Find Me in the Drift

Crossing through The Pathway is easy.

Stolas thought it would be harder to leave his entire world behind, his whole universe, although it isn't quite effortless. Exiting the tunnel into water that's heavy and presses too hard against his feathers, into darkness and emptiness, is uncomfortable; it stings, but it is still less jarring than he expected, less... foreign.

Paimon scoffs at his surprise, and at his discomfort which he seems to find both amusing as well as irritating, but that is nothing new. Stella clearly enjoys his physical absence from her immediate vicinity, briefly fantasizes about him getting his insides torn out by one of the metal guardians which are proficient at taking apart their kind. It is… excessively gorey, in his opinion. Stella sneers in triumph at his response, and then conjures enough blood to submerge his thoughts in bright, vivid blue.

The violence of it reminds him what Paimon had thought as Stolas swam across the Pathway, how he’ll have his way in the end, and this planet will be theirs to colonize. He can feel the certainty in his mind, in his bones; he can envision the inevitability of it. That's how it's always been, for centuries, since before Paimon existed and it will probably continue to be the same long after he dies, when someone new rules in his place. The thought is no more or less unpleasant to Stolas than usual, and he has become accustomed to the way Stella and Paimon both scoff at his distaste, can feel them rolling their eyes and discussing what an incompetent heir he is, their conversation zipping past on the edge of his consciousness, easy to dismiss but impossible to block out entirely. He is always aware that they are there and speaking and do not much care for his additions to the thoughtstream.

He swims through the ocean, ignoring the way the salt makes the water feel thin and cold, compared to the hot, viscous oceans of home. He feels entirely alone out here, on a faraway planet, even though he isn't; he never is, technically, his thoughts always connected, one part of a whole. His family unit is closer, louder in his mind than the rest of his kin, but he can feel them all. They ride alongside him, experience everything as he does, the planet both strange and uninteresting to them at this point. They've sent across many vanguards to explore and begin to ready the planet for colonization, and it is only a matter of time before they can establish a foothold on this side of the—

Stolas pauses, feels something flicker in his mind. Is that fear? It is a different flavor than any he has felt before, and not originating from himself, which is unusual.

He feels vibrations through the water on his sensitive skin, his feathers quivering at their roots, and then the sound wave shakes the ocean and someone thinks, very loudly and with thorny desperation, The Pathway!

Stolas turns around to rush back, to see, to give the information to his kin so they all might understand what is happening, because—

There is a loud noise, a burst of sound and low vibrations that tear through the water, heat emanating from the Pathway only meters below him, and he is thrust backwards with incredible force, disorienting, away and up closer to the surface.

He is no longer paying attention to his body, however. His body has ceased to mean anything to him, because for the first time in his life, the chorus of voices in his mind has gone silent, no more directions or snide remarks or sneering distaste or familiar voices rippling through his mind.

He can't hear anyone.

Stolas has never, not once, been alone before, and he asks, what do I do? in a terrible panic, fraught, fragile, aware that he's surrounded by murderous alien hostiles in every direction for miles, on a planet not suited for his kind to be able to exist without a great deal of changes to the atmosphere, the chemistry, the very fabric of the planet. It is not yet ready for him, it is not safe, not if he is alone.

All Stolas hears in his head is a deafening silence as still as the endless void of space as he drifts in a huge, cold ocean—the wrong ocean, one he certainly doesn't belong in, and never will. Stolas has never once felt small before, not like this.

He doesn't understand what has happened, but he is far, far away from home, he has never been alone this way, and there is absolutely nowhere for him to go.

Blitzø scowled at his meager pantry. It was usually low, but at the moment there were barely enough crumbs for a single, palm-sized goop pepper to survive off of, let alone a whole adult imp. At least he didn't have to worry about having enough food for Loona anymore, even if he missed her and it meant more work for him. Regardless, he was going to have to hunt today.

He liked hunting, but it was easier when he wasn't trying to track prey in the rain. He'd much rather fish, but he ran out of his good bait, and Fizz wouldn't be back with more for a couple weeks, at least. He couldn't risk coming home empty-handed when his reserves were this low, so he grabbed his rifle and his favorite hunting vest.

Ammo was cheap and a breeze to find ever since the Breach was sealed, so at least he wouldn't be running out anytime soon. He glanced over his pathetic attempt at a garden as he made his way towards the thick, wild forest that spanned for miles and miles around his little island cottage, grimacing at the few pathetic, shrimpy cucumbers he'd managed to grow, and the bug-eaten leaves of the tomatoes, which only managed to produce a single fruit, with multiple bites already taken out of it.

Damn squirrels and deer were still helping themselves to his garden. He definitely needed to hunt more.

He grabbed his knives and his kit from the shed on his way past, feeling optimistic about his chances that day despite the weather, and stalked into the trees, ignoring the way the light drizzle was enough to form puddles in the mud that soaked his boots when he stomped through them too aggressively.

Blitzø was so distracted wondering if the rain was going to drown what was left of his garden as he crept through the forest that he almost missed the large mountain just visible through the trees that definitely hadn't been there yesterday and, perhaps even more alarming, appeared to be breathing.

Blitzø froze, listening, and realized that the breaths sounded quick and labored, and he slowly crept closer to the living mountain, which of course wasn't a mountain at all, but an enormous creature; even laying down, it towered high above him.

It wasn't as big as he knew they could be, but still much, much larger than him, and Blitzø thought that if it were to rise up on its feet, it would extend high above the trees. The creature was a dark greyish-blue, almost black, but around the ends of its legs and hands Blitzø could see dark, scaled skin, and distinctive bright blue blood.

Blitzø was staring at an actual, real-life kaiju.

Somehow, six months after the Breach was supposed to be sealed tight and their invaders cut off from their planet forever, a kaiju was injured and possibly dying on Blitzø's stupid, tiny, remote island in the middle of the sea.

Fear climbed up the back of his throat, cloying and bitter, and twisted in his chest, and his heart began racing as he stared up at the massive, dangerous alien.

It was mostly still, and this was Blitzø's goddamn island, and he was not going to run away and let it have his home. It was a shitty home, but it was still his, dammit. He aimed his rifle, but as he listened to the labored breathing, slowly began to lower it back down.

If he was being honest, he was... kind of curious. He'd never seen one before except through a screen, and certainly not up close. Not a real one. How many demons had ever had that chance?

It didn't even seem to notice Blitzø as he approached, careful not to get close enough that it could reach out and squish him in a single move, but he wasn't trying terribly hard to remain silent anymore. His original hunting mission forgotten entirely, he slowly circled around to catch a glimpse of the kaiju's face, which was perched on two massive talons, eyes closed as it breathed, still quick and shallow, especially for something so enormous.

As Blitzø looked over the creature, there was a vague recognition in the back of his mind, something about the shape of its talons, and the coloring...

Blitzø only knew a little about kaiju, mostly stuff he caught as Fizz bragged to him about his husband's work, but he suspected they weren't supposed to look quite this grey and lifeless. Its face, with a large flat plate and hooked beak, was covered in a layer of moisture from the rain, but looked almost dead, cracked and hard, with a texture like wood beginning to petrify. And now that Blitzø was looking he noticed that he could see patches where its skin looked discolored, with gaps revealing lacerations and bloody claw marks. He wondered what could even do that to a creature this large and seemingly unstoppable, if the rest of the kaiju attacks over the last decade were anything to go by.

The kaiju was... definitely not doing great. As far as Blitzø was aware, kaiju only had two modes: kill everything in sight, or nothing because it was dead. He didn't know quite how to react to one that appeared to be neither of those.

But Blitzø also knew he'd been responsible for a lot of death and destruction in his life, so much of it because of him, because of his shitty choices, and as he looked at the massive creature, he wasn't sure why but he knew that he didn't want to be responsible for any more. Not if he had another option. So he let out a sigh, set his rifle on the ground, and dug around in his kit.

He had a needle and thread in there. Looking up at the kaiju, he was pretty sure that would be totally useless... but maybe if he could find some leaves and sap, he could at least put something over the wounds, spray them with some antiseptic. Kaiju could still die by infection, right? He was gonna have to ask Fizz some questions the next time he saw him, because it had been a while since he'd wanted to know anything about kaiju biology, and he hadn't been a great student even back when he was interested, either.

Blitzø went searching through the forest for a patch of bushes he remembered seeing with leaves large enough he thought they might work for some makeshift bandages, and remembered he had some twine in his cabin. He grabbed his first aid supplies, and then spotted a bucket and grabbed that, too, and steadily made his way back to the sleeping mountain of a monster who was less than a twenty minute hike from his ramshackle house.

And that was at imp walking speed. He wasn't sure he wanted to know how long it would take this kaiju to wake up, stomp across the forest leaving a bunch of splintered and shredded tree trunks in its wake, and flatten his tiny, rundown shack of a home. Blitzø was truly playing a dangerous game, now, courting disaster. But it wasn't like he was throwing anything worthwhile away, and he couldn't find enough of his remaining survival instincts to talk himself out of it.

As he got closer to the unconscious kaiju, well within swipe-and-flatten range now, the shallow breaths caused a slight tremor to the ground. With the acrid smell of kaiju blue in the air around it, Blitzø looked more closely at the creature's skin, and he realized it wasn't scaled and lizard-like, the way most of the kaiju he'd seen on the news were. This one seemed to have a coat of giant, grey-blue feathers, and he realized that was what was scattered across the ground all around it. Broken, discarded feathers. Blitzø wondered if it was some kind of subspecies, or maybe a minion? It was small for a kaiju, based on what he'd learned as a kid. Kaiju were usually skyscraper-sized, and while this one was definitely big, it wasn't that big.

He took his bucket, filled it with water, and slowly poured it over a bloody spot on the kaiju's leg. The creature's skin was burning hot to the touch, and it barely reacted, just twitching slightly, as the water ran over its wounds. The heated skin covered in massive feathers was slowly revealed as Blitzø rinsed more of the blood away. Blitzø didn't think that the kaiju's stillness was a very good sign, but there wasn't a whole lot he could do about it.

As he worked to flush out the wounds, he wondered if this was the only kaiju on the whole planet, or if there were more. He wondered what it would feel like, to be the only thing like you, this far away from home, without friends or family or anything at all, no one to call or text or ask for bait or to meet you for lunch ever again, and shuddered.

Well, it was probably going to die here, so it wouldn't have to worry about that for too much longer. Blitzø was surprised at how sad he was at the idea, but shook it off; the world was harsh, and cruel. He'd learned that by now. He couldn't afford to get all messed up over every sad sack that crossed his path, especially when they were a giant murderous alien species that would see him and everyone in Hell crushed underfoot.

He washed out as much as he could of what looked like the worst of the wounds, and noticed that the creature's breathing had steadied a little, evened out, and its skin didn't feel quite as hot to the touch. He wondered if that was a good sign, or if it just meant it was finally dying.

"Sorry, that's all I got. Should've found an island with a doctor, or some... really soft-headed scientists, or something," Blitzø muttered, and then thought about that being the last thing this creature ever heard, and something ugly and rotten squirmed in his stomach, tightened its grip around his lungs.

He rested a hand on a patch of feathers on one of its arms, and realized they were soft. He looked up at its big face, mostly a pale grey plate with a very sharp beak and several sets of eyes, all currently closed in pain. "I—I kind of hope you survive this, because it seems like you've been though a lot and it'd be a shame to kick it on this shitty island. So... don't die, okay?"

art by M (twitter) (bluesky)

The kaiju let out a long breath, and Blitzø couldn't help but be weirded out by the timing. But kaiju definitely didn't speak English, and from what he'd seen, didn't seem to communicate at all, other than to scream as they leveled cities and tore apart Jaegers and their pilots when they got in their way. So there was no chance it understood him, especially because it wasn't even fucking awake.

"I'll be back to check on you tomorrow, and you better not be dead," Blitzø said anyway, giving it one last pat and leaving it there as he trekked back to his cabin through the woods.

He was exhausted, and hungry. So much for hunting today, it was already dusk and there was absolutely no way he was going to try tracking down anything at night. He'd have to give it another shot tomorrow.

And if the monster beat the odds and managed to survive that long—which, okay, not very likely—was he going to have to figure out what the fuck he was going to feed a kaiju?

*

It was still there the next day, and was still breathing. It hadn't moved from its spot at the edge of the treeline by the water, so Blitzø collected some food for it—a few veggies from his garden, some fish from the lake he'd stopped by on his way over from the cabin, and a few squirrels he collected from his traps. It wasn't much, but he needed to know what it ate, because he had no fucking clue.

After that, he focused on gathering food for himself, because he was hungry as shit, and if he died there was certainly no chance the big, barely-alive alien in his backyard was gonna make it. Also he was pretty sure Loona and Fizz would both be pissed at him, although they'd get over it soon enough.

The next day, he went back, and the kaiju was still asleep but seemed to have shifted in its slumber, and both the fish and the squirrels were missing. So, carnivore, most likely. Well, Blitzø supposed he was probably going to be vegetarian for a while. At least until it got strong enough to hunt for itself.

He got more fish and managed to track down a deer, and left that for it, too. "If you die after all of this, I'm gonna find you in whatever passes for an afterlife in the fucked up, alien version of the Rings or whatever and kick your ass," Blitzø said, and sat down on a rock to watch it sleep for a while. Its leg twitched a few times, like it was dreaming and trying to run in its sleep. It was pretty funny, watching a weird feathered alien the size of a small mountain twitch in its sleep, just like Fizz used to. He hadn't even known kaiju could dream. Maybe it didn't.

Blitzø wondered if a carnivorous diet included imps. He thought that was probably a pretty safe bet.

He went back to his cabin, and made a phone call that he knew he was likely to regret, but he couldn't fight the desperate need to hear a familiar voice after all the weirdness. Esepecially if the kaiju was just going to wake up and eat him.

"What do you need now, asshole?"

"Wow, is that any way to greet your childhood friend-turned-enemy-turned-recently-reconciled-beneficiary of your oh-so-kind and generous patronage?"

