Although his current residence has been cleansed of the intrusive black substance known as the Void, it has begun appearing in the Shadow Knight's home dimension (and adjacent ones).
He's been able to track the progression of dimensional rifts, they appear to be abundant around the same coordinates they sent Laurence back to.
Their friend is in danger. His enitre universe is.
Modzilla works with his son and two skilled lab-mates in order to open the portal.
He insists going in alone despite Tommy's pleas to join the adventure for once.
"I've got this burn on my face, it's a sign of a dimensional traveller. Yet I've never been to a realm that isn't this one. If I have to be stained, at least let me earn up to it!"
With much convincing and reassurance he is needed here, he manages to make him stay. Though it's true, he's got that burn for nothing, all because Modzilla couldn't have been more careful.
It's far too dangerous to let anyone else come with him. He must find the source of the rifts on his own. Unfortunately, Aphmau isn't so easy to persuade.
"I'm not as useless as I used to be, you'll be the brains, I'll be the brawn!"
Her enthusiasm is backed by good arguments. After the rips between dimensions started appearing in their world, she felt entirely powerless to stop the danger. The scientists scienced on while all she could do was sit and watch, occasionally - and to her friends' reluctance - serving as a test-subject.
Especially after two mysterious warriors showed up from alternate realms, it was appearent that she couldn't even protect herself or her family from them. Sure, they both had good intentions, but she might not get that lucky next time.
The woman has picked up arms, she's been learning to use a gun. Her aim isn't the best, and her rifle is still a bit heavy for her but she's trying, and someone who can weild a weapon like that might be useful in the world they're going to.
Yeah, they, he couldn't go against her logic. She shall be the brawn then.
Welcome to ANOTHER "Goat tries to write something small about void's rewrite but it turns into something terrifyingly long for no reason" post.
This is basically a fic talking about Kul'Zak (Modzilla) and Irene (Aphma)'s relationship, I am still gonna do the mini fic series going into MORE detail, but this thing....yeah
The divine are messy to say the least in my rewrite, but one of the messiest is Kul'Zak, which I will give small pre-needed context; in my rewrite world Kul'Zak does not (technically) have a decendent or reincarnation because Kul'Zak is still alive, he is actually Professor Modzilla from MMW/VP.
He was just a dimension hopping guy trying to have some fun only to hop into the Overworld (what I call the MCD dimension as it has no set canon name) during what is going to be one of the most turbulent times in their history for the next eon.
One day, some hunters from Scaleswind rush back into town, stating they had found an injured man in the woods, screaming and withering on the ground. They said he looked burnt, and badly. As if his body had been chared.
Being one of the sisters best versed in healing magicks, Irene had demanded they show her this man. It happened to be none other than Monty, but, at the time Irene was none the wiser to the man's name.
She had slammed healing spell after healing spell into the man, but none of them seemed to work, only seeming to for a small time alleviate the man's suffering.
At first, Monty had been, albeit weakly, fighting back the hunters and Irene, but for only a moment. Until he realized what the woman was trying to do. He couldn't stay fully still, but he tried to let her help him, the pain was just so much though.
He knew his face was badly burned, he couldn't open his left eye at all, it could be burned shut.
They had carried him back to the town, Irene scolding the men everytime Monty would groan or whine in pain.
He was placed in a room in the temple Irene was a sister to, mainly so Irene could try and look over him and help him heal.
Covering the burns didn't seem to help either. When wrapping a guaze over them, the bandaging stayed for a moment, before they burned and sizzled away into a purple mist of kinds.
Even though many of the other sisters told her they would be willing to take care of him every so often, as they did commonly take turns tending to the injured that resided in the temple, Irene had denined it, becoming somewhat fixated on figuring out who this man was and what was happening to him.
Monty had been in and out of consiousness for a few days, feverish and skittish anytime Irene tried to communicate to him.
Quite quickly it became obvious that there was a language barrier. Irene tried to make some kind of system, a series of taps for different things and needs Monty would have.
For a while, the sisters of the temple only refered to him as "The Stranger", which Irene didn't like. Everytime she had tried to ask the man his name, he would only look at her confused, which she put to his state of sickness and confusion.
So, Irene came up with a name for him. At least for the others to refer to him as, until she could get his real name out of him.
Now, she would not admit it to anyone else but Monty some time later, but naming him Kul'Zak was not entirely original from her mind. At the time, a romance novel had been getting quite popular, and one of the love intrests, Irene's personal favorite, was named Kul'Zak.
