I breathed in the salty sea breeze while the waves roared against the shore. The armies of Erath were arrayed on either side of the Bridge of Babel, weapons poised, maps drawn, and prayers dancing on every soldier’s lips. There hadn’t been a large-scale war like this in centuries because of the demon lords’ disappearances. Most battles had been one-sided invasions by the Union, crushed by the Alliance once they reached the demon lord’s castle.

But this time, both sides were fully mobilized. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers, magicians, tacticians, and the like had all been gathered. Farmers were conscripted, merchants’ goods were appropriated, and factories and idle workers were put to work manufacturing weapons or maintaining the supply lines.

Amy stood over the red army, gazing in my direction but showing no signs of having noticed me. Zoe was dispatched to scout the Union’s vanguard. Runir was in a large command tent on his side of the bridge, accompanied by Azoth and a few other ministers, while Lily stood alone near the front of her army, standing silent but upright, letting her gleaming white armor and confidence motivate her army.

Both Runir and Lily had the same sentiments but had reached different conclusions. If they couldn’t avoid the war, they wanted to make sure it ended quickly. Their decisions on how to achieve that were very different. Runir wanted to efficiently dismantle the Union. Lily wanted to die.

The rest of the goddesses floated high in the sky, behind a cloud just thick enough to hide their shadows. Lunaris argued that they continue searching for me, but Solaron reminded her they’d been doing so for weeks, to no avail. Adriana complained about not being able to sell arms to the Alliance because Runir had blocked her. She grumbled that they’d lose without her weapons but Opal countered by reminding her that she was short on raw materials and couldn’t make any weapons in the first place. Breize tinkered with a new contraption, claiming it could be useful in the war. They were trying to distract themselves from the carnage that was about to ensue below. Despite having lived for a millennium, they hadn’t gotten used to watching people suffer and die. Even Opal, who enslaved some of her people, couldn’t stomach war.

Zoe reached the bridge. I waited for her to near the center before materializing there. The goddesses stopped bickering. Amy bit her lips as her prism vibrated. Runir cursed at his prism. Lily chucked hers far away. All of them shot into the air, rushing towards me as fast as they could.

I faced the sky and listened to the waves to pass the time. No, that wasn’t true. I couldn’t pass the time, the concept had no meaning for me. I was listening to the waves to distract myself.

That wasn’t true either, I couldn’t be distracted.

Zoe was the first to spot me. I looked at her without turning, always futilely wondering if I’d made the right choice in suppressing her memories. Of course I had, I knew I had.

The goddesses were the first to touch down. It took Lily and Runir several milliseconds to reach me, but that didn’t matter, I could wait. I’d been waiting forever, after all.

Amy tried to catch my attention so I gazed at her without meeting her gaze. She regretted betraying me, both because of her internal moral anguish, and because I’d escaped. The other goddesses were afraid but defiant. Runir had his poker face on but was furiously trying to think of a solution while slowly coming to terms with his inability to do so. Lily was the firmest in her convictions, being straight up angry.

I knew what was going to happen. I was going to hesitate, sigh, look at them one by one, relive my memories with them, then resign myself to the inevitability of my actions. I was going to rewrite everything. I’d seen myself do it on the Hill outside Reneste, and almost every night since then.

I sighed and looked at Amy directly. Stories around a campfire, saving her from the Ashfiend’s curse, flirting with her on a boat while skirting the Alderan wastes, and finally, spending a warm night on a cold mountaintop with her in my arms; all memories I cherished at the time, despite knowing how our relationship would end.

I moved my gaze to Lily. She had a fierce glint in her eye that reminded me of how impressed I’d been when she escaped the Palace. Her resistance to authority and propensity to steal things contrasted sharply with her sense of justice and love for the weak. I’d always admired that about her. I’d also come to think of her as my little sister; one I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to have.

Runir was like me in many ways. His calculating nature, his inscrutable demeanor, and his initial disregard for other people’s feelings reminded me of the Kai who had first come to this world as well as the person I was now. Would he have done things differently if he’d been in my position? Probably not, but who knows.

Solaron, the goddess who never gave up on the game. Finding loopholes to give her side any advantage she could, capitalizing on Lunaris’ absence and lack of enthusiasm, and trying to win the game as quickly and painlessly as possible. She’d long since realized that her actions were useless, she was killing people and inflicting more pain yet victory was never within sight. She guessed that victory was impossible, that the game was not meant to be won. She guessed right.

Adriana became a business tycoon after helping boats traverse the myriad canals and rivers of her territory. At some point, she’d met an old lady who changed the way she saw the world. Although it didn’t stop her from selling weapons to both sides of the war, she did keep the worst weapons locked away.

Opal dealt with the pain of her people by trying to control their lives as directly as possible. However, when famine struck, she had no idea what to do. She watched her people starve but couldn’t access the plentiful resources being traded right outside her country’s borders. When Breize expressed a desire in the minerals in her mines, she went all out in procuring them. She worked them to the bone so they could survive. She hoarded excess minerals so scarcity would make them more valuable while having a stockpile for rainy days.

The Air kingdom had always had the best engineers but Breize felt she could take them even higher. Into the sky, in fact. She developed all sorts of contraptions to make her people’s lives better and sold weapons to buy food and raw materials for her machines. She made the peacetime sweeter but the wars deadlier.

Lunaris locked herself up in a shack in the mountains, having tea-parties with herself for hundreds of years. I always felt guilty when I thought about her, knowing that I’d dragged her into this but never gotten to know her. I needed to let her hatred of Fate stew, and stop her from realizing her otherworldly magic didn’t work on me, but watching her drink tea all alone for so long was saddening, to say the least.

I looked back into the sky. I focused on Zoe without turning to her, remembering all the fun I’d had taking care of the little tyke. I also recalled the pain of suppressing her memories, again, and shifted my attention elsewhere.

Azoth was in the command tent of the dark kingdom. He’d been a bit of a wildcard. Despite being a bonus boss unlocked after the end of the main campaign, he’d left his mountain and assumed command of the Dark kingdom himself. A mix of ambition and self-righteousness motivated his actions, although he’d grown apathetic after killing his fifth hero.

Finally, I focused on Clare. She lay on top of the Hill, scratching Waon’s head while staring at the sky. I looked at her eyes and she felt it, gazing into the empty air intensely. She didn’t want me to do it. She thought I could come up with another answer, something less extreme, less depressing.

But she didn’t understand – none of them did. It’s why they tried to lock me up. It’s why they were so angry at me for not fixing everything despite being able to do so. But that was because they were ignorant.

Being ridiculously powerful isn’t as cool as people think. Even if you could do everything you wanted to, you couldn’t really do it. There was no happiness to be found in power, no love, no satisfaction. If you had any morals, any concept of right and wrong, any humanity at all, you wouldn’t find absolute power fun. No, you’d come to the same conclusion that I had:

Absolute power is pretty depressing.

I said the word and the world went dark.

 < Back | TOC | Next >

Water dripped from the ceiling, crashing onto the hard rocks, sending echoes across the empty chamber. If I concentrated, I could make out the faint breathing of the guards outside the door. The bubble fizzed and whirled with energy, energy that I couldn’t directly control. It was a refreshing experience.

Amy, Lily, and Runir; they were out there somewhere, trying to fix the problems I had created. There was a lot to do but then again, they had all the time in the world, and wouldn’t be coming for my help just yet. Good thing too, since I had more immediate matters to attend to. Specifically, a headache – a headache I’d been trying to heal for a long, long time.

The rhythmic breathing of the guards was cut off by a grunt and a sharp cry. The breathing resumed, only longer and deeper than before. I sat up as the creak of the door heralded the arrival of the beginning of my troubles, even though the curtains had just been primed.

“Waon!”

A purple hellkitty strode into the room, tail upright, eyes glinting, and ears pointed.

“Hello Waon!” I said. “How are you, old nemesis?”

“Waon!” cried the hellkitty.

“Your dastardly plans shall never succeed!” I said, waving my fist at it.

“Waon.” The hellkitty yawned.

“Your provocations won’t work on me!” I said, holding my head high.

“You’ll never be funny.”

“Spoke too soon,” I said.

A hand reached down to pet Waon, who purred, filling the silent chamber with its guttural vibrations.

“I finally caught you,” said Clare as she stepped into the room and shut the door.

“Yes, you did,” I said.

“No teleporting away at the last second?”

“I would if I could.”

“No masked monstrosities to get in our way?”

“Origin is busy right now.”

“That’s you in the bubble right, not a clone or something?”

“What can I say, I’ve always liked bubbles.” I chuckled mirthlessly.

“No running away?”

“No, not this time.”

She approached the bubble. “You’ve been avoiding me all these years. How?”

“Tracked you and made sure I was somewhere else.”

“Stalker.”

“I could’ve spied on you for real, if I’d wanted to.”

“Somehow doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“Sorry,” I said, meeting her eyes for the first time in years. “I wasn’t ready to face you.”

“Why?”

“Because I knew you’d ask questions. The wrong kind of questions.”

She was quiet for a moment. A drop of water fell from the ceiling, startling Waon, who hissed and trotted away.

“I’ve waited so long for this moment but now that it’s here, I don’t know where to start,” she said, her voice low but still managing to carry across the empty cave.

“Start with the first question you wanted to ask me all those years ago,” I said.

“What’s the point? I already know your answer.”

“Couldn’t hurt to ask.”

“Fine, will you revive my parents?”

“No.”

“Knew it. You’ve had decades to do so if you wanted to.”

“I wanted to. Oh, how I wanted to.”

“Then, why didn’t you?”

“You know why.”

“No, I don’t.”

I was taken aback. “Really?”

“Yes, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You can’t think of a single reason why reviving people could be a problem?”

“No.”

“Don’t lie to me. You know.”

She hesitated, looked at her hands, then met my gaze. “No.”

“You’re lying. You came to the same conclusion I did but don’t want to say it. I won’t blame you, though. I know how hard it is to face the truth. Hell, I don’t blame Runir and the others either. They’re running from the same conclusions you’re avoiding; the same truths you convinced yourself were false.”

“You can’t bring them back.”

“I can!” I shouted, exasperated. “Don’t you see? That’s the entire problem in the first place! I can bring them back. Exactly the way they were. Same memories, same characteristics, same everything.” I pressed my face against the walls of my prison and whispered, “Doesn’t that send a shiver down your spine?”

“Yes,” she said. “It scares me how you refuse to do it even though you can.”

“Damn it, you don’t know anything. None of you do!”

“I know you’re a pathetic human being.”

“No, you’re a pathetic human being. That’s the point, don’t you see? Can’t you see anything?”

“All I see is a hysterical madman with a god-complex.”

I grabbed my head and kneaded it like dough, as if that would help me calm down. It didn’t.

“Hysterical. It’s funny how we use such a funny word to describe what happens when smart people can’t get through to idiots like you.”

“I’m cracking up,” she said, dryly.

“Sarcasm, lovely. It’s so hard to tell when someone’s being sarcastic. They could be telling the truth or implying that you’re an idiot for thinking that they were telling the truth.”

“It’s usually easy to tell,” she said.

“It’s very easy to tell,” I agreed, crossing my arms.

She sighed. “I spend decades tracking you down, looking for an answer, and all I get are incoherent ramblings.”

“I never ramble,” I assured her. “Everything I say, everything I do, I do with a purpose. I don’t let what other people think cloud my judgement, because other people don’t have the same perspective.”

“You’re underestimating them.”

“Really? When people see a hill, and it’s the tallest thing they’ve ever seen or heard about, they’ll think it’s the tallest place in the world! People make decisions based on the information they have and the goals they want to achieve. But what if you don’t have all the information? What if your goals are impossible to achieve or even worse, what if when you do achieve them, you realize that they suck?”

“Then give them that information. Don’t guard it like a dog with a bone. Get some more opinions on it. Maybe your conclusions aren’t right?”

I laughed. I laughed so hard my stomach began aching. “I can’t even –” I laughed some more.

She frowned. “What is it this time?”

“Everything!”

“I don’t understand.”

“Exactly!”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“Nonsense!”

“You’re crazy.”

“Yes!” I screamed. “Yes, I am!”

She looked at me pitifully. Waon turned its tail to me and rubbed against Clare’s legs. “You weren’t like this when we first met. You were kind, caring, sane. What happened?”

“Oh?” I tilted my head and smiled. “Finally, an interesting question. Tell me what you know so far and I’ll begin from there.”

“I know you left Reneste as soon as you revived me and changed my ability and title –”

“Wrong! I never changed your title.”

Her eyes widened. “What? But then…”

“It was a natural consequence of your position in the world. Your title represents who you are publicly. But it doesn’t base that off what society thinks of you, but rather what the system thinks of you.”

“So, it’s based on what you think of me?”

“No, the system is independent of me. I created it, created this world, in fact! But it isn’t literally me. Now continue, what do you think I did after I left Reneste?”

“You went all over the world.”

“And how do you know that?”

“My ability.”

“You know I never gave that to you either?”

“Another consequence of the system?”

“No.”

“Then what?”

“It’s what you wanted, apparently.”

Her mouth hung open for a while. “What?”

“I wanted to give you any ability you wanted. This is what you chose.”

“But why would I choose something like this?”

“You liked stargazing, didn’t you?”

“That can’t be it.”

“You also hated being lost, no, you hated being left alone.”

She stood quietly.

“So, I traveled the world,” I continued. “Then what?”

“You went to Fohil and stayed for a while. I almost caught you.”

“Almost,” I smiled.

“Then you went to the Fire kingdom and we met at the shrine.”

“I didn’t think you’d catch us.”

“I wouldn’t have if I’d followed my ability, but I decided to guess where you were going and took a shortcut.”

“That delay in Ashpoole probably helped too.”

“Yes, I saw that in the sky.”

“You can’t see the details, right?”

“No.”

“Then you don’t know what I’m trying to do.”

“No.”

“But you do know where I’ve been teleporting to over the past year or so.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you just wait for me there?”

“I thought you wouldn’t go there if I pitched a tent and waited.”

“Fair enough.”

“Actually,” she said, lifting Waon and petting it. “Why did you go there every time? I can’t think of anything special nearby, except maybe Reneste.”

“It’s the most special place in the world!”

“Why?”

“It’s where I did it.”

“Did what?”

“Made my decision.”

“About what?”

“About this world.”

She stopped petting Waon. “And that decision is?”

“What do you think?” I said, smiling.

“You won’t destroy it,” she said, looking away thoughtfully. “You love it too much. I doubt you’ll change it much, considering how you haven’t done anything for decades. You obviously aren’t going to fix anything.” She tapped her chin. “I don’t know, maybe you’re going to stay in there and let everyone else clean up your mess?”

“My mess?” I raised an eyebrow. “You think this is my fault?”

“Of course,” she said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re Fate. You cause pain, suffering, and death. You have the power to shape the world any way you want and you chose to make it the way it is.”

“I didn’t know.”

She dropped Waon, who complained with a shriek. “Didn’t know what? That your actions were causing so much misery? That you were responsible for millions of deaths?”

“Yes,” I said, my voice finally dropping. This was why I didn’t want to meet her. I knew she’d find my biggest weakness – my guilt. “I didn’t know. In my world, all of this was a game.”

“Pathetic excuses,” she spat. “Even if you didn’t know before, you’ve had decades to stop the madness yet you refused. You can’t plead ignorance to that.”

“No,” I whispered. “I can’t.”

She clenched her fists and her expressionless face broke into an angry scowl. She kicked the bubble and shouted, “Why!”

I watched quietly.

She kicked again. “Why!”

And again. “Why.”

And again. “Why…”

She fell on her knees and began crying. “Why couldn’t you be the Kai I first met? Why couldn’t you just do the right thing so we could move on? Move on to watching the stars. Move on to telling stories by the camp fire.”

I dropped onto one knee on the other side of the wall.

“You were amazing; my knight in shining armor! My bard telling stories in the moonlight. My – my big brother!” She sobbed. Waon sat down beside her, rubbing its head on her side. I looked down, breathing slowly to calm myself. I knew this would happen if I met her, yet I’d persisted. It wouldn’t hurt if I was expecting it, right?

Wrong.

“Why are you still here?”

I looked up. Her eyes were red, her cheeks swollen, and her face covered in tears.

“Why haven’t you escaped yet?” she repeated, her voice hoarse and words broken.

“You think I can escape from this?”

“Of course, you’d never let them put you in there if you didn’t have a way to get out.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I figured it out a long time ago.” She laughed as she cried. “You couldn’t have avoided me like that just by tracking me. You were always a step ahead, as if you knew what I was going to do.”

I opened my mouth but no words came out.

“That’s why I was so angry when you said you didn’t know. Liar. You’re a liar, Kai!”

“Yes, I am.”

“You know everything!” she shouted, getting up. She pointed at me and yelled, “It’s why I hate you so much. Not only do you have the power to change everything, you have the knowledge too! You knew I was going to come here. You knew we’d have this conversation. You knew that I knew, but you pretended like you didn’t. You keep asking all these questions even though you already know what I’m going to say. You give me all these half-answers even though you know I won’t understand any of them! You’ve been leading me around the world, playing me like a puppet on a string. It’s all a game to you. We’re toys for you to amuse yourself with. For you to poke and pinch, and make funny noises! You’ll throw me away as soon as I lose my value, as soon as I stop being interesting. You don’t care about any of us; never have and never will. You made us so you could play us, and don’t have the decency to put us away properly!”

“You’re wrong,” I said. “I do care.”

“Sure! Like I said, you care about us if we’re fun. If we’re entertaining. If we’re willing to play your little game. But no! I won’t do it. I won’t play your game, I will not be a character in your game!”

