A wise general once said, that the best of victories were those won without the spilling of a single drop of blood.

Elena absentmindedly laced her fingers with her cousin’s as they briefly held hands beneath the table. Giving the girl’s leg a squeeze to make her foot stop tapping, and calm the girl’s nerves.

Edna Rae Maddoc was too much of a goodie-goodie, trying her damndest to find the best possible solution for everyone involved.

For the sake of their junior cousins her dear Ed couldn’t just snub the family, that’d be the same as announcing that it was open season on the Maddocs for anyone who was paying attention.

At the same time she couldn’t just invite them in either, their lot was poisonous, their greed was such, that even BTC with all their power, couldn’t risk their touch.

While Elena understood on some level that at least part of it was down to her own bitterness at being cast off, she now saw her family for what they were.

Garland hadn’t always been a ‘lesser’ kingdom, and the line of slumbering queens hadn’t always been bound within their drugged sleep. The Maddoc line were a treasonous lot, Elena knew this to be true, she was starkly aware that all their family heroes, when viewed in the grander scheme of things were actually just traitors.

Petty sneak thieves,  frocked-coat wearing rats, looking for tasty crumbs and succor, like so many of Monde’s noblemen secretly were.

So while they could not abandon their family to a fate that a more bitter soul would call well deserved, they  also had to keep them at arm's length.

Enthroning Billy was an elegant solution to all this, when he took the seat at the head of the table, he announced to the world that he was the one in charge.

For everyone else, it was a simple confirmation that the company’s most powerful player was also the one holding the most authority. Entirely in agreement with Mondian common sense.

For Brutus Maddoc it was a message, a reminder of the debts  he’d accrued, and gotten away with not paying. The little boy that he’d robbed and sold off had returned, stronger, richer, and far more powerful than anyone would have ever dreamed.

That same little boy was now the one presiding over the fate of House Maddoc. This was something that Brutus Maddoc would have to live with.If he did indeed want to live. There were no bindings harder to break than the one’s men made for themselves.

Thus this was a fight that ended before it even began, a battle that never actually reached the point of blows, or harsh words.

Elena smiled as she eyed her Billy, watching him ignore most of what was happening around him because he was just dreadful when it came to making small talk. For such a brilliant boy, the mores and nuances of civil conversation were entirely beyond him.

Then with a sigh she relaxed, as much it rankled, this was likely the best outcome. The night would not be a dramatic one. It would be full of drinking, genteel conversation, blithe festivities, and quiet power plays. A night like any other night, in any other royal court or the parlors of other power players.

*****

Elsewhere, out on the edge of the BTC Republic where a certain tower was being built, blood ‘was’ being spilt. With a boom, like from out of a million thunderstorms, the sky began to rain red.

Monde shook as a being that could dwarf mountains fell to its knees. Groaning as it fell, its headless corpse listing forwards casting a deep shadow onto the lands below, before its fall was abruptly halted.

A long pink tongue wound its way around the massive corpse, pulling the body into a pair of jaws that were wide enough to swallow up the entire sky. The tongue continuing to snake about, collecting all the other similarly massive bodies that littered the grounds around the tower.

Occasionally collecting one of the more mobile bodies, snatching up, a struggling giant with the same ease that one would use to pick up a field mouse. Dangling the beasts by their tails and their lower limbs and swallowing them whole.

Despite how they died, falling like wheat before a field hand’s sickle, their numbers never seemed to shrink. The tide of living mountains never abated. The god-monsters kept coming, driven by a single minded determination, that could make one’s heart grow faint.

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More mouths came down from the heavens, this time they were attached to mile long, serpentine bodies. Creatures as long as rivers flew down to do battle with the giants that were taller than mountains.

A Jormungandr army waged war on the god-monsters below. Breathing bolts of ruin and nothingness, ravaging the land as the flying serpents strove to tear apart divine horde. The mouth that could swallow the skies opened wider as the head it was attached emerged from behind the clouds.

Out from its eyes poured beams of gray thunder, washing over the land and annihilating everything it touched and from its mouth came more Jormungandr, flying wildly like bats escaping a cave.

The battle between god-beasts and shades rose in intensity as more and more of each side showed up on the field, appearing as if from nowhere.

A little ways away, standing in mid-air was a certain young man, arms cross, his expression impassive as always. Billy stood as general to his forces, coordinating their assault on the god-monsters with a cold-headed aplomb.

A little further back from that, seated in a floating carriage were the former Head of the Ministry of Public Order and the current head of the Church of the Unified Pantheon.

