He looked at the three of them, and apart from Nyarlatothep, none of them were hostile.
His question might have seemed like an affront to them but none of them actually cared. It would instead surprise them if Draul was able to actually kill them.
They were all nightmares in their own right, the wrong parts of a dream and killing them in the truest sense of the word meant that the dream will end and whoever was dreaming will then fully awaken…and no one wants that.
Well, no one except Draul that is.
"Quite the hostility there, Ominous One. From what I know, Nyarlatothep has yet to irrefutably cross you." The chief of the court, Yog-Sothoth, spoke.
Draul snorted at that, the bastard was a few moments from killing him and that was considered irrefutable?
"Nyarlathotep wouldn't have been able to kill you if that is what you are worrying about… At least not in a way that really matters."
"And pray tell, just what that would have been?"
"It means the Dreamsparks in you would have belonged to Nyarlathotep. A part of you would have remained no matter what and that is what matters. A state of true and complete nonexistence is nigh-impossible for beings like us."
The quiet Shub-Niggurath spoke and if not for Draul already being accustomed to the way they spoke, and also the fact that his own voice if heard even in a whisper could drive a civilization to extinction, would have reeled back in extreme fear.
It felt even more sinister than both Yog-Sothoth's and Nyarlathotep's voices, if that was even possible.
Nevertheless, he turned calmly to the amalgamation of every nightmare one could think of.
Shub-Niggurath was one of the progenitors, a mother of sorts, to a lot of gods and entities in this Lovecraftian myths which made form more terrifying to look at in an aesthetical sense.
"In other words, Draul would have been dead while the Ominous One would have existed in Nyarlathotep, am I right?" He asked.
Silence followed and of for the severity of the current situation, he would have flipped a table and just go ahead with hacking away at Nyarlathotep for another eon uncountable.
The reason why the other Archetypes were here was for no other reason than to stop Azathoth's awakening.
Even if Nyarlathotep in spite would have wanted that to happen just so Draul would lose everything he ever held dear, he knew that Azathoth awakening now was the least he needed.
In a sickening way, while they all could be summed up as Azathoth's nightmares, Draul unexpectedly was both the nightmare and the dream. This was what set Nyarlathotep off.
In other words, his affinity with the dream, coupled with his Null, was the bane of any being, god or demon.
"What do you want, Draul? Know that none of us have the right to stop Nyarlathotep from doing as he pleases, and while he did go a bit far this time, the end results was waivered."
Draul immediately understood and his long needle like teeth extended even more in a sinister grin. Oh he was starting to love this place.
"Then it makes no difference if I try to get what I want from Nyarlathotep, right?" He was itching to go and from the gargling atmosphere that permeated from Nyarlathotep he could tell that the other was just as rearing to go as him.
"As long as Azathoth awakening is prevented, you can do anything you want, even trying to 'kill' and Archetype."
At Yog-Sothoth's utterance, the two them exploded and were immediately gone from the court. Knowing that as long as they made sure not to disturb the 'Dream' they were not bound by anything else, their fight took another turn.
Now instead of them trying to end each other, they switched up and started attacking the other properties of themselves.
Draul attacked Nyarlathotep instead of the 'End', while Nyarlathotep reciprocated and attacked Draul instead of the 'Null' in the latter.
They didn't care how long they fought but all they knew was that a new form of the other would be born by the time they were done with the other.
°°°°°
A group of people were hacking away at logs of woods while some were carrying the hacked logs towards what resembled a very huge house, one made entirely out of wood despite how huge it was.
"This is going to take quite a while." Bucky complained as he brought down his axe against a helpless log and split it in two without any mercy.
"Well, it's not like you have anything better to do rather than just lazing around." Steve said with a snort as he heaped his pile into a neat bundle for more space before he continued hacking.
"As a matter of fact, I do. I got roped in, more like swindled actually, into this 'Council'. Strange thought that if he couldn't get Draul to join, then I'd be the best pick."
The so-called Council Bucky mentioned was a round table of Earth's mightiest beings, a seat of the highest power the planet has, that was tasked with fighting against any otherworldly threat the planet might face.
Unlike the group of superheroes known as the Avengers, the Council dealt more with intergalactic, demonic and goldly beings seeking to cause trouble.
"I missed the days when we were killing demons and Elder Gods." Bucky mused before bringing his axe down with rage as he remembered the frustration that came with the end of events such as those.
