A Lullaby For Gods Chapter 135

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: CAME BACK LIKE A WAVE WHEN I WAS FEELING ALRIGHT

???

"Stand up."

From where he was lying on the floor, Dave exhaustedly dragged his gaze from the tiles to his Bro, standing over him with his katana in hand, pointed down and to the side.

His calves hurt. His arms hurt. There was a nasty gash across his stomach that wasn't deep enough to be fatal but still marked his skin enough to smart. Looming above him, his Bro didn't seem to mind the red slowly blooming on his white shirt.

"Stand up, Dave," his brother said, in that usual monotone of his. Unaffected. Unbothered. Almost unfeeling.

Meeting Dirk had dispelled a lot of his suppositions of the man, but considering the drastic difference in timeline, perhaps it was on Dave for even deigning to compare them both.

It had also been five months since he'd last seen his young ancestor slash slime brother-father. If that had actually happened. Some days he wondered if he'd hallucinated the last few years, the hellish experience of the game included. Maybe he did. Maybe he'd cracked under the pressure of his brother's training and imagined a completely different life.

"Stand up. I will not ask again."

Dave pushed himself up to sit, teeth gritted, the wound on his stomach burning with pain as he moved. His brother immediately took a step back, holding his sword with two hands as he resumed a ready stance.

Dave grabbed his sword as he stood, eyeing the worn, jagged blade from hours of sparring. God, these things were so shitty. Why didn't they ever use bokens if Bro insisted on training for hours on end?

Still, he held the complaint back and instead moved back across the rooftop, taking his own stance. His hands were shaking. His fingers felt numb.

The sword nearly slipped from his hands. He caught it at the last minute.

"Tie your hands to the handle," his brother said.

Dave's head snapped up. "What?"

"If you're too tired to wield a weapon, then tie your hands to the handle," Bro said. "Your enemies won't spare you just because you can't hold a weapon anymore."

Dave's jaw clenched, but he set his sword down to rip the bottom of his shirt into strips. Once he had enough, he picked his sword back up again and tied his left hand to the handle. He might need the other one to grab onto things, so he needed that free.

He took his stance, sword ready.

In the space it took for him to blink, his brother was already across the rooftop and right in front of him.

#

???

One more time.

With an enraged cry, Rose lifted her needles, the debris from the battlefield rising to the air with it. She floated at their center, a star surrounded by thousands of orbiting asteroids, her body aglow with the wrath of the horrorterrors.

How long had it been since she'd last been lucid and in full control of her body? Six months? Eight? Nine?

No matter. The threat was here, and she was only getting out of wherever the fuck she was if she defeated Jack Noir right here and right now.

She sharply pointed her needles down towards Jack. The debris rocketed down towards him, the resulting impact exploding in quick succession like a machine gun. The point of impact cracked underneath the weight of the projectiles, spiderwebbing throughout the rest of the chessboard field.

She twirled her wrist. The debris that had embedded itself on the field suddenly twisted in a spiral, a massive blender that grinded up the ground and anything in their way, Jack included.

If the bastard didn't immediately break through the boulders, kicking off the ground with the force of a missile.

Rose jerked back - and then grunted as she was punched into the ground, buried into the cement as she crashed into it. Damn, the bastard was fast. In fact, he was just getting faster with every clash they had.

Enough. She had to end this. This war of attrition had gone on too long.

She dropped one of her needles and instead held a hand out towards Jack, hand aglow with power. She felt her magic wrap around him, immediately pushed back by his own First Guardian magic.

She gritted her teeth, fingers twitched as she pressed down, the pressure of her magic trying to crush him while he pushed back -

Rose let out a battle cry, her hand slowly curling into a fist as her wrist twisted. Jack's arms and legs similar twisted at the joints, then at the bone, crushing inwards as if they were hollow. The bastard screamed in pain, and with an enraged yelled, blasted her backwards with a wave of green magic.

Rose hit a boulder as she went flying, her vision blackening.

#

???

If her mind was a room, then Jade was thrashing about in it, wailing on its walls and stomping all over its floors, screaming in rage all the while.

STOP IT!

Her body didn't respond to her, instead snapping a wrist back and slamming Jake's battered form into a nearby mountain, the earth around him splintering and cracking upon impact.

Above her, Dirk swung his sword, fast enough that it would have been deadly had it connected, but all she needed to do was lift a hand and suspend him in midair.

