“I am exhausted…”
Tenuk eyed Teekay as he held an ice pack to his head. The Thantir Decaylings were all relaxing in a small offshoot observatory, staying out of the way of the Phantai Decay Lords while they tidied themselves up. Someone had requested that the entire room be filled with soft cushions and a small buffet be provided, and the Phantai had immediately complied, before leaving them to their peace and quiet.
“You? Exhausted? You spent that entire stupid thing in a stupid fucking pod, completely asleep! I spent the entire time running around like an idiot, trying not to get killed!”
“Yeah maybe, but I had to help Litvir, Eksi, Tahvra and Elkay work out how to fix the Phantai’s version of the Rethan Secret!” Teekay countered. “Telepathy isn’t really my thing! And then I had to help Loopblade with their communication stuff as well!”
“You’re a fucking Skyavok, you were born with telepathy! I risked life and limb and-”
“Hey, Tenuk, babe?” Elksia interrupted, between mouthfuls of chocolate.
“Yes, angel?” Tenuk quickly turned his attention to Elksia. She was his girlfriend, after all.
“All you did was run and find Kal and then hide with that shapeshifting bitch while Retvik and Akah and whatshisface the big guy did all the actual protecting.”
Tenuk grunted. “It was still dangerous… Wait, are you angry at me or something?”
“Yeah. All you did was fucking hide. With the other Kronospast. And you spend a ton of time shapeshifting into weird things, like the Phantai Beh’evok guys, into weird flying things and apparently you even shapeshifted into whatever the fuck Kal are!” Elksia paused. “Uh… does anyone know if Tah is alright? I kinda went through way too many time threads trying to make sure that that Voidborn prick didn’t punt Tah’s brain across the room.”
“He’s fine, a bit confused and dizzy, but fine!” Akah smiled somewhat reassuringly.
Unlike everyone else, Akah didn’t seem to want to eat or drink anything, and had been lying in the corner by the large window, most of his head, his eyes in particular, covered with a sheet. What was more weird though was that Akah wasn’t wearing his familiar white mask with telescopic lens, and everyone had been somewhat surprised about how Akah looked without it. Tenuk had expected Akah to have hair or something, but no, he actually had some sort of weird head plate running up along his nose, then armour plating running down the back of his head and neck.
“You sure?” Elksia asked. Out of everyone present, she was the most exhausted, but she was hiding it under a bizarre combination of chocolate, meatballs and noodles. The amount of time threads Elksia had been forced to alter had physically drained her.
“I’m sure…” Akah turned over, very briefly uncovering his eyes. “Sorry, I’m feeling very dizzy and my head is killing me.”
“Is that why you took your mask off?”
“Indeed. I’ve got a special scope connected to my eye, allows me to zoom in and see different light spectrums. Being magnetized to a wall completely scrambled my brain and broke my mask, on top of that Voidborn filling my head with nightmares…” Akah sighed, turning away again and yawning somewhat. “Please don’t argue about who did what though. It was stressful for everyone.”
Elksia sat up and crossed her arms. “It’s not that I’m pissed off about. Tenuk’s my boyfriend and he won’t shapeshift into a Vrekan. He shapeshifted into a fucking whatever-Kal-is but won’t shapeshift into something like me!”
“They’re called Cleansers…” Tahvra muttered.
“I thought they were called that because that was their job?” Teekay was quite confused. “Like, they cleanse things. From Corruption and Voidborn stuff.”
“Nope, their species name is actually just ‘Cleansers’!” Tahvra did his best to explain. After all, he knew the tiny team of Decay Lords better than anyone else. Tahvra basically worked for them now, and enjoyed doing so. “They work as purifiers, but they themselves are called Cleansers. Because it was their jobs to, uh cleanse planets and stuff back in their home universe. But yeah, Akah’s right, we gotta chill out and be nice to each other.”
Tenuk frowned, then got up and sat next to Elksia, putting his hand on top of hers. “I’m sorry, babe. I kinda got… a bit too excited about meeting someone similar to me. Not that she stuck around though. Once the mind control shit was over, Ahra kinda just buggered off and I don’t know what her codename is so I can’t ask around either.”
