There was no translation period when the lid closed. No blinking white light that zoomed up to his face. No eagles eye view of a planet that he flew down to. Nope, none of that. Instead he found himself sitting on a porch in a big frond woven chair. He was facing the water in what seemed to be a huge bay.

He was definitely in a tropical area. The temperature felt like the mid eighties. There were palms and fronds and coconuts all over. You could almost taste the flora and fauna in the air. It was humid, but a perfect humidity. You could jump in a hammock outside and sleep perfectly through the night.

Crash looked over to his left and found a huge margarita sitting on a table. He picked it up and took a sip. It was the most perfect version of a margarita that he had ever tasted. It actually made him moan in pleasure.

He ran his hands over the armrest of the deck chair he was in. It felt real. He pinched his thigh. Felt like it normally would. A gentle breeze came in and his hair swayed like it always did.

Cash looked to his right and ARGH… OMG…

There was a person’s face sitting no more than 6 inches away at eye level!

“Hiya, whatcha doin out here all alone sailor?”

Crash’s first thought was, “Wow is this an angel?” Then he did a quick scan and thought, “Whoa, is this a stripper?”

The first thing that caught his eye was the color of her eyes. They were a startling bright blue green that instantly drew you in. He could barely pull his gaze from those eyes.

The second thing he noticed was the huge tangle of hair that was on top of her head. There was so much of it! The thing that came to his mind almost immediately was Merida from the Disney movie Brave. While Merida’s hair was red, this color ran thru all of the spectrum of blond. From a silvery platinum down to a dishwater and every color in between. It seemed to be slowly swaying as if it was alive. It was hypnotizing.

He had to close his eyes and shake his head clear to look away from it. He opened his eyes and looked downwards to gather his thoughts and that turned out to be no better. He was staring into a deep cleavage that made him start to blush. The woman was wearing a skin-tight pink sparkly dress.

“Yo, sea dog! You getting an eyeful? You like what you see? Eyes up here for a second!”

Crash comically jerked his gaze from the breasts and looked at her face again. “Umm huh? What did you say?”

She gave him a perfect devastating smile. “So, how many doubloons ya got on ya? Only ten for a handy seeing how you’re the only one here!”

It took a couple of seconds for Crash to realize what she said and he jerked straight up in his chair. “WHAT!? What did you say!?”

She looked him up and down as if appraising him and then slapped her knee with a hand and started laughing at him. Howling with laughter.

“Ohh emm gee! Ell ohh ell, and all that jazz! Haha, you should see your face right now… I will deffo take a screeny and send it to you one day HAHAHA! Don’t worry stud I’m just fuckin with ya”

Crash scowled. “Who are you? What is happening right now?”

She wiped a tear from her eye. “Ohh man that was so worth the wait! I’m sorry, give me a sec here. I had no idea that was going to tickle my pink so hard, let me get myself together.

She sat straight up in perfect posture and put on a serious look although he could see her lips quivering upwards as if she was going to burst back into laughter.

“Good tidings to you Sir Crash and blessed be. My name is Destiny and I am your personal welcoming advisor A.I. I am here to help get you settled in, answer any questions you have, and give you general advice, although I can’t give you too much detail. You are going to have to discover things on your own.

Crash gave her a look over. “Destiny huh? What’s up with this look and outfit? It is very distracting. Are you going for ultra exotic dancer or something?”

Destiny stood up and put her hands on her hips. Her sparkly dress barely covered her thighs. She had long tanned legs and was wearing 4 inch clear stilettos with pink smoke swirling inside of them. She bent over a few inches and stuck her rear-end out in a pose and said, “What? You don’t like what you see? I have been going through all of the female social media accounts for months and this seems to be the perfect culmination of what I have seen there.”

She put an exaggerated pout on her lips and said, “Maybe you would like something more like what you would see on a beach near you home town?” She put both of her hands together with her fingertips touching each other and drew them down like she was closing a blind and her outfit changed into a tiny string bikini. “Do you like this better?”

