Okeria paced impatiently from one side of the room to the other while he muttered something to himself that was both self-deprecating and an insult directed at me. I rolled my eyes and leaned back against the bench he’d brought out to the middle of nowhere. Jun sighed theatrically and leaned against my shoulder, then nodded up at the sky.

“I wonder what it’s going to look like.”

“Pretty boring. A flash of light, some strange colours, and then they’ll be here.” I said simply, pulling from my memories of the first time I’d been called to the all-world. “If you’re not running from the destruction of your home planet, it’s not much to look at.”

She grabbed my hand and started tracing little patterns on my palm. “Not the portal itself. I mean the entire spectacle of Okeria having to pretend that he’s a good, worried dad for his kids.”

I chuckled and let her do her thing. “Oh, that. Yeah, that’ll be interesting either way.”

“Ya know I can her the two of ya, right?” Okeria snipped nervously. “And I ain’t pretendin’. Whether ya believe it or not, I actually do love my kids. I’m terrified if they’re gonna want anythin’ ta do with their old man who barely ever got ta see ‘em.”

“Hey, if they hate you, you can pretend we’re your kids.” I offered.

“No.”

I shrugged. “Hey, don’t say I didn’t offer.”

Okeria sighed and shook his head, but he couldn’t hide the little grin that tugged at his lips. He turned away and stared up at the sky, worry so obvious on his face that it hurt a little to look at him. His kids were being thrown into a place that wasn’t very safe at all, and they’d have to start from the very beginning.

I didn’t want to say it, but they were baggage. Things on Sotrien must’ve escalated horribly if Thraiv was still intent on sending them over after Okeria reported the Endra situation to his god slash wife.

“I wonder if there are any Keratilys left back home.” Jun wondered. “A few of them were okay, but most of them were horrible people. I’m not sure they deserved to die for that–especially not the kids who were just following their parents–but I’m pretty sure Moricla isn’t really… stable?”

If she was anything like the Moricla we saw in the hazard, then no. Stable was close to the last thing Moricla was.

“Are Acasiana and Mortician not coming?” Okeria asked without turning back to face us. “I thought they said they were.”

“Nope. Mortician and Viri are training with our little army, and Acasiana’s trying to get the other parts of the facility up and running. On your orders.” Jun reminded Okeria.

“Huh. Right.” Okeria chuckled nervously. “Guess I’m just a little too nervous ta remember silly little things like what I said a few hours ago. I am wearin’ clothes, right? Didn’t forget those?”

I patted my chest and shook my head. “Nothing except your armor.”

“Good. Good. Don’t want to make a worse impression than I already have.”

Colours and sounds burst to life only a few feet off the ground. Okeria grunted in surprise and took a step back so he wasn’t directly inside the mess, then looked back at us with a pleading expression. Jun and I both gave him our own encouraging gestures, a few friendly insults, then some actually encouraging words.

“They’re your kids. If they’re anything like you, you’ll have your hands full keeping them out of your many secret stashes. Won’t leave any time for doubt.”

“Yeah! The little I remember of them from training was pretty good.” Jun added. “Just treat them with respect like the adults they are. Kind of like how you treat us, minus the insults and the sarcasm.”

“But the insults and the sarcasm are how I show my love.” Okeria argued.

I snorted, then frowned when he looked seriously worried. “Uh, if you’re serious, try to keep it to a minimum until you can gauge if they understand your personality. Not everyone reacts to sarcasm with sarcasm of their own.”

He nodded vigorously, as if taking advice from me was sage to do. I raised my eyebrows at Jun for help, but she nodded too. So maybe I’d actually said something good?

The mass shuddered and writhed as if responding to me as well, then froze. Cables of colour hung in midair like the back of a horribly maintained server room, all surrounding a single white sphere the size of my head. Thin wires wriggled free from the larger cables and inserted themselves into the sphere, bleeding tiny amounts of colour onto the no longer pristine orb.

All at once, the colour drained from the cables. It shot down the wires and into the sphere, filling it with a chaotic mess of swirling madness that raged against its confines like a newborn chick trying to break out of its egg. Okeria took a few more generous steps back as the thing grew increasingly powerful and dangerous by the second until it was so chaotic that the thing in the middle had no resemblance to a sphere at all.

With one last shuddering twitch, the thing split in two and let out a waterfall of colour and sensations. I breathed deep of the sensations that felt all too familiar for some reason, then set my mouth in a grim line. There was no need for this much power for two random people, no matter who their parents were. Something else was coming through.

“Okeria.”

He audibly ground his teeth and summoned his armor. “I know. If it looks real bad, call for Acasiana and Mortician. We ain’t gettin’ anyone else mixed up in this.”

Jun let go of my hand as her armor appeared. I pushed myself to my feet and did the same, never once taking my eyes off the curtain of existential stuff that connected Sotrien to the all-world. My mind instantly went to two possibilities. One–somehow, someone had hijacked the portal, and we were about to have part two of the war.

Or two–Moricla was coming.

Neither option spelled anything good for us. An insane Moricla would probably kill Jun just as easily as she would Keratily proper, and anything powerful enough to hijack the portal would wipe us out in an instant.

I shifted my weapon into a shield and planted myself between Jun, Okeria, and the portal. The two of them fell in behind me, weapons raised and functions at the ready.

“What do we do if its Moricla?” I asked as quietly as possible.

“Drown me, I don’t got a clue. Is killin’ a god harder or easier than killin’ an Embodiment?” Okeria half-asked, half laughed. “Skies above, are my kids alright? They gotta be, right? Right?”

