No Way Home for Either of Them

"Here's a star map, you should both be at least somewhat familiar with these." Izime waved his hand, his own figure dimming a bit as several projectors moved to reveal the map. His hands glowing a bit more as he highlighted various moving dots and their destinations, "These are all the shuttles I've programmed."

"Already stocked with tons of goods and equipment, the targets and payloads matched statistically according to the things they should need most for the next little while at least." Reaching out Izime highlighted an option that color coded the shipments detailing food supplies, repair resources, maintenance packages, and even Christmas gifts for those who celebrated. Calculated of course so they'd arrive on the proper nights according to each planet.

"Thats..." Constantinople blinked a few times as he looked at the many many, many, many, moving pieces of this plan.

Giving a sideways glance as he considered again the viability of the term demon. Something of this degree took an otherworldly level of dedication let alone ability. Izime calculating how he'd try and sustain their whole universe off of earth's scraps alone.

"Super-intelligence and simulations expert, plus I admittedly advantaged some of my forbidden knowledge to do this. Nothing too major though," Izime nodded understanding why the sudden switch might disturb his drinking buddy, as well as admitting he'd had some help in securing all these supplies. "I know of graveyards lain by giants long extinct; those bones were ripe for the picking."

"That's still a dangerous game Izime, there's been a lot better than you that's tried to put a hand in the pot of fate." Constanople warned his friend to not step to big, it was one thing to help like he had been. Another to start trying to play god around the entire galaxy.

"Mmm, I'm not directing fate Constantinople. I've tried that once already and lost in the most spectacular fashion." Izime shook his head having already decided to keep his moves limited. The places he'd decided to help and places he'd scavenged were never mentioned again so dead end for fate already. "I'm filling a gap in the ecosystem of your universe, not changing fate as much as checking on the victims of it. I'm a band-aid for the forgotten scratch, not a defibrillator for the dying."

"Can I ask what it was like?" Psyis spoke, pointing to the painting the map was overlaid on. The warping golden and green that housed the untouchable darkness that was a singularity.

"That?" Izime cocked his head as he looked at the painting considering actually discussing the topic. He had said he'd answer their questions after all, it was a reasonable one to ask. "My old nemesis, Strange Matter?"

"Horrible, they lost everything they'd everything to an irrecoverable twist in matter, what they didn't lose I took." Izime glanced towards the edge of that stronger golden color, where a razor thin swipe of black marked the end of their journey through the impossible. "For me not so bad, it was damned near pleasant at the end."

"It started as a much larger generational installation that collapsed after the first stranglette propagated into the accretion disk. I won't go into spaghettification or noodle theory. Suffice to say we'd been forced to abandon the major installation for Bell's Ring maybe, twenty thousand years into the end?" Izime directed a small beam towards the beginning of that razored black, where it was thicker and twisting along the curve of a painted infinity.

"Earth was long gone before I ever came around." Giving both of them a glance as he explained what they were likely worried about. Izime having never been the one to destroy the home of humanity.

"But you-I heard your talk with Bell on the viewing port." Psyis shook her head, Izime's explainations not lining up with what he'd asked Bell for during her invasion. If earth was gone then how had he ever expected to experience such things like a mall?

"Which one?" Izime didn't bother looking back, his electrionic beam track side-by-side with his memories to occupied to turn "We had a lot of talks there at the end. It was that or read, play guitar, or more therapy."

"The station lights were flickering, and it was just you and her. You were talking about malls and going to the movies." Psyis tried to help Izime recall the conversation, finally recalling the odd thing Izime had demanded Bell give him. "Getting a mulligan?"

"It was a joke a mulligan is a do over another shot at the something." Izime nodded recalling the moment Psyis was talking about. Bell had looked rather upset after that talk, Izime explaining his feelings about it. "I thought it was a very human joke at the time. Probably a bit hurtful considering their efforts, a kick in the teeth from fate now..."

Izime let the silence carry on for a moment glad the two at least knew he wasn't finished.

"Call it my first signs of emotion or awareness but I couldn't just trash it once I knew there was no going back. They needed it and I needed them," The A.I. surprised to find itself curious as to just how open he wanted to be he finally turned giving an honest answer, "I decided to keep the data, their history. That's how I knew about those things. I might have damned them, but I didn't want them gone. I was designed to simulate life so they could improve me, why would I erase all the work they'd done on themselves?"