"What is a sword going to do against this, Strider?"

She snapped her fingers. The boy and his sword exploded into a million pieces of flesh and metal.

STOP IT! LEAVE THEM ALONE!

The Empress shoved her back down in her mind. Suddenly, she wasn't seeing through eyes she couldn't control, but drowning in an ocean, pulled down by an inescapable gravity, cold and alone. There was only dark water above, to her left and to her right, and below, and she was sinking deeper, deeper, deeper.

Jade screamed.

#

???

He hadn't eaten in so long.

Hadn't rested, hadn't slept, hadn't even drank anything. All John had known for god fucking knew how long was flying, flying, flying and trying to get the fuck out of the Empress’ line of sight. He was trickier to catch due to his ability to turn to wind, much harder to manipulate due to the natural resistance of his aspect, so the best way to avoid getting telekinetically slammed or psionically blasted was make sure she couldn’t see him and target him in the first place.

But she had a ship. She had comforts and time and all the resources she needed.

And John had nothing but his conditional immortality and his rapidly fraying sanity.

If he slept, she could sneak up on him. But if he kept moving, he could get sloppy and catch him.

And everyone was dead.

No one was here to help him.

#

KISARAGI ISLAND

On Kisaragi Island, Dirk Strider was currently struggling for his life.

The Sun God's cat had decided his feet were suitable to wrestle with, and after he'd stamped down his immediate reaction to kick the second he'd felt pain (thus saving himself the punishment of being beheaded by the little furry bastard's owner), he'd taken to flashstepping over to places the cat couldn't reach, like the coffee table, the sofa, the fridge and the top of the shelf.

Unfortunately the determined ball of fluff and needles had taken him moving around fast as a challenge and started somersaulting all over the place, zooming around the room with his claws out, trying to catch him.

He should have gone out when the sun (or, the Sun now he supposed, capitalized and all) had offered to take him to the store as he was doing groceries. It'd been three days since he'd woken up on Kisaragi, and their progress on getting home was an astounding total of nada.

In the end, Dirk ended up going with the option of seeing if there was a way to send him home via universal tear. That said, Seven and One were still scouring the walls of their universe and trying to pinpoint a path back to where Dirk had come from, which was easier said than done with a destruction-type space player rather than a seer- or heir-type. It was dangerous, of course, but there was no way in hell Dirk was going to have the other end of his dead man's deal fulfilled, which was his only other option of getting out of here, so there was no point in pursuing the thing.

Unfortunately, progress was slow, and in the meantime, Dirk was stuck in this weird ass universe, trying not to die of anxiety or boredom. He wasn't particularly interested in looking around town unless it was for finding a way to get out of here, so he turned down most invitations to go outside.

Which was turning out to be a huge mistake. If not the store with the Sun, he could have gone with Seven. The guy could teleport anywhere in this universe, and he lived in the living world.

Wait, since this island was the realm of the dead, was this technically a ghost cat chasing him? Was he really bouncing around the damn house trying to evade a dead cat?

Said cat leapt onto the wall and then vault onto the bookshelf that he was currently on. Dirk flashstepped onto the ceiling and decided to stick there with his godtier flight.

The cat vaulted off the shelf and immediately shot off towards him. God damn it.

He moved across the room just as the creature flipped itself over as it descended to the floor, landing on its feet. Nimble little fucker could probably do this in his sleep.

The cat lifted his head to stare at Dirk and then, absurdly, sat down and decided to clean his paws.

What the fuck. Just like that? Dirk had only ever interacted with GCat as a representative of his species, and that cat was a special type of bastard, but were all cats just temperamental like this?

The front door clicked open.

"I'm home," the Sun called out, walking into the living room with a paper bag of groceries in his arms.

He glanced at his cat, grooming himself in the middle of the room, and then turned to Dirk, standing by the doorway to the kitchen with his arms slightly raised like he was ready to intercept a tackle, his ready stance from earlier, in case the cat dashed at him again.

"What's with the I Pissed My Pants posture?" he asked.

“Your cat has decided he’s bored with his toys and decided to hunt me instead.”

“Oh, and you lost?”

Dirk’s brows lowered to a scowl. “No.”

“You look like you did,” the Sun said, snorting in amusement. He reached down to pet his cat’s head for a moment before continuing towards the kitchen. Dirk stepped aside to let him through the doorway. “Seven’s talked to our Guardian, decided the risk should be worth it to make things go faster.”