So when asked what his name was, Irene had rushed out that it was Kul'Zak. She was embarassed about it, and of course a few of the sisters she was closer with teased her over it, saying how convient his name was the same as her favorite fictional man.
After a few months, Kul'Zak had finally become more, aware. He had started to slowly piece some words together, out right asking Irene for water, in Ru'aunian, one day. Of course not fully asking, more so just saying "water" in a questioning tone. Irene had been admitingly very excited the first time he did, full on cheering.
She had been spending most her time with Kul'Zak, tending to the burn or more so researching it. Whether it be feeling how hot it was, as it seemed to generate it's own heat nearly 24/7, ot seeing what healing spells would affect it, if at all.
Thankfully, the burn was only on his face, and well a bit of his hand. It was more scattered on his hand, but he still seemed to express a discomfort with it, seething and pulling his hand away if she held it too hard or for too long.
After some time, they had sat down together and Irene tried to teach him Ru'aunian. He was picking it up quickly, but it was still a treck, especially because there was no way for Irene to figure out what his own language was.
When he was able to hold a conversation with her, she was estatic. She would take him outside the temple, walk around Scales Wind, and they would just, talk.
With this, she would learn his name was actually Monty, and when she asked if he'd loke her to tell others, he told her that it was fine. Kul'Zak fit their culture better, and with his status as a other-realmer, he'd rather not cause a rukus of any kind.
Their talks were about anything. Kul'Zak's life as a dimension explorer, Irene's life as a sister of their temple. Anything and everything.
She had asked him when he would be going back to his own dimension, and Kul'Zak only seethed, and said he couldn't go back, at least not for a while. The burns he was suffering from meant he shouldn't, not until he was finally healed. That coming here had put him in danger, and he was lucky he was still alive.
Void burns, is what he called them. One day, he had sat Irene down and went through the books he had held in his bag, that now Irene could finally understand with him translating to her.
Apparently, void burns were something anyone could suffer from, if they dimension hopped in an unsafe manner. And dimension exploring was still considered unsafe, but, he had wanted to do something big. To be one of the special members of his community to find a new dimension.
Irene had gotten him books upon books, journals, theological texts, mythology and folk lore, and even blank journals for him to write in. She loved watching him read, taking notes and writing what he called official dimensional writings.
Not many Irene believers knew of her life before her stint as a hero, hell 90% of books barley ever mentioned her life as a sisster of a now forfotten temple for a god no long known in Ru'aun. Because of this, people also never saw the relationship between Irene and Kul'Zak.
After some years, the two became much closer, Irene only really leaving Scales Wind after a time to accompany Kul'Zak on his adventure of exploring the realm.
The two had been deeply in love, yet according to the texts written of them years later, they were barley even more than just fellow Divine.
When she had decided to finally lay to rest, she entrusted half her relic to Kul'Zak, asking him to shatter it and spread it across the realms, to take her with him on those realm discovery adventures he had told her all about.
Modzilla was never truly a religous man. Ironic for a man that was basically a god. His adoration for Aphmau made him sick. She wasn't Irene, he felt like it would be overstepping to put himself in her life. Even though it's what Irene had asked of him.
He knew Irene, in her later years, had regretted acending to what they had become. He wanted Aphmau to be as normal as she could be.
When she put herself into his life though, even when he thought he had ran far enough away, he didn't know what to do. Especially when Tommy started to adore her, to see her as a mother.
Modzilla was, embarassed and ashamed of how much he had cried that night. He was admitingly cold to her at first. Only 'tolerating' her for Tommy's sake.
She became his lab partner, exploring dimensions for him when he was too sick or weak feeling to. Or tired. She paid attention to his health, so meticulously. It made him want to hurl. He kept telling himself she's not Irene, don't associate her with her.
After all nighters he would wake up with blankets over his shoulders, cups of hot coffee set out for him, even breakfast or lunch on a good day.
One morning, he woke up to a very special breakfast. A dish he had learned of his first few years in Ru'aun, that Irene had adored. Aphmau had told him she found it in one of those cook books, and that it was so well cared for so she assumed he liked it.
He wanted to cry over it, but he had just sighed and asked Aphmau to leave, that they weren't doing any tests today. A few hours later that day, Tommy had come to Aphmau's house and said his father had locked himself in his study and wouldn't be coming out, so he wanted to sleep at her's for the night.