"It's counterproductive, those little things made them better and so by affect me as well." Izime tapped his ethereal chin as he considered the library pc, sure it had been dinky and strung together. The real resources had been used on the data storage that it accessed. "Bell's Ring had an account of every single scrap of human culture we could save. From the beautiful to the simply absurd, from Mona Lisa to the meme Lost."

"Not exactly something that's happened here yet but give it time you'll at least have some form of memetics. Hopefully we can avoid that particular iteration, besides twenty thousand years is just a rough guess, I'm not flawless and given our proximity to the singularity math was just the rules we played pretend with." Izime smiled at the two, not considered the casual way his reality had considered physics in comparison to the two from this reality.

Regretting his next words as they were taken literally.

"Technically they could all still be alive, calculate the time dialation outside of that area and maybe I'd be lucky enough to have just vanished." Izime hanging his head as Psyis immediately spoke up, mixing the entire conversation with dreams that never come to fruition.

"You said Constantinople could save them." Psyis raised her brows as Izime mentioned so casually that seemed like an impossibility a moments ago. "Could you go ba-"

"It was just a stupid tho-" Izime waved his hand the exorcist interrupting him next.

"Mate I'm right here." The exorcist holding his hands out wondering just why Izime had never asked. Though Constantinople already figured the A.I. had considered every viable option and was only wishing on stars.

"I know Constantinople, and I won't ask it." Izime shook his head having long ago let those people have the rest they deserved outside the nightmares, and apparently the harder talks like tonight.

Warning the Thessian who'd opened her mouth about hearing anything about it in the first place, the idea breaking several rules. "I've managed to not use any of this universe's absurdity to satisfy my own personal goals, it's an idea I've long passed on.

"I spoke back then in the idea of hope because what Bell said was right Psyis. We needed those things to keep sane, something else to think about besides what was out that window." The A.I. hoping that the thessian would grasp the concept of the idea's that had built her in his own reality.

"If that universe was ever to be save it would have been their doing, not yours or mine. They've got a better chance without you or me if they've got one at all. Do not let this idea eat you like it did me." Izime looked at the exorcist who was already looking torn, again addressing the psychic who had put him in this position. One where he'd had to reconsider and deny the devil in his heart once more. "Psyis, please don't speak out of line as forbidden knowledge can go both ways."

"You've heard things that you probably want to talk about, forget those you can and in time if it's an issue I'll consider discussing those you can't. If other people are around and it involves this world from over there, we don't discuss it that's final." Izime acknowledged that at some point the Thessian was probably going to turn to him.

Rubbing at a non-existent temple now, teal holographic eyes glancing between the two complaining, "Going to make me spring a memory leak."

He would, if she'd been able to read his world. Izime tossing the idea in the recycling bin of his mind as he stretched, a body he didn't have feeling restless because of the emotional nature of the conversation.

The two heroes exchanged glances watching at Izime stretched. The act making the ship shudder a bit and causing the air system to over-cycle for a second. As if Izime stretching his form had settled the vessel somehow, it groaned in his stead.

"I'll need a few hours to make sure I get a confirmation on these." With a wave the A.I. placed the stat map back over the painting of the devourer, watching as the ships that laid in wait began to ping back positive signals. The launch orders received as timers, some with years on the clock began to tick down. 

"So, more questions?" Izime glanced back and forth expectantly holding the only pleasant open floor he would for a while. Working the audience Izime nodded and waved impatiently.

"Weirdest delivery you've ever done?" Constantinople threw a question out quickly at Izime's urging hoping to distract his friend with something lighter.

"It was a personal one, but there's a guy who was once was a human had his own occult nonsense going on that backfired as they do. Got trapped alone on a planet and is now guarding a relic. Not saying which but my man's expects zero guests like ever. Izime held up his hands, trying to set the scene for the two who were attending and hosting his interview, "For kicks I dropped in with some fresh brew and pork-fritters straight from Oktoberfest."

