s Scout your-”
“NON!” Yatre hissed. “I HATED that silly notion. When time broke and the original timeline split, there were… plenty of differences. Many I am thankful for.”
Arkay shrugged. Retvik and Litvir were still clueless.
“Fair enough. Is everyone in your pocket dimension a cat person?”
“Was. But non. Some were. Many were other animals. My team, our Medic was a dove, our Sniper a crocodile and our Demoman a unicorn.”
“Huh, neat!” Arkay went back to smiling, but only briefly. “Sorry about your universe though.”
“You say that to everyone…” Litvir muttered.
“Well, it’s true. As someone who has killed universes, I’m permanently filled with guilt and feel worse when I’m aware a universe has needlessly died.”
All three Exalted Shifters eyed Arkay.
“Alright, I get that some shit happened to the universe Kinisis made you a god in…” Tenuk stuttered, “but… multiple universes?”
“Yeah… I… Kinisis did a lot of things to me, to make me into the perfect monster. And she’d lend me to other Life Goddesses to snuff out universes that were nearly consumed by Corruption.”
“Sacre bleu…” Yatre muttered under his breath. Ignasi seemed to agree. “Your body count must be in the trillions.”
“Some Decay Lords out here are terrifying beings who did definitely kill the universes they were made in…” Ignasi seemed to frown, but he had no obvious mouth. “You are… a tad beyond that…”
“Eh, my body count is kinda exaggerated when I was the personification of death. My existence or otherwise, all those affected by my domain of decay would have still died.”
“You did also nuke the Golden Protectors…” Litvir added.
“Those are Voidborns, no one cares about them!” Ignasi’s tone perked up. “Voidborns and Corruption, no one cares, we should just kill them all. We often wonder why Deathven proper doesn’t.”
“There are exceptions!” Tenuk tutted.
“To Voidborns, sure. To Corruption? Nah. Burn it all!” Ignasi shook his head. “All Corruption does is kill. My little slither of a universe was mostly eaten by it, it fucked up Yatre’s place, you know what happened to Tenuk’s universe and, well, Arkay, you know EXACTLY how bad that stuff is, didn’t you face the Unending Ancient One and live?”
“Yeah…” Arkay sighed. “I don’t want to think about that.”
“Understandable. Anyway, do you guys want to get drunk?” Ignasi asked. “These Justar are letting us drink whatever we want. And if you’re worried about flying, we can sleep it off.”
Yatre sighed and face-palmed. “Ignasi, we’ve told you a billion times, you fool, only Zarians can immediately get over ailments by just sleeping for 8 hours.”
“Yes but this guy here is one of those mimic things and those two are adolescent Beh’e-”
“Ignasi!” Yatre snapped. “Tahnaiious explained this! They’re not Beh’evok! They are Rethavok, a species similar, smaller and, ahem, more slender and less off-putting than the horned brutes. They, like many beings, do not instantly get sober.”
“I don’t really like drinking, but if Retvik and Litvir want to get plastered with you, I don’t have a problem with that! We can bring Elksia along too. And Thyel and Kahlos and Zephyr too, since they seem nice!” Arkay smiled. “I do want to know how Ignasi drinks though. You don’t have a visible mouth.”
“Oh, I forgot Ventra Zephyr is here… haven’t met a Zarian Zephyr in ages. I’ll show you if we all agree to get drunk together.”
Retvik and Litvir glanced at each other, then shrugged.
“Sure. Sounds like fun!” Retvik glanced around. “You all seem interesting anyway.”
“Can we also fuck?” Tenuk asked. “You and Litvir are both genuinely way hotter than what I normally fuck around with. I spent years disguised as an Ethran-type Retha anyway so I know how you work.”
“Mon Dieu!” Yatre exclaimed. “Keep it in your bad excuse for your pantalon!”
“No, no, it is fine!” Retvik smiled a little. “I am aware I spark… emotions in people. Let us have a few drinks, and we shall see…”