Interesting, Order thought. The energy infusion by Renewal was slightly different from Stories’ attempt – it had glowed lime green rather than a mild yellow. Could just be a cosmetic difference, or it could alternatively be a marker for compatibility. Would require further testing to confirm.

Then there was the matter of the violent detonation of the Plerby’s torso: could it be that the species itself couldn’t handle divine energy in different forms as well as she theorized it could? Or perhaps it was to do with Renewal’s ability? The latter seemed a lot more likely, but she couldn’t rule out the former either; if every mortal species had different reactions to godly abilities, she had to know about it - or the method wouldn’t be generalized enough for use around the mortal realm.

“Hey, uh, Order? Kinda need you to take over the reins here. I’m a God of Stories, not a God of Damage Control.” Order looked up from her notes at the sheepish remark from Stories, her train of thought cut off. Oh. Right. They were still here. She supposed that a few words of comfort were in order, to keep things flowing along smoothly. Renewal was still required for the next few samples, after all.

Order gestured to the motionless purple body and spoke.

“Rest assured, this event is likely to be a fluke. A freak accident that won’t occur in future testing. Let’s move on to the next specimen and repeat the experiment.”

“A FLUKE?! THE DAMN BEAR EXPLODED!” Stories bellowed, a protective arm looped around the waist of the sobbing Renewal, holding her to his chest. “You don’t know if it’s going to be a fluke the next time; you didn’t even know that it was going to happen the first time! Or you wouldn’t have made this poor girl do what she did!”

Order inhaled sharply. The two likely weren’t going to cooperate unless she gave them a plausible explanation for the situation. And he was right; she didn’t know what was going to happen before Renewal touched the Plerby. If she had known, there wouldn’t have been a need to conduct the experiment in the first place. Didn’t he understand the meaning of experimentation? The process of meticulously going through every variation of a hypothesis, continuing through failure after failure until the desired result was achieved; or the hypothesis was proven wrong.

Still, in the agitated state he was in – well, both of them, actually - Stories likely wouldn’t accept a textbook definition as sufficient enough to release Renewal into her care; she had to prove that it was an accident somehow. Preferably one that he caused; that way, he’d have no moral standing to refute her words. Order quickly spun up a scenario based on her criteria. An entirely false one, of course – she was still in the middle of sorting through the data that she had recorded from the experiment. But she just needed it to sound likely enough to be the actual truth.

Just long enough to get Renewal to do another test.

“God of Stories and Creativity, I’m sorry to say this; but it was your interference that caused this.”

“ME?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW? HOW WOULD I-“

“I’m getting to that. Remember how you, “demonstrated”, your ability to the God of Renewal, to show her how to carry out the experiment? You injected the Plerby with your “Divine Inspiration” first, did you not?”

“I mean, I had to-“

“Doing so likely altered the Plerby’s composition drastically; it was under the influence of your power and was currently in the process of changing to suit itself to your calling.” Order had zero evidence to back up her claims, of course. Absolutely none. But she pressed on; this was the only way to make them fall into line. Life’d understand; this was for the sake of the salvation of all mortals in existence. One or two white lies were justified in the face of what she was trying to achieve.

“The mixing of the two abilities caused an unintended reaction; after all, its body was already in the initial stages of becoming a thrall to your calling. What would happen if you caused it to switch course while it was already fixed onto the very set of tracks that you laid down?”

“But, I… I didn’t know.”

Good. One more push and the blubbering fool’d cave.

“Yes, the metaphorical train of its life would derail. Luckily, we caught it before we moved on to widespread testing. We’ll omit your input and move on with the next specimen. Hopefully that way we’ll be able to record some uncorrupted data.” There. That should be good enough to trick the two of them.

And it wasn’t as if she was lying entirely; she had noticed an unintended spike of divine energy right before the moment of eruption. It was just that she’d deliberately omitted all the other possible candidates for the incident, chief of which was Renewal’s ability itself being incompatible for the test. And volunteering that information wasn’t going to get her test number 2.

Sure enough, Stories had loosened his grip on Renewal’s body, allowing her to drift slowly to the side. She’d stopped bawling as well. The reasoning Order had concocted did make sense to her, and it was her big sister saying as such, therefore it must be true. Renewal rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand to rid herself of the tears still clinging to them and piped up, forcing a wide smile to hide her fear.

“…I’m ok now, big sis Order… uncle Stories. Sorry for crying. We can go do the next test.” Stories watched on uneasily. He still felt that halting the test was the best course of action. Hell, even just postponing it a week or so was fine; the girl had just watched a baby bear blow up in front of her face! The stuff of nightmares! And Order was letting that poor girl continue on with her stupid test?

But he bit his lip. There was no way he could speak up now, even with his concerns. It was his actions at the start of the test that had caused the traumatizing incident. While he hadn’t meant to, he was the one who had made the girl go through such a horrifying thing. And she was still bravely pushing through the horror, trying her best to suppress her apprehension. Who was he to stop her if she’d made up her mind?