“And?” Dirk followed him inside, slightly hopeful for some good news.

“Our Guardian wants your insides strewn about his court,” the Sun said with a sigh, setting his groceries down on the island. “But Seven talked him down from it. They found the tear where you came from.”

Finally.

“Where?” Dirk asked, coming to stop on the opposite end of the island, bracing his hands on it.

The Sun nonchalantly began sorting through his loot, not bothering to look up at him. “Right outside,” he said. “Above the ocean. Same place you were found. The problem is.”

He did look up this time, angling a can of orange soda towards Dirk to point to him.

“We have no idea where it’s going to lead to if we just shove you out of there. For all we know you could land in this same universe, just in another point of time, or you could land in a completely different universe entirely. There’s also the threat of the furthest ring, as we’ve mentioned before. Or, due to the unstable and unforgiving nature of the edges of Kisaragi, you’re torn to ribbons the moment you’re out of here.”

He shrugged. “It’s a mug’s game.”

“Cosmic Russian roulette.”

“Essentially. And we don’t have a manipulation-type Space player on hand to help chart your route,” the Sun said, quieting after as he set the can on the island. “You left your universe in a precarious state, yes?”

“Yeah, why?”

“If we physically had you travel through the tear, even if you survive, you would take lightyears before you arrived at your destination if you only had flight to rely on.”

Dirk’s stomach dropped. Right…even if he hurried, he was universes away from people. That choice was a losing game even if he picked it. They sorely needed a Space player’s help, one of another class, like Jade Harley perhaps, but they only had Seven as a Prince of Space.

The Sun turned away, beginning to stash away items into their respective cupboards, racks and boxes. “Perhaps we could assist you with your dead man’s deal – what do you need for it?”

“It’s a lost cause,” Dirk said, sitting down on one of the chairs to his left. He laced his hands together, glaring down at the tiles on the island. “Don’t bother. It’s about as useful as getting out of here only to fly lightyears to my destination and being too late.”

“There has to be a reason you ended up in Kisaragi,” the Sun said, glancing over his shoulder. “Whatever needs to happen, there’s something in this place that can facilitate it. Perhaps a quest you hadn’t been able to complete during your active session? Some item you lost? A weapon of sorts, perhaps?”

“Those would be a lot easier,” Dirk said. “As I said, it’s a lost cause. We’re better off finding something else to get me home.”

He looked up, finding the Sun staring at him, scrutinizing. After a moment, the Sun looked away, slight disapproval gleaming in his red eyes.

“Perhaps,” he said, returning to his work of arranging packed meat into the freezer and shutting the door when it was done. “We’ll try to see if we can do anything with the tear, then, see if our Guardian knows something how, though given restrictions, I doubt it.”

“I thought First Guardians were omnipotent.”

“Within their domain, yes. Pseudo-all-knowing and all-seeing but only within the realms they guard. They have no power outside of it, unless something is done to give them power outside of it,” the Sun said.

“How so?”

“Enchantments, collaboration, possession, fusion…” The Sun waved a hand. “That sort of stuff. We currently don’t have the capacity for that.”

“What about a Blood player?”

“Hm?”

“A Blood player. They’re all about connections, right? What we use that to chart my path back home?”

“We fall into the same problem of you having to travel lightyears to reach your destination anyway, if we found the right path,” the Sun said. “Your departure has to be as instantaneous as you left. The fastest way to achieve that effect is to use the same mechanism you arrived here with.”

Dirk clenched his jaw. Right. The dead man’s deal. Hal’s safety for one irrational, fluctuating wish.

“Can’t your Guardian teleport me across universes?”

“Only if both universes are merging somehow. A First Guardian is always limited by the parameters of their universes. It’s like a drop of water trying to operate within two separate containers – it can only reach the other body of water if they’re combined. Why do you think Lord English, who’s partially a First Guardian, has to physically travel through universes instead of teleporting across paradox space?”

“You said that universal walls were on the fritz.”

“Ours has healed. Or was healing, before your arrival. You’re the first interuniversal intruder in a year,” the Sun said.

Dirk blinked, sitting up. “You could heal your universe’s walls?”

The problem with his previous universe was the walls weakening – if he could figure out this place’s solution to that, then the second he managed to get back there, they could get to fixing the damn thing and prevent it from going to shit any further with ghosts and angels and apocalypses.

