“First off, no you won’t.” Cassy laid down on the groove-ridden floor while she corrected her. “Your creators will always be at the top position. No one can ever take that from them. I’m just a temporary administrator filling in for them, nothing more.

“I can’t take their position from them. There will still be items locked away from my control. And second, we don’t know that they abandoned you. We don’t even know which of the gods created you and the rest of the solar system.”

“What are you talking about? It was-“ Gaia bit her tongue, a look of confusion passing over her face.

“Exactly. For whatever reason, they didn’t want us to know who they were. It’s odd, the surface of your world shows signs of being remade multiple times before you first awoke as a spirit. That’s not typical behavior for one of us. We’ll simply wipe the planet from existence and start over.”

“That does explain some of the oddities I have found in the depths of my surface.” Gaia grinned and brought up an image of a watery city with a special dungeon in the middle. “Like the existence of Atlantis. That place definitely doesn’t fit with what the humans believed their history to be.” She laughed. “Then again, none of this does.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t. Regardless, the point I was trying to make is that I’m not trying to become your new mother or even a stepmother. The most I can become is… an aunt?” She shrugged. “Who knows? The analogy kind of got away from me, but you get the idea.”

Gaia nodded. “I do, and thank you. Now let’s do this before Dantanian,” She smiled. “Or rather, Bob manages to finish his ceremony first.”

“Remind me to thank Charles for calling him that later. It is absolutely perfect.”

“I didn’t originally care, but I have been coming around to it, I admit.” Gaia pushed off the wall, her eyes suddenly determined. “Shall we do this?”

“I’m ready if you are. Just tell me what to do.”

“I just have to open myself up while we are in here, and then you slot a portion of your power in beside my creator’s. This is the normal method. What Dantanian is doing is akin to brute forcing the connection through a hidden backdoor.”

Cassy shook her with a slight smile. “In the end, it all comes down to touching your core. I should have known.”

“Touching my core, while I am willing and inside this sacred space. Otherwise, nothing would have happened.” Gaia corrected her. “But yes, you probably should have known. So much of what we do revolves around our cores.”

“It’s been a while; I can honestly say that up until a few days ago, I hadn’t thought about any of that for years.” Not that it mattered as an immortal being. To her, a few years could be seen as nothing more significant than the blinking of an eye. It was only because of Steve and the birth of her children that these particular years had any meaning at all for her.

“Were you trying to put it behind you?” Gaia wondered, approaching her so they could begin.

“No, not entirely. I can’t. It’s a part of who I am. Just like it’s a part of who Charles and Charlotte are now. I just wanted some time to be with my family before real life inevitably showed up. You have to know just how differently humans go about living their lives from High Gods. It was relaxing in a way, and it showed me a different way to care for my kids.”

“Well, in that vein of thought, let’s get this underway so you can better take care of your kids. They are going to need all the protection they can get from Dantanian and whoever he suckered into helping him.”

“Yeah, let’s do this already. There’s no sense in putting it off any longer.” Cassy agreed with a sigh.

Despite the urgency of the situation, they had both been unconsciously putting off this last step. This was a big commitment.

Gaia didn’t want to be abandoned again.

While Cassy didn’t have it in her to leave a place after she was tied to it so thoroughly. She needed to make sure that she was fine staying as the overseer of Earth and potentially the rest of the solar system. For a few years, sure, it was fine. But what happened after her kids and their families were all grown up?

They would leave the Earth, and her and Steve, while she would still be stuck here.

That wasn’t what she wanted.

Suddenly, Cassy thought she had an inkling of understanding behind why some of her people abandoned their worlds. It might not have been them simply losing interest or boredom, as she had thought. Instead, it might be because they couldn’t handle the constant change.

She shook her head. No, that was silly. She doubted any of them paid enough attention to the beings on their planets to notice any changes.

“I’ll try to stick around for as long as I can. Just know that my family comes above all else. If they want to leave, then I will go with them. That said, I will at least leave a way for you to contact me.” Cassy warned her, along with a few other items before they went any further.

Gaia relaxed at the warning. “I’m glad you warned me, as that was something worrying me. Having that last bit out in the open, I think just helped me to make up my mind regarding this. As long as you don’t abandon me fully, then I’m fine with you leaving to be with your kids and family.”

“I wouldn’t do that.” The High Goddess assured her.

Gaia reached out and took hold of her hand. “Good, then just follow my lead. I’ll tell you what to do.”

The ceremony only took a minute, with all the runes in the space lighting up as they began. A new set of runes had found themselves interspersed within the room and throughout Gaia’s core when they were finished.

Separating, Cassandra felt the weight of responsibility settle over her, even as a part of her sealed powers lifted. Feeling the connection to her powers involuntary renew. She inhaled sharply and had to force herself to stop from overreacting.

Her natural response was to shut down her powers; sealing them again so she wouldn’t be ejected from the dimension. She didn’t need to worry about that now. A tether had formed between her and Gaia that held her in place. As long as that existed, she wasn’t going anywhere.

As a bonus, the strength of the tether due to Gaia’s status as a Grand World Spirit would allow her to use more power than they originally thought. Of course, the same would also be true for Dantanian as soon as he finished forcing his own connection to her. At least it would be a weaker form of it. He was second to her, and there were downsides to forcing anything after all.

It would be a naturally weaker connection regardless.

Gaia reveled in the gift her new Goddess had given her. The spatial element had been shared with her as promised. The process to use it was a little different from her natural elements, but that wasn’t a problem.

She could start creating portals everywhere and fix some of the problems with the inventory system that the gods had left behind.

“How long do you need to finish updating the system and bringing it back online?” Cassy asked, closing her eyes, and homing in on where her children were.

“That depends. Are you going to be actively helping me or just supplying the power?” She knew how desperately the mother wanted to keep her kids safe.

“Um, maybe fifty-fifty. They look like they can handle what’s going on for now. If something serious shows up, I’ll go help them, otherwise, I’ll stay with you.” Cassy saw Alli arrive with the girls and Balor, just as Kira was preparing to help Charles and Charlotte as well.

“I wouldn’t worry about it then,” Gaia responded with a smile. “With your help, I should have the system back up and running in an hour. There will be more changes and updates I’ll want to do later, but I won’t need to take it down again like this time. I’ll finish up the last of the changes I was in the middle of and then we can power it back up.”

The Goddess nodded and held out her hand. “Very well then. Shall we return to the tower? You aren’t the only one who has something to do. I need to figure out how to give my kids access to a little more of their power.” A feral grin had found its way across her face as she thought about what was going to happen.

“Oh, that’s easy. I’m sure you saw that thread that connects us now?” Gaia took hold of her hand and together they ascended back through the mantle of the planet. “You just extend similar threads from yourself to your children. That’s all there is to it.”

“Ah,” Cassy understood. Without a specific ceremony of her own, the threads could only be connected to family members. Which meant if she wanted, she could also include her parents.