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Among The Stars

Chapter Eleven

By Roofles

“All we have to do is get to the ship, get Sphinx and then we can follow after Bai’Tai-,” Isaac told Typhon. The two had been heading for the shipping dock after rediscovering Isaac’s old classmate on the ship. He’d been so distracted with the thought of seeing Bai’Tai again that he didn’t even notice the other Saberwolf blocking their path.

The door unlocked for them, opening up to an expansive hallway leading towards the shipping port. There hadn’t been any security on the way, oddly enough. Isaac had overlooked it for a sign of good fortune to come. Yet there, before them, as they entered the hallway was the cybernetic Saberwolf. Blocking their way forward.

Typhon pulled Isaac back before the Terran could walk face first into Cyclone.

“You.” Typhon snarled, keeping Isaac at a safe distance behind him. Typhon’s nails glowed as he got into a fighting stance, wanting to pounce on top of this pretender. “Who are you!” Typhon demanded to know, fur beginning to spark with energy.

“Cyclone? Shouldn’t you be in the medical wing?” Isaac asked, confusion written all over his face as he looked the other alien canine over. Isaac’s left mechanical eye never worked properly with the stranger, fizzling out and giving error messages whenever he tried to read or scan him.

As if what was before him didn’t even exist.

“We were just heading towards the shipping bay. Would you like to join us?” Isaac asked, trying to keep the peace between the two. Typhon looked ready to rip Cyclone’s other eye out as he snarled, drool dripping from his lips as he glared at Cyclone.

“I’m sorry Isaac, I can’t let you do that.” Cyclone said, a deep sorrow heavily weighing his words down as he refused to move from the spot. “This isn’t safe for you to be here. You need to leave this ship, but not through there,” he motioned behind him.

Trying to give him a warning. Typhon was having none of it.

“Don’t tell Isaac what he can and can’t do.” Typhon warned, growling louder now. “You fake. You imposter. You artificial, unnatural bastard!” Typhon’s hackles rose and lightning crackled between the strands of fur as he crouched down, arcing his back up like an angry cat. “Pretender. That’s all you ever were! I should’ve killed you the second you stepped on our ship!”

“Typhon, isn’t that a bit much?” Isaac wanted to reach out for Typhon. To calm him down. The energy pumping off Typhon’s body, however, made it impossible to close the distance between them. It was the first time Isaac had to step away from Typhon since he’d known the Saberwolf for fear of getting burned by that energy sparking from the core in his chest.

Typhon could feel it. Feel his crystallized core in his chest beating like a heart. Alongside his heart, it continued to release that energy into his system-like blood from his heart. It pumped through him. Flowing down his arms and legs. It made his large tail flag behind him as the very air around him became heated.

Isaac clutched his chest, feeling the shard inside him reacting to Typhon’s energy. It wanted to return. TO be pulled back into that maelstrom of chaotic power within Typhon. To return to the very core it had come from.

Isaac, the Terran, began breathing heavily as he clutched his chest. It felt like his heart was beating a thousand beats a minute. It hurt to breathe as the energy inside could barely be contained by the arc reactor he’d replaced his heart with.

“Typhon,” Isaac coughed, covering his mouth with a hand as he slumped down to one knee.

“Isaac-,” Cyclone reached for him, but Typhon got in the way. Typhon was now the one blocking Cyclone’s way.

“Don’t. You. Dare touch him!” Typhon howled and the lights above them surged with energy, overflowing and breaking as shards of glass fell around them. Even within the darkened hallway, they could all see.

Typhon’s blue light filled the corridor. Lashing out at any darkness that crept too close. Electrical bursts of energy sparking outwards to crackle and dance across the floor, electrifying it.

Cyclone couldn’t even take another step forward as he glared at the other Saberwolf.

“Pretender? I could say the same thing to you!” Cyclone snapped his metal jaws together. “You,” he jabbed a finger at Typhon. He was shaking. Cyclone was shaking with pure rage and hatred toward this other man. “You’re the imposter here!”

“More lies. That’s all you can say.” Typhon huffed, cracking a smile at the other male. That’s how Typhon saw this. This other male had intruded on his turf, going after his mate. It might’ve been the primitive, primal part of his brain that told him this. But that instinct had saved Typhon countless times before.

It was now telling him to deal with Cyclone once and for all.

“Isaac,” Cyclone said.

“Don’t say his name!” Typhon slashed out a hand and the claws, though they never touched, cut through the wall at his side leaving several large lacerations through the metal. The electricity had taken shape, forming into that of a bestial claw to lash out with.

Typhon could do this. He could focus these feelings and instincts to control the storm inside. Giving it shape and purpose. To kill his enemies with.

“Nothing but a madman I see. Don’t even hesitate to kill,” Cyclone turned his left side towards Typhon. Lifting up his mechanical arm, he prepared to absorb Typhon’s energy again. “This is Saber tech. Just like what our ancestors used to siphon the power from the Guardian’s corpse. With this tech, even your guardian light can’t harm me.”

Typhon felt a tug. The air around him pulling towards Cyclone. Like a vacuum, the cybernetic Saberwolf’s arm began to siphon the power radiating off Typhon’s body.

“You think that’ll stop me?” Typhon felt a twinge of fear from what was happening. Just as he was getting a hand on this strange power of his, his rival had countered it just as quickly. As if Cyclone had known far ahead of time to prepare for such a thing.

“I might’ve failed before, but I have all the time in the universe to adapt.” Cyclone didn’t need to press forward. He used Typhon’s own uncertainties against him. If this became a war of attrition, Cyclone could easily win by stealing Typhon’s power away, even if momentarily.

Isaac could feel the shard inside his chest ease as Typhon’s energy began to diminish. It was enough for him to get back to his feet.

“Cyclone!” Isaac shouted at the other man. “Why…?”

“I should’ve done this from the start, Isaac.” Cyclone snorted, turning his nose upwards as Typhon had done previously. “To leave you with this imposter? It was my mistake… something I’ll be fixing.” He twisted his metal hand, and the energy began to drain faster.

Isaac could see the blue light getting pulled from Typhon’s body as the Saberwolf collapsed onto all four. The color being literally drained from his fur, leaving Typhon looking… dull and gray.

“Okay, fuck this.” Isaac might not have had his gun or a weapon, but he wasn’t just going to stand here and watch.

Jumping in front of Typhon, Isaac pressed the silver bangle band on his arm as Cyclone had taught him. One opal, then the other two in sequence. Isaac felt the band shake before it mimicked Cyclone’s gesture.

The raw energy pulled towards Isaac and the band instead of Cyclone, the Saberwolf being farther away from the flow than Isaac was.

“You alright?” Isaac dared to glance back at Typhon who was slowly recovering. As the energy flowed from the Saberwolf into the silver bangle, it in turn filled the shard in Isaac’s chest. The energy hurt; it burned like fire.

Isaac winced, enduring the pain to protect Typhon.

“Isaac,” Cyclone said his name. He seemed to enjoy that. Saying his name. Over and over again. To hear the words spoken and to fill the air between them as if it were some kind of connection. “I know you feel indebted to this fake. He isn’t the real Typhon.”

