In the soft glow of the Cerian Sun filtering through the daycare windows, Nyxia stood out like a misplaced comic book hero in a playground.
Gone was his usual menacing garb today, Nyxia wore a brilliantly colored suit, loud and borderline chaotic:
Neon pink jacket with oversized golden buttons,
Turquoise slacks that shimmered like synthetic jellyfish skin,
A tie that flickered like a corrupted LED strip, and
His boots? Bright yellow with smiley faces, stitched crookedly.
He looked like what would happen if a magician, a circus performer, and a rave DJ collided during a teleportation mishap.
Trailing behind him were his Shadow Soldiers not in their usual terrifying, wraithlike forms. No. They were currently Wearing aprons, Carrying tiny bottles.
Holding up stacks of glitter, nap-time blankets, juice boxes, and one was awkwardly cradling a giggling Orowyrm.
One soldier held a mop like a war banner, cleaning up a glitter spill while staring into the abyss of its own existence.
Another was holding up a sign that read:
"NO SCREAMING SPELLS NEAR THE INFANTS."
Nyxia clapped his hands once.
"Alright, squad! Snacktime tactics in place juice deployment protocol Bravo-Foxtrot! Eri wants apple juice, not orange this time, or I swear Cavian will make me do 'Clown Hour' again."
One of the shadows saluted in reverse, tripped over a toy block, and phased through a wall in embarrassment.
Nyxia turned to a curious toddler who pointed at his suit and said, "You're a rainbow."
Nyxia smiled, knelt down, and ruffled their hair.
"That's right, little shade. And rainbows make storms less scary."
Behind him, the Shadow Soldiers glared with envy.
One whispered to another,
"We used to conquer empires. Now we're babysitting toddlers with banana allergies."
The other replied,
"Honestly? I prefer this. Fewer screaming sacrifices."
For hours, Nyxia worked.
Despite the absurdity of his appearance his glowing clown suit, the muttering shadow soldiers wearing bibs and wielding plastic spoons he moved with focused purpose. He changed diapers with silent precision. He wiped tears with an oddly delicate touch. He even read picture books aloud in at least four different languages (one of which no mortal child actually understood, but it still helped them sleep).
His shadow soldiers moved like a miniature army through the daycare halls:
One was negotiating with a toddler about giving up a crayon that had been chewed into a weapon.
Another was calming a minor food fight by slowly absorbing pudding into its incorporeal hand.
One was in the corner, meditating with a pacifier in its mouth. No one knew why.
But Nyxia? He didn't complain. Not once.He laughed with the kids. He wrangled nap-time chaos. He danced when asked badly, dramatically, with excessive finger guns.
Then finally... the bell rang.
a literal bell but a sound only Nyxia and the shadows recognized: a soft three-note chime echoing from the daycare intercom. It meant Break Time.
Nyxia exhaled, shoulders slumping. He slowly walked to the break room, trailing motes of neon light and half-glittered shadow residue. His soldiers followed behind like exhausted but oddly proud nannies.
He collapsed onto a beanbag chair shaped like a star.
One of the shadows handed him a coffee black, steaming, with a tiny umbrella for flair.
Nyxia sipped it, staring at the ceiling.
"We stopped a multiversal invasion last month," he muttered. "But that child with the marshmallow launcher? Unstoppable."
Another shadow plopped beside him, looking equally drained.
"You were hit in the face fourteen times today."
"And I survived," Nyxia said, proudly. "Put that in my combat record."
The room fell quiet. Peaceful.
That was, of course, when the door burst open.
In the quiet hum of the daycare break room, Nyxia lounged in his star-shaped beanbag, shadows flickering lazily around him. His brightly colored suit glowed faintly from the exhaustion of tending to toddlers powered by sugar and chaos.
A soft clank echoed from the hallway. The door swung open.
Dr. Wagner stepped in grease-stained lab coat over a mechanic's shirt, goggles askew, and a faint scent of motor oil lingering like war paint.
"Nyxia," he said, brushing soot from his gloves, "just came to check on"
He paused. Something in the air shifted.
Enter: Marisov Elion Veilstryx.
