The force of the heavily armoured Rethavok sitting down on the bench next to Psiksi nearly made him fly into the air and drop his sandwich. Despite being a famous gladiator, Retvik was an exile and didn’t really have many friends outside of work colleagues, and Psiksi was probably the closest thing to a friend that Retvik had. At least, the only vaguely normal friend.
“Something bothering you, Ret?” Psiksi asked as he checked to make sure he hadn’t dropped anything. He’d been in the middle of messaging someone on a dating app. Like a lot of Ξ-Class Skyavok, Psiksi had never settled down with a permanent partner and was happy to sleep around, and, what with also being a somewhat famous gladiator, getting dates definitely wasn’t difficult. While, sure, unlike most of his class, Psiksi didn’t really travel much, not any more, he still cheerfully followed Ξ-Class traditions.
Retvik was clearly annoyed, perhaps even angry. Most Rethans hid their emotions, but the many years Retvik had spent among other races had made him more open than most. Being around his friend did seem to calm him down. Psiksi noticed that Retvik was wearing default green house fighter armour. In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Retvik in his custom-made Lightbearer getup.
“Yes. I am bored. No one wants to fight me. I never thought that helping save the universe would essentially end my gladiator career.”
Psiksi grinned, straightening himself out. “Yeah, that tends to happen when you’re stupid enough to attack a weird exo-universal monster. Are things really that bad?”
“Yep…” Retvik crossed his arms and grunted. “You are not busy, are you, Psiksi? I have… annoyances I am unable to express.”
“We’re sitting in the House Fighters’ Spectator Lounge, watching some live fights, I’m clearly not busy.”
“You were on your communicator.”
“It’s fine, Retvik. They’re text messages, they can wait. That’s the whole point of text messages.”
Retvik grunted again, but seemed to settle down.
After a moment of silence, Psiksi scooted a bit closer to Retvik. “So what’s troubling you, big guy?”
“I have not had a proper arena match in a week. I do not like this.”
Psiksi shrugged. “We could have a match. We’ve fought before. Not for a while, but still. You don’t scare me. Much.”
Retvik glanced down at Psiksi, then sighed. “The Raptor does not like it when her veteran fighters challenge each other. Plus, I do not want to threaten your streak.”
“My streak? You’re not concerned about your own streak? Dude, you’re nearly at 300.”
“I will never hit 300 at the rate we are going…” Retvik frowned. “But I would not want to ruin your streak. We have fought five times, I have won three of those times, but you have won twice, and you beating me for a third time is definitely a possibility. That is fine by me. You are one of the best fighters this arena has ever seen. But I do not want to ruin your streak, because you are the ONLY non-Rethan, non-Banikan, non-Temthan to have such a long streak, and you are the only non-predatory race being to have a streak over 100.”
Psiksi blinked. “That is… weirdly considerate of you. But we all know our streaks have to end one day. I mean, Timik really bounced back after losing his 249 streak. And I’d have no problem losing to you.“
“Still…” Retvik closed his eyes, settling down somewhat. “Perhaps I will mention it to the Raptor, should the whole stupid terror-beast thing not work out.”
“The Raptor is bringing back terror-beasts fights?”
“Just for us four. Unfortunately it seems she can no longer import them though, so it seems that the Raptor is going to send us on a holiday to some abandon-world to fight the monsters in their own territories…”
“Eh, you could do with a holiday, mate. When was the last time you went off-planet?”
Retvik fell silent. His gaze dropped and he stared directly at the floor. “I… uh… went… outside the universe.”
Really, Psiksi should have been used to Retvik saying very strange things, but this thing was particularly strange, and, worse, it clearly seemed to trouble him.
“Uh, what was that like?”
“I do not really remember. The Allbirther drugged me afterwards. I just recall it being dark, and there being six weird mechanical Vohra there who all seemed to know my name. Then we went back to the Allbirther’s lab and then Arkay sent us home...”
“And what about the time before that?” This was definitely troubling Retvik, so Psiksi did his best to move things along.
“End One. After we escaped the torture labs and Kayel shadowjumped an entire ship.”
“Heh, funnily enough, that was my last off-planet trip as well. Shadowjump gone wrong.”
Retvik nodded, but abruptly stopped. “Wait, what do you mean by that? Kayel has never mentioned anything like that.”
Psiski let out a little laugh. “If you don’t decide where you want to go when you shadowjump, you end up in Zero Zero, the park in the middle of End One. You said Kayel shadowjumped a whole ship? He probably did the same thing, too busy thinking whether he could to think about where to go.”
