Soren awoke moments later and stretched stiffly. She picked up her sword belt and got up, opening her door and laying it on her couch. She went back outside and did a few positions she used to warm up with in her martial arts classes. Soren stopped moving, standing still on one leg, hands together in front of her chest, staring at the moon. "I wonder what would have happened had I not known martial arts back then," She thought back somberly to when she was sixteen years old. "He probably would have killed me. While Dad an Mom watched." She curled her lip in hatred.

"If he ever attempts to do it again I will kill him. I swear to any god that may be listening that I will." She growled out loud. Her silvery eyes glimmered with loathing and deadly promise. She hated her brother with every fiber of her being. Gods help him if he ever tried it again. They would fight violently and only one of them would emerge the victor. The other would either end up dead or mortally wounded.

Damien Mastel rose from his bed and walked into his kitchen. He let out a mighty yawn and took out several eggs. He brought them over to the stove when his foot bumped into a dead body. Damien sighed. He had forgotten about this one. Annoyed, Damien have the corpse a heavy kick, rolling it over only a few inches. He cracked the eggs, wishing ever so much that these could instead be human skulls. Damien Mastel had become unhinged ever since the murder of his son and the suicide of his wife shortly afterwards. He had been disappointed when he heard the news, he would have liked to do it himself. Damien instead gave himself the pleasure of killing his several pets. He might be insane, but Damien Mastel was no fool. Homicide would not be easy to escape for the third time. So the man resorted to buying animals and torturing them, ripping limbs off as if the action was opening gifts on a Christmas Day rather than be a morbid task.

After Damien ate, the man left his home and drove to work. His job in the warehouse was far from exciting, but it provided a good cover from his past life. On his way to work that day, Damien felt a sharp pain in his head. Unfortunately for him, he had been driving. The car was no longer in control and the vehicle crashed into a tree. Several people quickly came outside to observe the accident. Damien was unharmed, but he was not the same. Damien looked around at the crowd of people that had appeared. He saw each individual look away, some looked pale and sweaty, and the group in general looked nervous. This was when Damien felt something 'click' inside his mind, something that felt so natural yet so new. He could sense the fear, the apprehension, the pure terror rolling off of their bodies. Damien took a step forward and the crowd scattered.

What the hell is happening? Damien thought.

"Night of the Living Dead"
Fairfield City Slums

---

It was at the cusp of midnight in Fairfield City, and a dark fog was spreading through the streets, blanketing the inner city in gloom. Death was in the air, and only the bravest dared to set foot outside of their homes. Those who had no homes to hide in cowered in corners, hiding from some unknowable feeling that something just wasn't quite right. There was but one man brave enough to step out onto the streets on that night, a scrounger by the name of Billy, but even his years in the military couldn't have prepared him for what he was about to experience.

He walks briskly along the sidewalk, driven forward by some unseen force until he eventually reached what would ordinarily be the busiest street in the city. The fog seems thickest here, so he had a hard time making out any details at all in the murky gloom, but there definitely seemed to be people. He should have felt relieved at the revelation, but some uneasy feeling was gnawing at the inside of his skull, screaming at him to run. A few of the figures shuffle about, parting the way for a small, unassuming shape to pass into sight. A young girl walks bare footed on the street, an innocent, playful look stretched across her face. Again, Billy wanted nothing more than to just pass her off as a homeless child and go along on his way, but he couldn't shake off that feeling...the feeling of dread that had been consuming him all night. Somehow, this girl seemed to be the source of it.

A few people shuffle by, seemingly oblivious to the two of them standing in the middle of the street. Billy was sweating furiously, despite the peculiar calmness of the situation. What was it...what was it that was scaring him so much! This girl...this little, harmless girl-

He stops breathing. It was only when he compared the girl's height to his own that he noticed, that the streetlights on either side of the road were doing little to pierce the dark of the fog. The....the shadow...the girl's shadow is...

A massive pool of darkness coats the ground at the girl's feet, in a situation where she couldn't possibly be casting a shadow. The moment this thought strikes him, as if on cue, a cold, dead hand grips him on the shoulder, roughly turning him around to face somebody behind him-

Oh.

