The Zexis Nebula was a breathtaking swirl of pastel pinks, soft blues, and creamy whites. To the untrained eye, it looked like a celestial painting.
To the Omniscient Eye of Anya Alkahest, it looked like a crime scene.
"They're screaming," Anya said. She was sitting in the co-pilot seat of the Stiletto, surrounded by empty jars of pickled peppers and a bowl of chocolate-covered Void-crabs (a new craving). "The clouds. The gas entities. Zexis has bound them with psionic chains. They're using them as... living batteries."
Mali stood at the viewport, staring at the fluffy, cotton-candy expanse of the nebula. His golden eyes narrowed.
"They enslaved the clouds?" he asked, his voice low and dangerous.
"Yes," Anya confirmed. "Zexis is a parasitical Hive-Mind. It forces the sentient gas to condense into energy spikes."
Mali turned to look at her. "Anya. Look at those clouds."
She looked. "They are... gaseous anomalies composed of—"
"They are fluffy," Mali interrupted. "They are soft. They look like the perfect place for a toddler to learn how to jump."
He looked back at the nebula, his paternal instincts flaring up like a supernova.
"How dare they," Mali hissed. "My children are going to need bounce houses. And this Zexis thing is ruining the galaxy's biggest ball pit."
"So," Anya wiped a smudge of chocolate from her lip. "We are liberating the weather?"
"We are liberating the fluff," Mali corrected. "Get the Wiki editors on the line. They're going to want to record this."
[THE CORE OF THE ZEXIS NEBULA]
The Stiletto tore through the outer layers of the nebula. The gas here was thick, trying to grab at the ship, but Mali's Cosmic Axiom smoothed the path, turning the turbulence into a gentle breeze.
They reached the Core. A massive, swirling storm of dark gray gas, crackling with red lightning. This was Zexis.
" INTRUDERS, " the Hive-Mind boomed. It didn't use speakers; it vibrated the hull of the ship itself. " YOU ENTER THE DOMAIN OF THE HIGH CLOUD. SUBMIT, AND BECOME VAPOR. "
Mali didn't hail them. He simply opened the airlock.
"Stay here, my love," he told Anya. "The atmospheric pressure is weird. I don't want the babies getting dizzy."
"Fine," she sighed, opening another jar of pickles. "But make it quick. I want to see if these clouds are actually bouncy."
Mali stepped out into the void.
He floated in the middle of the storm. The Zexis Hive-Mind, sensing a biological lifeform, swarmed.
Billions of tons of pressurized gas coalesced into a giant, skull-shaped cloud the size of a planet. Red lightning formed its eyes.
" A FLESH-THING, " Zexis laughed, the sound like thunder. " WE WILL SUFFOCATE YOU. WE WILL FILL YOUR LUNGS WITH ACID AND TURN YOUR BONES TO DUST. "
The cloud-skull opened its mouth, preparing to inhale Mali and crush him with a billion bars of pressure.
Mali just crossed his arms.
"You know," he shouted over the roar of the wind. "You're ugly. You're ruining the aesthetic."
" WHAT? " Zexis roared.
"The pinks. The blues. It's a nursery theme," Mali explained, gesturing to the outer nebula. "And here you are, being all gray and stormy. It's depressing."
Mali raised his right hand.
"Also," he added, his eyes glowing gold. "You're hoarding the merchandise."
" DIE! " Zexis screamed, unleashing a torrent of acid rain.
Mali didn't dodge. He snapped his fingers.
[SKILL: ALKAHEST DOMINION]
[TARGET: ACIDIC RAIN]
[ACTION: CONVERT TO... LAVENDER SCENTED MIST]
The acid rain hit Mali's shield and instantly turned into a gentle, pleasant-smelling fog.
Zexis paused. The Hive-Mind was confused. " HOW? "
"My turn," Mali said.
He flew forward. He didn't fly like a superhero; he moved like a cursor dragging across a screen. He stopped right in front of the massive, gaseous forehead of the Hive-Mind.
"You think you're safe because you're gas," Mali whispered. "You think you can't be punched because you have no body."
He pulled his fist back. The Sovereign's Mantle flared, coating his arm in black-gold armor.
[SKILL: GENESIS TOUCH - STATE CHANGE]
[TARGET: ZEXIS HIVE-MIND]
[MODIFIER: SOLIDIFICATION]
"Let's see how you like being a solid," Mali said.
He punched the cloud.
It shouldn't have worked. A fist should pass through smoke.
But Mali Alkahest didn't obey physics; he managed them.
On contact, a ripple of golden light shot through the gray storm. The command [BECOME SOLID] overwrote the molecular structure of the Hive-Mind.
CRACK-BOOM.
The sound was deafening.
In an instant, the swirling, planet-sized storm of Zexis... froze.
It didn't turn to ice. It turned to Aerogel.
The entire Hive-Mind, billions of tons of gas, was instantly flash-converted into a solid, lightweight, sponge-like foam. The red lightning trapped inside was frozen in place, like a bug in amber.
The consciousness of Zexis screamed as it was suddenly trapped in a statue of its own making.
" WE... CANNOT... MOVE... "
"That's the point," Mali said, dusting off his hands.
He placed his palm on the newly solidified nose of the giant skull.
"Now," Mali said softly. "Get out."
[SKILL: ALKAHEST PURGE]
He sent a pulse of pure Void energy through the foam structure. It didn't destroy the foam. It targeted the mind inside it.
