“…and you already know the rest,” I finished with a flourish.

“This is making a lot more sense now,” Lucy responded. “Even if it did take you forever.”

“I told you it was a long story,” I said.

Soft wind rustled the leaves hanging some distance above my head. I was coming to learn Yggdrasil had its own subtle weather patterns, even if they were on the opposite end to extreme.

We only had a small group here, mainly because billions of people had died and it was easier to resurrect them in stages later once we had somewhere to put them. Of the few mortals we’d brought with us, one had already fallen off the edge of a branch and smashed their skull open several more down, which is how I’d found out Yggdrasil liked blood sacrifice. Should have guessed after Odin, really.

Without Earth to sustain it, the world tree was small. We’d smashed the failsafe edict this time around, so it was mainly holding up from Tez and his reflections feeding it a continual stream of creation energy. It turned out a thousand or so were enough to keep an anchorless reality from crashing into oblivion.

Eventually more would be sent out to create new universes, once we figured out a way to sever the Tezes less destructively from their mirrors. Janus and Lofn were working on it as I’d been speaking.

Then there was the matter of retrieving the old ones. The remnants of Providence’s afterlife edict had been destroyed in the purge with the others, but doing so hadn’t undone its initial devastation. Getting the old multiverse back would be difficult, especially given majority consensus of another global rewind being off the table. I’d spoken to Enki about it, and the god of magic cautiously deemed restoration possible via localised reversal on just the edict – but that would take time. It was one for after we dealt with the souls currently existing.

Next to me, Lucy leaned back against our vertical chunk of branch. “I owe you a few tales of my own. Although they won’t live up to this one.” He flexed the bare toes that still poked out from under the hems of a work suit. Having been through what we had, anyone else’s would have been covered in several layers of grime. Not Lucy’s. Idly, I flicked a piece of crumbling bark at his shirt to see whether he was cheating.

It fell short and missed.

Whatever he planned to say next was interrupted by Mayari. The celestial goddess materialised into existence in front of us in a whirl of white-blonde hair. “Next batch of twenty is ready,” she reported. “No issues there either, but I don’t know how much longer I can prevent them coming to find you.”

I’d gotten a head start on decontaminations this time. After Apollo, who’d been priority number one, I’d captured Lucy’s contractor listings and legged it to the firm until it gave up Gia’s contact. Even then, I’d had to visit the moon and reinfect her with Helpdesk before the transformation would take, while simultaneously trying to explain why both unpleasant actions were necessary. From there, it had been a whirlwind tour of priority disinfection while Apollo threw obstacles in front of the C-suite.

It could have gone very badly, but Apollo had managed to recruit Themis faster than I ever would have expected, and the pair of them worked together on Vishnu. That, more than anything, had saved us.

Now, the Preserver was quarantining groups of twenty to acclimatise to the news properly, with Mayari and Themis overseeing against trouble.

“Anything useful?” Lucy asked.

She made a so-so motion. “We’ve had some disagreements on prioritisation. Themis is preparing for expeditions. She wants a mixture of skills on each team. I’m more concerned about immediacy. We need stockpiles, shelter and counselling.” She fixed Lucy with a meaningful stare. “Unless you’re busy.”

The extreme trauma we’d be facing would take somewhat more than standard therapy, or even gods of healing. And Mayari was right; it couldn’t wait. Just because we’d survived the immediate dangers didn’t mean one rampant break couldn’t ruin our fragile balance. Lucy wielded the antidote, and each case would need individual attention. First the gods, then the afterlives, and finally the wider multiverse, once we got it back.

It was going to take a long time.

“Well, that’s it, then, I suppose.” I rose to my feet, sending the tassels at my ears swinging. Reaching above my head, I snapped off a branch heavy with Yggdrasil’s golden apples and absorbed it for safekeeping. The fruits were everywhere now. As Earth had died, so had its flora in the local ecosystem. Only what I assumed was Yggdrasil’s original form was still left. Naturally it was an apple tree.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“Not so fast,” Mayari said. “We need you, too.”

“To do what?” Holding out a hand, I summoned my halo into it and hooked it through a loop in my sash. In honour of making it to Yggdrasil, I’d abandoned Earthly garments and changed into otherworldly skirts of sky-blue and brown. “I’ve earned a break. The only reason I’m still here is because there’s literally nowhere else to go.”

“To advise. We have people to rehabilitate, gods to make and worlds to build, and you’re the one with the bigger picture. You won’t be doing it alone.”

“Ha,” I said.