On his bad days, Modzilla would lock himself in his study for, days, maybe even weeks depending how much of a spiral he would go down, where he would read and reread all the journals he had wrote decades ago.
During one of these spirals, he had left his study to go for a walk of sorts, and during that, Aphmau had snuck into his study and went through said journals strewn across the room.
She had been slack jawed at the whole journals full of passages of love, the descriptions of a woman named Irene. The name seemed to strike something in her in a way she couldn't explain.
Some of the pages had drawings of this woman instead of writing. She was, beautiful. Aphmau toom a moment, looking at this woman, till she realized she looked like her. Albeit a little different. Her hair was longer, she wore a hair covering that was longer than the more tied up one Aphmau wore, her clothing in most of the drawings was flowey and white.
Aphmau recalled pictures Modzilla had shared of Polly, she had a similar head covering and flowy clothing, but Polly was white and had blond hair. Irene, as she could see, had tanned skin and black hair. Plus, there were no photos of her, just drawings, some messily colored with dyes and patterned with stamped in flowers.
The journals were so well cared for. More so than the other books and texts Modzilla had in his library section. Aphmau started to feel, bad for looking at this without his permission.
When she intended to leave, she turned and was startled by Modzilla standing in the doorway, eyes locked on the journal she had in her hands. She didn't plan on taking it with her, she just hadn't put it down yet.
Modzilla looked, tired and sick, plus uncomfortable with the new information that Aphmau had been reading his journals.
The conversation was, like walking on eggshells. She asked about Irene, who the woman was, that if Modzilla was so infactuated by her, why was he married to Polly, a woman who seemed so close to this Irene figure.
Modzilla had shakily explained that him and Polly weren't married for love. They were very good friends, but it was common for his kind to not marry for love most the time. He told her about Irene. How happy they were together before their time as divine, explaining to her how Irene had asked to be reincarnated outside the realm she was born of, how Aphmau was one of those.
Then, he broke down. He sobbed and apologized to her, that he wanted her to go her whole life without knowing about it. That he thought that's what Irene would have wanted; to live a life of normalcy, save for the dimension exploring.
She knew now why Monty had become so choked up and emotional when she would try and take care of him when he was sick or tired. That she was unknowingly reminding him of the first times he ever met the woman he would come to love for the rest of his immortal life.
Aphmau wasn't all that young herself, she was already over 100 years old, but, most the time she chose not to disclose that to others. She herself had been overly puzzled by her lack of memories of a childhood, now knowing she never had one in the first place, but then even more confused by her not aging, and living so long already. She knew now why. Monty was obviously still older than her, and she would not be stopping the teasing of him for it.
She came to enjoy the dimension exploring just a little bit more. Sometimes she would find herself talking to no one, as if she was talking to 'Irene', even though she technically was Irene. Unbeknownst to her, she was one of the few Aphmau's to accept the idea so easily and fully. Knowing that she was living a life a her from before craved made her more happy for what Irene had done to give it to her.
Her and Monty's relationship had changed after what she learned. They seemed to flow better now, Monty having put down the wall he had built so long ago, at least a little bit.
When they had finally found Monty's home realm again, Aphmau had cheered for him, so excited he could finally go home. He was happy too, but bitter sweet about it. They hugged, and Aphmau gave him a kiss, which had stunned Monty in his place, face burning red and stuttering.
Aphmau promised to keep Tommy safe, and told Monty that he had to find a way to visit sometime.
Monty left Tommy in the care of Aphmau. He knew she would take care of him better than he ever could.
If fate wasn't so cruel, they could have a redo, but Monty knew that that was a pipe dream.
The void still called, it hungered, and Monty, Kul'Zak, Modzilla, whoever he was, he was going to do everything in his power to keep that thing at bay, to keep the realms safe, and if it meant being burned by it time and time again, he knew he had at least someone he would go to that would be his boulder to rest with. Just like she had all those eons ago.
VOID Paradox Aphmau you will ALWAYS be the woman the world needs. dude i lovee her so much.. i sure hope nothing bad happens to her ever.
design related piece that i dont hate?? but dont love as much as the art above lol. this one here was more to get the hair right tbh.. i dont remember WHEN i drew this SOBBING
hope the VOID Paradox lovers can enjoy these arts.. VP Aph NEEDS to be spread MORE because she is IMPECCABLE
