A Lullaby For Gods Chapter 133

CHAPTER ELEVEN: FROM NOW ON WE ARE ENEMIES

Everything hurt.

There was a huge fucking hole in Kanaya Maryam’s stomach, jade blood and intestines slowly leaking out of it as she tried her best to tie the sash around her injured midriff, just like she’d done before all those years ago. Because this was supposed to be the past, this was supposed to have passed already, she’d already lived through this and suffered through weeks of hobbling around with a still-healing stomach, and yet here she was. They were six sweeps old again, the matriorb was destroyed, Feferi Peixes’ dead body lay on the floor, and somewhere in the building, Eridan Ampora was going on a murderous rampage.

Kanaya’s fingers shook as she curled them around the bloody sash and pulled the knot tight, gritting her teeth through the pain. Shallow breaths, lest she jostle her diaphragm too much.

With the bleeding stemmed, she looked up. Where the hell was she? One moment, she was underground with Rose, and the next, she was –

Wait, Rose.

Rose!

The memories clicked in her head. She was supposed to be in New York, they were supposed to be hiding, and then that rift thing had opened and dragged Rose in, and she’d jumped after her. She’d held her. She had Rose. So where on earth was she?

Kanaya stood – or tried to, as she wobbled on her feet, and ended up hurrying to one of the consoles so she could lean against it, banging her hip against its side and letting out a groan of pain. Somehow, that rift had brought her here, which meant that it could have been a universal tear that dropped her into another universe…but she’d woken up right where this universe’s version of her should have been. Had she been rocketed to the past, then? Did the rift affect time, somehow? If she messed with the timeline, wouldn’t she create an offshoot? Would it affect her presence on the Earth she’d found herself in, previously?

No matter, first order of business was to survive, figure out what the fuck was going on and find Rose.

She fumbled with the nearest keyboard, trying to access the viewports so she could map out where everyone was, how deep Eridan was into his madness. There was also Vriska and Gamzee to watch out for, so she needed to keep an eye out for them.

Finding the viewports all empty, Kanaya leaned back, retrieving her lipstick and activating the chainsaw. The weight of it made her hunch over, nearly collapsing if not for her using the massive blade as a cane.

This universe’s Eridan was not her Eridan, it wasn’t the boy she’d seen grow over the past year and try his absolute best to be careful with his new friends, to strip himself of his old thoughts and habits. This was some stranger who was going around killing his friends, and as Kanaya found herself in a familiar position, it was her job to slice the little fucker in half.

Slowly, painfully, she began trudging towards the door, trying to remember where she’d found the others the last time she hunted the violetblood down.

#

JANUARY 23, 2014

WEEHAWKEN, NEW JERSEY

Kill Anshu Jaeger, huh.

That sounded easier said than done considering the girl could apparently tear apart the fabric of reality with a thought, but hey, that was what destruction-type classpects were for. Combat-types balanced out inheritor-types, distribution-types were a failsafe for plunderers, and restoration-types kept their more destructive counterparts in check just as destruction-types kept restoration-types from dragging everyone else into the deep end with them.

“Technically, I’d be a better match against a Maid given our whole big-picture thing…” Cronus muttered to himself as he paced around his motel room. He’d spent hours hopping from bus to bus to a kind old man’s truck when the guy agreed to let him hitchhike all the way to New Jersey, but not any further. He’d have to figure out how to get there himself…hotwire a car, maybe? A motorcycle? He’d taught himself how to while he was polishing his whole greaser vibe back when he was dead.

Someone was just going to have to lose their car until he could get to New York and steal another one. Though, perhaps he should try to find Jaeger using the Full Moon first, as Angeles instructed. Of course the little shit was going to turn the Heir’s tools against them. Cronus didn’t even want to know how the Heir would take it when they found out; if they found the kid in the afterlife, they’d probably have a massive smackdown.

Cronus sighed as he sat on his bed and rolled the Full Moon across his knuckles.

“D’you think I can get the jump on a Sylph? She’s made to detect Hope and either amplify it or restore it,” he asked. He felt hands on his shoulders, patting them, almost comforting, though there was no one behind him. At least the Full Moon was feeling nice today. Usually, she just snarked him.

Well, nothing for it. He just needed to believe in himself and try. That was what Hope players ran on, after all.

With that in mind, he settled down for the night, intent on getting some sleep.

Tomorrow, hopefully, he could finally get to New York.

#

JANUARY 23, 2014

NEW YORK CITY

Eridan was ashamed to say he was watching Jaeger sleep.

Though, he wasn’t sure exactly how he should feel about his reasons for why he was watching her sleep. Given that it was imperative that everyone stay together so they could scare off angels and ghosts more effectively if the fuckers came after one of them, everyone chose a spot in the bedroom to sleep on. Jaeger, saint that she was, gave the other kids and the Mayor the bed, while she stole a mattress from another room (the owner was a crushed stain all over their kitchen, though their head had exploded inside their microwave) and set herself up a cozy little space in the corner of the room. Eridan, meanwhile, elected to sit by the window as lookout.

