"Everything has reverted now that you are not here."

The words escaped his cold lips laced with grief and pain. He knelt to examine her body. Her bright green eyes were closed, and he would miss that color most of all.

Adam looked up to see Gavin sputtering and saying things, but he ignored the other man to look at Wyatt. He made a gesture with his head, and Wyatt nodded.

"I'm ready," Wyatt said.

"I need one more moment," Adam said. He cupped Wendy's cheek.

The colors he'd grown accustomed to were leeching away from his sight. As before, Adam would be surrounded by a world of only black, grey, and white hues. He wanted to savor the sight of color because there was no telling when he would get it back. This familiar, never-ending, bleak landscape hurt, but this ending was necessary.

"What have you done!" Gavin finally screeched loud enough to penetrate the bubble Adam had mentally put around his head. "You lost the bet fair and square. She didn't trust her instincts and ran away. You must concede and let go of this absurd obsession!"

"This was the plan all along," Wyatt said with a savage grin. It was unlike the goofy one the man usually wore.

Adam looked away from Wendy to turn his attention to Gavin. "I have you to thank for being as predictable as ever." He said. "None of this would have worked otherwise."

Gavin's mouth started sputtering as he looked between the two of them. "Whatever it is you're planning, it won't work. You can't stop the spell from wiping everything back to how it was before."

"I've already done so," Adam said as he scooped Wendy's body into his arms. He stood up, cradling it gently as he stared blankly at Gavin. The proof was evident before Gavin, but the frog God refused to see it. The Unruly Forest, the Evans property, and Wendy should have disappeared. None of it had because, like before, he stopped it from happening. How could he allow her to escape his grasp? To do so was to create an unfathomable future he could never accept.

"You're not supposed to become this powerful. It's not possible!" Gavin shrieked at him.

"It was easy," Adam said. He'd lost count of how many times he'd reset time or the world to achieve his desired end. He reviewed every scenario and ran through all the different timelines until he managed to create the right one—this exact timeline.

The only route that could grant them a happy ending was one out of this world. Adam's calculations ended once both of them left, but he'd have more control and chances to make it right. There was too much pain in this world. He'd already messed up too many times. Wendy had caught a mere glimpse of his darkness and ran as far as she could. If she saw the full depths, there'd be no coming back.

Not unless she changed and hardened as he had long ago. Only then could she forgive him. That would only happen with more time and more worlds.

She'd suggested time, and he would use that as a factor. Distance made the heart grow fonder, or so he'd heard, and given enough space, it would lessen the blows.

"Don't ignore me!" Gavin screamed.

Adam looked up from his musings to stare down Gavin. "It doesn't feel good to feel powerless, does it?" He said with an expression devoid of emotion. "You said it yourself: one can become a God by burning through worlds. I've already taken everything I can from this one, and it's time for my next conquest." Adam's voice was steady and calm as he spoke, but each word stripped the color and life from Gavin's face.

Soon, like the trees and the rest of their surroundings, Gavin was colored in black, white, and grey hues.

"You..you...." The diety was speechless and helpless for a change and couldn't process it. "You're the one that gave my sweet Evangeline the truth syrup."

Adam closed his eyes and held out a hand towards Gavin. "Thank you for teaching me how to be ruthless." He said.

"You can't give me credit for that! I would never do such a thing!" Gavin screeched. "How were you able to get this powerful? You owe me that, at least."

It was almost comical to hear the puppetmaster demand answers when all he had done to Adam was pull him by the nose. It would be fine if he answered his question. It wasn't like the time Gavin tried to buy would do him any good. Adam was unstoppable by this point.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"I've reset the world more times than you're aware of. The space dust that grants abilities was absorbed by Wyatt and myself more than once." Adam said.

Wyatt grinned and cracked his knuckles as he limbered up to take out the decrepit Gavin.

"You can't kill me," Gavin said, but he betrayed his firm voice by taking a step back. By now, the God must have realized he couldn't teleport or run away. Adam had a firm lock on him, and his spatial powers kept the God in check. He sealed the area around the man to control his abilities. It helped that the deity had run around constantly throwing his power around. Adam only needed to wait until he was low enough in defense to take his power from him.

"You're the last obstacle," Wyatt said as he rubbed his hands together in anticipation. "Naturally, we saved you for last. I wanted to be the one to get the honors."

Gavin gulped and started pleading, but he was rewarded with a fist to the mouth.