“I… I guess…”
“Either way, it’ll be a nice holiday for you. Somewhere exotic, somewhere new. Doing stuff you’re good at and being paid to go on holiday.” The muscular Skyavok crossed his legs and leaned back, only vaguely concerned. Sure, terror-beasts were scary, but they were dumb too. “I think you might end up enjoying it. Although, random question, if you could choose who to lose your streak to, who would you want to lose to?”
The question confused Retvik but also gave him something both distracting and interesting to think about. “That is a good question. Can you answer it first?”
“Sure!” Psiski smiled some more. “Honestly, I’d be happy to lose to your buddy Kayel if he ever decided he wanted to do solo fights. He’s scarily good at what he does. If not, I guess I’d pick the All-Ksa, if only so I could find out if he really is a Phantasma or not.”
“You do not know?”
“He’s never outright confirmed or denied it. All-Ksa Elkay is a… he’s a good guy but he has secrets, and that’s weird. Sure, our friend Kayel has secrets too, but he’s also not our leader. Us Skyavok are archivists, data-collectors, librarians and truth-tellers. Doesn’t add up.”
“I guess…” Retvik didn’t seem to understand, and went back to Psiksi’s original question. “I suppose there are two beings I would want to end my streak. The first is what most Rethans would say. I would love to fight and would happily lose to the Keeper. A living legend among Rethavok…”
Psiksi couldn’t help but nod in agreement. “I mean, that’s an excellent choice. Who wouldn’t want to lose to a mountain of a guy that saved hundreds of eggs and hatchlings on their own, and survived being shot thirty times? Definitely earned that living legend status, same way you did… And the other guy?”
Retvik smiled weakly. “The second is, well, Arkay. Being defeated by the God of Death would be, well, the most badass thing to lose to. I would admittedly let Arkay do a lot of things to me.”
Psiksi blinked, hesitated then sighed. “I find it really, really weird that you, a Rethavok, are infatuated with our Silent Blade. I mean, from what I’ve seen in photos and stuff, he looks like a Skyavok and a kinda cute one, but you’re a Rethavok.”
“He shapeshifts into a Rethan on the regular. Aside from the yellow and the death stuff, he is very attractive. That and I am somewhat desperate…” Retvik took a deep breath. “I hate my stupid bloodline. It is awful, not being allowed to even date other Rethans.”
“You were with Isaar-“
“I wasn’t supposed to have been with them. Thought that being an exile excluded me from the Rethianos tradition but I was wrong…”
With a sigh, Psiksi put an arm around Retvik. He hadn’t intended to make Retvik upset and he felt worse because Retvik had come to Psiksi to talk. The Lightbearer didn’t really have people to talk to, even after all these years.
“I’m sorry.”
“It is fine. What bothers me more is that Arkay said he would be willing to date me, but he does not want me to get into trouble, and his attempts to nudge the Rethan leadership to abolish these stupid traditions have not worked…” Retvik sighed some more. “Speaking of which, I have not heard from Arkay in a while-“
Retvik’s communicator buzzed. He fumbled around with it then tutted.
“Is that Arkay?”
“Yes.”
“You have Arkay’s personal number?”
“Yes. His personal number is 4. You cannot call it though, I have tried, but Arkay does seem to pick up text messages. He did when Tenuk texted him when that shadowjumping Rethan appeared in my garden…” Retvik inspected the text, then blinked, looking rather confused. “Huh. Arkay says he is sorry for not checking in on us, that he’s been busy and has a date coming up…”
“Who the fuck would date a death god?” Psiksi exclaimed, before immediately apologizing. “Uh, well, apart from you?”
Retvik grunted, then awkwardly typed a message back. After a few seconds, his communicator buzzed again. “Arkay is going on a date with the shadowjumping Rethan that was in my garden… He asks when we can meet up. Do you want to come along? You wanted to spend some more time with Kayel anyway.”
Psiksi didn’t say anything, too stunned to really respond to what Retvik had just said.
“Psiksi?”
“You… do realize what you just said to me, right?”
Retvik shrugged. “You know I am friends with the Thantophor. I am sure he would like to meet you. Arkay does need more friends.”
“You need more friends too, Retvik. Your friends are… if I’m honest, kinda fucked up.”
“I cannot disagree. Still, the offer is there.”
Psiksi shook his head. “I… I gotta think about it. Casually meeting a god is… ugh…”
Retvik sighed, then got up. “I am sorry for burdening you, Psiksi. I did not mean to.”
“Eh, it’s fine. Your life got really fucked up, you don’t really know what to do.” Psiksi hesitated, then gave Retvik a little hug. “Stay safe, and say hi to your friends for me, alright?”
“Will do…” Retvik grunted as he wandered off. “Thank you, Psiksi…”