"Hi, dickhead. I can hear sarcasm loud and clear over the phone, you know, my hearing was not one of the things affected by your idiocy. What the fuck do you want me to bring next week?"

Blitzø sighed and grit his teeth. "Actually, I was kind of wondering if I could ask you some questions."

"No, you can't date Ozzie. Or work for Ozzie. Those positions are filled."

"Wow, wrong again, fuckhead! You're oh-for-two, gonna go for a triple failure? Also, that's not the only thing you've got filled." Blitzø wandered over to the shove, throwing a few of the sad vegetables from his garden into a pan to heat up, the familiar banter already soothing away some of the jagged discomfort he'd been feeling for days.

"Damn straight. So what is this about, then? I'll admit I'm stumped, I was pretty sure that was all there was to our relationship."

"Ha ha. Speaking of your boytoy, though, he... knows kind of a lot about kaiju, right?"

"Uhhh. I mean, yeah, he's only the leading expert in the Ring, duh. But that's sort of an outdated field, seeing as they're all banished to their own dimension, remember? What could you possibly want to know now? You're not gonna be a weird freak about them again, are you? You do remember that they stomped your life's work flat less than a year ago."

"Shut up, no! And it was the Jaeger that landed on the building with my office in it anyway, not the kaiju, get it right if you're gonna be an asshole about it." Blitzø dumped some seasonings on the vegetables as they started to simmer pathetically in the pan. He was running low on those, too. "I'm just... curious. I mean, they could come back, right? No guarantee the Breach was the only one, or that there aren't more freaky aliens bent on destroying Hell out there. Not with my luck, anyway."

"That's such bullshit, Blitzø, you haven't wanted to know a single thing about kaiju since we were, like, ten. What is this really about?"

Blitzø grimaced. "Just because I stopped asking doesn't mean I stopped wanting to know, Fizz."

There was a pause. "Alright, putting that aside for the moment, say I believe you. What do you wanna know?"

"Uh. Well. They eat, right? And, like. Can they get sick? What happens if one gets an infection, or, like, cancer, or something. Can they get cancer?"

"I have no fucking idea! What are you really asking? Have you started giving kaiju biology lectures that I don't know about, or is this just an excuse to chat? I've told you, you don't need a reason to call, dumbfuck!"

"N-No, I was just. Uh, bored. And thinking. You know, like I do sometimes. The getting bored, not the thinking." Blitzø started a pot of coffee as he waited for the food to finish cooking, and tried desperately to think of a non-kaiju-related reason he would want to know about—well, kaiju. He was really starting to think calling had been a bad idea, but he was also so relieved to hear Fizz's voice, talking to him without any hatred or vitriol, that he couldn't bring himself to regret the choice.

"Good, 'cause I was gonna say. Well, I can move up my visit, if you're really that miserable. I can even bring Oz, if you want to ask him yourself."

"Oh, you don't need to drag him along to this shitty place, I know he's always busy," Blitzø said, beginning to panic.

"His field of study, which was necessary to save the world and he spent a couple degrees becoming an expert in, became completely irrelevant six months ago. He's not busy."

"Alright, alright, I get it. Your boyfriend needs a hobby. I don't recommend looking here unless he's really into fish, though. Or farming."

"Yeah, no shit. Your little island sucks and I don't know why you insist on staying there. I'll see you next week, maybe earlier, and I'll bring some nerdy kaiju shit for you to try and escape the boredom that you've voluntarily inflicted upon yourself, like a dumbass."

"Thanks, and fuck you," Blitzø said, affection rising to war with his panic, but that also gave him another idea. "Also, Jaeger tech is just as irrelevant as kaiju studies and therefore mostly worthless now, right?"

"Not in the slightest. That shit's still actually useful for stuff besides fighting giant fuck-off aliens. Why?"

Blitzø tried not to let his disappointment show in his voice. "Oh, uh, no reason. I was just... wondering how it works, because, y'know. Boredom. And I know the big guy was playing around with some sort of prototype a while back, and it seemed.... cool. Like, if it works."

"Uh huh. You do realize those were government contracts, and if anyone found out you know about them you and he would both be in so much shit, right?"

Blitzø's balls do not shrivel up into his body, but it's a near thing. "Uh. No, no I did not know that."

"Yeah. Best keep that little nugget to yourself, or I'm gonna be pretty annoyed."

"Consider the information forgotten. Never gonna mention it again."

"Great. See you soon."

"Yup."

Blitzø sighed, and sank down into the spindly chair at his tiny kitchen table, his forehead making a soft thunk as he dropped it down onto the rough wood.

That was probably stupid, and he was going to regret it later, but he really thought he needed the information. He also really hoped he didn't get eaten before he saw Fizz next, because that would be a huge bummer.

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When Blitzø stumbled out of the treeline onto the sand the next day lugging another deer over his shoulder, it took him a moment to place what was different.

The beach was quiet.

He froze, suddenly feeling very exposed out in the open and away from the cover of the trees, and then slowly looked up at the very large alien holding still and staring down at him from where it emerged out of the shallow water.

Blitzø craned his neck to look up at it, his whole body tensed, and it took every ounce of self control he had not to drop the deer carcass and bolt back into the woods. But the kaiju hadn't moved, and its gaze was laser-focused on him. Blitzø wondered how fast it could swipe at him with its massive talons, if he'd be dead before the deer hit the sand.

The kaiju blinked with its main set of eyes and then with several other sets that rested across its head, and lifted its nose into the air a little, its head bobbing like it was sniffing. Blitzø glanced down at the deer in his arms, and slowly, carefully, shifted it a little off his shoulder. The kaiju stilled, watching him, but didn't make any other moves, so Blitzø continued to slowly lower the deer to the sand, and then kept his hands out in front of him as he slowly backed away, one step at a time, careful not to make any sudden moves, willing his tail to sweep across the sand slowly, steadily, and not whip it around and bolt like he desperately wanted to.

The kaiju watched him take each step, all the way back to the tree line, but then its gaze flicked over to the deer before returning to Blitzø. Blitzø waited, and when it didn't move, he slowly sat down against a tree, hoping he was far enough away to not seem like any kind of threat. Or be within striking distance, if it decided it wanted to taste imp meat, instead of deer.

He was suddenly wondering if maybe it was a stupid idea not to bring his rifle. He didn't think he could kill it with bullets, but an injury might be enough to slow it down and let him escape.

He knew he should just leave. He should run, and never look back. This thing was a member of an alien species that killed thousands of demons. Maybe hundreds.

But... he'd never heard about any of them acting the way this one had so far, and it didn't quite look the same as any of the ones he'd seen pictures or footage of, either. Not that any of the kaiju really looked much like each other, they were all pretty different. But... something about this one seemed more different, somehow. It looked almost like one he imagined up for himself when he was a kid. He was so damn lonely he actually pretended he had a kaiju as a friend, for a while. He'd forgotten all about it until he really studied the kaiju, looked closely at the feathers, and realized why they seemed so familiar.

It was probably weird, imagining up a feathered alien-dinosaur-bird friend as a kid, he supposed. Especially when none of the other kaiju he'd seen had feathers at all. Maybe he just really wanted a pet that could fly, or something. Who fuckin' knows, he was certainly no child headshrink.

He stayed and watched the kaiju sniff at the deer, and then slowly it began tearing into it, stripping away long pieces of meat and skin. Impressively, it somehow managed to make less of a mess than he would've expected, only the occasional vicious tear splattering a few drops of blood onto the sand. Eventually Blitzø heard the loud crunch of a bone being torn off at the joint, and a whole leg disappeared into its maw in one go. Interesting.

"Well, at least you're happier with forest critters than you are with imp. That works out well for me," Blitzø muttered, and the kaiju glanced at him briefly before it continued devouring the deer, letting out the occasional high-pitched note as it did.

It almost sounded like a chirp, the kind of sound a really, really big bird might make.

It got about two-thirds of the way through the carcass before it slowed down, and then dropped down to the ground, eyes steadily drifting shut.

"I'd worry at your self-preservation instincts, but I'm not even sure I could actually hurt you if I wanted to," Blitzø mused to himself as he watched the massive kaiju still and its breathing even out. He eventually left it to go back to his cabin, marveling at his new neighbor, who didn't seem to have much interest in leaving. Or maybe it just wasn't strong enough to, yet. He supposed he'd find out soon enough.

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He learned that the kaiju really liked fish. It would immediately dive for any fish he brought first and devour them with gusto, making all sorts of chirps and hooting sounds that Blitzø had to assume were happy noises, so he started spending a lot of time fishing. He even took a day to book a ferry and cross the water to the mainland, shopping around at the pier in town until he found an old boat he bought off of an incubus for cheap. It was a barely functional piece of shit, but it would get him far enough out over the water that he might be able to catch something bigger than the fish that lived near the shore or in the lake. He bought and set some ocean traps, too, because those were easy enough to leave in the water and check whenever he was out on his boat.

art by Criss (twitter) (bluesky)

He returned to his cabin from a pretty pathetic fishing trip one afternoon to find unexpected visitors, and nearly had a panic attack until he realized it was just Ozzie's less familiar ship instead of Fizz's small green motorboat. The paint was clean and neat, the boat bigger than the tiny sloop Blitzø acquired and looked in much better shape, and it was anchored at his little dock with no warning.

Blitzø set his meager haul in the ice box in his shed, and took a second to take a deep, calming breath before he entered his cabin.

He wasn't hiding a giant alien dinosaur—bird?—creature on his island, oh no. Not even a little bit.

He opened the door to his cabin and saw Oz at his stove, his back to Blitzø as he watched over the kettle and chuckled at the end of a joke Fizz was telling that sounded like it had to do with some dramatic fuck-up at work.

"You know those never boil if you stare at 'em like that," Blitzø quipped as he hung up his jacket and kneeled to take off his boots.

"That's a pot, dumbfuck," Fizz said, and then jumped up to give him a hug, his arms whirring gently. Blitzø was pretty sure they were even quieter than they used to be; Oz must've made more improvements to them since Fizz was last here. How long had it been? A whole month, maybe two?

"Eh, pot, kettle. Both slow as fuck and not into being voyeured, my point stands," Blitzø said with a grin as he shoved Fizz's face away from him, watching as Fizz spun around with a dramatic twirl and flopped down onto his saggy sofa, which Blitzø joined him on as Oz took the kettle off of the stove after it began to whistle. "So what's with the sudden double visit? Too much free time these days, you gotta sail all the way out to my shitty island just for some recreation?"

"Oh, don't act like you weren't being weird as fuck when you called like a week ago, asshole," Fizz said, coiling an arm around Blitzø's before he could slip away. "You were asking all sorts of questions about kaiju and shit, which you haven't cared about in years, and not until after the Breach is sealed? Come on, that's so sus. We brought some of Oz's old books for you, but if you want 'em you're gonna have to fess up, or we ain't giving you shit!"

"Froggie," Oz chastised, handing a large textbook and a file stuffed full of notes to Blitzø.

"Aw c'mon, you couldn't even let me fuck with him for a few minutes? Pushover," Fizz grumbled, crossing his arms but not interfering as Blitzø started rifling through the file.

"I can have this? This isn't, like, more top secret shit?" Blitzø asked, staring at the charts and lists and summaries of tests from Oz's department, all about various kaiju they'd observed over the decade they'd been terrorizing Hell.

"Oh it's incredibly secret, and if anyone finds out I gave that to you my ass is gonna get beat, and not in the fun way," Asmodeus said with a chuckle. "But I'm assuming you asked for a reason, and I trust Fizzie."

Fizz turned scarlet, and Blitzø grinned at him, because it gave him something to think about other than the huge gesture that Asmodeus was showing him by handing over these files, which he did not want to think too hard about.

"You're both disgusting," Blitzø said, poking Fizz in the side and setting the files on his table to look through more closely when he was alone. He went to his cabinets to get some snacks to go with the tea and coffee and set them out, and then they all got distracted talking about food and what they'd all been up to since the Breach closed, and for a little while Blitzø got to hang out with his friends and forget he was a lonely fuckup who lived by himself on an island and had a secret that would get him, and probably also both Asmodeus and Fizz, super locked up and probably killed if anyone ever found out.

He'd just have to make absolutely sure no one ever learned about it. He'd gotten pretty good at keeping shit to himself, what was one more building-sized secret?

*

It turned out that the files and books weren't the only things Asmodeus brought with him to give to Blitzø, and it took him several long seconds after opening the box on the table to find his voice because he could hardly believe his luck. He'd waited until they were about to leave before daring to peer inside, but not long enough, and he promptly lost his shit.

"Is this... Is this an actual, working PONS system?" He asked, his voice coming out wheezy in his dazed disbelief.

"It is! It's outdated technology now, but I thought you might get a kick out of it," Asmodeus said, grinning slyly. "We're working on new models to adapt for much less... military purposes."

"You do know I'm not, like, hiding a giant robot around here, right? And even if I had one, who the fuck would I even pilot it with?" Blitzø asked, nervous and beginning to sweat. "What would I even do with one of these?"

Don't think about the kaiju you don't know anything about a kaiju did they somehow already find out about the kaiju why would they give this to me—

Fizz cackled, and extended his legs so he was as tall as Asmodeus, and then wound his arms around his neck. "Those systems aren't just for piloting Jaegers, fucker! They have all kinds of fun uses. Like, for example, therapists use them all the time! For therapy, with patients." He gave Blitzø a pointed look, which he ignored completely.

"And a few much more... recreational purposes," Asmodeus added with a low chuckle and a sultry grin at Fizz.

"Okay, wow, keep it in your pants, you freaks," Blitzø said with his eyes glued to them, taking in the way they were intertwined, how they were so familiar with each other, seemed to almost know what the other one had planned before they even did it, and wondered what it was like to... to connect your brain directly to someone.

And then, while you were connected, to fuck them senseless.

Then he decided he needed to stop wondering about that before his interest turned very obviously visible. He'd had enough relentless mockery from Fizz for the day, he really didn't need any more just because he got a stupid boner over dumb brain-melding giant robot tech.

He wasn't even a tech nerd! Not like these two were, anyway.