Wearing an oversized hoodie that made him look like a plush doll with legs, he waddled in with the calm dignity of someone who knew no fear. A juice box nestled in his tiny hands, the straw tilted at a perfect 45 degrees.
"Hey, Uncle Wagner. Hey, Nyxia."
Wagner blinked behind his fogged lenses.
"…Marisov? Vhat are you doing here? Shouldn't you be vith Azura or… Zalthorion?"
Marisov sipped.
"Mama and Papa are busy."
Nyxia sat up slightly. "Busy with what?"
Marisov beamed. The kind of beam that precedes psychic warfare.
"I saw Mama push Papa onto the bed."
Silence.
The shadows froze.
Wagner's jaw slackened. "…Huh?"
Nyxia raised one hand, finger pointed like he was about to cast a spell, then slowly lowered it, staring. "…I'm sorry. What?"
Marisov nodded, utterly sincere. "She was helping him take off his clothes. I think they were going to shower."
Nyxia choked. His coffee sprayed mid-sip. He rolled off the beanbag, wheezing. A shadow soldier screamed softly and vanished under the couch.
Dr. Wagner's composure cracked.
"W-Was she—disrobing him?!"
Marisov, unbothered, nodded again. "Yup. Mama said, 'Let me help, you're terrible at this.' Then she tackled him. Papa said, 'Azura, wait—' but she didn't."
Nyxia was dying. Literally howling, tears streaming down his face. "I—no—wait—BWAHAHA—'Azura, wait'—!"
Wagner had turned entirely away, hands over his face, trying to smother the uncontrollable laughter vibrating through his spine.
"Nein! Nein! I did not need zis mental image! I am a scientist, not a victim!"
One of the shadow soldiers dropped its clipboard. Another pulled a sheet over itself.
Marisov took another dainty sip. "Then Mama said something about 'melting ice in a fun way.'"
Nyxia collapsed again. "HE'S QUOTING—DIRECTLY—HELP—"
Wagner sat down like a man who had seen battle. "Zis… zis is worse than mindflayer torture."
Marisov blinked. "What's a mindflayer?"
Wagner snapped, "YOU ARE!"
Nyxia lifted a hand weakly. "This kid is… the single most dangerous entity in the multiverse. Confirmed. Level Omega."
Still smiling, Marisov continued, "Mama also said she was gonna 'ignite the storm again.' I don't know what that means, but she looked really excited!"
The room went still.
Wagner, eyes hollow: "No… That is definitely a euphemism."
Nyxia's shadow soldiers began praying in eldritch tongue. One quietly drafted a will.
Marisov waddled forward and held out his juice box. "Uncle Wagner, do you want some juice?"
Wagner took it like a man accepting a final blessing. "…Danke. I will need zis to forget."
A long pause followed.
A single shadow whispered, "We are never telling Zalthorion."
Another nodded. "Or Azura. Ever."
Then Marisov cheerfully added, "Papa said if I talked too much, he'd send me to the 13th dimension again! But I think he was joking…"
Wagner stood abruptly.
"NEIN!"
and walked directly into the wall.
Nyxia slid off the beanbag, wheezing, "You good?"
Wagner's muffled reply came from the wall. "Nope."
As Marisov waddled out of the break room, sipping his juice with a satisfied little hum, the shadows relaxed just barely.
And then the storm truly arrived.
The door swung open with the force of divine judgment.
Cavian entered.
Her boots echoed like the countdown to a sentencing. Her arms were crossed with the precision of someone holding back an entire cosmic lawsuit. Her glare alone made one of Nyxia's shadows implode into a puff of glitter and shame.
She marched in, eyes locked like targeting lasers on Dr. Wagner and Nyxia, who were still recovering from the emotional shrapnel of Marisov's unsolicited lore dump.
Cavian's voice cut through the room like a blade forged from righteous fury.
"How dare they show such a sight in front of their own child! Much less let him walk alone to my daycare! How has he not lost his innocence?!"
There was a beat of stunned silence. Even the coffee machine paused mid-drip.
Nyxia blinked. "Wait… we didn't do anything. Are you talking about?"
Cavian's eyes burned hotter.
"Zalthorion. Azura."
Wagner coughed into his sleeve. "Ah… ja. Them."