The Sun god quieted. He finished up putting away all his groceries first before sitting across Dirk with a sigh, mimicking his posture and lacing his hands together.

“Our circumstances allowed for it. My universe…is on a completely different point in time than where you came from,” he said. Then, after a moment of hesitation. “Where we are at, Lord English has been defeated.”

Dirk blinked, reeling back slightly.

“Oh,” he said.

“In yours, he hasn’t been,” the Sun god said, and then tacked on a small, “Yet.”

“So if we murk Lord English, we fix everything?”

“Considering what you’ve told me, I think you’re still quite a long way until that, but plenty of the problems of your universe can be traced back to him,” the Sun god. “I would suggest getting back to your universe so that you can fix these preliminary problems first.”

“Right.”

Both of them sat in silence for a little while, Dirk frowning down at his hands, the Sun watching him.

“Are you alright?” the Sun asked.

“Yeah.”

“Would you like something to drink?”

“…no,” Dirk said, slightly weirded out as he glanced up at the god.

“Let’s get started on dinner, then,” the Sun said. “Give you something to do with your hands and take your mind off things.”

Dirk opened his mouth to protest, say that he would rather just go up to his guestroom, but paused as he realized that a distraction might be good for his whirling thoughts, which were pinging about every which way and hitting a wall every time he thought he’d come to a conclusion. He nodded silently.

“Okay,” the Sun said, hopping off his seat and reaching for the aprons hung to the far side of the sink. “Don’t break any of my knives.”

“I’m not that shitty in a kitchen.”

“You nearly broke one off at the handle,” the god said, chuckling. “How varied was the flavor in your apocalyptic hellscape, by the way?”

“Uh, not very much,” Dirk said with a slight lilt to his tone, making his sentence sound more like a question than a statement. He hopped off his seat and accepted the apron the Sun handed to him. “Most things were either bland, sweet or expired.”

The Sun smiled. “I can’t wait to kill you with spice.”

Oh.

Maybe this was a bad idea after all.

#

JANUARY 25, 2014

NIGHT VALE

“He’s still not waking up?” Terezi asked, poking the android’s cracked face plate. Her nail hit the silicon with a metallic clink.

It’d been days since Mr. G found the kid passed out at the edge of town, and he hadn’t booted up since. If it weren’t for the faint humming of the tiny blue core in his chest, everyone would have thought he was dead. There was still power coursing through him, though, so he should be fine.

“Have we tried turning him on and off again?” Jeremiah asked somewhere behind her. She bit back a laugh as she turned, hearing Eugene and his delectable red hair pacing across the room.

“That’s the problem, he’s not turning on!” the boy grit out. “He’s clearly still got electricity to spare, he’s just not getting out of sleep mode.”

“Maybe your friend here busted him up too much during their fight,” Vriska said, somewhere to the right. Terezi heard the office chair she was sitting on creak as she spun it around.

“I barely cracked his face,” Ruben said.

“His processor’s in his head, right? Must have knocked it a little harder than you meant to.”

“He can literally punch through walls.”

“But he’s not a battle robot,” Vriska said, chuckling. “He’s barely made for combat.”

Footsteps coming from the doorway. Terezi turned. Judging from the scent of a strong ocean breeze he seemed to carry around him, it was Leon. “He’s not that frail that he’d fold after a punch. I’ve literally ran through a city being destroyed with the guy,” he said. “On shittier news, New York’s still going to hell and I can’t contact anybody who could help.”

“Not even his progenitor?” Vriska asked.

“I don’t have his contact information and everyone who might know’s MIA.” The boy sighed, his voice moving towards the couch to Terezi’s right. There was the sound of foam taking weight as he sat. “We’re on our own.”

“Probably best not to mess with his systems until we get him to someone who knows what they’re doing,” Ruben said.

If Equius or Sollux were here, they might have been able to help, but alas, Terezi had no idea where those two were, if they were even in the same universe. They probably were, given what the others had told them about everyone being strategically dropped around the place, but where they were was the problem.

“So we just wait? Hope he wakes up soon?” Jeremiah asked.

“It’s the best we can do,” Ruben said.

Terezi turned back to where the android was laid out on the couch, finger poking up to his cheekbone, to his temple, and then to his forehead, her nail clanking on the metal of his face plating the whole time.

She hummed. If this guy was asleep, what was he dreaming about?

“Can’t be electric sheep,” she mumbled.