Notes: Corroduim is a bad, bad thing, guys. At least, if you don't happen to be one of the three or four 'Halloween monster' species.


Rook's finger taps down, right into the dip above his elbow. His arms are still crossed and this movement, this idle shift of finger against sleek armour, is all he will allow himself to do. He has always been better at sitting still than Ben, better at holding himself back from an impulsive, stupid action.

...And it has nothing to do with the fact that Ben teases him, likes to compare him to a big cat tapped in a zoo enclosure on the few, few occasions he has allowed worry to overtake him and make him pace.

Rook narrows his eyes at the aliens hovering over the keyboard, sighs, and grimly reaches up with his rebellious finger to feign flicking lint from his ear. With a casual sweep, the ear bud lodged inside, painted a pale periwinkle to blend in with the surrounding wisps of fur, detects the motion and smoothly switches itself on with a faint whine. He's particularly proud of this new piece. For months, months he has offered money and reworked new trading treaties in order to glean information from traveling merchants and nomadic sages, to get them to share their knowledge of all the rougher, regional dialects that none of the linguists have ever bothered to study and work translations for. He's built algorithms and consulted with professors of phonology in order to create the perfect translating program, one that will hook into all the words being spoken and tear them apart, rebuilding them into patterns of possible sentences based on all the new data he has gathered.

'Bomb explode!' his creation practically sings into his ear. 'Much wonder. Much joy! We find, search over.'

Rook frowns. His program is still in the beta stage and he doubts it will ever unveil all the fuller subtleties of a language spoken by transdimensional beings such as these aliens have always claimed to be.

'Always want dwarf star,' hisses Squirrel Face. 'Cannot part from Plumbers. Cannot take gadget from Clyde Five.'

Rook's frown deepens. It seems these aliens are not above thievery. And it does disturb him, that their appreciation for weaponry runs deeper than their earlier expressed interest in the way these new bombs can be constructed from materials previously thought to be incompetable.

'Bomb can change home galaxy. Wipe all out who are unclean.'

Rook's brow raises. Oh good. They've come here, to his home universe to search for new way to either win a war or commit a genocide.

'Efficient way. Good loophole. Does not kill. High Court cannot act.'

Rook fights down the growl in his throat. Of course. The bomb does not specifically kill the living things that come into contact with it's radiating wave, but seeks to alter them at the genetic level. It is a form of death, for the unfortunate individuals it touches, but it does not put an end to their physical existence. Perhaps that is indeed enough of a loophole to prevent whatever 'High Court' in their home dimension from acting.

They, including Rook, all jump as a high-pitched whine shears the air in two. He curses, fighting the instinctual need to both cover his ears and rip his new gadget out at the same time, before the noise cuts out and he blinks, able to suddenly think again. Enough to realise that the noise has escaped from the transmissions monitor to his right.

The aliens smoothly sweep out from their little huddle, glowering at the monitor all the while. And unlike a human radio, there are no knobs to twist, no frequencies to alter. Only a button to tap, and a holograph to rise out in an ethereal blue glow, elongating itself into a thin square. But not too thin, unfortunately to block out the shape of Dr Viktor's face.

Rook sighs and narrows his eyes. 'Hello Doctor.' He stresses the word with all the condensation he can muster; any respect for whatever title this man has earned has been thoroughly smashed on viewing the destruction he has so obviously has a hand in playing with.

A grimace twists Viktor's face, even more so than usual; Rook can see a sewn-up tear across his cheek bulge at the seams, a gristly brown smear of rotted muscle peering through for a brief second.

'Hello. Though I cannot remember your name, I certainly remember you.'

Rook laughs, low and hard. 'Without any real pleasure, I hope.'

'You would be correct,' Viktor replies grudgingly. Then he winces, a strain crossing over his face, just enough for him to lower his face and breathe before he brings it back up to address the projector again. But not before Rook manages to catch sight of the familiar headpiece he's sporting, the curved blades of it's wing-like spurs drawing a quick, blurred black knife across the screen.