“But –”

“But I don’t have a choice, right?” She wrenched her hair. “You know what I’m going to do and you’ll make that a part of your game too. In fact, you’re probably enjoying my breakdown right now. You’re laughing inside, I’m sure of it!”

“No, no I’m not.”

“Liar, you’re a liar Kai!”

“Yes I am.”

She laughed hysterically – there’s that funny word again – and fell flat on her back. Waon shrank away. I stared resolutely at the ground.

“What happens next?” she asked from the ground.

“I escape.”

“Then?”

“I make them fight each other.”

“After that?”

“I decide.”

“Decide what?”

“What I’m going to do with this world.”

She laughed. When her laughter died down, she said, “And you won’t tell me, will you?” She stood up. “No need to answer. I already know what you’re going to say. Is that how you feel all the time?”

“Not really. It’s not as fun as you’d think.”

“How can knowing everything not be fun?”

“Because everything you can know is not everything you want to know.”

Silence. Water dripped from the ceiling, but didn’t make a sound as it hit the floor.

“What should I tell them when they get here?”

“You can track other people too?”

“You knew that. Please stop pretending. Please.”

“Tell them to bring me their best solutions.”

“Solutions to what?” she asked, picking up Waon again.

“To everything.”

I stepped back, standing right in the center of the bubble or anomaly as Runir called it. Me? I called it by its true name.

An error in the system. A piece of code that didn’t do what it was supposed to do. The bane of every programmer. A bug.

I called up my status. It hadn’t changed since the first day I got here. Even my age had been frozen. Under the abilities section was the source of all my headaches, my ability – re:write. Sometimes I wanted to erase it. I would have been able to do it, I knew I could. But that’s exactly why I didn’t. Absolute power was a pain in the ass, but absolute knowledge was the worst part.

“When I sat down on the Hill outside Reneste, I pulled up my status screen just like this. I finally had the chance to explore the full extent of my ability, so I decided to make the most of it,” I said aloud, more for myself than for Clare. “It started off with a map of the world, then an expansion of my own abilities of comprehension and retention. Soon, I knew what everyone on Erath was doing. But that wasn’t the limit, so I pushed on.

I found out everything about the past nine hundred years and beyond. I watched my characters play the game, leading millions of helpless souls to death over and over again. I saw the carnage I’d caused, the pain I’d inflicted, and it filled me with grief, disgust, and guilt. I wanted to fix things, I really did!

But I didn’t stop there. I kept exploring. Having reached the limit of the past, I turned my attention to the future. And that’s where things went to hell. I spiraled into a never-ending vortex of frustration, one I haven’t been able to escape since.”

My eyes went from my ability to the lower right corner of the screen. There lay a small red button with a ‘D’ on it. I heard footsteps from beyond the door, more than a dozen of them. Someone cursed.

“The guards are out of commission!” came a voice.

I pressed the button as the door shook.

“Damn it, this can’t be –”

The door opened. Runir stepped inside, followed closely by Lily, Amy, and the other goddesses. Clare had her back to them but her lips were trembling.

The bubble was gone and so was I. I observed them from afar as Runir threw Lily out of the room. Amy caught her and blasted off as Runir fired a void ray at her back. Amy let go of Lily as they burst out of the cave, unable to touch her anymore. The void ray narrowly missed Lily’s neck but she managed to land and broke into a sprint.

The goddesses left, Lunaris cursing loudly and Solaron biting her lip while looking at the sky. Clare was the last to leave the room and headed straight for the Hill. The armies that had been marching to unite against Origin, suddenly came to a halt and switched directions. An army rose from the Fire kingdom, led by the Circle and the king, both working together. The armies stopped on either side of the Bridge of Babel and waited.

The sun blazed, sending relentless waves of heat and light onto the thousands of people lined up below. The faint sound of crashing waves carried over the hot air, filling the ears of everyone present with a distant yet powerful roar.

 < Back | TOC | Next >

My stomach grumbled. I rolled out of bed, scratched my head, and yawned. The moon was still up outside and cast its silvery light through the window. As I stood up, something rustled behind me.

“Don’t wake up,” I said. “I’m going to grab a snack.”

“K,” muttered Lily into her pillow. She sprawled over the bed, having snatched up most of the blanket. It would’ve been impossible to not wake her up, especially because she was an insanely light sleeper.

I tiptoed out of the room, gently closing the door as if it was about to shatter. I went down a few flights of stairs but never encountered anyone. The kitchen was also deserted, the chefs and staff having long since retired. I scrounged up some leftovers; half a loaf of bread, a slice of cheese, and a bowlful of soup, and sat down on the table.

My stomach grumbled again. This was the third night in a row I’d gone out for a midnight snack. I covered the bread in cheese, dipped it into the soup, and ate it. The bread was hard and dry, the cheese chewy, and the soup watery and tasteless. I felt no better after finishing them so I went around looking for something more satisfying.

The last few days had been… strange. I spent most of my time fixing up trade deals and de-escalating the war that had been about to break out. The goddesses pushed their kingdom’s leaders to work with me, smoothing over the worst of the obstacles in our path, but unraveling centuries of antagonism was an odious task. For every trade sanction and tariff I removed, a dozen sprung up from the muddled bureaucratic tapestry.

I found an apple and chomped it up. I threw away the core and continued searching while thinking to myself. The bridge of babel is open and trade’s returning to normal, so why isn’t there anything to eat? I’ll have to get someone to buy more pastries. The Fire kingdom’s supposed to have the best bakeries, we should get some cakes, assuming Origin hasn’t destroyed them all yet.

Unable to find anything else to assuage my hunger, I left the Inn. A couple of guards snored outside the Inn’s entrance, drool on their armor and lances on the ground. I made a mental note to reprimand them in the morning, we needed to maintain military discipline for the liberation campaign. Reinforcements from the Dusk Alliance would be arriving in a month or so, and we needed to be ready to fight soon after.

A headache formed in my forehead as I thought about Origin. The whole ordeal was confusing as hell. Initially I’d assumed he’d disappear once we sealed Fate, but not only was Amy still unable to connect to her temple, all our attempts to probe the Fire kingdom had proven fruitless.

I sighed. The streets were empty, the tents motionless, and the big house at the center of the village had put out its candles. Azoth was probably still inside the Inn, sleeping or planning supply lines. Lunaris and the other goddesses were out scouting the Fire kingdom behind Origin’s wall, and I was hoping for good news in the morning.

Light flickered inside the building next to the well. Since it was my best bet at getting some food, I walked over. I knocked on the door, and heard some rattling from behind. Footsteps, a clink, and the door opened.

“Can I help you?” asked the village elder.

“Sorry to bother you, but do you have anything to eat?” I asked.

“Come in,” she said, curtly, as she gestured for me to follow her. She was an old lady who never smiled. She let us stay in the village for a small fee but hadn’t been enthusiastic about it at all. The presence of the hero hadn’t impressed her, nor had the power of our group.

The old lady’s wobbly walking stick tapped on the floor of her house, sending a clunky sound echoing across the place. Her furniture was dusty except for a small table and chair near the far end of her living room. There was a picture on the table, although it was too far to see. There were a few toys tucked into the corners, as well as a few ribbons that definitely didn’t belong to the old lady. As we walked into her kitchen, she coughed and grumbled under her breath. She rummaged inside her cabinets, pulled out some bread and cheese, and poured me a bowl of soup.

My head drooped.

She put the food on the table and sat down. I sat across the table and accepted the food, eating it the same way as before. It looked just as unappetizing as before but tasted slightly better. The old lady coughed, grumbled, and stood up, leaning on her walking stick for support. I finished my meal and thanked her. She escorted me out, the ever-present of her walking stick the only sound passing between us.

Near the door, I offered her a few gold coins as thanks but she waved them away, saying she didn’t need it. I insisted, asking her to keep it for her kids. I kept walking but something felt off. The sound of the walking stick had disappeared. I turned and saw the old lady leaning against the wall, her face downcast.

“Are you alright?” I asked, moving to assist her.

“…won’t need it.”

“What did you say?”

“I said, she won’t need it.”

“Who? Need what?” I asked, eyebrows bunching together. “The coins? If you don’t have any kids, you can spend it on the village.”

“What’s the point…” she mumbled, her wrinkly face still in the shadows.

“This is one of the poorest villages in the Light kingdom, wouldn’t the money come in handy?” I asked. “You could fix that bridge of yours, it was creaking so much we had to jump across.”

“The bridge…”

This lady’s gone senile, I thought to myself. “Thank you for your hospitality, I’ll see myself out.”

As I opened the door, she mumbled something I barely managed to hear. I stopped but didn’t turn around. I pushed the door open. I left the house, went back to the Inn and climbed into bed, trying not to wake up Lily. But I couldn’t fall asleep because the old lady’s words kept echoing inside my head.

–

“That makes no sense.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Holy shit, Lunaris, if you’re pulling my leg, I swear I’ll let Fate out just so he can fuck you up,” I said.

“Why the fuck would I lie about this?” said Lunaris. “Besides, the others saw it too.”

“We did,” added Adriana.

“Not sure I believe it myself,” said Opal.

I cursed. Lily was frowning too. Solaron hadn’t spoken a word since she got back, seemingly lost in thought.

“Well, what do we do now?” I asked. I turned to Amy. “Any ideas? It’s supposed to be your Kingdom.”

I winced as Lily elbowed me and shot me an angry glare.

What? I asked with my eyes. She rolled hers in reply.

“I don’t know,” Amy stated without meeting my gaze.

“Damn it,” I said, massaging my forehead. “You couldn’t find him but you’re sure he’s still there?”

“Yes,” replied Breize. “We can’t influence any of the ordinary people. It’s almost as if Fate still applies to them.”

“Shit.” I paced the room.

“There’s no reason to worry about this for now,” remarked Azoth. “If anything, the fact that the army has been disbanded and the Circle is unpopular with the people should be cause for celebration. We could probably take over the place ourselves if we wanted to.”

“Azoth, stop trying to lift our spirits. If Origin’s powers are like Fate’s, we’re screwed,” I said. I turned to the goddesses again. “He must be hiding somewhere. Any guesses?”

“What if he left.”

We turned to the speaker. Solaron was leaning against a window facing away from the Fire kingdom.

“Why would he leave?” asked Lily.

“Fate never stays in one place,” replied Solaron.

“You’re right,” I said. “If he’s related to Kai, he wouldn’t have stayed in one place for long. But where could he be?”

Silence. No one knew the answer. I sighed. “Fine, let’s talk about this later. Is it time for breakfast yet?”

“The village is holding a grand brunch in front of the elder’s house,” said Azoth.

“Great,” I replied, dryly.

Lily looked at me quizzically but I ignored her. She pouted as we left the Inn. There was a crowd around the well as the villagers helped prepare for the brunch. Mats lined the ground, bursting with food. They’d gone all out, which was appreciable, but…

“Fuck,” I cursed.

… it was all bread, cheese, and soup.

I grumbled as we made our way to the well. The old lady wasn’t around, but the villagers were very kind and treated us well. Lily snuggled into me after we were done eating. She put her head on my shoulder. I tilted my head onto hers.

“You’re thinking,” she said.

“I always do that,” I replied.

“You’re thinking for real.”

I sighed. Having a girlfriend wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be. “What if we were wrong.”

“About Kai?”

“Yeah, what if locking him up was the wrong thing to do?”

“We wouldn’t be able to do this if we hadn’t,” she said.

“True,” I agreed. “But what if he’s the only one who can fight Origin?”

“We’ll figure it out somehow. If we locked him up, we can probably take care of Origin too. He doesn’t seem as powerful, somehow.”

“I guess.”

She moved and looked into my eyes. “There’s something else, something you aren’t telling me. What is it?”

“I can’t keep any secrets anymore?”

“Nope.”

I chuckled. “Fine.” I took a breath. “We didn’t have Fate on Earth, right?”

“Yeah.”

“But we still managed to mess things up. You know what I’m talking about.”

She nodded.

“So what if this world does the same? Humans don’t need Fate to mess shit up. We’re capable of doing that all by ourselves.”

“Yes, but the goddesses will be here to look after things. And…” her voice trailed.

“And?”

“So will we.”

I nodded slowly. “I thought so. You don’t want to go back, do you?”

“No.”

“Me neither,” I said.

She hugged me. I was startled, my hands hanging in the air. I brought them down on her back and hugged her back. She broke apart and smiled at me.

I smiled back. “Guess we’ll be taking care of things here then.”

“Yep!”

“Can’t say that makes me feel any better, knowing how bad you are at organizing stuff.”

She punched my shoulder playfully.

“Fine,” I said.

“Ugh, you’re going to make me gag.”

I frowned. “Thanks for ruining the moment, Lunaris.”

“My pleasure,” said the Dark goddess. “Now have you thought of any way to deal with that Origin bastard?”

“Not yet,” I said, frowning again. “If we can’t even find him –”

I stopped mid-sentence. Lily and Lunaris exchanged a confused glance.

“What is it?” asked Lily.

I didn’t reply. The old lady stepped out of the house, staring right at me. I thought back to what she’d said last night and my Ability activated.

“Old lady!” I yelled, standing up. “You don’t have any kids.”

The old woman scowled.

“But that’s because you never did,” I said.

“Runir,” hissed Lily. “Quit being a jackass.”

I ignored her. “You never had any kids but you still have toys and ribbons in your house, as well as a family portrait. Did you have siblings?”

Her scowl deepened, then faded as it was replaced by sorrow and guilt. The villagers were looking at me with disapproval, as were the goddesses, but I paid them no heed.

“One,” she said.

“And they had a child?”

She nodded.

“This village is in the Light kingdom, but it’s so close to the Fire kingdom that you observe their customs instead,” I said, mostly to myself. “Which means that you would have cremated the body and the child’s belongings if they had died.”

“Runir, shut up now,” said Lily, as she approached.

I walked resolutely towards the old lady, none of the villagers daring to block my path but still willing to stare daggers at me. “If you still have the toys and the ribbons, the kid’s still alive. Which means…”

The old lady looked away.

“… that she ran away.”

“Runir, come here so I can smack some sense through your thick skull,” threatened Lily.

“I’ve seen her.”

The air stilled. The old lady blinked and her wrinkles loosened, making her seem years younger. “You’ve seen her?”

“Yes.”

Even Lily stopped in her tracks. The angry glares piercing into me turned to confused gazes.

“Where?” she asked, her voice cracking up.

“She fell off a cliff.”

The silence was palpable. The color drained out of the old lady’s face.

“She’s fine!” I added quickly. A collective sigh of relief followed. “Amy said she met her in a caravan on the bridge of babel.”

“Her?” asked Amy, perplexed. “The girl stalking Kai all over the world?”

“Yes,” I said. “He called her Clare.”

The name hung in the air. The old lady trembled and her walking stick fell from her hands. A villager rushed forward to help her but she waved him away.

“Where is she,” said May Skye, elder of Reneste village. “Where is Clare?”

“I don’t know,” I replied.

She frowned. “Then why did you bring this all up?”

“You brought it up first,” I said. “Last night.”

Her eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t remember mentioning her.”

“You didn’t, but you gave me the hint I needed to solve this mystery.”

“What mystery?”

“The greatest mystery in the world,” I said. She wasn’t convinced but I couldn’t tell her any more. “I can help you find her.”

That shook her from her suspicions. “How?”

“I can retrace her footsteps,” I said. “Do you know which way she went?”

“No,” she said. “I didn’t notice her leave and my Ability stopped working on her after that day.”

I cursed. “Do you anything else that could help us, anything at all?”

“You said she was stalking that boy… Kai.”

“Yes!” I exclaimed. “Do you know where he went?”

“No.”

“Oh.” My smile faded.

“But I heard a scream in the distance, right after he left.”

“Where?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “It was so long ago…”

I frowned. I was about to say something but got cut off.

“I remember now!” she said, a light in her eyes. She pointed to the South.

I thanked her and ran.

“What the fuck is going on?” asked Lily as she ran after me. Azoth and the goddesses followed, catching up to me easily.

“He knew her long before he knew any of us,” I explained, looking all over the forest for some sign, some clue that could clear up the fog.

“Clare?” asked Amy. “We’re looking for Clare?”

“No,” I said as something caught my eye. My Ability tingled and I knew I’d found it. “We were looking for this!”

I stopped at the foot of a hill. I held my breath. A purple-robed figure sat on top of the hill, facing away from us. The others filed in quietly behind me as I walked up the hill.

“Found you,” I said with a smirk. But this was Origin, he was related to Kai – to Fate. I couldn’t take him lightly. I prepared a void step just in case he lashed out.

“He really is here,” said Amy, her eyes wide.

“How’d you know?” asked Lily, her eyes locked on the figure.

“Last night, the old lady said something strange. She said she’d lost someone named Clare, and she said she’d lost them twice. I was skeptical – it seemed like a leap of logic – but my Ability egged me on. I made it a part of my plan and everything started falling into place. So here’s my hypothesis: after coming to this world, Kai met Clare and either killed her by accident or saw her die.”

“But she was at the shrine,” said Lily.

“Yes,” I said, inching closer to the robed figure. “He revived her.”

“What?” said Amy. “But he…”

“…said he wouldn’t revive anyone. Yes, he said that when we confronted him but back then, when Clare died, he revived her. I assume something happened after that, something that made him avoid Clare and decide to never revive anyone ever again.”

“What was it?” asked Lunaris.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But we can ask him.”

We’d surrounded him around the top of the hill. His face was buried in his robes and he hadn’t moved yet. Sweat dripped down my forehead and I prepared the strongest magic I could muster.