“What…?” Isaac couldn’t help but listen as he looked back at Cyclone.

“Think about it,” Cyclone tapped the side of his head with his left hand. Letting go of the flow of energy. “Where did he come from? How is he here? What are the chances that you’d randomly run into him.”

“I-,” Isaac wasn’t sure what to say.

“You can’t.” Cyclone held up a finger, smirking at his victory. “You can’t explain any of it. Any of this. That kind of thing, that emptiness you feel inside…? It’s because he isn’t real.” Cyclone shook his head sadly. “I should’ve been the one you found. Not him. I was the one who set up such a meeting but… other forces got in the way.”

“The hell are you even talking about?” Isaac winced, holding the side of his head as a dull pain intensified just above his left eye.

“See there? That’s proof. The more you learn about the truth, the more painful it becomes. That’s a symptom of it. Of being void-touched. It doesn’t want you discovering the truth. It feeds off the unknown, the mystery, the fear of it… letting it fester and grow under your skin until-,”

“Stop it!” Isaac covered his ears, pulling back. “Typhon is Typhon. I’m Isaac… I’m… I’m…” The Terran felt the shard in his chest react, pulsing outwards and filling his body with a soft pale blue light. The pain began to dull, and he touched the spot.

“The spark protects you from the void. It’s why the Celestial Nations have been chosen. They can carry a crystal core, energize it with a Guardian’s Spark and then…” Cyclone motioned towards Typhon.

The Saberwolf’s fur began to glow blue once more. The dull ugly gray began filling with color and life as his core continued to release that energy into his body and being.

“My point exactly. The proof? The evidence you need Isaac to believe me? Is right before your very eyes. You’re just not willing to see it.” Cyclone huffed, glaring coldly at Typhon. “That thing replaced me on the ship. I was the one waiting for you in the hibernation pod…”

“But you… he…” Isaac touched his chest, finding comfort in the shard inside him. It felt like it was going to tear him in two, but without it? Isaac would’ve succumb to the madness threatening to consume his very mind.

“Don’t push it too hard, Isaac. Terran’s are… so fragile. There is a reason why your kind can’t become Guardians. Why Terran’s were never lifted up to become part of the Celestial Nation. There is a simple requirement.” Cyclone pointed at Isaac’s chest. “You must be compatible with the spark. Otherwise?”

“It’ll destroy me.” Isaac almost laughed at the cruel irony of it all. The shard in his chest was the only thing keeping him sane, yet it was also the very thing threatening to take his life. “Fuck,” he cursed. “If I didn’t have the arc reactor…” Isaac stopped at that, touching the metal plate over the artificial heart. “When did I get this…?”

“Typhon would’ve killed you after the mating process took place.” Cyclone stated as the fact it was. “Fooling around? That’s fine. But what the two of you did…? Well, binding yourselves to each other would’ve spelled a death sentence for you.”

Isaac looked up at him. “But… I looked into it. Sphinx looked into it…”

“Saberwolves are technically part of the Celestials. Even if they haven’t chosen to join the Celestial Nations as others did. And you know the one thing about Celestials, Isaac?” Cyclone growled low and deep, the sound of a metal engine revving in his chest fill the corridor.

“Celestial’s can’t date outside their own kind…” Isaac whispered the words, knowing all about it.

“Isaac,” Typhon pleaded, reaching for him. Isaac took a step back, looking at Typhon as if for the first time. Fear and confusion filled his face.

“You would’ve killed me if I didn’t have this artificial heart.” Isaac looked at Cyclone. “Which I have a feeling you did something about.”

Cyclone smiled in acknowledgement, “Finally. You’re finally looking at me instead of him.” Cyclone offered a hand. “Come, Isaac. I have much to tell you.”

“Isaac, don’t.” Typhon struggled to stand. His entire body felt drained and exhausted. He wanted to curl up on himself and sleep a cycle away. “I swear! I swear, I didn’t know… I would never hurt you.”

“Bai’Tai knew…” Isaac closed his eyes, letting out a shaky breath. “I had tried to date Bai’Tai. Asked him out and everything, what an embarrassing mess that had been.” Isaac wiped a hand through his sweaty hair, looking off to the side. “He said he was interested, but it’d be impossible for us to be together… now I understand why. Celestial’s can’t date outside their own. Not just because of social status, but because… alien races don’t mix well with Terran’s…”

“Exactly what your brother warned you about. Exactly what the Terran Fleet taught you. What the Terran Armada always preached with their propaganda…. It is true. Celestial’s and Terran’s cannot physically mix. The lesser of the two races will end up…” Cyclone closed his fist tightly. It shook. “That is why I had to help you. Protect you… why I did what I did,” Cyclone touched his chest. He could feel a metallic plate there, over where his heart should’ve been.

“Cyclone.” Isaac looked at him.

“I ripped out my core, in order to be with you.” Cyclone’s cold, dead eye looked up at Isaac. His muzzle dipped low, and the shadows seemed to increase around him. So deep they grew, Isaac couldn’t even see past where Cyclone stood.

The cybernetic Saberwolf took a step forward.

“Typhon is no different than Bai’Tai, Isaac. They will only hurt you in the end,” Cyclone offered his hand again. “Take it,” Isaac heard the words that the Saberwolf never said. “Take my hand and let us be done with this. These petty little games? Flying across the universe? Exploring new worlds? Fighting against the Armada? The Fleet? The Celestial’s…? Who do you think you are Isaac?”

Isaac winced, clutching his chest once more. Trying to hold onto the shard inside as if it were a safety blanket.

“You aren’t special,” the words weren’t Cyclone’s. They were from something else. Something lurking underneath, between the cracks and within the very shadows.

Eyes watching, fanged smiles hungry for a taste.

Cyclone grew darker and darker until he was nothing more than a silhouette of his former self. One eye staring at Isaac as sharp white fanged smile sprouted over his body. Grinning madly as eyes opened all around the Saberwolf. Circling and spinning until they stopped, focusing in on Isaac…

And all the fanged smiles grew in size. They peeled and pulled off Cyclone’s body. Smiles that formed on his arms and legs and body, that ripped clean from his flesh and stretched through the very air.

“Isaac,” they whispered and yelled, they screamed to the point Isaac thought his eardrums would break before all he heard was silence.

Everything was dark. There was no ship, no hallway. Typhon and Cyclone were gone and in the vast emptiness, Isaac felt it.

A beat of a heart, calling towards him.

“It’s alright,” it spoke words from behind. A furry hand touched his shoulder, gently pushing him forward. “It’s okay, not to be special. Not to be unique or interesting. To be just another… nobody.” Isaac couldn’t see it but knew the thing smiled. “I can make you so much more. I can make you the hero of this story. Give you your own ship. Let you race across the stars! Chasing space pirates, battling entire armies. What whimsical fun adventures you will have…”

Isaac felt the left arm he didn’t have reach up on it’s own accord.