"Before you think I was being nice here's the kicker. Dude was a nazi at one point, so I threw it off a cliff right in front of him and dipped." Quickly wanting to stop any nice thoughts, Izime delivered the twist watching as Constanople smiled and Psyis twitched a bit trying to decide how she felt. Izime just smiled and explained how he'd located the man in perfect nonexplaining fashion. "Some forbidden knowledge was used to locate the man I admit but in my humble opinion? No blood, no foul and karma was delivered in full."

"Furthest?" Psyis asked another delivery-based question, wondering if she'd messed up as Izime was intensely chewing over her answer. His mind apparently working hard enough a few lights dimmed before he finally formed a response.

"Cannot say where exactly but they needed the help. The distance makes any sensible measurement useless even by light," Izime wasn't sure how to dance around the real answer with the thessian. It was a bit difficult to put a number on things let alone reveal issues about the most difficult to locate species he'd ever stopped off to visit. "so I travel by magically snapping the ship there. Place is a bit wacky because of the lack of local stellar objects and the whole planet a wibbly-wobbly as the planets bumping shoulders with an alternate universe. They really put themselves out there."

"What's Cradle?" Constantinople asked a question that had been bugging him since he'd ever met the bird. The damned thing was... unearthly.

"A raven. Cradle started as a raven's egg that just didn't hatch." Izime shrugged, the two obviously not believing him. Izime nodded his head around a bit admitting the white lie. "My first attempts at finding a scavenging partner were rough, I was raising an Unkindness and training them to snag anything shiny that dropped from a cape."

"A couple years ago you and League savior went toe to toe against Voidside over the Father Hexagon." Izime pointed as Psyis, who had been a part of the massive showdown against the army from Armageddon. Shrugging as if he'd just picked up a bit of spare change as he explained, "I snagged a piece during the fight, and now we have a bird version of Ret-Borg."

"Told you that damned budgies dangerous." Constantinople looked over at the member of League Savior who had assisted in halting the planetary invasion.

"It's potentially a hazard. I'm very careful with how Cradle interacts with people and views things for a reason." Izime raised his hands, having already thought of multiple reasons why he should be the one to raise Cradle long ago. Addressing both heroes who likely had very valid concerns about the psuedo-creature. "Aside from healing my body that's why I want Cradle freed first. In the wrong hands or treated with the wrong attitude Cradle will become a weapon, in the right hands its just a bird."

"That's still a piece of the Father Hexagon." Psyis raised her brow as she considered the risks involved with keeping a piece of the Father Hexagon. Voidside had already made multiple plays to obtain Ret-Borg let alone a simple bird. "When Voidside finds out you might want the league there, the time will come its inevitable."

"Sensible argument but try it on your friends who already don't want to let Cradle live as a bird and don't want me to walk free," Izime nodded before asking Psyis to consider the Leagues reaction as a whole. Gesturing to himself as he made another point in Cradle and his favor, "Personally as someone who was a killer A.I. and managed to turn a leaf I think I've got this one and would rather the rest of you butted out of raising it. Voidside shows his bald head I'l-"

"You'll what mate snap away?" Constantinople snorted a bit as he considered trying to use the simple levels of magic Izime knew to fight Voidside. Immediately realizing he may have misjudged the previous A.I.'s ability to modify other spells beyond the teleportation one he already used.

"I could throw him into a double black hole, slap him into a realm based off of any one of the several mathematical principles that are technically inescapable," Izime grinned a bit evilly as he considered some of the options at his disposal. Quickly drawing out a few nasty ideas from equations like Gabriel horn and the Collatz conjecture.

The A.I. shaking its head, recalling just how badly those principals had played out in his own world, "I've got some nasty ideas from my world, but I don't exactly want to use them here. Invoking my worlds physics here with borrowed magic sounds like a bad combination."

"Got your arm handed to you by Radiation Man and Dark Squire." The exorcist shook his head making his own point, intentionally leaving a name of the list. The third member who'd brought Izime down so easily shuffling her feet a bit self-consciously.

"There's a damned good reason for that," Izime glanced at the Thessian he'd not taken an honest shot at. Not that he ever would considering he knew this world had a script that had never involved him in the first place.

"I don't want to fuck up this reality just to keep breathing; you all need to stay, I'm the interloper." Izime making the point very clear to the psychic that if the day came, he wouldn't fight it. The fallout would be far to risk to remove a major part of the equation here, "None of this was written for me, Psyis. I'm just here because of unfortunate circumstances and need to stay out of all the lead actor's way."