“Origin,” I continued. “Is an extension of Fate. He brushed off Amy, and only Kai could keep him in check. It was almost certainly an act, because nothing could fight Fate so directly. Kai created Origin to put on a show for us, perhaps he wanted to create a common enemy to unite us against? Maybe he did intend to remove our needless antagonism and hatred but only after he had an alternate enemy for us to face. I don’t know. But what I do know is this guy should be able to answer some of our questions.”

“Then let’s get started,” said Lunaris, black smoke curling around her.

“Origin!” I shouted. “Surrender quietly and we’ll lock you up with your greater self. Resist and we’ll lock you up alone.”

The figure’s robes shuffled. We tensed. Bright armors emerged on our figures, Amy’s fire lit up the sky, Lily and I prepared our magic and swords. The goddesses readied their magic; devastating spells that even deities couldn’t shrug off. Lunaris produced a natural anomaly from within her smoke. I primed my void step, aiming to push him towards Lunaris to finish it quickly.

But as the figure turned, my magic dissipated. Cries of confusion rang out as the others saw his face, but I wasn’t listening. Instead, I remembered what old lady Mayer said:

“I’ve lost my Clare twice. Keep your promise. Bring her back to me. Bring her back to me again…”

“You’re here,” said the figure in the purple-robes. “I knew you’d come.”

“You,” said Amy, breathing quickly. “Who are you?”

Pain pierced my head. My Ability was running in overdrive, trying to save the plan I’d constructed. The pieces were falling, they were falling and I couldn’t catch them – not one!

Lily noticed my pain and rushed to my side. “Runir!”

Through the pain and the clouded vision, I saw the boy rise, a crazed smile on his face.

“I knew you’d be here. I never doubted for a second. On the turn of the millennium, you would come to where it all started; to the place our world was born!”

My mind cleared but tears began flowing down my cheeks instead. The pain was gone because my Ability was no longer working. There was no way to save this plan.

“No,” said Lunaris, her face aflush. “That’s bullshit!”

The boy laughed, ignoring us completely. “You are nothing, nothing in front of our Lord! You cannot resist. You lie inside the circle! Into the Circle! Into the Circle!”

I walked up to him and grabbed him by the scruff of his neck. I Inspected the boy.

Name: Joey Baner. Title: Chosen Origin. Ability: Conversationalism. Level: 15.

“Our Lord is All Powerful! He is All Knowing! He is everywhere! He governs this universe and everything in it!” he continued rambling.

“Shut up!” cried Lunaris.

“Our Lord taught us our place in the world! Gave us guidance and purpose! Gave us his blessings!”

I chucked him away in anger. He crashed into the ground but continued rambling:

“For our Lord is the Creator! He made our world! He made the Goddesses and bound us all with Fate! He is where everything starts and everything ends. Our lord is Origin. Our lord is Fate. Our lord is the Circle. Our lord…”

I racked my brains. This didn’t make any sense. What the hell was going on?

“Our lord is… Zero!”

 < Back | TOC | Next >

“The weather’s quite nice out here, isn’t it?”

“I guess.”

“What’s the matter.”

“I want to kill you,” said Lily.

“What a coincidence,” I said. “So do I.”

“Good thing we aren’t together then.”

“Yes, it’s almost like someone planned it that way.”

“I wonder who.”

“I don’t know. Whoever it was, they must be an absolute genius!”

“Or an absolute asshole.”

I chuckled. The prism in my hand grew warm and flickered. Lily’s voice floated out again, “So, is it true?”

“Yes,” I said simply. I turned to the other person walking beside me. “Azoth, are the preparations complete?”

Demon general Azoth nodded. “I must admit, I’m surprised it’s working. Recruiting you was the best thing we’ve ever done.”

“Couldn’t have done it without you.” I stopped outside a door. “Hey Lily, you there yet?”

“Yep,” came her voice from the prism. “But Runir…”

“What?”

“Are we sure?”

I stretched my hand to reach for the door. “We’ve been over this before. I’ve told you why we need to do this, and you came to the same conclusion yourself, did you not?”

“I did, but…”

“Come on. Let’s go over it again. Why are we doing this, who are we doing this for?”

“Us.”

“And who is us?”

“Everyone.”

I chuckled. “There we go. It’s the best choice. Helps everyone involved, even if they can’t see it yet.” My hands grasped the door’s handle.

“But…”

I stopped. “Yes?”

“Are we sure?”

I sighed. I couldn’t blame her. It hadn’t been an easy decision for me to arrive at, either. But it was the most logical one, judging by the circumstances. After scrapping my previous plans, I’d built this one up from scratch, and taken everything into account.

“We need to hurry. There’s been a miscalculation,” said Azoth, a smaller prism next to his ear. “They’re executing the plan, now.”

Shit.

“Lily, take some time to think over it. I’m going in.” I opened the door.

The air was musty, stagnant, and stale. The room was dim, as expected of a place like this, but there was a strange ambience, probably because of the swirling ball of energy in the center of the room.

“Damn it!” Kai’s fingers loosened and Amy flew from his grip. The bubbling mass of energy swallowed him, enveloping him completely. Veins of purple energy crackled on the bubble’s surface, melding into the transparent walls before shooting out again.

“Kai!” yelled Amy as was flung out of the bubble. She hit the ground, groaned, and scrambled to her feet. She banged the sides of the bubble, to no avail, and got stung and shot back onto the ground.

I frowned. That wasn’t according to plan. I turned to Azoth. “Is this the miscalculation?”

He nodded. “It appears the Fire goddess had not been orchestrating this plan, after all.”

My frown deepened. That wasn’t good. “Lunaris, you said Amy was behind this.”

“Hey, I didn’t think she’d be this stupid,” said Lunaris. The other goddesses faced me.

“Well, it’s not like I hadn’t planned for this possibility,” I muttered. “It does make things more difficult.”

Now I had to convince Amy to comply with the plan or else it would go up in smoke.

“The demon lord, what are you doing here?” asked Adriana, interrupting my thoughts.

“I’m here to –”

“You?” interrupted someone.

I took in a deep breath. My brain was working so loudly it whizzed in my ears. “Hello Amy.”

“Runir,” came another voice. “You were in on this too?”

“Yes, Kai,” I said, calmly. Kai stood in the middle of the bubble, but since it wasn’t particularly large, he was only a few feet from the walls. “But what did you expect? You sent me straight to Azoth’s dungeons!”

“You were supposed to find out what they were doing!” said Kai. “I sent you there because I trusted you, trusted you with –”

“I trusted you too. We trusted you. But not only were you lying to us, you’ve been perpetuating this malevolent world order; you’ve been playing us like fools, toying with us for – what I can only assume to be – your own amusement!” I spat.

“What do you mean?” said Kai and Amy, at the same time.

I smirked. “Really Amy? You know he’s Fate, right? He’s responsible for the Haze that Lunaris kept complaining about. He’s the one forcing Lily and I to go to war against each other. He’s the one who stops the goddesses from helping their people directly, and forces you to rely on proxies.”

“That’s not how it works!” said Kai.

“What if he can’t control it?” said Amy.

“Only one way to find out,” I said, taking a deep breath. “You know Amy, you really are quite dumb. I’ve known that since the time we met, but I never thought you’d be this cold-blooded too.”

Her eyebrows furrowed.

“The reason Lunaris was sure you were manipulating Kai, was because she believed you were the one who hated Fate the most,” I said, meeting her gaze resolutely. “She said you’d lost someone, back when this world had just begun.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You…”

“They died but you lived. Fate made you immortal, but your loved ones died in your own arms because Fate condemned them to a mortal existence. Solaron even found their names, let me see… Ah yes, they were…”

“Jeffi and Yunni,” she whispered.

“The one who took them from you, is right there.” I pointed. “I don’t know about you, but if I hated someone that much, I wouldn’t forgive them. Never, I would never forgive them.”

“You asshole!” growled Kai. “How was I supposed to stop that? It was hundreds of years ago!”

I sneered. “So you knew about it huh.” He didn’t respond. “Another thing, Kai, you brought us here, didn’t you?”

He looked taken aback, in a way that made me suspicious. It was almost as if this was the first time he had been genuinely surprised. “Not really, but what does that have to do with this?”

“Everything.”

We turned to face the speaker.

“You too?” asked Adriana. She addressed Lunaris. “The demon lord and the hero? You’ve been keeping too many secrets, sister.”

Lunaris shrugged.

“Lily,” said Kai. “You too? I sent you to the Water goddess. Runir’s a pretentious asshole, I can see why he’d do something like this, but why would you betray me too?”

“We aren’t betraying you. Besides, I’m not completely sold on it just yet.” She took a deep breath. “Did you lie to us?”

Kai frowned. “No, I merely hid the truth. Our party didn’t like to share any secrets. You can’t blame me for that.”

“I was just getting started,” she continued. “You were obviously stronger than what you appeared to be, yet you let us fall into danger anyways.”

“You turned out all right, didn’t you?”

“You knew we wanted to go home. You’re Fate, you brought us here, you could send us back but you didn’t.”

“That’s because –”

“And if you really are Fate, then you could have rescued Zoe a long time ago. You could have spared her a lot of suffering. You could have spared a lot of people a lot of suffering. My problem with you is a simple one: if you’re Fate, why the fuck didn’t you do anything? If you could fix everything, why didn’t you? Tell me, could you end this war right now? Could you end hunger, cure diseases, stop murders, could you make this world a perfect world?”

“I –”
“Because see, if someone has the power to help people but doesn’t do so, if they live on an ivory tower and look at the struggles of ordinary people as entertainment, then I’m reminded of someone from back home. A despicable man who ate up all the money that was supposed to go to our orphanage and rebuild our community.” She walked up to the bubble and stared at Kai, hard. “People like that disgust me. I hate them. So if you are one of them, then…” Her lips curled and she snarled, “I hate you too.”

Kai’s mouth was frozen open. It looked like his words were caught in his throat.

“So,” Lily said quietly. “Is it true? Are you Fate?”

“Yes,” whispered Kai. “But –”

“Second question,” she interjected. “Did you know about all the suffering in this world? Maybe not hundreds of years ago, but right now, while we were traveling together. Did you know that people were suffering all over this world while you could have helped them? That kids were born with diseases that made their every living moment unbearable? Little kids were raped and tortured somewhere. Families were destroyed. People died, people suffered. They suffered while you made us pancakes…”

“But –”

“Last question. This is one you can explain, so you better think of something good,” she continued. “Why didn’t you stop the suffering? Why didn’t you immediately fix all the problems in this world.”

This was an important question. It was one Lily and I had gone over before. We’d call off everything if he answered this right. If he said that he couldn’t do it, that he wasn’t all-powerful, or if there was something stopping him or resisting him, then maybe, maybe we could wrap this all up and help him do the right thing.

Kai’s mouth shut. He didn’t respond. His eyes drifted over all the people in the room; Amy, the other goddesses, Azoth, Lily, and me. His gaze rested on me a little longer than the others. There was a little surprise in them, maybe a hint of trepidation.

He mumbled something inaudible.

“What did you say?” said Lily, her eyebrows furrowed.

“I said, I don’t know.”

Silence.

He didn’t know? That was not the answer I expected. Judging by the looks on everyone else’s faces, I wasn’t the only one surprised.

“What?” Amy was the first to recover.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” repeated Lily.

“Yes.”

“You could have saved Granny Nipa,” said Lily. Adriana’s eyes widened.

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t.”

He wasn’t even replying anymore. His gaze dropped.

“And you don’t know why? Well that’s fine. You can redeem yourself,” continued Lily.

“Wait, you don’t mean…” trailed Adriana.

“Bring her back,” said Lily. “Bring back Granny Nipa. Find Zoe and bring her here right now, too. Do it, and we’ll let you go.”

“Wait a second –” began Lunaris, but Solaron held her back.

“Come on,” said Lily. “Do it.”

Kai’s eyes were still downcast. Eventually, a whisper escaped him. “I can’t.”

“You can’t?” spat Lily. “Or you won’t?”

He didn’t reply. Lily glared at him, her eyes reflecting the sense of betrayal in her heart. This was all I needed. It was time to end it. It was time to execute the plan.

“I think we know what to do now –” I began.

“Wait,” interrupted Amy. “Kai…”

He looked up.

“Can you do it. Can you bring back Jeffi and Yunni?”

Kai’s mouth opened. Then it closed. He took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“Will you… will you do it?”

“No.”

Heavy silence. I didn’t dare breathe, the weight of his response – that one word – was suffocating. No. He wouldn’t do it. No. He wasn’t going to revive the dead, heal the sick, turn water into wine, or whatever.

Tears welled up in Amy’s eyes and she bit her lips. “All that talk about morals; no killing monsters, sparing those young Ashfiends, those stories about friendship and love. So high and mighty. So righteous, just, and caring. So… kind and gentle. That’s the Kai I loved. That’s the Kai I loved on that mountain peak. That’s the Kai I respected. But… he doesn’t exist, does he? He never did. All along, under that façade, under that mask of a smile, was this, this…” She gestured to him in disgust. Her lips twisted into a smile; she was growing hysterical. “You were a monster all along. Disgusting, deplorable, and vile. You’re evil, eviler than anything else.  You, you’re… Fate. You’re Fate.” She wiped her face. “Yeah, you’re Fate.”

The ensuing silence was palpable.

“So,” I began. “We know where he stands. Any objections before we proceed with the plan?”

“What’s the plan?” asked Amy.

My heart leapt a little as Kai sat on the ground inside the bubble. I didn’t expect him to give up so easily. Something was wrong, we had to hurry.

“We trap him down here, inside a perfect anomaly.”

“And what good will that do?” said Kai. He put his elbows on the ground and rested his head on his palms. He smiled, smiled the way he’d done so many times before. A chill went down my spine.

“Let’s see,” I said, fighting back my trepidation. I walked up to Lily, grabbed her hips, and swerved. I brought my lips to hers. Her eyes opened, then closed. I heard a gasp or two, as well as a chuckle. We separated, but I kept my hand around her. I smiled, “Hey, it worked.”

Lily’s face was flushed. She snapped out of her daze and punched my shoulder, “Fucking asshole…” Her voice petered out as I met her eyes.

No time for this right now, I thought, as I felt Kai’s gaze piercing the back of my head.

“So,” I said. “That’s why we need to lock you up.”

“You want to lock me up so you can kiss the hero?” said Kai.

“Don’t pretend like you don’t understand the significance of what just happened,” I said.

Is he stalling for time?

“Runir,” said Amy. “I don’t get it. What do we achieve by locking him up? It won’t bring back Jeffi or Yunni, or anything.”

I sighed. “True, we can’t do that, but…” I removed myself from Lily, and walked up to Amy. “Punch me.”

“What?”

“Do it. Come on, doesn’t have to hurt, just do it.”

“What good will that do?”

“Don’t you care about Jeffi and Yunni?”

She frowned. “But what does this –”

“You don’t even love them enough to listen to what I’m saying?”

“That’s not –”

“If they were alive, they’d hate you.”

“What –”

I heard someone shuffle behind me. Kai was standing up.

Fuck, no time for this.

“Isn’t it your fault they died? You couldn’t stop Fate from taking them away. Despite being the goddess, one of the most powerful beings in this world, you couldn’t stop them from dying. Worst of all, you continued to live after they died. You’re despicable. You couldn’t save them. You let them die. You killed them. You –”

I was sent flying. I crashed into the walls of the cave, and my HP fell tremendously. I collapsed onto the ground, gasping for air.

“Runir!” cried Lily.

Bleary-eyed, I raised my gaze. Lily had rushed over. Amy was standing frozen, tears in her eyes. An intense red aura surrounded her, lighting up the entire room with a crimson glare. The aura subsided, her eyes cleared, and she looked at me, then her own still-outstretched fist.

“Understand,” I said, coughing.

“Wait,” said Amy. “You made me do that. You –”

“Yes, yes,” I said, standing up with difficulty. I downed some medicine I’d grabbed from the demon lord’s castle and my HP recovered a bit. “But screw that, the important thing is you hit me. You.” I pointed at her. “Hit me.” I pointed at myself.

“Wait…?” Her eyes widened. “You’re the demon lord!”

“Exactly,” I said. “As long as he’s locked up in that thing, Fate can no longer influence this world. I no longer have to fight Lily, and you goddesses are no longer restricted from interfering in worldly affairs. Monsters won’t have to attack people anymore, people won’t be plucked from Earth to be heroes or demon lords, and the Alliance and the Union won’t have to go to war for no reason.”

“I see,” said Kai. He put his hands on the bubble’s walls and tilted his head. “Is this your final choice?”

My eyes narrowed. “If you’re not willing to use your power to fix the world, then we’ll take what we can get by imprisoning you.”

“You think you can imprison me?” He smirked. “With this?” He stretched out his hands.

“Fuck!” I cried. The other goddesses had crept into position around the bubble, relying on me to distract him. I pulled Lily along and put my hands on the bubble as fast as I could.

“Now!” I shouted. Tendrils of black energy emerged from my fingertips and flowed into the walls of the anomaly. Similar energy poured out of the hands of everyone else around the bubble. Brown, blue, gray, black, and white energy mixed together, forming a whirlpool of colors.

There was only one missing.

“Amy!” I shouted. She hadn’t been filled in on the plan, so she was staring blankly at us. She stepped forward but it was too late.

“Rewrite.”

The whirlpool of energy froze. It began to fade as the walls of the bubble creaked like a rusty door, and cracked like a hardboiled egg. I bit my lips. Failure yet again, damn it.

