“Do you guys ever think there’s too many Skyavok here?”
Teekay, Kaytee, Kayel and Psiksi all sat up and turned to Eksi. The five of them had just been lying on the beach by the lake, chilling out and looking at the pretty pink void winds that drifted across the permanently black sky.
“What the fuck do you mean by that?” Teekay hissed.
“I’m not a Skyavok!” Kaytee protested.
“Well, to be fair, Kaytee, you’re technically a proto-Skyavok…” Psksi muttered. “But yeah, bro, what the fuck are you on about?”
Eksi shrugged, completely aware that the others were staring at him and not particularly caring. “I dunno. Just seems weird that there’s so many Skyavok running around. More than anyone else. Out here, the most populous species outside of the Beh’ens seems to be us.”
Teekay tutted. “We’re not a periuniversal species. There just happens to be a bunch of us.”
“There’s a LOT of us though. Seven Loopblades, Psiksi and me, you and Kayel, Veekay if he counts, and Arkay if he counts too. Plus, like, aren’t you Threan-type Retha part of a larger species?”
Kaytee thought for a moment. “I mean, yeah, sure, but there’s still only one generation of us. We won’t be a periuniversal species like the Beh’ens are until we create a second generation of… well, let’s use the term “Threavok” for now.”
“Are we even compatible?” Kayel butted in. “I mean, I’m gonna assume, downstairs-wise, we are, since Eksi and Kaytee, you two fuck a lot, but could we even create a viable child?”
That question caused Psiksi to reel back in horror. “Kids? Seriously? In this environment?”
“It’s worth asking. Sure, we all practice safe sex and wear condoms, but I just… I’m just curious…” Kayel paused. “I bet Sini would know.”
Teekay growled, rather menacingly. “I hate how you seem to like Yisini! You have no idea the shit she did to my wife.”
“I don’t like her or anything, I just assumed that maybe she’d have an answer.”
“She’d force the lot of us into some awful experiment! Do I have to repeat the shit she did to my angel?”
Kaytee grunted briefly, somewhat changing the subject. “I find it weird that you call Elkay an angel. He’s got a complete demonic aura about him, and his wings are demonic too.”
“I think things were simpler in my universe?” Kayel suggested. “Less freaks at least. Winged Skyavok or Rethavok were 100% not a thing.”
“Are you calling me a freak?” Kaytee sat up and stared at Kayel.
“Well… if you lived in my universe, yeah, you would be. The freakiest thing in our universe was Thassalin, and he’s a former dragon god of time. Probably the next freakiest thing was Kuta, but according to them and Arkay, there were a handful of Rethan-Skyan hybrids, one of which could shadowjump like I can.”
Teekay and Kaytee both calmed down somewhat.
“Speaking of shadowjumping,” Psiksi turned to Kayel. “Did you teach your friends to borrow your powers?”
“Yep.”
“And they worked it out?”
“Yep.”
“And did Ret use his new power to scare Kuta?”
“Yep!” Kayel smiled. “Funny thing is, when I asked Arkay to teach me how to do long-distance, interplanetary jumps, Arkay Asked me where to go, and my first thought was “I should freak Kura out.” Didn’t do that in the end, but I’m so glad Ret managed it.”
“Speaking of Retviks-”
“You say that a lot, Psiksi!” Kaytee butted in.
“Well, I need SOME way to pivot to things I want to talk about!” Psiksi tutted. “Is it, like, a rule that anyone called Retvik has to have a cute Psion boyfriend?”
Kayel snorted in amusement. “Hah! Maybe! Do we know any other Retviks?”
Kaytee nodded. “Yeah, apparently General Retvikalios is still alive and out there somewhere. In the Ventra Expanse or something.”
“Your universe had a Retvik too?”
More nods. “Yeah. He was married and had a kid with a gigantic Rethan known as Gath.”
Psiksi went back to frowning. “Mine, Eksi’s and Teekay’s Retvik never got that far. A ton of awful things kinda happened to our Retvik before he became a Decayling, and his Gath moved on and had a kid with someone else.”
“Are we talking about the same Gath?” Kayel piped up. “Because I met a General Gath, they were utterly huge, and they were in a serious relationship with Retvik’s sibling Relkir.”
Teekay sat up yet again. People kept on saying stuff that bothered him. “What the fuck, Kayel! Your version of my Elkay is dating your Gath?”
Kayel hesitated. “I though I was the new-universe Elkay? I mean, my birth name was Elkay Theanon until I changed it to Kayel when I switched to L-Class.”
“Actually…” Psiksi hesitated. “I think you’re the new-universe version of me.”
“How comes?”
“You’re the cute little yellow-plated Skyan prick in your team, same way I was, and same way Arkay was when he was mortal!” Psiksi explained.
“But also,” Teekay added, “Relkir would have been my wife’s name had he actually been part of the stupid bloodline shit. Personally, I hate the name Relkir, because it’s a name that Kinisis forced onto Elkay to try and strip him of his desired identity.”
It was now Kayel’s turn to frown. “I find it troublesome that Kinisis, for you lot, was a Life Goddess the same way Sini and Epani are. I’ve only ever known Kinisis as that black inky corruption stuff, or the white, armoured being covered in black slime that Nyssi, Tenuk, Retvik and I helped Arkay kill.”
“Oh, trust me, Kinisis was horrible even as a Life Goddess!” Teekay tutted loudly and angrily. “But she used to hide her horribleness behind a fake mask of kindness. You seeing Kinisis only as Corruption is for the best…” Teekay suddenly paused. “Hang on, what white armoured being?”
“She kinda had some Threanic features, but she had sharpened points for legs and was like, half organic, half eaten by the black stuff.”
Eksi and Teekay both glanced at each other.
“Damn… you… you kinda… killed Seimeni…” Eksi stuttered.
“Well, let’s be fair, Eksi, Seimeni was pretty much dead the moment Kinisis stole her body.”
“Who is Seimeni?” Kayel asked.
“She was one of the older members of the Thantir, and she was also a Life Goddess…” Teekay sighed. “Kinisis possessed and corrupted her, then disappeared. We all knew she went to Epani and Yisini’s universe to try and kill them, and that Arkay and Yisini managed to kill Kinisis and her host body, but I had no idea you and your team of four were the ones to take her down.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologise. Seimeni was long gone. You mercy-killed her and killed Kinisis’s main host, which severely damaged the main Nekro-Kinisis strain of corruption…” Teekay paused, then decided to lighten the mood by changing the topic. “Anyway, Eksi does kinda have a point. We do have a lot of Threanic beings here.”
“We have a lot of what now?”
Everyone glanced up to see who had spoken. It seemed that Arkay had come to join everyone on the each.
“A lot of Skyavok, I guess?” Kayel suggested. “How are you, Arkay?”
Arkay smiled as he laid down next to his fellow Skyavok friends. “I’m fine. Taking a break now, since Itaviir wants to do guard duty for a bit.”
“Yeah, Itaviir does get a little fidgety if he doesn’t have anything to do!” Eksi smiled back. “Anyway, we were just chilling.”
“Fair enough! Chilling out is always good.”
“Yep, it definitely is!” Arkay settled down. “I’ll admit, it’s nice that all us Threanics are friends. Makes a change for once…”