“That’s right, Isaac. You’re almost there…” The jackal pressed against his back as splitting maws with fanged teeth ripped open like zippers across it’s entire body. The grinning faces pulled upwards from its arms and legs. Smiling as Isaac felt it.

With the tip of his finger, he felt the smooth surface of a piece of wood, then that of something round and metallic.

“Isaac…”

It felt like a doorknob. His doorknob. That’s right, Isaac felt the tears weld up in his eyes. It was the doorknob to the farm house he grew up in.

“Take hold of it,” the thing continued to encourage him. “Grab hold of it, me, and turn it…”

Isaac’s hand reached out, grabbing the hourglass within Cyclone’s coat-

The doorknob to the farmhouse. The touch of it, the feel of it? Isaac would’ve recognized it anywhere. If he simply turned this knob, turned this door and opened it…

Turned the hourglass, twisted it around for the sands inside to fall…

Then.

Then…

“Isaac.”

“I can go home.” Isaac felt as if he were a child as his fingers clasped the metal, the wood, of the door, the hourglass, and began to turn it.

“Isaac!” A voice like thunder shattered the illusion around him and the shadows retreated as quickly as they had come.

Blue. Radiant blue light filled the hall as a massive wolf stood behind Isaac. His body was made of electricity that channeled through the saber fangs jutting from the top of it’s muzzle.

“Enough, apparition.” It spoke and it was like there was a crack of a whip, a whip made of thunder and the shadows broke and shattered like shards of glass. Falling all around them. “This child is not yours to take. Do not press your luck.”

With a hiss like steam, the thing with too many mouths and too many eyes was banished back into the dark as Isaac blinked. He blinked and it was gone. It wasn’t so much blinking, as it was opening his eyes to see the light pouring in all around him.

“Child of man, of clay and dirt. Do not…” The massive wolf spoke, and Isaac fearfully turned around to see what it could possibly want from him.

The energy might’ve taken the form of a wolf, but Isaac knew it was far more than that as it radiated and sparked. It’s entire being was made of energy. Volatile blue energy that crackled and sparked, threatening to burn everything around it as the massive wolf bent down.

“Your…” Isaac felt the shard inside him react. A hot warmth that threatened to consume him from the inside out. He clutched his throat, trying to breathe as the heat intensified. Burning hotter and brighter until he wretched.

Keeling over, Isaac threw up. Vomiting a pool of tarlike substance. It spilled from his lips, flowing out of his body like cold bile and Isaac hacked and coughed until there was nothing left.

The pool of black remained still, motionless… before violently reacting. The amorphous creature lashed out with tendrils of that black substance. Trying to grab hold of something, anything as it desperately tried to fight to…

“It wants to remain here, even now. After I purged it from your being.” The mammoth sized wolf shrunk down, condensing it’s energy until it stood before Isaac of equal height. On all fours, the wolf bent down and tore the congealed mass with its teeth.

All it took was one rip. Ripping it’s body open for it’s form to be broken. Pieces of it’s body began to dissolve, disappearing into nothingness. Fading from existence, if it ever existed to begin with.

“A parasite that took hold,” the wolf explained as it watched the thing disappeared. Making sure nothing remained.

Isaac lifted his hand to a piece of the things body. Like a shredded black cloth, it floated in the air. Bits and pieces dissolved as if the air itself were acidic to it.

“It can’t exist in our reality.” Isaac said.

“Not without stealing someone else’s form or hiding within a body of something that exists in this reality.” The wolf just watched as the fabric rose up between them. His fangs sparked, threatening to rip it apart for good.

“Wait!” Isaac said, stopping the beast. It frowned at that. “There’s no need, is there…? It’s already too late.” Isaac wanted to reach out, to touch it.

“Why do you hesitate?”

“I can feel it’s pain… it was a part of me for so long that I know that all it was, was a miserable, yet pitiful thing that didn’t want to go.” Isaac’s fingers closed, but it was too late as the piece of the void inside him vanished forever. “I’m sorry…” Isaac felt a tear run down his face. “It’s my fault, isn’t it…? This thing might’ve been a parasite, but I knowingly, willingly let it into my body…”

“Why do such a thing? What could’ve possibly possessed you to commit such an… unnatural act?” It asked, as if confused how a Terran, or maybe, how a mortal could think.

“Because I know what loss is…” Isaac said as the last vestiges of the void parasite faded from existence. “I know what it’s like wanting to live. To know what it’s like to fear death. I know what it wanted…”

“And that was…?” It asked, wishing to know it’s enemy.

“It wanted to-,” Isaac stopped. As he felt it, or rather, he heard it.

“Than… k… y… ou…. Isaac… Mayhew…” The voice whispered into the air.

“I see,” Isaac almost laughed as he felt the dampness of his cheek with the back of his arm, wiping it away. “All it wanted was that. To exist, if only for a second longer. To know what it was to be… real.”

“They had their chance. Do not pity them. For they chose this fate long before you… or I ever existed. This is the punishment for their sin.” The wolf looked up and Isaac followed his eyes towards the vastness around them.

“Where are we?” Isaac asked, looking around.

“We are simply in a place your mind can comprehend without shattering.” It blinked, turning to look at him. “It is strange that you are still sane after speaking to me. You’re kind is so… fragile.”

“Yeah, I’ve been getting that a lot lately.” Isaac sighed, rubbing the back of his head. “Uh… I’m Isaac, by the way. And you are?” Isaac wanted to offer a hand but was afraid to be touched by something made of pure electricity.

“I have been known by many names. Some say I am the voice of thunder; others claim I am the energy that bursts from the heavens. The Saberwolves both revered and feared me. Unwilling to give me a true name for dare risking my wrath,” it chuckled darkly, it’s voice rumbling as it did so.

“Raij?,” Isaac said, thinking it over. “He was a god of thunder, if I recall correctly. Back home, I mean. It’s better to have a name than not. It helps make you feel… real, doesn’t it?”

“Strange mortal creature.” The wolf snorted over Isaac’s face. It smelled of ozone. Like the air before a heavy thunderstorm. “I…” It stopped, turning to the side as if hearing something Isaac couldn’t. “It is time for me to go.”

“Already? I have so many questions from this fever dream.” Isaac stammered out.

“I am only a single spark of what I once was. A piece, a fragment long since lost.” It reached up a clawed paw and with a single nail, touched the spot in Isaac’s chest where the shard was. He could feel the nail go through his body and into the shard. The sensation made him shiver.

“Are you just leaving? After all, whatever the fuck that was?” Isaac asked, looking into it’s eyes. Eyes that were vast and distant, as if seeing things from far, far away. Clouds on the horizon, coming in with a heavy rain.

“I am not leaving you. I am forever with you, Isaac of the dirt planet.” It said as it’s body began to flow inwards, inside Isaac and back into the shard in his chest.

“You didn’t have to add in the dirt planet part…” Isaac winced as the energy began pouring back inside him. It flowed into him so naturally that one would’ve thought that Isaac had been born with the shard inside him to begin with. “What if I need you again…?” Isaac wanted to reach out, to grab hold of it. Afraid it’d disappear and he’d be left alone.

