As the thunder rung in my ears I fought against the encroaching unconsciousness, after all I had taken lightning many times before. Not since that first attempt in the mountains had such a thing knocked me out and it wouldn't this time either. My opponent on the other hand. While I had no idea how many times she had taken a lightning bolt to the face I did know she had never taken one so powerful so directly. This was thanks to my shorter height and position under her head directing the majority of the electricity directly into her skull. Ouch. The white cleared from my vision and I opened my eyes wide, the sound of a loud groan proving my ears were still functioning. There I saw my opponent collapsing to the ground in a twitching heap, her fall shaking the earth with a thundering boom. Her large dangerous weapon clattered to the ground a short distance away from her, it having acted like an extra powerful lightning rod. Not that I had planned that or anything. Just lucky for my attack. While my enemy collasped I remained standing. My legs were shaking and my breath filled with panting, but stand I did. At my feet was a large scorch mark as the very dirt itself had been charred by the intensity of the magical strike. It was honestly pretty impressive. I actually worried for a moment if I had killed my opponent. The gathering of such a lightning strike had even seemed to agitate the weather. All the gathered black clouds had turned the overcast day into one of rain for at least this region of the kingdom. Raindrops began falling from the sky and pattering in the ruined forest, kicking up smells of earth and a light mist. Aldaney lay there at my feet with her body curled up into the fetal position. Her hands were gripping her stomach and chest as she was clearly still in some amount of pain. After having all that electricity coursing through you it would make sense. Her eyes were closed and another loud groan of pain escaped her. Was she going to die? No. While her breathing was pained it was stable. She would live. With my enemy currently disabled I looked to her weapon laying on the ground beside her. It was pulsing with power and I began reaching down to pick it up. Something in the back of mind stopped me however. Was it cursed or something? I don't want my soul dammed or anything. Better to leave it be for now. Instead I stood up straight again and turned back to her face. Even this was difficult for me as I had been pretty beat up myself. “Where did you get that weapon?” I asked with a pant. Aldaney didn't answer. Instead she opened her eyes and turned her head to glare at me. I let out a heavy sigh and put my hands on my hips, my attempt to be imposing probably failing. “Come on you bitch.” I panted. “You can talk.” Aldaney didn't answer at first but eventually spoke through clenched teeth. “What? You're not going to finish me?” I grunted and took a step back. “Don't tempt me.” For a moment I turned my attention to the landscape and looked around us. Our fight had left this entire section of forest completely devastated. Trees were fell for miles around and the earth had been ripped apart with deep groves. All the underbrush had been crushed or shredded and any animals that had been too slow were dead. It was as if a natural disaster like a tornado had come through here and destroyed anything in its path. I could only imagine what this fight would have been like in that city. In fact I wont imagine it. The thought itself was terrifying. No wonder humans hated and feared goddesses. We were monsters. My attention was snapped back to Aldaney as she had begun moving again. Quickly I turned back to her and went into a defensive stance. She sneered while pushing herself into a sitting position. “You're weak.” I was looking around for something to use as a weapon and my eyes fell upon a fallen tree. In a flash I bent over and scooped it up, its ends pointed from where it had snapped off its trunk. Even to a goddess like me this mighty pine was little more than a pointed stick the length of a sword. I pointed it at my sitting opponent with a grimace. “Don't move or I'll zap you again!” Aldaney simply laughed. A genuine laugh that ended with a coughing fit, likely from the pain. She then held out her right hand and the glaive laying on the ground nearby flew through the air and into her hand. Her fist tightened around it as she got a grip. Bad. This is bad. With a scowl I put my left foot down on her abdomen and put the pointy end of my tree against her throat. “Don't try it!” I shouted. Aldaney laughed again, this time with only a slight cough. “What are you going to do? Kill me with a pointy stick? Goddesses today are hopeless.” Her words caused my eyes to widen. Of course I couldn't kill her! It felt wrong. I was scared to kill her. She was another goddess. Finally I had met someone who was my equal! I wanted to ask her so many questions. I wanted to be friends with someone who could reciprocate in full. The Goddess of War saw this hesitation in my eyes and acted quickly. In almost no time at all she had brushed my leg away causing me to stumble. Then she pushed herself up off the ground, though shakily still, into a standing position. There she stood in all her glory, her face showing her own bloodlust was as strong as ever. I righted myself and pointed my stick at her again. “I'm gunna tie you up!” Aldaney looked surprised for a moment as if she was expecting me to pull a rope from somewhere. But after a couple seconds she just shook her head and chuckled. “How are you gunna tie me up? You've got no rope!” This was my final trump card. The goddess binding magic that I had learned from Barthenor. How many times this had been. I dropped my pointy tree and clasped my hands together as if in prayer, my eyes closing though my goddess sight kept me seeing without them. With alacrity I began chanting the spell with words flowing off my lips like burbling power. Aldaney's eyes went wide in surprise and she gathered the last of her energy to leap at me. But it was too late. A sudden burst of mana shot up from the ground all around me. It shimmered with every color as it formed a cylinder around first me, then my enemy. Dazzling golden chains began forming from the wall of light like seafoam on the cusp of the waves. Then just as soon as they appeared they lashed out like living snakes to grasp and hold the crazed goddess. As they wrapped around her body she shrieked like a wounded animal for that is what she currently was. My eyes opened once again, now glowing with brilliant light like shining galaxies in the infinite void. As I spoke the voice that came from me was deep and full of power. “I bind you wayward goddess! The chains of heaven shall judge