Cavian's tone sharpened. "Them, indeed! Their child just described an entire romantic takedown like it was a bedtime story!"
Nyxia choked on laughter again. "T-Takedown!"
Cavian turned her fire on him. "And you! You laughed so hard you cried. What if he had misunderstood it? What if he asked questions? What if he tried recreating it?!"
One of the shadow soldiers whispered, "The world would not survive."
Dr. Wagner, adjusting his goggles with trembling fingers, attempted diplomacy.
"To be fair, Marisov... does tend to observe with uncanny accuracy. Ve did not ask him to say any of that."
Cavian pointed at him, indignant.
"Then why was he even alone in the first place?! He walked by himself to the daycare! Do you know how many dimensional anomalies he could've accidentally adopted along the way?!"
Nyxia raised a hand weakly. "That's… honestly a valid concern."
Wagner sighed. "Look, he said 'Mama and Papa were busy.' Ve assumed he meant… tea or war planning."
Nyxia snorted. "Not reigniting the storm—"
Cavian snapped, "DO NOT quote the child again!"
A shadow soldier nodded solemnly. "We have already lost too many today."
Cavian exhaled sharply, then pinched the bridge of her nose.
"You two keep this quiet. I'm going to have a word with Zalthorion and Azura. And I swear, if I hear one more line that sounds like a rejected romance novel title, I'm throwing all of you into the Cradle of Silence."
Nyxia raised an eyebrow. "Even Marisov?"
Cavian stared him down.
"…He's on probation."
Wagner looked out the door where Marisov had gone.
"Zis child… is either going to save the multiverse, or completely break it by accident."
Nyxia took another sip of his now-cold coffee.
"Either way… I hope someone's writing this all down."
A shadow soldier pulled out a tiny notepad and whispered, "Already ghostwriting the memoir."
Cavian stormed out, muttering threats in six languages and something about "melting ice my ass."
Silence returned.
Nyxia collapsed back into the beanbag.
"Daycare's harder than warfare."
Wagner nodded. "At least in warfare, ze enemy doesn't ask for hugs mid-chaos."
As the orange hue of the sunset bathed the windowpanes in amber light, Dr. Wagner's heavy boots echoed faintly in the corridor leading to his secluded office-bedroom. The door clicked shut behind him with a finality that seemed to silence the world outside. He walked without haste, but with a weariness deep in his bones more emotional than physical.
He approached the old wooden desk in the corner of the room, where an object of quiet ritual waited: a small black notebook, leather-bound, worn at the corners, yet humming with an oppressive weight only he could feel. Sitting down slowly, he let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding.
His gloved fingers reached for the cover and opened it.
The first few pages had names dozens, maybe hundreds. Each was marked in perfect, clean handwriting. Some names were crossed out. Some had question marks. Many were smudged by dried tears or wrinkled by the weight of memory.
He turned past pages etched with dates from a time the world tried to forget.
"Günther Albrecht Müller"
Age: 42
Born: 3 February 1899
Died: 19 October 1941
"Ernst Friedrich Kaelber"
Age: 30
Born: 12 July 1913
Died: 3 April 1944
Names like these scientists, comrades, victims, sometimes even test subjects all etched with reverence and shame. A catalog of the damned and the dead. Some he had worked beside, some he had betrayed under duress. All of them haunted him.
Eventually, he turned to a blank page.
He dipped the fountain pen and began to write:
"Ludwig Kaspar Reinfeld"
Age: 36
Born: 9 November 1907
Died: 21 August 1943
"Ansel Meinhardt Vollner"
Age: 27
Born: 16 May 1916
Died: 6 December 1942
As he wrote each name, the tears began to fall. Silently at first, then harder. He didn't bother wiping them. They dropped onto the ink, staining the pristine lines and making the names blur and bleed just like they had bled then.
His jaw clenched, and his breath hitched. For a moment, his hand hovered, unsure if he could continue.
But he did.
Name after name.
This was his penance his remembrance. Not for forgiveness. Not even for closure. But because someone had to remember. Someone had to carry the truth no one else could.
The only sound in the room was the quiet scratching of ink on paper and the steady fall of tears onto the page.