'I have something of yours,' Viktor says. 'Though it is perhaps more accurate to call him a mutual acquaintance.'

He steps back, just enough to show the blurred grains of sand behind him, the endless sprawl of it, coated with what looks to be the torn shreds of a unrolled toilet roll. Rook's heart grows cold at the scraps of familiar cloth he sees slumped to the side, the reminder of Snare-oh's outfit.

'Ben!'

'Indeed,' drawls Viktor shooting back into the frame again to cover Rook's view of the pitiful sight. But before the Doctor can utter another word, Rook charges forwards, his shoulders ruthlessly clashing and pushing back against the arms of the aliens around him. They protest, but their flesh is no match for the glancing steel bite of his armoured collar, and though they are taller, the muscle of their chest speak only of their work as technicians and explorations who tend to stay seated at their jobs. And Rook's? Well, his does not.

'Where is he?' he demands, a low throb in his voice. His hand itches for a gun, even though he knows that leveling a muzzle at a holograph would be far from helpful at present. Even so, the urge is still there.

Viktor grins. 'Dead. Of course. Why else did you think I would show him literally lying in pieces. R.I.P, or I guess simply RIPPED into pieces, wouldn't you say? A fitting elegy for someone so in love with such stupid puns.'

Rook shakes his head. 'No. If he were dead, those bandages would be withered brown tatters. And you have not shown me his headpiece. A Thep Khufan is only truly dead when you shatter that.' He pauses, closing his eyes to steel himself. And then they flash open. 'So I will ask you again. Where. Is. He?'

The last word slips out as a growl and the alien nearest to him shuffles uncomfortably. But Rook is so far beyond caring about that, as his hands automatically reach out to thud down on the corner panel, to support him and help form a bridge over the shadowed gap below, all of his weight pressed forward on his palms to help him hunch forwards, to take all the space so that Viktor has no choice but to stare into his face.

'You sure you want him back?' the Transylian asks after a moment. 'Because it will cost you.'

'What do you want?' Rook grits out.

Viktor laughs lowly. 'It is not what I want,' he mutters, 'but what my new boss wants that you should be worried about. And he wants it all, every world that travels around a sun to be corrupted, dark, full of things that won't fight back when he drains them of their remaining life.'

Rook breathes. 'So Lord Transyl got out then,' he muses. 'How?'

Viktor laughs grimly. 'We should have condemned him to extinction along with the rest of his race. But we didn't. And apparently, a lone asteroid, knocked out of its usual orbit by a kid taking daddy's spaceship for a joyride, provided enough shadow, enough cover, for him to wrestle his way free. As to how he found his way down to Anur Transyl? I guess ruthless determination. His skin was blistered enough to be falling off him like a snake when he first landed. But after a few feedings, he was more than strong enough to make puppets out of all of us.'

He breaks into his monologue to grin emptily. 'Lucky for me, though, that my brain was still useful enough to serve a purpose. After what he did to Crüjo and Kuphulu, I had more than enough motivation to work on a solution to his demand to cover the universe in darkness. Between you and me, I think his dance round our sun has made him a little clingy. Even luckier for me then, that only I can work here, under the sun.'

'So you wish to negotiate,' Rook says coolly, tapping his fingers against the panel idly.

'I knew someone would come,' Viktor says smugly. 'And imagine how unsurprised I was to see Ben Tennyson appear.'

'That is not his name,' Rook says automatically. 'Not his full one at any rate.'

Viktor screws his face up. 'Oh. He said something about that. I thought male humans didn't change their family name when they took up a new bride?'

'That is indeed the norm,' Rook says. 'But it is far from being the only option out there.'

'Well,' says Viktor. 'Either way, one of you or even his wife can come down here and get this filthy-' he grimaces, fighting to tug his hand upwards, into the light, presumably to point at the thing covering his forehead. He loses the battle ultimately, his fingers only managing a twitch before falling to his side with a loose thump. 'Well. You get the picture.'

