A Lullaby For Gods Chapter 136

CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE PLACES THAT WE NEVER SHOULD HAVE LEFT

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“Bluuuuuuh, school’s so exhausting.”

Hal spun in his office chair to watch Sapphrel flop face-first into the bed, their schoolbag – still on their bag – making concerning rattling noises as it hit their back. Hopefully none of their stuff broke, as for a kid who came from such a notorious family, they were staunchly frugal. Came from years of growing up without the money, he supposed.

It’d been a week since their midterms, which meant they’d already gotten their exam results back. Maybe the little perfectionist accidentally overlooked exam instructions and got points docked for it.

“I want summer to be here already,” Sapphrel mumbled into the mattress.

“We just had summer a couple months ago.”

“Yeah, that’s how seasons work, they cycle. Neat, right?” the kid huffed, snickering. They sat up to take their schoolbag off and set it down beside the bed, before flopping back onto the mattress, but on their back this time, folding their hands over their midriff as they looked up at the ceiling, idly reading calculations Hal had written in permanent marker during one particular personal project when he’d run out of whiteboard space and ended up scrawling all over his walls and a part of the ceiling.

“That’s new.” Sapphrel raised an arm to point at a set of equations that were written in blue. “Run out of space again?”

“Jade took my whiteboard.”

“Ah, for her portable armor project with Roxy?”

Hal hummed in confirmation. Sapphrel slowly moved their hand, as if tracing the lines of numbers and words he’d written above them.

“Since when were you interested in time travel?” they asked.

“Since I got into an argument with Dave last Tuesday,” Hal said. Then, “…and Dirk.”

“You’re so petty,” Sapphrel said, snorting and laughing. “I’m guessing you’re actually only arguing with Dirk given that I doubt Dave would care enough to start vandalizing his walls.”

“It’s a theoretical discussion,” Hal said.

“A civil one I hope?” They angled their head so they could look at him.

Hal raised his hands as if in surrender. “As civil as we can make it.”

“You’re both too competitive,” Sapphrel decided. “You’re like a bunch of fucking cats, you either just parallel play and mostly ignore the other’s presence when you’re in the same room, but when it’s feeding time, you start smacking the shit out of each other.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, we have more tact than that,” Hal said, rolling his eyes. Yeah, sure, his and Dirk’s relationship was still a little rocky, but they’d come a long way from the guy being half-scared of him and wanting to destroy him because he was –

He frowned. Because he was what? Why would his older brother be scared of him? They were scarily similar in certain aspects, down to their classpects, but Dirk wouldn’t go so far as to kill his own younger brother.

“Tell that to Stark tower,” Sapphrel said, “You guys busted through a wall squabbling for a chance to test equipment.”

“He used his Stand first.”

“You have a speed-based Stand, you could have dodged,” they shot back, lifting a finger like it was going to help prove their point.

“Whatever,” Hal huffed, rising from his seat and making his way towards their bag, rifling through it until he found their test papers. “Full marks, I don’t know why you complain about anything when school’s clearly too easy for you.”

“It’s not.”

Hal flipped one set of test papers to look at the second sheet, an essay section, and skimmed through the narrow handwriting that took up most of the page, margins included. He raised an eyebrow and looked up at Sapphrel, showing them their work. “Sure it’s not.”

“Waking up early is a challenge, I’ll have you know,” they defended. “And! The cafeteria keeps running out of my favorite muffins.”

“I don’t know why you pretend to be stupid,” Hal said, clicking his tongue and returning their papers back into the bag. He let out a sigh as he sat beside them. “You’re a lot more fun when you stop pulling your punches.”

“You’re still on my case about that?”

“I’m gonna be on your case about that until you start having confidence in your own intelligence. We’re in college. Nobody’s going to stuff you into a locker because you’re a nerd,” he said. “And that besides, you have me.”

“Yes, yes, I have a big bad cosmic guardian who’s going to make sure all the jocks leave me alone.” They shook their head, amused.

Hal snorted. “Somebody has to keep you out of trouble. Knowing your luck, you’re more at risk for kicking the bucket than most of us.”

“I thought you said you hated me for stealing the pizza you were saving for later last week.”

“I do, but unfortunately, the universe has decided I have a job.” He flicked their forehead. “And it’s to keep your sorry ass alive.”

“I’m sure you would be devastated if I ever shuffled off the mortal coil, Strider,” they said, sarcastic.

