Chapter Text
“Are you aware of fatalism, Lord Khaslana?”
Burning ash clung to the back of Phainon’s throat but through the grit and debris he managed to bare his teeth and snarl. The intellitron did not pay any mind to the warning nor to the glob of blood and soot that was spat at his feet as he approached, footsteps clacking against the silence.
Lygus, ever the type to enjoy the sound of his own voice, did not require any answer to continue speaking.
“As it is unlikely that you remember everything that you were once taught in the Grove of Epiphany,” he said, “let me refresh you on the topic.”
Another snarl. This one was wilder than the last. Driven by the act of Lygus kneeling before him and hauling Phainon into his arms. Phainon tried to shove him away but he was currently one arm down, bleeding out, and trembling in the aftermath of having had an Aeon’s gaze focused on him for what had felt like an eternity.
Blood gushed from the stump of his right arm. It ran in rivers down his back.
Phainon had minutes at most before he bled to death and it was becoming apparent that those final moments were going to be stuck listening to fucking Lygus of all people.
“It is,” Lygus continued, as he began to walk, “at its core, the philosophy that every action, every event, that has taken place within either the past or future is a fixed inevitability. What has passed cannot be altered and what will pass cannot be changed.”
Phainon kept kicking, trying to break free.
Unaffected, Lygus simply continued to move. His steps were measured and even, as if Phainon’s attacks did not so much as scratch the outermost casing of his body.
“This system of determinism is not purely contained within the branch of cause and effect, where one choice influences that which proceeds it but works to the understanding that no matter what action is taken within the present, the future cannot be changed.”
“What the fuck are you even talking about?” Phainon spat.
Lygus tilted his head down.
Though there was little expression to be seen on such an inorganic face, the cheer in his voice was downright giddy.
“Ah,” he said, “so you are listening.”
Phainon wanted to melt him. To tear into him entirely. He’d decapitated this parasite 33 million times but it had never been enough to temper his fury. He didn’t just want to kill him, to destroy him, he wanted to erase every single atom of his existence from the universe.
“Well, far be it for me to keep you from understanding,” he continued. “Let me offer you further insight on this philosophy. Hm... Since the great Imperator enjoys it so much, let me expand on this concept using chess as my example.”
Footsteps crunched against gravel.
“The set up of the board - the past - can never be altered. Within each game, every piece must always start from their fixed point. The pawns will always be placed on the second and seventh rows. The rooks and bishops have their set places on the first and eighth. Just like the set-up, the outcome of the game - the future - also remains the same: No matter what moves one makes, the game will always come to an end.”
They were heading somewhere. Moving with purpose.
“Of course, you might ask what happens if you simply decide not to move the pieces.”
…Where were they going?
“A game of chess cannot be won or lost if it does not proceed. This changes the outcome does it not? The game cannot end if you do not even begin.”
Wait. No.
Phainon knew this path. An uphill climb through mountains that loomed over Okhema like the curl of a closed fist.
“If you remove the game entirely, does that not… negate the entirety of this fated end?”
It wasn’t the rise of dawncloud but the route still led to the same place.
“And yet, by not starting, that eventuality has already come to pass.”
The Dawn Device.
“The game ends because you do not play.”
The scepter’s core.
“The game ends because you do play.”
Lygus was bringing him to the scepter’s core.
“Your actions, however resistant, cannot rework the outcome.”
Where they were going suddenly felt more daunting than it had before.
Phainon should’ve questioned it more from the very beginning. What use would Lygus have had for his corpse unless he was going to use it in some way? He kicked out with what little strength remained in his chest, burned as hot as the coreflames would allow him in this dying form of his and screamed.
No one heard him.
How could they? They were all dead.
The only person who could hear him was Lygus, who continued speaking as if Phainon’s efforts were meaningless, as if his shouting was nothing more than a futile whisper.
