A Lullaby For Gods Chapter 95

Phagocytosis (Part One)

DECEMBER 11, 2013

S.H.I.E.L.D. CONTAINMENT

He's been told that it has been days since he collapsed.

Karkat hadn't even known he had collapsed.

One minute, he'd been standing in his cell, Kankri was there, and the next, they'd been somewhere else. Then he'd blinked and it was suddenly days later, and he was in the infirmary with an IV pole and a heart monitor beside him, with nurses making sure his weakening heart rate didn't completely flatline.

Honestly, Kankri is lucky he's still too disoriented to be angry. Otherwise, he would have found a way to summon his dancestor back down just to beat the shit out of him.

Even now, he still can't grasp that it's been over twelve hours since he's woken up. The nurses have just come in to check his vitals again, make sure his heart is still going strong and that he hasn't gone into a coma again while he was resting, and now they're back, telling him it's already morning.

What the fuck.

"A bit of brain fog is to be expected," one of the nurses says, giving him a friendly smile. "You've been asleep for two days, after all. Any longer and it would have been dangerous."

He just grunts and lets her replace his IV bag. Her companion motions for Karkat to hold out his arm, a strip of rubber in her hands.

He eyes the syringe on her tray, placed on his bedside table, dubiously, but he does as he's asked. S.H.I.E.L.D.'s already got them, letting them do a little bloodwork is small fry shit.

Besides, it's him. If there's anyone better suited to getting their blood draw because it would be advantageous, it's him,

Karkat wonders if the Heir and the Mage planned this too. They seem to have planned most of what's happened.

No, it wouldn't be right to say that. They made roadmaps and then carved the paths out by forcing outcomes through manipulation, all while considering every person's role, skill set, personality and potential. When things went awry, their reaction times were quick, afforded by the fact that there's two of them to cover each other's bases. It's why there's two of them, and a number of people at their backs for support; the whole operation isn't so much as heading to one singular outcome as it is a balancing act of achieving several, preparing for other problems on the horizon, while balancing the health and safety of the universe on their hands.

The thought still makes Karkat's skin itch, but - he understands, just a little bit, why they're doing this. Why everything that's happened up to this point has happened; why fucking Kankri is helping them.

"Mr. Vantas?" the nurse - the one by the IV - asks.

"What?" he asks, pretending to be annoyed instead of spaced out.

"I asked if your head still hurt."

"Like a bitch."

She chuckles, writing it down on her clipboard. "I'll be back to give you some painkillers, then."

She tucks her pen into one of her shirt's pockets and gathers up her things, heading for the door. Karkat hadn't even noticed that the other one had left earlier.

He sighs, running a hand over his face as he leans back on the bed. The crook of his elbow, where his blood has been drawn, has been patched up, the cotton ball pressed against the puncture wound awkward as he moves his arm, but it hurts worse when he tries to take it off, so he leaves it be.

Karkat stares up at the ceiling.

Closing his eyes, he tries to sort out what Kankri's shown him these past few days.

#

Your name is Kankri Vantas and -

God fucking damn it, no, he knows exactly who the fuck he is, and he is not Kankri Vantas.

Karkat Vantas feels something cold hold onto his gut before twisting it abruptly. His whole body spasms like it's trying to compress into itself, flesh and bones fit too tightly into rapidly shrinking skin, and then there's a pop, as all that skin suddenly snaps back right.

He sucks in a breath and then finds that he can't do so, that everything feels so cold; something warm washes over him and his breath returns, the cold quickly draining from his body.

"That was close," someone says. He turns and comes face to face with Feferi, except it's not quite Feferi - her hair looks different, her teeth are somehow sharper, and she's looking at him like she's inspecting a science experiment that's about to do something.

Beside her is a young lady with hair so light it almost looks like snow, but there's still a hue of gold to it. She's in yellow and white godtier clothes. A Hope player.

That's Meenah, Kankri's voice suddenly says, not behind or beside Karkat, just...everywhere. Loudly and clearly. He tries to turn his head but finds that he can't. His body doesn't respond to him at all.