“You know, you can’t tire yourself out completely otherwise you’ll actually be useless in a fight,” Jaeger had reminded him.

He’d waved her concern off and sat by the window anyway, a rifle he’d stolen from the same stranger Jaeger’d gotten her mattress from on his lap. He couldn’t risk getting magically poisoned again, so he was going to have to settle for enchanting bullets and shooting them at enemies.

And now here he was, in the deep hours of the night, staring at Jaeger, asleep, rifle trained at her.

There was…something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, but there was something weird about her. Not just what happened yesterday with her seemingly malfunctioning, but the fact that she constantly, constantly reeked of blood, and that whenever she stood next to him, something inside of him just screamed. That was the part that he couldn’t put his finger on. The closest comparison he could make was standing next to someone that just gave off bad vibes, even though, outwardly, they were normal; friendly, even, at least until your friend told you a few days later that ah, remember that guy from the party? Yeah, turns out he was a serial killer and he just murked our friend.

She was kind with the kids. She healed the smallest of scrapes and had spent the day looting their dead neighbors’ cabinets and fridges to bring back food while some of them slept the days’ trauma and fatigue off. She built a can city in the living room with the Mayor. She asked after Eridan and made sure he didn’t hurt himself when the stress and the exhaustion made him list on his feet.

And yet, still, there was that otherness that had Eridan keep the rifle on her, his finger on the trigger, one eye peering through crosshairs. He could kill her. End it all right here, keep everyone safe from whatever the fuck she was and whatever the fuck was wrong with her. But at the same time, all he had to work on was a hunch. Was he really going to kill someone over vibes? It could just be the stress, for fuck’s sake. The past month had been…a lot.

Eridan lowered the rifle and clicked the safety back on.

He was being ridiculous. He was letting everything that’d happened recently get to him. Anshu’s death. His friends going missing and getting devoured by some rifts in space. Failing again to protect Anshu when she did come back. Being left alone in a city falling apart by himself. The apocalypse. Nearly dying from magical poisoning. Meeting some stranger with his friend’s face whose very presence made him feel like he was two seconds away from being swallowed whole.

He should be fine. He should be fine. He wasn’t going to go on some hopeless rampage and start killing people again. He wasn’t going to hurt anyone. He promised himself. He owed it to Kanaya and Feferi.

Eridan crept out of the room, sinking to his knees as soon as he was in the hallway, leaning back against the wall and trying to catch his breath. His chest felt too tight, the darkness around him felt heavy and opaque, and god, why couldn’t he breathe –

“Easy,” someone said, softly.

He felt warmth start from his temples, spreading down to his neck, his shoulders, down to his torso.

“Nereus?” he muttered weakly.

“Just me,” Jaeger said, pulling her hands away from his temples. Gently, her fingers found his jaw, tilting his head up so he was looking at her. “Breathe, Eridan. Slowly, now.”

Eridan drew in a breath. Jaeger counted slowly, a finger tapping on his skin.

“Breathe out.”

He did, listening to her speak and count until he didn’t feel like he was drowning on dry land.

“There we go,” Jaeger said.

“What – what the fuck are you doing here?” Eridan asked as she drew her hands away.

“I…I can feel distress, Eridan,” she said. “Yours was palpable enough to wake me up.”

Great, of course he was going to have to deal with a cosmic empath when he was contemplating murdering her just because she felt off. Wonderful.

He stood, taking the gun with him. When she tried to steady him, he waved her arms away.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re clearly not.” As he started down the hallway, intent on finding something cold from any of their neighbors’ fridges, Jaeger chased after him. “I can help you sleep, if you want. I’ll take over keeping watch for now, since you’ve kind of been taking on all the work – ”

“I’m fine, Jaeger.”

The girl frowned, though she didn’t go away. Instead, she followed him right into the next room and its kitchen, watching by the doorway as he grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. It wasn’t going to impair him, but it was going to wake him up and shake off the earlier panic attack. Good enough.

“Why do you always refuse help?” she muttered.

“I don’t need your help.” Eridan proceeded to chug the whole bottle of water down.

“Clearly, you do,” Jaeger said. “You realize I can feel your emotions, yes? Especially since you’re also a Hope player? My whole thing is healing fellow Hope players, and with our magic so intrinsically tied to our emotional and mental states, it’s a part of my skillset to be able to identify these things.”

“Oh, another meddler, fantastic.” Eridan tossed the empty plastic bottle into the bin. “Try this on for size, then - I don’t want your help.”

“You’re going to end up killing yourself.”

“Splendid.” He spread his arms, motioning to the entirety of himself, mindful of the rifle he was still holding. “About time I was put out of my fucking misery, wasn’t I?”

The girl quieted, flinching as if she’d been struck. She blinked rapidly, shoulders twitching like she was going to do the weird malfunctioning thing again, and she took a step back. It was probably the dark and the fact that he wasn’t quite in his right mind, but Eridan could have sworn that her eyes flashed gold for a moment, followed quickly by her irises cooling into a dark red, and then back to her normal blue.

