Chapter 169: 43 Let There Be the Merry Sound

The Rival all but demanded to be in attendance for the meeting regarding the new universe and its potential merging. While this was to be the start of negotiations, the Rival did not want to actually take part in that bit, he was just there to make sure the First was not. He was getting a bad feeling. At first, Statera had almost completely dismissed his desire to attend, but thanks to a clever combination of flirting and his natural, irresistible charm, she eventually came around to his way of seeing things. Sort of. More like she allowed him to join, despite her better judgement. Now, she stood before him, nothing but a projection, all flowing purple robes and silky black hair, those sharp green eyes peering into his soul without even trying. He crossed his arms, feet firmly on the ground. A gentle wind blew, rustling grass at his feet, his own power carefully controlled beneath his skin. Not yet was he a god, but he was on the cusp, about to take that next step.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” she asked, searching his face for something, anything that might give away his thoughts. He just smiled at her — that same smile he’d practiced a million times in the mirror, and even a million might be shortchanging it.

“I am very much sure,” he said with a wink, smirking at her, hiding his own nerves. “Don’t worry, I will just observe for the most part unless negotiations break down. Not that I think it will, that was a pretty impressive display you put on.” He thought back to the faint memory he had of watching heaven’s wrath smite the Primordial Dragon in the depths of the Void. His greatest regret at the moment was that he had been locked in the depths of his own meditations and had been unable to fully bear witness to the fight. Most of what he’d seen was because the Mad Scientist had somehow managed to get a camera on it, to record as much as could be captured. But he had felt the aftershocks, felt that power raging — and such a display, if the First had been in the Dragon’s realm, would not have gone unnoticed by him, and would not go unanswered. The funny thing was he had no legitimate reason to be afraid of the First at the moment, even as he met Statera’s gaze, smile softening, sauntering over to elbow her slightly, the incarnation slapping his elbow away with a dark glare at his cavalier attitude. He had no reason to worry about the First because he was in a separate universe, and still under contract by the Overgod, and yet here he was, letting thoughts of his friend consume him.

“Look,” Statera said, “I did agree to this, but know that even my reach can only go so far in that place as I am now.”

“I know,” the Rival scoffed, “but let’s be honest, Stat. Your power only going so far is a far cry more than most beings. Plus, Randus is going and big old Mama Dragon won’t let anything happen to her special boy.” He teased.

Statera flushed — actually flushed — the little redness to her cheeks doing something to the pit of his stomach. He chuckled mostly at himself, not at Statera, because god damn he had it bad, didn’t he? “That’s — that’s —” Statera cut herself off. “That’s actually fair.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “You’re not even a god yet, though,” she said weakly.

The Rival flexed his muscles which, thanks to his perfect immortal body and his own vanity, was sculpted like a Greek God. “I don’t know,” he said, admiring his own bicep as it bulged from inside his robe. “I am pretty godly looking.” She reached out almost as if to slap him upside the head but in the end settled on shaking her head and settling back on her heels, folding her hands into the sleeves of her robes. He pouted at her. That wasn’t the reaction he’d wanted.

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Now?” he asked, eyebrows rising. “You mean like right now?”

“Yes, right now,” Statera said. “I can’t put this off any longer — leaving the Dragon’s corpse and the Void for much longer would be detrimental to all. I need to act now, but I will not start messing with Sehuyun’s body until I get an answer from them.”

The Rival made a little bit of a face. “I mean, are you sure they’re gonna have an answer for you? This is a first negotiation, right?” He gestured vaguely to the sky, where he assumed the new universe was.

Statera nodded her head almost mockingly, slowly, as if she was speaking to a child who was asking a very stupid question and she, in her infinite patience, was still strained to give a serious answer. “Yes, I am very much sure,” she said. He huffed. “If they are anything even close to their creator’s personality, they will have already come to a decision. And besides, there is a little one I know living there. A tiny little snake. He might speak well of us, or you know, might attack us, because he’s all destruction.” The Rival wasn’t entirely sure how to take that. He thought he remembered something about a snake from a while ago, it was a passing comment, something about Alexander’s having been gone away for a time, that he wasn’t certain.

“Fine, let’s go then,” he said. Statera laid a hand on his shoulder and warmth filled his chest. A tingle ran down his spine as reality itself warped. This was no mere teleport, he realized — space itself folded, here becoming there and suddenly remaining there as here went back to its original space, like the point between two fingers being caught, and put somewhere else. It was too fast, too subtle, too strong for even his enhanced senses to catch, and he had caught even when Statera had teleported him before, way back when he first arrived. He was now standing in the empty Void. The abruptness was a little disorienting, he’d be completely honest, but he was nothing if not good at improvising, so the fact that he stood above a swirling mass of primordial chaos, nothing but endless creation and destruction churning in the depths below him, did not faze him. Nor did the presence of two other powerful gods — Astraea, the goddess of stars, and Randus, Statera’s own god of dreams. Two lights to the Shadows he was far more familiar with.

