Everyone was quiet, not really sure what to say, somewhat shell-shocked. The eight of them had been split up somewhat, while they were being checked over by a group of beings that called themselves Decay Lords.
Thassalin had been mostly fine, he had regained all his Time Drake powers and was mostly just reorientating himself and checking his status among the Time Drake Consortium, while also chatting with the Thantir’s resident Time Drake, Elksia. They’d gotten off on the wrong foot, but Elksia had quickly calmed down when she realized Thassalin wasn’t a threat, and that he was willing to respect her control over the local territories.
Talok was absolutely fine. She’d been a bit angry at first though. Mostly towards one of the three ‘old universe Rethans’, the shortest one. She’d snapped at Elkay, claiming that he’d left her behind or something. Elkay did apologize and said he couldn’t have done much, that it was “Kinisis’s fault” she’d not been picked as a Divine Guardian. Talok accepted the apology, then immediately realized she wasn’t the only Vohra around. While neither of them were really capable of love (nor did they understand it), Tahvra and Talok had instantly become friends, and he had been helping Talok adjust, while also distracting her from her confusion and the fact that she was a Decayling now.
Kuta and Phovos were both struggling though.
Technically, Kuta was already a Decayling, but being thrust back into the Periuniversal Void had caused Kuta’s powers to go haywire. Thankfully, Kuta’s twin brother (clearly not an identical twin) was on hand to help out. Kuta and Litvir had been sitting in a separate room alongside a small Skyavok, helping Kuta regain control and stopping them from seeing everyone’s thoughts apart from Litvir’s.
Phovos wasn’t doing much better. While she had finished transforming into a Voidborn and the pain from doing so had subsided, Phovos had quickly realized two things: firstly, she now had a wide range of powers that she had no idea how to control, and, secondly, she was utterly infatuated with the ‘old universe Ksithan’. And they both technically had the same name. Alright, Phovos’s real name was Phovoula Tromeros (and she didn’t have a problem being called that), but the old universe Ksithan was called Phovos Tromou. This other Phovos was not a Voidborn though, she was a Life Goddess and, thankfully, she wasn’t at all scared of Phovoula. Granted, none of the Thantir seemed scared of her either, they were just concerned.
However Kayel, Nyssi, Retvik and Tenuk were all sharing a room together, and both Nyssi and Retvik had very aggressively made it clear that they weren’t to be separated and that they were to be left alone. None of them wanted to talk. They were all in pain, they were confused and tired and trying to comprehend that a vast amount of power had been given to them.
It turned out, one of Arkay’s last actions as the Thantophor, before he seemingly disappeared, was to deify his four closest friends. And, in doing so, Arkay had accidentally created a new type of Periuniversal Void Entity. They weren’t standard Decayons, but they also weren’t ‘Amalgam Mimics’ or ‘Synaisthyns’ the same way Arkay was either. They were something in the middle, and no one really knew what to do about it all.
To make matters worse, apparently the team were also among the last few people to have seen Arkay, and everyone had been asking what he’d said to them. Kayel recalled that Arkay had thanked them for helping to protect the universe, and that he needed to send them away, to keep them safe. The others couldn’t remember anything, apart from the four of them being put to sleep and then handed over to Sini, the Allbirther.
Several hours had passed, and, thankfully, the Thantir had done as asked, leaving the team alone, outside of checking in occasionally. The check-ins had mostly been done by a massive, furry, armoured bear creature, but, this time round, someone else had turned up.
“Hiya, are you all alright? Do you want anything to eat or drink?”
The person in question was vaguely familiar to Retvik and Tenuk, who both assumed the being was a Lanex. Nyssi went a step further, suggesting that she’d seen a similar but older white-masked Lanex in the past, on television. However, Kayel seemed to actually know the Lanex.
“Dude… You’re… You’re the dude I played video games with! You’re Akah!”
Akah tilted his head to one side. “Huh. I feel stupid for not putting two and two together. Nice to meet you in person, Kayel.”
Nyssi immediately turned to Kayel and snarled. “You know this cunt?”
“Don’t call Akah a cunt, he’s, like, the chillest gamer I’ve ever played with!”
“But he looks EXACTLY like a much younger version than that damn Frozen Scythes Imperator!”