The holograph cuts out with a click.

'Yes,' Rook says coldly to no one in particular. 'His husband does.'


If Max were here, or Gwendolyn or Kevin, they would be trying to talk him out of it, trying to come up with a better plan. Or at least, they would have more options, more ways to save Ben, more powers at their disposal; Gwendolyn would be offering up some runes or muttering a few spells of protection for him, for example. And Kevin could probably absorb the material of the ship and walk down there with a far greater chance of survival than a creature of flesh and blood could. But Rook doesn't have what they have. What he does however, have, is a bunch of aliens giving him cold looks.

'Foolish,' murmurs one.

'Brainless,' adds another.

'He is a primitive being,' Squirrel Face pronounces with an overbearing certainty. 'What more did you expect?'

'Thank you for the vote of confidence,' Rook says dryly. He slips his fingers tighter into the black gloves of the radiation suit.

'A temporary measure,' Squirrel face assures, him, not quite resisting the urge to poke a claw against the pale green lining of the rest of the suit, or lean closer to peer into the small transparent helmet Rook squeezes around his head. 'There is a reason you did not accompany your friend-'

'Husband,' Rook corrects curtly. He's been doing this a lot these days, whenever someone uses that word. 'Partner' he can tolerate. 'Friend' especially when Ben is so close to creating a child with a mere acquaintance, he cannot abide.

'Quite.' Squirrel face pauses. 'Against a simple lump of Corroduim, this suit would be sufficient. Against a planet filled with such a material, you will last less than six clicks. You, as you are now, are not long for this world.'

And neither will be Ben, unless I reunite his headpiece with the rest of him, Rook thinks. But instead he stares back into the cool blue eyes above him.

'Goodbye,' he says smoothly, and resisting the urge to smash his fist on the teleporter module, he smoothly passes his palm over it instead. So that with one long beam of green energy, he is gone.


Thankfully, they do not drop him off far from the location Viktor is at. Rook sinks into sand, his boots weighing him down and with a grunt, starts the tired-old pattern of tracking down a living target. Unlike Ben, this ability of his is not limited to wooded areas and other places where the environment would not look of place at a Earthern campsite. His eyes trace the skyline and compare dune to dune, a swift smile crossing his face when he discovers the indents that are too obviously a part of a pattern to be wind-scored and naturally occurring. Thankfully, he has acted quickly enough to arrive before the breeze batters and beats the tracks down to nothing, though he does pause to frown down at the second, lighter set of prints that pass over and intertwine with Ben's. A local guide presumably; very sensible of his partner.

It takes work to catch up to them though, the heat beating down, producing a near sizzle with every step. The only relief is the shadows the spectres of Corroduim throw out, and though the dip in temperature is welcome, Rook can't help but feel an apprehensive chill in his stomach at the sighting of each new one. Gradually, as he travels, he feels his stomach clench harder, and with more heat, in a move that is not quite born of his emotive state, and he finds himself gritting his teeth, fighting back the urge to pause and stretch. Were there just a few scraps of this ghoulish purple gem, instead of entire towers and peaks, this suit would serve him well. As it is...well. Time is of the essence.

One step after another, he pushes himself up through sand that falls around him and attempts to push him back with each deeper footstep he cuts out of the side of the dune. He barely pauses when the track transform from footsteps into a set of curved slices, as though something has whipped across the surface. This is the first time he has had to track Ben on foot and he is well used to the way the trails his husband leaves behind him change rapidly from minute to minute, even in the bathroom at home. Waking up to see the smudged webbed trail of Grey Matter's fingerprints against the mirror above the sink cease to be novelty, especially when they have presumably been used to fix the wiring of the shaver nearby, one still spitting out the odd hair from where Ben has once again, forgotten to switch it off.