“How’s it going, chaps?” he said all too cheerily, slapping a hand against Randus’s arm. The buttoned-up god didn’t so much as flinch, turning his head, corners of his mouth twisting into something of a disdainful frown. The Rival chuckled then cackled, rolling his shoulders, stretching a little bit. “Right, so it’s been a minute since I have done any negotiating — I’m gonna leave that to you two. I’ll do my own thing,” he said, winking at them.

Astraea narrowed her shining silver eyes at him. “Why is he here?” she asked, not harshly, or maybe it was harshly, the Rival didn’t know and didn’t really care, her voice musical and light, truly beautiful. But her voice was secondary to Statera’s, and it wasn’t even close, it wasn’t even in the same ballpark. He was getting sidetracked. He refocused. The goddess of stars was still talking. “He is powerful, but I do not understand why a non-god would accompany us?” she finished. The Rival thought about that, then immediately tuned her out again in favor of looking down at this new universe beneath them. This would make three new baby universes he had been to in one lifetime.

Statera really was full of firsts. Never before had he been two this many new universes in one lifetime! That sort of travel was highly frowned upon as a monkey wrench, but here he could get away with it because Statera herself was facilitating it. Despite the nerves almost giving him an upset stomach, a tingle of nausea twisting his gut, he felt giddy. Baby universes were a lot of fun specifically because he was viewing it all from a completely different perspective from the norm. He was watching all this history being made, not existing in a universe where history had already existed for billions if not trillions of years.

Statera’s voice brought him out of his own musings, mostly because she called him by name. “The Rival will be coming because I said so,” she said in her best because-mom-says-so voice. The Rival rolled his shoulders — that stern-but-kind voice of hers did things to him. he told himself, He clapped his hands together. “Let us go — where is this negotiation supposed to happen?” he asked, after a brief, brief moment.

Randus let out a little breath. “That would be right here,” the god said, clasping his hands behind his back, squaring his shoulders, the picture of propriety. The Rival actually respected his professionalism, but a very big part of him did also want to break him of that.

“OK, right here — and where are they?” he asked.

“They will be here in three, two, one…” Statera’s declaration was accompanied by a slight pop, just suddenly off compared to the shifting reality that had been her teleport, a little shaky perhaps, and suddenly, there was a room beneath his feet. It was circular, made of some sort of dark gray stone. Around the table in front of them five chairs were laid out, three on this side, two on the other. A portal opened on the far end, one that led directly to the Dragon’s realm. The Rival sat down in his chair silently, grateful for her leaving the portal open so he could extend his senses through. Immediately, at first glance, not even having to extend his senses that deep into the Realm, he could tell that you had to be god-level of power just to survive in there for any period of time — that was just the nature of it.

Weak things did not last long, and the First was still wherever the hell he had appeared, then reincarnated, into, which meant if he was there he’d likely be very powerful. Which was good for the Rival, because that meant he could sit here and feel for the First. And suddenly he had a minor realization. Statera could probably track the First by spotting his memories that existed outside of the universe, just as she’d spotted the Rival’s own. Although he wouldn’t put it past his once-friend to have a trick to help hide that, which was why he felt the burning need to be here.

Then they stepped through. The first was a giant crocodile-turtle thing with great white scales and jagged teeth, gold spikes erupting from its long flat head and even the back of its shell. The second was a snake of pure destructive fire and smoke, maybe as long as the Rival was tall. Randus stiffened as he sat down in his own chair, watching the snake warily.

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“Boitatá,” he said stiffly.

The snake flicked out its tongue as it slithered up to its chair, wrapping around the leg to rest its little head upon the table. “Hello, Dreams,” the snake hissed. “It is good to see you again, though I wish perhaps under more pleasant circumstances,” the snake told him. The crocodile turtle fixed its gaze solely upon the Rival first. He smiled, waved, wiggled his fingers at the great beast, and reclined in his seat, draping one arm over the back, picking at his fingernails. It snapped its jaws and dismissed him, looking away.

“Where is the Dragon?” The turtle-thing asked. “I do not negotiate with proxies,” he snapped, settling down, surprisingly eloquent for such a savage-looking beast.

