They had travelled mostly in silence, but none of the crew minded. The silence allowed them to come to grips with what was going on. They were sharing a ship with a death god, one who wanted to lead them somewhere.
The majority of the crew were not trusting of this strange being. While it had seemed polite and honest, many of the Rethans onboard believed that the death god was leading them to their deaths. After all, that was what the death god did, yes? But no, their journey so far had been eerily quiet.
It wasn’t until they reached a… particularly dark location that the death god spoke. He calmly asked them all to stop.
“We’re here. Slow down.”
The crew did as they were told. The vessel came to a halt, or at least as slow as it could go. Reversal engines stopped it from drifting too far forward.
Turning to the death god, the Rethans wondered what to do next.
“I assume this ship has some sort of extremely hot and explode-y missile weapon, right?” the death god asked.
The Rethans all nodded.
“You need us to… fire at something?” the General asked.
“Yep.” The death god wandered over to the view port. “I don’t know if you can see that, that faint speck of light? The purple-ish one? That’s what we need to deal with.”
“What is it?”
The death god was blunt. “Corruption. Potentially a universe-ending entity. Sometimes you can just convince them to leave but I want to have a backup plan in case this one… decides otherwise.”
“What do you need us to do?”
“I need you to distract it. Or at least, I might need you to…” The death god closed his eyes, sighing and thinking to himself. “It’s pretty simple really. I’m going to go out there and try and talk to it. If it doesn’t leave willingly, I have to kill it. A distraction enables me to kill it cleanly and efficiently.”
The Rethans all glanced in each other in confusion.
“I’ll make it simple. I’ll give you a signal. A green point of light. When you see it, you fire your missiles at it. Understood?”
This time, they did understand. The death god smiled, then disappeared. The Rethans all hesitated, before manning their stations, preparing to carry out the death god’s orders.
Outside, the death god seemed confident. He raced over to where the Corruption had appeared. It was still small, it had only just broken in. But it was very… purple. And gurgling.
Feeling slightly less confident, the death god approached the Corruption. The death god had no weapons on him, but he didn’t need them.
“Hello, Corruption? Could you leave this universe please? We can’t really co-exist here.”
The Corruption gargled some more.
“Can you understand me or do you need a moment to grasp language and communication?”
After some more gurgling, the Corruption’s voice became more clear.
“No need. Will consume you. As have consumed all before.”
The death god sighed. He had hoped that this Corruption would leave peacefully. They often did. This one though was aggressive. It instantly lashed out at the death god, stopping mere millimetres away from the death god’s body. The death god leaned forward to touch it, but the Corruption recoiled.
Snapping his fingers, the death god emitted a bright, green light. The Corruption ignored the green light and continued to try and slash at the death god with its tendrils. Each time though, it would recoil in horror.
Suddenly, everything was engulfed in white heat. A fiery inferno, searing the skin of both the Corruption and the death god. The death god though simply smiled, forcing his long, sharp claws into the Corruption’s body. The Corruption’s gurgles turned into agonizing screams as it swiftly dissolved at the death god’s touch.
As the heat faded away, all that was left was a satisfied death god.
With a kindly wave, the death god thanked the Rethan vessel, bid them farewell then vanished into the darkness.