The zombie leans forward and, with savage abandon...bites Billy in the throat.

"Wow! Your idea is working really well, Eric! I never would have thought of using them in this way!"
Kirsten, for of course it was her, glances backwards into the fog where her companion was standing. She was clearly quite happy, because Eric's brilliant idea had gathered her so~ many loyal followers! It was a simple matter to reanimate a body that died, but by creating them in such large numbers, she could create a huge number of followers extremely quickly, without having to use her own power to kill them! As expected of her most trusted homie!

One of a special kind of Zombie, which she had taken the courtesy of calling a Ghoul, steps out from the thick fog and kneels respectfully before of the God of Death.

"Boss, I did as you asked and led the Living Dead to the more populated areas of the city. With this, our numbers will be so great that the city will be ours by dawn."

"Wonderful, Mister Ghoul! Now I can protect my turf, and spend as much time playing as I want!"
Kirsten looks down at Billy, partially devoured and lying face-down on the pavement. With a careless flick of her wrist, a wisp of dark smoke extends from her hand and covers the body, quickly disappearing into the older man's flesh. Within seconds, his body begins twitching uncontrollably before coming under control, rising unsteadily up to its feet. Despite his injuries, the newly resurrected man smiles pleasantly at the sight of his new mistress, having been subjected completely to her control-

"Good evening, little lady. It seems I work for you now."

Rucks Kennithson

God of the sky, messages and travel. This was allegedly what Rucks was - to an extent he had become a divine being. He wasn't sure how or why - he did know however when. The initial blackout, the one that caused a crash. It was his bodies way of protecting Rucks from the influx of power.

What did it mean? If he could figure out what he could use his domains for then perhaps he could gain power? The wind which motioned him towards Vegas, that wasn't a sign. That was something Rucks had conjured, he controlled the winds to point the way. To remind him of his goal perhaps? Maybe he was imagining it all. Maybe it was all a dream. He doubted it, he'd come to terms with this somehow. As if someone had told him and they were to be trusted.

In a way it all made sense. The sudden understanding of the world, the change of wind. Vegas held no answers, it was his destination and he'd started to forget, it's strange how becoming a god can make you do that. But now he had to figure out one thing, how would he control his abilities? If he could figure that out then maybe he would figure out what to do next. These were things Rucks could contemplate later, maybe he should find a hotel to stay in.

Two gods felt in a single location? Really now? That warranted investigation, given that when this happened a few minutes ago it didn't end with one of them dying.

Transmute the body into light, and will movement.

---

In the midst of the night that had enveloped the slums of Fairfield, a bolt of light shot through the miasma that blanketed the town, reaching the location of a certain loli and wisp of steam.

"Imagine you're playing a game of chess, say the finals of the World Chess Championship, and then your opponent picks up a golf club, yells 'fore', and uses it to knock your king off the board."

The light melted into itself, reforming into the visage of a young, and apparently displeased, woman.

"That's a violation of the rules, right? That's absolutely not allowed, right? The second you do that, the game stops being 'chess' and becomes something else."

Ellona shook her head in disdain, loosing a slight sigh before continuing.

"Well, you see, here's one rule of being a god in this world: gods fight. There aren't alliances, there's no symbiosis, and there certainly isn't trash like peacekeeping missions. Stop breaking my rules, alright~? If you want Death to stop something or change something, if there's a conflict of interest, don't stand there and make alliance propositions, fight her. Otherwise you're breaking the rules, and I absolutely won't forgive that, you know. Alliances are excusable under one condition, but you haven't met that condition, have you? You have no idea if that condition's been fulfilled, none of us do. You're just running around without a care in the world trying to save your own existence from getting wiped out like the nothingness it is. I'm honestly not sure if it's funny or just sad. Well anyway, if you wanna fight, then send your full existence and not some measly sliver. If you don't, then send your full existence to kill me, because I won't allow that sort of attitude."

As she spoke, the god of Order rounded about to face the god of Death.