"Well, sorry for that. Those powers were only for that fight, and trust me when I say you'd have gotten bored quite easily if I had let you remain like that. It's quite miserable."
Draul rested his chin against the butt of his axe with a lazy smile on his face as he looked at the two bickering brothers.
He had taken away their powers after the fight, the ones they received from him, and left them as they once were and while they had wholly agreed at that time. It turns out frustrations started setting in and daily uneventful life had hit them like a truck of regret to the point they practically forced themselves to get a day job just to stave off the blandness and ever-growing frustration.
"Yes yes, we know. But sometimes the thought of blowing up the planet or rewriting the universe just for a thrill is undeniable."
They all fell silent at that since they knew just how true those words were.
"We're gone for a minute and you guys are back to thinking about blowing up a planet."
Their musings were cut off by Ororo's words as the storm Goddess was dressed in baggy and dirty overalls from towing lumber all day.
"Well you can't deny that boredom is a good motivator." Draul lamely defended, earning him three pairs of eyerolls.
The guy was probably the second strongest being in this Multiverse and a host of infinite others and here he was complaining and defending the thought of blowing up a planet.
Draul laughed as he correctly guessed what was going on through their heads before suggesting something.
"Since the house is almost done, how about we play a game?"
"A game won't last more than an hour, Draul." Yelena stated. She was already a grown-up adult, losing all the cheekiness and mischief she once had as a young girl. But in front of the people around her, age didn't matter, so yeah, she was still their little Yelena..
"I'm not talking about that. There's a whole multiverse out there so why don't we use it to have fun?" He almost dead eyes had the tiniest bit of amusement in them as he saw them thinking on his suggestions.
"What about the others?" Ororo asked.
"End won't do anything, neither will the others. And I've also taken care of the Molecule Man and Wade, they won't be having fun at the expense of anyone for a long time."
Finding out that those two had been spectating and placing bets on their entire life, Draul felt very angry since they did not even bother to include him and he threw them into a What If Universe and placing them inside the same body. Yeah, they weren't having fun any time soon.
He also found out that the reason the tow idiots were so hooked on their bets were that they could not predict what was happening next since he was a omniversal singularity, which meant no manipulations on his part. All they did was watch and predict.
Their actions also gave him the idea he currently had.
"I was thinking of either reincarnating all of us in different worlds, but that wouldn't be fun since for it to be a truly interesting experience we would have to lose our memories. Wouldn't want to call on our powers just cause we can, where's the fun in that?"
"You're right. Losing my memory and living a new life just doesn't seem right with me. What's the other?" Natasha asked, throwing the first idea under the bus immediately.
"Well the other is for us, actually me, to transmigrate a soul from one universe to another multiverse. It's more efficient that way, or so I've read." Draul said.
While this was not the most bizarre words they heard him utter, it was quite up there in the rankings, probably top 1.
"Well I'm all for it, but wouldn't that be playing with human lives? I know we set a standard, apart from you obviously, but using human lives as boredom alleviation is kind of icky." Yelena pointed out. She wasn't that against it but she could definitely see it turning into something of a pastime for them if they just went along with it. Draul was exempt from this because, well because human life, any life in general, had little meaning to him. Cons of being a Lovecraftian nightmare he had said.
"No problems about that. I'll be picking unfortunate people. You know, those who'd like to have another chance at life. What can go wrong with that?"
The more they thought about it, the more it sounded appealing to them and the more they were in on it.
"How do we go about it?" Ororo was the first to ask.
"Basically we take a recently dead soul, maybe the most stupidly unfortunate one just for the kick of it, give him and ability, and shove him into another world. He could be a hero or villain, anything he wants." He said.
"I'm quite concerned about the villain bit, but I'm not entirely against the your suggestion as a whole." Ororo said.
He looked around and saw that none of them were against it and got ready.
"First of all, which world would you want the adventure to start in?"
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First of all, thank you to all those who stayed till the end of this series, I truly appreciate your support.
I know this story changed over the course of writing it, straying a large mile from what I initially planned on writing and losing its earlier quality and also letting most of you down.
To be honest, I didn't even want to write the ending of this story and just drop it as a whole, but that would be very unfair to all of you who wanted to see the end of it despite its mediocrity.
Thank you.