“Not this time, you little fucker!” cried Lunaris. She screeched and waved her hands, sending smoke flying out of her robes. It melded into the whirlpool and submerged the other colors. The whirlpool began spinning again, although it was like a black hole now, sucking in the walls of the bubble.

Kai grunted. “That won’t work.” The smoke stopped. It quivered and shook, as if whimpering. The smoke began floating out of the bubble’s wall, despite Lunaris’ curses.

“Amy!” I shouted. “Put your hands on the anomaly and feed it your mana, now.”

She ran over and pressed her hands against the walls of the bubble as the smoke fled. She was going to make it! A little mana, that’s all we needed! But no red waves of energy left her fingers.

“Kai,” she said, softly.

The bubble stopped cracking. “Amy,” said Kai, looking at her with a strange expression. “I know you don’t trust me right now, and I don’t blame you. I’ve kept secrets, and I haven’t explained everything yet, but please, please, give me a chance. Don’t I deserve that much?”

They held each other’s gaze. I tried to pour more mana in, ran my mind into overdrive thinking of a solution, but, in the end, there was nothing I could do.

“Listen Amy, this anomaly is a natural one Lunaris found in the depths of the Alderan wastes, but it’s incomplete. The only way to complete it is to combine the energies of the goddesses, hero, and demon lord,” I said, quickly. “The rest of us have poured our mana inside, if you do the same, the anomaly will be complete and Fate will be locked away. Do it.”

“Amy,” whispered Kai, ignoring my presence.

“Kai,” she said.

“You too, Lily,” said Kai, shifting his glance. “You may not know everything about me, but you know what I’m like. Give me a chance.”

I saw the hesitation in Lily’s eyes. The stream of white energy coming from her hands wavered, then cut off.

“And what will you do, if we give you another chance?” she asked in a measured tone.

“Fix this world,” he said.

“How?” asked Amy.

“I have a few ideas.”

“And they are?” asked Lily.

He didn’t respond.

“You’re not going to tell us?” said Lily, eyebrows raised. “You’re in no position to hide stuff from us.”

He held their gazes but kept his mouth shut.

“Fine then,” said Lily, sending a wave of mana into the bubble. “Fuck you.”

Kai sighed. “I understand your frustration, Lily, Amy, but I –”

I noticed something. Kai’s fingers were moving inside their sleeves. Alarmed, I tilted my head and nearly cursed aloud. A small part of the bubble was shaking vigorously, and a hole was rapidly forming there. It was hidden from view by Kai’s figure so the others hadn’t found it yet.

“Amy!” I shouted. “Zoe, Lily, me; do you like us?”

She blinked. “Of course.”

“Would you be sad if we died?”

Kai frowned.

“Yes,” said Amy, softly.

“There’s another thing Fate controls. It’s the reason the goddesses can’t summon the hero or the demon lord without Fate’s directions. It’s also why they don’t know what happens to people’s souls after they come to them,” I said. “Fate controls death.”

Everyone’s eyes widened. Even Kai’s face paled and his fingers stopped moving.

“Wait, if that’s true,” began Lunaris. “It means –”

“If we seal Fate, we seal death,” I finished. “No one can die without Fate.”

Kai’s lips quivered. He was a deer caught in the headlights. It was the first time I’d ever seen him so shaken, so confused, so genuinely confused.

“How do you know that,” he managed to say.

I smirked. “Does it matter?”

“Yes, yes it does,” he shouted, his face contorted in anger. “Damn it, I can understand Lily and Amy’s concerns. They’ve lost people close to them. Lily doesn’t like liars. They have reasons but you, you have nothing! Why are you doing this? Maybe I’d understand it if you’d gone along with someone else’s plan, but it’s obvious that you were the one behind this. Yet, you’re the only one whose motivations are still a mystery to me. Why, why are you so hell-bent on screwing my plans, Runir?”

“Interesting question,” I replied. “Like I said, I didn’t have much choice after you sent me to Azoth’s dungeon.”

“You could have manipulated him, could have gathered information about the goddesses plotting against me instead of leading the cavalry!”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because we’re friends.”

“Are we?”

“I’ve saved your life several times. I kept your status secret from Lily. I helped you find love, a reason to live your sorry, empty life.”

“Ouch, you’re not going to convince anyone like that. I will live a very fulfilling life now, thank you very much. Tell me, are you willing to stop the demon lord and the hero from fighting?”

He grit his teeth but didn’t respond.

“Thought so,” I said. “Now –”

“That still doesn’t explain how you know so much,” interrupted Kai. “About the anomalies, about the extent of Fate’s powers. How, how do you know so much.” He was muttering to himself by this point. “Don’t tell me he…” His eyes opened suddenly. “You! You’ve played it, haven’t you?”

Oh? He brought it up himself?

“What’s he saying, Runir?” asked Lily.

I see, he wants to make it seem like I was hiding things too. Fine, I’ll do it.

“He means,” I spread my arms wide. “That I’ve played this game before.”

No one spoke. Amy frowned. Lily looked at me blankly.

“You have,” whispered Kai. “I see, that explains it. Fuck, it makes sense now.” He started laughing hysterically. “Fuck, it makes sense now!”

“Runir, what do you mean, what game?” asked Lily.

“This game. I’m talking about this game,” I said. “Stats, abilities, mana, a hero, and a demon lord; I’m sure you realized this yourself but this world functions exactly like a game. And that’s because it is a game. A role-playing game from our home world, Earth.”

“Bullshit,” cried Lunaris. “You’re telling me this world is a game?”

The other goddesses were clamoring for an answer as well, though they were too stunned to speak. I could see it in their eyes.

“To be fair,” I said. “All I know for certain is that this world is based on a game, a video game called Choices. That game was a big deal a few years ago. A large map, a wonderful story, and the choice to be the hero or the demon lord. It was a wonderful game. There are tons of similarities too; the cities have the same names, the goddesses too, the world system and the magic system, it’s all the same.”

“No,” said Adriana. “That can’t be…”

“Remember the Haze?” I continued. “That was the game before it became real.”

“No,” mumbled Opal.

“It’s not true,” muttered Breize.

“And I’ve played this game before,” I said.

“You’ve… played it before?” said Solaron. “Played… us before?”

“Yes,” I said. “Choices: the game where the player – that’s me – chose how to win. I used to play it all the time. I’ve won as the hero and the demon lord. Sometimes I went around the world beefing up my character with blessings from the goddesses, or I’d beat up the other side with economic warfare. I’ve assassinated the hero, and gotten the demon lord drowned. I’ve burnt the demon lord’s castle to the ground, enslaved everyone in the Light kingdom, and much more. Like I said, it was a wonderful game.”

I’d started reminiscing so I didn’t notice the disgust and scorn on the goddess’ faces. But there was something else mixed in too: fear and confusion.

“That’s why you knew how long you could talk to me when you were first summoned,” said Lunaris.

I nodded. “It’s also how I knew how to survive in the Twilight forest, how to deal with Azoth, and how to escape the castle. I formulated most of my plans with the knowledge I had of the game. Of course, things aren’t exactly like they were in the game. It’s been nine-hundred years since the game ended and the world of Erath became real. I didn’t realize what the anomalies were until I learned about them in the academy. They’re bugs in the game, errors that were never fixed.”

“And you didn’t tell me?” said Lily.

“What good would it have done?” I replied. This was the tricky part. Kai looked on carefully.

“I would have been more supportive of locking up Fate if you’d told me this,” she said.

“Perhaps, or it would have freaked you out. After all, I found out about the perfect anomaly conditions when the game collapsed during an epic battle I orchestrated. If the perfect anomaly doesn’t act like the other anomalies have acted so far, then we might just end up destroying the world.”

Uncomfortable shifts and worried lips. Not a good sign.

“But I’m not done yet,” I said. I turned to Kai and stared into his eyes. I smirked as his frown deepened.

“Wait,” he said. “You…”

“Choices was made by a young video game developer; a celebrity in the video game industry whose real name and identity was a corporate secret. Instead, he was known simply by his penname, K0. But we can probably call him…” I pointed at the man in the bubble. “Kai Zero.”

I let the words hang in the air.

“What?” Amy was the first to break the silence, jostling everyone from their stupor.

“Kai, you made the game?” asked Lily.

“You made us?” asked Solaron.

“You,” growled Lunaris. “You made this world? You designed all the pain and suffering, the endless wars, the chaos, and the craziness? Shit, for a second I thought you’d been forced into being Fate, like we’d been forced into being the goddesses, but no, you chose it. You fucking chose to be Fate.”

“That’s not –” began Kai.

“That’s not true?” I laughed. “You made the game and let people suffer and die for nine-hundred years, and refuse to fix everything despite clearly possessing the means to do so, yet you still claim that you didn’t choose to be Fate? That you don’t deserve to be locked away for your crimes? I think we can all see what’s going on here. You won’t fix this world because it makes it’s your baby, you’re proud of it and can’t bear to change it. Your vanity is disgusting.”

“I – that’s not why I –”

“Shut up,” I spat. “We’ve wasted enough time already. Amy, you’ve heard all I had to say. You inject your mana into that thing and no one will die anymore. I’m sorry I can’t bring back your lost loved ones, but I can promise that you won’t lose anyone else. Never again, you will never lose anyone ever again.”

“Amy, don’t!” screamed Kai. A surge of energy blasted into the hole he had been digging.

“Shit, he’s trying to break free. This is our last chance, Amy. Do it!” I shouted. “Do it for me, for Lily, for Zoe, do it so we can stay together! Do it for the people you’ve lost, give them the justice they deserve by imprisoning this monster! Come on, do it! Do it!”

“Kai,” said Amy, her eyes closed.

“Amy,” whispered Kai, not letting up on his attempt to break free. “You can trust me. I love you.”

Amy opened her eyes and a stream of tears gushed out. “I love you too.”

Red energy shot out of her fingers; bright, hot, and angry. The mana merged with the swirling whirlpool on the bubble’s surface and the bubble’s walls began to solidify.

“No,” said Kai. “No!”

He gave up trying to break through the hole and began wildly banging on the whirlpool, as if trying to punch it into oblivion.

“You can’t do this to me, I made this world. It’s my world, my baby. You’re not going to change it. No, I won’t let you.” He was hysterical. “You, you’re just like Leer, that fucking snake. No, you’re all fucking snakes. Fucking corporate snakes who wouldn’t know a good game if it bit you on the ass.”

The solidified walls were still transparent, but gleamed like diamonds or gemstones. The walls weren’t creaking anymore, no matter how hard Kai hit them. The goddesses stepped back, except for Amy who stood next to Lily. The two of them stared as Kai delivered his crazed outburst.

“You’ll make this an endless runner. A shitty platformer. Maybe a first-person shooter with a shitty, clichéd plot,” Kai muttered. He battered the walls but to no avail.

Amy was still crying. Lily bit her lips so hard she was bleeding. Even I felt conflicted as I watched Kai – the most stable person I’d ever met – devolve into an incoherent mess. Eventually, his words slurred, he hiccupped in between cackling laughter. The walls solidified and the anomaly was complete. It was a giant ball with a rich luster and chaotic swirls of energy dancing over its surface. A fitting prison.

Kai collapsed onto the floor, defeated. Pitiful sobs escaped him sometimes but he never looked up.

Most of the goddesses slowly shuffled out, mixed emotions on their faces. Opal and Breize left with satisfied faces. Adriana glared at him but left with quivering lips. Solaron went away with a sad expression. Lunaris walked out, her face hidden in the shadows. I heard her curse as she left the room.

Amy crept over to him. Her shaking arms reached for the walls but she held them back at the last second.

Lily growled. “Stubborn asshole. Fuck you, damn it. Fuck you.”

I stood by solemnly. “We should go now. It’s over.” I put a hand on Lily’s shoulder. “We won.”

Strangely, my own words felt hollow to me. My plan had been executed without a hitch. I’d achieved everything I’d wanted to, yet, I felt empty. I looked around myself, searching for an answer.

Kai sat sobbing inside his eternal prison. Amy was crying her heart out outside. Lily was on the verge of tears but stubbornly kept them at bay with her anger. They were my three best friends, perhaps the only friends I had ever had. And I had brought them all to tears.

I felt a pang in my heart, a throb of emotion which I didn’t know how to deal with.

“We won,” I repeated, to reassure myself. “We won.”

Lily ran out of the room, hiding her face, and leaving my hand hanging in the air. Dazed, Amy stood up and stumbled out of the room. I watched it all happen, like a movie or a play that had nothing to do with me. Amy cast one last tearful glance at Kai before leaving.

Kai’s sobs stopped. “Yeah, you won,” he whispered, almost inaudibly. “Congratulations.”

I breathed. “Thank you.”

The conflicting emotions were too much to handle so I did what I’d always done when faced with something like this. I retreated into my shell. I found something I thought I’d gotten rid of a long-time ago and donned it once again.

My poker face.

I walked to the door in measured strides, coldly calculating the events that had precipitated thus far. I analyzed them and concluded that victory was a good thing and I should be happy. But I couldn’t show that happiness because of my poker face, so it was okay to be happy inside my head. That’s what I would do from now on, be happy inside my head.

“Wait.”

I turned around, my face unflinching. “What is it?”

“Tell me,” said Kai, his voice hoarse. “How did you know?”

“We’ve been over this, I’ve played the game. That’s how I found out about the anomaly and –”

“No, not that,” he interjected, his face still downcast. “How did you know that I was K0. It was a secret. I know for a fact that even the government kept it hidden when I burned the house, I was protected by the Privacy Act. How, how the fuck did you know?”

“That,” I said. “That’s how I knew.”

He raised his head. His eyes were red and puffy, his face crisscrossed with tear-lines. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“A lot of things tipped me off. Your insane powers, your knowledge about the world, your secretiveness. It also doesn’t take a genius to realize that K0 stood for Kai Zero.”

“But how did you know I wasn’t from this world. I could have been the administrator of this world, some kind of personified code or system driver.”

“See, that’s the funny part. Despite all that knowledge about this world, despite all that power you had and the information you possessed, you forgot one, simple fact about your own game. Considering how much you seem to love it, I’m surprised you didn’t realize it. Hell, you were doing a fine job at hiding your origins, pretending to be ignorant of cars and stuff. But, you failed. You have no one to blame but yourself. You practically told me you weren’t from this world, and once I knew that, connecting the rest of the dots was as simple as it could get.”

Kai snarled. “Damn it, just fucking say it already!”

“Mind your language,” I said, allowing a smirk to leak onto my face. “This is a family game, you know.”

“The fuck are you talking about? That doesn’t mean…”

He froze, his eyes widening. “Holy shit,” he continued. “Holy, motherfucking shit.” He held his head in his arms. “PG thirteen. The game was rated PG fucking thirteen.”

“That’s right,” I said. “Didn’t you notice? Go on, think back. None of the people from this world uttered any profanities. No shits, nor fucks; hell, they didn’t even say damn. Even when we cursed, they would ignore them as if there was a filter in place. So the first time you cursed aloud, I knew you couldn’t be from this world. You fucking gave yourself away.”

He started snickering, then laughing. He was on the ground, absolutely hysterical.

“Fuck!” he shouted. He laughed again. And again. And again. “Fuck you! And Amy, and that bitch Lily. Fuck that snake Leer, most of all. Fuck him, fuck you, fuck you all!” He kept rambling as I left the room.

I heard a few more, nearly unintelligible, curses, just as I closed the door on what had once been the most powerful being on Erath.

Fate; the one thing no one could resist, not even the goddesses. All-powerful, unchallengeable, that’s what he used to be.

Now, he was a blithering mess who cursed the world from inside a tiny bubble that, in a way, he had himself created. I cast a final, pitying glance at him, and saw him raising his middle finger in my direction.

The door shut. Fate, had been defeated.

Ever had a sick feeling in your stomach. Like you’d swallowed a rotten fruit whole or jumped into a pit of slime, sludge, and sewage? Well, right now I had a maggot infested melon inside me while I drowned in a cesspool of gunk.

I didn’t know why I felt that way, but the feeling had been creeping over me for days; ever since I’d met Clare.

“The brave and valiant hero is leading an excursion into the Fire kingdom to vanquish the evil monster Origin. Able-bodied citizens are requested to sign up at their local church or government office, to help fight the scourge of the false god and bring peace to Erath.”

I tossed the flyer aside and nodded to Kai. “She’s headed to the Fire kingdom.”

“So it would appear,” said Kai, frowning. “I don’t get this at all, though. She isn’t ready to take on Origin, we barely managed to escape from him the first time. What is she thinking?”

“No idea,” I said. “But what I do know is she’ll need our help.”

“Right,” said Kai.

We were on a village road in the North of the Light kingdom. The crops were ready to be harvested, grains sticking to the top of large stalks and stems. It was a picturesque place, the kind that made you want to leave the big city for a quaint life in the countryside. Despite the natural atmosphere, though, everywhere you looked, you could see evidence of human hard work and ingenuity.

The crops had been raised with tender love and care for months, the farmers weeding, fertilizing, and watering their precious plants regularly. There were barns and silos in the distance, no doubt full of stored grains and hay. The neighs of the horses carried all the way to the road, despite the stables being on the far end of the fields. In a place like this, there were no unruly noises, lots of crisp, fresh air, and lush fields. I’d spent countless years aimlessly trotting along roads like these, taking in the scenery and forgetting my troubles amidst the cornfields.

But the farmers weren’t out harvesting tonight. Despite all their efforts, Fate had dealt them a cruel hand. A massive storm ripped through their fields, crushing corn, and tearing wheat stalks asunder. A few barns collapsed, battered to pieces by the ferocious winds.

