It had been about six years since he took over the world. Pahaӓӓni was calming with age, he was about forty now, and was slightly less unhinged than before. He had gotten worse before he got better, however. At one point he said that no one died like they were supposed to. Not like the one in the sands. “She was special,” he said. “She died in fire.” “She died with power at the edges of her grasp.” “She was not my worthless blood magicians.” he killed thousands, giving a sour look when they didn’t die the way he wanted them to.

One day he spoke suddenly, not in his normal manic way, but completely sane. But what he said was anything but. “I wonder where the dimensional glass is. . .” Curtis looked up at him but said nothing and looked down quickly, hoping that Pahaӓӓni didn’t see. “I mean, we searched everywhere. No magical mirrors, or windows, or anything that lets you see through to the other ones. I think it would have been fun to conquer one more dimension before I finally settle down. I just need the dimensional glass.” his head seemed clearer than before and it never went back.

Then the first report came in.

“My lord Pahaӓӓni sir! I request an audience to inform your greatness of some strange reports coming from the scum in the Firstlands!” came the voice of a low level scorchblood kneeling in front of Pahaӓӓni’s throne. Pahaӓӓni looked at him, considering. Curtis drew his blade. Usually when that happened he had to kill a man. At least he could put his mind at ease knowing that no innocent man worked on Pahaӓӓni’s army.

Pahaӓӓni raised his hand, telling Curtis to still his hand. He motioned for the scorchblood to speak. Curtis resheathed his blade. The man took a deep breath before speaking.

“Oh great lord Pahaӓӓni sir! The reports from the Firstlands say that entire scumshacks have been destroyed by a woman calling herself Amaterasu sir! She left nothing more than scorch marks where she killed and never even had to try to kill any of them sir!” the man finished with a gulp.

“Scorch marks? Was she a scorchblood?” questioned Pahaӓӓni.

“Um, well, oh great one, we don’t think so. She seemed to get her powers. . . otherwise. Oh sir!” he seemed to forget that last part before hurriedly adding it.

“Fire, huh? So she survived. If she is so powerful, then she will come to me. Thank you. Curtis, make a note to keep tabs on this Amaterasu. She interests me. Now take care of him. I don’t like his face.” That meant killing him. He hated this part of the job. He just hoped that this man wasn’t a-

“You can kill me after your headstones are over your heads! Fuck this! I’ll kill you right here and now Pahaӓӓni! I challenge you to a duel! One on one. No man can kill me by anything other than your own two hands now Pahaӓӓni!”

This didn’t slow Curtis. This happened from time to time. Usually they just tried to fight their way out of the room and fall trying, but this was common enough. He drew his blade. The man drew his, cutting himself, and flame danced along the edges. And there it was. It always happened eventually.

Curtis’s blade fell in an arch towards the other man's head but he blocked and shot his fire down the edges of Curtis’s blade, burning his hand and making him drop the red hot shortsword. That was new. He flinched and used his godsblood ability to heal himself with the dribble of blood running from the wound. As the man went for the finishing blow, Curtis ducked under the sword and clumsily tried to kick the man in the knee. The fire from the sword swelled and engulfed Curtis in a burning pain, like nothing Curtis has ever experienced before.

This man was talented. He could likely even kill the godsblood. But not his friends who had watched as he was fried like Pahaӓӓni’s favorite food: anything greasy from america. He killed for that stuff. Literally. The blood from his burns wasn’t much, but it was there, and he used it to heal himself, glowing like a sun as he picked up his now cooled sword.

The man smiled and pointed his sword at me, holding it with both hands and taking advantage of my moment of distraction. He blasted what looked like white fire straight from the forge that had made the blade he was holding. It sawed Curtis in half, and with his unlocked abilities, restitched himself back together. He felt his hair graying. It had appeared that using these abilities put a strain on their life force.

The man had turned his head to fight the other godsbloods, who were smiling at him. He snarled at them as Curtis’s blade sheared his head off.

Curtis now looked like a forty eight year old, though he was still in his thirties, thirty two, to be exact.

He rejoined Pahaӓӓni at his side, wiping the blood off of his sword. A few servants took the body away.

“I want the other scum to learn how to do those things. Find out how he did it and make the rest of the scum learn.” Pahaӓӓni ordered. One of the godsbloods left to fulfill the request. He got up and went to the dining table he had set up in the last few years. He preferred to eat where he was best protected. He also had a bed behind the throne that came out of the wall. He did everything here. Everywhere else was for the scum to live in so that he could call them at a moment's notice.

He sat down and asked for food. He was feeling a turkey, sweet potatoes, and green bean casserole, apparently.

To think about it, Curtis was hungry. He sat beside Pahaӓӓni. We waited for half an hour, no complaining from Pahaӓӓni. That was strange. It didn’t take long, ever to have Pahaӓӓni’s food ready, all of his favorites were always prepared and just needed heated up before serving. This kind of thanksgiving dinner though, took so long because we had all of the things done, they just needed to assemble them and cook them the rest of the way through. Even so, it was rushed and sloppy looking.

