Taffy

Trillions upon quadrillions upon quintillions, upon a near endless amount of horrendous creatures filled an entire universe to the brim, a pandemonium of teeth, claws, tentacles, wings, talons, hands, and eyes, all of a variety of sizes, from cosmically big, to microscopically small. And they were all fighting each other. Lasers, slashes, kicks, punches, bites, and all kinds of magic piercing, vaporizing, freezing, burning, smashing, and every kind of attack imaginable illuminated that dark reality all around.

It was perfect!

“GAHAHAHA!”, I laughed, punching a hole through the stomach of a kilometers-long monster, and creating a black hole inside of the creature. I didn’t even had the time to see the creature being crushed from the insides into a dark sphere the size of my little fingertip, and had to teleport away from a supernova-like blast from another monster, which destroyed everything on its way to the atom: “IT IS SO FUN!”, The flashy attacks illuminated that dark universe all around; innumerable flashing lights blinking in all kinds of color, visible and invisible; and the remaining guts, and torn out limbs, and disfigured corpses crested entire multicolored constellations. “SO SO SOOOO FUN!”

I knew things would eventually calm down, after all, a “near endless amount of horrendous creatures” is not truly endless. Seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, decades, centuries, millennia, and eons pass, and… Things slow down. But still:

“Welp. At least we’re still going”, I commented, looking around with arms crossed.

A single super 'true-God had created a hegemony, it became so strong; its enormous-sized body, of what would be a super-galaxy-cluster in other universes, compressed to the size of a single star in its sleeping state; the other creatures found no meaning in defying it, with 100% chance of defeat, and now they only competed for the second place, as a few millions of billions asteroid or moon-sized orbiting the only one star of that entire reality.

“Meh, if things get too boring, we can just fuse together again, and re-start it all”, my equal, my exact copy, which held 50% of my power, pointed beside me.

“True”, I agreed, shrugging. And both of us jumped right back into the carnage.

“Now, what is this?”, I observed the bizarre creature before me; it was a few tens of meters long, and had wings, eyes, and teeth everywhere, but this wasn’t the strange part, if anything, it was the usual part. What confused me was what read over its head: “’[Proto-God]’?”, I tilted my head, analyzing the strange newest creature in that reality, while it breathed fire over me. “…It’s so weak. It’s so boring”, simply frowning at the creature, I made it explode in a shower of gore.

It seemed that those who were leading the competition to get to the 2nd place, then their galaxy-sized bodies compressed into the shapes of planets, understood that the even the most lesser dent to their power would tip the scales in favor of their opponents, and so they started to create their own servants to fight in their places, and weaken their enemies.

“HAHAHA! They still have waaaays to go before creating anything worth it”, I laughed at their attempt to copy me. “Well, at least there still are a few millions of 'true-Gods' out there”, I shrugged, and jumped back into the brawl, punching my way through living planets, and meteors.

“Ooooh! I see!”, I clapped my hands, observing the unique creatures that the last few remaining astral bodies created to fight in their place. “They’re not just copying me in the way of creating life… But also my shape, now!”, the three beings I was observing stared at my with weary, all humanoid:

[Name: Blade, Swordmaster

Race: God

Level: 235.135]

[Name: Kul Dragonthrone

Race: God

Level: 187.531]

[Name: Tezmont Of The Smoke

Race: God

Level: 109.001]

“…I see, so our mom here was trying to re-create you as her servant, hu?”, the one with the body almost completely covered with (what I knew in other universes would be called) tattoos spoke, smiling.

“Hoooo? You already learned how to speak? Just from these few words I spoke?”

“He. Just some kind of bullshit [Skill] that I have. Don’t you think these things are a bit broken?”

Shrugging, I replied:

“They’re supposed to be fun, to make you happy whenever you get an overpowered ability…” Smiling, I added: “So you will keep fighting to get more, to fight more”, with that, since every enemy had been exterminated (and I kinda wanted those new [Gods] to grow so that I could fight them later), I jumped to another point on the surface of that living-planet; there were very few plants remaining, and so the small fries had teamed up, and were ganging up on them. These guys were weak, but there was fun in exterminating huge armies by myself too.

The drops of rain evaporated quickly upon contact with the burned crater I punched. No signal of the army of meteor-shaped [True-Gods] I exterminated was shown around.

“…Weak”, I spat the words, full of despise, looking down on the man. Too weak to even be fun to kill.

The surface of the planets had changed drastically, as they went to sleep, the universal war died down; the creatures the living-planets had created matured, and were mostly able to defend their progenitors masterfully. And, in some kind of inception, the creatures, the [Gods], created their own servants. Mortals.

[Name: Number 13.616.153

Species: Human

Level: 31

Class: Something-Or-Another-Thing-That-Uses-Toothpicks-I don’t-Know-I-Don’t-Care]

“You…!”, The man on his knees, standing on the edge of the crater, stared wide-eyed, one of his pupils blue; another green; at me. And I swore, if he did something as pathetic as to ask for my help to deal with his problems, I’d exterminate his entire species; they should be grateful for simply having me allowing them weaklings to continue to live! “…Are beautiful!”

“…Eh?”

“Please, marry me!”, the man screamed again, resting one hand over his heart, and extending another in my direction.

“EH?!”

“Twain”, I called the human, staring at the soup he handed out to me. He’d brought me to his shelter, a cave where a few hundred mortals lived… or simply survived, for the world outside must have been hell for them, since they were so weak, and even though the war from the beginning of the times had greatly calmed down, there were still many [True-Gods] causing chaos around.