Because this isn't your body, you absolute nincompoop, Kankri says again. It's mine. These are my memories.

Oh.

Oh, well this is shit. This is going to be confusing - he's seeing everything through Kankri's eyes, after all. Why couldn't he just see everything from a third person perspective, and interact with the world around him in the memory like it was handcrafted and recreated piece by piece?

That's outside my jurisdiction, now shut up and watch.

"Meenah?" Memory-Kankri says, looking between Meenah and the Hope player lady. It feels weird, to have your mouth move and to feel yourself speak when you're not actually doing it. Karkat feels himself recoil from the uncanniness, but his physical body does none of that, instead just looking to Meenah Peixes for answers.

Meenah just grins at him, waving a hand to let the orbs of light around her disappear.

"Tell ya after we fish the rest out," Meenah says, "Jane workin' on it right now."

"Wait, wait, wait, what?" Karkat - fuck this - Memory-Kankri asks. "What's going on?"

"It's a long story," the Hope player lady says, sighing. She holds a hand out, offering a small smile to Kankri. "But I believe we have time. It's best if we get you out of here first, though. Space can be quite...cold. And void of immediate, strong gravity."

"She's with me, you can trust her," Meenah says.

Memory-Kankri narrows his eyes at her. "With all due respect, Meenah, right now, even I don't trust you."

Meenah barks out a laugh, already floating off and away. She fiddles with something underneath her shirt collar - a necklace, with a fuchsia pink gemstone as a pendant.

"Don't worry about it," she says. "Just go with her, it beats floating in space here by yourself until her spell wears off."

And then there's a flash of pink, and Meenah's gone, leaving nothing but empty space, the stars in the distance.

"I...apologize for her," the Hope player says. "She has a lot of responsibilities; she's quite excited to get to all of them."

Memory Kankri makes an amused noise, but still leans away, crossing his arms. "What's going on?"

"What do you remember?"

"One moment, I was in a dream bubble minding my own business and the next, it felt like I was having bloodpusher failure," Memory-Kankri says. "And then I woke up here."

"Ah, that'll be because of the interdimensional convergence," the Hope player says. "It's quite a miracle you survived, honestly."

"Interdimensional convergence?"

"As I've said, it's a long story. But we have time, and we can make time, if you'll let me," she says. "I can explain on the ship. It really wouldn't be best to stay out here - you're alive now, and in outer space by yourself. You wouldn't be able to breathe without an artificial field."

Memory-Kankri eyes her dubiously.

But, well. He's stubborn, but he's not stupid.

Not entirely, Karkat thinks; he feels the mental equivalent of a slap to the head for it, which just feels like his eyes being shook around for a millisecond before everything's normal again.

Memory-Kankri sighs and takes the Hope player's hand, giving it a firm shake.

"Kankri Vantas," he says. "And pardon me, but I am not entirely pleased to make your acquaintance."

"That's alright," the Hope player says, laughing. "I'm the Witch of Hope, though you can just call me Eliza."

#

The memory skips forward; Karkat knows this in the same way he knows his dreams have changed, in the few occasions when he's aware he's even dreaming. There's just that awareness, that instinct, followed by the acceptance that this is reality within this world.

And within this world, the memory has just skipped forward. He's in a simple, beige-walled room now, where it's much warmer and much brighter, though the light above him isn't too bright, just warm. In front of him is a bowl of soup that reminds Karkat of one of Earth's many recipes for chicken soup. As Memory-Kankri inspects the food with a spoon, he finds that it is in fact, chicken soup.

Whoever these people are, they're familiar with this meal. Judging from how the Witch of Hope looked like, they likely are human.

"Too hot?"

Memory-Kankri looks up from his food and towards the stove. There is a man there, with flaming red hair, tied up into a ponytail so it's out of the way as he cooks.

"No," Memory-Kankri says. "I'm just not used to it."

"Ah, sorry," the man says. "We don't have ingredients for Beforan meals right now. We're trying to gather some, though. Make it a little bit more welcoming for everybody."