“The Heavens do not negotiate,” Astraea said softly, the goddess of stars placing her hands flat upon the table. The Rival watched her out of the corner of his eye even as his senses continued to dig into the other universe — he was finding nothing so far, something both relieving and terrifying. Relieving because that meant the First wasn’t there, and was likely completely unrelated to the collisions. Terrifying because he still didn’t know where he was. “The heavens are a place, not a thing. And they are preparing to fix the mess your creator got us all into. Let us not sugarcoat it, or anything of what this is. You know what is going to happen to you, to your universe. Without the Dragon who created you, it will crumble. Boitatá there —” she glanced at the destruction snake “— may be able to extend the life of your universe some, but they are not powerful enough yet. They do not have the knowledge, the skill, the Truth, to know how to keep it running.” The Rival, despite himself, was impressed. he thought quietly,

“You call us weak?” The crocodile — the Rival really should learn the thing’s name, but honestly for such a savage beast he wasn’t quite certain he cared much yet — asked. Its great clawed hands dug into the table, stone crumbling and cracking beneath its might. “I am Bashikhan. And I am not weak.” Ah, there it is. Perfect timing. Bashikhan, the great white crocodile turtle.

Randus spoke next, the voice of reason, calm, soothing, yet no less forward or blunt for it. “We are not calling you weak,” he said. “We are simply acknowledging the reality of the situation. Our realms have gone through multiple wars at this point. If you wish to wage against us, we will meet you. We will defeat you. We already have — the Heavens already have defeated you. And they — the Mistress, my mother, in all Her wisdom — are offering you a choice. You can join us, or you can be left to whatever fate awaits you.”

The Rival let out a little breath. Randus was supposed to be the calm one, not the one delivering ultimatums. he thought sarcastically. He picked at his fingers again, focusing more of his attention on the little technique he was casting to send his consciousness into the other universe through the portal. The fire snake hissed something. Bashikhan snapped its jaws. Randus and Astraea made their replies. And the Rival searched.

He could sense much of it. But because he didn’t want to cause any problems, he was not actually digging into the secrets of the depths of the universe — he was only looking for the First. This was a technique he had developed specifically to find his friend, specifically to locate him in the wide, wide universes he was used to. It was a powerful technique. But its only purpose was to find the First, and that limitation was what helped it be so powerful. It was looking for very specific information. It was also too easy, half the time. More often than not anymore he enjoyed wandering and searching for the First, but not here, not now.

And the First was not there. The Rival sat back, scratched his armpit, and let the negotiations continue. For all of about fifteen more minutes. Then he intervened, because he was bored and he was done and he had other things to do.

Bash — as he had come to start calling the crocodile, shortening its name — was in the middle of some rant or raving or whatever the hell it was trying to say, trying to negotiate better terms or demand more respect, when he spoke up.

“Look,” he said, “this is a decision you need to make quickly, relatively speaking. Because the Heavens themselves, while not impatient, won’t wait forever. The reason I am here rather than somebody you might deem stronger is quite simple: because I understand what it is we offer you — the incentive to come join us.” The Rival drew all attention to him, for the first time since the meeting began. “Not that anything these two said was wrong,” he explained, gesturing to Astraea and Randus. “All of that is true. You don’t have much time, your universe will collapse, as I’m sure you know, and perhaps you would be able to figure it out, fashion your own … figure out how to save your universe, that would be a better way to put it. But the Heavens have a thing you will not be able to turn down. See, when I first arrived, I started off with something very, very, very small compared to even these two, and now look at me. The gap has shrunk quite a bit. I am one example of what the Heavens offer you. Advancement. Strength. Drive. Purpose. The opportunity to grow, to reach those heights. You saw the fight, the great purple Dragon, the Wrath of the Heavens smite and strike low a great being of creation and destruction. Your creator.” He paused here, letting the comment settle for just a moment, crossing his arms, sitting forward, straightening his back, tilting his head just a touch the way that he knew made his horns catch what little light there was in this small room, shining in that specific way he liked.

It made him look mysterious and all knowing.

“The Heavens leave a path for all to try and reach them. They are the ground beneath your feet and the sky in which you fly, and they want you to join them in that great space.” He laughed a little. “In fact, even if you seek to shake the Heavens, to rattle them, to challenge them,” he leaned forward, laying his hands flat upon the table, “they welcome you to try. Is that a challenge you can ignore?” And he sat back once again, job done, negotiations finished. He had them hook, line, and sinker. He could see it in their eyes, even if they didn’t know it yet. Pride was this universe’s great shadow and sin, but he also saw something deeper. Something that could become more, because you didn’t feel such intense pride unless you loved something very, very deeply, even if that thing was yourself.

He closed his eyes. Now things could truly continue.