“Twain?”, he repeated, confused.

“Yes, you. Your official name is too long, so ‘Twain’, which is easier, shall be good enough for you.”

“A… name? Like the ones the [Gods] have?!”, the man thought about that, wide eyes, for a minute. But finally looked at me with a stupid smile on his face. “Waah~ That’s really cool, and it makes me feel like you think of me as someone special, deserving of a name…”, he looked embarrassed.

“T- That was not my intention, like I said, it’s just easier this way, and I’d never fall for such a weak-!”

“You’re so cute when you’re embarrassed”, the fool that was Twain smiled again, placidly looking right into my eyes, even thou he was born weak in a universe of endless war.

Feeling my cheeks burn, I avoided his gaze, and tried to get back to the main topic:

“Anyway, where are the [Gods]? They should be the ones protecting this planet, no?”

“Uh? What are you talking about?”, Twain tilted his head, confuse. “The only responsibility the [Gods] say they have, is to provide us with bread and water, so we can keep our duty of fighting off the invaders, [True-Gods], and the monsters that their [Dungeons] are creating”, joining the palm of his hands together, and closing his eyes, he concluded: “We should already be grateful for the gift of life and a livable world. The [Gods] have given us many things already, in the form of rivers, and rain, food and fire, and everything else.”

“…I see”, glancing around the cave, I could only see wounded and tired warriors of a variety of species, each serving a different [God]. Each was no older than 20 years. “This explains why you were so eager to marry”, I tried to joke about the young man who shouldn’t be older than 18, but I was surprised with myself when I had to force my own laugh, and it came out so obviously fake.

“It’s true that, due to our mortal obligations, our life expectancy is short…”, he replied, savoring his own poor soup while I tightened my fists and frowned. I didn’t know what I was expecting to hear… But he quickly added: “But never before I felt so interested in a girl. You’re the first one to who I have confessed my love… Uh… Taffy! You’re beautiful, and strong, and caring enough to give me a name. I love you”, he told me, so honestly, so brightly, even while everything else was darkness and bloodshed.

And I, who didn’t have a name myself- no, Taffy, held onto the clothes covering my heart, feeling it starting to beat faster, faster than when I used to throw myself into the mouths of star-system-sized monsters, and battle armies of trillions.

Maybe those remaining 'true-Gods' could wait a little longer.

“PHUUUUSH!”, the impact of our fists touching together separated the ocean beneath, and the skies above in two, and while the clouds were pushed away for thousands of kilometers, the sands once wet under the tides, melted into glass.

“LETS.FUSE.TOGETHER.RIGHT.NOW!”, I shouted between gritted teeth.

“No!”, my annoyingly rebel other half replied. And I immediately attacked her with a volley of hyper-sonic punches, each one charged with enough power to cover the atmosphere with dust, and send that pathetic little planet into a dark age of glaciers. But the remaining 50% of my power blocked and nullified each attack with a punch of her own and with equal strength, changing the direction of the impacts upwards. “You think you’re the only one who found a loved one?! Now I have a family too!”

“DO YOU THINK I FUCKING CARE?!”, my words, so filled with rage they were, the far-away oceans were literally poisoned, and became salty. “I’M GONNA KILL THAT BITCH YOU CALL WIFE, IF THIS MEANS THAT YOU WILL FINALLY FUCKING DO WHAT I’M SAYING!”

“Enough!”, replied my clone, suddenly kicking me with a light-speed leg, and sending me into space. As I began to burn plasma, and become brighter than the only sun of that universe, ready to throw myself into that planet again, and exterminate every living thing walking over it, my clone was already there, arms crossed. “You know you can’t defeat me. We are equals. We can spend all eternity fighting here, and nothing would change”, sighing, and sounding almost sympathizing, almost sad, she added: “Twain is dead, Taffy… His soul has already been recycled. All you can do now, is hope that he will be happy in his next life.”

The fire that consumed me started to die out, and I abandoned my fighting stance. But my intentions didn’t change:

“…No”, I said, and the remaining half of my power frowned. “This only means I’m gonna have to fight my way to meet him again. Against you… and everyone else.”

“Hphm!”, my clone gave me her back, and shaking her head in disappointment, slowly floated her way back to her lair. “The universe is not the same anymore, Taffy. People have found more stuff to do other than fighting…”

“I knew about this very well.”

If at least I haven’t exterminated those 'true-Gods' after they killed my husband… No, there was no way I would allow myself to not beat them to pulp. I just had to find another initial opponent, the first domino piece that would start the death spiral of that entire plane of existence… and many others. So I extended the palm of a hand towards the planet, and said:

“Wake up”, and millions of dots shinned back to life, all around the sphere, the dormant old monster. Dungeons suddenly gained consciousness. Laughing, I added “Hu… I think in other realities, the organization I’m about to create would be called ‘Adventurer’s Guild’, right?”, copying my clone, and slowly drifting back to the land, I concluded: “No, I am not the one that has created this guild. Twain was. My husband was”, I wanted the world to know his name.

Then, as I reached the doors that lead to Tezmont’s lab, I sighed:

“Oh, my…”, smiling, I added: “That was the original plan, but since I met those twins… I’m not so sure about total universal annihilation anymore.”

Then I opened the doors. And saw the coffin opened, and what Tezmont had done to the corpse of my husband inside.