*****

Alphonse’s whistle travelled like that of train’s, its notes going from low to high. He watched the fantastical madness going on beyond his window, with a lusty look of not so priestly amusement.

“While I can’t say I agree with your decision to leave your vocation of nearly three hundred years, I ‘can’ say, all things considered, I’m quite impressed with the new position you’ve found yourself in.”  said Alphonse.  

Ophelia startled, she and Alphonse had come all the way out here  in a place that was separate from Monde and the watchfulness of both man and the heavens, to discuss the death of king of the gods.

Alphonse had just been discussing what this would mean for the rest of rest of the pantheon and all the mortals that worshipped, but apparently he’d grown bored, either that or distracted. She frowned, words of chastisement on the tip of her tongue, ready to ask him to get back to the subject that they’d come out here to discuss.

However his words sank in, just as hers were about to come out. She fell silent, as she remembered that for the first time in three centuries she was unemployed.

“....I’m sure I don’t what you’re talking about, Alphonse, but we kind of need to focus here, I’m not liking what I’m hearing about a new titanomachy, another  twilight of the gods. I’m pretty certain the Holy Writ says that the last time that happened the universe had to be remade.”  

“Girl I wasn’t talking about your job with their company though knowing you I’m sure you’ll be executive of such and such in no time, more or less doing what you did with the Ministry but on a scarier scale, because ‘everything’ those kids do is fucking scary. But again that’s not what I was talking about. I’m talking about your literally position, under Mister Tall, Dark and Sexy over there.”

The comment came from far enough left wing that Ophelia was distracted for a second, that and the face the old man was making were enough to completely derail Ophelia’s train of thought.

“I….um….yeah, how about we don’t discuss this right now?” said Ophelia. Her cheeks burning.

Alphonse nodded his look having switched back to that of a benevolent grandfather, as if he’d suddenly decided to return to playing the part of a proper priest.

“Yes, yes. Of course my dear. Didn’t want to make you feel...uncomfortable.”

Ophelia’s eyes narrowed.

She wasn’t sure she liked how he’d purred that last word.

“Ow! What was that for!” said Alphonse, holding his side, and rubbing the spot where he’d received a wicked pinch.

“You know what that was for?”

Alphonse blinked.

“I honestly don’t-?”

The door to the carriage opened and Billy came in, with only a few beads of frosty sweat rolling down his brow.

Ophelia hazarded a glance over his shoulder and saw a mountain range made up of enormous bodies. With the sky filled with black serpents that were rapidly eating those bodies. Clearing the field and returning the land to its original barren flatness.

Not for the first time she found herself wondering exactly just how strong the boy was. She found herself wondering if there’d be any difference if every member of the BTC but him, choose not to go to work for a day.

Then she remembered that there was big banquet taking place with most of their senior staff attending. Realizing that all those open positions were likely being manned by one of Billy’s clones, she heard herself sigh.

A strange mixture of contentment and frustration overtook.

On the one hand the boy’s power was ridiculous, he’d long ago transcended label of monster and stepped into the realm of pure anomaly and what was worse was the sense that he was still growing stronger.

Quite frankly if  a version of her from twenty years ago had even gotten an inkling of how strong he’d eventually become she’d have likely arranged for little infant William to have an accident, for the sake of all.

On the other hand her current self was currently entangled with that anomaly. Happily so, which surprisingly enough didn’t make him, or any part of her current situation, any less frightening.

Because now she worried what she’d do now that she’d stepped onto this new path. She knew exactly what ghastly things she was capable of for the sake of protecting strangers and world peace, she’d yet to learn what she’d do for the sake of sentiment.

“Um...so what was all that about?” said Ophelia.

Billy blinked.

“Oh, that? They were attracted to the tower.” said Billy. Absentmindedly pointing to the structure he’d been building for the last few years. The sky high tower of magic, glass and stone that the BTC had been investing a fair share of its resources into.

“Attracted-? Why would the tower attract the god-monsters?”

Billy cricked his neck, rolling his shoulders and fell into the seat beside Ophelia.

“Most of these monsters are effectively just heavenly guard dogs, it makes sense for guard dogs to go after an invader.” said Billy.

Alphonse leaned forwards eyes gleaming in the darkness.

“Just what manner of tower did you build young man?”

Billy shrugged.

“Nh?...I’m not entirely sure, it’s not quite done yet. All I know is that it’s exactly what we’ll need, if we want to solve our problems with the gods.”

Ophelia thought on that and asked the next question that popped into her head.

“Okay then. When’s it going to be done?” said Ophelia.

“Nh… Soon?” answered Billy.