With a grunt Rook pushes himself up over the latest dune and pauses at the grey colour the sand gradually shifts down into. Below him, waiting are the scraps of his husband, Dr Viktor and presumably, the person who guided Ben out here. The person, who has not been similarly whittled down into pieces the way Ben has and also looks to be in no way restrained. Rook narrows his eyes. And starts to walk down. As he does so, he can't help but wrinkle his nose at the way Ben's bandages have been left to flutter and spill across the ground. One flaps and catches him across the leg and he gingerly leans down and peels it off, pulling it up to wrap it round his arm like a tourniquet instead. He frowns at the pale cracks he can see spreading through it, at how dry and flaking it feels even through the dense material of his gloves, as though transforming into plaster.

'Strange,' he says, his voice muffled through the suit. 'How powerful a dwarf star is, and how compressed it becomes. And yet it contains none of that same solar flare that enables life to flourish on rocks circulating other stars out there. It is as though it can only push out power and nothing else.'

'Is this a philosophy lesson?' Viktor asks. 'Because I am a scientist. What makes you think I would ever want to listen to your ridiculous bleats?'

Rook offers him a crooked smile, his eyes never quite leaving the female Thep Khufan plastered to his side, who watches him through a narrowed purple gaze.

'I too, am familiar with science.' He steps forward, shaking off the small tremble that seems to infect his foot, before bringing his hand up to show a small black gadget. 'This is not a weapon,' he announces, exposing it with a tiny, tremulous, flourish and tilting it from side to side as though to show that there are no hidden blades or Swiss army knives. 'Though I will admit to cannibalising part of a Proto-Tool to get it. It stores...well. Any kind of energy. And I have set it to store the solar flares from the sun above our heads for the last few minutes now.' He smiles.

'That will not be enough to get this abomination off me,' growls Viktor. 'If it were, it would have fallen off long before now.'

'True,' Rook acknowledges. 'It might if the Vladat who spat it out were here, but well. He is not. I guess I will have to take it out on you then.'

And with one shaking step forward, he squeezes the black box and shoves it up against Viktor's eye. Bright piercing white light pours out and Viktor falls back with a yell, his hand clawing at his now smoking eye socket. Rook spins, only to be caught up in a weave of white bandages, the female Thep Khufan's arms outstretching and breaking into the familiar coil of a python around him.

His smile crooks, thin and mean. 'Are you sure you want to get that close?' he asks idly. 'I am not quite myself anymore.' He's hardly finished the sentence before he unclenches his fist and allows it to slam up. The material around it cracks open like an egg and his arm breaks out of the suit, black and clawed, purple liquid oozing from between the gaps of his fingers. There is no fur, only clumps of fine wire arranged like the lumpy coat of a haggard wolf and Rook grimaces at the sensation, even though he can feel more of these strands erupting along the line of his throat. The suit is slowing the transformation, but barely.

But still, this arm is strong enough to rip through the lines of the Thep Khufan hastily trying to smother him and Rook growls, tearing past both paper and the panicked expression on her face, as his new claws dig deep into the hollow inside of her. Because where else could they possibly be hiding Ben's alien headpiece?

'Viktor has no pockets,' he pants. 'But you, a Thep Khufan are one, large, living one.'

His claws seize hold of something cool and metallic, and he gentles his grip automatically, letting his claws glide over and around the hooks of the headdress as carefully as he can. With a pop Snare-oh's dark face pops out of his enemy and he stumbles back, his foot reaching up and slamming down on the burnished circlet that serves as the focal point for her mental energy. She flounders, bandages breaking down into tatters as his boot applies pressure, and he drags his eyes from her with an effort in order to stare down into his husband's face.

'Ben!'

'Wha-' comes the sleepy rejoinder and Snare-oh's green eyes flutter open into a weak green glow. 'Five more minutes, Roo...oh, you're here. Wait, you shouldn't be here! '

Snare-oh's eyes open, widening, his gaze now caught on the snarl on Rook's face and the black crawling up onto his cheek, the rest of the suit starting to peel off his frame like cracked and dried mud. 'Ah! And you should definitely not be looking like that!'