"The two of you use the equipment to Drift while you fuck, don't you!" Blitzø shouted, pointing an accusing finger between them, and they both decided with an eye roll that it was definitely past time to end their visit.

Blitzø was pretty sure they were going home to mindfuck some more, which... if it was something that Oz liked to do, it was probably pretty fucking mind-blowing, and he definitely wanted to try it. And now that he was out of range, he could think about it all he wanted with zero mockery.

He continued looking over the box of science-experiment-looking parts, as well as several large tubes of expensive Relay Gel, all in the box Asmodeus had left with him. He'd been in the middle of testing out a new, updated PONS system for pilots to use that would be compatible with more varied species of demons—succubi and incubi in particular had a hard time Drifting with other demons sometimes, with the system that was most widely in use before the Breach was sealed. Something about their sexy magics, according to what he'd gotten from Oz's explanation, which... admittedly wasn't much.

The system hadn't quite been finished in time, but Asmodeus kept working on it, even after the program was discontinued. And now he'd given his completed, useless project to Blitzø, because it served no purpose any longer, and Blitzø had been grilling Fizz about Jaeger tech and how it worked.

Of course, the first thing he told Blitzø was that he was not, under any circumstances, to try to use it without his supervision. No way in fuck Blitzø was gonna listen to that, and he was pretty sure Oz knew that too, because he'd proceeded to tell him exactly how to use it.

So, he'd given Blitzø permission, was what he was saying. Totally and inarguably, more-or-less spelled out, explicit permission had been obtained to use his fancy, expensive, top secret mecha pilot tech.

He really, really hoped he wasn't about to fry his brain, but he figured it wouldn't really be much of a loss anyway, so what was the point in worrying about it?

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

Blitzø dropped the box overflowing with wires onto the sand in front of him and stared up at the mountain of dark feathers, listening to the deep rumble of breathing as it slept.

He was terrified; the idea of someone else being in his head was just about the scariest thing he could possibly imagine. But he also desperately wanted—needed—to know more about this kaiju living on his island, and how the fuck else was he supposed to do it?

So far, their interactions had mostly been Blitzø showing up with food, the kaiju inhaling most of it, and then he would stare at it and talk at it a little until he left. He couldn't see much skin anymore, most of the feathers had grown back and it was looking a lot less dried out and miserable. The kaiju hadn't really reacted to anything he said beyond watching him, following him closely with its gaze. Once, it turned around and disappeared into the water in the middle of his sentence. So it was capable of moving, it just... sort of chose to chill in this spot, for some reason? Usually it just kinda blinked at him with its huge red eyes, like a giant dinosaur owl.

He still wasn't sure the kaiju wasn't gonna suddenly decide it wanted to eat him. He sort of didn't think so, but what if he was wrong? What if this brain-connecting machine could tell him more? What if it would actually let them... talk? Well, sort of. Braintalk? Oz tried to explain it to him, but he sure as fuck wasn't a science imp, so a lot of it went way over his head.

But... he got the idea.

He watched his kaiju sleep for a little longer until finally there was a chittering and it gave a little shake, and uncurled to reveal its head, popping out from the huge mass of dark feathers, several eyes blinking sleepily, uncoordinated and dazed until they landed on Blitzø.

Then there was a loud, happy chirrup, and it bounced to its feet, coming over to greet him, and Blitzø grinned up at it.

"Morning, feathers. Got something that might help us, if you're willing to give it a shot?"

When Blitzø gestured to the box and the kaiju's eyes landed on it, they went wide, several new eyes flying open and feathers all rising to stand on end, puffing it up so it looked even larger, and it took several quick steps back.

"Whoa, hey, it's okay," Blitzø said, hands out in a soothing gesture, getting between his kaiju and the box. "Okay, we don't have to. I'm not gonna force you, okay? It was just an idea."

The kaiju blinked at him, tense and waiting, so Blitzø took a couple steps away from the box, slowly, toward it. Multiple sets of glowing eyes looked down at Blitzø, and as Blitzø continued to wait and do nothing, slowly lifted them back to the box, letting out a low, fearful warble as its feathers settled.

"I know it's the shit they use for the robots, but it's just the brain talking part," Blitzø said, tapping his temple. "It shouldn't hurt you. But we don't have to, okay? I can throw it all out, no problem." He kicked the box away, the took a few more steps away from it, toward his kaiju, who didn't flinch away this time.

It blinked at Blitzø, looked over at the box, and then tilted its head at it, and Blitzø grinned, triumphant. He so had this!

"You want to see?" He asked, pointing at the box. More blinking, but there was no more fearful whining, and the kaiju took a cautious step toward the box. Blitzø crouched down next to it, keeping an eye on his kaiju, watching as it moved more slowly than usual. "This part goes on my head, with these little thingies on pressure points or some shit, I don't actually know how it works. But like this." Blitzø lifted the headpiece, a few flexible metal straps connecting several nodes that would wrap around his skull and down over a bit of his spine, and put it on his head. The big mountain of feathers watched him, leaning in, beak opening and closing as it let out a curious chirp, and sniffed at the air.

"This cable connects to the console thing-a-ma-fucker, which is how I turn it on. This button here turns it off," Blitzø said, pointing out a big red switch. "Gotta be careful not to fry our brains, so we gotta make sure we get a good, solid Neural Handshake first, and then when we disconnect we have to power it down slowly, so it shocks our fragile meat brains less. It won't do any lasting damage or anything, according to Fizz. It just disorients you if you don't do all the steps. Supposedly. I'm, uh, kinda new to this, too," he said with a shrug, and couldn't keep all the hesitation out of his voice. But his kaiju just looked at him for a long moment, and then slowly reached forward to nudge at the box lightly with a talon and emit another chirp.

"You wanna try it?" Blitzø asked, pointing to the mass of wires, lifting out the nodes that he'd need to attach to the kaiju's head somewhere in order to establish a connection.

He'd had to take apart the other helmet—it was definitely not designed with a freaking kaiju head in mind—but he thought he had a good idea of where all the nodes were meant to go, and there was plenty of extra wiring.

The kaiju examined the pieces of the equipment in Blitzø's hand, sniffing around, and then it opened its mouth and a long, bright blue tongue extended out, licking at the metal, and also Blitzø's hand holding it.

Blitzø felt a shudder crash through him, from the point of contact with the warm, slightly scratchy tongue, all the way up his arm, through his chest, town to his toes, leaving a tingling heat in its wake.

The kaiju studied him for another moment, and then lowered its head down to the ground to rest it on top of its huge talons with a rumbling hoot, lying down in the sand, holding still and watching Blitzø intently.

"You sure you're okay with this?" Blitzø asked, holding up the wires and nodes in one hand and giving them a light shake, a tube of Relay Gel in the other.

It gave another hoot, and reached out his tongue again, this time to lick at the side of Blitzø's face, up to his horn.

"Okay, okay! Calm your tits," Blitzø said, and did not think about the tongue and how it felt and how warm it was and what it might feel like—

Fucking hell. Absolutely not. Not now, especially when he was about to hook his brain up to his kaiju.

The kaiju. Not—The big feathery alien. He was gonna brainlink with this mountain of feathers and it was gonna help him understand it better, maybe help them both. Maybe he could figure out a way to help it get home, or... wherever it wants to go, if they can just... communicate. Somehow.

That was all he wanted. Period.

Blitzø took a deep breath, and then circled around to find the spots matching the ones where the nodes were connected to his head, slathering them in a generous glob of Relay Gel to smooth the connection and keep the nodes in place. Two at the temples, and several along the top of the head, in a line down the center, and a few more down along the spine. When he was having trouble reaching, his kaiju brought a talon closer for Blitzø to climb on so he could get to the right spot. He smoothed down the ruffled feathers as he went, and was rewarded with happy chirping for his efforts.

He filed that away to ask about, if he could, when they... when they Drifted.

If they could, and it didn't fuck up Blitzø's brain to mindmeld with a giant alien... creature. That was a problem he was only going to worry about if he had to.

If he lived long enough to, anyway.

"Okay, I think that should do it," Blitzø said, dusting himself off as he inspected his handiwork, checking that all the nodes looked like they were in the right spot, matching the diagram he'd seen in the files. He walked over to the console, powering it on—he'd charged up the little battery pack before leaving his cabin that morning, and it looked like it had held the charge well—and started adjusting the settings.

He set it to a surface level Drift only; no need to fuck up their brains any more than the minimum if this went catastrophically badly. He checked the readings, the nodes successfully picking up his vitals, as well as his kaiju's. He could see a heart rate, and measurements of both of their brainwaves, or electric currents, or something? Oz had tried to explain what all the readings were, but all Blitzø cared about was that they were all showing green.

Or, his were. Feathers' were... weird, but. It was a kaiju. Blitzø tried to make a note of what they were, so if the numbers got super different, he could put a stop to it. That was usually about how it was supposed to go, right?

Part of him really wished Fizz was here to keep an eye on things, but he couldn't risk it. He couldn't do that to Fizz, or the kaiju. What if he told Fizz, and then a couple Jaegers showed up to kill it?

He couldn't risk it. Not yet.

"Okay, here goes. You ready? Last chance to bail," Blitzø said, finger hovering over the switch, looking up at his kaiju.

Feathers let out a trill, and it sounded a little nervous, but also determined. A couple more eyes appeared at the sides of its face, glowing a soft crimson.

"Bottoms up," Blitzø said, before his nerves had a chance to fail him, and he flipped the switch.

Initiating Neural Handshake, a robotic voice echoed in his head.

It felt like a shove, but instead of someone pushing him from the outside it was like someone had yanked him from the inside, pushing at his spine, dragging him around by his organs. He felt dizzy, and then heavy, and then weightless, and the flickering between the three was rapid and unsettling and everything was a pale blue and it all vanished in a puff of smoke, and then he was surrounded by deep blue-green, and then he felt wet and cold and pressure from all sides, and tasted salty, briny ocean water, and then he couldn't breathe, and then suddenly he could and he took a huge, gasping breath of air—

A huge, dark figure looms over him, mouth curled down in disappointment, growling his ire, and he raises a huge, taloned hand and he knows what's coming and can't help the curling into himself, his wings circling him, a useless barrier that Paimon will berate him for erecting — huge gathering, so many of his kin here, hasn't felt their voices clearly in years, just as bitter and full of disdain as he remembers, he just wants to leave, and as he thinks it he sees them narrow their eyes at him, their disgust clear and familiar in his mind, and then her shrill scolding cuts through it all, knives inside his head as she hurls anger at him and he can't stop her, no one ever stops her — he wakes with a start, dread coiling in his stomach, and it's quiet until he hears a scratching, rustling noise, and horror squeezes his heart as he remembers the egg, his precious egg, and he leaps out of the nest to check, what if they've been taken, stolen, murdered before they have a chance to live, to meet him, to join the chorus, and he sees a crack in his wonderful little one's shell but no one else is around, only listening distantly and barely paying attention, and a swell of awe and intense affection consumes him, because he's mistaken, there's no danger, his beloved starfire is hatching and soon he will be able to meet them! to hold them! to hear their lovely voice amongst the miserable cacophony—

Fire, bright green hot fire melting burning everything, the fabric of his home, his clothes and skin, there's so much shouting, so much going on, all he smells is smoke and his life as it burns to cinders, and where, where is Mama, he was just talking to her, what if she's still in her — He can't find a job, any job, everyone mentions Cash, they know what he did, he knows why they can't make an offer, he's going to have to look in another Ring, but he doesn't know anyone in the other Rings, where is he supposed to — He stares in horror at the debris, at the shattered windows, at the holes in the walls, all of it covered in oil and sparking machinery and bright, electric blue, and he's so angry, he just bought that office they were all so excited to be in Pride and it was all over, what were they going to do now, what would he even tell them? — The note, sitting on the counter in their tiny apartment in the middle of the night, because he couldn't face them, not now, not after he'd let them down, he was a coward to leave without saying anything but he'd always known that, he'd always been right about him, since long before the fire, this was just more proof —

Blitzø stumbled, suddenly aware of the sand under his feet again, and he could still see brief flickers of images passing across his awareness — huge creatures, his kin, gathered around a gate, and he is called, it's his turn — but he can also see the island again, the sun as it sinks lower in the sky, and the kaiju—

Stolas, the word is suddenly in his head. Well, not a word, or a sound, but it's a label, an indicator, and it's connected with a tether to the kaiju — 'kaiju'...? Feathers repeated the word and as he did Blitzø fell abruptly into his memories: huge aliens emerge from the sea with a roar, he's watching the news, and they're scary but also super cool, all different shapes, all violent and powerful and promising destruction— ah, I see, he hears him say—or think, he really wasn't sure which.

"Stolas?" Blitzø asked, and looked up at him for confirmation, and Feathers—Stolas—dipped his head in a nod.

Blitzø. Blitzø stared in wonder at him, at Stolas, at his friend, as he realized there were a set of images, of memories, they shared. Both of them smaller, Stolas much smaller, playing together for a day. His imaginary kaiju he'd had as a child was real, and now he'd... met him? The memories bounced back and forth in his head, one moment he was leading, toy sword in his hand as he ran around the circus, and then it was a palace, and he was a feathery fluff ball chasing after the strange, featherless boy he'd found, who'd been part of the chorus for a day, but had never joined again after that.

He felt a deep void of emptiness, lonely and aching and isolated, and while he was distantly aware that it wasn't his, or at least didn't originate from him, from Blitzø, it was also incredibly familiar. It was... almost exactly the same. Years, wondering where his only friend was, the only voice who hadn't angrily complained to the collective about how annoying, how worthless, how pathetic he was.

"I'm so, so sorry," Blitzø said, as he reached out, and Stolas matched him at the same time, inching forward and closing his eyes as Blitzø ran a clawed hand through the feathers around his face. He combed through with his fingers, finding the spots that needed it most, where the touch felt best, and a purr started in his chest at the same time as he felt a rumbling trill begin in his—no, in Stolas'—chest, and then he could hear it with his ears, too, and the aching void retreated, just a little, a tide receding as the moon orbits in its cycle, a temporary respite in a never-ending loop.