Kai and I were powering through it with the strength of our stats, but the sheets of rain crashing down on us made it hard to see.

“You know what, give me a sec.” Kai pulled something out of his robe. It was a rod with a strange black cloth at the top. He twisted the handle and the cloth unfurled to reveal a curved surface. He pointed it straight up and stood underneath. “Come on.”

“What is it?” I asked as I stepped under it.

“An umbrella,” he said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Really? You should know about these,” he said. “They were all over the place back in the Air kingdom. I bought one when I left that one time.”

He left quite frequently. I stayed up all night guarding Lily, and saw him leave nearly every night. He’d left the party a couple of times during the day too, especially in the Air and Dark kingdoms. Worst of all he always gave a lame excuse afterward: I went for a stroll, needed to take a dump, or went out to catch some bugs.

“We better hurry,” he said. “The hero left the palace so there’s no point going there anymore, but we can try to cut them off before they reach the Fire kingdom.”

I nodded and we dashed across the muddy road, the umbrella shielding us from the worst of the storm. After a few hours of relentless dashing, we reached the border between the Light and Fire kingdoms. My shrine was a stone’s throw away – or at least it used to be.

“This is the best way to get to the Fire kingdom, the Light kingdom’s vanguard should be here soon,” I said, surveying the place. It was an empty clearing, with trees stretching off to either side. No one had been here for a while but there were still signs of humans living nearby. There must be a village nearby.

“They’ll try to go through the Fire goddess’ shrine first,” I said. “It’s their best bet for getting some local support. Then they’ll want to sweep down to Beigo to confront Origin before retaking Ashpool.”

Kai nodded. “Let’s set up camp and wait for them.”

–

Deep in the night, when the moon hid behind the clouds, and the nightbirds dozed off, Kai carefully extricated himself from my embrace and walked off. I pretended to be asleep, waiting for a good fifteen minutes before cautiously opening my eyes and lifting myself up. Usually, after Kai left on one of his mysterious nighttime strolls, I’d stay up looking at the stars or soothing the anxiety of the people praying to me.

But today was different. I left the campsite and disappeared into the forest. The trees gave way to a tall, craggy mountain. I leapt up the mountainside, touching down on a ledge halfway to the peak. I changed into a flowing red robe and pushed aside a clump of dry brambles to reveal an unassuming cave. I entered the cave and the brambles flicked back into place, blocking the already sparse moonlight from filling inside.

I snapped my fingers and a small flame appeared above my hand, shedding its light onto the black rocks and stones lining the cave’s walls. I walked further in until I reached a door, a door carved directly from a chunk of gold ore. Since it hadn’t been refined, it didn’t have gold’s distinctive luster, so the door was a patchwork of different colors; perfect for what it represented.

I pushed the door open.

“You’re late.”

“Sorry.”

I took my place at the table. Two robed figures sat on my right, and three sat across me on the opposite side of the table. The room was dimly lit so I couldn’t make out anyone’s features, but I didn’t need to see them to know who they were.

“Now that everyone is here,” said Solaron. Her body began to glow, illuminating the features of everyone on our side. “Let the conclave begin.”

“Can we skip the charade?” said Lunaris, sipping her tea as always. “Being with you losers is annoying as fuck.”

“Really Lunaris? Can’t you be happy to see your sisters for once?” said Adriana with a sigh.

“No.”

“Stop it you two,” scolded Solaron. “We need to focus. There are a lot of pressing concerns on the agenda.”

“Whatever,” said Lunaris, putting her foot on the table. “Opal, got anything to say?”

“Yeah,” said the Earth goddess, her smile sickeningly sweet. “Aia here has been very naughty. Goddesses aren’t supposed to interfere in each other’s domains yet she went galivanting across my kingdom, wrecking all my mines. She cost me a fortune and although she did come say hi afterwards, I’m going to need a proper apology.”

“Is this true Aia?” asked Solaron.

“You know it is,” I replied tersely. “And I’m not going to apologize.” I glared at the Earth goddess, daring her to argue, but she didn’t. Instead, she kept smiling at me with an even sweeter smile.

“Adriana, you had a complaint as well,” said Solaron, turning to the blue haired girl.

“Yes, the Alliance has cut off trade with my company. This is completely unprecedented; my company has always been allowed to trade even during times of war.”

“Our economies are in shambles because of the hero,” said Breize. “We didn’t think she’d wreck the place so badly, but she did. And now your company’s profiting from our troubles. You were selling food at ten times the market price!”

“You’re just angry I wouldn’t sell you any platinum,” muttered Adriana.

“I need it for my experiments!”

“This is why I hate these family reunions,” complained Lunaris, as tendrils of darkness materialized to cover her ears.

“Look, it’s basic economics.” continued Adriana. “My goods are worth more because I’m the only one who can provide them. What are you going to do without me, let your people starve?”

“No,” said Opal. “We’ll have plenty of food after we win the war.”

Silence. Both sides stared at each other.

“This is the most serious we’ve been about a war since… ever,” said Adriana.

“Yes,” said Breize. “Arms production hasn’t been higher at any point in history. We can thank the new demon lord for that, his management is incredibly efficient. Despite the destruction of the mines in the Earth kingdom and the fall of the Air kingdom’s islands, we’re ready for battle.”

“The hero did a number on you guys though. Morale is insanely high in the Union right now,” said Adriana. “And the hero will beat the demon lord for sure, she has more blessings than he does.”

“But the Fire kingdom’s army is out of your reach,” said Opal. “And they’re your best fighters.”

“Which reminds me, we need to discuss the second most important item on the agenda,” said Solaron. “How do we get the Fire kingdom back.”

“We?” said Lunaris, with a chuckle. “It’s Aia’s kingdom, she should get it back herself. If you Alliance sods want to help her, go right ahead. But why the fuck should I help a goddess who can’t even keep ahold of her own domain?”

I frowned. “Says the goddess who lost control of her kingdom to an immortal minister.”

“I did not lose control! I tolerate him because he’s more fun than most demon lords.”

“The current demon lord isn’t under your thumb either,” I said, provocatively. I could almost picture Runir riling her up at every opportunity. He wasn’t the sort to listen to someone else, even if they were a goddess.

Lunaris smirked. “You’ve been out of the loop, Aia.”

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You need to pay more attention to our messages, Aia,” said Solaron, shaking her head. “You’ve always been like this. Have you even checked your divine prism lately?”

I made a blank expression.

“You haven’t…”

“Come on Aia!”

“No wonder she lost her kingdom.”

“Shut it!” barked Adriana. “We’re all busy, aren’t we?” She turned to me. “Although I hope you at least read the agenda for today’s meeting.”

I looked away.

“You’re kidding…”

“Aia…” Solaron shook her head.

“Typical.” Lunaris chuckled.

“There’s nothing important in them anyways!” I exclaimed.

The room fell into silence.

“I thought there was something weird when you came to my place,” said Breize. “We had a chat about it too. I praised you for your foresight, you’d set the ball rolling long before the rest of us recovered from our shock.”

“Hell, you acted so dumb when we met, I almost thought you’d turned traitor,” said Lunaris. She let out a relieved sigh and smiled. “Thankfully, you’re just a dumbass.”

“Here I was, thinking you’d engineered the whole thing. Wow, do I feel dumb for overestimating you like that,” said Opal, shaking her head. “I told the others you’d agreed to talk about the details during the conclave but to think you were…”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Wow, this is…” Adriana muttered. “How’d you end up traveling in that party?”

“What party?”

“With the hero and the demon lord,” answered Breize. “The strangest party in the history of Erath.”

“It just… happened.”

“You can’t be serious?” said Solaron, wide-eyed. “The hero travels the Alliance under the protection of the demon lord himself, and you tell me you had no hand in that?”

“No,” I said, confused. Where’d they get that idea from?

“Screw that,” said Lunaris. “You’re telling me you brought him here by accident.”

“Him?” I asked. “Who are you talking about.”

Silence.

“Fuck,” whispered Lunaris. “She’s serious. She’s absolutely serious.”

“Serious about what?”

“We’ve been planning this for months,” said Solaron. “And you say you don’t know?”

“Know what?” Confused, I was confused. What on Erath were they talking about?

“Are you kidding me?” shouted Opal. “The only reason I let you destroy my beautiful mines was because of what I thought you were doing.”

“I should have dissected you for what you did to my islands!” said Breize. “I stayed my hand solely because of your actions. I admired you greatly, knowing it was something I’d never be willing to do myself.”

“Look, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, my eyes flicking frantically between the other goddesses; all of whom were looking at me like I was a stranger.

“You got on his good side as soon as he got here,” said Solaron. “You went around the world with him. He saved your life countless times. You gained his trust, I’d argue even his love. You kept him under control, away from the rest of us while we plotted against him.”

They don’t mean…

“We didn’t know what you were planning exactly,” said Lunaris. “When you came to my place, I thought you’d brought him there so I could deal with him. But then you didn’t help at all! Afterwards I thought it might have been because you saw I couldn’t finish him, and I agreed, his powers were far above my expectations.”

They’re talking about…

“We assumed you couldn’t speak of your plans because he was listening,” said Adriana, her bright blue eyes twinkling. “Even when Breize took you away from him, you still wouldn’t speak freely, so we assumed he could hear through walls and long distances too. We made sure to talk in codes after that. It took a lot of effort to find a way to isolate our conversations from his reach but we came up with something eventually. When you replied so directly to Opal’s code, we thought for sure the padding in the room had made you comfortable enough to speak openly about your plans.”

“This is bad,” said Solaron. “You brought him here, didn’t you? Do you know where he is? He mustn’t find out what we’re planning. He mustn’t!”

“He went for a stroll.”

Silence.

“Let him come, I need to pay him back for last time,” said Lunaris, sneering.

“Why are you looking for him?” I asked, despite knowing the answer. It had been in the back of my mind for a long time, but I’d suppressed it. Only now, when my sisters confirmed my suspicions, did I accept it.

“Because,” said Solaron. “He’s our greatest enemy.”

“The one we hate the most,” said Breize, her eyes narrowing. “He gave us the Haze!

“He made us slaves to his whims,” said Opal, her breathing ragged.

“He took our loved ones from us!” cried Adriana. “Granny, he took my granny from me!”

“A life of eternal animosity and hatred for one another,” said Solaron. “He made us sisters enemies. Condemned Erath to centuries of conflict and bloodshed. Every death, every miserable event in this world, they’re all his fault!”

“He’s an asshole,” grumbled Lunaris. “You don’t want to know what he made me go through. The pain, the sorrow, the anger! We’ve all cursed him for nine hundred years. Nine hundred fucking years! Hell!” she screamed, throwing her teacup across the room. It shattered loudly. “I don’t even like tea! He makes me drink it! Makes me drink tea every fucking hour of every fucking day!”

“I didn’t –”

Lunaris stormed out of her chair and grabbed the front of my robes. “This was my chance to get back at him. No, screw that. This was our chance to be free. Free of him for the first time ever. Free to do whatever the hell we wanted to. End the wars, eliminate death, eradicate suffering, we could finally build a perfect world!” She brought her face close to mine. “We were going to destroy him once and for all, and now you tell me you didn’t even know who he was? He’s –”

“Right behind you.”

We all turned around. A figure stood at the cave’s entrance, looking at us with a smile. “So this is what you’ve been doing. At first I was worried because I couldn’t see inside these rooms of yours, but to think, you were having a secret tea party. I’m offended you didn’t invite me.” He picked up a piece of the broken teacup. “I like tea.”

“Kai, how long have you been here?” I asked, breaking out of Lunaris’ grip.

“Long enough to hear about your plans. Destroy me? Did you really think you could do that?” He chuckled. “No one can resist Fate; not even you, the goddesses.”

“So you really are…”

“Is that really a question worth asking?” he said, wagging his finger. He walked further in and leaned over the table. The other goddesses shrunk away. “I’m just happy you weren’t in on it. I didn’t know if you were really using codes and playing me like a fiddle like these idiots thought. I couldn’t bear having to deal with you too.”

“Deal with me?”

“Of course!” he said. “I have to make them pay for conspiring against me. Besides, I can’t let them roam about so freely now that war’s about to break out. They could mess up my plans.”

“Plans?”

“You don’t need to worry about that.” He grabbed me by the hand and pulled me close. “I’m going to fix this world, and then the two of us can be together forever.” He smiled, making a warm feeling rise up my chest.

Someone started laughing. Kai raised an eyebrow. “What’s so funny?”

Lunaris banged the table and cackled maniacally. “I was so worried, so fucking worried –” She laughed again. “That the plan was going to fail.” She burst into another fit of laughter.

Kai frowned. “What are you –”

Solaron sighed. It was a sigh of relief. “I felt the exact same way, Lunaris. All that painstaking effort and it seemed as if the plan would fail at the last moment. I’d made contingencies for everything but this never crossed my mind at all.”

“Same, although the way it got resolved was kind of anticlimactic,” said Adriana.

Kai’s eyes widened. “I don’t like this. The hell are you talking about?”

“Exactly,” said Opal, flashing her sweet smile. “We’re talking about the hell you’re about to go through.”

“Do it now!” shouted Breize.

The cave shook. A loud bang echoed off the walls just as they began to crumble. The ceiling collapsed and the floor gave way. Kai grabbed my hand tightly, not willing to let go, but something stronger was pulling me in the other direction.

I resisted the pull, but the pain grew unbearable. My soul was stretching to the point of breaking and my vision blurred, but I didn’t let go.

“Damn it,” cursed Kai as he released me.

 < Back | TOC | Next >

“The hero is here!”

“All hail the hero!”

“Mommy, mommy. I heard the hero came to beat the big bad demon lord!”

“Yes, Felicia. The hero has come to save us from the evil demon lord.”

“That’s not all, Ms. Marcia. I heard the hero bravely infiltrated the Dusk Alliance all on her own.”

“Yes, I read all about in the papers. The Air Kingdom’s flying death machines were no match for the hero!”

“She razed the cursed forest to the ground. It was all over the prism networks. Those monsters tried to sully her purity but bit off more than they could chew.”

“That’s not the best part. I know someone inside the Light temple and they told me the hero fought with the vile Dark goddess herself!”

“No way! The goddess wouldn’t stoop low enough to fight the hero directly, would she?”

“She’s the goddess of those demons up north, I wouldn’t put anything past her. Besides, they must be desperate by now.”

“Fair enough. But the hero managed to survive an encounter with a goddess. Isn’t she amazing?”

“She’s kind too. Have you heard about the Earth kingdom? They’re horrid people who enslave their children as soon as they’re out of the womb. They make the poor things mine miles below the earth until they die.”

“Terrible, absolutely terrible. Just what you’d expect from those barbarians.”

“Yes, but get this. The hero couldn’t bear to let such inhumane acts go unpunished, so she destroyed dozens of mines across the Earth kingdom. Not only did they lose a ton of money, but a whole bunch of slaves saw the light and joined the Union’s army!”

“She converted those heathens? She truly is the greatest champion of the light!”

“Oh, here she is! That horse is magnificent. I heard the LeAgua company provided the finest horse in their stables. Rumor has it, the hero is personal friends with the Water goddess,” said the woman in a white gown.

“At this point, nothing surprises me anymore,” said the lady in a pink dress, as she fanned herself with her hands.

I guided Spirit along the road, waving to the people lining the streets who showered me with flower petals. Spirit whinnied in protest when a short man came over to take his reins. I patted his neck gently and handed him over. I walked the rest of the way up the city, letting the light shine off my stainless Mithril armor. The people fawned over me, and discussed my adventures with gratuitous compliments.

“I heard she tricked the demon lord, too.”

“Yes, the demon lord escorted her over his own territory! What a fool.”

“Another sign of the hero’s cunning, I reckon. They say even the evil goddesses gave her their blessing.”

“I heard she faced off against that Origin monster in the Fire kingdom.”

“Look at her hair too.”

“And her face. It’s like a sculpture.”

“I wish she’d have a drink with me.”

“You crazy, old man? You have no chance with the hero.”

“I can dream, can’t I?”

“Look, she’s going into the palace!”

“Hero!”

“Hero!”

“Long live the hero!”

“Long live the Union!”

The palace doors shut behind me. I took a deep breath, and walked up the promenade. Soldiers saluted me, their pikes pointed above my head to make a tunnel. Fountains lined the walkways, gushing with clear water that cascaded into the gardens. The gardens were full of white peonies and daisies.

As I approached the main hall, my armored foot clanged against the hard marble floor, sending echoes throughout the nearly empty palace. All the servants were in the left wing, readying the hero’s banquet I would be attending in the evening. I pushed open the white doors and entered the throne room.

“Took you long enough,” said Fabar, or rather, Adriana. She’d told me her real name a while back. The water goddess was wearing a sharp navy-blue suit with golden buttons and cuffs.

“You’re the one who made me wait two days at the border,” I reminded her. “You wanted to parade me through the kingdom.”

“The hero’s return is a momentous occasion. They’ll write stories about this,” she replied.

Stories, that reminds me of –

“Fate is strange,” said the person on the throne.

It wasn’t the king. The royal family had been told to stay in their quarters, and the person who gave that order, was…

“Solaron, you’re the only goddess that still compliments fate,” said Adriana, facing her sister.

“I do not have any unreasonable affections for Fate, but even a skunk’s stench is worthy of praise,” she said. “If Fate makes the hero come back to me, is that not worth complimenting?”

“It wasn’t Fate that led me back,” I said, curtly.

“Yes, you came to fight the demon lord. Yet your newfound love for justice is certainly Fate’s doing,” she said, fixing her fluffy white dress.