“Never fear the dark, dear child of the stars, for you with my light, you will never be alone…”

Isaac touched the spot on his chest after watching the creature return from wince it came. For some reason, it deeply reminded him of Typhon and, as he blinked again, he could hear the sound of someone calling his name.

“Isaac.” Isaac blinked and there stood Typhon before him.

“Hey there…” Isaac smiled seeing his dear, beloved friend and partner. “I had the strangest dream…”

“Are you alright?” Typhon practically howled; hugging Isaac close to his chest. His body shook. He shook so much that it took Isaac a second in his stupor to realize it was Typhon and not an earthquake happening. “I’m sorry.” Typhon said, desperately pleading. “I knew it might’ve been risky. I knew there might’ve been possibilities that us being together could… could…” Typhon tossed back his muzzle.

And Typhon did howl.

A retched, horrible sound as it ripped out his throat like broken glass. Letting out all his sorrow and misery with that horrible sound. The Saberwolf tilting his muzzle back further, howling out his misery with the single, long-drawn-out tone of it.

“I’m sorry,” Typhon cried, hugging Isaac tightly. “Please. Please, don’t leave me… I’m so, so sorry Isaac…”

From the void parasite inside, to the lightning blue wolf god… Isaac returned the hug, holding Typhon close.

For Isaac knew what loneliness was. No matter the risk, no matter how dangerous it was or could be... How much it could hurt. With all the possibilities of things going wrong, Isaac would’ve happily chosen this life every single time.

“I promised you, didn’t I?” Isaac pulled back just enough to look into Typhon’s eye, petting the side of his face as he did so. “I’m not going anywhere,” Isaac gave a tired smile. “Besides, where could I possible go without you by my side?”

Typhon couldn’t say anything to that. His lips opened, his tongue curled but before he could speak, Isaac kissed him. A deep, long kiss as the two held the other in each other’s arms. Refusing to let go.

Isaac was back in the hallway with Typhon as if nothing had happened. The lights above them had reset. The doorway was still open. In fact, it was as if they’d gone back in-

“How!” Cyclone snapped his jaws and the two looked over at him still standing there. The deep empty well of darkness wasn’t behind him any longer. He’d returned to the way he was. A damaged, scarred individual that looked as lonely and lost as the void parasite inside Isaac had.

“Cyclone,” Isaac tapped Typhon’s arms and the Saberwolf let him go. Isaac stood up, facing towards him. “Look. There’s a whole lot of things going on right now. Let’s just sit down and talk about it.”

“Talk?” Cyclone’s eye twitched. “Talk!” He shouted the word out. “As if talking would ever fix anything,” he reached out his hand towards Isaac. “Sink back into despair, Isaac. I will fish you out of that cold dark after I am done with your pet!”

Isaac felt a cold grasp try to take hold… but it passed right through him. Cyclone seemed just as surprised as Isaac had.

Where there had been a deep pit inside Isaac’s chest, now all he felt was the warm shard glowing. Isaac touched the spot.

“Well, that’s a nice relief… thank you,” Isaac said to the shard, or rather, what remained inside it. Facing towards Cyclone, he gave him one last chance. “Cyclone. Enough is enough. I don’t know how you’ve done all this. What your end game is… but it ends here and now.”

“Ends?” Cyclone went painfully still. Eerily standing there, motionless. Not even breathing. “The end…? You wish to get to the end? The end. End. End of what? Of us? Of him. Of this time? Of space…” Cyclone twitched, his mechanical arm needing to hold his normal one in place. Keeping it from lashing out. “I won’t let it end, Isaac!” He bit out, clenching his jaw so tight that thick black ooze like oil dripped between his teeth.

“Hey, shard dude, can you like… burn that stuff out of him like you did me?” Isaac felt like an idiot talking to his chest like this. It remained painfully silent.

“Enough!” Cyclone howled. “Enough of these games. Enough of this… I will have what I came for. As for you,” Cyclone looked at Typhon and that well of sadness turned to a fiery hatred as the mechanical jaw growled a low, metallic sound as the two Saberwolves faced off against one another. “How long will it take you to learn that you can’t just let him do as he pleases. How many times must Isaac die before you get it in that thick skull of yours!”

“Die?” Isaac said the word. A pain started up in his head, but the warmth of the spark kept it at bay. Holding back the dark truth threatening to consume him.

“Isaac’s a big boy and can handle himself.” Typhon snorted out a laugh, sneering at the other man.

If it weren’t for his mechanical parts, it would’ve looked as if Typhon were standing in front of a dark mirror. An almost perfect reflection of himself scarred and marred throughout the passage of time, leaving Cyclone a shade of his former self.

“What’s the meaning of this, Cyclone?” Isaac butted in before the two could tear each other’s throats out. Pushing past Typhon, he looked at the other canine. Typhon kept an arm held up, blocking Isaac from reaching Cyclone. “Did Raphael put you up to this? You don’t have to just-,”

“No, Isaac.” Cyclone’s anger soften seeing the Terran before him. Still, even now, Isaac was trying to help him. To reach out a hand where others hadn’t… “You’re so pure, like the brightest star… it hurts to look at you, yet I can’t pull my gaze away.”

Unharmed, if slightly altered, Isaac remained the same. Even after everything they’d gone through. Cyclone couldn’t understand how Isaac came out with a few scratches and he, himself, had come out looking like this... The cost growing each time. The price to pay endless. Cyclone could keep giving to the void but in the end, it would never be enough it seemed.

“It has nothing to do with Raphael or the council or the celestials… Only us. This time, I tried something different. That’s all. Change it up. A beat of a butterfly wings can change the course of history or so they say…” Cyclone took a heavy step forward and Typhon pushed Isaac back.

“Enough!” Typhon’s fur stood on end as blue electricity surged through his body. “I’m tired of you always interfering. You…” Typhon wasn’t sure what it was. Looking at him, this stranger, this intruder into their lives.

Looking at him, Typhon felt an uncomfortable familiarity even though he knew he’d never met Cyclone before this. It wasn’t that, though, that bothered him so much. Seeing Cyclone? All Typhon felt was pure, unfiltered hatred. A self-hatred that made his teeth clench so tight blood was drawn.

Blue tinted blood dripped from Typhon’s lips as he clutched his arm, trying to keep his anger contained. He wanted to howl, to lash out, to cry and rage and throw a hissy fit seeing Cyclone. Something about him made a pit form inside Typhon’s chest. As if there were an empty hole that could never be filled.

He hated Cyclone. He hated him so much that Typhon wanted to die... To claw and tear him apart. To rip out his fur and weep uncontrollably for reasons he couldn’t possibly understand or begin to fathom. A deep well of self-hatred that bubbled like hot tar.

Oozing up between the cracks.

“Stay out of this. You’ll only fail, again.” Cyclone warned and Typhon snapped his teeth at that.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to pull but you won’t separate us! Not you, not them, the entire universe can be against us… I don’t care.” Typhon spoke words he felt inside that he didn’t even know were there. “No one will take my starlight from me again.”