"Oh, yeah, you can fight me too if you want, we have to eventually, but like, I'm not making you a priority target unless you're doing alliance shit, so I won't bug you for a while. Cause of that, you can keep making your zombie army thing if you wanna, and we'll duke it out later, sound cool?"

"What part of 'There aren't alliances, there's no symbiosis, and there certainly isn't trash like peacekeeping missions.' did you not get? Honestly, the Magic ones are always the dense ones."

Ellona shook her head with a sigh, turning back around to face the mass of immaterial smoke. "And if you want to 'tag team' me, fine, that's not prohibited by the rules directly so long as there's infighting and then the eventual betrayal, but as I doubt you want the latter to occur I'll have to put a stop to it. If you don't want to make an enemy out of me, check the state of the world to see if the condition for godly alliances is met. If you don't care, then best of luck. I'll erase you with pleasure."

"I do hope that Death isn't enough of either a pacifist or a coward so as to go along with you, but it really doesn't matter to me."

"Hopefully, Death most likely has intelligence enough to realize that just because of some weird base instinct that comes with the territory of suddenly finding ourselves as another new form of being, that we don't have to follow through with it. If people always fell through with what they thought they should do just because of their default state of being, the world would be anarchistic, not orderly. I thought a goddess of order like you would understand. Talk about dense."

"Regardless of the amount of mass crammed together in your newly divine skull, why would you want to obey some strange, enigmatic voice telling you what to do? Either you're being hypocritical, or you've watched too many old movies and episodes of Highlander."

"We cannot just start murdering each other just because "There can only be one. It's impractical, inconvenient, and possibly not even an intelligent thing to do.".

"First precept of Magic's 'argument', Being does not determine Ought. False. Ontological basis for adjudicating normative good is the only means."

"Maintaining ontological consistency is necessary to any mode of thought. First, the only way to weigh reasons is to understand the being of the agent making the decision. We must understand the status of beings before we can posit things towards them. And, something has to be such before it can be moral. Second, all normative statuses are relationships where we can exchange reasons with another. One has to "be" such that they can express reasons to others, so one's interactions to others are determined by the ontological status of all involved. Third, Being comes before all other properties because every ethical theory relies upon some conception of Being. Ontology isn't just some overlord of all thought, it is the only way to access thought because different theories of ideology are contingent on different ideas of what it means to be. For instance, utilitarianism says that we are all rational utility maximizers who value pleasure, and then because we are that we ought act in a way to maximize utility. Acting in a way contrary to that Being is thus immoral."

"Fourth, my designation is Goddess of Justice. I alone may define what is 'good' or what ought to be done."

"Fifth, my designation is Goddess of Order. Something is disorderly solely when called such by me. Do not act as if you have a right to define my domains."

"Second precept, listening to a voice is needless. Beginning with observational comedy. You fit the criterion of being a 'strange enigmatic voice telling someone what to do'. Hashtag wrecked."

"Further, if your statement is meant to refer to some voice appearing as a result of my Ascension, you're more hopeless than I expected."

"There is no voice. A voice, a separate partition would only be created if I were afraid or incapable. I am whole. The voice is my voice, and in this mind there is merely one. I will what I will, and nothing more."

"Then a nonsensical appeal to 'we can't kill each other for no reason'. False, there is a reason, it is one of the rules. It is a law of reality, created simultaneously to our existence, as ironclad as the First Edict. To defy this is to defy your own essence, but if that is your aim I'm happy to take your title from you and allow you to return to a human life without harm. Of course, you'd never take that option, would you?"

"It's disgusting. All your power to destroy, and yet you're so fragile. An exquisite glass figurine at the center of a maelstrom."

"Your arguments are useless, your split is weak, your existence is contradictory. Find and verify the condition, or fight to the death. These are the rules."

"Those are your rules, you pedantic, long winded woman. I've had enough. You are a lunatic and I cannot allow you to threaten the lives of others. "Changmu, your assistance is most likely needed, we have a mad woman over here, and you may be needed to restrain her if there's hope in letting her survive her lunacy. As for you, dear girl," He turns to Kirsten, "I highly doubt that you know or entirely understand what you're doing. I would rather help you to become a more moral goddess of death, I think that's possible, killing others and enslaving them for fun is reprehensible but you certainly appear quite young. All of this power at your current stage of life, um unlife? Might need help for you to cope with."

