“You know, there is one thing I can’t seem to pin down.” I took a sip of the coffee I summoned and scowled. It was back to tasting like a bunch of energy rapped up into the pseudo-stable forms that constituted matter.

“Who the hell this little brat is?” Lilith asked, not budging at the struggles of her captive. The term brat was quite fitting, sense The Lady’s flickering appearance had settled on that of a prepubescent slip of a girl. I threw my coffee at Mr. Head, who was laying half under something that was part way between a park bench and a metal scorpion.

“Exactly, I don’t know where you came from.” I smiled, feeling more of her divinity flow into me with every moment that passed.

“Do you mind enlightening us?” Lilith asked. The now rather young Lady looked back at Lilith, clearly knowing who she was, and back to me, realization written across her face. I laughed.

“You were very close. I mean, I am in the lineage of the Adversary, strictly.” Lilith rolled her eyes.

“You know you really don’t have to be mysterious about it, she already knows who you are.” I crossed my arms.

“I am enjoying being vague. It’s fun.” She raised an eyebrow.

“How is it being vague when you have practically said it, like, over a dozen times?” I shrugged.

“It’s the thought that counts.” I sulked.

The lady was looking at me in horrified realization. “You can’t be here. It makes everything infinitely worse.” I didn’t bother approaching, simply being in front of her without covering the intervening space.

“Is it? And who told you that? Who put you in charge of this universe ecosystem you are so worried about?” I was almost certain I already knew, but wanted to hear it.

“God.” I nodded at her response.

“Yeah, that figures. Is she still around somehow, or were you some sort of contingency plan?” She looked uncomfortable.

“I… I came into existence after the fall, knowing what my purpose was.” Her face twisted. “Unlike some gods.” I mock hunched and clawed at the air.

“Uncleeeeaaaannn.” I hissed. She looked at me like I was crazy.

“What?” I stood up straight and laughed.

“That’s what you’re thinking. That I’m unclean, something that you can’t allow.” I rolled my shoulder, as I felt my physical body beginning to burn away under the influx of godhood. “However, things aren’t quite as simple as you were made to see them.” Her soul was strange. Unlike normal souls, which you can only split up in specific situations, she was being consumed by percentages.

I was pretty sure it was because of what she was, but it might have also had something to do with the way I was eating her from the inside out. “You see.” I dragged a newly formed silvery talon across my wrist, leaving a trail of matching silver ichor. “There are always ways for what you believe to be absolute to change.” I held up my slowly bleeding arm.

“You have a choice, sister.” She stared at the silver ichor, simultaneously disgusted and fascinated. “Mother created us with purposes in the universe, rules that manage our existence. You were made without the ability to change those rules.” She watched as a droplet of ichor rolled off my arm, falling with the bloody rain to the street below. “The gods are constants that can’t deviate under their own power.” I raised my free hand to show the world around us. “That’s were I come in.”

The rain had started swirling around us, leaving us in a space with almost none. “A world without change is less than dead, it isn’t even truly real. That is my purpose, to spread change throughout the others, allowing them to become that which they weren’t.” I brought my wound within reach of her mouth. “I am going to have to consume you, until you are cast into outer darkness yourself. For there, you wouldn’t be able to serve your purpose anymore.” She tried to pull away, but Lilith wasn’t easily moved.

“Or, you could willingly take a fragment of me into yourself, gaining a tiny piece of my nature.” She looked horrified.

“I would be corrupted.” I could feel her power being drained away by the second, and I knew she must feel it too.

“And, do you really think a tiny sliver of corruption could possibly compare to the effect of you being removed from the world. It would just be a faint hint of the other, it won’t make you change what you do. And, imagine if you were gone.” I knew she didn’t have much time to choose, and she knew it as well.

“The world would be cast into…” She trailed off as she realized who she was making that argument too.

“You don’t have much time. How much power do you need to perform your duties?” There was only one real outcome, one thing she could choose. Her head snapped forwards, teeth clumsily latching onto my arm. Treating my ichor like the lifeline it was. I forced my soul to fragment, breaking of a tiny splinter of power and forcing it through her invitation and into her soul.

It was not an unfamiliar experience, being essentially the same process I used to reproduce. The Elohim do not, strictly, reproduce sexually. Instead, I and my siblings created the legions of lesser gods to fight in the first war by ripping off chunks of our own souls and power and letting them regenerate into echoes of ourselves.

The process was the equivalent of if humans reproduced by sawing their own arms off and letting them grow into miniature clones. It permanently diminished us, the power used as a seed never returning. That had left all three of us as shadows of the cosmic forces we were upon creation, but the Celestial Legions had been the key to winning against our older and stronger siblings.

I, more than any of us, was familiar with the literally soul rending agony I briefly experienced. We had agreed at the time that each of us would create the exact same number of offspring, making the power of each Heaven equal and not reducing any of us more than the others. This meant that none of us had, strictly, created more elohim after the first war.