“Again…?”

Triggered something deep inside. That wasn’t there but would eventually be.

“It’s alright, Typhon… my beloved, sweet, silly man…” A hand. Whose hand was it? Touching him, holding him, comforting him even as Typhon knew he should’ve been the one comforting them.

Seeing Cyclone triggered something in him. Something that hadn’t been there, something that would be planted in the future. To fester and grow. Failures and countless mistakes. Cracks that formed and festered and bubbled from beneath his skin.

“It’s not your fault.”

Typhon gripped his head, wanting to howl in pain as a spike pierced through his skull. Something lodging inside. A piece of another, himself, trying to return. Memories, thoughts, feelings that were and weren’t his own. It made him stumble to the side, holding onto the wall for support.

Typhon was panting so hard that drool dripped from his mouth, slathering the wall as he clung to it for support.

“It’s okay, Typhon.” The words were so familiar. So painfully familiar.

“Know my pain,” Cyclone didn’t take his eyes off Typhon. Letting it all out. A dam that broke and a dark river that flowed forth. “A river that only flows one way,” sweeping everything it took out with it to “the void sea…”

“Typhon!” Isaac shouted, jumping to his aide. Trying to help. The Saberwolf couldn’t even hear his words as hot tears ran down his face.

“I’m sorry,” he wept. “I’m so, so sorry…” Typhon begged and pleaded for it to end. Misery overwhelmed his senses. It was too much to bear, too much to take.

Typhon could feel his hands that weren’t his own, clawing at his chest. Wanting to grab hold of and rip out his still beating heart. Or rather, his core. To rip out the very thing that had harmed them so. To hurt the one he loved, he wanted to break it. To shatter his core and be free of his crime.

“It’s not your fault, Typhon. I should’ve known better. It’s not on you…” Isaac said, but he didn’t say it. It was his voice, his words but it wasn’t at the same time. “I was always doomed… fated to die far before you ever would. I’m just glad I at least had a night of such passion and pleasure before I finally reached… my end.”

A hand, covered in blue crystal shards, touched Typhon’s weeping face. Petting the side of it as the blue sparks of energy danced violently inside the crystallized shards embedded into the Terran’s flesh. Bursting out of him.

“I was never compatible with you, it seemed.” He, they, coughed blue tinted blood. “A Terran’s biology was never meant to contain such a thing.” It wasn’t a disease. It wasn’t a virus. It was something that Typhon had done to him. To them. To the one he claimed to have loved.

“Know only misery and pain,” Cyclone increased the pressure of it. Pushing it all that was inside him onto Typhon. Forcing it on the other Saberwolf. “Hate yourself. Know your sins. There is no repentance for what you have done. This. This is the truth you wished to avoid… even knowing, you still… I still… did it,” Cyclone felt the hot tears run down his face. “I wanted the pleasure. To feel what it was like to be… loved. And I forever had to pay the price for it. It’s only fair that my misery to be shared.” Cyclone clutched his hand as if squeezing Typhon’s heart. “I will shatter your core before you can harm him any more than you already have… or will.”

Typhon glared up at the other Saberwolf, redirecting this pain into anger to focus on the source of it all. He wasn’t sure how, but he knew that Cyclone was responsible for this.

“It’s my fault…” Typhon wept tears for something that hadn’t happened. Hot burning tears that made him want to claw out his very heart. These feelings were and weren’t his own. That want, that desire to puncture his chest with his nails and tear out the source of it all. To rip out his core, to break it into shards and scattered it across the universe to be forgotten. “This is what you did, wasn’t it…?”

“It was a small price to pay for what I could gain,” Cyclone opened up his arms, looking down at Typhon. Needing to explain it to him so that, one day, he too would follow in Cyclone’s steps. Continuing this endless journey of suffering and pain. “The void is endless. Endless possibilities. Endless opportunities. The core kept us from reaching such depths. It protected us but hindered us. Our people. The Celestial Nations? If only they knew the power the void held… the potential we could reach. We could become gods!”

“I didn’t know…” Typhon slumped to his feet as Cyclone stood there. An eerie reflection of himself. A future he was doomed to follow? A cruel fate he couldn’t escape…? Was this his inevitable end. Was Typhon life only leading to this moment?

Or…

“It’s alright, Typhon.” A soft hand touched his. It was covered with blue crystal shards. “It isn’t your fault. This is just… a price to pay.”

“What’s happening to me!” Typhon howled out, holding his head as the sparks of energy burst outwards, violently lashing at everything they could reach. Isaac was forced backwards, shielding his face from the sparks of energy.

Even Cyclone had to pull back. Covering his eyes from the painfully bright light.

The sparks formed, taking shape of a massive wolf over Typhon’s body. It snarled at Cyclone. Or rather, at the thing lurking within the other Saberwolf. For even though they were on the opposite side of the spectrum, the light and the void needed a vessel to carry them.

Typhon’s Guardian Light glowed with hostility for the darkness lurking with Cyclone.

“This wasn’t supposed to happen.” Isaac said, yet the words had belonged to Typhon. “I didn’t know this would happen. I’m so sorry, Isaac. Isaac, please… forgive me. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“What?” Isaac felt the warmth of blood run down his face. Hesitantly, he reached up to touch his upper lip where the bloody nose ran fresh. “What’s going on…?” He turned to look at Cyclone, eyes pleading as the wolf just stood there. “Everything is-,”

Breaking. The walls, the floor. Reality itself was at war with what shouldn’t be. With what couldn’t be. Two opposing forces clashing against each other as the blue lightning ripped apart the endless depths of the void threatening to drown them all.

The lights flickered. The hallway blinking in and out with the lights. Casting the world in darkness.

With a heavy step, Cyclone approached him.

“You asked and I tried to tell you.” Cyclone reached out a hand and Isaac flinched away. The Saberwolf stopped. His ear twitched, feeling hurt from Isaac’s actions. “Your mind and body can’t handle the truth, yet, Isaac. That is why I can’t just show you… can’t just tell you,” he took Isaac’s arm and pulled him to his feet. “In due time, I will… I’ll figure out how to do so. I’m still trying to figure it out myself. None of it makes sense. I don’t feel like myself, at times… as if something else lurks within my mind. Piece by piece. To put it all back together.”

Isaac felt cold. Cyclone’s touch was like ice. It numbed his arm where those fingers touched, and Isaac felt as if shards of glass were embedding themselves into his heart. Aching memories surfacing. They were and weren’t his own.

Of being there at the coast house. On a nameless planet, with a empty dark sea. There, within that beach house, an Isaac who wasn’t Isaac laid in a hospital bed, watching the sun set one last time. Shards of crystallized light had torn his body apart from the inside out.

There was no technology that could save him…

“The sunset is beautiful today…” They said, watching it set beyond the horizon. “I wonder… what lays beyond the horizon?” The Saberwolf at his side only wept silent tears, unable to answer. “When the lights go out… what happens then? Will I open my eyes to a new start? Will my life, my energy just fade away? Or will I be like… star dust… drifting through space… forever…?”

