A blinding ignited the night sky, a mixture of red and white appearing on the horizon as if disguising itself as a beautiful sunset. The resulting shock wave interrupted the scenery, pulling the already destroyed ground up before blowing it away with a deafening clap. A few scattered remains of some unrecognizeable structures can be seen such as statues, fountains, and buildings that were once beautiful, are now unrecognizable from the dirt and stone from the ground.

Countless figures stood several miles away, casually watching this spectacle from a distance while openly commenting to each other, “How are they still moving? What has it been, three years now?”, “Yeah, something like that.”, “Truly a terrifying power...”. Powerful waves of air occasionally reached them, but they were becoming weaker and less frequent as the distant combatants began to tire from years of nonstop fighting.

The war has long been decided, the two beings would be exhausted after the battle and the bystanders would kill whoever was left standing in the end. It was already known by all in this ex-paradise between the love goddess named Ellis, and the tyrannical King Zeus, god of the sky and one wields the destructive power of lightning. Even among gods, this power was excessive... and the other gods feared it.

While they fought for three years, the gods made a pact between the servants of Zeus and those who rebelled with Ellis. It stated that -when the fight ended- they would kill the survivor while they were still weak. It had been justified in their minds, saying it would “return balance to the universe” and “rid the universe of those abominations”.

“HAHAHAHAHAHA! Your weakening Ellis, your punches have begun to slow down!” A large man standing at nearly eight feet tall and a well-built and a body clearly trained for war. Despite his words, he was not doing very well. He was drenched in blood, most of which was his, and his once glorious royal robes were torn to pieces and barely clinging on to his injured frame. “Keep talking, maybe you’ll be able to convince yourself you can still win!” The girl across from him shouted a taunt at him while matching his gaze. Ellis wasn’t in best condition either, her face was swollen, and her arms and legs were covered in black-and-blue bruises, not to mention the once shiny, golden armor she was wearing was now practically gone, revealing the thin garment underneath.

Zeus gave a roar of rage that shook the heavens (literally), and charged at Ellis who smiled lightly, “This battle is already over... and you know it.” She mumbled to herself. She knew that a hollow taunt wouldn’t faze this god, the reason he was so enraged, is because she was right. In the last couple of months, she had been focusing on one point of his abdomen, striking the same spot repeatedly. That spot has now ruptured and obviously caused a mortal wound.

Zeus charged at her, swinging his fist downward at her small figure, a powerful, but also desparate attack that was easily dodged by her. She sidestepped his attack, and focused all her power on her fist, aiming at the same spot she had been attacking all along. She swung with all her might, and to her surprise, the abdominal muscle that should have been hard gave almost no resistance to her attack and caved in. She felt her fist sink in about elbow deep before she unleashed all her remaining power, causing a massive release of energy.

Zeus was no more.

Blood sprayed in every direction as her power exploded with a thunderous roar and destroyed the tyrant king from the inside out, freeing her fellow gods from his grip. Zeus’s power vanished and was consumed by Ellis’s blood-red energy. Ellis fell to her knees, exhaustion increasing the effect of gravity as she slowly struggled to her feet with only one thought on her mind, ‘I have to tell them the news... they are free!’ She pushed herself up, and began walking towards her friends, imagining the looks on their faces when she told them.

Ellis arrived a few hours later, walking for a period, and flying when she could manage it. She was greeted with a few shocked faces, which she expected, she did just defeat the most powerful being in the universe... well, I guess second most powerful. One of the gods that saw her ran to get the others in the village with an almost panicked expression, did she really look that bad? She unconsciously brushed a strand of blonde hair from her face and straightened herself, puffing out her chest and preparing for the return of her friends.

It didn’t take long for her friends to come running, but they had weird expressions on their faces, almost a guilty one. ‘Perhaps they felt bad because I did most of the fighting... but I don’t mind, I’m just happy to see them right now. I haven’t seen anything but an enemy in over three years.’ She thought to herself. “Everyone... you don’t have to worry anymore! I killed Ze-!?” Her announcement was interrupted by a mind-numbing pain in her stomach. She looked down to see a black blade coated in poison sticking out of her about three inches to the right of her navel. The blade vanished and was replaced by a hole and a burning sensation.