“Maybe… he is?” Tenuk asked. “I mean, two of these other Thantir guys are called Retvik and Tenuk. And the Raptor has spent her entire time with… another, less furry Raptor who doesn’t have sticky out ears.”
“But still!” Nyssi snapped. “There’s no parallel me or Kayel!”
“Actually…” Akah added his own thoughts. “Elksia has a theory that Kayel might be some sort of parallel version of our Elkay, and Eksi was right when he said that Nyssi is a parallel version of Elksia.”
Nyssi turned back to Akah. “No one asked you, you white-plated Lanex prick.”
“Nyssi, you’re being a bitch!” Kayel hissed back. “This guy literally just came in to offer us food and you’re cussing at him!”
Tenuk and Retvik both nodded in agreement. Admittedly, Retvik hadn’t said a word since they’d been woken up. He had, weirdly, thrown up a few times though and no one was sure why.
Akah however didn’t seem too upset. “It’s fine. I’ve been cussed out a lot. Mostly by Voidborns. Couple of evs ago, this Voidborn just stomped in and kicked the crap out of me, thinking I was someone else. But you lot are completely shell-shocked right now, and we’ve kinda been prodding and poking you and stuff… But yeah, do any of you want anything to eat or drink?”
Nyssi frowned, then glanced at Kayel and Tenuk. She was annoyed at them both. Somewhere along the line, Nyssi had picked up telepathy, and she had been using her new power to silently communicate with her friends. She was doing so right now, chastising them both. They’d all agreed that they weren’t going to really cooperate, mostly out of fear, and Kayel had blabbed to the strange Lanex.
“What?” Tenuk frowned. “He’s trying to be nice.”
“He’s TRYING to get us to talk!”
“I’ll be blunt, if we wanted you all to talk, Litvir and Eksi are really good telepaths…” Akah admitted. “The reason we’re concerned is that, well, Synaisthyns are supposed to be stupidly, insanely rare, to the point that there’s only three of them that we know of, one of them is Elkay, one of them is our friend the Thantophor and, if you four are also Synaisthyns or even half Synaisthyns, that’s… insane.”
“I still don’t get what that even is…” Kayel muttered. “Like, Arkay said he was one, but he could also, like, borrow time powers and stuff. Pretty sure none of us can do that.”
“KAYEL!” Nyssi screeched. “STOP TELLING THEM STUFF!”
“You’re asking a Skyavok to not talk about things they know about! You KNOW that’s really hard for me! And, like, these guys want to help us! Sure, I don’t trust the absolutely massive guys, the dragon with t-rex arms, the guy who claims to be a Spast but isn’t furry or the Skyavok with telepathy, or the two Skyavok who look like my old captain, but, like, I trust Kuta’s actual twin sibling AND I trust Akah! Akah’s cool!”
“I appreciate that. But, genuinely, I am just here to see if you guys want anything. You all kinda got frozen in time or something, you’re probably thirsty at least. The big pink Thraki drank like five litres of water earlier.”
Nyssi hesitated, then glanced at Retvik, who gestured that he was hungry and craving something salty. Tenuk and Kayel also seemed a little hungry and thirsty too.
“Alright, fine… I dunno what food you all have, but we are all a bit hungry and thirsty. ” Nyssi gave in. Can we, like, get some water and maybe some meat-flavoured crisps? And something sweet for Tenuk, he only eats sugar.”
“Yes, sure, no worries. Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll bring you some snacks.”
Akah turned to leave, but realized that Nyssi had grabbed his hand.
“We’re just… scared, you know? Especially since Kuta completely freaked out and Phovos, someone we all saw as one of the scariest people alive, started screaming and grew metal plating. This Decayling stuff terrifies us, doubly so since… we’re…” Again, Nyssi glanced at her friends. “Should I… can I tell him?”
Retvik nodded. Tenuk shrugged. Kayel frowned, then nodded too.
“Well… we’re pretty sure that Arkay deified us as his last action before he… well… sacrificed himself.”
Akah didn’t really know how to respond to that.
“Please, dude, don’t tell them…” Kayel sighed. “Not yet. We don’t know the entire truth ourselves. Arkay might still be out there. Sini made a promise. She… she intends to keep it.”
“Alright, fine, I’ll keep quiet, despite the burden you’ve given me…” Akah clicked. “But you ought to say something sooner rather than later.”
“Yeah, we will… We just need a bit more time.”