His voice grew weak and dull. It was a struggle to breath. The Saberwolf placed the oxygen mask back over his face, helping him the best he could. Trying to ease their suffering in these last moments.

“You know,” they said yet their lips didn’t move for they had no energy left to do so. The shards rupturing from their body was draining them of their life. “If I could do it all over again… I would.” They tried to touch the Saberwolf’s hand with their own. Only their pinky managed to touch. “Do it all over again, with you…”

“Then you were gone.” It was only Cyclone and Isaac in the hallway. “I won’t let him take you from me again.” He snarled and it took Isaac to understand that Cyclone wasn’t talking about Typhon, but rather, the core inside him.

The shard that was now in his chest. And of the lightning wolf that had inadvertently led to his death.

“I think I’m beginning to understand,” Isaac touched that spot where the shard was. He could feel it’s sorrow. Knowing that, in another reality, Isaac would’ve been doomed to die being… infected by this things light. “A Terran’s biology can’t handle this cosmic force of nature… this light. It killed me, or, it would kill me… if I didn’t have this,” he touched the arc reactor where his heart should’ve been. “Or this,” he lifted up his arm. He blinked and looked at Cyclone. “Everything, was somehow… your doing? To protect this, me… this life I’ve been given?”

“A second chance at life, heh… who wouldn’t want that.” Cyclone offered him his hand. “Now it’s time for us to depart. Come, Isaac, let us go… beyond the stars.”

Isaac smiled then at Cyclone.

“Cyclone?” Isaac took a second, “or would it be more appropriate to call you Typhon?”

“My name in that time was Cyclone, not Typhon. Typhon… was the brother I never had.” Cyclone snarled low.

“That’s what I thought.” Isaac closed his eyes, giving a single nod. He felt the shard inside his chest react. “Don’t worry, I know.” He spoke to it, understanding the warning it was trying to give him. “This Saberwolf isn’t my Typhon.”

“That’s not true!” Cyclone stepped forward.

“And I’m not your Isaac.” Isaac said, looking at him.

“Wha-, no, you have to be! You are the same. Just because I changed a few things doesn’t mean…” The pain in Cyclone’s eyes was clear.

“The experiences I’ve gone through have shaped me into the man I have become. I am not the same Isaac that you met. You can say my name as many times as you want or need to, Cyclone… but I am not the same Isaac. Just as you are not the same man that I’m with now.” Isaac smile didn’t fade from his face.

“Enough! Enough of these lies. I, I have the void. I have understanding. I’ll just repeat it all and,” Cyclone fished around in his jacket.

“Hey. Cyclone?”

The Saberwolf looked up at him.

“It’s not your fault,” Isaac said the words and Cyclone was the one to flinch as if Isaac had slapped him. “It’s not your fault what happened to me, to him… to your mate.” Jerking away, Cyclone let Isaac go. Taking a step back as the Terran looked at him with a bloody nose. A single tear ran down his eye as he looked at Cyclone. “It’s not your fault, Typhon… It’s not your fault, Cyclone. What happened? Wasn’t your fault.”

“No…” Cyclone pulled back. Taking a step, then another. Retreating from him. Isaac still looking at him with that eye. That eye that looked at him as he held his hand, for the last time. A pinky that brushed his own…

How many days did Cyclone stay there? Curled up by the body of his lover? They still had a peaceful smile on their face. Even as their body began to rot and decompose. It had to be a couple of days, maybe a week before Cyclone moved.

Before he had gotten up.

Before he could buried his love one by the sea that the two of them had spent so many nights at. Where the sun set. Enjoying each other’s company until… until the end came.

Digging the hole was the hardest part. Every push of the shovel into the dirt was another confirmation that this was, indeed, the end. The end of their journey. Of their life. An end to Cyclone and -. Cyclone didn’t know what to do then…

He traveled the stars. He took their ship and began doing whatever he could to fill the emptiness inside. Money? Booze? Drugs? Whatever he could get his hands on to make this dull empty ache inside end. Trying to fill the nothingness that was left behind.

Cyclone became a pirate. It was just easier that way. He was already a wanted outlaw. It was just the most logical next step to take. To take their ship and attack others. Stealing what was theirs, trying to take their happiness to know the joy of it again.

“It was all for not… no matter how much I tried, no matter how many times I brought back the loot to our place. Talking to your, his, grave… changed nothing. All the stories I told,” Cyclone covered his face with a hand, howling out. “All the stories meant nothing without – in it! Without him? I’m nothing. Everything is nothing, I can’t… can’t… can’t…” Cyclone wept.

“It’s not your fault.” Isaac said again. That he would say. Will say. A future doomed to repeat itself. An endless loop repeating itself. A joy that could only lead to pain. A course already set in the flow of time that couldn’t be change. A destination that, no matter which route you take, will always be their end. Their fate.

Unless they diverted from the path.

“I’ve fixed it.” Cyclone gritted his teeth. “I fixed it!” He shouted out and the ground beneath his feet began to churn and bubble. A thick black ooze bubbling up as it dripped from within his pant legs. Even the void couldn’t fill the emptiness inside him. “No… no, not yet. I’m not done here yet! I’ll f-fix it. I have, will, already have done it.” He stammered out, fumbling with his jacket. “I promise. I’ll make things right, Isaac. Then… then we can be together again.”

“Cyclone.” Isaac didn’t stop him, and, for some reason, that hurt Cyclone more than anything else as this other man, this Terran, looked at him with that eye. “Maybe next time? We can finish our chat…”

“Next time will be different.” Cyclone said. How many times had he said that? What number was this reset? How many more would he have to go through before he could finally fix what he had broken.

The cracks grew. A deep festering ooze bubbling between, within, the lines. Tendrils reaching up and out, wanting out. Wanting out. WANTING OUT!

Taking out the hourglass-

“I’ll see you,” Isaac gave a soft wave and an even softer smile.

“Next time, It’ll be different.” Cyclone went to turn the hourglass. His eyes looking away from Isaac, if only for a second. When he looked back up, the man standing there before him had no distinct face. It was blurry and Cyclone tried to blink.

To clear his vision.

To see what was hidden behind that foggy image.

“I’ll be waiting.” They said and Cyclone wasn’t sure if that was Isaac or not saying those words as he let the hourglass go….

…

….

…..

“All we have to do is get to the ship, get Sphinx and then we can follow after Bai’Tai-,” Isaac told Typhon as the two headed for the spaceport.

Walking side by side, down the hallway, the two headed for the ship. To pick up Sphinx, to begin their investigation into Bai’Tai. Another step down a road they’d already taken. Down a path that could only lead to mutual self-destruction.

And yet, Isaac stopped then. Glancing behind him. At someone that wasn’t there.

“Isaac?” Typhon asked, pacing back over to where the Terran had stood. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Just got a strange sense of déjà vu.” Isaac shook his head. He reached up, touching his chest. “We’re ready.”