"Oh," Memory-Kankri says. He looks back down at the soup, and then to the man. "...thank you."

"No problem. Once we've got the right stuff, feel free to tell me if you've got any requests," he says. "I'm the Bard of Time, by the way."

Memory-Kankri watches the way his hair sways at that, proudly and brightly candy red, out in the open. Somehow, even though it's different, and Memory-Kankri knows it's different, it makes him a little less on edge.

Karkat would frown if he had a body right now.

My memory, my thoughts, Kankri tells him. You get everything in full detail.

I don't fucking want it in full detail, Karkat says.

"Do you know any Beforan recipes?" Memory-Kankri asks the Bard. Lucky for him to not be the disembodied passenger to a memory slideshow right now.

"I do," the Bard says. "Wife taught me everything she knew just so I didn't burn the kitchen down."

He chuckles at that, lifting his left hand to show something. There's a thin line of gold on his fourth finger; it glints under the kitchen lights.

Memory-Kankri nearly jumps in his seat. Marriage rites? Between a human and a Beforan? There weren't even humans in Kankri's session, he'd only known about them after his dream bubble crossed into a human session.

But - that would explain why the man looks at Kankri without any hint of strangeness, why he looks like he's used to seeing kids like him around, even with the bright red sweater. Since he's friends with the Witch, it makes sense why she seems to be familiar with trolls too. One of her friends is literally married to one.

"Oh," Memory-Kankri says, trying to choke the words out. "Is she, uh, around the ship?"

"Oh, she's back home," the Bard says, a fond smile slowly resting on his lips. He doesn't even seem to be aware he's doing it, too focused on his work by the stove. "I can't look after my planet and fix problems across universes on my own."

Hey, Kankri, Karkat says. What the fuck is going on?

Be patient. I'm showing you this for a reason. Everything I will show you will have its time and its place of importance; it's just a matter of waiting for those set times, Kankri says, a hint of annoyance in his thoughts.

Memory-Kankri, meanwhile, begins stirring his soup, deep in thought.

The Witch of Hope comes to the kitchen a few minutes after. She's shucked off her heavy coat and swapped her godtier clothes off for more comfortable, ordinary pajamas. She sits by the little table Kankri is sitting by.

An older troll that looks like Aradia (though Memory-Kankri's recognition says Damara) drops by later, but only to carry in a basket full of beets. The Bard thanks her and she's out again, presumably to fetch something else.

"I hope I haven't kept you waiting," the Witch of Hope says, to Memory-Kankri. "Let's start at the beginning..."

#

True to the Witch of Hope's word, the story is in fact, long and winding, but the gist of it is this: there have been cracks spreading across the multiverse, specifically the universes and sessions that orbit the Green Sun. If a singular universe is already so huge that a lifetime is not enough to travel it without drastic and incredibly powerful means, then the rest of Paradox Space is even larger. They - meaning the Witch of Hope and the rest of her cohorts - can then conclude that wherever the damage started and whatever started it, it is from within the Green Sun's solar system; and they can also conclude that most of the damage is within the Green Sun's solar system.

These cracks have affected multiple universes and sessions and the infinity sets of these sessions (Infinity set? Beats me, I have no idea what that means either.) causing some of them to merge together. When left unattended, some of these universes will either collapse or merge into each other as they collide, though as the damage will continue spreading, it is possible that even these merged universes will be destroyed in the process of merging or form a singular, chaotic universe with laws of physics and reality that do not align with each other, thus making it uninhabitable, before the continued spread of the cracks will inevitably destroy it to nothing.

"Imagine it to be a cancer," the Witch of Hope says. "A cell from another part of the body finds itself someplace it shouldn't be and grows there, destroying and hindering the function of that organ. As every part of the body has its own role, its own purpose, then the disruption and destruction of that role and purpose will cause a dangerous chain reaction that can prove catastrophic over time."

She laces her hands together, leaning back in her seat as she continues to talk.