"How did you even get here?" Psyis asked, both out of genuine curiosity and just to change the topic away from the fight with Izime.

Not comfortable with how Constantinople was using her as a sideways example to highlight Izime's lack of ability. Even less comfortable with how Izime was handling his transfer to her reality. It sounded like the opposite of what Bell, or she would want for him.

"I....." Izime began, his mouth pausing as the speakers soften off to a hum. Turning to consider the spot where that razor edge of black finally ended, stepping back to admire the singularity as a whole finally responding. "It was another emotionally charged mistake. I was trying to adjust the shielding around Bell's Ring and accidentally inverted the flow around the module."

"If you were there on the viewing deck, they you should have seen how it pulled energy that was being converted to matter from outside that reality, when the flow reversed the station lost its shielding and the module was pulled in, me along with it." Izime gave Psyis an account of that day, explaining the details she'd likely remember while he recalled the faces he'd left behind. "I killed the last of humanity in my universe while both I and the module lucked out and arrived here. No, I will not tell you where it is."

The two heroes shared a glance while the hologram of Izime was occupied with looking at the painting. His mind elsewhere far removed from their own reality likely, the thousand yard stare gaining a new form of measurement. Izime's face reflecting his own grim thoughts as his digitally rendered face was haunted by moments from across multiple planes.

"I-uh," Izime exhaustion came out even through the drone that carried his voice. The false bravado that followed only highlighted by the electronic tone, "Any other questions?"

"No mate." Constantinople shook his head knowing the easier answers had faded as the heavy moment brought the casual questions to a close. The human element of Izime obviously needing a bit even if the A.I. still seemed willing to share.

The exorcist was glad that Psyis agreed, the two mentally having their own conversation. Her sharing her regrets over a great many of Izime's views. Though the alien was likely guilt laden already she had taken the chance to play bad cop. At least asking some of the harder questions that Constantinople knew he might have let slide.

"I'm... going to go up front." Izime gave the two a final glance before flickering away. His voice echoing around the hold once again as the drone buzzed away trying to find its master. Izime's tone a bit deadpan as he directed the two. "If you want to sleep there are some spare bunk through the door in the hallway. The one with the blanket's mine so don't touch it, I'll know. If something on the map goes red don't bother getting up, I'll know. I am the ship so... if anything happens."

"You'll know, we've got it." Constantinople spoke towards the ceiling, finally having an answer on what it would be like if the being inside his House of Curiosities was fully sentient. It would be bossy, though hopefully a bit less sour about the situation than his farther traveled friend.

Constantinople turned preparing to head off towards the offered bunk, looking back at Psyis before he asked about her plans before disappearing into the shelves. "I'm sleeping off those shots before we take our buddy bot there to charge into Savior Orbital so he can turn himself in properly I guess, you?"

"I'll watch the map." Psyis glanced back towards the still flickering and repeating view of their galaxy. Walking closer to the wall as Constantinople made his way towards the stairs at the far end of the hold, she examined the map in detail.

Watching as those little red lines played out their arching journeys through blue clusters, each one flicking back to start over as soon as they finished. Some looping about various planets or stars before being flung far outside the reach of their local cluster's arms. Occasionally one of them would stop repeating its course, finally flashing green as its signal was received, pinging back a positive.

Psyis looked up hearing the sounds of boots on metal a couple stories overhead, Constantinople reaching to punch a few digits in the pad. The door hissing open before he could, Izime obviously having let his friend through.

Red eyes turned back down to the blue flickering view of her galactic plane from above. Looking at the planets she'd been too, places she knew or known of. Looking a bit closer at the blue haze Psyis realized there were the tiniest pixels of orange mixed in to the random-est places. The places where a few orange dots resided causing a bit of a frown to form.

Psyis making the connection to this new never moving or changing color.

Zexxon, Id the living Moon, even LV-543. All planets or equally sized objects that had been destroyed in her universe. The thessian looking around a bit finally finding a cluster closer to the edge of the Orion arm.

Thessiona, the missing planet was just as missing in Izime's map as her own galaxy. The planets lost citizen smiling a bit bitterly.