“These cycles… this eternal recurrence that we have been living within these past millennia… why Khaslana, they’re much the same as that game of chess.” He didn’t even raise his voice to speak over the shouting. He spoke with the casual certainty of a being that had won. “Our starting point remains fixed and your efforts within each attempted cycle - while a fickle yet admirable determination - has done nothing to hinder Irontomb’s completion. Our end point remains the same.”
He could see it now.
The Dawn Device.
Space wasn’t operating in the way that it typically did. Each step warped reality, bringing them closer to the scepter. They weren’t approaching by foot. Not really. Lygus was using his permissions as Amphoreus’ administrator to speed their travels into something that felt incomprehensible.
“This was always the destined end to our game,” Lygus said, as he stepped through rippling nothingness and came to a stop before the scepter. “It could never be avoided.”
The ascent into the scepter was only possible through the tear of code. Lygus, in control of the system as he was, lowered the firewall without so much as blinking and tore open a hole so that they could pass through.
He did it so easily that the breath in Phainon’s lungs shuddered out of him.
He had attempted to break through this firewall over 33 million times and not once had he ever so much as made a dent. And yet, here Lygus was, lowering it without even an afterthought.
Amphoreus…
It really was too cruel.
The inside of the scepter was a distortion of ones, zeroes, wiring and dim, red lighting. The closer they got to the centre, the more the wires bulged and writhed. Something both alive and mechanical. Undulations spread through each tube like a pulse.
…So this was Irontomb.
“I truly must thank you,” Lygus said, when they reached what must have been Irontomb’s innermost core and he set Phainon down upon a throne of cables. “Your cycles, designed to stop a lord ravager, have served to develop the rage of yours that will fuel it.”
Something pierced into his shoulder blades - through the open wounds where his wings had once been. A scream tore through Phainon’s throat.
“The coreflames that you have collected for so long, in an attempt to keep Irontomb from gaining strength, will now become the power source of its beating heart.”
More pain. Veins of copper and iron scraped against skin, tearing him open. No; It wasn’t tearing him open. It was latching on.
This was not an attempt to eradicate. It was an attempt at assimilation.
“With this,” Lygus said, “not even our guests from the Astral Express will—”
“Do you ever stop fucking talking?”
“Yes, there are the flames of hatred that have been stoked over 33 million cycles.” Lygus’ voice sounded damn near serene as laughter crackled from his vocal box. “Oh Khaslana, you have been an excellent player in our little game.”
Something burst through skin and grabbed hold of his spinal cord. Phainon’s body fell limp, unresponsive, as whatever had broken through infected his nerves and cut off every connection.
“But this checkmate of mine was always inevitable.”
Phainon woke in much the same manner that one got hit by a rampaging dromas: Suddenly and with very little understanding of the moments that preluded it.
His body ached with such ferocity that, for a split moment while his waking mind remained foggy and unclear, he could entertain the idea that he actually had been hit by such a creature.
Then he registered the wires.
It was a sudden realisation of sensation. Alongside the inhale of a half-formed gasp, his nerves picked up on his entanglement.
Wires ran along his chest, they shackled his wrists and ankles. One ran along the curve of both ears and pressed against his nostrils. Into the crook of his elbow and into the veins on the back of his hands and—
And this couldn’t be Irontomb.
He’d been ripped out, hadn’t he? And yet as his eyes flashed open, there was a shimmer of red across his vision and through rippling code he could see wires pulsing, he was inside of the machine. His pulse mimicked that of the cables, his nerves firing alongside internal sparks and moving cogs. Helpless. Again.
Had he ever truly left? Had everything just been another cruel game designed by Irontomb to make him give up on Amphoreus? To stop fighting, to—
The sound of strings met his ears. Synthetic strings. Not the kind that could be found in Amphoreus, but the kind that had been streamed previously on one's teleslate after connecting to the datastream of the wider galaxy.
No, this was real.