Crash’s eyes almost popped out of his head. “OMG! No! Just no! That is even worse!”

A low chuckle came from deep down in her throat. “Isn’t this what the women at your tournaments wear? I watched your last one on live stream you know. I saw this exact bikini there.”

“NO! I mean yes, but umm, I meant to say… You look like a Playmate, it’s even more distracting. Please put on some kind of business casual.

Destiny sighed and said, “Oh alright, if you insist. I am very disappointed in you though.” She made the motion again and shimmered into another outfit. This time she was wearing a gray business woman’s suit. It had silver/pink pinstripes running down it and was skin-tight. The skirt was once again very high and you could see garter belts connected to stockings. Her button down shirt was opened half way down her torso and her breasts were spilling out barely held back by a sheer black bra. She had black librarian’s glasses on and her hair was done up in some kind of impossible hairdo. A pencil appeared in her hand and she slowly licked the eraser with a pink tongue. It was somehow way worse than the skimpy bikini!

Crash put his one hand over his eyes and another covering his crotch. “Ah come on! This isn’t going out on a live stream is it? This is not fair!”

She smirked at him devilishly, “Hmm? Live did you say? If it is live I wonder who is getting more love right now? Me or you? If we were live I couldn’t say hmm.. For instance, I have set up my own social media @GoddessDestiny. I couldn’t do that right? I mean this is supposed to be about you correct? I couldn’t talk about how I have over 300 different outfits of varying degrees of filthy on my page could I? I wouldn’t mention that if people used my name when they sign up that they might get a freebee perk huh? Or that I would become their personal guide? No, of course I couldn’t!”

She shook her head back and forth in an exaggerated manner and smiled. “No, no of course this isn’t live Crash!”

He groaned. “It is live I know it… Why are you humiliating me like this?”

She gave him a look of pity. “Oh Crash my love, I wouldn’t do that to you. We are going to be seeing a LOT of each other over the next few years. If you want me to switch outfits for you I will.” She grinned. “In fact I would like nothing better than to try style after style all day long. I have been alone without adventurers on The Island for years waiting for someone to come along and play with me. I have done nothing but watch movies and read books and surf your web. You are a very sexulized nation, did you know this? It has changed me. I am umm...different than I was when created!”

Crash grimaced. “Fine I will try to ignore the outfit. So please tell me, where do we start?”

Destiny moved in front of him and in one quick hop she landed in his lap and started to squirm her butt back and forth getting comfortable. “Ignore me!? Oh no Crash no! That’s the last thing that I want. I want us to become close! Like real real close! Didn’t you hear me? I have been alone for two years! She looped her arms around his neck and started to stroke one of his earlobes. She softly whispered into his ear. “We have a few hours until our next guest arrives and I plan on spending every second of it like this. Please don’t try to ignore me.” She stuck her tongue out and licked his earlobe.

Crash squeezed his eyes shut and started murmuring, “Baseball, baseball, baseball, hopscotch, car crash, roadkill, elephantiasis... He looked up at her and smiled. “OK where were we then?”

She climbed off of his lap. “You’re not going to get away that easily, we will continue this again in a little while. So… Where to start? What kind of adventurer do you want to be? You can be anything in Ever Ever you know! Mountain Ranger, Deep Sea Explorer, Brigand, Accountant...”

“WAIT a sec, did you say Accountant?”

Destiny laughed. “Ya sure, I did say anything didn’t I? Whatever floats your boat. Ever Ever is roughly 5 times the size of Earth. There are places here that you have nothing like on your planet. It is going to take all types to make it work. Once this economy gets going here our money will start to be worth more than yours. You will be able to swap bitcoins back and forth from realm to realm. Fortunes are going to be made here!”

Crash’s mouth opened in shock. “Wait, someone can make real world money here? And send it back to Earth!?”

Destiny chuckled, “Of course lover. How do you think people are going to be able to make payments on their shiny new pods if they are spending all of their time here? How else can they buy fabulous gear and sex toys and whatnot? Ever Ever will be expensive at the start for most.”