The corner of Hal’s lips lifted in a small smile. His friend was annoying, but he supposed he would miss them if they ever –

(Hal stared at them, at the way they were unnaturally still, and thought that maybe, just maybe – he was definitely not imagining it – they were still breathing. Their chest was still moving. They were just asleep, just very deeply.

He stayed there, on his knees, just watching them, before eventually placing two fingers on their neck.

“Wake up,” he said, “Wake the fuck up.”

Angeles did not wake up.

“This isn’t fucking funny, get up.”

The body did not answer.

Hal moved his hand, because surely the new almost-constant state of enhanced perception was just fucking with him and that’s why he couldn’t feel their pulse, instead turning Angeles slightly so he could place a hand on the left side of their chest, right where their heart would be.)

He frowned, clutching his head at the sudden spike of pain that lanced through it. What the fuck?

(Nothing.

There was no heartbeat.

Hal sat there, staring at the body which refused to move despite how much he watched it. Slowly, he wound his arms underneath Angeles’, pulling them close – )

“Hal?”

He felt the mattress shift as Sapphrel sat up, but his vision was blurring, the sudden pain forcing him to close his eyes.

(– into a hug. Still, the body did not move, and its heartbeat did not return.

Hal held it – them – sitting there silently in the beautiful, quiet field. It was a lovely day – the sky was clear, there was a gentle breeze blowing by, they were all safe –

And Sapphrel Angeles was – ”

“Hey, are you alright?”

– touching his cheek in concern. The second their palm made contact with his skin, the pain dissipated, and Hal’s eyes snapped open like nothing had happened at all. It might have been a trick of the light, but he could have sworn that Sapphrel’s eyes glowed briefly in a faint burst of atomic blue – the ring of color in their left iris slightly brighter than the glow of their right.

“What?” he asked, slightly out of it.

“You looked like you were having a headache,” they said, concern dipping their brow. “Hang on, I’ll get you some painkillers.”

They stood, leaving for the bathroom where Hal kept a first-aid kit.

The boy brought his confused gaze to the window outside. What the hell just happened?

And – was the window slightly cracked or was it the sky that had somehow sustained a hairline fracture?

#

JANUARY 26, 2014

NEW YORK CITY

Score! The human did in fact know where Hotel Pandemonium was.

But he looked like he hadn’t eaten in days and was trembling with such a mad look in his eyes that Cronus almost thought he was a little rabid, so he offered to help the man scout for food and water, as well as a change of clothes, in exchange for his help. It took him three hours to convince the human that while he’d taken care of the angels with ease, he wasn’t there to harm him, and several trips to abandoned stores and houses later, Cronus was watching the guy scarf down packs of bread with terrifying, famished ease.

He let him be while he replenished himself, though to Cronus’ surprise, after he’d finished off his food, he started tapping way frantically on his phone. Half an hour later, a large group of humans peeked in to the abandoned convenience store they were in.

Cronus, from where he was sitting by the register, waved a hand. “Hello.”

One of the humans, a young girl who looked to be three or four years his junior, with unkempt, dirty hair, and torn, baggy clothes, looked between him and then to the other human sitting in the middle of the store, busy gulping down Gatorade like his life depended on it. It probably did.

She pointed to Cronus. “He’s the guy you mentioned?”

Cronus inclined his head. Was the other human texting, then?

The man on the floor nodded furiously. “He could explode angels.”

The crowd outside turned to him in eerie synchronization, some with fearful looks on their faces, the other with hopeful stares. Cronus scratched his cheek. Clearly, these guys had been struggling with the celestial fuckers…he hadn’t considered how difficult they would be to get rid of for ordinary people.

“Uh…rest up, eat up,” he tried. “I’ll keep watch while you guys do.”

Immediately, the people rushed into the store, each grabbing whatever they could as soon as they reached an aisle. Cronus watched as one man hurriedly tore the packaging of a single frozen sandwich – one that was meant to be microwaved, but the store’s electricity was busted, unfortunately – and ate it without hesitation.

He turned away, looking outside and surveying the damage instead. How many more survivors were out there. News was still making its way outside of New York, mostly firsthand accounts from citizens living in the midst of the apocalypse posted online before making their way to broadcast companies. There had to be a sizeable chunk of people who were still around, still trying to survive and possibly get out of the city despite it all.