“This is acceptable. Regards to the chef.” said Pahaӓӓni as the scum brought food and rushed off. Pahaӓӓni picked up a forkful of turkey and put it in Curtis’s mouth. Curtis chewed and swallowed. Pahaӓӓni waited five minutes before nodding and taking a big heaping pile of the meat. He ate until he no longer wanted turkey and put a forkful of sweet potatoes into Curtis’s mouth. They weren't the average sweet potatoes with the marshmallows on top, they had a much less sugary flavor that brought out the flavor of the potatoes themselves. Five minutes later Pahaӓӓni took a forkful. He nodded in pleasure. They were very good potatoes. Next came the green bean casserole. It was not near as sweet or as delicious as the sweet potatoes but that was the nature of the meal. Five minutes and Pahaӓӓni had a small pile on his plate. He didn’t like the stuff as much either.

“All of this food has made me sleepy. Leave. All of you. Stay just outside. Oh, and Curtis? Send in one of the girls. A redhead this time.” said Pahaӓӓni as he walked behind his throne and pulled out his bed. The godsbloods left the room and Curtis sent in a redheaded girl to accompany Pahaӓӓni that night.

The next day the redheaded girl left Pahaӓӓni’s room, wearing what she entered in: a revealing lingerie-like outfit. She had messy hair and smeared makeup on a tired face, walking back to the scum quarters where she belonged.

“You may enter, godsbloods.” said Pahaӓӓni from inside his throne room. So they did. He was back on his throne, wearing full plate armor, all but the helmet. That was unusual. “Okay, so this, ‘sun goddess’ or some such nonsense, has taken out hundreds of our troops. I want an assassin in there to end her. But, we will use a demonsblood as a distraction. That one demonsblood should be enough to kill her, but I like to have all of my bases covered.” he said as the godsbloods walked in. They made his wish come true. A demonsblood was on their way to this steel castle in the dessert, an obvious rip off of Pahaӓӓni’s marble castle, by ten a.m.. the castle wasn’t all marble though, it had decorations and some necessary items not made of marble, but overall, the thing was just marble with enchantments for protection.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

A week later they got word that the demonsblood was dead. Pahaӓӓni smiled. This would be good for the assassin. Thinking that the battle was over is the key to defeat.

Another month passed before news of the assassins death reached them.

“What the fuck! How the hell is this sun goddess killing all of my best people? Fine! Four this time! Four demonsbloods at the battlefield will take care of her right and good!” said Pahaӓӓni. The godsbloods sent four demonsbloods.

Dead. All dead. Every last soldier they sent was dead.

“FUCK! Who the hell does this. . . this. . . this wretch think she is? I can’t afford more fucking soldiers so what do we do? Try to kill her up close and personal? No! I can’t risk my best soldiers!” he screamed in frustration but none of them heard it. His table exploded into a million pieces. The godsbloods were all just to scared to speak, so they cringed at the explosion and let Pahaӓӓni rant and scream. Then he stopped. “We let her come to us, then we kill her with the full force of all of us! Not me, of course, but you and the demonsbloods! Perfect. You will learn to defend against fire. It seems this is her motif, so she will likely not resort to much else.” Pahaӓӓni ordered. They complied. How scary could some scorchblood girl be?

They made their clothes fireproof and kept heat shields under the throne, with Pahaӓӓni’s permission, of course. They also trained like crazy. It was years before they finally heard the screaming of scum running from fire. Today was the day.

They then heard word that the rebels had built planes and bombs. They had killed their entire outer defense with one.

Five minutes later they had heard that a bomb had been dropped on the palace and Pahaӓӓni’s sound shield had deflected it. Pahaӓӓni nervously drank from a bottle of vodka. No one had had the guts to tell him that it was normally had in shot glasses.

Pahaӓӓni put the bottle down and got back on his throne and started to compose himself. “Curtis, attack their army with our own. We can’t let them grow suspicious of our real plan: to kill their demigod.” he ordered. One of the godsbloods sent the order. One hour later Pahaӓӓni whispered “so our friend has joined us. Let us see how she handles ten demonsbloods.” his smile faded as he saw the sounds and words being said by the demonsbloods. Naturally they were complaining, Pahaӓӓni always let them, it kept them busy. They didn’t react to her obvious appearance to the room until one was stabbed in the eye, and the guy next to him was lit on fire. They were both out of the fight before any of them reacted.

Well shit, thought Pahaӓӓni. They aren't doing well. One more was stabbed and he fell. Then another, and another, and another, until they were all dead, not a scratch on this fire goddess. That didn’t go well. Came the last thought of Pahaӓӓni. He decided to calm his nerves with some guitar. It was a fun instrument, and had really cool songs to play on it.

The door opened quietly, though Pahaӓӓni of course saw the sound that it had made. She was invisible. Well, that explained a lot. Pahaӓӓni was nervous down to the core of his being. But, he played it cool and talked calmly to her. His godsbloods looked at him like he was insane, but he talked on, playing quickly on his guitar as he did so.