“We?” Typhon asked, confused. Isaac didn’t explain as he turned around and continued to where their ship was. Letting the doors shut behind them without looking back again.

Isaac had chosen his route to take. A path well known by another. Even knowing where it lead, they could do little to stop it in the end. As if something was keeping them from achieving their goals.

Cyclone punched the wall, letting them pass this time around without interference.

“Dammit!” He snarled out. “Dammit all. I can’t just let things repeat themselves. Every time I try to intervene, everything goes to shit. Why? Why can’t I just steal him away and just…” He huffed and panted, feeling a pain in his chest as the mechanical parts continued to spin. Forcibly keeping him alive.

His tongue licked the roof of his mouth, feeling around as he found the spot that been missing. His left Saber fang was missing. Taken by time. A price to pay for the use of such a forbidden artifact.

It was a gamble. That’s all it was.

Every time Cyclone used the hourglass it would take a piece of his time as a price. It wasn’t so much rewinding time as it was taking it. It could be a memory, or a single moment. It was impossible to know until after the dice roll stopped. It seemed impossible. To steal away his very memory as a cost. Other times, it was far more physical. Like his knee cap or a fang. If he rolled badly enough, it could even cost him his very life.

“No matter what price I pay? It never seems to be enough.” Cyclone pulled out the hourglass, glaring at the thing. He lifted it over his head, threatening to break the cursed thing.

“You can’t change what has already happened,” a brisk voice said. It was warm, hot like a desert wind. There was a hint of amusement to it as the jackal landed next to him. Appearing out of thin air as the hallucination accompanied Cyclone.

A dark passenger ever since he took up this artifact.

Looking down the hallway, Zarvarsh glanced towards the Saberwolf.

“Not going to go after them? You know what is lurking inside the star port.” Zarvarsh blinked at Cyclone.

“What good would that do? If he dies, I’ll just reset again. It wouldn’t be the first time…” Cyclone bitterly said. “I can’t do shit!”

“What? Want me to explain it to you all over again? Did you forget?” The jackal laughed and Cyclone swiped out at his face. His hand went through the mirage, reducing the jackal’s form into black smoke that reformed shortly after into that arrogant face. “You can try to repeat the same thing over and over again… but you’ll only go insane if you do.” The jackal shrugged.

“Yeah, yeah… Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Cyclone spat to the side. “I know that. I already know that! He… Isaac taught me that.” Cyclone closed his eye, rubbing the top of his snout with two fingers. “How can I change it? Tell me that. I demand to know that much at least!”

“How would I know?” The jackal stepped past him, walking into the hallway. His feet made no sound for he carried no weight. Yet, every step he took left a trail of golden grains of sand behind.

Cyclone had known Zarvarsh was a hallucination since the very beginning. He had no scent to him, for starts. The jackal could speak but the words were injected directly into his skull. Ever since Cyclone had stolen this artifact from the Tigeron’s, he’d been haunted by this man’s presence. Another curse that came along with the device it seemed. A fate worse than death.

Cyclone was never sure what exactly the hourglass was. He knew that the Tigeron’s had been experimenting with time. It wasn’t so much the hourglass, as the grains of sand inside it. The hourglass was just a vessel to carry them around in.

“Those damn tigers, trying to build a time machine.” Cyclone spat again. He reached into his maw and felt around for the missing bit of flesh that had been there. Having a metal prosthetic bottom jaw was dangerous for a reason. “Cocky bastards always dictated that no nation was allowed to study time, while secretly doing it themselves. It was only fitting I steal the damned thing from under their noses.”

“It’s possible to move forward in time, everyone knows that.” The jackal said, rubbing his chin as he looked at the device. “What little good that would do us.” It was going back that Cyclone desired, Zarvarsh knew.

To fix the mistakes that had happened during what he called his “First run.”

“If I can’t change our fate? What’s the point of keeping this thing around?” Cyclone tensed, thinking about smashing the thing once more.

“It’s not fate that’s controlling what happens,” Zarvarsh. “Its nature.”

“Nature?” Cyclone spat the word out with a harsh laugh.

“Well, rather. The void isn’t the only cosmic force in the universe, Cyclone. There is the other side as well. The Guardians…” Zarvash said knowingly. “After all, my people were dubbed the guardians of time. Until the Tigeron’s invaded my people’s planet and wiped us out, seeking what we guarded,” the jackal motioned towards the hourglass. “It’s our last keepsake. My last… the last keeper of time.”

“Sucks to be you,” Cyclone honestly couldn’t give a rat’s ass about Zarvarsh’s situation.

“Either way,” the jackal said as the two began stalking after Isaac and Typhon. It was easy to track them. Isaac was following the same route that Cyclone and he had done during their first time together. Zarvarsh might say it wasn’t fate, but damned if it didn’t feel that way.

“Explain this, then! Why is everything just repeating.” Cyclone grumbled.

“Well, first of all. It’s not. It’s not repeating, for it hasn’t actually happened yet.” Zarvarsh rolled his eyes. “Just because you have prior knowledge into the future doesn’t make it all laid out in stone. The Oracle for the Raks is said to be able to perceive the future as well. She could be in a similar situation as we are. Doesn’t mean it can’t be changed, just that it’s already on a set course.” Zarvarsh shrugged as Cyclone pushed past him, trudging along. His metallic steps clunking against the floor as he went. “The river of time only flows one way. Even if you were to… get out of it,” he glanced at Cyclone. “Walk back up the way you’d come, it would still be the same river you got back into.”

“I don’t care about such details. Just tell me how to change it.” Cyclone’s low growl sounded like pieces of metal rubbing against one another. “How do I save Isaac…?”

“You already have.” Zarvarsh smiled then, stepping in front of Cyclone. “That band you gave him? The arm you convinced his brother to… assist him with.” The jackal laughed at the dark thought. “You have already helped him so much! The arc reactor was a brilliant choice, even I must admit. I didn’t even think of that! Using Saber tech combined with Terran tech in order to siphon off the shards power in order to keep Isaac from overusing it and ended up… crystallized? Brilliant!”

“Then, will his end be changed?” Cyclone asked and the jackal just gave him a knowing look. “What good are you then!” He swiped at the jackal, aiming for the mirages throat. His hand sliced right through it.

“I never said I was good.” Zarvarsh shrugged as Cyclone shoved him out of the way. The black smoke reformed once more. A ghost of the past, unable to be forgotten. Forever cursed to be attached to the very thing he had spent his entire life guarding and failing to do so in the end. “I’m just saying you already have done so much for him in secret.”

“I would’ve been more direct if I could’ve been.” Cyclone snapped at him. It wasn’t often the jackal would show himself. Whenever he did, Cyclone made sure to interrogate the other man for every detail he could shake out of him.

Cyclone had figured out that Zarvarsh had been a previous victim of the hourglass. Devoured by it as Cyclone was destined to be, if things kept the course they were taking. The jackal had been a researcher on the hourglass or a possible caretaker of it? Doomed to suffer the same fate that everyone else that had come across the forbidden artifact had.