The Zexis consciousness—the parasite enslaving the clouds—was torn from the structure. It shrieked as it was exposed to the vacuum, and without a body to hold it, it simply evaporated into cosmic background radiation.
[TARGET ELIMINATED: HIVE-MIND ZEXIS]
[XP GAINED: WHO CARES]
[LOCAL ENTITIES LIBERATED]
Mali looked at his handiwork.
Floating in space was a planet-sized skull made of soft, gray foam. And around it, the rest of the nebula—the pinks and blues—began to brighten. The sentient clouds, free from the parasite, swirled happily, humming a soft, chime-like song.
Mali tapped his comms. "Empress? We're clear."
The Stiletto flew over. Anya walked out onto the hull, looking at the massive foam structure.
"You turned a god into a stress ball," she observed.
"I turned it into a playground," Mali corrected. He flew down to the surface of the solidified cloud. He landed.
His boots sank slightly into the material. It was soft. Springy. Perfect.
He jumped.
He bounced twenty feet into the air.
"Anya!" he shouted, grinning like a maniac. "It works! It's bouncy!"
Anya watched her husband—the Sovereign of the Universe, the Unmaker of Kings—bouncing up and down on a solidified gas giant.
She sighed, a smile tugging at her lips. She patted her stomach. "Look at your father. He's insane. You're going to love him."
[THE GALACTIC ARCHIVES - SECTOR PRIME]
Startled awake by a priority alert, Junior Archivist Pip spilled his nutrient-caf all over his console.
Pip was a small, nervous alien with four eyes and a love for filing. His job was usually boring. He maintained the Cosmos Wiki—the universal database of all known things.
Usually, updates were slow. "New asteroid discovered." "Star went supernova."
Today, his console was screaming.
[ALERT: REALITY ALTERATION DETECTED]
[SOURCE: THE SOVEREIGN]
[LOCATION: ZEXIS SECTOR]
Pip stared at the screen as the entry for "Zexis Nebula" began to rewrite itself. The text was glowing gold.
[OLD ENTRY:] Subject: Zexis Nebula Status: DEAD ZONE / HAZARD Ruler: Zexis Hive-Mind (Hostile Level 70) Note: Do not enter. You will be dissolved.
[NEW ENTRY:] Subject: The Fluffy Sector (Formerly Zexis) Status: PROTECTED PLAYGROUND Ruler: The Triumvirate (Pending Birth) Note: The Hive-Mind has been evicted. The Nebula has been converted into a Class-5 Soft-Matter Construct. Warning: Do not attempt to enslave the clouds. The Sovereign is watching. Also, please remove shoes before bouncing.
Pip rubbed all four of his eyes. "Remove shoes?" he whispered. "He put a dress code on a nebula?"
His console chimed again. A direct message attached to the edit log.
[NOTE FROM THE ADMIN:] "Pip, update the map. Mark this sector as 'Baby Safe'. And tell the Tourism Board that if they try to charge admission, I will turn their headquarters into jelly."
Pip swallowed hard. He typed furiously.
[UPDATE SAVED.]
[MAP UPDATED: THE FLUFFY SECTOR - OPEN FOR RECREATION.]
[BACK ON THE STILETTO]
Mali and Anya were back on course, leaving the pastel playground behind them.
"That was satisfying," Mali said, scrolling through the newly updated Wiki page on his datapad. "I like the name change. 'The Fluffy Sector'. Very dignified."
"I can't believe you made Pip type that," Anya laughed, rubbing her feet. "The poor archivist is probably having a panic attack."
"He needs the excitement," Mali dismissed.
He looked over at her. She was wincing slightly, shifting in her seat.
"Back pain?" he asked, his voice instantly dropping to that concerned, gentle tone.
"It's the gravity changes," she admitted. "And... I think the babies are having a wrestling match. My ribs are taking a beating."
Mali stood up. "That's it. Computer, set course for the Sanctuary of Eons."
Anya looked up. "The Sanctuary? That's a spa planet run by pacifist monks. Why there?"
"Because," Mali said, walking over and kneeling before her to massage her feet. "You need a massage. A real one. And I need to threaten the local star to stop emitting so much UV radiation so you can tan without burning."
"Mali, you can't threaten a star."
"Watch me," he said, staring deeply into her eyes. "Nobody burns my wife."
Anya chuckled, leaning back. "You're ridiculous."
"I'm thorough," he corrected.
Just then, the System chimed. A quest update.
[QUEST: THE PARENTAL CRUSADE]
[PROGRESS: 4/7000 THREATS ELIMINATED]
[NEXT TARGET: THE SILENT ASSASSINS OF THE VEIL]
Mali looked at the notification.
"The Silent Assassins," he mused. "Didn't they try to kidnap a Duke last year?"
"Yes," Anya said, closing her eyes as his hands worked magic on her ankles. "They specialize in stealth. They claim they can hide from god himself."
Mali smirked.
"Well," he whispered, kissing her knee. "Let's go see if they can hide from a Dad who wants to clear the neighborhood."
He stood up and punched in the coordinates.
"Next stop: The Veil. I'm going to turn their stealth cloaks into baby blankets."
The Stiletto jumped to warp, carrying the most dangerous, loving, and absolutely unhinged parents in the universe toward their next victim. And somewhere in the archives, Pip sighed, cracked his knuckles, and prepared to write another chapter in the legend of the Sovereign.