Jones POV

Jones put down the classic phone and got out of the phone booth. That the gods used to talk to their creations down in the arena. Jones started walking while pondering the new name he had given himself. He hadn’t had the name Jones for a very long time, only a couple of centuries, give or take a few decades, but he liked it. The name was uncomplicated and easy to say. He didn’t need a fancy name or title.

While he was pondering this, he had gotten to his accommodations. It was a quaint little home, at least by god standards. His home was a modern 21st-century-looking house with all of the glass and trimmed bushes you would see in any high-end neighborhood on earth. He put his formal ware away. The black hooded cloak went on the coat rack, and his staff of office a scythe was leaned against a wall.

Jones groaned with exhaustion, staggered over to his couch, and threw himself onto it. Today had been a busy day, not because there was extra work. There were no world wars, no devastating natural disasters or plagues. It was because of all the arena stuff he had to set up. Last night he and some of the other lesser gods had gone out drinking. In their drink-caused stupidity, they all signed up for the arena. So he had lots of paperwork to fill out.

‘Well, at least it was over,’ Jones thought. He laid down on his couch, fluffed up his pillow, and started to watch his favorite shows from earth. He could have looked into the future for spoilers, but he would have to set up worshipers and churches to gain more influence. He wasn’t about that life, so he just had to deal with all of the twists and turns like everyone else.

He had made a bowl of popcorn and was watching an episode of life and living when the doorbell rang. Maybe it was one of the boys coming over to ask him to help them fill out paperwork for the arena or ask him if he wanted to go for a drink. What he saw looking through the peeping hole in his door surprised him. Tatena was one of the more popular gods and focused more on non-sentient creatures, plants, and animals. Jones had ‘borrowed’ some of her plants and animals for earth. He had promised her that he would help her if she needed anything; once, in exchange, she wouldn’t throw him into the void.

He quickly put on his formal attire and grabbed his scythe. After he was looking presentable, he opened the door. She looked like she was trying to kill him via looks and said,

“I am here to collect my promise.”

Jones just sighed. It was going to be a long night.

He was wrong. She brought him over to the arena.

“You said I could have one thing. I want an alliance.”

what did she just say?

“Alright?”

he spoke with lots of confusion in his voice. A couple of hours later, he could go home. Just what were the guys down there getting up to? I should probably tell them about the alliance. Na, I’ll do that in the morning.

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Tatena POV

Tatena was glad she had finally used that promise for something. Lord of gods knows he doesn’t do anything except collect the dead from his forsaken world. So it was a win-win Tatena got to use the promise for something, and Jones got to get some protection for his spawn. Of course, Tatena would use his soldiers like cannon fodder, but that was the price of their world not being a barren little rock.

Tatena smirked; maybe some of his soldiers would be left to backstab. That would teach that asshole to steal someone else's stuff.

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My POV

It was the day after our battle. I had stayed awake the whole night, waiting for Alexei or the other guy to wake up. I didn’t trust that those things wouldn’t come back in the night. The more I thought about it the more that god guy made sense. The only thing keeping me conscious was the smell of blood sticking to my clothes and the memory of where that blood had come from.

‘I’ll figure it out in the morning.’ I glanced down at my handheld radio in its pouch. ‘If those blue marks are still there after I get some sleep then I’ll start believing that I was speaking to god.’

“AH, my chest hurts like a son of a bitch!”

Came a familiar voice. The sudden speech surprised me enough that I jumped up from where I was resting on the floor.

“You Ruski son of a gun! You surprised the shit out of me!”

I said with a slight panic but mostly with relief.

I ran over to where he was resting on the floor.

“Why does it smell like blood? I am not bleeding.”

Alexei said with hazy confusion one can only get with being unconscious. I sat down, gave him my rifle, told him to watch the doorway, and promptly passed out.

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Alexei POV

The American had just given up his rifle to me. It was weird to have an American just hand me his rifle. We would have been at each other’s throats just a handful of days ago, and now he was giving me his rifle. Then I remembered why he had done that. The fucken ice leopard could be out there. You never knew. I settled in to take the watch. Judging from the dark circles under Harley's eyes, he could use the rest.

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My POV

Alexei shook me awake, and immediately, I got up and readied myself for another fight. But instead, he just chuckles, winced, and pushed my radio into my hands.

“You got a call from a guy calling himself god. Normally I would have just hung up on any nutjob that tried this, but… things have been different for the last couple of days.”

I grabbed the radio. “Yea,(this is said to Alexei) got more time to talk?” I said into the radio.

“Na, just dropping by to tell you we are now allies with anything with a green crown above their head.”

“That’s it, not a good job on living through a fight with fucken magic snow leopards or setting up a base in the middle of nowhere place you dropped us in?!”

“I like your spunk kid and good job on living through that cluster. Also, if you look at this radio, you will see a little flag representing the captured territory.

A flag is equal to a small amount of territory.

Two flags are equal to a small town.

Three flags are equal to a town.

Four flags are equal to a city/large town.

Five flags are equal to a fiefdom.

Makes sense.”

I replied, “yea, that makes sense.”

“Ok, go do whatever you guys do down there. I got shit loads of paperwork to do. it seems people are dying in a new way, so I have to put in the paperwork for the afterlife committee.”

The radio clicked off, and I shuddered at the fact that there is an afterlife committee. I explained everything to Alexei. The god, the killstreaks, and the newbie.

“Well, we really got into some shit.” the Russian commented after I finished explaining it to him.

I nodded “what do you think our allies will look like?” I asked the Ruski.

“Some Cthulhu-like abomination,” Alexei responded in a pondering tone. “Maybe a witch if we are very unlucky.”

“Come on, open up your mind. We might get cute elves or dwarf women,” I said jokingly.

We joked and speculated about what our new allies would be like and bet the last Cheese Tortellini MRE (of which Alexei had taken a liking) on who was the closest. Alexei seeming very pessimistic, said that it would be a witch. I, on the other hand, was more open-minded. I guessed an elf girl with huge assets.

What we got was a big surprise.