“So, uh, is anyone else concerned?”
“Always. But I take it you are concerned about something in particular, Aster?”
Not all of the Twelve Anew were present in the Great Library Just South of the Centre of the Universe today. The female members of the Twelve Anew were at a Okilyf Party, some sort of event celebrating powerful female beings in Banikan territories, and they had taken Litvir with them for some reason, and Kohra was on Portalia, celebrating the Day of Family with his big brother Levik. That just left Dalosisaar, Aster, Aesop and Elkay hanging around the Great Library, in case someone (namely the higher deities) needed them.
“Well… yeah…” Aster quickly admitted. “None of us have seen Kairos in… a while.”
“Good!” Aesop snarled as he snapped open a can of beer. He wasn’t supposed to be drinking, but Aesop was supposed to be helping out with some government stuff and they’d all cancelled, so he was somewhat pissed off. “Fucker beat up a poor kid then ran off and hid when the Great Allmaker showed up.”
“Indeed…” Elkay muttered, before pausing and glancing at Aesop. “You seem almost as angry as I am about that. And Litvir still occasionally calls me ‘mum’ by accident.”
“Litty is a good kid. He doesn’t deserve to be beaten up. And…” Aesop hesitated for a moment. “I’ve warmed up to the kid. I’ve warmed up to most of you. Apart from you, Dalosisaar, I think you’re just as much a pompous asshole as I am. You kept a bunch of secrets from us and got the baby hurt.”
“Those… are odd words from a Torr…”
Aesop shrugged. “Us Torr are not THAT evil. Sure, once you’re an adult, you’re left to fend for yourself, but we feed and educate kids at least, and we certainly don’t fucking hit them.”
“Still…” Aster returned to his concerns. “A dragon god of time should also know not to hit kids. But the fact that we’ve also not seen Kairos since the event bothers me greatly. I’m genuinely concerned that something is wrong and we’ve done something wrong.”
“Like what?” Aesop snapped. “We’ve done everything we’re supposed to. We had to fucking do a fake surgery to fix Kairos up last year. What have we done?”
“Maybe… maybe we didn’t fix Kairos up properly?” Aster suggested. “Maybe he is still kinda corrupted? Or maybe… maybe he was never un-corrupted in the first place…” Aster trailed off, then turned to Dalosisaar. “You were there. You saw Kairos get infected. Did you see him get… uninfected?”
Dalosisaar didn’t answer. He went quiet and began to think to himself, trying to recall what happened that day. After an awkwardly long silence, he finally looked up at his fellow deities.
“I didn’t. Time froze, I saw it all freeze. The Darkness, the… I think it was called Epanophovon… it came in, took control of Kairos and made him attack Epani. The Dead Gods fought back. They stopped the Darkness from using Kairos to freeze time completely. But it said something about making a deal. Everything went dark after that. I don’t know if I passed out or what happened. When I could see and move and breathe again, they were all gone. There was no darkness, just a hole in the sky.”
“So…” Elkay glanced at his fellow deities, then back at Dalosisaar. “You don’t know if they actually cured Kairos from being corrupted?”
“No. And the concern in your voice suggests that you don’t know either, Elkay. Considering you’re the god of knowledge, I feel like you should know.”
Elkay glared at Dalosisaar, then threw down the book he was reading and pulled out his communicator. He tapped on it for quite a while, and seemed to do a lot of scrolling as well, but everyone could tell that Elkay’s tone and feelings were definitely worsening. Eventually, Elkay gave up and threw his communicator down too, but not in the same way he had thrown his book.
“So you don’t know?” Aster asked.
“I don’t have a definitive yes or no answer. I just have some notes, namely one saying that the being promised that “all traces of Corruption would leave the universe, and Epanophovon would take the Oull with it as prisoner”. That’s all I really have. But since we’re talking about a being that goes around consuming universes, I don’t know how well we can trust that. And at the same time? With the data I’ve gathered over time and what we’ve picked up from the outside? Not all Corruptions are the same. The stuff that Murum’Va and Litvir normally deal with isn’t related to this Epanaphovon thing in any way, and if it is intelligent, it’s often related to what’s called the Nekro-Kinisis strain, which was what happened when the Allmaker was stabbed during the… kerfuffle in the Great Arenas.”
“Alright, follow up question…” Aesop grunted. “Was Kairos properly cleaned up after that kerfuffle in the Great Arenas, as you called it? Because I remember watching that on television. The Dead God fixed Kairos up, and he seemed fine afterwards.”
Elkay paused, then sheepishly picked up his communicator and started searching again. “Hm… From what I can tell, Arkay was capable of completely purifying other beings. That was, funnily enough, one of his main side jobs, and apparently something he did for most of his existence. But you do bring up a good point. There was a period where Arkay was comatose and chained to planet Kolasi, and Epani was also AWOL. Universe-protection-wise, things went… weird during that time and Kairos was occasionally doing the patrols that Litvir does now. Maybe something slipped in and remained undetected and has been slowly weakening Kairos?”
“That… sounds plausible…” Dalosisaar sighed. “Alright. Let me arrange a meeting with Epani. I want you three in on this as well. We’ll tell her everything we’ve discussed today. But in the mean time, Elkay, can you find any information on… purifying… I don’t know if that’s the correct term, but… well, just find info on getting rid of Corruption. You have access to the Dead God’s old memoirs, you will probably find something there.”
“Will do. I’ll get started now.”
Elkay bowed, then disappeared through a nearby shadow, leaving Dalosisaar, Aster and Aesop all alone.
“What about Kairos though?” Aster asked.
“Eh, fuck him!” Aesop hissed. “As long as time keeps on working as normal, he can hide away until we work out a solid plan. I don’t give a shit about his feelings.”
“Fair enough…” Aster shrugged. “I just hope we’re not running into a new mess…”
Aesop rolled his eyes, then calmed down a little. “We’re probably fine. Kairos is just a big baby. We’ll sort things out, we always do.”