The|MULTIVERSE

EPISODE 46: All Too Well

Deo quirked an addled brow. "The heck's a Netherine?"

Gremlyn hungrily yelped. "Is it a fruit?!"

"Ignorance..." Tortartus groaned. "It is a plane that does not answer to the laws of mortals."

"Oh, I see how it is," said Ricven. "Alternate dimensional shit. And...let me guess...your little buddies are right back in their holes over there, too."

"For one that does not remember, you undoubtedly know of the cycle," the death turtle continued. His four eyes, the fifth busted, flickered and pulsed like a faulty electrical appliance. "My kindred slain, they retire into the Netherine. In time, they will be whole, the discord of the worlds they bind are the nutrients to their revival."

Chip could've sworn she had heard something of this sort before. Was it in a book? A movie? Some critically acclaimed space-fantasy game? Whatever the case, it rung a bell, a bunch of bells—and if she wasn't so much of a nerdy geek versed in the many cultures and mythos of the worlds—earth, her home included—she'd be a bit of a basic, stereotypical blonde with no life. Or a basic, narrow-minded homo sapien who frowned on anything that wasn't 'adulting'—since cartoons, anime, video games, and comic books were for children (but one mustn't digress into the endless mocking of the flawed, self-conflicting, contradicting creature-pool that is humanity). "Starting to sound a tad bit familiar."

Fae agreed. "Like everything else."

"It's all a root off of something," Ricven added. Everything was a spin-off of something. Rather it was a generic knock-off or a humble inspiration in a nod to something great—or foul. "Contrary to silly belief."

"But why here—of all places?" It was Chip's turn to grill. "Why come to Zeta when you could have resurrected elsewhere—and totally undetected."

"It's Juruda," Ricven answered that one, or risk another bloated state of big words with dramatic undertones from the behemoth. "Covert operations aren't his main game. Now The Order..." He told the sparking Tortartus with a briefly extended hand of witty gesture. "If you're paddy-caking-it-up with those clandestine fuckwits, then they're getting a little sloppy on the recruitment method."

"The warrior with a mouth is correct," said Tortartus.

And Ricven boastfully beamed. "Damn fucking right I am!"

"I don't care," growled the demon-armed slayer, approaching the kindled snout of the snapper with tight acrimony gripping her irritable face. Hanakin never gave a damn about The Order. Not completely. Her real target was the one and only, and she made that clear as hellish day as her Blades of Detriment fired into her hands and she faced the demon with ill humor. "Where's Juruda hiding?!"

Her rankling gall earned her a foreboding chuckle. Tortartus' beastly laugh was all up in the pits—deep, hopeless, and infallibly villainous. "Your failure to seize the demon in white warrants his ingeniously elusive behavior."

Hanakin slowly snarled like a seething hellcat of wilting patience. "Watch your black tongue."

But he didn't, and she'd be cognizant to ride the tide. "Tell me...what gives you the assumption that I'd possess the knowledge of where he resides? Is it because I am a demon? Does our common being give you security in your search? Oh, Hanakin... Your infuriation and impatience are inexhaustible. We were summoned with promises of discontent, and discontent is, of course, our shining expertise. Juruda is beyond your reach. You will not confront him again unless he permits it."

And at the end of that tide, she got what she wanted. In a sense. "Then I permit you to die."

"Hold it!" Ricven called forth. Another flag of the cool hand. If he didn't achieve that act, Hanakin would've poked her butcher-daggers into Tortartus' smoky snout. She was inches from doing just that. "The Order. What are they really up to? What's the game plan? Multiversal domination? Cosmic vengeance? Getting the senpai to notice them? For I'm noticing the fuck out of them."