The Light goddess looked exactly as I’d imagined her. Pale skin, white hair, and a haughty demeanor. I’d only heard her voice when I first came to this world, but even then, I could tell that she was full of it. Now, the dozens of rings and pearl necklaces, as well as the regal, feathered dress she was wearing, all confirmed why I’d hated her immediately.

“Solaron, the hero must be tired after such a long journey,” said Adriana. “We should let her rest before the big banquet.”

“You are correct, dear sister,” chimed the Light goddess. “I’ll summon someone to escort her to her chambers.”

“No, it’s all right. I’ll take her there,” said Adriana.

“Nonsense, you’re the Water goddess, just wait a –”

“It’s fine, you need to go prepare for the banquet too.”

“Oh! You are right, I forgot my glass tiara. See you girls later,” said the Light goddess as she vanished.

Adriana and I left the throne room and walked down an empty but well-lit, corridor.

“Glad to see you got here safely,” she said.

“The LeAgua company was escorting me, even the demon lord wouldn’t attack them so brazenly just yet,” I said.

“I wouldn’t put it past that bastard,” she said, quietly.

We walked silently until we reached a small door.

“Why do they know so much?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“The people outside, why do they know so much about me? They know where I’ve been and what I’ve done, only they think it was a plan to take down the Alliance,” I said.

“News of your exploits have been spreading for a while now. I thought you might have been whispering in your sleep or something, but I guess that wasn’t the case,” she said. “And since my information network was not involved, that leaves only two possibilities.” She opened the door. “Let’s step inside.”

The room was opulent and lavishly furnished. The walls were dotted with rare rubies and a dust of silver, the bed carved from the finest mahogany and laced with gold leaf inlaid with emerald, and the sheets and curtains were fashioned from pure silk and embroidered with intricate designs and magical symbols that increased their softness.

Or at least that’s what the plaque on the wall said. After admiring the room, Adriana and I sat down on the bed. She stretched a hand and the sheets vanished. I didn’t object, magical symbols made me antsy.

“Like I said, there are two possibilities. It could be one of your friends, since they would know about this stuff. The demon lord doesn’t stand to gain anything from this, but maybe one of the others has a hidden agenda. I say this because I couldn’t dig up anything on those two, though I do have my suspicions regarding one of them, the other is a complete mystery.”

“And the other possibility?” It didn’t seem like the kind of thing Kai or Amy would do.

“It’s a scary idea but one I’ve come to accept over the years,” she said. She sighed and tucked her hair behind her ear. “If you asked us, the goddesses, who was the strongest amongst us, we’d say it was Lunaris.”

That crazy asshole. I should have –

“But if you asked us who was the most dangerous,” she continued. “Then the answer would be: Solaron.”

Solaron, the light goddess?

“More dangerous than that crackpot Lunaris?” I asked. “I mean she has it all down; crazy powerful and just plain crazy.”

“Exactly,” said Adriana. “Lunaris is unhinged and unpredictable. She doesn’t plan, she doesn’t think. And that’s where Solaron excels. There’s a reason the Union is more prosperous and populated than the Alliance, and it isn’t all because of the resources at their disposal. Solaron has been managing things from behind the scenes, slowly nurturing her lands whilst destabilizing the Union.”

I furrowed my brow. Was everything I’d seen of her, a façade?

“Oh, but she is definitely an airhead,” continued Adriana. “She’s like a different person when she isn’t managing the Union. Fusses over makeup, and gossips all the time. Frankly, she’s annoying.”

“Oh…”

“She’s probably been collecting information about your travels ever since you left. Her spies are everywhere, spreading the word of the goddess and reporting back to her through their prayers. I’d keep an eye out for them in the future.”

She stood up.

“I need to go now. The conclave’s coming up soon and I’ve been out of the loop for a while. I heard something big was about to happen, I need to do some research.”

“Take care,” I said. She hugged me and left the room.

As the door clicked close, I collapsed onto the bed. Staring at the ceiling, I thought about what had happened since Granny’s cottage burned down.

After crying the night away, Fabar and I went to the nearest LeAgua company outpost. She told me her real name was Adriana, and formally introduced herself to me. She blessed me, which made my level shoot up again. We hitched a ride across the marshy lands of the Water kingdom, following various leads in search of Granny’s killers. We eventually caught wind of a group of bandits burning villages and towns all over the place, causing mayhem and spreading terror among the people.

After tracking them down, we interrogated them but couldn’t get a word out of their mouths. Even after Adriana had her men torture them, they wouldn’t speak a word. Adriana sent them to a secret prison and told her people to tell us if the bandits revealed anything.

A few days later, her team sent a message. The bandits hadn’t said a thing, but after running a few tests, the company’s analysts had concluded that the bandits came from the Alliance – specifically the Dark kingdom. At the same time, we found out that similar bandit teams had been uncovered across the Union, and all of them showed signs of being from the Alliance. Then Adriana’s information network said the demon lord had sent these bandit teams in secret, to chip away at the Union’s resources.

But as I stared at the ceiling, something bubbled up inside me; suspicion. Something was strange, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I sat up, tied my hair in a bun, changed into something more comfortable, and jumped out of the window into the growing night.

–

I crept along the bustling roads of Cerena – the capital. It was still early in the night so the socialites and elites were still inside, preparing for the balls and parties that would run through the night. The people on the streets were the middle-class folk going home from work or helping prepare for the parties. A few nobles appeared from time to time, but their guards pushed the crowd to the sides so they could stroll straight down the street.

Still, I caught a whisper here and there.

“Prices are up again,” said a gentleman in a bowler hat to a lady in a dress.

“They say the crops have been burning all over the kingdom,” said the lady.

“Yeah sure, listen to the government,” said the man. “It’s probably those darned nobles trying to leech more money. Burning crops, you expect me to believe enough crops have been burned to make the prices go up so much?”

“Sure Jack,” said the lady, rolling her eyes. “You know, it wouldn’t kill you to trust the government for once.”

Walking further, I came across an old lady lecturing a younger woman.

“I’ve been alive long enough to remember, this is the sort of thing that happens before every war, got that?” said the old lady. “Those heathens up north love killing our folk, it’s what they live for. Nasty beasts, they’ve been plundering the countryside forever, killing our people, raping our women. You heard the reports?”

“Yes, mother,” said the woman, exasperated. “It’s just bandits, things have gotten rough because of the tax hike, that’s all.”

“Not it ain’t! The tax hike is cuz they don’t pay their taxes but still use the roads. I’m telling you, this happens every time. We let em in, and they mess everything up, so we have to go to war to put them in their place.”

“Come on mom, they’re not all like that. You’ve known Tabitha for a long time, she’s from the Alliance.”

“She’s one of the good ones.”

I left them behind. A bunch of kids came running out of an alleyway. They had wooden swords and tattered robes, and ran around in circles.

“I am the demon lord, fear me puny insects!” said the oldest kid, laughing maniacally.

“No way!” said the others, as they tried to hit him with their swords but got knocked aside easily.

The big kid kept laughing until he was picked up by his shirt from behind. “What do you think you’re doing out so late, Jeremy?”

“But sis, it’s only eight!” complained the big kid, as the other kids sniggered. He shot them a threatening glare but they didn’t stop.

“No buts, it’s a school night young man,” said the older girl as she dragged Jeremy away.

“Big sis Mary’s the hero!”

“Yeah, the hero always wins!”

I stopped by a window. The house was large and well decorated, with statues and sculptures all over the place.

“The king wants to do what?” said a high-pitched voice from within.

“It’s just a rumor, we won’t know for sure until tomorrow.”

“But why would he do that, all of a sudden?”

“I’ve heard the Alliance has been provoking the people of the Union for a while. They’ve been raiding villages, and cut off trade along the bridge. Our merchants have been disappearing in the Dark kingdom, and the demon lord’s regime won’t help us find them.”

“Still…”

“And the new demon lord’s an absolute monster.”

“How so?”

“I heard he experiments on his own people. Kidnaps babies straight from their mother’s bosoms, and tortures them to death to invent better weapons and interrogation techniques.”

“That’s detestable!”

“Indeed.”

“But still, would we not make things worse by taking such drastic measures? The hero just got here, isn’t it traditional to give her as much time as possible. The later the war, the stronger the hero, and therefore, the greater likelihood that she’ll beat the demon lord.”

“Yes, it might escalate hostilities further, but we have no choice. From what I know, the real reason His Majesty wants to do this is because of secret intelligence he received straight from the Light goddess herself.”

“From the goddess?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what is it.”

“It’s all pretty hush-hush, but one of the guards overheard the king’s court discussing it the other day. Apparently, the demon lord developed a frightening weapon that can destroy entire cities.”

“Rubbish.”

“It’s true. They say entire villages have been wiped out in the Dark kingdom, seemingly overnight. All the survivors talked about roiling clouds of darkness. Of course, the survivors vanished soon after – no doubt silenced by the state.”

“That’s –”

“The weapon has already struck in the Fire kingdom.”

“Really?”

“The entire kingdom’s in lockdown because of Origin and the Circle’s terrorist coup, but what little we know suggests that entire cities have been destroyed in waves of darkness.”

“How could that be? The Fire goddess wouldn’t allow for that!”

“The Fire goddess is nowhere to be found. Her shrine was destroyed by Origin several months ago.”

“Then why doesn’t Origin do something about it?”

“Are you kidding? He’s a monster, an abomination of the worst kind. He’s probably happy the demon lord is using ordinary people for target practice. Besides, he wouldn’t be able to stop him. The weapon strikes without warning and annihilates its targets in seconds.”

“Then if…”

“It hits us? Yeah, that’s the problem. I have to say, I disagree with the current government’s policies but at least the king still has his head on right.”

That sounds like a terrible weapon, but something doesn’t feel right. Would Runir do that? Then again, he was behind Granny’s death.

Or was he?

“It’s cold, Elizabeth. Mind closing the window?”

“Sure.”

The window shut and I couldn’t hear anymore. I wandered the city, hearing similar conversations all over the place.

People complained of taxes and price hikes, then cursed the Alliance and the demon lord. Some were afraid for their lives, having heard tales of border raids and the demon lord’s weapon. Others complained about the barbarism and savagery of the Alliance, and the demon lord’s inhumane treatment of his own people.

I stumbled into the slums, which were just as lively at night – if a little seedier. There I heard a similar sort of conversation.

“Curse those Allers, heard they ruined another batch of crops. We already got nothing to eat and they went and poisoned all our wells!”

“Honey, don’t get mad. We’ll get through this.”

“Don’t you be telling me to calm down when things are this bad. The kids haven’t eaten in days, and the guards’ been out recruiting against the bandits up north. If they don’t stop and war breaks out, I’ll be out fighting while you’ll all be here starving to death!”

“It’ll be all right, I’m praying to the goddess.”

“They’re praying to their cursed goddesses too! You know what the church said, our goddesses can’t fix nothing cuz the other goddesses wanna destroy!”

“Hush dear, I think the baby’s up. We’ll talk later…”

“All right.”

The baby’s wails faded away as I moved on. There was a large crowd outside an old, rundown building. I pushed my way closer and heard a deep voice preaching loudly.

“Hear me, believers. We the righteous, we the chosen, must take heed! The enemies of peace, lovers of hate and destruction, the heathens who refuse to acknowledge the truth, they are on the rise!”

The crowd roared its approval. My heartbeat quickened.

“The ancient scripture dictates.” The voice paused. “That the roots of all evil, are the goddesses of evil! The goddess of Air created want. The goddess of Earth created desire and greed. And the goddess of Darkness gave birth to death, destruction, and terror! Tell me, is that not repulsive?”

The crowd jeered.

“Tell me, if you had the power to shape the world, would those be your gifts to humanity? Would you create greed, lust, selfishness, and death? Would you constantly try to push the world towards darkness? Would you take joy in the misfortune of others, like a sick, sick monster?”

The crowd booed and hurled insults.

“Or would you, my friends, do what our goddesses did. Would you bless the world with kindness like the Fire goddess did? Or grant humanity abundance and plenty, and the means of living a happy, prosperous life, like the Water goddess did?

I know what I would do. I would do what the Exalted Light goddess chose to do. I would grant humanity that which is unparalleled, sets us apart from the animals, and makes us humans, humans! I would create love, love and affection, that is the best of creation.”

What is this? I’ve never heard of this before. None of this is true, the goddesses didn’t make the world, it was Fate.

The crowd was restless, shouting praises for the Light goddess. Many cried tears of joy and a few fell onto their knees. Hysterical, they were all hysterical.

“But fear not, brothers and sisters. We know what we must do. To rid the world of all evil, the forces of evil must first be vanquished!”

Huh?

“It is only through righteous conquest that we can save the world from the tyranny of the evil goddesses. The poor heathens of the Alliance have fallen for their witchery so we must liberate them, show the truth, guide them to the righteous path so that their souls may be blessed upon their return to the Light goddess. Of course, once the Dark goddess is defeated, death will plague us no more. Fear, famine, and farce will be no more.

Brothers and sisters, once we liberate the Alliance and defeat the forces of evil, we will usher in an era of unparalleled prosperity for all of humanity. Food will no longer rot. Disease will be eradicated. Honey shall flow in rivers and lakes of the finest wine will spring forth, wine that does not intoxicate for that too is an affliction created by the Earth goddess.

We will be happy. All our needs and desires will be met. No injustices will occur ever again for men will no longer transgress upon each other’s rights. And brothers and sisters.” He paused again.

“We will be immortal! We will be righteous! We will be…

Victorious!”

The crowd screamed, chanting the same phrase repeatedly:

“Let there be light! Let there be light! Let there be light!”

These guys are crazy, I need to get out of here.

I tried to leave but was jostled back in place by the feverish crowd.

“Do you want a house? You’ll get a house!”

Crazy, this is crazy. Maybe I should jump straight up.

“Is there a girl you wanted to marry? Then prepare your wedding ring!”

Right, time to leave. I braced my knees and crouched, preparing to jump.

“Have you been betrayed? Do you want justice?”

I hesitated.

“The unjust shall be punished once their protectors are defeated!”

It’s religious bullshit, Lily, ignore it.

“Has someone you loved broken your heart?”

A couple of faces flashed in my head, but I shook them away.

“Worse yet, have some unfortunate circumstances gotten in the way of your love.”

Runir. He’s the demon lord.

“Would you like them to go away?”

I –

“Then join the liberation movement! Join the holy war! If you die, you’ll become a martyr whose soul will be greeted and blessed by the goddess herself. And when we vanquish the enemy at last, you shall be revived!

But most importantly, you will fight for your future, and your children’s future, and your grandchildren’s future. You will fight for hope. You will struggle for love. You will light up the world with the light of truth and benevolence. Brothers and sisters, let us spread the light!”

“Let there be light!” cheered the crowd.

I jumped out, and although a few people noticed, I was gone long before they could react.

–

Stumbling through the dark alleys of Cerena while making my way back to the palace, something caught my eye. In the center of a deserted square was an iron sculpture around ten feet tall. Its features were well carved out, and the armor was intimidating, exuding an air of rugged yet regal power. A sense of dominance and righteous authority that made everyone droop their shoulders and bow their heads, a presence that was refined, majestic and maybe even a little … heroic.

“Is that an older hero?” I mumbled. Unlike me, they looked the part, felt confident, and probably gave everyone around them a sense of security. This was a hero you could go to war behind.

I walked up to it, and the cold but shiny armor reflected my features. I hadn’t seen myself in the mirror for a long time, so the bags under my eyes and the sunken cheeks were a surprise. But the biggest surprise was what wasn’t there: the scars I’d earned over years on the streets, the acne that crept over my forehead during puberty, the crooked nose from when I’d been pummeled by a larger kid, and the fierce light in my eye that wasn’t even a pale fire.

There was more. I didn’t match the statue; I couldn’t. I was too uncertain, knew too little about the world, and worried about the unknown. I wasn’t trusting of others, so I didn’t give off an air of trustworthiness like the statue did – I was too used to betrayal.

But was I heroic? A less regal, more rugged type of hero. I was realistic, sometimes brutal, and maybe I wouldn’t trust you with my back. But I cared. I’d jump to save an innocent person, even if it put me in danger. I would do the right thing even if it tore my heart apart and made me hate myself forever.

There was something fishy going on in the Light kingdom, and I didn’t want to be a part of it. The Dark kingdom was killing people, so I’d fight them, but I wasn’t going to do it on the goddess’ terms.

I left the statue and returned to the palace.

–

“Adriana,” I called out as I spotted her sitting alone in the garden.

She nodded in acknowledgment, but never lifted her gaze from the pond. Worried, I sat down beside her.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Solaron told me something unsettling,” she said. I waited for her to continue but she didn’t.

“So unsettling you can’t tell me?”

She didn’t reply.

I didn’t know what to do, so I stared at the pond too. The bottom of the pond was white marble, and the water itself was clear. However, a layer of grime had settled onto the marble, killings its luster and dulling its sheen.

“Do I have to be worried?”

“You’ll find out soon.”

I frowned. This wasn’t like Adriana – or Fabar. Just as I was about to pursue the matter, a servant walked over and bowed.

“My hero, this came for you,” she said, handing me a parcel.

Mail? In this world? I grabbed it. Adriana looked over, her face sullen. My heart beat rapidly as I opened it. A small, crystalline prism appeared, giving off a dark light that was, for some reason, more reassuring than ominous.

“Hello Ms. Hero…”

“Are you sure this is where the rings were found?”

“Yes.”

“And why are we trusting that person again?”

“Huh?”

“The guard who told you where the rings were found,” said Kai, as he dusted off his robes for the umpteenth time. “Why are we trusting them so easily?”

