"Another God? That's an option?" Jack stared at Bob, his mind humming with new possibilities.

"Not a good one. But, yes. It would be possible to have a different God take charge of the souls of all these people and begin reincarnating them."

Jack's black cloak fluttered around him as his mind raced. The possibility of removing Deis from the picture entirely appealed to him greatly. Though, he needed more information, knowing his luck, he would put someone worse in charge by accident.

"Who did you have in mind? Would it be you?"

Bob didn't answer for several seconds. The ducol seemed to reach some kind of conclusion before releasing a sigh. The noise was loud, and the accompanying wind blasted out of him in all directions, buffeting Jack for a moment. "No, that part of my life is over. I got my chance to play God."

Jack wanted to ask more about that, but Bob continued before he could. "Unfortunately we can't have you take charge. That would be the ideal solution, but the power is too divided now. There's not enough left for you to ascend to the heights you would need."

This time, Jack did interrupt. "Wait, what? Explain that."

"Deis and I...though I suppose he would have been Harold at the time." Bob's voice trailed off sadly for a moment before returning with renewed strength, "We were originally from Earth. We were best friends, practically brothers. We...found something. A body, the body of a God. It was dead...or dying, I'm not really sure. Something came over us, a powerful compulsion that drove us forward. We consumed the body of the God and became two halves of the God."

Jack stared at Bob, his eyes feeling like they were going to pop out of his head. He had suspected that Dies was from Earth, but this was insane. A dead God from Earth?

Bob was lost in his story and apparently didn't notice Jack's confusion. "We were confronted, called before the other Gods that rule the Earth, and ordered to submit. We fled instead. I still don't know why we did it. Part of me thinks that the power itself wanted to be free. Another part of me knew that we would die if we stayed. We were so new to it, and we couldn't control our impulses. The power took hold of us, it made us flee the planet. We flung ourselves into the cosmos, desperately trying to escape the ones who ruled the Earth." Bob's body stilled, the clouds making up his form stopped their shifting and churning, becoming almost peaceful.

"They didn't pursue us. No one chased us out into space, but we kept running all the same. By the time we stopped, Earth was impossibly far away. For a long time, we didn't do anything, we were too scared and raw to do anything. But the power urged us to act, and so we acted. We made a world, a secret, hidden world. Drowl, the inverse planet. It made it possible to hide as we formed our own domain, the sun in the middle. We felt safe there, protected from the rest of the universe."

Jack didn't dare interrupt Bob. This was more information than he had been expecting to get, even if it didn't address his original question. The way Bob talked about all this made it seem like he and Deis...Harold, had been equals at one point. Bob had hinted that something had gone wrong...

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

"However, we were not enough company for each other. Two people are not enough to remain sane, so we created more. I created bodies, and Harold stole the souls. They were all from Earth. I don't know why he alone remained so connected to Earth, but he could interfere with the reincarnation process and whisk people away. The other Gods eventually noticed and stopped us, but we had hundreds of thousands of souls by then. We made people, so many glorious people." He swung one of his arms out as if to show off the people around him, only to be reminded that they were all cocooned in blue screens.

"I wanted us to hold back at that point, allow the people to flourish naturally. Harold became more obsessed with them, wanting to engage with them directly and guide them to his own ideas. We fought about it, but I didn't realize how strongly he felt about the matter until it was too late. He attacked me, surprising me and ripping power away from me. Like with the Gods from Earth, I felt compelled to flee from the now greater power before me. But Deis did not let me go, he kept tearing my power away until it was nearly all gone. I was close to human then, barely a God at all. He destroyed my body, and all that was left of me was the small amount of power I retained."

He lifted his hands up, and Jack could see that they weren't incredibly detailed. It was as if this was as close to human as Bob could be. Jack heard the despair in his voice as he spoke, but it was laced with something else; Finality. Bob was stuck this way. He would never be human again.

"Deis was almost as powerful as the Gods of Earth by now, and he used this power to shape Drowl in his image. The people forgot about me, and the High Deity reigned as the one and only God of the world. When you put him to sleep, you somehow absorbed some of his power. Not a lot, but enough to strengthen you. You're a God, but not a powerful one."

When Jack had entered the space where Deis' body had been, he had changed. He had gained a cloak and the power to manipulate the butterflies. The butterflies were made of screens, and the screens were made of divine power. Did being in that realm allow people to absorb Deis' power? Could other people become minor Gods like Jack? He didn't know, and he likely wouldn't try it either. He might allow Plexion to test it, but having too many minor Gods running around could be an issue.

Jack spoke for the first time in a while, "So, you're saying I can't do it. Deis still has most of the Godly power, right? So we need to ask the Gods of Earth to help us?"

"I believe that is the only solution short of waking Deis." Bob returned to calling the High Deity by his fake name, and it seemed intentional to Jack. It was like a separation of the tyrant that he was, and the close friend that he had been a long time ago.

"Will they help us? From your story, it seemed like they might try to enslave us."

"I do not know. It's possible that they will try, and there would be very little we could do about it. But it may be better than waking Deis from his slumber."

It was a harsh reality, but not really any choice at all. Deis would destroy him, and likely many others who now knew the truth. No one here could speak, but they could all hear what Bob had said. The truth would get out, and Deis wouldn't be happy. They had to pursue the Gods of Earth as an option. "Let's do it. How do we contact them?"

Bob spoke in a monotone, his voice even and level as he only said a single sentence. "I have no idea."

"You...don't know?"

"No. Deis could reach out to Earth in some way, but I never possessed that ability."

Jack put a hand to his forehead. He couldn't press his fingers into his temples because of his metal skin, but the action was automatic to him. His arm spasmed slightly, reminding him of his injury. It was easy for him to forget the damage to his body as he didn't feel any pain form it.

"So how are we supposed to get another God to take care of it? We don't have any way of contacting them, do we?"

"I had something more...rudimentary in mind. We would send a messenger."

Jack had a sinking feeling, there were only so many people who could likely act as a messenger. "...are you talking about me?"

"Yes. I'm going to fling you out into space. You're going to go back to Earth and beg for the Gods to fix the mess you've made."