'I am sorry that I am not at my best,' pants Rook but then he ducks, catching sight of the gleaming streak of silver and black that slams towards him out of Viktor's fist.

'Careful!' Ben yelps. 'It's knock-off Celestialsapian stuff!'

'Then it's time for you to get to work,' Rook growls. And he thrusts Ben's head out, watching his husband, or at least the part of him still housing his spirit, sail through the air with a loud 'WHOA' to land with an undignified thump on a few of his old bandages. In front of his eyes, they quickly snake together and knot into a familiar shape.

And now Rook no longer has to duck and weave alone. His husband is beside him in an instant, taking on the larger blows and letting his bandages pull apart and weave round the jabs and thrusts Viktor makes at them, holes appearing within his form moments before Viktor can even begin to try and carve them out.

So Rook pulls his head away and re-focuses his attention on the female Thep Khufan. He practically pounces as she tries to slither away, his legs now locked into a form more appropriate for Blitzwolfer, and down comes his malformed arm in response, tearing through her again, all force and no finesse. It is effortless, far more so than calling up the energy and focus needed for an advanced Revonnah-Kai technique like 'Stone-Cutter' and he can't help but watch in satisfaction as she shivers and divides like a river beneath him.

This feeling is disrupted by a sharp jolt to the centre of his back, and he flies forward at the force of the kick; proof that Viktor is not entirely distracted by Ben. Rook tumbles and bites back a curse, almost cracking his head against a rock before the world suddenly softens at its edges and the strong wear and tear of paper is around and under him, lifting him into a thick cradle that smells of papyrus. He blinks, gaze turned away from the sand and sky and up, into the green concern of his husband's Thep Khufan eyes.

'Hey there, honey,'Ben says flippantly, his feathery fingers, nestling like the roll and ruffle of curling parchment over Rook's monstrous shoulder. 'You're not looking so hot.'

'Everything is too hot,' Rook stresses out, the pant hot and heavy in his voice and Ben's eyes narrow to hear it.

'Then I guess it's time for everyone to cool off.'

He lets Rook roll down off his knees and into the sand before rising and crossing his arms, intoning a low line of numbers under his breath in a code he won't even let Rook know.

'Hazard-oh!'

Snare-oh's bandages bulge out, becoming a little firmer and heavier to resemble iron rungs rather than paper strips, and their colour turns harsh, shining out like the red that captures the outsides of traditional Earth fire hydrants. And above the main body, the head-dress shifts, losing the gold sheen and wide curves, before it turns and shrinks, becoming caught into a shallower incline of Water Hazard's hood.

The fusion shifts, arms stretching out, uncoiling as though the slide on a helter-shelter is splitting from the main tower that supports it. And water slides out, thick and heavy, pinning both Viktor and the Thep Khufan to the ground. They slather and roll, bandages from Ben's former guide trying to snake out but instead the simply flop, wet, weighted down and unable to fling themselves forward. Ben marches over and with a quick flourish of him arms, binds Viktor's arms and legs with the rest of her body.

'Hang tight,' he grunts. 'And the same to you,' he adds stomping over to Rook. 'What were you thinking?' he demands, his shape falling out of the fusion and reverting back to his Thep Khufan one as he shouts. 'I'm the one that transforms! Not you!'

'I don't have much of a choice,' Rook grunts, pain raking through his voice and Ben softens at the sound of the contraction, his bandages wrapping down and around the parts of Rook the suit will no longer cover.

'C'mon, Khufan bandages can block out most of the radiation of these things. And I can halt the progress somewhat like this.'

'Kinky,' Rook manages to spit out as Ben cradles him close to his chest, bits and pieces of him now playing the part of the inured patient, as they become cloaked in the gauze that splits from Ben's body.

Ben sighs at the joke instead of laughing. 'Sure, babe,' he says, no real pleasure lodged into his tone at all. 'Whatever you say.'


Notes: We see Rook become more relaxed and fond of colloquial elements of speech through the course of Omniverse. I can only imagine what decades on Earth next to Ben, have done to his personality.