"You're not alone," Blitzø said, as he continued to run his fingers through massive inky blue-black feathers, and pressed his forehead up against them as he worked.

Thank you, he heard in his head. Not words, exactly, more like... a feeling of gratitude, but his brain could hear the words, too, because that's how he communicates, and he could feel how Stolas was trying to match him, to reach across, to find something in between the way he was used to speaking, and something Blitzø could hear, could understand. Blitzø felt him flitting through his mind, briefly touching his memories, in a search for points of commonality to latch onto. It wasn't invasive, he got the impression if he asked Stolas to stop, he would. But he didn't mind, mentally stepping aside to make room as Stolas observed him talking to Fizz and Oz, saw memories of meeting Millie, of watching her flirt relentlessly with Moxxie, of telling them he was sorry the business wasn't going to work out and helping them hunt for new jobs while he secretly made plans to move here, to his cabin.

Then he got to Loona, and was startled.

Daughter? The feeling was an odd one, because Stolas didn't have a family separate from his people the way Blitzø did, but he recognized the unique bond Stolas had asked about anyway.

Yeah, he thought, and then wondered how best to communicate a response that Stolas would be able to make sense of easily, and he felt a rumbling chuckle alongside a curl of amusement in his head as Stolas heard him think about it.

That is perfect, Stolas answered him, with a curl of delight that made his stomach tighten, and then Blitzø felt his face heat up, embarrassed and—well. Embarrassed.

You have done so much for me, Stolas thought softly, and it's both happy as well as sad. I am alive because of you.

"Nah, you would've made it alright without me," Blitzø said, but he felt Stolas' denial deep in his core, the heavy acknowledgement of just how badly he was doing when Blitzø found him, lying on the sand, covered in blood and barely breathing.

He'd been dying.

Blitzø had suspected, sure, but feeling the certainty from Stolas was... heavy, and sobering, and impossible to brush aside or ignore.

He felt naked and exposed, connected by the link, aware suddenly that Stolas could sense his distress, felt it as his own. Neither of them could hide from what they felt, or deflect, and that absolutely terrified him. He hadn't had any idea what it would actually feel like, to Drift with someone, to be this vulnerable, and to have a whole other life laid out in his mind at the same time.

I do not wish to pry. I can see that you have not learned how to mask your thoughts or choose what to share, as I have. But please know how very much it means to me that you were willing to try this, for me, despite the risks and your concerns. I will not ask you to do so again, if you do not wish to.

Blitzø felt him begin to withdraw, and responded with the most bewildering mixture of relief and panic.

don'tleavedon'tleavedon'tleave

I am not going anywhere, Stolas said, nudging Blitzø with his massive beak. I have nowhere else to go.

Blitzø felt that realization hit him like a freight train, and combined with the terror of exposure, the desperation to have Stolas stay—here, but in his mind, also—and the awareness of just how alone and isolated and in danger Stolas truly was, he was more than a little overwhelmed.

Please, he heard, and in his mind he saw the console, and the large button that would disconnect them. He stopped thinking about it, felt Stolas' fear that the connection was hurting him somehow, and how much the idea upset him, and that was all it took. He stumbled over to it, and pressed the button.

At first he thought he must have missed it or messed up somehow, because nothing happened. But then he heard the robotic voice in his head again, Disengaging Handshake — Closing Bridge, Connection Terminated, and gradually, he felt the pathway, the tether in his mind, begin to flicker and fade, and then Stolas' presence receded, until a few minutes later he was finally alone in his head.

His hand had never left Stolas' feathers, though, and now that he knew how much Stolas liked it—shit, was that weird? That felt weird.

He paused, but then he heard the rumbling noise that Stolas had been making fade too, and decided, fuck it, burying both hands back among large, inky feathers, and sinking into the relief when the rumbling returned, stronger than before.

They didn't say anything else, just sat there for a while longer in silence, until it started to get dark. Blitzø had to return to his cabin before it got dangerous to move around at night, so he slowly extricated himself from the feathers he'd sort of half melded into, and gave Stolas a final pat.

"I need to go back to my cabin," he said, and pointed, and saw understanding widen Stolas' eyes as he looked to the sky and back to Blitzø and nodded.

"I'll... be back tomorrow," Blitzø said, and stared at the box with the PONS system in it. All the nodes and pieces were scattered around the sand from where they'd fallen off over the past hour or so as they were sitting here, so he gathered it all up, and tried not to think about how the rumbling sound had faded, how Stolas' eyes were a little dimmer, how he seemed to droop down as Blitzø prepared to leave.

"I will be back. And... maybe we can try again. Okay? I'm not giving up," Blitzø said with a determined frown, holding up the box. "I don't know how much you get yet, but I'm not leaving you alone. Okay?" He pointed to Stolas, and then pointed to himself, and then back to Stolas.

"We're in this together," he said, giving him a determined nod, and Stolas's feathers puffed up a little, and he finally made the chirping sound again.

Blitzø supposed that would have to be good enough, for now.

Blitzø is walking. It's cold, his hands keep shaking, and one moment they're by his side and then they're trapped behind him, bound with chains, and then they're out in front of him, searching, seeking, trying to make a path in the thick fog that surrounds him

Heat licks at his heels, a sickly green glow oozing across his hooves, climbing his leg as the flames rise, consuming the tents all around him, fabric and then wood and trees and skin and bone

melting everything, everyone around them

then the flames turn blue and icy, and they still look like fire dancing in the breeze and licking at the walls but they don't burn, they freeze, and Stolas is rooted to the ground, immobilized by ice, and he is both at the center of the room as well as looking down at himself from all around, and he hears the voices of his kin, a loud dissonant clamor of many shouts in his head, his the only voice that doesn't blend, doesn't conform, doesn't fit the melody

Stolas of the Ars Goetia, you have a duty to your crown, a responsibility to the Hive, and you have neglected it. As punishment for your divergency, for your delinquent behavior, you will lead the next assault through the Pathway.

But, father!

You are one of many. Are you unwilling to do your duty, to serve your family, to play your part for the flourishing of all?

Of course I want to contribute, I am one of many, but Andrealphus has far more experience with strategy and combat than I—

It is a good thing you will be taking the entirety of his experience with you, then, is it not?

Stolas feels the despair, the truth of the sentencing, can hear in the very depth of his mind that Paimon acknowledges how none have yet to return back through the Breach, how this is likely a deadly mission, and then, deeper, just how little it affects him at all, and the way he sneers at Stolas' misery, condemns him for thinking so highly of himself, for considering himself an individual, and not solely a part of the Hive

Stolas barely manages to pivot his thoughts before he screams hypocrite in his mind at him, ensuring his immediate destruction on the spot. It gets harder to control his thoughts with every passing day, and Stella in his mind echoing all of Paimon's sentiments but with the extra venemous serves you right singling him out and making it even worse, and sometimes Stolas wonders if he should have let his mind loose after all, if oblivion would be preferable to this

Fizz lying in the hospital bed, broken, unconscious, as his father shrieks at him, your fault, your fault, you useless, worthless, pathetic excuse for a —

He always liked to let his hands do the talking

Blitzø staggers away from the hospital, burned and bruised, wounds layered over each other, the worst invisible and lying on top of them all — the fear that maybe he was right the whole time

He ran, because he couldn't stay. He wasn't welcome

"I don't wanna talk to you! Ever!"

Why couldn't it have been him, instead of her?

Blitzø bolted upright in bed, panting, sweat pouring down his temples, coating his chest, under his arms, and he pat at his own face and felt old scarring instead of fresh bandages, and then he looked around at his dark, quiet cabin where he was alone, and he sucked down cool air frantically until he could take a deep enough breath to slow it down a little, and then do it a few more times while his heart rate gradually returned to normal.

Blitzø didn't ever remember having dreams like that, even back then.

And then, obviously, there was... the other stuff. The not-his stuff.

But, in the back of his mind, the other stuff—the things that happened on the other side of a break between dimensions—felt... familiar. It felt old, and painful, but it felt like something he'd seen before.

Blitzø remembered telling Fizz all about his little feathery friend, the one he played pirates with.

The past and the present, the two lifetimes, one in Hell and one on the other side of wherever the Breach connected to, were starting to feel... tangled. It was all a mess in his head. He's never been through the Breach, never been anywhere near that deep in the ocean, and yet he remembers swimming through it, landing there and it was both new and familiar, and he knew which way to go, what to do, was aware of his legions behind him, prepared to follow his lead and invade once he gave the signal.

But... that wasn't Blitzø at all.

Right?

No, a voice said softly in the back of his mind, it is not.

It didn't sound like any voice he'd heard before. Not out loud, anyway. And not with his ears.

Blitzø shuddered, felt water weighing down feathers and sand under talons, and shook his head violently until all he saw and felt were sheets and the chill breeze, and he laid back down.

It took hours for him to find sleep again, but at least after that, the only voice in his head was his own.

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When Blitzø finally dragged himself out of bed, late the next afternoon, he was starving and felt disgusting. He grabbed whatever was left in his cabinets for a quick breakfast, but before he went out back to turn the water on and run it over his scales, wet feathers and sand and grime flashed through his memory.

He refused to consider what it meant, but logically... Stolas has been on that beach for a while, and he didn't have soap or a nice spigot with water to sit under. All he had was the ocean. Maybe that was fine for him, but...

It didn't feel fine. Fuck, wait, no. He wasn't thinking about that.

He didn't know what kaiju did for hygiene, but he did know what he liked to do when he needed to relax, and thought there was a chance Stolas might appreciate it, too.

He wasn't ready to see him again yet but he also desperately needed to. Needed to talk to him the imp way, with words, with no brain-talking bullshit. Needed to pretend for a little bit that he didn't know what that was like, hadn't felt it for himself, because it was... still too much.

But... he could do talking. Verbal talking, his way. He was pretty sure, anyway. He hoped.

Either way, he was in dire need of a bath, and this would be the best way to address that. So he walked to the beach, taking his little bar of soap with him in a cloth bag.

"Hey Stolas," Blitzø called, and Stolas was sitting there, waiting for him at the edge of the water, and tilted his head in the way Blitzø now recognized, knew meant he was asking, What?

He could hear the curiosity, laced with excitement beneath it, and delight to see the little red alien with the big horns, he didn't terrify him so badly that he never returned—

Fuck. Blitzø shook his head, and held up a hand, palm-out, like a pathetic, scarred little wall.

"Can you stop that? Just... Just for today?" Blitzø said, and his claws curled into fists.

Stolas hunched in on himself, looking sad and apologetic, radiating sorrysorrysorry.

That was a no, then.

"Fuck. Okay. Just... Come on, maybe a distraction is what we both need."

Stolas rose to his feet, wings flapping as he skipped after him, following him into the woods eagerly. Blitzø wondered if Stolas already knew where they were going, if he'd seen it in his head.

Well, he looked excited enough. He supposed whether or not it was a surprise wasn't all that important.

It took an hour to climb partway up the volcano further inland. Stolas offered to carry him, lowering himself down far enough that Blitzø would be able to climb on if he wanted and an image of sitting on top of Stolas's head flashed through his mind, but Blitzø needed to walk, and turned him down.

He could do that now, and Stolas understood. Stolas didn't speak his langauge, technically. Didn't speak any language that used actual words. But they could talk, sort of. It freaked Blitzø the fuck out, especially because he didn't know if it was permanent — doubtdoubthope? dOUBT! FIRM, MOSTLY CERTAIN, NOT PERMANENT—

"Oh my god, calm your feathery tits, you big chicken," Blitzø barked, unable to handle the onslaught of intense emotions crowding his head. "I'll deal with it either way. Somehow. Just... try not to do that," he groaned, and focused his attention back on walking and on how grimy and sweaty and tired he felt so he would stop hearing (feeling) Stolas' frantic remorse and guilt, churning at the edges of his mind.

It didn't take long before Blitzø got to his destination, and then finally, both of them had way better stuff to occupy their attention.

The scent wasn't great, because the springs flowed by a variety of mineral deposits in the volcano and they definitely weren't easy on the nose. But Blitzø heard they gave the water all kinds of soothing and healing properties, and there were a bunch of wildflowers around some of the pools that helped mitigate the worst of it. This place used to be a huge tourist destination before a kaiju had stomped it into dust and rubble on their way to terrorize the mainland.

(guiltguiltsorry—

yeah yeah, I know. I think of Them as... separate. From you. Not the same. You haven't hurt anyone

Separate...? Oh, I see. Separate.... perhaps.)

Steam rose from the water, heated by the rivers of lava running deep under the ground, large pools scattered across the volcano, but several clustered right around the spot Blitzø and Stolas were now standing.

"Dunno what aliens do for hygiene, but us imps love hot water and a good soak. How do you feel about bath time?" Blitzø asked, and Stolas trilled, loud and excited, and bolted toward the largest pool of water faster than Blitzø had ever seen him move, crashing into it and creating a small tidal wave as the water was displaced, crashing over the sides of the pool and away from him in every direction, soaking Blitzø from head to toe.

"Can't you give a guy some warning?" He started stripping off the jacket and pants he'd worn, and the now-soaked towel he'd rolled up into a ball and tucked into the bag with his soap.

Stolas chirped, and with his massive tail, flicked another wave's worth of water at Blitzø.

"Okay, fuck you, it's on," Blitzø shouted with a good-humored grin and a growl, and dived into the water, his tiny splashes doing absolutely nothing, barely reaching up any higher than Stolas' shins. But Stolas gave a big, dramatic gasp, falling backward, as though the water was a heavy blow that had knocked him over.

They splashed like that in the water until they wore themselves out, and then they floated and soaked and Blitzø got out briefly to use the soap he brought to scrub himself down. The pool Stolas was floating in was barely big enough for him alone, so instead of getting squashed somewhere between Stolas and the stone edges of the pool, he grabbed on to Stolas' leg and let him pull Blitzø up on top of him, to sit buried in damp feathers as Stolas floated in the hot water of the spring.

His feathers smelled a hell of a lot better than the stinky water, at least. And they were almost as warm, and even Stolas' running commentary and thoughts in his mind were starting to settle into the background, like chatter, like just... being around people casually, letting their voices drift through his mind without worrying about them or what they were saying. Almost like being in a café or a concert, surrounded by the chatter of other people.