“She had no reason to lie,” I replied, dusting off the dust he’d dusted onto me. “You’re more irritable than usual, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” he mumbled, under his breath. “I don’t like this place. That’s all.”

“I can sympathize with that. This isn’t the most pleasant place on Erath,” I said quietly, the somberness of our surroundings weighing down on me.

We were walking through an empty wasteland. The scarred, craggy ground was devoid of all life, yet it wasn’t a desert or some other naturally dreary and lifeless place. The vestiges of once-flourishing flora and fauna could still be found under bleached stones and in isolated crevices. The dried-up husks of old trees and shrubs, animal footprints preserved in clay, and empty riverbeds that snaked across the land, drew the outlines for a long-forgotten picture of a faded land.

But there was something more sobering than that. Craters gouged into the earth, rocks stained with splotches of pale red, and decrepit graves scattered about, all signs of what this place was most famous for.

But the worst part was…

“This isn’t even the real thing,” said Kai, finishing my thoughts.

A gust of wind sent our robes fluttering about. In front of us lay the most dangerous place in the world. Dangerous not because of any environmental dangers like in the Wastes, but because if you found yourself here at some point in your life, chances were, you would not be getting out of here alive. More people have died here than on any other place on Erath. More blood has been spilt here than on the rest of Erath, combined.

Waves crashed against the shore, spraying the air with a salty mist. A giant bridge stretched out of sight. In the distance, a caravan slowly trudged its way along the seemingly never-ending road.

“So, they found the rings here,” said Kai, his eyes locked onto the bridge.

“Yes,” I replied. “At the foot of the bridge, to be precise.”

“I’ve been here before,” said Kai. “But there were a lot of people here, back then.”

“Yes, this is usually a bustling trade route. Although people rarely talked to each other. A consequence of the eeriness, I suppose.”

“There’s usually a tent in front of the bridge with military men checking documents and collecting tolls.”

I nodded. We didn’t discuss it any further, knowing full well what was on the other’s mind. There could be only one reason why there were no travelers on the bridge. However, the absence of the military tent was perplexing.

I scanned the area for any houses or buildings, and found a little hut nestled behind a rock, a stone’s throw from the bridge’s first pillar. Further away, the caravan had stopped in place, presumably to rest. Kai noticed the hut too. We exchanged glances and ran up to the hut as fast as we could.

“Halt,” came a loud voice from within the hut. Kai and I stopped in place.

“State your name and business.”

“I’m Ken and this is my sister Tulip, we’re looking for someone. Could you help us find them?” said Kai, loudly.

“This area is under lockdown by orders of His Majesty the Demon Lord. Only people bearing the Demon Lord’s seal may approach the bridge,” said the voice.

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” said Kai, rummaging inside his robe. “We have the Demon Lord’s seal right here.” He lifted a piece of parchment and unfolded it.

The door to the hut opened and a disheveled old man tottered out, knocking his walking stick on the ground as he made his way toward us. His eyes were wrapped in a dark cloth that went around his head, and his robes were dirty and reeked of sweat. He approached Kai, grabbed the piece of paper with his other hand, mumbled something under his breath, and shoved the paper into Kai’s hand.

“Right, go on ahead,” he said, turning his back to us.

“Wait!” I said. “Have any little girls gone past here, by any chance?”

“Wouldn’t know even if they had,” grumbled the old man. “Now get going before I change my mind on letting you through.”

“But–” I began, but Kai raised a hand to cut me off. He looked at the old man walking back to his hut, and signaled for me to follow him. The two of us followed the old man to his hut, apparently without him noticing us, and looked through the door.

The hut was barely furnished, with a single raggedy old rug lying on the dusty floor. The old man hobbled over to the rug, sat down, and summoned a gust of air to shut the door in our faces. Kai raised an eyebrow and stood still, thinking about something. He dismissed the thought with a shrug and walked away from the hut, toward the bridge. I followed him wordlessly but snuck a glance back at the hut. Oddly, I managed to catch a couple of voices coming from the hut that certainly did not belong to the old man.

–

Having found no trace of Lily or Zoe near the hut, we went up to the caravan to ask for help. It was a large caravan, with around fifty donkeys and other pack animals carrying large bags and pulling carts full of ores and metal trinkets. We were stopped by the caravan’s guards, but Kai convinced them to let us through with a flash of his paper. We asked around for their leader, and wound up in a line outside a makeshift tent in the center of the caravan. We were the last in line so we occupied ourselves by gathering some more information.

We were told that the caravan was carrying supplies ordered by the LeAgua company but that it operated under the direct command of the Dark Kingdom’s government. The Demon Lord himself had ordered that they take these supplies to the LeAgua company despite the ban on trade that the Demon Lord had mandated a few days ago.

Hearing this, Kai and I exchanged a meaningful glance, confirming what we’d suspected ever since the old man in the hut had mentioned the Demon Lord.

“At least we know that Runir is safe,” said Kai, when there was no one within earshot.

“That cunning little devil isn’t worth worrying about,” I said. “It’s the other two we need to find.”

“Oh, come on, admit it,” he said, chuckling. “You were worried about him too. You’re too nice to not worry about everyone.”

I sighed, knowing that he was right. I’d been worried about Runir, and finding out he was safe had taken a big load off my chest. However, the two I was most worried about were still missing so the knot in my stomach was still quite tight.

“Next,” beckoned a hoarse voice from inside the tent. Kai and I entered, pushing aside the thick, hempen cloth. Light filtered through the walls of the tent, shedding a dull red glow onto the interior. A candle flickered near the far end of the tent, where a tiny, elderly person lay curled up on a bunch of cushions. Bones that stuck to a thin layer of pale, spotted skin, hair so thin and wispy you almost couldn’t see it, and eyelids that drooped well over their eyes; it was a wonder this person was still alive, let alone leading a caravan, in that condition.

“Welcome to Madame Rasmene’s caravan, how may I help you?” she said while drawing in a raspy breath.

“I’m Tulip and this is Ken,” I replied. “We were looking for our friends and saw you passing by. Have you seen any little girls around here? One should be about as tall as me but obviously younger, and the other comes up to my waist.”

The Madame nodded slowly, taking a few more raspy breaths before reaching for a tube lying by her side. She gingerly put it in her mouth and inhaled deeply. She put it down somewhat more firmly and scrunched up her faded eyebrows.

“I remember picking up a girl wandering around these parts. Don’t know what she looks like because I never saw her but she should still be out there somewhere. Lunch is about to start soon so everyone will gather around my tent. I’d recommend searching for her then,” she said, before taking another whiff from her tube.

I looked at Kai and he smiled hopefully. We thanked the Madame and left the tent. After asking around for a bit, we found out that there was still around an hour until lunch so we decided to search on our own until then. Kai went down one end of the caravan while I went down the other, intending to meet back at the Madame’s tent for lunch.

A little boy rose into the air, cackling with laughter as his father tossed him up and caught him. A couple sat under the shade, snuggling up to each other. Donkeys and magical beasts grazed together, tethered to makeshift fenceposts. The people in the caravan drank without a care, laughed with each other and, surprisingly, didn’t seem to be perturbed by the blood-soaked land they were traversing. Observing the younger members of the caravan playing with the horses might make one forget that the busiest trade route in the world was virtually deserted.

Something brushed past my foot, startling me badly enough to make me lose my balance and fall. I rubbed my head and pushed myself up, only to see a purple cat licking itself next to my feet. It looked at me intelligently, stopped licking, and trotted towards a couple of barrels covered with a tarp. Something rustled underneath the tarp, and a hand emerged to pet the Hell Kitty. A familiar face peeked at me.

“Hello, I hear you were looking for me,” said Clare, the girl we’d met back in the Fire Kingdom.

“But I wasn’t looking for you?” I blurted out.

“Yes, you were,” she insisted. “I heard some strangers asked this caravan’s leader about me.”

“Oh,” I said, my heart sinking. “You’re the little girl they picked up.”

“Wow, now that hurts. I didn’t expect you to be excited to see me, but outright disappointment? That’s harsh,” she said, letting the Hell Kitty curl up in her lap.

“Sorry, it’s just that –”

“You’re worried about your friends, yes,” she interrupted. “The Hero and the Demon Lord, correct?”

I frowned. How did she know-

“If you’re wondering how I know, you can thank Kai for that,” she said, interrupting my thoughts.

“Kai?” I said, totally thrown off by this little girl with a cat. Kai wouldn’t blabber about our identities like that.

“Yep,” she said. “Ask him about me sometime.” She leaned forward. “Then tell me afterwards, I like hearing what he thinks about me.”

“Uh, sure…” I trailed.

“Thanks. In exchange, I’ll tell you two very important things, okay?” she said, but began speaking before I could respond. “First, you don’t need to worry about looking for your friends anymore!”

Her words struck me like thunder. Did she know where they were? Or maybe she knew they were dead? Or –

“You see, if you stay here.” She gestured to the ground. “Right here on this bridge. Then they’ll come straight to you!”

“Wait, what?”

“That’s right,” she said in an excited tone but with an expressionless face. “The Hero and the Demon Lord are going to war again.”

“So, Lily’s…”

“In the Light Kingdom. Of course, I’m not sure if she’s made it to the Palace yet. The Demon Lord has a very big head start on her, I’m afraid. In fact, she might not have an army by the time he sends the orders to march.”

“Wait what –”

“Doesn’t help that Origin’s sown chaos into the Fire Kingdom, which is where the Union gets most of its warriors from. The LeAgua company’s been acting sluggish too, probably because the Water Goddess has been missing for so long. I heard she came back, though, so things are picking up pace again.”

“How do you –”

“We’ve been over this before, haven’t we?” she said, looking me straight in the eyes. “If you really must know though, then it’s because of my Ability. I say this because you’ll probably arrive at that conclusion as soon as you Appraise me.”

Her Status popped into my vision just as she said that.

One who defies death? What kind of title is that? Starry skies? That Ability sounds…

“Right, time for advice number two.” Clare stood up, appearing right in front of my face, and making me fall on my back again. I could’ve sworn the Hell Kitty sniggered, but it might have been my imagination.

“Can you stop –”

“Exactly.”

“What?”

“Stop. Please.”

This entire conversation had been incredibly confusing but for some reason, something clicked and I was finally on my feet again. Only figuratively though, I was still sitting on the ground.

“You…know?”

“No,” she whispered. “Not really.”

“You’re lying, you do know,” I said, standing up slowly.

“All I know,” she said, taking a step forward. She was short; barely reaching my shoulders, yet she pressed herself against me and glared at me without changing her expression once. “Is that you are a terrible, terrible Goddess.”

The Hell Kitty hissed. Clare stepped away, then walked off. The Hell Kitty followed, tail upright.

“I also know,” she continued, as she disappeared behind the sea of tarps and tents. “That you are a good person. A very, very good person.”

–

I met up with Kai and told him I’d found the girl but that she wasn’t Lily nor Zoe. Disappointed, he told me he’d suspected as much. However, he perked up when I told him that I’d heard that the Hero had been spotted in the Light Kingdom. We bid the Madame farewell and left the caravan behind as we raced across the bridge.

Terrible Goddess, good person, I thought, as the surroundings became a blur. Can’t deny that.

I could still hear one thing though:

The waves crashing against the shore.

< Back | TOC | Next >

“Speed and efficiency.”

“Yes but –”

“Your complaints are neither expeditious nor efficacious,” I said. “So, shut the hell up.”

“But sir, we do not have the money to make an order of this size. We’re already behind on payments to the Earth kingdom, and the LeAgua company threatened to cut off trade with the Dark Kingdom if we didn’t start paying off our debts soon. If we make this order, we won’t be able to service the debt and –”

I raised a hand to silence the silky-haired minister of finance. He stopped mid-sentence and stared at me with a dissatisfied look in his eyes. He was probably still complaining inside his head.

“Speed and efficiency. Those are my priorities for now; not servicing the debt, not pleasing a company, and certainly not explaining myself to a disgruntled bureaucrat. You do as I say and you do it as fast and as efficiently as possible. Understand?” I turned around, my robe flicking sharply. Someone grumbled about big government and ignorant rulers, and then an angry set of footsteps accompanied the grumbling until, eventually, they both died out.

“Sire!” A young woman walked out of a door to the side.

“Walk with me,” I said, quickly making my way down another corridor. I called into another room, “Someone tell Azoth to meet me in the main dining hall, immediately.” I turned to the woman. “What is it.”

“The citizen’s council is demanding that we open up the castle. Trade is at a standstill because no one can get any permits from the government. The mobile unit you setup outside the interior walls can’t handle so many requests. Black market trade is also at an all-time high. At this rate, we’ll –”

“Speed and efficiency, Margery. I’m streamlining the government, cutting off some loose ends, removing red tape, that sort of thing. It’ll take some time and it’ll be painful, but it must be done. Now go tell that to the council,” I said. Margery nodded and scurried off.

Note to self: Streamline political decisions by removing the citizen’s council.

“Brekhart!” I shouted.

“Sire!” said the stocky, middle aged man working on some documents in the room I had just passed. I walked past the room without breaking stride. The sounds of papers being shuffled, a desk being pushed, and someone groaning and heaving preceded Brekhart’s arrival by my side.

“Status report,” I said, tersely.

“Sire, my aides have drafted all of the policy decisions you requested. They will be ready to be put into effect by next month,” said Brekhart, a satisfied smile stretching up to the bags under his eyes.

“Not good enough. I need to implement them today,” I said, picking up my pace.

Brekhart blinked, and had to jog to keep up. “But sire, these are all first drafts. We still need to proofread them, check for loopholes, get them approved by the various departments they will be affecting, and –”

“Send all the drafts to my office in two hours. I don’t care if you mix your you’res with your yours, but stamp out all the loopholes or I’ll dissolve your department for being useless,” I said. Brekhart slowed down, grabbed his knees, and panted for breath. I left him behind without a second glance.

I met several aides and ministers along the way, admonished them for being slow and gave out a few more orders, until finally flinging open the doors to the dining hall. The room fell silent at my arrival, as dozens of gazes fell on me; some clearly dissatisfied and others outright enraged. I ignored them and went up to the front of the table. I nodded to Azoth, who ignored me completely.

Fuck you too.

I sat on my seat, signaled to the staff to close the doors, and had a sip of wine.

“Speed and efficiency. That’s the only thing I’ve asked from you all, isn’t it?” I surveyed the men and women sitting around the table. Some bore old, wrinkly faces, while others had young, springy cheeks. Some had gnarled, stubby fingers, others had perfectly manicured pencils sticking out of their hands. They came from all sorts of backgrounds, all types of professions and had very different areas of expertise. The only things that united them were the glares they directed towards me, and the clothes they were wearing. Perfectly ironed, beautifully crafted, and probably worth a fortune. Their garments were the finest in the land, but that was to be expected. These were some of the most powerful people in the Dark kingdom.

And not so long ago, most of them had been looking down on me from atop the walls of a giant pit. Oh, how time flies.

“Speed and efficiency, speed and efficiency. You’ve been blathering about that for days now,” complained a balding old man with a bristly mustache. “You’ve tanked the economy, destroyed trade, cut us off from our allies, fired half the government, and caused three people to faint from overworking. And to top it all off, you won’t tell us why we need to do any of this at all.”

“Yes,” chimed a young woman with rosy cheeks and a perfect smile. “You’ve brushed off our every attempt to understand what you’re trying to do. Worse, you’ve been telling the citizen’s council, the ministries, and the guilds different things! Cutting red-tape? Fixing the system? Renovating the castle? Which one is it? Either way, none of that makes any sense!”

“You’re ordering tons of resources on credit, locking up artisans, alienating our allies, and nationalizing factories. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re trying to destroy the country. Is this some personal vendetta against us? Mad about what we did to you, kid?” snarled a large middle aged man. “If it wasn’t for Azoth we’d have chucked you out long ago, and don’t you forget it!”

I closed my eyes and let the cacophony of complaints and threats carry on. Eventually, just as the sea of voices was at its loudest, I opened my eyes and slammed the table, hard.

It exploded into pieces, slamming everyone against the walls. They stared wide-eyed, some of them with blood gushing out of fresh wounds and cuts. Finally, their faces twisted with rage and they began preparing spells, but someone cut them off before they could attack.

“Enough,” said Azoth, completely unharmed by my attack. “Let the Demon Lord speak. You will get your answers soon enough.”

They unwillingly canceled their attacks and looked at me ferociously, as if trying to stab me with their glares. I leaned back against my chair – the only one still intact – and began to speak.

“We’ve amassed a stockpile of ores and rare stones from the Earth kingdom, built new factories and workshops using Air kingdom technology, filled our silos and food reserves to the brim with imports from the Light kingdom, and acquired many other essential resources from the LeAgua company. The imprisoned artisans and nationalized factories are hard at work building machinery, vehicles, and certain instruments and tools that will be vital for the months to come. I have, in fact, been culling unnecessary departments and cutting off red-tape to facilitate the implementation of my plans, and have made the governmental machinery and state apparatus more effective than ever,” I said, my gaze slowly traveling across the room. “Now when I say something, the plans are drawn up in a few hours, the feasibility report written in half a day, and my instructions are disseminated to the appropriate state agencies in a matter of minutes via communications prisms.”

“But this model is unsustainable, we’re already chin-deep in debt, and although you may be able to communicate via prism, the rest of us can’t send out any messages because of the Disruptor spell you made the court magicians cast all over the castle! At least open the castle!” said the old man.

“The castle is closed because we cannot allow anyone to know what we’re doing,” I said.

“And why not?” asked a young man with perfect hair and a smile that made me want to punch him in the face.