Guarded on an unnamed desert world, their people had been wiped out. A genocide by the Tigeron’s seeking the forbidden tech they protected others from. They had been erased from the annuals of time out of the tiger’s endless greed for knowledge.

Erased from history, from time itself.

“There are certain restrictions, Typhon… uh, Cyclone.” Zarvarsh rolled his eyes. “Whatever damnable name you choose to take. For instance, the name.”

“Yes, you already told me that. To make sure that those in this time don’t know who or what I am…” Cyclone gritted his teeth, stopping as he let out a hot breath. Steam whistled from his nostrils as he did so. He could smell the charred flesh of his snout and the metal parts.

Unnatural. That was what he was. A person that didn’t belong in this time. An intruder into this universe. A fake. Someone that didn’t belong… He was everything that his people hated. Everything he had become was an afront to the way he had been raised and the values drilled into him.

“Good.”

The dark thought made him laugh. Laugh at the audacity of it all. Covering his eyes with a metal hand, Cyclone tossed back his muzzle and laughed. A horrible, harsh sound that echoed around him in the dark, empty hallway.

“I’m going mad.” Cyclone dragged the hand down the side of his face, looking at the reflection on the wall. His image was cracked and broken. A shattered appearance of the former proud Saberwolf he had once been.

So proud, so arrogant… always thinking that he could do anything. Destined for greatness, they said. They had planned to make him a commander in the endless war against the void. That had been his fate. His destiny. To be a soldier until the day he died. Never knowing what joy or laughter was. Only that harsh reality they lived in…

Then he happened to bump into Isaac.

“Isaac…” He said the name, his only comfort. “What is the point in all this? If I can’t be with him in the end?”

“To save him?” Zarvarsh offered. Cyclone glared at the other man. “What? Just because I failed to save my people, doesn’t mean you don’t have a chance to do so. One life must surely be easier to save than millions.” Cyclone continued to glare at him. “Come on! Haven’t I been helpful?”

“No.” Cyclone snarled.

“Oh, come on! I’ve been with you since the start. Well, since you picked me up.” Zarvarsh said, nodding towards the hourglass. “Learn from my mistakes. That’s what your - would’ve done.”

“If it was Isaac going through this? He’d have solved it his third or fifth attempt… unlike me.” Cyclone clutched his hand into a tight fist. His nails pricked his paw pads. The pain was a comfort that helped keep him grounded. “Isaac would’ve figured out the right course to take. What needed to be done. Even with all these restrictions in place… all because I’m…”

Cyclone looked back at his reflection. Reaching up, he touched the broken glass. He expected it to cut him. It never did. Sometimes, he wished it would. A physical representation to the pain inside.

“Just because you don’t belong in this universe, or time, doesn’t mean you can’t do something.” Zarvarsh made sure to remind him of. “I was foolish,” the jackal admitted. Walking around Cyclone with his hands folded behind him. “I was arrogant as you used to be. Thinking you could accomplish anything just because you had a piece of the Guardian’s Light inside you. That you were invincible… only to discover you weren’t special. Like I did… like what I had to go through.”

“I was.” Cyclone snorted, resting against the wall. He felt so very tired. Trying to keep up this appearance. “I was incredible in my prime, I’ll have you know! Healthy, fit… strong. I was able to do so much…” Cyclone looked at his metallic hand. “Now? Now it’s a pain in the ass to wipe my own ass.” He laughed bitterly at the truth behind that.

“The issue here, isn’t so much that. It’s your boy,” Zarvarsh tapped a finger to his chin, lost in thought. “You don’t really care what happens to everyone else in this timeline. You’ve already seen them fail and die countless times before. Becoming numb to it all as they’re devoured by the void…” The jackal glanced at Cyclone. Making sure he had the Saberwolf’s attention. “Just continue to focus on the one, instead of the all. Like I did…”

“Right.” Cyclone grumbled, pushing himself up. “You tried to save your planet or something…”

“The price to pay for a single life is astronomical.” Zarvarsh reminded him. “For a single life.” He held up a single finger before opening his hand. Sand fell from his palm. “Unlike me. I tried to save an entire planet’s worth of people. My people. You see where that got me?” The jackal shrugged it off.

Cyclone knew Zarvarsh was just hiding his pain. His failure haunted the jackal just as Zarvarsh haunted Cyclone. A reminder of what failure meant. To exist and not exist at the same time. To be nothing more than a fading memory. A shadow of oneself. Forced to relive the day it all came to an end.

“This thing,” Cyclone pulled out the hourglass to look at. “It’s evil.” He snorted at the declaration. “I swear it chooses what to take from you. It doesn’t take the bad memories, only the good… Feeding on them to nourish itself with. Dining on them like an extravagant dinner.”

Despite knowing that, Cyclone couldn’t bring himself to destroy the damnable thing. Not until he fixed his mistake.

“Well, wouldn’t you?” Zarvash said and Cyclone looked up at him. “I mean, seriously. Would you eat the bitter, burnt pieces of a dinner? Or the delicious, juicy bits? The good happy times, compared to the sour bad times. Makes sense to me.” He shrugged again. “Wanting to savor each and every memory. Like the finest cuisine. To sit down and just…”

Cyclone continued to watch him and Zarvarsh smirked.

“Fine, fine. Ignore me.” The jackal waved his hand in the air as he began to fade from view. “You better hurry up before something ends up happening to your man. Now that would be a sour memory.”

Cyclone rolled his eye and pushed off the wall, continuing where he left off at. Walking down the hallway that he and Isaac had been through together in another life. It was painful to see him with someone else, but a comfort at the same time knowing it was him.

Even knowing what happens at The End.

It was better to rewatch your favorite movie over and over again, even if you didn’t like the ending to it. Cyclone didn’t have the strength to put another movie in instead. He wanted, prayed, for this one to have a different ending each and every time he forced himself to watch it.

“Only a few more pieces left,” Zarvarsh licked his lips, covering his muzzle with a hand as he watched Cyclone disappear around a corner. “Once all your tasty bits have been eaten up, I’ll have to move on to someone fresh and young. Leaving you with only the bitter, burnt bits left. Like it did me…” The jackal’s smile slipped from his face.

It was soon replaced by several others. Sprouting out of his body like festering warts. Sharp teeth, drooling tongues and an endless dark void that hungered for more.

“When I’m done with the main course? I’ll move onto that boy toy of yours for a sweet dessert…” Zarvarsh tried to hide the smile, but it ripped out of him as he laughed at the wicked idea.

With a smile that spread throughout his body, fanged smiles appearing on his arms and legs… Zarvarsh waited for the final treat to be had. Saving the best part, for last.

For he was the Time Devourer. A void beast that was contained within the hourglass by Zarvarsh’s people. At the cost of their time. Bit by bit, piece by piece the Time Devourer had sucked them all dry until there was nothing left.

The Tigeron’s never knew what they had found. Only the lone jackal guard trying to warn them against taking the artifact for themselves. Zarvarsh, the last time guardian, was stabbed in the back by the very people he was trying to help… before being devoured by the thing now in Cyclone’s grasp.