Deathbringer: Um, hi. You certainly sent me a lot of messages over the last, uh, while.
Souldrainer: Arkay! You finally made it online!
Souldrainer: That took you forever.
Deathbringer: Sorry… You can call me now.
“So is the dude there?” Kayel asked as he lounged on the sofa behind where Arkay was sitting.
“Yeah, he’s…” A ringing sound emanated from Arkay’s laptop. A voice call. Arkay very hesitantly accepted it.
It took a moment for the connection to work. That moment made Arkay anxious. But as a slightly crackly voice trickled out of the speakers, Arkay calmed down somewhat, only to start being anxious again.
“Hello, Arkay.”
Arkay didn’t say anything. Kayel sat up and nudged Arkay in a bid to get him to speak. When Arkay still didn’t say anything, Kayel decided to speak instead.
“Dude, you are 100% Kuta’s sibling.”
“Hm. You must be Kayel, Arkay’s… friend, I assume?” the voice asked. It was definitely a Rethan voice, but it lacked that familiar gruffness that most Rethans had. Slightly smoother. And, as Kayel had pointed out, they sounded a lot like Kuta.
“I am, yes! Sorry, Arkay’s kinda just staring at the screen, freaking out. I have to ask, do you have fangs the same way Kuta does? And pretty blue eyes?” Kayel prodded Arkay some more. “Arkay, mate, say something.”
“Understandable. This must be quite a shock to Arkay, doubly so since my voice alone can occasionally dig up deeply buried memories. And in answer to your question, yes, I do have fangs, but I have purple eyes. Arkay, are you there?”
Arkay tried to stutter some sort of reply, but nothing came out. He only seemed to move when Kayel pulled out his communicator and took a picture of both him and Arkay.
“Alright so how do I send images on this stupid app thingy?” Kayel asked as he forwarded the picture to Arkay’s account on the Ola chat app, which Arkay had a desktop version of. “Litvir… you’re not a general are you? Kuta doesn’t make us call them General or anything, dunno if I have to call you that… can you send us a picture of what you look like?”
“I do have some images I can send, yes. Arkay’s version of the Wyvern app is text-only, so you must place the images in an RTF file and send them that way. And, well, no, I am not a General. Being technically dead and my original universe no longer existing means I am no longer of any Rethan military rank.”
Kayel took control of the laptop, opened up the Ola desktop app, grabbed the pictures he had just sent to him then opened up OpenLibre, a word processor application. He copied and pasted the images into the open document, saved it as a Rich Text Format file (which Kayel hoped was correct) then dragged the file into Wyvern and uploaded it to the chat with Souldrainer.
“I bet you get vampire jokes all the time!” Kayel snickered as he read the names of accounts on Arkay’s DMs list. “I’m gonna bet Spiritdrainer is Kuta. They said they used this app to chat with Arkay a lot. Did you choose your username? Do you mind if I ask all these questions? This is the second time I spoke to an alien from outside the universe!”
Litvir seemed to pause. “Oh. You must be the Skyavok that Nuh mentioned he spoke to when we used Tenuk’s magical tea strainer.”
“Is Nuh like, a black and silver robot Vohra? Also, you know someone called Tenuk too! Do you know a Kayel and a Nyssi?”
“Indeed. But no, I do not know anyone with those names. I take it Nyssi is your friend.”
“Yep!” Kayel chirped. “Alright! I sent the pics! Oh, you sent a file as well.”
Kayel clicked on the file, which, thankfully, didn’t need downloading, it just seemed to open up straight away. The file was a text document with a single image embedded in it, of two large Rethans, one of whom seemed to be on fire, both of them with their arms around a familiar, yellow-plated face.
“Yeah, you’re definitely Kuta’s sibling, just in the wrong colours. And weirdly tall. The other guy definitely looks like a giant, flaming Retvik but old. Almost like looking at a sci-fi parallel universe or something…” Kayel glanced at Arkay, who was desperately trying not to break down into tears. “I, uh, think you upset Arkay a bit.”
“Hmph. I… I am sorry about that. I just wanted to hear the voice of my friend, who I do dearly miss. Perhaps I should call back later, when Arkay has settled down?”
“No…” Arkay finally managed to speak. “I… I am so sorry. I hurt you. I hurt you all.”
There was a low growl. The sort of angry, somewhat upset growl any Rethan would make. “That is the problem right there. You never hurt anyone. Not really. Everyone else was hurting you, and you lashed out in a bid to protect yourself. All you did to me, Retvik and Kuta was threaten us when you were scared and broken. I have said it before and I will say it again, I forgive you for what happened, and I am sorry I did not help you.” Litvir paused briefly. “I am also sorry for springing all these unwanted memories on you so suddenly. That was unfair of me. I just really wanted to hear your voice again, Arkay.”
“I mean, with a voice like yours…” Kayel decided to be silly and pretend to flirt. “No wonder Arkay likes you! Bet you have a bit of a bad boy streak as well!”
“Hm. Less bad boy, more evil genius. With a heavy helping of Saturday morning cartoon villain.”
Kayel snickered. But he also noticed something else. Arkay had smiled.
“Heh. I miss you, Litvir. My memories are pretty fucked up right now though and this… well, it hurts.”
“I am sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. I needed it. How’s Retvik?” Arkay was definitely settling down now. The initial shock had passed.
“Asleep. Pretty much everyone else is asleep, apart from Elkay, who is on perimeter guard duty right now, and Elksia, but since she is a Time Drake, she rarely sleeps as is. Things have been hectic as of late, unfortunately.”
Kayel could tell that something about that sentence had upset Arkay again, and it had disturbed Kayel somewhat, but he didn’t want to get in the way, so instead he got up and fetched some drinks.
“How comes?” Arkay asked.
“Ah, you are… unaware of what we do now. Retvik and I restructured the Thantir, we have a new base of operations and we work as purifiers, fixing vok up from nasty Corruption and Voidborn thingies. Normally things are not too bad, but we have had a LOT of urgent Corruption purges lately.”
“Are you… still… in the somewhat local… uh… sector? Because I’ve noticed that we’ve had a lot of Corruption trying to break into our universe lately.”
“We are, yes. Quite a way away from you though, unfortunately. Maybe though, if things are… settling down with you, we can…” Litvir very suddenly paused. “Well, piss. Someone has just turned up, requesting assistance. I need to go and wake up the out-of-hours crew.”
“Are you alright?” Arkay was immediately concerned.
“Oh, yes, I am fine. But we essentially run a hospital and, well, Corruption never sleeps, or some nonsense like that. Feel free to message me, and let me know when we can chat again, because this has been… relieving. But I unfortunately must leave.”
“You’ll… you’ll be back though?”
“Of course. Speak soon, dearies!”
The call ended somewhat abruptly. Kayel glanced at Arkay to make sure that he wasn’t sobbing or anything. Once he was certain Arkay wasn’t heartbroken or anything, Kayel decided to try and ease the mood a little.
“Your boyfriend is very cute. Especially for a Rethan.”
“You just admitted you like Rethans…” Arkay replied as he rubbed his eyes, trying to refocus on everything. “Then again, I guess, since I take the form of a Skyavok, that means Litvir likes Skyans…”
“Yeah, well, it’s not every day that you get to talk to a Rethan from another universe who also seems to have a pretty good sense of humour!” Kayel sat up nice and close to Arkay and gave him a hug. “You alright?”
Arkay didn’t answer at first. He took a deep breath, sighed a few more times, then smiled properly. “You know what? For once, despite the insanity of what I just experienced? Yes, I think I’m alright…”