“Hmph!” Elksia tutted. She was still annoyed. “Everyone else has someone to relate to, someone who’s similar to them. Well, apart from Akah and Phovos. You two are even more fucked than I am.”
“Is this because you want kids, Elksia?” Tenuk felt bad. He wanted to make Elksia feel better but knew he couldn’t really do much.
“Yeah…”
Tenuk closed his eyes. “Yeah, I understand, baby. Although, to be fair, kids are out of the question for pretty much everyone here.”
“Well…” Eksi glanced awkwardly at Teekay. Teekay rolled his eyes and hissed.
“No.”
“I mean, if we got really desperate…”
“I don’t want kids. Also I’m marrying Elkay once we become Decay Lords. We can’t have kids.”
Eksi shrugged. “You two might be able to have a hybrid kid. Elkay would have to be the mother though so that the egg doesn’t tear your vagina in half because Rethan eggs are stupid. Although he already is your bitch. He could also be Litvir’s bitch and have kids with him.”
“You know that one, Elksia is upset about her inability to have kids, two, this discussion is rather inappropriate and three, I am sitting right here, right, Eksi?” Elkay butted in. “Between you and Tenuk, you are making things awkward for everyone!”
“Yeah but-” Eksi abruptly stopped as a snowball hit him in the the head. “Dude, what the fuck?”
“You’re being annoying, Eksi. You’re being as annoying as Tenuk is.” Elkay hissed. Eksi found it weird that Elkay had specifically borrowed that one single power off Akah, but Akah didn’t seem to mind.
“I am not!”
“Mate, you totally are…” Teekay lowered his voice. “You’re the master telepath around here, but you’re totally not reading the room.”
Eksi sighed, then apologized. “Sorry. I’m being a dick.”
Elksia took a deep breath, then sighed and apologized too. “You’re not the only one. I shouldn’t be getting annoyed at this kids stuff. I just get… biological urges sometimes and… well… Sorry… At least we’re all alive, right? Also, Phovos, did you ever work out what you did to that Krohniak cunt?”
Phovos blinked. She had been completely oblivious to the entire conversation and had been just silently eating as much food as she could manage. Unlike Elksia though, she was avoiding the chocolate and was just eating meatballs. “Pardon?”
“What did you do to that Voidborn?” Eksi repeated Elksia’s question. “I’m genuinely intrigued. Apparently you snapped your fingers and he just vanished?”
“In a puff of sparkles as well…” Tenuk added.
“She fell right on her butt!” Elksia perked up slightly. “But yeah, sis, what did you actually do?”
Phovos thought to herself, before blankly shrugging. “I really don’t know. I just… kinda… wished that he’d go away, and he just, went away, I guess.”
“So you can just, like, grant wishes?” Eksi blinked. “Like, damn, I thought Elksia’s time powers were stupid, then I thought Elkay’s mimic powers were bullshit, because they are. But you just made a wish and it came true?”
“I… I don’t know…” Phovos repeated herself. “Apparently Life Goddesses just tell reality what to do and reality responds in kind, but, like, I… I just have no idea.”
“Did you teleport him into a sun or something?” Tahvra offered his thoughts. “Kal called it the Theocydes Protocol, it’s also what Tah did to Ahkron to escape him when Ahkron attacked us… Although Ahkron kinda came back…”
“I just wished that he’d go somewhere where he could die, but I don’t know where that exactly is, or even if he died.”
“Waaaaaaait!” Eksi suddenly exclaimed. “We don’t know if Krohniak is dead or not?”
The Decaylings all eyed each other nervously.
“Not really, no…” Phovos finally admitted. “I mean, I hope so, but… no one knows for certain. I don’t even know if a place where Voidborns can die even exists…”
Everyone fell silent, not sure what to say.
“Maybe we should all take a nap or something…” Tenuk finally muttered. “We’re all stressed as fuck and could do with some sleep…”
“Good idea!” Elksia smiled as she curled up around Tenuk. Teekay snuggled up next to Elkay, while everyone else mostly just remained where they were. Especially Akah, but it turned out Akah had fallen asleep a while ago. “Night-night, everyone.”
“Uh… good night, I guess…” Phovos grunted, returning to her pile of meatballs as the room fell silent. “I’m just gonna keep on eating, I’m weirdly hungry…”