Blitzø let his mind wander as he floated, until he was wrinkly and smelled like Stolas' feathers, letting Stolas' aimless commentary drift at the edge of his awareness at the same time as their mutual comfort hummed in the foreground across the connection, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so relaxed.

art by M (twitter) (bluesky)

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Stolas and Blitzø made regular visits to the hot springs after that, at least once a week. Blitzø had more nightmares, never quite as intense as the first one, and they got shorter and more muddy over time, eventually fading completely. He also heard Stolas' replies (feelings?) in his head less as the days passed, and after looking through some of the books and notes Ozzie left him, came across the term Ghost Drift, and it sounded like it might've been what was happening, why they still seemed... connected, even without the device actively linking their brains together.

It was weird, though, because based on everything he read, Ghost Drifting was something that happened between pilots who'd been piloting a Jaeger together for years, hooking themselves up to a PONS system almost daily for drills.

He decided not to worry too much about that, since there was absolutely fuck all he could do about it, whatever the reason for the weirdness. Maybe it was because Stolas was a kaiju, and his people were, like, brain-connected all the time.

That was... still difficult for Blitzø to think about, for a whole bunch of reasons. The most confusing thing was how he missed it, missed the constant connection, or—at least, had remnant feelings of missing it, he guessed? Left over from Stolas.

Memories of dozing on top of him in the afternoon sun, warm and comfortable with his contentment humming pleasantly in the back of his mind, whispered through his head as though to soothe him, and he shook himself to dislodge them. That shit wasn't important.

Besides, there was a much more serious problem they were going to run into if they didn't figure out a solution, and fast.

Blitzø was rapidly running out of animals to hunt on the island, taking longer to find anything every time he went out, and he couldn't always spare the time to go out over the deep water where there were plenty of fish, and his gardening skills sucked so that was also becoming a problem.

Without the weird mind link, Blitzø had no idea how he was supposed to have that conversation with Stolas, so he picked up the box with the PONS system and carried it back to Stolas' beach.

When Stolas watched him drop it to the sand and begin taking out all the pieces, he went oddly still, and Blitzø hesitated, dropping the helmet he'd been holding back into the box.

"We don't have to, if you you're still really worried. But I need to know what to do about the food situation, and I'm not sure how much you can understand me, and I sure as fuck can't understand you right now." He pointed at his mouth, rubbed his stomach, and otherwise tried to mime what he was talking about, but Stolas remained still, watching him, and Blitzø could see his mind working. It went on long enough that Blitzø's neck was getting tired from having to look up at him, so he shrugged and lied down on the sand.

"I'm just gonna chill here. Let me know when you make up your mind or whatever," he said, closing his eyes. He was tired, had spent long hours yesterday after he got back to his cabin trying to figure out why his fucking lettuce was wilting when the weather had been nice and the soil was still damp and he'd just fertilized it.

Fuck. He must have an infestation somewhere, and until he figured out what it was he didn't know how to deal with it, the way to handle different pests would involve a totally different treatment, so it wasn't like he could just douse them in some sort of generic Hellbug-B-Gone and expect that to make a fucking dent.

Right? Was Hellbug-B-Gone a thing that existed? He was pretty sure it wasn't.

Suddenly there was a shadow and the rustling of feathers, and then a warm, wet tongue licked up his leg, from ankle up to his hip, and he gave a full-body shudder.

"Holy shit, alright, I'm up," he said, tucking in his legs to sit cross-legged and looking into the massive set of eyes right next to him, still shivering a little at the scrutiny, and at the proximity. "What are we doing?"

Stolas let out a low, rumbly, trilling hoot, and looked at the box with the PONS system, sticking out his tongue again.

"No, don't do that, you'll get your gross spit all over it and I don't know what's in that shit," Blitzø said, holding up his hands as a barrier between his tongue and the box to stop him from licking the PONS system, and then jumped back at the tingly sensation that he felt in his fingertips as he did so. It faded quickly as soon as he stopped touching Stolas' tongue, but the memory of the sensation lingered, a ghostly sort of tingling warmth in his claws that climbed up his arm before fading out again.

Weird.

"No licking the electronics, feathers-for-brains," Blitzø mumbled, mostly to distract himself as he resumed setting up the PONS console and hooking up all the wires to the two wireframe helmets. He wondered idly if licking the system could actually hurt him; Stolas was so huge, he might barely notice. He could feel his kaiju's eyes following him, keeping his tongue in his mouth this time, but the way he watched him seemed more interested, curious, and less... whatever it had been before.

Blitzø supposed he'd probably have a good idea of whatever his deal was soon enough, if the Drift had anything to say about it.

He put the helmet on his own head, made the adjustments, checked all the little sticky pads were on his head in the right place, and then took out the console and made sure all the wires were ready to go. Then he realized he was an idiot, because he couldn't climb all over Stolas to get his head hooked up while he was attached to the console, so he undid his own helmet, made sure everything was all neatly together, and then picked up the parts for Stolas.

"Last chance to chicken out, buddy," Blitzø said with a wry grin. "If there's some reason you don't want to do the whole brain-talking thing today, you don't have to, and this is your chance to opt out, and I'll find another way to talk to you." He put his helmet back in the box, and stepped away from it, and looked up at Stolas, glancing at the little mobile PONS system and back to him with a shrug, and waited.

Stolas followed his glance to the box and back, and then sat up, drawing his wings around him, protective, as he stared at the box overflowing with cables, and he looked thoughtful, like he was really considering Blitzø's question. He couldn't be sure, of course, without hearing Stolas' reply in his mind, whether or not he actually understood what Blitzø had asked him, but ever since they'd Drifted the first time, Stolas seemed to respond when he spoke in a way that suggested he really could suddenly understand some of his language. He'd thought it was the Ghost Drift, but now he was starting to wonder if it was more than that.

And it bothered him, that there seemed to be a reason Stolas was so hesitant. It was easier to be able to talk directly in their minds, sure, but after feeling a little of what it was like for Stolas, growing up with his whole family—more than that, his entire race!—in his head, all the time, he shuddered just thinking about it.

Stolas finally had the choice, and he could see why keeping his mind to himself might be appealing, even though he knew he missed it at the same time, and felt lonely without it.

But after a short moment of hesitation, Stolas uncurled his wings, leaned forward, and nudged the box gently with his massive beak. Then he looked over to Blitzø, and gave a soft hoot.

"Alright, if you're sure," Blitzø said, and reached down, lifting the pieces of Stolas' helmet out of the box and finding the places to attach them once more to his head, again having to pretty much climb on top of him to get all the nodes in place. He finally dropped back to the sand, had Stolas tilt his head so he could check one more time, making sure it looked like everything was staying in the right spot. Stolas chirped and looked at the console in his hands and fluttered his wings, seeming eager.

Well, it looked like he'd finally made up his mind. Blitzø pressed the button, and heard the voice as the connection was initiated, just like the first time.

He was surprised when there was no immediate onslaught of memories bowling him over; pieces would float across his awareness, sometimes from him and sometimes from Stolas, but it was much less... overwhelming.

"You're not allowed to get pissed at me if I see something you don't want me to," Blitzø grumbled, checking the readouts on the console, mostly for something to do. "Or see something in my head that you don't want to. I'm still new to this shit."

Of course, he heard Stolas reply in his mind, and it sounded so similarly to hearing someone saying the words right next to him, like a normal conversation, except he could also feel Stolas' amusement curling around the words, along with a quiet determination.

"Okay, laugh at me all you want," Blitzø said, but he was also relieved at the confidence Stolas had as he spoke the words in his mind.

I appreciate you giving me the choice, Stolas said, and Blitzø was glad he'd understood what he was trying to say, after all. I trust you, Stolas added, and Blitzø immediately felt a surge of fear jolt through him.

He didn't feel very worthy of trust, to be totally honest.

Whyever not? Stolas asked, and Blitzø couldn't help the flashes of memory that burst from the back of his mind in response — fire, and Barb asking him not to find her, at Fizz laying in a hospital bed, asleep, wrapped in bandages, but not around his arms or legs — Oh, Blitzø, Stolas said, his voice full of pain and Blitzø had to try very hard not to feel responsible for putting it there, because Stolas had enough to deal with without adding on his baggage.

I am sorry, Stolas said, which was so unexpected it shocked Blitzø out of his spiral. I should have known better than to ask a question like that. I will try to refrain in the future. I understand your privacy is very important to you, and I do not wish to know things that you are not prepared to share with me.

Blitzø had not, in fact, fully considered just how much was in his head that was available for Stolas to peruse at will. He had, but he also hadn't, as he felt it when Stolas saw new glimpses of things, felt him pull away, leave them be without chasing, felt him shove down the desire to know, to see, to experience, to share.

He trusted Stolas, too. Because he'd experienced the Drift before, and he was willing to do it again, right? He knew what he was getting into, more or less, even if he kept being surprised by it. And so did Stolas.

I am glad, Stolas said, and Blitzø was overcome with the wave of deep gratitude and joy that accompanied the statement, and found that he felt... similarly.

So, what was it you needed to tell me? Stolas asked, and Blitzø suddenly remembered the reason they were Drifting again in the first place.

"Oh, right. The food situation," Blitzø said, and halfway through trying to decide how to explain it, Stolas responded.

Ah. I see. Well, I have... good news and bad news, Stolas said, and Blitzø got a flash of several images in quick succession.

The first was Stolas lying on the beach, feeling weak and tired, barely able to move, and then seeing what Blitzø had left for him, and realizing he might survive after all, and a whole tumble of emotions that brought with it (reliefgratitute thankyouthankyouthankyou—fearterrorunsafe, alone, strangehostilealien, enemy? Familiarity, longagofriends, which is it, unsure, afraid, too big of a risk), and then a flash of swimming, deep in the ocean and following the faint trail of some sort of large Hell creature, Blitzø didn't know what the smell was, but he could sense that Stolas was hunting it, but then there was another flash of running into a small metal contraption (WATCHOUT mine!) (Well yes, I know that now) (shit, probably not very helpful, huh) (the warning and concern for my safety is still appreciated) (toowarm, embarrased, okaywhatever moving on) and then Stolas getting a claw tangled in a large net, and that wasn't really an issue except that he passed several fishing boats that he only very narrowly avoided getting seen by, but before Blitzø could fully process all of that there was another scene that played out in his mind.

Stolas is swimming through the water, returning from a hunt, clinging tightly to a whale carcass that he drags along with him as he glides through the water. He sees his beach, and he knows Blitzø probably stopped by today, and he feels sad that he won't be able to see him, because he still has an important task he must complete first.

He circles around the island, swats at a shark that swims too close hoping for his scraps, and then when it continues to follow him he waits for it to swim close enough and then strikes out with a killing blow, because he can't risk it following him any further.

He swims on, circling all the way to the far side of the island, and waits and listens to make sure he has no new followers before diving deeper into the water, finding the overhang in the rock he is searching for, and dives underneath.

There is a small pocket, deep in the mountain. Well, small for him—it's quite large, for most creatures that seem to live on this planet. But he knows he won't find anything more hidden, more protected, than this. He swims beneath the overhang, finds the passage, and follows it deeper through the rock, surfacing in the cave at the other end.

There is a small bundle of feathers at the edge of the water, and as he swims closer, it rustles and then two large eyes blink open in the darkness, two glowing spots of red with beautiful white dots in the center, and she uncurls, waking at the smell of dinner.

Oh, Blitzø thought, remembering the way Stolas had asked daughter? when he mentioned Loonie, and how he'd hoarded food that he hadn't eaten immediately, never quite finishing whatever Blitzø brought him, and how he always seemed so hungry, and had mostly cleaned out the island, and suddenly it made much more sense why.

Yes, Stolas said, the word heavy with understanding, but also full of warmth and devotion. Stolas adored his daughter.

Well. Blitzø could understand that, too.

You saved her, as well, Stolas said, and again the weight of his gratitude and relief felt... crushing, and also much bigger than Blitzø felt he deserved. But he was distracted from his thoughts by the deep sadness that Stolas still felt, and it only took a moment for him to understand why.

Via was sick, and it wasn't because she wasn't getting enough food.

I think being separated from my people so young has been very difficult for her, much more so than for me. I was hoping... perhaps, we might find a way to use this device with her? It may help, Stolas said, hesitant and hopeful and desperate.

"Yeah, of course, whatever you need," Blitzø said immediately, willing to do anything for his—for Stolas' kid. He was resolved to find a way to help her, at any cost. She was so young, and he didn't give a fuck whether she was an imp, a hellhound, or a kaiju, he wasn't about to turn his back on her.

Thank you, Stolas said, and Blitzø started to tear up at the wave of gratitude, of fondness that he felt coming from Stolas. And it was so, so much more than was warranted. Via was practically a baby, obviously he was gonna help her.

Stolas bristled in his mind, his feathers puffing up in indignance to match, and Blitzø could feel his determination, his frustration.

"Okay, okay, fine, I get it. You're welcome or whatever," he said. He could feel that Stolas could tell he didn't quite mean it, that he said it to get him to stop, but it also worked and he could sense Stolas' sigh of surrender, and he could tell he felt bad about shoving his gratitude at him quite so loudly.

They spent a while after that trying to come up with a solution for the food situation. Blitzø told Stolas all about the boat he bought, letting Stolas carry him this time as they made their way to his cabin so he could show it to him. Blitzø explained as much as he could about where the safest places to swim would be, but the only areas he could really be sure no one would see him were close to the island, and the lack of big fish around it was exactly why he'd needed the boat. No demons would bat an eye at Blitzø out fishing in deeper water, but if anyone saw a kaiju swimming around, they were going to be in deep trouble, so Stolas venturing out too far from the island was always going to be dangerous.

Blitzø thought briefly about his garden, and the frustration began to build again at the fact that he'd been having so much trouble with it because he hadn't been able to spend as much time in it lately, or doing the research to figure out what he was doing wrong, and Stolas gave a sudden chirp of recognition and enthusiasm.