"The components of the universe each has its purpose, allowing for the smooth rendition of reality we see now. Without gravity, we can't stand on our planets, our planets can't have orbits, and we can't have solar systems. Without that, our planets cannot start life in the first place - if the laws of physics and biology and ‘what have you’s from another universe completely destroys a part of that, our universe would fall apart immediately. The outer shell of it might remain for some time, but life as we know it would be thrown off balance," she says. "It's assured destruction, whether we merge with another universe entirely, collapse into a singularity or survive just to be done in by the walls of our reality be destroyed by the cracks."

"The cracks." Memory-Kankri looks down at his now-empty bowl. "What's causing it."

"According to our research over the years, Lord English."

MOTHERFUCKER.

Language, Karkat.

Fuck you.

"It is why we exist as we are now and why we're all the way out here," the Witch says. "They say if you get to the other side of a black hole, you get to exit your universe, and you would be able to see the entirety of it - the space it takes up, and the full breadth of its time, from beginning to end. Given that Lord English is known to hop from session to session, destroying things along the way, and given that the cracks he's left the wake of his session hopping are spreading, it's safe to say he's able to access the universe this way; from the other side of it, able to see its shape and its beginning and end. It's how you can anticipate it and yet, he's already here."

"Because he operates outside of time."

"Correct."

"And when you say we're - " Memory-Kankri points to himself and then to the Witch of Hope. " - way out here, do you mean...?"

The Witch - Eliza - smiles and stands, motioning for Memory-Kankri to follow her as she heads for the hallway.

She takes him down a couple of turns; Memory-Kankri looks around as he follows, taking note of how the wallpaper of the hallways change pattern and color as they pass by certain sections - it's likely to mark out designated areas in the ship so nobody gets lost - before Eliza finally takes a turn into a large room that looks out into a wall of windows.

No, not windows. This is a viewing room. A control room, really, from how there are rows upon rows of control panels, with seats for people to sit on, though right now there is only one person at the front. The ship doesn't seem to be moving anyway, instead just facing the stars.

Memory-Kankri stops in his tracks as he looks at the depths of space, at the faint wisps of color at some patches, and dusting upon dusting of stars all over the darkness, a mess of light spread out for him to see.

"Kankri, come here," Eliza says. She's by the person who's sitting at the front, waving him over to stand by her, an excited smile on her face.

"Where are we?" Memory-Kankri asks. "Is this near your solar system?"

The person by the controls, a young man with blonde hair and milk-white blind eyes, snorts. He begins running his fingers all over the braille plates by the buttons, pressing down on a few as he reads them.

"Not even close, kid," he says, and Memory-Kankri watches as the stars are slowly being shrunk from his view, but not like the ship is moving - no, the shrinking moves in time with the young man pressing buttons. Memory-Kankri gapes as he realizes he's zooming out of the view they're getting.

He sees planets, briefly, passing by as they're shrunken too, replaced by nebulas until those too are shrunken out of sight. Finally, they seem to get to an edge as the top and bottom of the viewing windows show a bluish curve at the top and at the bottom, and the young man still keeps zooming out of the view.

Blessedly, finally, it stops, and Memory-Kankri can see the dark shape of the universe, hilariously shaped like a donut, against the pitch black of Paradox Space.

It doesn't look alright. There are cracks all over it, pulsing green and red and blue, some parts sluggishly, some parts rapidly.

"We're outside of the universe we're taking care of right now," the young man in the control seat says.

"How?"

"Through the eye of a black hole." The young man laughs and holds a hand out to where Kankri is. "I'm the Seer of Void."

"Kankri Vantas," Memory-Kankri replies, a little airily, still in awe of the fact that he's so painfully far away from home, so completely out of any universe, even.

"These are the cracks I've told you about," Eliza says, motioning to the green, red, and blue scratches all over the universe, like exposed and torn disk film. There are even a few holes in some patches. "They're all over this universe and if it gets bad enough, the whole thing could cave into itself."