Which meant Cronus needed to hurry. The faster he took care of the problem, the faster all of this got solved, and the faster all these people could get to safety and security.

Look at you, saving people, hunting things, the Full Moon’s voice whispered, snickering.

He snorted, holding back his retort since talking out loud would only get people to stare at him weirdly.

A mild tremor shook the earth, earning gasps from the crowd inside the store. Cronus hummed, hopping off the counter and heading outside to check if there was something fucking up the street and causing quakes.

Most of New York’s sky was already gone, but there were still a few shards of blue and grey remaining, like pieces of a mirror still stuck to the frame. Between two of these remaining parts of the sky, slipping through the large crack, there was a massive tentacle that had gone through the gap. It must have crashed onto the city and caused the shaking.

It felt…weird, though. Off. Given that Cronus was a destruction-type Hope player, he knew how it felt like it be around angels, to feel the buzz of their ethereal strength, but there was nothing like that coming from this massive creature, whose tentacle was the width of two skyscrapers. Another tentacle poked through the crack in the sky and crashed down onto the city, rocking it again. Cronus stepped back to balance himself when the quake shook him slightly.

“That’s not an angel,” he murmured. “Hey, what do you think it is, signorina?”

That? the Full Moon made an inquisitive noise. Well, with that size and with where it’s come from – that’s probably a horrorterror.

“Oh,” Cronus said, because what the fuck do you say to that? “Lovely.”

The creature looked…stuck. Its two limbs that had slipped onto Earth were thrashing slightly, but they kept shifting upwards, like whatever was on the other side was trying to push itself out of the gap it had fallen in. Maybe it didn’t mean any harm and just needed to be helped out of there.

“What the fuck is that?”

The man Cronus had grabbed to lead him to Hotel Pandemonium had exited the store and was now standing next to him, looking at the horrorterror with slack-jawed awe and…horror and terror. Cronus had to slap a hand over his own mouth to stop himself from laughing at the thought. This was no time to be making jokes, even if he kept his awful humor in his mental space.

“Horrorterror,” Cronus said, “Possibly.”

“Horror-what?” the man’s head swiveled to him.

“They’re uh, like these eldritch creatures that live in the very edge of the universe,” Cronus said. “I think one just fell into the space tear there.” He pointed to the massive hole said creature had fallen through.

“…that’s fucking Cthulu?”

“Who?” Cronus blinked, not recognizing the name. Maybe it was some weird horrorterror god from this universe.

“Can you kill it?”

“I don’t think it meant to fall in here, and look, it’s trying to get out.” He motioned to the thrashing creature as it tried to excavate itself from the crack again, only fail and hit the earth again, causing another tremor. “I think it just needs help getting out.”

“…can you help get it out?” the man turned to him, wide-eyed.

Cronus thought about it for a moment. On one hand, he could try to instruct the creature to get out, but a) horrorterrors were scary powerful and he had no idea if a compulsion spell would work, b) if that thing thrashed around too much, a chunk of the city and the survivors there could be wiped out and c) his abilities largely skewed towards conceptual, not physical. They would need massive firepower to shove that thing back where it came from.

“Me, probably not,” he said, honestly. “But the person I’m looking for, my – ” Think, what’s a quick word to say that doesn’t need as much explanation as dancestor “ – little brother probably could.”

“You’re looking for your brother?” Concern and pity flickered in the man’s eyes for a moment.

Cronus nodded. “Yup. He should be around here somewhere, Hotel Pandemonium specifically,” he said. “He packs a lot more punch than me so he might be able to blast that thing back up there.”

He turned to the man. He’d eaten, looked less frazzled and shaky than earlier, and was well-hydrated from all the drinks he’d guzzled down earlier. He should be ready, right? And Cronus really was in a hurry given the urgency of the situation.

“So,” he said. “Can you help me find that Hotel now? I really do need to be quick about this. The apocalypse isn’t going to stop itself.”

“Uh – yeah, I can – give me a moment, I need to grab some food to go first,” the man said, hurrying back towards the store before the others emptied it out. Cronus followed after him. “And uh, did you just imply you could stop the apocalypse?”

“Oh, yeah, sure,” Cronus said, “That’s what I was sent here for.”

#

M was having the weirdest fucking day of his life.