Oh! I also have—or, had, a garden, Stolas told him, and Blitzø saw flashes of the most bizarre-looking plants he'd ever seen (they were from another planet, what the fuck had he been expecting?) (It's quite a lot to get used to, it is reasonable to need time to adjust) (okay fuck off, I'm going to be a dumbass sometimes, you don't have to get on my case every single time and be all... understanding, and shit) (My apologies, In the future, I will merely agree with you about your own low opinion of your intelligence) (I can hear your sarcasm, bitch) (Oh, am I allowed to stop pretending you're an idiot, then?) (Oh my fucking Satan, you're such a cunt—)

After more arguing which was hardly arguing at all, they finally arrived at his cabin, only crushing a few trees underfoot along the way. They disconnected the PONS system and packed it away, but this time the Drift stayed with them even without the system, not as vivid but still very much a presence in their minds, so Stolas was able to explain to him how, back on his planet, he'd done a lot of research into horticulture (Whore culture? — You know perfectly well that is not what I said, you little imp, I- oh. Wait, what was that?)

Blitzø stilled, and tried very hard to think about... anything but his feelings. He looked at his hands, at his garden. "Uh. Nothing, it's fine. I'm used to it."

It is most certainly not nothing! What did I do? What upset you so? Blitzø shuddered, hating how easy it was for Stolas to press, to look, to root around in his head, but he also felt him withdraw when he noticed Blitzø's distress.

"Fucking nothing, I said it's fine, just drop it!" He couldn't seem to unwind his arms from around his middle, or unwrap his tail from where it was coiled, pressed tightly against his legs, but focusing on those was easier than thinking about the last person who had called him little imp, before he had his business, before M&M, before Loona.

It wasn't just one time, either. But some were... worse, than others.

...Very well. All the same, I apologize. Stolas left it at that, and gently returned to discussing the garden, and Blitzø could feel him putting up a kind of mental boundary, a wall, containing some of his thoughts to himself, and trying not to pry.

He eventually calmed down enough to focus on what Stolas was explaining to him, how there was something about kaiju saliva that made fantastic pest repellent, and Stolas seemed convinced it would work on this side of the Pathway just as well.

Blitzø decided it was worth a shot, and he let Stolas give him some tips on what made good fertilizer, too, even though it was fucking gross. But then, he'd done plenty of gross stuff before.

Stolas was very amused by his lack of enthusiasm about proper garden fertilization, which at least meant one of them was having fun.

(Blitzø was too, but he was never going to admit that, even though Stolas could definitely tell. It was really very obvious, because Stolas kept glancing at him and making jokes, and Blitzø could feel the little thrill even when he pretended not to think it was funny, because Stolas felt all of it, too. But... he was starting to mind less and less, especially when Stolas just seemed delighted, and it was obvious how much he missed being able to talk. Talk in a way that was normal for him, anyway.)

As they continued chatting and working in the garden outside Blitzø's cabin, however, Blitzø saw a flash in his mind of a ship out on the water, accompanied by Stolas' commentary: That does not look like the vessel you showed me, and then horror as he realized it was because Stolas was as tall as a building and could see ahead of him and had spotted a boat that was very much not his boat approaching the pier by his cabin.

It was Fizz's green motorboat.

If he could see the boat, there was almost no way Fizz hadn't spotted the massive kaiju that was taller than the trees who had a direct line of sight on him.

"Oh fuck," Blitzø said, and stared in horror at the boat that was minutes away.

Shit. He'd been careless.

What should we do? Stolas thought, desperately. Will he listen, if you explain?

"I guess I'm about to find out," Blitzø said, a hollow feeling growing in his chest, pulling his cheerful good mood into it with the force of a black hole.

I can always take Via deep underwater and hide, for a while, if we need to, Stolas assured him, but Blitzø could feel his doubt. Demons were everywhere, and if he lost the sanctuary of this island, and didn't have any safe places to hunt for food, and couldn't find a way to connect his mind to his kid's...

He wasn't sure how long they could last, realistically.

"I'll make him understand. I promise," Blitzø said, and turned to look up at Stolas, letting his resolution shine brightly across the connection, pushing it at Stolas as forcefully as he could.

Stolas nodded, and sank down as low as he was able, stepping to hover by the treeline, giving Blitzø enough space to talk to Fizz without pretending he was trying to hide.

Blitzø took a deep breath, shoved aside all his fear, and walked toward the pier, where Fizz was already tying up his boat.

If anyone, anywhere in all of Hell was going to hear him out and understand where he was coming from, it was Fizzarolli. It was just up to Blitzø to convince him.

He hoped to Satan he'd be enough.

"Okay, Fizz, I know what this looks like, but don't freak out—"

"Don't freak out? Are you fucking kidding me?!" Fizz shrieked, nearly hysterical. "You've been acting super fucking weird and now I find out it's because you replaced me with an actual motherfucking KAIJU and didn't even bother to tell me!"

"What the fuck?!" Blitzø stared blankly at Fizz for several seconds while his brain recovered from its short circuit and brief malfunction. "Fizz, what are you talking about? I'm not replacing anyone! He's a kaiju!"

"Yeah, I can see that, you piece of shit! You hid a kaiju from me! Me, after everything we've been through!"

Blitzø felt the guilt squeeze his chest, constricting and tight, and reached out toward his friend. "Fizz..."

"No, I know, fuck off. You didn't want me to have to lie to Ozzie, or whatever. I get it. But there's no point worrying about that anymore!" Fizz threw his hands in the air as he started to pace back and forth, and the hysterical edge to his voice made Blitzø even more uncomfortable as he got a terrible feeling in his stomach.

"Uh, Fizz? What does that mean?"

"It means the missing equipment was noticed, and now we've got maybe twenty-four hours to figure out how to hide a fucking kaiju on your tiny-ass shitty island, or we're all royally fucked! And not in a good way," Fizz gave a hysterical laugh, and then dropped to the pier and stared hollowly out at the water.

"Fuck," Blitzø said, and Fizz gave a humorless, hollow laugh.

"Yeah. Fuck."

"Okay, well. We used to keep stuff hidden from Cash all the time. We can... we can figure this out, we'll—"

We should just leave, Stolas said morosely, a soft, sad murmur in the back of his mind.

Blitzø spun around to glare up at his— at Stolas. "No! Fucking—absolutely not, we're gonna fix this," he said, pointing up at him, jabbing his finger in the air with aggression. "We'll keep you, and her, safe. I promise. Just... give me a minute to think of something."

"What does that mean? Who's 'her'? What are you talking about? And please, for the love of Satan tell me you are not talking to the kaiju like it can understand you because you used Ozzie's PONS system to Drift with a fucking alien," Fizz scowled, equal parts fury and horror, at Blitzø, and Blitzø sighed.

"I, uh. I guess there are some things I need to catch you up on, huh."

He looked up at Stolas, who nodded in encouragement, and then dropped to the dock, scooting right up next to Fizz. He grabbed his arm to twist his around his own, and when that didn't feel like enough, coiled his tail around Fizz's waist as comfortingly as he could manage as he told him about everything he'd been wanting to tell him for weeks.

art by M (twitter) (bluesky)

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Oz showed up a couple hours later, and together, they put together what they thought might be a fairly workable plan. Blitzø was pretty sure their odds were at least fifty-fifty, which was way better than zero!

They needed to go inside Blitzø's cabin to plan out their strategy, and Blitzø hated that Stolas was stuck outside, on his own, so he took the first chance he got while Fizz and Oz were distracted with planning and didn't need him and he snuck out the door to check on him in person, instead of just thinking loudly at him and waiting to see if he'd notice.

Stolas was crouched low at the edge of the water a ways down the coastline, still clearly visible from Blitzø's front door even with trees in the way, because even bent down his shoulders were still almost as tall as the trees. He walked down, and as he got closer, he could hear—could feel—the intense distress Stolas was stewing in, and had been trying to suppress while they figured out a way to help him.

He felt awful, and Blitzø hated it. No one should ever feel that way... alone, a burden, a danger to those around him, worthless. It wasn't true, and it wasn't fair, and he was horrified to realize Stolas had managed to keep almost all of it from him for hours, dealing with it out here, on his own.

It was getting dark, and Blitzø followed the brilliant glow of the many sets of eyes—more than he'd seen since that first day he was awake, at least four sets, maybe five—to the coastline, and was almost close enough to touch him before Stolas even noticed he was there.

Oh, have you finished already? Stolas asked, sitting up, staring down at him, shoving back all his emotions as far away as he could, and it made Blitzø ache.

"We're getting there. Stop doing that, we're gonna handle this, and it's not a problem. We cover for each other around here, you got that? It's just what we do."

He stared hard at Stolas, watching him blink all his sets of eyes one by one, and tried to project all the confidence and conviction he could. But he didn't try to hide his fear, either. He wanted Stolas to know all of it, to see it, and understand that it didn't change anything.

He wasn't going anywhere, and neither was Fizz. Or even Oz.

I... I do not know what to say, Stolas said, all his eyes drifting shut set by set, and Blitzø could feel the way some of his panic subsided, just a little, and the deep swell of warmth that burst forth as it receded, unleashed as though a dam had burst, threatening to drown them both.

Blitzø felt hot tears prickling at the corners of his eyes, and he sniffed.

"Yeah, it's... no big deal," he said, chuckling as they both felt just how very untrue that was, and he sat down next to Stolas, right between the long digits of his front talon, reaching out to run his hands through the shorter feathers at the base there, hoping it might feel comforting.

He could tell that Stolas knew what he was trying to do, and felt his gratitude, and how much it meant to him. It was... so weird, to be completely unable to hide, to have almost everything in his head available to someone else. It was... so incredibly intimate, in a way he was still only beginning to appreciate.

He didn't hate it, though. Even with all the downsides.

Back home, Stolas said, suddenly, tentative and longing, I could sometimes... There were many unhappy pairs, among my kin. The goal was always to produce heirs, to strengthen the species, grow our legions, to conquer. But... every now and then, there would be a match that found something far more than that, something honest, a true connection. It isn't the same when it's not you, I could tell the feelings were... muted, for me. But... I always hoped. and longed to have something just a fraction as wonderful, but I'd given up a long time ago, that it would ever happen.

Blitzø looked up at him, and Stolas slowly lowered his head, and nudged his beak as gently as he could against Blitzø's horn, and the contact sent a tingling shiver through Blitzø's skull, down his spine.

Slowly, so slowly, waiting for Blitzø to ask him not to, Stolas opened his mouth, jaws huge and breath warm, and then reached out with his tongue. He paused, and when Blitzø only continued to watch him, curiosity and heat mixing in his belly, slowly reached out to lick up Blitzø's horn, following the path his beak had drawn, up and down.

It was a little scratchy, kind of like a cat's tongue, but his was rounder, thicker, much much bigger, and bright blue, closer to the color of his blood. There was a light tingling trail in the streak he left behind, and then Blitzø felt a bright, sparking jolt of heat crash through him, followed by a gentle, soporific warmth, and contentment, and through the thick blanket of bubbly peace, a sharp need, the desire to feel a lot more of that tongue as soon as possible.

Stolas? He realized he had closed his eyes, and he hauled them back open to look up at Stolas, to watch the way his eyes were getting heavy-lidded as he watched Blitzø intently, hungrily, and Blitzø reached out to run his fingers along the tongue that was still licking slowly up one horn before switching to the other one, running up one side and down the other, and then lower, down to his neck, following it until his progress along tingly, heated skin was impeded by the annoyance of clothing.

Blitzø, Stolas crooned in his mind, and he pressed his tongue against him a little more firmly, and Blitzø could hear the question lurking in the back of his thoughts, beneath the fog of arousal and need.

Is this okay should I stop are you sure are you sure are you sure

Blitzø couldn't help the ugly snort he made at the question. Stolas I want this so fucking bad it's not even funny, he thought, and then painstakingly let go of some of the mental barriers he'd thrown up in desperation earlier, trying to let Stolas see just how very much he meant it.

Oh, Stolas thought, and it was a simple word, with such a heavy, shattering miasma of emotions and horrible experiences behind it. The depth of Stolas' shock, the utter disbelief that he, that anyone, could feel that way, that Blitzø was not only accepting but responded with rousing enthusiasm, made Blitzø want to tear someone apart, limb from limb. Stolas slowed down as he processed his own shock, and Blitzø's fury and desperation, and slowly began to understand that the anger was for him, in defense of him.

Blitzø was almost knocked back by the wave of relief, of affection, that filled his mind, smothered all his anger in an instant, because Stolas was happy. He resumed his licking with vigor, and the dizzying smell intensified, and Blitzø had to stop himself from grinding against the tongue as it continued to run along his chest and then worked its way lower.

"Hold—hold on a sec," Blitzø said, but he could tell it took a moment for the words to register, probably because of how little he actually meant them, how very much he did not really want to stop. "Let me get my shirt off, you horny bastard," Blitzø growled, shoving the tongue away from himself so he could get his shirt over his head and his horns, and then Stolas was rubbing his beak against him, talons curling around him, Blitzø's tail eagerly seeking feathers, wrapping firmly as far as he could reach around one of Stolas' massive talons, so Stolas had something to hold on to, another point of contact.

Then he unbuttoned his pants, and felt Stolas lament that he couldn't do it himself, that he couldn't navigate the tiny fastening with fingers or mouth, and there was a flash in his mind of another scene, in another place, of a smaller Stolas, still taller than Blitzø but no longer towering over him by meters, with talons large and sharp but small enough to tease out the button from its nest, to slip under his hemline, to slowly, teasingly tug the rest of his clothes off. Apruptly the scene was gone, wiped from his mind, replaced by the complete blank of white static as he freed his dick from his pants and Stolas licked him firmly, from thigh to horn, making sure to press against his whole front as he did, the drag of his tongue wet and heavy and hot and incredible.