your essence!” As Aldaney squirmed and screamed her body began to soften like it was made of putty. This caught me by surprise but of course the spell had already been cast. Then while I watched I saw her melt into a formless blob of crimson energy with the only features being two holes near the top as if they were empty eye sockets. This bizarre transformation only lasted a few moments however before she returned to her normal looking human self. Then the chains finished tightening around her, fully binding her body dozens of times over. I dropped my hands to my sides with an exhausted sigh. If the battle had taken the wind out of my sails this spell had sucked the rest right out of me. I was about to collapse but thankfully my opponent did first. Not that she had much choice as she was bound up like a Christmas present. Aldaney struggled against her chains to no avail. She screamed in pure fury. “Where did you learn this spell? How did you learn that spell?” She was speaking as if she knew exactly what this was, though this time it was being cast by a goddess instead of a collection of mages. This was the magic invented a long time ago supposedly by the very planet itself, though it was goddesses and humans that used it throughout history. Yes this spell specifically binds goddesses and nothing else and requires such an immense amount of mana that a whole clade of mages is required to replicate it. The lich Barthenor was only able to use a weak version in his castle trap which is why it failed on me all that time ago. I just shook my head at the disgraceful display of my opponent and huffed. “You're my prisoner now.” Aldaney started screaming in a inhuman way, the reality of her situation finally sinking in. Her screams echoed throughout the countryside. They sounded like the same sounds I had made when I had witnessed the death of Miya and been taken over by my rage. This solidified my plan to somehow free this fellow goddess from this nightmarish influence. She was sick and I want to save her! The screaming however had to stop. With a flick my own deep blue ribbon unwrapped from around my waist and snapped around Aldaney's face covering her mouth. Now the screams were muffled, though the struggling was just intense. Strangely I had no worries that the chains would break and it seemed I had no reason to entertain it. These golden links sparkled with a power beyond even goddesses I'd fathom. With my prisoner thus secured I walked over to her head and reached down, picking up some of the chain in my left hand and lifting it up and her head into the air slightly. Then with a deep sigh I began walking forward, dragging her along behind me through the forest. Where was I going to contain her? I honestly had no idea. Well besides the idea to lock her up in one of the large caves in the nearby Slemen Mountains. That would keep her out of the way and keep humans from coming to rescue her. If in fact any would or could do so. Thus and so I spent the next half a day trudging through the mountains with my prisoner dragging behind me. The prayers of my worshipers fueled me alongside my sheer burning determination. My eyes were alight like coals as the sun faded from the sky and darkness took hold. Eventually the rain stopped and the clouds above began to slip away exposing just enough starlit sky that the moon could beam down upon me. Aldaney had long since quieted down, her constant muffled screaming and frenzied struggles against the chains fully exhausting whatever energy she had left. She even had unsummoned her weapon, likely stuffing it into the same kind of pocket dimension I had access to. Now she lay in a state between wake and slumber as if her whole life was flashing before her eyes. It was likely the effects of the last human sacrifice wearing off. Though I wondered how many she had been subjected to and if the effects were cumulative. She certainly didn't seem to be in her right mind yet as her glares of hatred towards me signified. Or maybe that's just how she was. Eventually we came to the great slopes of the Slemen Mountains and I dropped her to the ground to look upwards at them. Then I bent over and braced myself on my knees in order to catch my breath. I had to carry her up the mountain in order to keep her from getting hurt by whatever pointy rocks there were. Damn it I just had to catch my breath. After catching my breath I stood up and looked back at my still furious looking captive. “You're sick.” I said calmly. “But I don't think its too late for you. I'll prepare a prison for you and we'll set things right.” There was a muffled reply but I didn't remove my ribbon. I wouldn't do that until we were in a place I was sure she couldn't really be heard again if she started screaming. But my hope was that by now she realized how fruitless that was. With another great sigh and grunt of exertion I bent down and hefted my ward upon my shoulders. It must have been such a funny sight seeing what amount to a little girl lifting a pre-teen over herself like a sack of potatoes. My knees buckled but I reached down and found the strength. Perhaps the love of my worshipers gave me this strength or perhaps it came from my heavenly father. Either way this Goddess of War was my figurative and literal burden to bear up this mountain. So I climbed. Each step of the mountain climb was more difficult than the last but I had the willpower to see it through. Thanks to my goddess zone sight I already could see the perfect cave in which to store my captive so that is where I headed. It probably took an entire hour to make the climb which was wholly due to the weight on my shoulders. However I did make it there. The cave was indeed immense, like a scoop taken out of the mountain. To us goddesses however it was more like a broom closet. I trudged into it and deposited Aldaney on the floor against the far wall with as much gentleness as I could. However due to how exhausted I was it had been more like a slumped drop. Then I staggered into the nearby wall and slid down to the floor in a collapsed heap. While doing this my blue ribbon slid off Aldaney and back onto my waist. She was awake and looked at me with both hatred and confusion. “What the hell are you doing?” She demanded. With one last sigh I pushed myself up to stand again using the wall to support myself. I then replied very out of breath. “I'll be back. By the next night.” I then pointed at Aldaney. “You stay put.” It was time I returned to the city of Jalopely and ensure whatever aftermath there was is handled. With one last look at my captured opponent I shrunk down to human size and slid through a portal to one of my worshipers in the city.

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