I didn’t have a satisfying answer for him, so I kept my mouth shut. Existence continued to cascade forth even as the flow seemed to harden in place, then shift slightly. The flow turned upwards on itself and left large holes in the cascade, creating a perfect ring of intertwined colours with a massive power void in the middle. Then it flashed once, and the world beyond the portal came into view for a split second.

The first word that came to mind was ‘brutal’. Huge samey buildings with massive transparent platforms above them took up the skyline, but beyond that, there was nothing. The ground looked dead, there were very few plants, and absolutely no signs of non-Staura life. But the strangest thing was that the window was bereft of anyone. No gods, no kids, and no Embodiments.

“Shit.” I muttered and forced the ground under my feet to melt into petal-scales. “The second you see Moricla, fill her full of holes.”

“Oh, we’ll do way worse than that.” Jun said seriously.

We waited a few tense heartbeats for anything to show itself. My hands shifted on my shield, ready to expand the petal-scales that coated it into a full-blown bunker if Moricla appeared. Time crawled on. Seconds stretched into tens of seconds, and the absolute tense aura sort of faltered into confusion. Then those tense of seconds turned into minutes, and confusion completely overtook whatever tenseness was left.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked as I finally unclenched my fingers. “Are the portals supposed to last this long?”

Okeria walked up next to me and shook his head. “No way, no how. Even if they’re bringin’ a hundred new recruits through, they’re only supposed ta last thirty seconds at most. Not… how long’s this one been up for?”

“What, can't you check it yourself?” Jun opened her interface, then shut it. “Four and a half minutes, give or take fifteen seconds. So it’s nine times more powerful than the regular ones, and we haven’t seen anyone come through yet. Think they’re trying to get us to come over?”

“No. No, no, no. Definitely not.” Okeria said. “I would’ve got somethin’ from Thraiv tellin’ us ta do that. It’s definitely some kinda bait for us, but I don’t know what would want us ta do that. Seb, does your big scary not-quite-Embodiment have any info?”

//I MAY HAVE HAD A HAND IN THIS.

//THOUGH NOT QUITE AS DIRECTLY AS OKERIA MAY BE IMPLYING.

//IT IS MORE OF A… RIPPLE EFFECT FROM SOMETHING I DID MONTHS AGO.

“It says that it’s its fault.”

//THAT… IS NOT AT ALL WHAT I SAID.

“It also decided to actually respond for once instead of staying silent. Like it’s done so many times since we got to Rainbow Basin.”

//COME ON.

//WE HAVE BEEN QUITE BUSY.

I grinned into my helmet as Jun stifled a laugh. Messing with a Primordial was far more enjoyable than it should’ve been, especially since I could physically hear the ‘harrumps’ in its voice when I stopped responding.

“Well, I guess I’ve got a guess as to who’s comin’ through now.” Okeria said slowly. “Looks like we’re gonna have ta make a little more space in the facility.”

There was something in his voice that I couldn’t quite place. It didn’t fit at all with the fear from a minute ago, and somehow all of his confusion was gone? Did he know something we didn’t? Because the only one he had access to that we didn’t was Thraiv. And a god couldn’t just come through this easily, right? Even though I’d just been terrified of Moricla doing the exact same thing?

A loud crack sounded from across the portal. I flinched and snapped to the source of the sound, then watched in awe as a building crumbled from the bottom-up as if it were nothing but a sandcastle. Figures appeared in the distance, all three of them unarmored, and one a whole lot more godly than the other two. But they did all share a… family resemblance.

“OUTTA THE WAY!” A male voice screamed in panic as the figures got close. “WE’RE GONNA JUMP!”

Ah. He even talked like Okeria. I took a step to the side with Jun hot on my heels, but Okeria didn’t move at all. He just held out his arms, as if ready to accept the most violent hug in the history of the world. A blur of… something welled up behind Thraiv and Okeria’s kids, then rocketed them straight through the portal and into his waiting arms.

Okeria easily caught all three of them and turned the momentum into a happy spin. He shed his armor right as confusion crept onto his dauhgter’s face, which was then replaced with pure joy. His son shared the expression, though it was a little less vibrant on his face. Probably because he took more after his mother–the god Thraiv–who was crying tears of joy and peppering Okeria’s cheeks and lips with quick kisses.

“Well. I guess they love him a whole lot more than we thought.” Jun laughed as she wrapped her arm around my waist. “But… uh… that’s one of our gods. And they’re on the all-world. That can’t be good.”

“That’s probably an understatement.” I sighed and pulled her in closer. “But it’s just the cherry on top of the fucked-up cake we’ve already made, isn’t it?”

“Language.” A slightly familiar voice said.

Jun and I turned to the source of the voice. Anything I wanted to say got caught in my throat at the sight of the woman in what was once a pure white dress, and was now stained all the different colours Staura blood could be. She looked down at us with a mixture of exhaustion, sadness, and… relief? Why relief?

She pointed directly at my face, but didn’t let any part of her body leave the portal. “Tell The End that I’m not running away. Its one-sided agreement stands, and I will find you when innocence can thrive on Sotrien once more.”

With that, the portal collapsed on itself, leaving me and Jun to stare slack-jawed at where it had once been. We shared a look, then both laughed nervously as Okeria and his family continued their apparently long-awated reunion.

Jun grabbed me and pulled me into a short but passionate kiss. “This really is one fucked-up cake we’ve made, isn’t it?”