***

“Remind me,” Statera said, after negotiations had concluded and all the participants sent back to their original Realms. Now all that was left was to wait for their final answer. “To bring you with me to the next meeting between Origin Deities. I think you’d like it, it’d be fun.” The Rival sighed a little as he settled down on the grass and looked up at the skies of the Four Realms, once again satisfied but not really. He had not helped as much as he intended — no, he had helped exactly as much as the Overgod would allow him.

He wasn’t supposed to have been able to negotiate like that, yet he did. Had he thought about it more, he would have kept his damn mouth shut, because that was what he had agreed to do for the Overgod. Yet here he was, intervening, even if he was blowing out of proportion what he’d done. That did not bode well. Not in the slightest. “Yeah, that might be fun,” he agreed, staring up at the sky, then changed the subject. “Can you show me what you’re doing right now?” he asked. Statera was silent for just a moment, gaze distant as she sat beside him on the grass, then with a wave of her hand a picture appeared before him.

It was a model of everything. The Four Realms sat at the very, very heart of it all, the One World encircling it like an eggshell, a hollow frame within which the true meat and bones of the baby universes therein could grow. The universes of the Big Four appeared to occupy the same space. Alexander’s heart slowly growing, funneling movement and ideas and thoughts all around, the flow and the river-like pushing of its fundamental shape. Elvira’s bones giving things for Reika’s fluctuating muscles to push and pull off of. Keilan’s Mind pulsed in a rhythm, watching, observing, learning, creating memories of all that had been, thoughts of all that could be. Somewhere in there the Mad Scientist was hard at work, watching it all.

The Rival now believed she was right when, way back when, she’d claimed that this was no mere cluster universe. Though he said “mere,” clusters were still among the greatest, most powerful things in the Overgod’s multiverse.

Statera pointed just outside the One World — the great Dragon’s corpse sat, its jaw dropped. “This here,” she said, “will be the lungs.”

“A Dragon’s lungs in your new body?” The Rival gasped mockingly. “You cheater.” She chuckled, nudging his arm playfully, though he could still see the tenseness in her shoulders, the way she sucked in a shaky breath, the regret in her eyes as she looked at it all.

“Yes, well, I do believe I’m allowed to be a little greedy now and again,” she said. He chuckled softly and let her continue. “The tricky part will be Sehuyun’s universe. They have nominally agreed to some things already. Some stabilizing influences…not that they can even escape my influence now that I have one percent of Sehuyun’s Authority. So I mean, honestly, I’m probably just going to start shaping it into what we need. They’re like children right now, Kahn, Boitata, all of them. They’re like my original children, the Big Four, way back when. So young. Like a baby, bumbling about, loud, not sure what to do, reacting and lashing out because that is the only thing they know.” She said it regretfully, running a hand down her face. The Rival’s heart went out to her. She had too big of a heart. Too good of a soul. He could see it in her eyes. He could see it in her actions.

She had already adopted them. Whether she realized it or not, these children were now hers in all but blood. The Rival thought, nodding along as Statera talked about how she would help them form their universe into something beneficial for everything around it — another internal structure, he likened it to the gut, that would synergize all the others. Just as Alexander shared energy, just a whisper, just a bit at the moment, that radiated off the flowing, pumping lifeblood. Just as the fluctuating muscles of Reika’s realm were starting to sync to the pulsing thoughts of Keilan’s. Sehuyun’s universe would be the gut. And Statera would have more kids to take care of.

That goodness of her soul, the goodness of her heart, that fundamental kindness, the fundamental point of fact that she was the earth upon which they all walked and the air they breathed…the fact that she was that kind voice in your head that said Yet still let you make your own mistakes, forge your own path, and only asked that if you wanted to rise, that you know yourself. It was sweet, and kind, and let people follow their own destiny. And that was why she would lose to the First. And that was why he would not let her.

[Cocoon protocol activating.]

The Rival hardly even glanced at the announcement. Cocoon protocol. He’d never heard of it, but if it was anything like an Isolation Protocol, that meant, in some ways, probably all the ways that mattered, his restrictions were lifted. And so were the First’s.

“Let there be bloodshed,” he whispered, steeling his heart. “Let there be war.” Statera was talking animatedly, theorizing and thinking and planning and doing her best to explain what she was going to do. And he smiled from the bottom of his heart, the steel melting. No. More than bloodshed, let there be the merry sound of music and of dance. He grabbed Statera’s hand and stood, cutting her off. “I believe,” he said with a little wink, as she met his eyes, raising an eyebrow. “that is very much not talk of work. We’re going to do something we haven’t done since Earth.”

He winked softly at her. “Let us do the Salsa!” Music filled the air, echoing from his memories and brought into being from his power, and with a little chuckle, Statera joined him in dance.