"It's not like it's a thing that spreads from one end to another," the Seer of Void says. "The source of the damage is outside, so it's more akin to completely ripping a book in half and affecting the whole thing; or smashing a disk on the ground, shattering the whole thing to pieces, rendering everything from beginning to end unreadable."

Eliza leans back on the control desk.

"Correct, and some parts of your universe, along with several others, have mistakenly fallen into this one," Eliza says. "Which means we have to make sure that this universe and the way it runs stays intact; but - well, we can't just get rid of all of you along the way. It would be terribly unfair."

"It's the easiest way," the Seer of Void says, "After all, you're foreign objects in this universe; it's basically like an infection - "

Eliza swats his head. He shuts up, and then laughs.

"So we're trying to find a place for all of you here," Eliza says. "We're looking for everyone we can right now, threats and non-threats included and we're trying to deal with them accordingly."

"I...see," Memory-Kankri says. They're intruders into this universe, essentially, endangering it in the process. Invasive species.

Like an infection.

"Do you need a moment, Kankri?" Eliza says.

"I...yeah," he says. It's a lot of information to take in at once, between finding out he's outside of a universe and on the other side of a black hole, and the fact that he's not supposed to be here and is a threat to the safety of aforementioned universe.

And he's not even the only one. There's a lot of them.

"Take your time," Eliza says, pushing herself off the control desk. "I'll be in...actually you don't know which is where in the ship yet. Just ask the Seer here - "

She motions to the Seer of Void.

" - he can pinpoint my location for you."

"Thanks."

Eliza pats his shoulder, kindly, before leaving the room, presumably to attend to other duties.

Like a cancer, Karkat thinks. A disease on this universe.

Correct, Kankri says. Things that don't belong falling in.

They're both silent the memory skips again.

#

When it settles somewhere else, Kankri is still in the control room, sitting in one of the empty seats beside the Seer of Void. Eliza is back, sitting right beside him, a black cat peacefully sleeping in her lap.

The view on the windows has been changed, zoomed all the way in at a large crack ripping through a patch of space; whatever's on the other side is pulsing an angry violet and gold, some wisps of it drifting in past the crack. A few small, glowing things drift in too, but there's something - no, someone - darting about the area, a blur of pink smashing the orbs into nonexistence as they move.

"Surprisingly, he's not here yet, is he?" Eliza asks, but not Memory-Kankri. She turns to the Seer of Void, who tilts his head and then looks to Kankri, then back to Eliza, with a questioning look.

“He is, but he’s elsewhere,” the Seer of Void says, then motions to Kankri. “Are we, uh?”

"He's a Seer of Blood," Eliza says. "The Heir and the Mage gave the go-ahead to talk about anything in front of him. He'll find out on his own, anyway."

"What does that mean?" Memory-Kankri asks.

"Your classpect is naturally inclined to see connections, so sooner or later, you'll see who and what we're connected to. To save you the confusion and the questioning, we can just tell you everything up front, as much as you can process," Eliza says.

"But - I'm not godtier."

"You don't have to be. The walls of this universe and yours, given that you dropped in here, are wearing thin. That means the measures in place that keeps everything separate, godtier powers that are rightfully yours once you're swapped into a godtier body included, are being exposed into the open. The more that decay advances, the more you're going to be able to access your abilities," the Seer of Void says. "For us Seers, our abilities are often ambient. It'll come to us whether we want it to or not."

"Seers are among the more at risk of the side effects of a decaytier - It's what we call anyone who can access their abilities through this advanced state of universal decay," Eliza says. "The more ambient a class’s abilities are, or the more powerful or affecting their aspect is, the riskier it is for the player to contract magical poisoning. Seer classes have a more benign form of poisoning, but it can be taxing nonetheless."

"Wait, slow down." Memory-Kankri holds a hand up. "What?"

The Seer of Void swings his legs over one of the arm rests as he fully turns to face Memory-Kankri. "Okay, imagine that normally, the universe is divided into sections. Two of these sections are for Class and for Aspect, and these sections have gates you can't pass without the proper clearance. Are you following me so far?"

"Uh, yes?"