"F-fuck," Blitzø hissed, grinding against him, feeling Stolas' talon inch closer to press against the back of his legs, steadying him as he wobbled. Then Blitzø decided, fuck it, and let himself tip backward, and Stolas caught him with a talon, the same one Blitzø's tail was still curled tightly around, and Stolas held him as he dived back in with his tongue, his hot breath ghosting across Blitzø's skin, and he felt surrounded by warmth, protected on all sides, sharp talons at his back, cradling him, a lethal beak and soft feathers and huge blue tongue in front of him, taking up most of his field of vision, and he grabbed at it. He held Stolas as he ground his pelvis against him over and over, desperate, thrusting his hips as much as he could from his position lying on his back, his legs tangled in his pants which he still hadn't managed to remove completely, too distracted by Stolas and his massive, wicked, dextrous blue tongue.

He couldn't think, and it felt like barely any time had passed at all before he could feel himself approaching his peak, the pressure building rapidly and crashing through him before he had a moment to catch his breath.

As Stolas continued to lick and stroke him through it with his tongue and Blitzø's brain gradually resumed functioning again, Stolas pulled his tongue back into his mouth and began running his beak along Blitzø's horns again, less of a needy, desperate motion, affection bleeding across their connection, and Blitzø reached out to touch his beak with his claws, with his skin.

"How—what can I do, for you?" Blitzø asked, unsure exactly what options he had, what Stolas wanted, how he could help him. "Tell me," he insisted, because he could hear that Stolas was about to refuse, to insist he not worry about it, that he was fine.

"Let me do it," he insisted, searching and finding the heat that was still building in Stolas, that burned low and hot and wanting. He needed to help, to make Stolas feel as good as he did, needed to return the favor, to be useful, to be good for something—

Stolas whined, high and distressed, and Blitzø panicked as he started pulling back, which was the opposite of what he wanted. "Wait!" He leapt up, chasing Stolas' beak, throwing his fear and need and longing at Stolas as hard as he could—come back come back come back don't go don't leave me— and it worked, Stolas hesitated, caught between choices, between what Blitzø was telling him and what he'd just felt, and Blitzø could feel the echo of a deep ache in his chest, as Stolas tried to figure out what the right thing to do was, how desperately he wanted to, whatever it ended up being.

Blitzø did his best to breathe through his panic, to tell himself that Stolas wasn't leaving, not yet, that he still had a chance. Where had he messed up? He would fix it, whatever he did wrong, let me fix it—

You have nothing to fix, Stolas told him, gentle and aching. I do not wish to harm you.

"Fuck that," Blitzø said, and he tried to growl the words but he was still too shaken and he knew Stolas could tell, even without Blitzø's desperate fear ringing loudly across the lingering connection. "I'll find a way, let me at least try," he begged, reaching out, thinking frantically, trying to come up with a possible solution, anything that would let him be closer to Stolas again, willing Stolas to believe him, to stop pushing him away.

He remembered Stolas in his mind, imagining helping him with his buttons, and for a moment let his frustration bleed across, as he thought about the fact that their difficulty was mirrored, that it went both ways. Blitzø wished for a moment that he could be mountain-sized, could use his tongue the way Stolas had, could fill Stolas up and satisfy him the way he could feel Stolas aching for.

Stolas let out a loud moan, Blitzø could feel it shudder through him, both in his feet as the ground shook with the force of the sound, and then in his hands as he reached out for Stolas, pressing them against his beak, and hearing the moan and Stolas' cries in his mind, because they were connected by much more than spoken words.

He imagined, with as much detail as he could conjure, fucking Stolas with a huge kaiju-sized dick. How it would be bright blue like Stolas' tongue, covered in ridges and spikes, even more than his actual dick, and thicker, much much thicker, big enough that he'd have to go slow. He would press in inch by inch, infuriatingly cautious to rile Stolas up, his desperation growing with every passing moment, every twitch of his hips, every drop of sweat as it traced a slow path across his skin.

Stolas writhed, grinding against the sand of the beach, breathless and needy, and reached down with a massive talon to press it between his legs, and Blitzø could feel it, against his skin, and inside his body, even though his anatomy didn't match.

The heat was the same, the need was the same, the desperate desire was the same, identical, reflected back and forth between them, and that was what mattered. The rest of Stolas' hesitation, his caution, vanished in a wave of pure, consuming want, flaring white-hot.

Blitzø kept imagining fucking Stolas, tried thinking about Stolas on his back as he held his legs wide apart, and then Stolas on top of him, riding him with stuttering, frantic thrusts, and then Blitzø imagined pressing Stolas into the ground as he slammed into him from behind, as he pressed massive claws into his back, scratched lines into him there, marking him, as he leaned forward to cover him, all his weight against his back, and fuck him into the dirt, getting his feathers messy with their cum and sand and sweat and ocean water, reducing him into a mindless, writhing mess underneath him.

Stolas came with a loud shout, almost a roar, that shattered the quiet night, and Blitzø felt a deep curl of satisfaction followed by the heavy weight of fatigue, because it sure felt like he'd experienced two mind-shattering orgasms, one right after the other, instead of just one. Had he? He wasn't entirely sure.

Thank you, Blitzø, Stolas said in his mind, and Blitzø was about to scold him for thanking him when he wanted it just as badly, but then he heard the whisper underneath, of all the things Stolas was actually thanking him for.

Yes, wanting him, but also helping him when he didn't have to, when Stolas hadn't known how he even could, had been terrified of asking. For being here, for fighting for him, for never giving up, ever, even when the challenges they were facing seemed impossible, insurmountable.

He was talking about the sex, yes, but also about a lot more than that.

Blitzø struggled in his post-orgasm haze to comprehend the wonder and awe he felt, as across their connection Stolas' affection, his confidence, sang brightly. He was speechless as he was faced with Stolas' conviction, his complete confidence that Blitzø was a force of nature, an inevitability, that he could make the world bend to his will.

And with the depth of Stolas' gratitude settling in his head, filling him up from his hooves to the tips of his claws, and satisfaction weighing him down, his eyes drifted closed with exhaustion and contentment...

He thought that maybe, even if Stolas was wrong, it might be okay to trust for once. To believe in him, the way Stolas clearly believed in Blitzø.

He thought that deal sounded like a fair one, one he could easily agree to.

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"You realize who we need to make this plan actually work, right?"

"Shut up, no. That's not an option."

"Blitzø..."

"I said no!" Blitzø felt the tiniest curl of distress in the back of his mind; he'd shouted so loud Stolas actually heard him, even though he was out splashing around in the water while they all sat at the pier, putting the rest of their plan together. The Drift connection was fading, they only got vague impressions from each other every now and then, and Blitzø was already missing Stolas' detailed commentary in his head.

He may be terrified for his life, but he was still managing to be a cunty motherfucker about the whole situation, and Blitzø adored him for it.

He sent a calming thought to Stolas before turning back to Fizz, who was staring at him with an eyebrow so high it was hidden under his hat.

"Stolas was worried, so I was just— whatever, it doesn't matter. We're not involving them. They... they're doing well, Fizz, asking them to help with this, to give up everything they've worked for—"

"It'll work, Blitzø, they won't have to give up shit! And don't they at least deserve to be offered the choice? What if they want to help? What if they're the difference between the plan working and falling apart? You want them to have to deal with the knowledge that they could've made a difference, but you never asked them and then you end up imprisoned for life, or dead, and they could have helped you avoid it?"

"They can never find out! I'd be dead anyway, remember, asshole?"

"Oh you know I'd tell them, fucker. Try me, I don't give a shit about their clear conscience, they're not my friends."

"Fuck you, Fizz, you're such a dick!"

"Call. Them."

Fizz grabbed Blitzø's phone, navigated to his contacts, raised an eyebrow when he found M&M's number right there at the top underneath his own and Loona's, and stared straight at a panicking Blitzø as he pressed the call button and handed the ringing phone back.

Blitzø hyperventilated and glared at him as the ring continued, and then a crackly voice sounded across the line. "H-hello? Sir?"

"Heeey, Mox, how ya been? Business good, Mils good, all that?" Blitzø blabbed on, steamrolling right over any potential response Moxxie might want to make. "Great! That's awesome. Hey, so i'm in a bit of a pickle and everything is totally fine but also I might die! Kinda funny, huh?"

It took about five minutes before Moxxie and Millie were packing up all the supplies they had and jumping into their car to race for the ferry. Blitzø avoided looking at Fizz because he wasn't sure how to handle his smug grin, so instead got up and went back to his cabin to find Oz and tried to help him with all the wild engineering shit he needed to get working as soon as fucking possible, because Stolas' life kind of depended on it.

The rest of theirs did, too, he supposed.

He was kicked out of Oz's little makeshift workshop about an hour in. For the Sin of Lust, the guy was weirdly opposed to a running commentary filled with sexual innuendo while he was working. Go figure.

He decided to go look for Stolas, who he found looking after his kid. There wasn't much they could do until the emergency had been dealt with; they'd just have to try to keep her as calm as they could until the danger was over, and they could try to Drift again, and figure out a way to help her.

Talking to Stolas was getting harder when he couldn't rely on conveying things directly with a thought, but they mostly sat quietly and brooded, anyway. At least, until Blitzø got antsy and started falling back on his circus routines to pass the time. It was weird, and everyone was tense, and Blitzø had no idea what to do in this situation; part of him wanted to kick everyone out, tell them all to leave while they could, and just face the danger on his own, with everyone else far away and safe. Or run away himself, hide in another Ring, on another planet, anywhere he wouldn't have to deal with being a disappointment, a burden, dragging all the people most important to him into dangerous, life threatening situations.

Suddenly there was a beak in his face, nudging at his horn and a tongue licking his head.

"Okay, okay, sorry, I was spacing out. What do you want?" Blitzø asked, but Stolas just kept licking him. It was a repetitive, almost soothing motion, similar to how he'd been licking Via earlier.

From what he remembered seeing in the Drift, it was probably some sort of cleaning... bonding... family activity thing, and it was... a little weird.

But the situation was already a lot weird, and it also was kind of calming Blitzø down, so he let Stolas keep doing it.

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"SIR?!"

Blitzø was startled, very rudely, out of his nice little nap where he was warm and smothered in feathers and frankly, it was about to make him more than a little cranky.

"Shhhut th' fuck UP, Mox," he groaned, waving at him and turning to press his face back into the softest, warmest, best-smelling feather pillow he'd ever had.

"I- YOU- WE- I THOUGHT WHEN YOU SAID—SIR?!?"

"Get up and explain to them, shitass," Fizz said, and stretched out a robotic limb to push Blitzø off of his feathery bed.

art by M (twitter) (bluesky)

"Oh, right. Uh, guys? Meet my—uhhh. Stolas. He's a kaiju! And he's a friend. He's kinda stuck here, and has absolutely no interest in killing or eating anyone, so. We're gonna help him and his tiny, helpless daughter out! Cool?"

There was a pause.

"Sirrrrr?!"

"Okay, Mox, your vocab has gotten a little lacking since we last talked. You forget how to do words, dummy?"

"B," Millie said sternly, looking up at Stolas with a deep frown. "Are—Are you sure about this?"

Blitzø sighed, and followed her gaze to Stolas, who was still sleeping soundly, the feathers rising and falling with every breath taken by his massive lungs. He was also making a little cooing noise where his beak was tucked under his wing, which was just... really fucking cute.

"Yeah, I'm sure," he said, before he could think too hard about it, and when he turned back to Millie, her frown was gone, and he really didn't want to think about what was probably going through her head.

"Look, we don't have a lot of time. I'm not gonna ask you to risk anything for me you're not willing to, but I'm doing this, and Fizz and Oz have agreed to help me. It... It would probably be a lot easier to pull off if we had your help, too, but I'm not gonna pretend—"

"We're in, B," Millie said firmly, and Moxxie finally moved to spin and squawk at her, mouth agape. "Millie?"

"You heard me, honey," Millie said, smiling and wrapping an arm around his neck. "B needs our help. I trust him, and we're short on time. We'll get the whole story later, 'kay? Sound good?"

"Bwuh... But I—"

"Later, sweetie." Millie booped his nose with her finger, and Moxxie instantly melted.

"Okay."

Blitzø felt the familiar ache he always used to get around them, at their closeness, their trust, and the way they were so... united. But even though it was still there, he was shocked to realize it wasn't nearly as painful as he remembered it.

Instead of fantasizing about being in the middle of their little group hug, now... he just thought about what it was like when he was with Stolas.

But that was stupid. He wasn't gonna fucking marry Stolas, that was absurd. He's known Stolas for, like, a month! Less! It's totally, completely different. Stolas isn't an imp, or even from this universe, probably.

No, he wasn't thinking about that. About... any of that. Not right now.

"Okay, we've got work to do. Go see what Oz and Fizz need, and I'll wake up the star of the show. And, uh. Thanks guys. For coming, even though I've been... y'know." He didn't think he could get the words out, wasn't sure there were any words in any language to apologize for being such a terrible friend to them.

"Yeah, you owe us big time, B," Millie said with a sharp grin, her tone light. "We'll make ya pay for it later, though!"

With that, they headed back toward Blitzø's cabin, and Blitzø turned around to see Stolas was finally starting to wake up. He lifted his head, sleepily blinked one set of eyes open, and then four more, and shook out his feathers, fluffing them up in the most adorable—

Yeah, not the time. Blitzø put his hands on his hips.

"Alright, birdie, we've got a plan to execute! Up and at 'em!"

He waited for Stolas to look at him, for his face to light up in recognition and understanding (He is not happy to see me, don't read into it, you don't know—shut the fuck up, brain, this is so not relevant right now) and lead him and the bundle of feathers that was a still-asleep Via as he scooped her up and carried her back toward his cabin.

It was plan executing time, but he had no idea how long they actually had before guests inevitably started arriving.

This was going to be a long, stressful day.

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"Alright, showtime, everyone! You all in your places?" Blitzø shouted. Part of him deeply despised playing the role of Ringmaster in their little drama, but another part of him took sweet pleasure in using his experience and upbringing to save a life, to actually do good, rather than just being a sleazebag clown.

He thought of the little ball of fluff he Drifted with as a kid, thought about everything that little ball of fluff grew up with and had to deal with, and it made it all feel easier, feel worth doing.