Wyatt crouched down to laugh at the fallen man. "When I first came to this world, you locked me away. You feared that I would ruin your perfect design. As if that wasn't enough, you tortured and peeled off my scales."

Gavin wasn't able to put up a defense. So what came next was a onesided duel with a punching bag.

Adam leeched the God's energy as each blow took more and more out of Gavin. What was left was a small glowing ball that Gavin coughed up. Adam used his power to make the ball float towards him. He didn't bother touching it; he kept it in the air.

"Don't drag it out," Adam said as he slipped that concentrated glowing black ball into his space. He had plans for it further down the line. "We need blood left in his body for the spell to work."

"Way to take the fun out of it," Wyatt said with a savage grin.

Now that Adam's job was done, he would wait until Wyatt worked through his rage. He quickly tuned out Gavin's screams of horror and Wyatt's brutality to look down at the still face of his love. Her cheeks were still wet, and there was redness under her eyes that he regretted.

If he could have picked a path without suffering for the two of them, he would. Both of them have to be stronger to stay together. His sorrow was going to be just as prolonged as her own.

"It's over," Wyatt said.

Adam looked up and blinked rapidly as he tried to adjust his sight onto Wyatt. The man was flickering as the colors washed away from his person.

He glanced down at Wendy and noticed that even the red on her face was slowly disappearing from his sight. The only red left was the stain on her lips from the pomegranate. If he let it, it too would fade. He was running out of time.

Adam inspected Gavin's broken body with disinterest as he teleported all of them to the Wishing Tree.

It was a World Tree, as Wendy had predicted. Its once willowy branches were limp and held a discarded grey that spoke of abuse. It was a stubborn thing, and it fought when Adam seized control of the world. Like Gavin, there was no fight left in it now.

"Put his body next to the tree," Adam said without looking up.

Wyatt said something snarky, but that went in one ear and the other for Adam. The only thing that held his attention captive was the color leeching away from Wendy. She was the last thing in this world with hues outside of monochromes. If her conduit lost that last spark of color, he would have no hope left.

Wyatt didn't need to tell Adam it was done. He could feel the pivotal shift in the atmosphere once Gavin's body was next to the tree.

"It's not too late to give up," Wyatt said. "You can stop now before it's too late."

Instead of leaving as planned, Adam stopped. He met Wyatt's eyes and shook his head.

"You don't understand the kind of beings that are watching her. They're making bets to see how she turns out." Wyatt said. "They have a vested interest in what happens to her. No matter what the damn rules are, all of them are breaking them. Gods are good at finding ways around rules. They enjoy breaking them almost as much as they enjoy making them."

"You're repeating yourself word for word," Adam said.

"It bears repeating. These old bored Gods aren't like Gavin. Gavin is an upstart who rose to power by stealing resources from abandoned worlds like this one. These Gods are ancient and have nothing left to entertain themselves with. Beings like Wendy are how they pass the time. What she is is rare enough that they won't miss the chance of waiting thousands of years for another to come along. If Aphra had truly wanted to separate you, there's not a damn thing you could do. She could have undone all those soul-binding shenanigans you plastered on Wendy sooner if she wanted. She didn't because it made the game more exciting to have extra factors."

"I will add to the number of worlds I'm burning," Adam said."That should be enough."

Wyatt shook his head, "You're insane." He said.

It wasn't the first time for the other man to make that proclamation. It went over Adam's head like all the previous times. Instead, Adam was studying Wendy, savoring the sight of colors left on her.

"If you run into her before me, take care of her," Adam said.

"I'd do that without your orders," Wyatt said with a smirk. "I have more reasons than you do."

The two men locked eyes, and the dust of a previous argument floated into the air between them.

It was dispelled by Gavin coughing and choking as he woke up from near death.

"We don't have time for this," Adam said as he turned and teleported away.

He could hear Wyatt's faint words as he disappeared. "Bye to you too. And good luck. You're gonna need a lot of that."

Adam wound up at the Evans property. It was still standing. If Adam closed his eyes he could feel the warmth of memories.

There was no time to gain comfort from them. Adam needed to seal up the world and turn it into a pocket that he could keep permanently attached to him. One day, he wouldn't need to drain a wanna-be God and create a new World Tree from the ashes of another to do so.

Adam strolled into Wendy's room and laid her body on her bed. Everything must be just the way she left it.

Her chosen method for her room was disorderly chaos. She had books, paper, and clothing tossed about.

"I'll see you soon," Adam said as he caught her slack left hand. He kissed her fingers gently.

They would be reunited. He only had several hundred worlds to burn through first.