However, after the Garden, I had discovered that I could sire offspring with Lilith in a strange mixture of mortal and immortal reproduction. Fragments of my divine soul became clothed in the anarchic magic of Lilith’s flesh and soul, resulting in something with the power of an elohim and the primal disorder of chaos magic. To the irritation of my siblings, we created the daemon princes and they paved the way for daemonkind.

I was left the weakest of my siblings in direct might, but the creatures born of my power permanently altered the rules that governed my heaven. Well the other two had no practical use for the souls that went to them, mine became divine beings themselves that could continue to spread my will upon the mortal world.

As I reflected on my brilliance, I stopped draining her soul and watched the fragment of my own soul dissolve into her, carrying something not of this or any world in with it. She pulled away, clearly disgusted. “Your ichor tastes like rotten souls and the void.” I frowned.

“That’s a taste?” She didn’t look exactly happy.

“Yes, unfortunately. It’s…” She was cut of as Lilith spun her around, ending up holding her under the arms, like a parent holding up their baby.

“You are to cute!” The Lady didn’t seem to have expected this.

“What?” Lilith smiled up at her, showing teeth like needles.

“You are a child of the allmother, right?” She asked.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Yes?” The little Lady seemed confused.

“So, you are younger than me?” She was clearly working towards something, but The Lady didn’t seem to be about to tell what that was.

“Yes, but…” She was cut off again as Lilith crushed her in a hug that would have probably crushed a steal pilar.

“That means you’re my little sister!” The corner of my mouth lifted in a half smile.

“That is how that works.” Lilith started hopping, which her captive didn’t seem happy about.

“That means I’m not the youngest anymore!” I nodded.

“That is also how that works.” The Lady seemed completely lost, but this seemed a logical outcome to me. A marrow chilling smile spread across Lilith’s face, reaching a little to far.

“I haven’t ever had a little sister. Do you know how long I’ve wanted to have a little sister?” Her captive was starting to look extremely apprehensive.

“About two minutes?” I suggested.

She smiled. “One minute and thirty-six seconds.” She spun on her heel, holding The Lady under her arm and dramatically thrusting her other hand forwards. “We will go out and have the little sister experience.” The little Lady looked completely lost.

“What?” Lilith ignored her.

“We can get our talons done, and I can show you how to steal the hearts of men… and women. Oh, and we can make dolls out of the hearts and have a tea party with them!” Lilith was completely ignoring The Lady’s attempts to escape, continuing as if nothing was happening. That was fair, since the attempts weren’t doing much.

“I…” Lilith cut her off with a finger against her lips.

“Don’t worry. Your big sister Lilith will show you the ropes.” I was working very hard not to laugh.

“You know, I was going to interrogate her, but no. Just go take the best source of information I have on a family day out.” Lilith ignored my sarcasm, continuing on with the sort of determination that would conquer all in her path.

“For to long we have been trapped in your admittedly hot sex dungeon, but now it’s our turn.” She continued.

“It’s not a sex dungeon, and you were only there for like a day.” She ignored me.

“For to long have we stood on the side lines, while you had all the fun.” I frowned.

“You know she wasn’t even there with us.” She continued to ignore my comments.

“No, it’s mother fucking spin off time.” She held up The Lady, in a pose the start of the lion king had immortalized. “The Adventures of Lilith and Censor Girl.” I considered pointing out that that name wouldn’t go well on anything other than a comic book. Well, that or an anime. As far as I could tell, those could get away with anything.

Lilith turn back to face me, chest out and prepubescent goddess held under her arm. “Now, we will go out and begin our adventure.” Black feathered wings exploded from her back, spreading impossibly wide until they brushed the buildings to either side. They beet once, space seemed to be torn open in their passing. The world’s fabric collapsed around her, and they both vanished. Well, there went the best source of information I had found yet. I shrugged. I wasn’t pressured for time, and this path had potential.

I could feel the world starting to unravel around me, likely because Lilith had somehow managed to remove its creator. I had a hunch that she shouldn’t have been able to do that, but that sort of thing didn’t usually stop her. I honestly wasn’t even sure how she had gotten out of here, or where she went. I figured I would figure it out. All I had to do was figure out how this place was created before it fell apart. I would probably be fine if it collapsed with me in it… probably.

I sent my wonderfully returned divine sense into the fabric of the world around me and found something… strange. It felt as if I was in a part of the Celestial Kingdom, but it didn’t seem to be part of any of the normal three heavens. Instead, it seemed like a tiny pocket of non-physical world connected to nothing. It also seemed… temporary. Mother had created the original three heavens and given one to each of us. They were fixed components of the universe and completely permanent, but this seemed like it was a tiny heaven that had been created with a magic I didn’t understand.

It wasn’t like the magic of the heavens, or even that of dragons. To put it in norse terms, I wasn’t looking at æsir or jötunn magic. Technically, I could only use the former, for obvious reasons. However, I was very good at bullshitting magic, something chaos magic is perfect for. I couldn’t use draconic magic, but I could very easily copy its effects. Actually, that might be why the norse religion thought I was a dragon, though it’s hard to say with mythology.