“Nationalized factories. Stockpiling of resources. Shortening the chain of command. If you can’t see what’s going on, then you’re either blind, stupid, or both,” I said. “I don’t want any of this to leak out, you see. Because the longer your enemy doesn’t know what you’re doing, the larger your advantage becomes. We need to get as far ahead as we can before they know what’s happening.”

Several mouths opened wordlessly as realization dawned on some of the people present. The rest had the brains to think about what I’d said, but one of them was dumb enough to speak.

“And what is happening?” said the young man with the punchable face.

“War,” I said. “We’re going to war.”

“Against who?”

Who let this moron into the government?

“Fuck it, I’m done explaining shit to you imbeciles. Who’s the general of the army again?”

“That would be Cronk,” said Azoth, pointing to the dumb guy who still didn’t have a clue what was going on.

“So, you run the army yourself,” I said, turning to Azoth.

He nodded. I knocked out Cronk with a burst of magic, before he could open his dumb mouth again.

“Send that idiot to the dungeons, you’re officially in charge of the army now, Azoth. Bring me a summary of all the resources at our army’s disposal, the size of the infantry, cavalry, special corps, everything,” I said. “And as for the rest of you.” I glared at them. “You will carry out my orders without question. The army will not make any significant moves and to most outsiders, it should seem as if I’m simply trying to establish my power in the castle. The Union will be wary, but since news of my return has already spread, they should assume that we’re too busy with infighting to prepare for war. I want to wait until the last possible moment before the army is mobilized. If any of you slow down my plans, you will be replaced immediately. Now get to work!”

I used magic to open the doors and everyone but Azoth rushed out of the room.

“And remember,” I shouted after them. “Speed and efficiency. Speed and efficiency!”

I closed the doors again.

“Azoth,” I said.

“Yes?” he answered, conjuring up a seat for himself on the other side of the broken remnant of the table.

“You have the list I gave you, correct?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Good,” I said. “As soon as the Union begins preparing for war, I want you to take out those targets with the sleeper cells you planted in the Union.”

“Understood,” he said, unperturbed by my knowledge of his sleeper cells. “It won’t stop them for long, though.”

“Doesn’t have to,” I said. “Every second it buys us is another set of armor prepared and another infantryman trained. Once the war machine is setup, we’ll begin the propaganda campaign. The people need to want to be conscripted once the war starts.”

“Any ideas?” asked Azoth. “Propaganda is not my strongest suit.”

“First you manufacture the enemy’s image. Dehumanize them, blame our problems on them, and concoct stories of rape and pillage. They’re monsters who can’t be reasoned with. Villains who exist solely to bring pain upon the ordinary people of the Alliance. Blame the deaths of the Demon Lords on them. Make sure our people know how oppressed the people in the Union are. How ignorant they are of their own suffering and the blessings and bounties enjoyed by those in the Alliance. How they are exploited savages that we need to free from tyranny and oppression. Remember they believe in different Goddesses. Call them heathens and infidels. They will be doomed to eternal damnation unless we free them from their ignorant ways immediately.”

“Understood.”

“Then you build up our own image. How we’re fighting for the people. How we help them survive in a cold, cruel world, and work hard day in and day out, so that our people can live a better life. How much our Goddesses love us, and how much we love them.

And then you get even more specific. Demonize the Hero. Tell them how she murders Alliance children, and bathes in their blood. Tell them the Hero perpetrated the fall of the Air kingdom’s floating island. The Hero desecrated the Holy Twilight forest. The Hero caused the collapse of dozens of mines in the Earth kingdom, burying poor workers and letting them suffocate to death under the rubble. In fact, change the name. Don’t call her the Hero. Call her something else. A pig, a monster, a devil, be creative.

Make them hate her, the other goddesses, the Union. Make them hate it all! Manipulate their anger and frustrations!

And then reach out to the people who still aren’t convinced or who don’t care about politics. Promise the slaves they’ll be freed after the war. Tell the poor they’ll be rewarded handsomely for their efforts. Tell the rich they’ll get a cut of the war booty, and maybe even some land. Tap into their greed. Use their aspirations to our benefit!”

Azoth stared at me for a long time, before nodding slowly. His expression was imperceptible as always, but his eyes told me that he was either impressed or frightened.

In either case, I was flattered.

I took a deep breath. “You know, I wasn’t very confident in this plan of ours but, it just might work.”

Azoth stood up and made to leave the room.

“I have worked with Demon Lords for centuries. Trust me, I’ve heard that before. Don’t get cocky just yet. Fate works in mysterious ways.”

The door shut and I went back to revising the plan.

I’d failed once before but this time was different. I was different.

I was more aggressive. I knew who the pieces were. I knew how they would react. And I knew exactly what I had to do.

This time my plan would work for sure.

This time I wouldn’t fail.

This time, I was going to win.

 < Back | TOC | Next >

“Sorry granny, I can’t stay any longer,” I said, swallowing a mouthful of porridge.

“Yes, she has to go,” said Fabar. “Her friends must be worried sick.” Then she added under her breath, “If she has any, that is.”

The corners of my eyes twitched as I shot the tiny bitch a glare. She blinked innocently and continued eating her porridge.

“Kids these days, they never stop for a second,” grumbled Granny Nipa, as she carefully put a spoonful of porridge in her mouth. “But fine, fine. Have to let the birds out of the nest at some point. Just remember to come back sometimes. I hope you’ll come say hi to your granny a little more frequently than a certain someone.” She raised her eyebrows at Fabar.

“N-no,” stammered Fabar. “You don’t understand. I had to… and then… and…” She lowered her head. “I’m sorry Granny.”

Granny Nipa nodded. She’d been happy to see Fabar, but she wasn’t going to let her long absence go unpunished.

“Right,” I said, as I dropped the dirty dishes into the kitchen sink, washed them, and came back to the table. “Thanks for everything, Granny.” I hugged her, straightened my traveler’s robe, and made for the doorway.

“Wait a second dearie,” said Granny Nipa. “You’ll get lost in the swamp. Let Fabar take you to the main road, she knows this place like the back of her eyelids.”

“No!” said Fabar and I, at the same time. Then we exchanged glances before turning back to Granny Nipa.

“I’ll be fine by myself, I know how to get to the village,” I said.

“Yeah, she’ll be fine. Street urchins are good at surviving in scummy places,” said Fabar.

Fuck you.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “Besides, this little ingrate needs to spend more time with you.”

It was Fabar’s turn to get mad, as she shot me a menacing glare.

“Oh hush,” said Granny, cutting short our bantering. “If you’re both going to complain so much, I’ll have to take you there myself.”

“No!” said Fabar and I, at the same time, again. We exchanged glances again, and understood exactly what we had to do.

“You know what, I could use some exercise, after all,” said Fabar.

“I haven’t really had the chance to bond with this twerp, either,” I said.

“Yes, this monkey could use a friend,” chimed Fabar.

“This ass could use a dip to cool her head,” I stated with a smile.

“This –”

“Enough,” interrupted Granny. She sighed. “My old bones can’t take any more of this. It’s getting cold so I’m going to grab my jacket. If you’re still here when I get back, then we’re all going for a stroll together.”

She walked into her bedroom. Fabar and I looked at each other, and left without a word.

Take care, granny…

–

“You’re taking me to the village, right?” I asked, suspicious of the blue haired bitch leading me through the muck. The soppy ground squelched beneath my feet, and I swatted away the insects hovering all around me. Thankfully, my Defense was too high for them to bite me.

They were still annoying as fuck, though.

“Of course I am, monkey. The road’s not far enough away. I want to make sure your stench can’t reach me anymore,” she said, walking over the grimy waters without her feet sinking in at all. In fact, even the fucking insects didn’t go after her. That made me hate her even more.

“Besides,” she continued. “You know I can’t mess with you like that.” There was a venomous tinge to her words.

“Sure,” I said, unconvinced. I’d already had one goddess do something she wasn’t supposed to be able to do. I wasn’t about to let my guard down just because she said Fate wouldn’t let her lead me astray.

“Oh, we’re here,” she said, breaking my thoughts.

“I don’t see a village,” I said, looking around.

A large clearing lay before us, with sunken, rotting logs half-submerged into the muddy ground and trees jutting out of the underbrush. A slightly muddy river flowed slowly over the rocks on its bed, forming rapids that gurgled like the fountains in the park back on Earth.

“The village is on the other side,” she said, quietly.

“This is where she found us?” I asked.

The water goddess frowned. “This is where she found me. You probably washed up here after running away from the Demon Lord.”

“What?” I said, my eyes narrowed.

“It’s all over the cobwebs, monkey,” she remarked, snidely. “The Demon Lord faked his death so he could befriend the Hero. He took her on a merry adventure across the world, trying to fatten her up before devouring her.”

I bit my lips. “You little –”

“That’s not even the best part,” she interrupted, turning around, and stepping over the rapids. “Rumor has it, she fell in love with him.” She started laughing. “Isn’t that crazy? The Hero fell for the Demon Lord who was going to kill her to level up. It’s so sad, it’s funny!”

I felt the heat rising to my head, as her laughter echoed inside my skull. I raised my hand and fired multiple fireballs at the Water Goddess. She raised a hand in reply, and the murky river rose to douse my fireballs in midair.

“Fuck this, why are all the Goddesses so messed up? Can’t one of them be sane?” I complained to myself.

Surprisingly, she stopped laughing and stared at me seriously. “Centuries of hopelessness would drive anyone crazy. But you know, it’s the futility of it all that really gets you.”

My hairs stood on end as she approached me, the river-waters swirling around us, twisting, and distorting to make frightening shapes, and grotesque faces.

“Why don’t you try watching everyone you care about, die,” she whispered. “Over…” More faces took shape in the waters.

“And over…” The faces aged, little boys and girls becoming adults.

“And over….” Then hunchbacked crones.

“And over.” Then corpses and skeletons.

The faces vanished, the chaos of the swirling waters obscuring everything around me. My heart had long since jumped into my throat, so all I could do was grunt in surprise.

“Some of us found a purpose, a goal or an objective, to dull the pain. Breze with her machines, Terra with her mines, and me with my company. All attempts to give our lives meaning,” she continued, her voice thundering louder than the rapids.

The water formed images of a woman in her tower, tinkering with something too small to make out. A woman on a throne, inspecting a shiny gemstone. A girl sitting on a pile of gold that kept growing larger and larger.

“And the others…” her voice trailed off as the images collapsed and reformed.

A girl having a tea party with an empty table.

A girl sitting on a ledge, dangling her feet over a field of corpses.

And a woman wandering around the empty countryside, seemingly forever.

“…went crazy.”

The images shattered, sunshine broke through and the raging rapids that had surrounded me, went back to cascading over the rocks on the riverbed.

“So yes,” she said, acting like nothing had happened at all. “We’re a little insane. But don’t worry, this world will drive you crazy soon enough. I guarantee it.”

I remained speechless. The Water Goddess turned and walked past me.

“The village is on the other side of the river. You had better get going. My sources tell me that something very big is about to happen, and there’s no way you’re not going to be smackdab in the middle of it,” she said. “After all, your boyfriend’s chin-deep in it already.”

As I saw her walking away, something clicked in my head.

“Wait!” I shouted. “Just one last question.”

“What is it?” she asked, annoyed enough to turn her face back to me.

“Granny Nipa,” I said.

She flinched.

“What does she mean to you?” I asked. “If you’re so tired of watching humans die, why’d you let yourself care so much about an old lady in the swamps.”

Her eyes drooped down. “It’s a long story.”

“I have time.”

She didn’t speak, so we stood in silence for a long time.

Eventually she raised a hand and tiny tendril of water flowed out of the river and made an image in the air. Then, the image started to move, telling a story with wobbly figures and transparent scenery, accentuated by the occasional pebble or dirt that got mixed in.

A little girl ordered around a bunch of people hauling crates and merchandise into a ship. The ship sailed across what looked like a large lake or inland sea. The little girl counted her gold while shaking hands with a suspicious looking man wearing a bandanna. The ship reached a makeshift port, where a gang of big, burly adults unloaded the cargo and equipped themselves with frightening weapons. Then they went out of their ramshackle settlement, and ran roughshod over the surrounding villages. The water roiled as the terror and carnage became so terrible that I could almost hear the screams that must have accompanied it. Just before the scene faded, a couple of the bandits chased down a woman tightly holding a bundle of cloth to her chest. The woman dashed through the countryside, barely managing to reach a river before the bandits closed in on her and the images collapsed.

They reformed to show the little girl from before, who happened to pass by that area at what was obviously a different time of the year. She stopped and looked to the side, as if she’d heard something. She walked into a clearing just as a sword slid into the stomach of another little girl.

This other girl looked almost exactly like her, with the same kind of hair and body. The only difference was that one was frowning while the other was skewered on a steel broadsword.

On the other end of the sword was a woman wearing a torn bandanna. Another bandit stood to the side, clutching a small bag of coins. The bandits notice the newcomer, and the woman slides her sword out of the dying girl’s stomach. The dying girl chokes and spasms, before going still.

The bandits approach the living girl, but before they can get close, they’re brushed away by a torrent of water. They hover in midair, their bodies submerged in water, and eyes wide open, flickering about frantically. They swing their limbs and flail futilely, until eventually opening their mouths and gulping mouthfuls of water.

Their corpses fell on the ground, dripping wet. The water receded into the ground, but not before floating the woman’s sword towards the little girl. She picked it up, noting the words emblazoned on its hilt that were drawn in bold letters, and a fancy script.

“LeAgua Company.”

The little girl threw the sword away, and was about to leave when she stopped, sighed, and carried the corpse of her lookalike over a stream of water. She reached a tiny river, and was about to cast away the body when she tripped and fell into the river.

She stopped on the water’s surface, but didn’t get out. She sighed and closed her eyes, letting the water sweep her away. Eventually, she reached some gentle rapids, and decided to get out before the waterfall up ahead.

But then she glanced to the side, as if she’d seen someone.

“And that’s all you get to see,” said Fabar, as the image fell apart.

“Wait, I don’t understand,” I said. “You got your doppelganger killed so you took her place with Granny Nipa?”

“No,” she said, angrily. “Weren’t you paying attention? Well whatever, I don’t have time for this. Granny’s waiting.”

“She’d been waiting for a long time. If you lived forever and had nothing better to do, why didn’t you just stay with her?” I asked, quickly.

“Shut up! You understand nothing!” she shouted.

“You went off to work on your business again, didn’t you? LeAgua company, I’ve heard of them. They control nearly all the trade in the world. Even weapons. Hell, you sell them to both sides whenever a war breaks out between the Alliance and the Union.”

“So what, there’re no morals in business,” she replied, tersely. “I don’t care how people use my products. That’s their fault, not mine.”

“You looked like you cared, though. When your sword was used to kill that little girl.”

“No, no I didn’t. I don’t care about human lives, anyways. They die before I’m done watering my plants!”

“You don’t care about humans?” I said, mockingly. “You seem to care about granny Nipa though, don’t you? You care enough to take her name and spend time with her. Despite everything that’s happening in the world right now, you came back to see her, didn’t you? Stop lying to yourself. You do care.”

“That isn’t –”

“And you’ll care when she dies,” I interrupted. “You will and you know it.”

She closed her mouth and met my eyes. We held each other’s gaze for a while before she eventually looked away.

“Yes,” she said, defeated. “I will.”

Empty silence reigned for a while, before I wordlessly made my way across the rapids. A little water magic ensured I wasn’t washed away, but I still made splashes as I crossed to the other side. I turned to look at the tiny water goddess and felt – for the first time – that her demeanor matched her feeble frame.

And then I saw the smoke rising above the trees.

“Shit!” I exclaimed.

The Goddess was knocked out of her daze and she quickly turned to the direction I was looking at. Her eyes went wide. Water gushed out of the ground and propelled her into the air as she sped towards the smoke.

I ran after her, a dreadful sense of foreboding creeping up my spine.

My worst fears were confirmed when I reached the smoldering remains of Granny’s cottage. The Goddess was on her knees, sitting unmoving in front of a half-eaten bowl of porridge. I looked around and my knees nearly buckled because of the frightening destruction. I combed the ruins for traces of Granny Nipa, but found nothing. There was no torn clothing or sword marks to indicate a fight, and no clues about where or how the fire may have started.

“Granny!” wailed the goddess, as she dashed from one smoldering ember to another.

“Granny!” I screamed, as I tripped over a burning table-leg.

We stayed there until dusk, but never found any trace of her. At one point the Goddess was shouting incoherently into a communications prism, no doubt trying to obtain information throw her network, but she slammed it into the ground, soon after.

As the flames died out and the night threw its blanket of darkness over us, we huddled together in front of the bowl of half-eaten porridge. I let the immortal Water Goddess – worshiped by thousands and owner of the largest company on Erath – weep on my shoulder.

I tried to stay strong for her sake, but all I could remember was the kindness Granny had shown me. The sense of family and the unconditional love she’d given me despite not knowing me at all. All I could do, was remember her lullaby.

So I sang it, as best I could.

Little girl, little girl, don’t say a word,

Granny loves you more than, the whole wide world,

Tears started falling down my cheeks too. Fabar stopped sobbing and sang with me in a broken, hoarse voice.

Little girl, little girl, don’t you cry,

Granny knows that one day, you will fly,

Little girl, little girl, fly like a bird,

Go and fly, all over the world,

Spread your wings, far and wide,

Toss your problems, to the side,

And if you get hurt, just you remember,

You can come home, just you remember,

Little girl, little girl, if you ever need a rest,

Just fly on back, to Granny’s nest.

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