He turns his attention back towards the goddess of Order . "Alright. . . I've had enough. Shut up about your inexperience as a goddess and face me, if you are so inclined. Wizards may be subtle, and quick to anger, but I was totally upright, and slow to anger. Nevertheless you were still quick to choose foolishness."

Ellona's expression abruptly changed, a lazy smile replacing the dry stoicism of moments before as she crossed her arms behind her head with a slight laugh.

"So you're pissed off now~? Alright, if you want to fight I'm game, but don't be disappointed by the result, mkay~? How do they say it in those online messageboard things...'1v1 me, turbonerd'? Something like that. Any rate, where do you feel like throwing down? It'd kinda be rude to do it here, seeing as this is lil Death's playground and we might prematurely break some of her pets by accident. Also I feel like the first fight of the new age should occur somewhere more...y'know, imposing."

Ellona waved a hand dismissively. "I said '1v1 me, turbonerd', so 1v1 me, turbonerd. Let the adorable little death god keep building up her zombie army. Any time spent intervening in other people's arguments is time that could be spent making more zombies, so it's pretty selfish of you to be so presumptuous, no~?"

"Anyway, see you there. And oh, if you don't show up I'll be really displeased, you know~"

With that, the Goddess of Light became a bolt of that very substance, and blinked out of view as quickly as she had come.

Ellona was already present, having retaken physical form and elected to lay down on a patch of grass, looking up at the night sky idly.

"You can go ahead and start us off, if you like. Do something cool."

The girl spoke up with a feigned yawn, her eyes closing as she crossed her arms behind her head.

"Did you know that black holes prevent anything, including light, from escaping once it's inside?" Charles circled his left hand, and a basketball sized sphere appeared, then suddenly opened up as a small gate way, the size of a personal computer screen began to pull everything inside of it. . . trees, busts of statues and flying, hard debree and rubble began to fly towards Ellona's direction. . . through all the Chaos, Charles seemed to temporarily disappear as the spell was cast, and the portal, remained as it violently attempted to force Ellona into it. The other side of the park seemed unaffected by the spell. As the nature of the spell was a portion of the Void which tore light apart and pulled it into the spatial nebula quite violently, Charles hoped she would be unable to escape.

He did not pull any punches with this spell, but he doubted it would totally annihilate or kill her.

...so then, it was as she expected. She was not the only one to whom it had applied.

"Boring."

Ellona sighed slightly, shaking her head as the micro black hole appeared, ready to consume the planet itself if left unchecked...

-Only for its suction to abruptly stop, the matter flying towards it freezing in midair before falling to the ground in utter immobility. The black hole itself remained in place, the exterior form "melting" away as if peeled like an onion, with each husk dissipating into the world. For the briefest of moments a sphere hung in the air as the last layer was peeled back, a floating orb that was neither white nor black, but the same hue as there was before the beginning, before it too faded away, the air vibrating for a moment as a dull thud reverbrated out through it.

"Principle of justice, spec. retribution applied. Countering of the force the singularity exerts on the world, gravity field neutralization, imminent collapse, temporary laying bare of the singularity before it's crushed by the World." Ellona said with a yawn as she sat up. "Either way, thanks for the verification. It's not just me, then."

"The condition might be met after all, so I'm gonna go investigate. You have fun, I'll permit alliance construction for the time being."

With that, the Goddess of Order once more transmuted int light and shot off, leaving the God of Magic wherever he may have been.

"Quite odd." A disembodied voice stated. "I have no idea what that crazy woman is saying." Ellona didn't understand, that spherical black hole would not have destroyed the world. It would have torn the whole park into pieces and perhaps trap her inside it, tearing out the earth, the statues, the arches and trees. "She sure does speak very oddly too. Oh well. I just guess that our new states of being is too much for her to cope with."