First, there was guy – not some guy, actually, some kid, this was a teenager – who could kill angels as easily as breathing and he did it all with a casual, laidback attitude like he was skipping rocks across a pond. Second, fucking Cthulu had accidentally slipped and fallen through a crack in timespace that happened to lead right to NYC. Third –

“Wait, wait, wait, you’re telling me one person is to blame for all of this – ” M motioned around the city around them, the toppled buildings, the gore and blood crusted and dried on open doorways and sidewalks, the empty sky. “ – one fucking person?”

“It’s a lot more complicated than that,” the kid – Cronus – said, scratching his cheek with a worryingly sharp nail that looked more like a claw. “But this person is a very important part of it. They’re the one making it possible. It’s like…” He paused. “They’re like the dam of power, I guess, though someone else is acting as a faucet and directing it towards, well.” He gestured one hand around them. “If I get rid of the dam, nothing comes out of the faucet.”

Huh. Yeah, that made sense. It would be safer too, given that if this other mystery person was just directing whatever the fuck made an apocalypse possible, then getting to the root of the problem would ensure they didn’t have access to world-ending magic.

“And who sent you here? The Avengers? The government?” M asked, and then, with hesitation, “…S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

Those guys had been on everyone’s shitlist ever since it broke out that they were some shady government entity that had collapsed the Safehouse by taking everyone who ran them. Nobody even fucking knew where the hell those guys were now, if they were even still alive. Maybe if they were still around, everybody could have at least have a safe place to sleep through the end of the world.

“No, I was um, sent here by…family,” Cronus said. “I’m not really part of like, some big secret organization. Someone just told me to get here and eliminate the threat since I could probably do it.”

“And could you?”

“Hopefully,” the boy said with a small smile on his face, chuckling at a joke only he understood. “I’m hoping to catch them off-guard and get rid of them.”

Well, the guy could kill angels, so he was probably strong enough to put up a fight. If it was someone who could end worlds, though, he might have a tougher time than he would killing angels.

God, what the fuck was M’s life coming to? Weeks ago, he would have laughed at this kid’s story and tell him to have fun playing make-believe. Today he was latching onto the hope, the chance that maybe, just maybe, this kid could do something about the mess that everyone was in.

There was a screech above them. M instantly froze as he spotted a large, six-winged dark angel soaring through the air, heading straight towards them. Cronus on the other hand, only lifted his head like he’d spotted a bird.

“Oh. Hi,” he said, waving an already-glowing hand. He pointed a finger-gun gesture with it at the angel. “Bye.”

A rush of power burst out from the street in a shockwave, and at the same time, the angel exploded into pieces, ash and burning chunks of what M assumed to be flesh (but probably wasn’t), falling onto the ground. Cronus dodged one that nearly hit his shoe.

M stared at him as he shook his foot like the chunk of angel flesh had made contact with him. Maybe it was foolish to immediately gravitate towards the smallest inkling of a chance for survival, at the smallest sign of hope, but with that much power, with that destructive amount of magic…

Maybe he could do it. Maybe he could put an end to the end of the world.

But first, he needed to find his brother and get to his destination. And M could help him get there. He knew New York like the back of his hand after all. This space was his domain.

“Come on,” M said. “The hotel’s this way.”

#

Eridan had no idea when he’d passed out by the kitchen table, but sometime into him getting too lost in his thoughts about the hopelessness of the situation, he’d ended up dozing off, clearly far more exhausted than he’d initially thought he was, or perhaps just even more depressed than he’d expected himself to be. Then again, the past few days had been a never-ending back-to-back hit of fighting, nearly dying from magical poisoning, accidentally letting loose magical pressure and scaring the living shit out of his friend, so perhaps it was exhaustion.

Eridan frowned. Were he and Jaeger friends? He knew she wasn’t his Anshu, not the one from his universe and not the one he’d lost twice, and he’d been incredibly dickish to her the whole time she’d been here, but…

He sighed. No, they weren’t friends. Awkward acquaintances trying to live through the end of the world at best, complete strangers who couldn’t stand each other at worst.

Speak of the devil and she shall appear – there was a faint clatter in the hallway and Eridan lifted his gaze towards the doorway to find Jaeger picking up an empty water bottle that had rolled onto the floor. She straightened as she got it, immediately freezing in place with wide eyes as she spotted him sitting by the table.

“Oh,” she said, “Um.” She lifted the empty water bottle.

Eridan drew his eyes away to let her refill it in peace.