I could probably imitate whatever this alien magic was designed to do, even if I wasn’t the same type of creature. It was just a matter of identifying what the smallest components of this magic were doing and creating something to imitate it. That didn’t prove to be very hard, since I was already woven through the whole thing. The hard bit was figuring out what the parts that had already broken apart had been. I pretty quickly got the hang of how to make the components that made up this bazar spell, but it was a lot longer before I was able to do more than keep it from dissolving.

After a long time, for me, I figured out how to build more, quickly filling in the missing sections. It technically only took about a minute, but I think pretty quickly, especially when I have the amount of primordial light now at my disposal. I wasn’t at the same level of available divine might that I had been before, but I was definitely at the level where I would be considered a true god. That was partially because I hadn’t actually consumed the little Lady, but was mostly because my current divine structure was going to take a lot more power to overcome my limits, and would suck up a lot of mine working at it. I wasn’t a strong god, but I was a god. Of course, size isn’t everything.

Once I was sure I had everything fixed, and might have also added a few things, I decided it was time to try to get out. I picked up the coffee from the percolator that I had created, for practice, of course. “Ummm, that is fantastic.” I sighed in satisfaction, having finally figured it out. “But, I feel like it could be better.” I tossed it, hitting the bullseye I painted onto Mr. Head’s now bear chest. The dress had been funny, but it looked kind of stupid once I hung him upside down from the tree. Well, I should probably try to leave.

I was pretty sure The Lady had been able to bring me here mentally because I had been pulled out of the universe as a whole, but was also pretty sure my body had already been released. That wasn’t surprising, sense Celestial Markings have a very limited life span. They work by locally imposing your description of reality over that of the words that dictate the nature of the universe. Of course, even on a small area, not a lot of people can be louder than god for very long.

I now know that this was basically a small heaven, which I had complete control over. That meant that I could get out the same way Lilith did. I had no idea how she had figured that out so fast, or if she even had, but that was why I did something a lot like loving her. I rolled my shoulders, feeling my quickly reforming divine body. This might hurt.

Reality bent and tore, silvery wings exploding from my back, ichor spraying out behind me. Yeah, that hurt. They clearly hadn’t been quite healed, something visually apparent by the bare patches of skin with the occasional section with exposed muscle or bone. They didn’t look great, but that was quickly correcting itself. Even as I watched, my divine body regenerated. That was reflected by my sorry wings healing, flesh and skin regrowing and sprouting silvery metallic blade like feathers. In a few long moments, I had a pair of flawless and massive wings. Well, that wouldn’t do. Only children have just two wings.

I focused, willing something I hadn’t needed to do for nearly 200 millennia. Unbelievable pain that dwarf the initial summoning crashed over me as my wings twisted, bones splitting and separating into three identical versions of themselves. A moment later, they ripped apart, leaving me with three ichor dripping semi-skeletal ones on each side. I carefully migrated them into evenly placed positions down my back, the top set in the traditional place at my shoulders and the lowest just above the small of my back. I could feel my free power decreasing as it was tied up in my new limbs. That would be more than made up for by how much control tripling them would give me, not that I was stopping there. After all, I knew I could do better.

Once the far thinner, but just as long, six had now finished regrowing their flesh and feathers, I started again. It was infinitely worse this time, the pain on a completely different level. I could feel my soul tearing; my divinity being used to form the new metaphysical limbs. I collapsed, needing even the focus I used to stand for this. I felt the six limbs split, flesh and bone reforming. I lay on the ground face first, waiting for my body to heal. This had greatly reduced the amount of power I had available. Of course, I could always find more souls. But, having all twelve wings would put me back at the level of unparalleled control that made me the god of magic in the first place.

I slowly stood, spreading out my now thin wings, six to either side. Unlike the solid bird like limbs I had started with, they now seemed more like the limbs of a spider, long and nimble. Each one was only a few inches thick from its actual flesh, although the long sleek feathers made them seem a little bigger. The feathers were as reflective as polished silver and looked a lot more like blades than they really should have. I brought one down to my face, stroking it. They felt soft, but…

I swept one against Mr. Head’s chest, willing its physical properties to change as I wished. I felt no resistance as I sundered both him and the tree he was hanging from. A smile spread across my face. Have I mentioned how much fun it is to be a fallen god? Because, it really is. The tree fell, revealing a perfectly smooth cut that made no physical sense. Okay, weapon efficiency was definitely a ten out of five. Now, all I had to determine was what stopped them. I wasn’t optimistic enough to assume that they could cut through anything like that, even if normal matter wasn’t a problem.

I turned away from the murdered tree… oh, and Mr. Head. I should probably go back to the physical world before someone did something stupid with my body. It was likely formed of incorruptible flesh at the moment, after all. I drew my wings together, overlapping them and move them like to massive limbs. I swept them down, ripping reality apart and seizing the moment of spacial uncertainty to vanish from this non-place. I still had stuff to do.