He wasn’t inside of Irontomb because Irontomb had been defeated. He’d helped the Trailblazer fight against it from within the scepter’s core, taking small allowances of rogue code to manifest an avatar of himself that could fight back alongside his companions. That had happened. He wasn’t trapped inside of the Scepter anymore.
The glitching code faded alongside the dawning realisation. Reality returned. And Phainon found, in its place, a rather lacklustre ceiling painted off-white, peeling at the edges with patches of broken, spalled concrete.
…He was still entangled, though.
Something venomous clawed its way out of his throat. Not a snarl nor a growl but something filled with disdain and disgust. The sound reverberated through his body; Fingers twitched. His stomach clenched.
Ah.
Entangled, yes, but clearly able to move to some extent. It wasn’t necessarily the wires that were holding him down but the fact that his own limbs felt like the bones inside had been swapped with lead.
Fuelled with his own rage and the stubbornness that had lasted him billions of years, Phainon did not let the heaviness of his body keep him frozen in place. Even as the ache burned, even as the weight of his joints pulled against muscles, he fought to lift himself up.
He managed. Partially. His torso aching as he lifted himself up on shaky arms.
He didn’t quite manage to sit up but that was because his legs weren’t solely weighed down by his own aching bones. There was an external weight pinning them in place too.
Phainon paused.
Just for a moment. Just while the truth of the external weight pinning him in place registered. Just as the truth of where he was settled in his mind.
He was in the hospital. Or, at least, the pop-up hospital that Hyacine had been running from the halls of a repurposed school building since the beginning of the Era Nova. At his bedside, sat on one of the stupidly small chairs designed for children, and looking just as stupid as Phainon had, was Mydei.
Except, he wasn’t currently sitting. He was slumped over the side of Phainon’s bed, using both the curve of his own arms and Phainon’s legs as a pillow. Snoring. His braid fell across his face, messy and loose.
…Any other time, Phainon would find it cute. Would’ve let him sleep.
But he needed these wires off of him so he reached behind his head for his pillow and hurled it at Mydei’s head with as much force as his tired bones could muster.
Part of him was surprised that Mydei didn’t see it coming. That his hand didn’t reach up and catch it midair.
(He shouldn’t have been, considering Mydei was sleeping, but he was.)
Instead, the pillow careened into the prince’s temple with a heavy thud.
Mydei didn’t spring up onto his feet the way that he had during the cycles,whenever Phainon had woken him in a similar manner but he did jolt back into consciousness quite suddenly.
The prince of Kremnos - or was he technically the king? Phainon wasn’t too sure which title they were operating off within the Era Nova considering it was also influenced by a cycle that he’d never existed within - unfolded his arms and claimed the pillow in his hands. He raised his arm as if, for a split second, he had considered hurling it back at the person who had rudely awoken him.
Then, the cogs of his brain kicked into gear and, seemingly realising whose pillow this must’ve been and the perpetrator behind his sudden awakening, Mydei placed it gently on the bed beside him and lifted his head. Wide eyes settled onto Phainon, bleary with sleep.
“You’re awake,” Mydei said.
“Yeah, no shit,” Phainon said, struggling to sit up now that Mydei was no longer trapping his legs in place. His voice was rough and scratchy from disuse. How long had he been asleep this time, he wondered, before deciding that actually, he really didn’t care.
“How do you fe—What are you doing?”
What he was doing was detangling himself. Pulling himself free. He’d wrapped his fingers around one of the wires on the back of his hand and yanked. Past some initial resistance, it came free with little difficulty, accompanied with an ooze of dark gold blood.
He didn’t have a moment to reach for the wire on his wrist - this one was clipped on to something stuck against skin, some sort of monitoring… thing, not something that had pierced the skin like the first - when Mydei’s hands clamped around his wrist, holding it in place and pressed the edge of his blanket against the bleed.
“Stop—”
“Don’t pull those out,” Mydei scolded.
Phainon narrowed his eyes and snarled. “I’m not staying wired up, Mydei. Let go. I need them off.”
