carl@fire

Becca shut the door to her room behind herself with a satisfied smile.

Why did you come back here, idiot?! Flee! Leave the tower!

But Becca had already fled! And this room had a lock! A magic one! They were safe—

You think to rely on the magic of stupid mortals?! We are not fucking safe here! Do you have any idea how p—

"Hey."

Becca's head turned to and fro, but she couldn't see anyone else in the room.

A person dropped down from the ceiling and landed on their feet.

It was the short-haired woman.

Vol.

Becca scowled. She hated this Vol person! What kind of name even was that?

"Who're you really?" Vol asked, her brow wrinkled. "Seem familiar, but…not."

"I'm Becca," Becca said automatically.

"You're…" Vol's eyes narrowed. "Oh." She smirked. "It's you."

"Who?" said Rebecca, leaning back against the door, a feigned expression of confusion on her face.

Was she being hunted? Surely not—there could not be any danger now. Mother had never failed to reply to her favorite daughter in true times of need.

"No point lying to me," Vol said. "I know. I know about all this deity shit now."

"It was you?" Rebecca said, her eyes nearly popping out of her head as she connected the suffocating sensation she'd felt the day prior to the one that was now engulfing her.

"Huh?" Vol rested her shoulder against the wall not five steps away.

"But how… How are you a fucking deity?" Rebecca snarled.

"Complicated," Vol said. "May as well try now. Yeah, gonna need to explain it to Carl at some point when he asks, and it's gonna be hard. Might be worth practicing. Let's… Sateus needed a counterpart. A victory deity he's on good terms with. He's too powerful to attend that competition thing now, but if there was a second victory deity, then they'd both have to go for balance…"

She tapped a hand against her chin. "Fuck, this is easier than I thought," she muttered. "Anyway, no followers, or Champions, or any of that shit, but my victories are my own now—though also they're Sateus's, but they're still mine." She frowned for a moment. "Huh. Gonna work on that part. Eh. I'm a true deity, you're not. You're trying to hurt my friend." She shrugged one shoulder. "You're dead."

"You… You're bluffing," Rebecca said as fear took root in her divine soul. "You haven't even lived for a century yet!" The Scorpion had been fearsome before, but if she'd become a deity—a true deity at that!—then there would be no escape.

"Century?" Vol rolled her eyes. "Fucking time." She extended her free arm. An ordinary-looking sword appeared in her hand, the only remarkable thing about it being the faint blue tint to its blade.

Rebecca felt her divine essence shrieking and wailing as she caught sight of the weapon. "What…" She staggered, falling back completely on the door. Every facet of her being screamed for her to flee, but she suddenly felt as feeble as a mortal. Her hand fumbled with doorknob behind her. Then the blade was at her throat, pressing up under her chin. She froze, an unfamiliar, alien tremor building in her thoughts.

"Used this to kill a true deity back when I was sort of mortal," Vol remarked. "Only ever swung it once. Cut a fucking world in half."

Rebecca trembled. This wasn't supposed to happen. She'd been so close to beginning her revenge!

"You gonna leave her body?" Vol asked.

Of course! Rebecca's trembling faded away, and she grinned after a moment. "I won't."

That was why she still lived. This idiot was trying to save Rebecca! She nearly laughed out loud, but the point of the sword was still under her chin, and something about the way it felt as it pricked her still gave her caution.

"Huh." Vol tilted her head as if studying her, perhaps considering some attempt at persuasion.

Rebecca waited an appropriate amount of time required by the moment's gravitas before she spoke, reaching up to tweeze the cool metal between her thumb and forefinger. "Why not put this away? I remember we enjoyed ourselves last time we met, didn't we? We can discuss this, perhaps—"

The blade twitched.

Lucia's fading divine essence burst free of Rebecca's no longer extant body. The vast void now surrounded her, stars interrupted only by the few remaining, still-crumbling bits of the world upon which she had just stood.

The pain was immeasurable.

Then she was again in Rebecca's body with the point of a sword under her throat, the world whole around her.

"What… You control time?" Rebecca croaked as she shuddered at the memory of her world being destroyed along with her.

"Deity shit. Time's monotonic," Vol said. "I don't have much time now, but also I have a lot of nows now. You can leave now now, and I'll kill you now, or you can leave in a different now, and I'll kill you then now, but it'll hurt more since you'll go through a lot more nows. It'll hurt a lot. And like I said, I've got a lot of nows."

"You—You're bluffing," Rebecca said again, this time dreading the knowledge that this was no bluff after having her very being sliced apart. "You—"

The sword didn't move, but Lucia's divine essence was again shredded beyond reconstruction along with a swath of void that caused stars to gleam more brightly in the distance as her sight dimmed.

Lucia screamed.

It had been ages since she had felt anything approaching pain, and she had never felt anything like the twisting, wrenching agony of her astral form being forcibly rent asunder, teased apart particle by particle over a period of time that spanned eons, yet was instantaneous.

Then she was Rebecca again, and she gasped for breath inside the mortal body she clung to as her one, desperate lifeline, the point of a sword at her throat.

"Any final words?" Vol asked, sounding bored.

"Kill...me…" Rebecca's mouth said without her permission. Her eyes widened. "Hurts…" her mouth whispered before she clamped a hand over it, eyes bulging.

"Hurts." Vol tapped her chin with her free hand, her eyes losing focus. "Hurts…" she muttered, this time withdrawing the sword and tapping the flat of it against Rebecca's shoulder while her brow creased. A small vein rose up prominently on one side of her forehead, followed by another intersecting it. "Hurts." she said once more, this time in a different tone, and the veins revealed themselves to not be such as they burst open with a sharp crackle, blue light writhing beneath.

Her entire head flickered, swirling beyond sight for an instant.

The sword was gone.

It no longer mattered.

Volcatia remembered.

"You hurt Ir'alith."

you did

Fulmen erupted from Her eyes and then sparked

you enjoyed it

from Her body like water bursting a dam which had worn down over time.

i know you did

Volcatia's existence changed.

i know everything

She now held Rebecca's throat.

I had forgotten about that.

Existence changed.

Rebecca's body slid backwards to thump against the door, eyes rolled back into her head as she convulsed.

There would be time for the human later.

There was always time.

Lucia dangled in the air, hands clutching, prying, tearing at that which held her neck.

That which confined her.

Volcatia brought her closer, staring into the weakling's eyes even as she screamed, the flesh into which she had been confined blackening, burning from existing this close to Her true form.

you

hurt

my

FRIEND

Lucia screamed louder, and it was the first of many, many nows.