Mass indoctrination wasn’t undone in a day, even accounting for stasis. Not everyone was going to be on board with the truth even after it was explained, and shining the light on Baldr didn’t automatically grant me a free pass. I’d crashed an institution, imprisoned a lot of people, and killed an order of magnitude more. And that was before you got to the time travel.

The second run hadn’t been without its share of open conflict, though from a different source.

Odin, infuriated at foretelling his takeover thwarted, had moved early on Providence, locking down control of the office and incapacitating everyone left within.

By then, thankfully, we’d already used Janus’ fourth face to isolate Baldr in Lucy’s hip flask, but Providence was a fortress and machine. Even Siphon’s containment had no power against it. Odin had set it against divinity like a siege weapon, a sovereign tower that hunted its foes. None of us could break in, though we’d all tried. I remade my halo in the chaos, and that failed too.

Until there was only one obvious option left. We had him in custody now with Durga to keep an eye on him. At this stage, it was more for his own protection.

I didn’t like having Yahweh here, but it made a powerful statement. Besides, eventually we would dismantle the afterlives, and some poor sap would have to deal with the narcissists and sociopaths. Erasing or shutting them away committed us to making the same kinds of mistakes, and doing nothing was just as bad.

What mattered wasn’t taking away their power. It had to be about giving everyone else more. Only then would the playing field ever be level.

Of course, that didn’t mean I had to be here for it. Restless, my fingers tapped on the circlet at my hip. The moment I could, I planned on heading far away, only checking back every so often to make certain no one messed up utopia. Hel and a few other gods were already making a start on a better afterlife. It would take a while to pull everyone out of it; perhaps I could start there.

“Say what you will, but word has spread,” Mayari commented. “We had to assign a whole team to keep people away. No one has a working clock here, but it has to have been days. Three of the demon lords have been stretched thin.”

“Three?” I enquired.

“Greed wanted to meet Yahweh.”

I’d taken a softer approach with my one-time housemate this time, with the downside of a less brutal awakening. It was obvious some part of Tru still wanted to believe in a perfect Almighty, despite all evidence to the contrary. “And how did that go?” I asked.

“He was disappointed.”

“He won’t be the last,” acknowledged Lucy. He put a hand to the branch and finally stood up. “We’ll have to sever their connection to us,” he said to me. “Until then, they won’t graduate from being demons.”

“Some of them could use more work,” I noted. “Stop trying to convince me to stay.”

“You’re really that keen on going? We just got here.”

“We have eternity,” I insisted. “Plenty of time to fraternise later. Right now, I’d rather the fingers were pointed from a distance.”

“I don’t think you realise –” Mayari began, only to be interrupted by Apollo materialising in between us. He’d found some less battered clothes since I’d last seen him. Supplies being the way they were, they weren’t up to his usual standards. Casual dress was a good look for him.

“I am sick,” he said, glaring at me, “of people pestering me. We’re doing this now before someone drives me to snap and destroy what’s left of reality.” Not waiting for permission, he reached for my wrist and pulled me away.

I recognised the branch we’d come in by, characterised by the conspicuous stainless steel door frame embedded in the timber. Before the end of the world, it had led to Xiānfēng’s headquarters in China, where we’d conducted many of our operations. Now, of course, it was one of the few remaining artifacts from a universe that no longer existed.

In the time I’d been talking to Lucy, infrastructure and activity had exploded. Platforms adorned the nearby branches, with a variety of bridges spanning the distances between. I recognised Lakshmi’s influence from the pools of lotuses growing where they shouldn’t be, and Eris’s from the jury-rigged staplers set up like landmines. Inari had set up another rice stall exactly like the one in my temple and was chatting with one of Tez’s reflections on a break. Under a shaded part of the tree, Yun-Qi was sitting in deep discussion with a few members of Xiānfēng, while dozens more new immortals helped each other set up temporary accommodation.

A few uncertain eyes turned my way. I hadn’t spent long enough in my current form for people to be familiar with it, but it wasn’t hard to figure out by process of elimination. Any remaining uncertainty was promptly dispelled by Apollo’s piercing whistle and raised voice between cupped hands.

“It’s Loki,” I heard from a number of voices, and plastered an expectant expression on my features while preparing retaliations. Interest spread through the throng in a wave.

Out of nowhere, I found myself surrounded by people with lifted brows and smiling faces. Gods clapped me on the shoulders, high-fived me and shook my hand.

For once, I found myself rendered relatively speechless, and stood there barely registering the churning swarm of faces. Through the crowd, I saw Mayari and Lucy catch up in the distance, and stepped towards them only to immediately be distracted in another direction.

I had time to talk to them later. Maybe I’d stick around for a while, after all.

Because it wasn’t everyone. Not by a long shot.

But most of the crowd… cheered.