“I’m sorry, Ellis.” Ellis looked up to see her friend, John who just walked out from behind her holding a black knife coated in blood and poison. He apologized, but he didn’t seem sorry, the only word that could describe him now was contentment. He took a deep breath as a smile split his face. Ellis fell on her butt staring at her childhood friend in shock. “W..why?” It hurt to talk, but she forced out her one-work question. “We decided There should be a balance to things, no one being should have as much power as you.” John began to toss the knife in his hand, “You really are strong, you know, most gods in their prime would already be dead with one stab, but you are still looking at me with that same naive look.”

Ellis started mumbling to herself under her breath as the others came up one by one and gave their insincere apologies. They had already convinced themselves over the last few years that what they were doing was right, many even began to hate her, thinking of her as a fake hero out for glory to justify their actions. The pain in her abdomen was inconsequential when compared to the pain in her heart, she was relatively young for a goddess and was still naive enough to think that the other gods would think about someone other than themselves.

Her mumbling grew slightly louder, and almost became audible, catching the attention of the gods around her, “Hey, what is she saying?” “She probably snapped.” “Yeah, she is too weak to be called a goddess if she is really this surprised.” She came to a realization: they were all like Zeus, just weaker. “...suscipe me in-“ “S-somebody stop her!” They finally realized what she was doing, but it was too late, “-Terram.” She finished the chant and vanished.

Jack was sitting in his car with the engine off and the windows rolled down. The sounds of the night filled his ears as he leaned deeper into his chair and inhaled a deep breath of fresh air. Jack loved doing this, it was always so peaceful. Jack was never good in social situations, and, being a full-fledged introvert he loved being alone sometimes, and not have to worry about other people watching him. Most introverts like to hide in plain sight, but that was never possible for Jack, he was six feet and two inches tall with short, black hair and dark brown eyes. He rarely smiles which gives him a rather intimidating aura, but in real life, he is actually pretty patient.

Living alone for the past two years hasn’t helped him socially either, ever since his parents died, his uncle emancipated him, he moved into an apartment, and is now attending a community college. He has only one friend, no girlfriend, no family (other than his uncle who hates him), and no real life. He spends most of his free time reading, watching tv, or working out, and the third one is just done passively to keep him in shape, because the only thing that could make his life worse is if he was fat. He sighed to himself while closing his eyes, “I really need to get a girlfriend...”.

Jack felt his car jerk followed by a dull thud and saw a bright light through his eyelids, causing him to open his eyes, revealing the most beautiful girl he had ever seen laying sprawled out on his hood. Her hair was a beautiful golden color, she was relatively small when compared ho him and gave out a delicate feeling. He didn’t have any time to waste just staring at her, she was bleeding profusely and was covered in bruises. He immediately threw himself out of his car and took off his jacket, ripping it into strips which didnt work out well, so he just took the pieces he ripped off and tried to stop the bleeding with pressure.

Jack pushed down on her stomach and the girl let out a grunt in pain. Blood tricked out from under her, and jack could feel a rock in his stomach, he knew this wound wasn’t superficial. Jack took the main part of his jacket and tucked it under her head gently before taking the stripps that were now sticky with blood and did his best to cover the wound from both sides. The nearest hospital was several miles from here, not to mention it was Friday night, it would take an ambulance at least thirty minutes to get here. She didn’t have that long, and even if she was in the best hospital in the world, she was still going to die.

Her face was slightly swollen, but she still opened her eyes without much trouble and looked at him with a surprised look. A smile formed on his face despite the situation and whispered to avoid loud noises that would disturb her, “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.” She glanced around at her wounds and surroundings before looking back at him and then smiled. This smile wasn’t the smile of someone who was accepting death though, it was a mischievous smile filled with plans that Jack didn’t know about. “Thank...” the girl inhaled deeply before releasing her last breath, “...you.”

Jack coudn’t maintain his comforting smile and bit his lip. Watching someone die is truly horrible. Jack sighed and held her writst, of course there was no pulse. He clenched his teeth and looked at the body in front of him. That’s when he noticed a faint red glow, it was so soft it was almost imperceptible, but it was definitely there emitting from the girl’s body. He touched her arm and the light suddenly erupted from the girl’s body and wrapped around him, enveloping him in a blinding light, then vanished as if it was never there.

When jack came back to himself, he was panting, and had taken a couple of steps backward away from the girl. “What the hell?” He exclaimed in surprise, and his question was immediately answered, “ehehe, that was me.” A voice in his head replied. Jack was confused, who is talking to him? He was about to ask, but all he could push out of his mouth was “who?”. “Hi!” I’m Ellis, nice to meet’cha! I was the goddess of love! Congratulations mortal, you are the new goddess-err- god of love!”