He wasn’t sure whether it was a testament to Mydei’s patience or his stupidity but the prince did not let go. His hold remained firm.
“You can’t just pull them out without hurting yourself,” Mydei said.
“Off, Mydeimos,” Phainon snapped. “Get them the fuck off of me—”
“I will,” Mydei said, and clearly it was both patience and stupidity that currently drove him fuelled him. “We’ll get them off. But at least do it safely. Let me help you. Let Hyacine get rid of the cannulas so you don’t bleed out everywhere.”
Phainon grit his teeth and glowered.
He wanted to fight back and kick out but that would only leave him entangled for even longer. It wouldn’t free him from everything like he needed to be. So even though his heart was beating rapidly and the beginnings of a brawl was collecting in the gaps between his nerves, he held still and nodded.
Once. Reluctantly.
“Quickly,” he said, tone biting.
To be fair to him Mydei did act fast. He unclipped wires from sticky tags on his wrists, from his chest and beneath his clavicle. Even from above his ankles. As he did so, a machine he hadn’t noticed began whining like a flatline. It was a high and tinny sound. Instantly grating. The kind that left the ears ringing.
Phainon let out a hiss at the sound. “Shut it up.”
“No,” Mydei said.
“It’s too loud.”
“Exactly. This way, someone will hear and I won’t need to leave you to find Hyacine.”
When he’d finished removing those wires - and subsequently peeled away the tags from his skin - Mydei helped prop Phainon up against the bed more comfortably. Afterwards, his hands hesitated at either side of his ears, hovering over the wires of his nasal cannula.
“Hyacine said this one helps you breathe more easily,” Mydei said.
“My lungs are working fine,” Phainon’s brow twitched. Yes, his lungs felt like they’d been scraped raw with gravel but that wasn’t any different from the rest of him. “Take. It. Off.”
“Stubborn man,” Mydei sighed, but removed it anyway.
With everything else removed, all that remained were the two lines that fed into his body. One piercing through the veins on the back of his other hand. Another burrowing into the crook of his elbow.
“I’ll message Hyacine,” Mydei said, when Phainon’s fingers began twitching again with the need to rip himself free. He could feel them moving inside of him. Pulsating. “Just— Wait. A little bit.”
And yet, because Mydei had told him to, Phainon waited.
He waited until Mydei retrieved his own teleslate from a counter beside his bed - ah, that was what was streaming the music from beyond Amphoreus - and began typing.
No. It was too similar to the time trapped in Irontomb. He couldn't handle it.
He reached for the line on the back of his hand—
“Hks,” Mydei snapped and grabbed hold of his hand before he could begin yanking himself free. “What did I just say?”
Phainon’s voice trembled with the force of the fire in his chest. He said, “I don’t care, I don’t care, get them out, get them out—”
They continued like that. Phainon’s voice repeating the same words, a mixture of frantic need and broiling anger.
Mydei half on the bed, holding onto Phainon’s wrists, unflinching, unyielding. Repeating that Hyacine would be here soon and that he was on Phainon’s side but unwilling to allow ‘being on his side’ to be read as ‘entertaining your self-destructive tendencies.’
It must’ve taken no more than two minutes for Hyacine to come rushing into the room, little Ica accompanying after her, and yet it felt like an age.
She was already pulling on gloves as she passed through the doorway.
He could feel something festering under his skin from the wires. From Irontomb. From— From something, he just didn't know what. Get them out. Get it out.
“I’m here, I’m here,” she said, somewhat frantically. “Phainon, De said you wanted your cannulas taken out. I’ll do it now. Can you both please stop fighting?”
Mydei gave him a look that very clearly read as, ‘Well? Your call, Khaslana.’
Phainon let out a heavy, rattling breath and slumped back against the wall. The wall suddenly seemed the most interesting thing in the world, with its peeling paint and singular crack running through the concrete.
“Whatever,” he breathed and swallowed down the poison that was burning the inside of his throat.