"These sections are walled off because regular bodies can't withstand what's in them, like when you go really deep into the ocean without proper equipment," the Seer of Void says. "So you need something custom-made to withstand that, something that can handle the pressure and can see you safely delving into those depths. With this, the universe will let you into these sections. This proper clearance and equipment is a godtier body."

"It's why you can almost immediately handle magic after ascending even without proper training. Your magic will usually be aimless unless you've trained yourself, but the access is there," Eliza helpfully puts in.

"Exactly, it's about the access to it," the Seer of Void says. "Now, when the universe starts decaying and falling apart, the gates that keep these sections also decay and fall apart, meaning even without a godtier body, you can just get right to it. You don't need clearance past gates that aren't there."

"However, think about why you need to ascend to a godtier body in the first place," Eliza says, spinning her chair to face Memory-Kankri now as well. "It would be so easy for one to simply be revived in their regular old body, instead of ascending to a sturdier, more magically receptive one. It's made to withstand whatever's on the other side of the Class and Aspect gates, remember? Therefore..."

"A regular body cannot properly hold godtier magic - at least, not if used excessively and not for an extended amount of time," the Seer of Void says. "When this gets too much, people get magical poisoning."

"Their own magic kills them?" Memory-Kankri asks.

"It depends on the class and aspect, but in most cases, yes," Eliza says. "For Seers, they usually get unwanted fugues. Like I said, it's one of the more benign forms of poisoning, but that doesn't mean it's easy just because it doesn't grant instant death."

"Princes have it rough, though." The Seer of Void winces.

Eliza nods, sympathetic. "Princes don't usually fare well as decaytiers without help."

"If we could find a matching Sylph for every Prince we run into, it would be a godsend." The Seer of Void spins his chair around, throwing his hands up to the ceiling dramatically. He leans back into his seat. "But - alas, Princes are usually put into play because there's too much of something, so it wouldn't make any fucking sense. Where Princes of an aspect are, the equal Sylph to that same aspect makes themselves scarce."

"I guess they would have opposing missions, wouldn't they?" Eliza hums thoughtfully. "Two houses, both alike in dignity - "

The Seer of Void laughs, stopping his chair as it spins back facing Memory-Kankri. "Don't start with that, I'm gonna keep thinking about it on the off-chance we somehow run into a universe that has opposing classpects."

"Is it that rare?" Memory-Kankri asks, leaning an elbow on an armrest so he can place his cheek on his palm.

"Well, we've never seen it before, and theoretically, it would be rare in a regular session unless both players are meant to act as each other's balance," Eliza says. "Like how a body has an immune response but also a way to regulate that immune response."

"In a decayed session like this, though, anything's possible," the Seer of Void says. "There's multiple people from multiple sessions dropping in, and that's not counting the displaced consciousness or inter-session classpect access."

Memory-Kankri winces. "Do I even want to ask what that is?"

"The first one's when a nearby universe is also affected by decay and an individual's consciousness gets displaced into this universe, but in the wrong body," Eliza says. "The second one's when someone from this universe isn't a player, but is a player in another universe, and the universal decay allows the version of that person in this universe to access abilities that should belong to their game player counterpart."

"It's a symptom of universal convergence," the Seer of Void says. "And why it's dangerous."

"Lord English isn't just destroying universes he's personally dropping by in, he's also dealing out splash damage," Eliza says. "If we could only find him, though..."

She spins her chair this time. The cat on her lap lifts its head to glare at her, displeased.

"If he could find him, we could probably strike a deal," the Seer of Void says, wistfully. "He listens, sometimes."

"Who's he?" Memory-Kankri asks. "The same guy you were talking about earlier?"

"Yeah," the Seer of Void says. "But - careful not to mention this to anyone else unless we tell you so, okay? He's a cognitohazard, but better we tell you now than if you go sleuthing on your own and end up in deep shit."

"O...kay?" Memory-Kankri's brow furrows. "So who is he?"

"One of two Heirs from our session," the Seer of Void says. "The Heir of Blood."