"Ready as we'll ever be, Sir," Moxxie said, with considerably less enthusiasm than Blitzø would have liked.

"Get your dick out of your own ass, Moxx, we don't have time for stage fright! We're in it to win it, let's go!" He clapped, and Moxxie scowled at him.

"Sir, that doesn't even—"

"Alright, no more chatter from the peanut gallery, places everyone! Curtain's up!" He glanced back at the huge structure that had been attached to his little cabin, all the wooden beams and cables and wires that made it look like a mad scientist's chaotic and unfinished project. Buried within layers of wooden scaffolding, wires and lights, various complicated-looking pieces of machinery, and hundreds of feathers poking out and flapping in the breeze, his kaiju was managing to hold perfectly still.

It unnerved him, to see Stolas so motionless. He knew that he'd just slowed his breathing as much as he was able, that he'd been practicing, working on moving so slowly and so little that he could pass for a still object rather than a living, breathing creature. His eyes were closed, because those were a dead giveaway, and Oz had managed to build some fake skin to cover large sections of his feathers so that he would look incomplete, and more reptilian, less birdlike. Much more like many of the other kaiju that the public had seen passing through the Breach.

It looked convincing, from a distance. Blitzø would just have to hope it would hold up to enough scrutiny and their visitors would be so annoyed at being tricked, they wouldn't stay too long to double check out of embarrassment.

Because if they looked too closely...

"Alright, we've got incoming," Blitzø said more quietly, watching several dingys full of government agents slowly unload their swarms of occupants, who proceeded to make their way up the pier. Their huge ship was anchored out by the sandbar, unable to sail any closer to Blitzø's small shore, the water far too shallow for the massive ship to traverse without beaching itself.

Blitzø kind of wished they'd beached themselves, because that would have been really, really funny.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the government! Welcome to my humble island, what can I do for you on this fine afternoon?" Fizz greeted the agents loudly and exuberantly, stretching his limbs in a display of showmanship that conveniently doubled at showing off just how flexible and quick Fizz was, and how easy it would be to run circles around these silly doofuses.

"We heard rumors ya got an alien around here," one of the agents said, a very average-looking man in a suit, with brown hair and sunglasses. "They s'posed ta all be back in their own dimension, so's we gotta check it out. What in the heck is that ugly thing?" He pointed up at the structure that Ozzie and Fizz had built, sneering at it in disgust.

"Wow, that's fucking rude!" Blitzø said, approaching the agent to stand next to Fizz. "That's our educational Mecha Kaiju! You're kind of early, though, it doesn't work just yet!"

"But it will!" Oz said, looming up behind Fizz, a large, forced smile plastered across his face. "That's the Asmodeus guarantee."

"It's... a machine?" Another agent, this one blonde and even more annoying, asked skeptically. "What's it for?"

"Education, obviously! The kaiju are an important part of our history and shit, and the story must be told, or we'll be doomed to repeat it!" Fizz said, gesturing proudly at the sparking exposed wires as they flickered ominously.

"We have a whole play we've written, with entire musical numbers planned! Would you like to stay and listen to our dress rehearsal?" Moxxie asked, sidling up next to one of the agents, who gave a starteld yelp and backed up into one of the other agents, knocking them both onto their asses and getting them both covered in sand.

"It was my idea!" Blitzø said, puffing his chest out. "Kaiju are cool as hell, I've always thought so! So why not make a big lifelike replica, and, y'know, teach kids about them or whatever. Genius idea, right? Tell me how genius I am!"

"Definitely smart, and not at all a waste of our time and resources!" Fizz said cheerfully, elbowing Blitzø in the ribs with quite a bit more force than necessary. "Want a closer look at the big guy? As long as you're willing to sign a release form, we'd be happy to give you the grand tour, get up close and personal with our little project! It's definitely, totally, one hundred percent safe! But you still gotta sign the form, that's mandatory. Just a formality, really! Interested?"

Fizz held out a stack of forms right up in their faces, and the agents began to back away slowly.

"Uh, that's alright, I think," the female agent said, looking vaguely nauseous. "I think someone mighta been... a little mistaken, when they reported a kaiju to us, Agent One."

Agent One? Blitzø thought to himself, trying very hard not to let his thoughts show on his face. They number themselves?!

"I think you might be right," the other agent said, glancing nervously back to their ship out on the water wistfully. "Wait, but there was somethin' about, uh—some missin' Jaeger tech?"

"Oh, yes, that was my mistake," Oz said, stepping forward. "I needed all the materials available to me in order to create this... work of art, and since the Jaeger program was discontinued after the Breach was sealed, I figured no one would miss it! That was my bad," he said, rubbing the back of his neck mock-bashfully. "I hope it didn't cause too many problems with my government contracts!"

"Uh, well. I suppose that's... it's your equipment, an' all," the female agent said, continuing to back away from the structure, which had begun creaking ominously. "We'll just... head on out, and, uh, leave you to your... um. Work."

"Come back soon to see it when it's finished!" Fizz couldn't resist yelling after them as the agents all booked it back to their little boats in a nervous swarm.

There was a soft whine from behind them, and Blitzø turned to face Stolas.

"Sorry, Stols, just a little longer. Wait until they're back on their ship, and then we'll start to get this shit off you, okay? Just a few more minutes, we're almost there," he said, and then his heart almost stopped when he heard another sound, a much higher-pitched hoot, and several sets of red eyes blinked open from where Stolas had been hiding her behind the protective curtain of his massive feathered wings.

art by Criss (twitter) (bluesky)

"Oh shit," Blitzø said, and glanced back at the agents, who were still loading into their boats.

They could not see Via.

"Guys, a little help?" Blitzø said, and together they tried to guide Via around to the far side of the cabin, doing their best to keep her out of sight of the beach, arms out to corral her like she was a really really big, feathery bull.

But Via wasn't interested in being corralled.

No, she was sniffing curiously at the air, in the direction of the beach full of agents.

"Fuck," Blitzø said, and Stolas whined again, but he couldn't move, not without sending their whole contraption crashing down around him, completely blowing the disguise and making a ton of noise in the process, which would for sure ruin their whole plan.

"Fizz, get the PONS system!" Blitzø yelled frantically, trying to put himself in Via's path. She was much bigger than him, like a really, really huge bear (bull, bear, whatever, they were both about the same and neither were horses so Blitzø didn't actually give a shit), but so far she wasn't interested in trampling him, so maybe he had a few minutes. "Fizz!" Blitz hissed, impatient. "Oz, keep an eye on the stooges, make sure they're distracted so they're not looking this way!"

"On it," Oz said, and ran down to the pier, circling around to draw their attention away from the cabin, making sure the agents were occupied and they proceeded to leave as quickly as possible, hurrying to get away from the overeager Sin.

Fizz approached with the PONS system, holding up the wires and nodes that Blitzø had used to connect to Stolas, and looked up at Via.

"Uh, what's the plan here, Blitzø?" Fizz asked, and Blitzø looked on helpessly as Via approached them, sniffed delicately at the wiring and the console in the box, and then chomped down on them with her massive (not nearly as massive as Stolas', but still big enough to do plenty of damage) beak.

"Shit," Blitzø said, staring at the broken pieces of wiring and the shattered remains of the console as they tumbled to the floor in a useless pile of scrap. "That was, uh. Pretty much my only idea," Blitzø said, staring morosely at the broken equipment, trying very hard not to think about how long it was going to be before he could talk to Stolas again.

There was another whine from way above them, in the depths of the structure arranged to hide Stolas.

"I know, I'm working on it," Blitzø said, but Via also looked up, and it seemed as though maybe the whine hadn't been meant for Blitzø at all.

"That's it, stay with Daddy, just for a little longer, sweetie," Blitzø said under his breath, and nodded up at Stolas, hoping he could see, would get the message, would do what he could to get Via to stay put just a little bit longer.

He managed to hold her attention for a little, long enough that Blitzø started to relax, when suddenly Via perked up, looking toward the beach as though she'd heard a noise, and bolted for the water before Blitzø knew what had happened.

"Fuck! No, wait!" Blitzø tried to stop her, but Via had all the momentum of a raging owl/bear/bull and knocked Blitzø flat on his ass as she ran right past him, ignoring him completely.

"Please be gone, please be too far, please think she's just a really, really, really big dog," Blitzø pleaded with any demon in Hell who might be listening as he followed Via out to the beach.

Oz was walking back up toward the cabin, looking exhausted. The agents were all in their boats, and every single one of them was focused on rowing, all facing away from the beach as they slowly glided toward their anchored ship.

"Thank you, Satan!" Blitzø said, chasing after Via. "Alright, come on, kid, I don't know how long we've got, please?" He thought as hard as he could at Via, picturing her going back to the cabin, staying with Stolas, holding still and remaining quiet, just for a bit, just until the agents were too far away to see her.

He was pretty sure there was absolutely no chance that was going to work, but Via turned around to stare at him for a long moment, and then looked back at the cabin, and Blitzø followed her gaze in time to see two bright red eyes blinking out from the mess of scaffolding and wires, and Via gave a happy chirp and ran back over toward them.

Blitzø breathed out a sigh of relief when he turned back to the water, and saw that the agents still weren't looking, and they were getting smaller and smaller, almost back out to their massive, ugly ship.

Blitzø went to find some food, any food, in the hopes that it would distract Via until the ship was no longer within sight and they were all safe to move around again.

It looked like they might actually make it, somehow, and be all right after all.

But he couldn't rest just yet.

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"Did Loona tell you yet, B?"

"Tell me what?" Blitzø pulled out his phone to see that he did, in fact, have a text from Loona.

"We decided to let her start doing some field work! Just the low risk jobs, we promise. Unless you want to come back after all...?"

"I'm still thinking about it, get off my dick, Mox," Blitzø grumbled, but he was really touched they actually still wanted to work with him.

Not being the boss anymore would be fucking weird, but he was starting to think, if they could get Oz to cough up one of his crystals, the business might actually recover after all. And it would certainly give him something to do that wasn't fulltime kaiju duty.

But... he kind of didn't mind being on fulltime kaiju duty.

The job came with a lot of perks.

"Look, there's Asmodeus' ship, they're almost here! Ooh I can't wait to ask how the meetin' went! You think the new system is built yet? I know he was all excited about bein' almost done with it!"

"I don't know, honey, but I hope so," Moxxie said, patting her knee as she swung her legs back and forth, her toes skimming the water. "For Via's sake."

Blitzø tried not to vibrate out of his skin as they waited for the ship to pull up to the dock, but finally Fizz swung himself off of the ship and landed on the pier, punching Blitzø in the arm before pulling him into a hug.

"Before you freak out, yes, it's finished, and yes, we can give it a spin first thing."

"You're the best, Fizz," Blitzø said, honestly.

"Okay, wow, no need to get all sappy," Fizz said with a grin, and when Oz called from the ship, extended his arms to take the box Oz was holding up for him.

"I still can't believe you've actually Drifted with a kaiju," Moxxie said, half to himself, as Blitzø took the box and started to run back toward the beach, where Stolas was sitting with Via, asleep under his wing.

"Yeah, I sometimes can't really believe it either," Blitzø said, slowing down to let them catch up, even though he was still impatient. "But he was weirdly calm and, like, not murder-y. For a kaiju. That's a Stolas thing, he's not like the rest of them. He's kind of a freak."

"You were made for each other," Fizz said, giving him a kick before he ran back to swing himself up onto Oz's shoulders as he finally caught up with them.

Which reminded Blitzø of something he'd been wanting to mention.

"Hey Fizz, you remember how I told you I had that kaiju friend, back when we were still in the circus?"

"Oh yeah," Fizz said, "you always were a kaiju-obsessed weirdo."

"Well," Blitzø said, smirking back at him, "turns out he was real the whole time. That was actually how Stolas and I met."

"WHAT?!" Fizz jumped off of Oz's shoulders and ran to Blitzø, nearly knocking him over. "You're fucking with me, that's not possible. What the shit are you talking about?"

"Yeah, I dunno either, but we both have the same memories. Playing together, as little kids."

"Blitzø, he's an alien from another dimension. That makes no fucking sense! Oz? Tell him that makes no fucking sense?"

"Hm," Oz said, thoughtful. "I know your circus was verrrry interested in the Jaeger technology, when it was first being developed... I do believe your old Ringmaster tried to buy some off me, once or twice. I refused, of course, but..."

"No way."

"That's fucking stupid. What would he want with Jaeger tech?"

Oz shrugged. "The ability to connect minds together can serve many purposes, including all kinds of shady ones. Maybe he thought he could have some sort of special act, use it to wow an audience?"

"Are you telling me," Fizz said, eyes narrow, "that Cash fucking Buckzo somehow got his hands on old Jaeger tech, and what? Used it on Blitzø?"

"Or I stole it," Blitzø said, a memory suddenly sliding across his mind, of going through Cash's stash, looking for alcohol. "We used to take alcohol from him all the time, but remember that weird computer-lookin' thing we found that one time, and I couldn't figure out how to make it work?"

"No," Fizz said. "Barbie smashed that thing. We were all panicking about who was gonna tell him when he noticed it was missing and asked us!"

"That was like, a week after we found it, though, and I remember having some weird fucking dreams around then, too," Blitzø said, holding the box with his new, upgraded PONS system more tightly in his arms. "I, uh. I think maybe I figured out how to make it work after all?"

"Blitzø, I have never met anyone in my life who was so reckless—"

"Seriously, Blitzø, you could have broken your brain!"

"I can't believe that wasn't even the first time you Drifted with a kaiju, B."

Blitzø shrugged. "What can I say? I'm a risk taker."

They were getting closer to Stolas, who perked up as he finally noticed them approaching, and then got even more excited when he saw what Blitzø had in his hands.

Blitzø grinned.

art by Criss (twitter) (bluesky)

"Can't say I regret a single thing," he said, and ignored the chorus of voices of his friends as they jumped in to give him shit for all the stupid things he'd done recently, knowing that they were here because they'd already forgiven him, anyway.

They were family. Not like the circus, or like a hive of aliens, or like anything else that Blitzø had ever seen; but just because it was unique didn't mean it was any less real.