Yeah, he was losing his fucking mind.

Eridan ran a hand over his face. Maybe he did need sleep, but also needed Jaeger as far away from him as possible.

He huffed, marching past her and out of the kitchen, out into the hallway. He’d find himself another room. The kids could scare off angels and ghosts and had been doing it long before they ran into him anyway, and those things gave him a wide berth. He’d be fine for the night.

Jaeger’s footsteps chased after him.

“Leave me alone,” he grit out.

“Listen – listen!” Jaeger dashed past him, stopping ahead and throwing her arms out to block him from fleeing from her. Eridan clenched his jaw, but stopped in his tracks. “Look,” Jaeger said. “I have – no idea what the hell your damage with me is. I know I remind you of your dead friend, but I’ve personally done nothing to you, and you being so – so fucking petty over that is going to get you hurt.”

“I don’t care, leave me to my pettiness, and get out of my way, please.”

“You need help, Eridan!”

“I don’t need yours.”

“But I’m the only one here who can right now! And I don’t understand why you keep pushing it away – ”

“Because I’m going to end up killing you!”

The building shook. The lights flickered. The lamp above them exploded into shards, making Jaeger jump in surprise.

Eridan could feel power crawling up his throat, the sensation warm and burning; something was illuminating Jaeger’s face, and he realized that his own irises were glowing, and he blinked the brightness away. The power bubbling up to his mouth ebbed away.

He inhaled, forcing himself to calm down.

“If you haven’t noticed, I’m not the most stable person to be around right now,” he bit out. “And everything about you makes me feel like I should hurt you, like I should get rid of you, but you look like her and you talk like her and it feels like the universe is mocking me.”

He took a step forward. Jaeger took one back, and then another as he continued advancing, fingertips heating with magic crackling out.

“You feel like a reminder of all my failures,” he said. “And you look like everything I could have had and I fucking hate you – ”

Anshu cried out as her foot suddenly slipped; the floor underneath her had disappeared as she’d reached the stairs – Eridan grabbed her arm before she could tumble down, pulling her close. They fell back onto the hallway floor, breathing hard in fear.

The girl was shaking in his arms, her face buried in his shirt while he cradled the back of her head with a hand, his claws snagging on strands of her hair.

Eridan stared down at the stairs, which led and disappeared down into the darkness. That was close.

Anshu’s shoulders shook. He smelled salt. Fearfully, he looked down, checking if he’d nicked her with his claws, but the girl just hid her face into his shirt – oh. She was crying.

Well, that just made him feel even more like shit after nearly causing an accident.

“You’re alright,” he said, softly, kissing her hair. “You’re alright, it’s okay. You’re fine.”

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, and for a brief moment, that feeling about her that scraped painfully against his being disappeared, replaced instead by a feeling he could best compare to a warm fire after a cold night at the ocean or a strong storm.

“It was my fault, it’s okay.” He hugged her tighter. “It’s alright, Anshu.”

The girl’s breath hitched. Eridan paused, realizing what he’d just called her.

And then, she cried harder. “I’m sorry,” she wailed. “I’m sorry – I’m so sorry.”

They sat there for hours, him holding her while she cried, guilty and tired, and yet awake and confused.

What on earth was she apologizing for?

#

JANUARY 24, 2014

WEEHAWKEN, NEW JERSEY

In the early stirrings of the morning – he only really needed around three to four hours of sleep since he always slept on the way to his destinations, anyway – Cronus Ampora unfolded the map he’d gotten a few stops ago, one he’d marked of places he’d been in and road signs he’d seen, just to make sure he wasn’t going in circles or getting lost. He’d marked the states he’d been in with large red X’s, and currently, the latest X sat over NEW JERSEY.

Time to amend that today. He could feel it in his bones, he was finally going to cross into New York and put an end to this whole apocalypse thing…yes, he knew his original job was supposed to be as a beacon, but hey, saving the world wasn’t bad for a side job, right?

He wasn’t keen on wandering around aimlessly for a few hours, though, so, before he stole his first car for the day, and before he got into New York, he was going to chart himself a destination. He had an enlarged map of NYC printed out and taped together at the shop across the road, and then he laid it out flat on the floor in front of him.

The Full Moon of Derse hummed with power as he took her out of thin air, watching as the fluorescent lamp caught on her silver edges.

“May the lost find their way home,” he murmured. “Guide me to what I need, signorina. Show me where Anshu Jaeger is.”

He flipped the coin into the air. It disappeared into thin air, the lights in his room went out, and a breeze slipped into the thin slats of the windows of his room, parting the fabric and letting a sliver of moonlight in.

It crept, slowly, like a spotlight, first at the edge of the map, to the side, to the center, and then finally, it stopped at a spot right next to a crossroads, on a marker that said HOTEL PANDEMONIUM.

The lights flickered back on. The breeze slowed and disappeared, the moonlight with it.

Cronus grinned, feeling the Full Moon return to his pocket and her arms drape over his shoulders as she amusedly watched him pick up a marker to encircle his destination.

Time to kill an angel.