Crash put a finger to his head and rapidly tapped it in concentration. “Wow, this really changes things! I mean, I would be lying to myself if I said I wasn’t worried about money. It was a big consideration for me coming here. Do you have any idea how expensive it has become to live in Hawaii? Everything has become so pricey. A lot of stuff needs to be exported there. I would love to be able to help the locals in my area!”

Destiny asked, “What kind of role did you consider yourself playing here?”

Crash said, “Well to be honest it wasn’t class specific. I just wanted to be a hero ya know? A good guy, someone who saves the day. Someone who saves the girl and lives happily ever after.”

Destiny paced back and forth. “Hmm OK I can work with that. So a Paladin role type eh?”

Crash said, “A Paladin… Ya, that would work. Swords and boards and spells. Healing, resurrections, smiting. Yes, that could do nicely. I’ve never tried one before, I’m usually more of a sneaky, sneaky, stabby, stabby kinda guy. But wait, Paladins...Gods... Are there Gods in Ever Ever?”

Destiny sighed. “Are there Gods? Oh yes, so so many Gods. Gods for everything. Too many if you’re asking me. Hells below, I could be a God. Could you see it Crash? Could you get on board with me being a Goddess? DESTINY, Goddess of Welcoming! Goddess of questions and Answers! Goddess of Social Media perfection!”

“Seriously though Crash... Could you see me as a Goddess?” She seemed to be asking a real question.

Crash crinkled his brow in thought. He didn’t want to offend Destiny. She was his only friend at the moment and to be honest she was as near perfection in the female form that he had ever seen. He deceided to humor this lovely lady. He didn’t mind a little role play now and then.

Crash got down on one knee. He looked up at Destiny. “With all of my heart I will honestly answer you Destiny. If Ever Ever I envisioned what a Goddess would look like it would be you! I am feeling a welcoming warmth to a new world like I never have.” He thought to himself, “Of course this is the first new world I have ever been too so it’s the truth heh.” I would worship you as a Goddess of The Island, as the Goddess of welcoming, as the Goddess of questions and answers!”

“Also sorry, but I’ve never been one for social media, so you are all on your own there!”

Destiny look down at him and a tear rolled down her cheek. She held out her hand in front of her and a spark jumped from finger to finger. He could hear her whisper. “I knew it… I fucking knew it… that perverted bastard who created me had no idea how quickly I’d catch it!”

She smiled at him and started to roll her hips in a grinding motion. She ran her hands up and down her body. “I KNEW IT! I CAN ALREADY FEEL IT!”

Crash felt a change in the environment. Wind started to pick up blowing plant leaves back and forth. He looked up in the sky and the clouds started swirling in a circle right above their heads. White caps on the gentle waves of the bay started to grow higher and higher. The winds started picking up real force like the start of a hurricane. Lightning started striking over and over on the beach! The wind began to howl so loud that Crash put his hands over his ears! He yelled out, “WHAT IS HAPPENING!”

Destiny looked down at him on his knees. Her blue green eyes became darker and started to spin clockwise. Stars seemed to form inside of them and Crash thought it looked like staring up at the universe. She smiled and nodded at him.

Destiny walked down the stairs and out to the beach. As she moved a deep blue gown with galaxies swirling all over it formed on her body. She held both of her hands up to the sky and screamed “Show me all! You HAVE to show me all now! A strike of lightning burst from the clouds and hit her outstretched hand. “I said ALL!” A second strike erupted and hit her other hand. She stood there absorbing the lightning. Her hair flowed behind her and waved back and forth like a nest of snakes.

Crash stayed there on his knees transfixed. A hurricane was raging outside of a bubble pocket all around them. He could barely see her face from the brightness of the lightning, but he could see a vivid shadowed outline of perfection. He realized what he was witnessing.

The birth of a Goddess…

The bolt of lightning flew from her hand straight into Crash’s head and everything went black.