They both simmered in the awkward silence for a while, Eridan lacing his hands together so he could rest his forehead against them as he looked at the table, and Jaeger filling up her water bottle at the nearby dispenser.

After a moment, Eridan heard the plastic container be set in front of him. He glanced up.

“…I’m sorry,” Jaeger said, softly. “For, um. Passing out on you. And having to be carried to bed.”

Eridan blinked at her tiredly, wordlessly. The girl glanced all over the room to avoid his stare, awkward under the scrutiny. Whatever that feeling of clarity with her magic and her being had disappeared a few hours after she’d fallen asleep, and she was back to feeling wrong and odd now, but she wasn’t – she wasn’t acting like a threat; if anything, she was just uncomfortable with the attention and didn’t know how to act around him given his treatment of her these past few days.

It wasn’t like Eridan could trust himself these days anyway. He was under no delusions that he was mentally stable, not when he constantly felt on the edge of a breakdown, if he wasn’t already in the throes of one and just hadn’t noticed. It could just be his paranoia talking. He could just be seeing things that weren’t there. Maybe it was just because he wanted his friend back, his version of Anshu, instead of a reminder of someone he cared about but wasn’t them at all.

They didn’t deserve to be treated like shit. Here was Eridan again, going back on his promises to stop being an asshole.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “For treating you terribly.”

Jaeger looked to him in surprise, blinking rapidly. “O-oh,” she said. “Oh, that’s – um.” She cleared her throat. After a minute’s deliberation, she sat down.

“Listen,” she started, folding her own hands on the table. “I know you’re grieving and I know it can’t be easy for you seeing someone who isn’t your friend but looks like them walking around. But…yes, you were quite mean.” She paused, gauging his reaction. When he didn’t have any, she continued. “But I know you were hurting. And I know…it’s not easy. So if you’re willing to start over…”

She held a hand out to him, an invitation for a handshake.

“Would you like to be friends?” she asked. “Actually try to be nice to each other this time?”

Eridan slowly dragged his gaze down to her outstretched hand.

“Yeah,” he said, eventually, reaching out and grasping it in his own to give it a firm shake. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

“Excellent,” Jaeger said, smiling, her expression pleased. That feeling of wrongness spiked in the air around them, but Eridan ignored it, as the girl was perfectly amiable and harmless as she sat across him –

There was a knock on the front door. The feeling in the air dissipated immediately, as if scared away. Both of them turned to the hallway.

It was the end of the world. This hotel was abandoned. Nobody should be doing courtesy visits and knocking.

They both rose, Jaeger grabbing her water bottle and heading for the other children while Eridan went to retrieve his rifle from where he’d left it in the living room last night. After checking that it was loaded, he made his way to the front door, keeping his footsteps silent as he approached.

Another set of knocks. From the bedroom, he could hear Jaeger telling the others to keep quiet and to hide.

“Are you sure they’re in here?” someone on the other side of the door asked.

“Well, it’s the only room in the building that’s closed and locked.”

“Maybe they died inside.”

“Yeah, but…we’ve already checked the rest of the building because they were accessible. This one isn’t,” the second voice said. It sounded vaguely familiar. Eridan raised the rifle, one hand carefully grasping the doorknob. “If they don’t answer, we can just break the door down and check – ”

He wrenched the door open and immediately shoved the barrel of the rifle towards the visitor’s face, stopping mere millimeters from the person’s nose. The person’s companion shrieked in surprise, jumping, while the other one just froze up, going cross-eyed as he stared at the barrel.

Eridan frowned. The guy he was aiming at looked familiar, but also unfamiliar in a way he couldn’t place.

“Eridan, chill,” the person said.

Wait, he knew him? Where the fuck did he know him from? Not only did the bastard look familiar, he also –

He was wearing some weird glasses with engravings on them. A faint memory tickled in the back of Eridan’s mind, a recount from Dirk Strider and Damara Megido on their several days of being manifest-projected on the island, of how Megido was able to disguise herself with a pair of glasses given to her by a mysterious benefactor who sent them to New York. Everyone had agreed that whoever that mysterious person was, it had to be someone from the Heir of Doom’s team.

Eridan poked the barrel of the gun forward, right under the bridge of the glasses, and shoved upwards, yanking the glasses off the person’s face and knocking them to the ground. Instantly, the illusion shattered, revealing a very much unwelcome face.

Eridan’s fins flicked back as he hissed.

“Cronus?!”