“You know, sun goddess? I never had one of these in my dimension. I played the most spunky, and rebellious instrument I could. I played the violin. But this thing? So much. . . spunk.” he was talking just to talk now. She stood there like she didn’t comprehend. It was clearly the girl he had thought he killed in the desert, but she had changed. She had scars now, and she held herself with a confidence that only someone as powerful as Pahaӓӓni could have.

Shiiiiiit. Thought Pahaӓӓni as he strummed his guitar faster.

“Ugh. whatever inner dialogue you’re having, you can share it with me. Stop sitting there and staring at me. I can clearly see you. Come, have a drink. You like vodka? My personal favorite.” he said as an excuse to drink more vodka to calm his nerves. He swung his guitar around his back and got up to get some vodka.

She showed herself. Pahaӓӓni’s heart beat faster. “Calm yourself, Curtis. She wants a glass of vodka.” he said as he tried to think a way out of the presence of this. . . this. . . this demon. All women are terrifying unless you know how to treat them, but this was a whole other level, he couldn’t just beat her and she would obey, this was different.

“Glass?” she asked skeptically. Pahaӓӓni thought that he would have a heart attack if his heart beat any faster.

“Well, I guess you could drink straight from the bottle, but I wouldn’t suggest it. We only have so many.” he told her. He was suppressing his urge to run for his life right then.

“Traditionally, vodka is drunk from a shot glass, to limit the amount of alcohol a person has and it is drunk quickly.” she told him. He turned and slapped Curtis in the face. He was honestly pissed off that none of them had decided to tell him about that. He was still scared though. She radiated fire and death. She was no mere scorchblood.

“You didn’t tell me? And I thought I trusted you. Whatever. He adds more protection than most. Have a drink. Come on.” he told her, sitting at his table and peeing in his pants a little bit as he did. “Ugh. you can’t possibly say that you don’t want a drink? A drink before a fight always helps me. When I get drunk I get more focused and overall fight better. You?” he was speaking out of his ass.

He took a swig of the burning liquid in the apparently far too large glass of liquor. It helped. A little.

She chose that moment to try and kill one of his godsbloods. He said the thing that sounded best at the time. He slammed the dagger away with some concentrated sound in front of it. “I show you an ounce of hospitality, and this is how you repay me? You try to kill my-” and then he saw the dagger. It looked kind of like. . . no, the dimensional glass couldn’t be a knife. It had to be glass. But it did give off that same impression of overwhelming power that the glass did. It was different though. He felt heat radiating from it more than he felt the thin veil of the dimensions, like looking into the glass did, but the glass didn’t have that weird heat. His curiosity overtook his fear.

“My, well, that is an interesting blade. You mind if I. . .” he started towards the dagger when he saw a boom and suddenly she was standing in front of him.

"I do mind, in fact." She said as she started to kick me in the knees. Shit. He used his trump card right then. He focused his magic on his body and pushed out and pulled in at the same time. He turned into pure sound and was on the other side of the room in seemingly the same instant.

He was struggling to breathe so he bent over and tried to fill his lungs. He gathered the ambient sound around him and bent them to his will to form words. He stored those words in a purple gem, glowing with blue scripts, and had a fingerprint on the bottom, for activating the scripts on the pulsating purple gem. The gem had his entire life story recorded inside, in case he was to be killed. He was updating it in case of his death. He updated it every week but he updated it more when he was in danger.

“What that does is-” *huff huff* “ I turn myself into sound-” *huff huff* “and travel like that. Ugh. You know, you make me make that sound a lot.” he told her. He didn’t know why he was explaining to the armor clad woman but he was panicking. A man can’t blame one of his brothers for fearing the rightful leaders of the human race, the women left to care for the young and to gather food while the men did grunt work. It was written into humanity, down in the very core of their being. That couldn’t be undone, billions of years later or not.

She was turning away to pick up her strange knife when Pahaӓӓni ordered, “Curtis and other godsbloods, kill her. She’s made me waste enough energy for one lifetime.” he turned away to walk out of the door. “Oh, and, I thought you should know that our armies are having a very close fight right now. That distance on those sniper rifles of yours. Wreaking havoc on my servants.” he said shaking his head as he walked away. He had gotten no such news on the battles but it made him seem all knowing and mysterious. His fear was fading quickly now. She was just. . . standing there. Sense his back was turned, there could be little fear in his heart for this woman.

He shook his head of dark hair. This was too easy. She couldn’t possibly take out all of his godsbloods and then have enough power to beat him left over. He turned back to her and noticed Curtis following him. “Curtis, you can stay behind. Make sure our guest is taken care of properly.” he said looking back at her with a dark look on his face and an evil smile playing on his lips. Curtis advanced with the others. He then turned back to the task at hand, and closed the door behind him. He then activated his siege script of sound and walked away.

Then he felt the heat and saw the sound of the battle.