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Stories glumly hung his head, defeated. Best if he just returned to his role as clueless sidekick, he concluded. If he just stood by the side-line and let Order handle everything, another disaster like the one that had just occurred would be averted. Heck, there wouldn’t even be anything to avert; he’d gone ahead and stuck his hands in the cookie jar like the chump he was and now a little girl was paying for his hubris.

In the end, Order got what she wanted - control. The mood had taken a turn for the worse, sure, and her companions were visibly miserable, but there wouldn’t be any more interference in the testing process - at least until the next “accident” occurred.

“We’ll stay by the corpse. The mother or father of the infant will return eventually. Better to stake out a location we have full knowledge about than grope around helplessly in the dark and hope for another nest of theirs to fall into our lap.” There were no cheery replies from the two, just small nods of acknowledgement.

Order wasn’t too concerned about their mental state; it wouldn’t affect the quality of the ability being used even if the user was completely insane. What mattered was whether or not they were consciously willing the ability to activate. And with Renewal putting up a strong front to mask her cowardice, she more than qualified for willing. So, under Order’s direction, the three split up into hiding spots around the grisly remains of the dead animal and waited.

Hours passed with no sign of movement in the vicinity of the nest. Just eerie, hushed quiet. Then, at the start of hour five, Order heard the muffled thump of paws trudging through the undergrowth, making its way towards the pile of twigs and leaves. She listened carefully and counted. Thump thump. Thump thump. Just one adult, it seemed.

“Get ready.” Order whispered to the girl hiding to her right, who replied with a small “…ok”.

The dark purple mass soon came into Order’s view and immediately lumbered towards the food pile in large strides. As expected, the matured lifeforms are much larger than their babies, she thought. Let’s hope this test doesn’t go the way of the first one.

The new Plerby grabbed a fistful of leaves from the mound and messily crammed it into its mouth, spraying flecks of wood and leaf matter around. For a good three minutes the silence of the forest was interjected with the sounds of crunching and snapping of twigs as it satiated its appetite. Then the noises abruptly ceased. It had finally come across the body of its child.

It shambled over slowly towards the scene of blood and gore, as if in disbelief at what it was seeing. There were no predators lurking about on Blessed 903; the only deaths that the pacifist Plerbies ever experienced in the wild was that of old age. But reality eventually sunk in, and the parent gingerly raised the limp body up to its chest, its round black beady eyes looking the child over. Then it threw its head to the skies and wailed, a sorrowful, ear piercing howl.

“Now.” Order motioned to Renewal to move. And though the girl was still shaken by the recent happenings, arguably more so now that she was confronted with the heart-breaking scene of a mother mourning the loss of her child, Order’s word still took priority in her mind. She took up position beside the stationary creature, stretched out her arms and focused, allowing the familiar heat of her ability to gather in her palms once more.

Order watched closely. This time she’d make sure every detail was captured by her two retinas. Already she could tell the process was different; with the infant Plerby there appeared to be some discomfort from the procedure, it had wriggled and protested the warmth from Renewal’s palms. The mother didn’t seem to notice at all, allowing Renewal continued access to her flank as she poured more energy in. It was probable that the maturity of the lifeform played a part in its receptiveness to godly alteration. She was sure of it.

Two minutes. Still no sign of explosive discorporation. Three. Nothing.

Just as Order was about to declare the test a success, a low rumble started to sound. Renewal pulled back quickly in shock, her thoughts flashing back to the visceral scene of that first test. Order hastily scanned the figure of the bear, looking for signs that there was about to be a nasty disassembly of the creature. The energy circulation doesn’t seem to have been disrupted, Order noted. In theory, what happened that first time shouldn’t repeat itself. Plus, the adult form of the species should hold divine energy much better.

And in a way, Order was correct; the Plerby did not explode violently. Its hide, however, began to slough off in clumps of molten, liquid flesh, revealing pale bone underneath. The mother had flung the baby it was holding so gingerly before to the side, the corpse smashing against a nearby tree with a sickening crunch. Its wails, which a moment ago were that of mourning, were replaced with ear-splitting screeches of agony, punctuated with the sound of its paws pounding against the ground as the creature attempted to drown out the creeping pain throughout its body by lashing out at anything within its vicinity.

Renewal had shrunk back in horror, covering her mouth with both palms as she witnessed yet another slow and painful death at her hands. Order was wrong; both times it had been her that had caused the suffering of the innocent Plerby.

“…imsorryimsorryimsorry…” The muffled chant came from behind closed palms as Renewal directed her guilt and remorse towards the dying creature.

At the first sign of trouble, Stories had propelled himself from his hiding spot towards Renewal, and was now cradling the sputtering girl in his embrace. To the other God still wordlessly recording down her notes, however, he had a different response.

“WHAT THE HELL, ORDER?”