It should have been an obvious assumption that Amanda would wait for him at his dorm.

She greeted him in a cheerful “Hi! You’re finally back!,” throwing hands around his arms, pinning them to the torso in a vice-gripping embrace. It was a gesture almost certainly intended to be as much painful as endearing, but David simply found it amusing. Broken ribs would heal. Punctured lungs would mend. It did not matter how much force was applied, only the thought behind it.

“It’s nice to see you too.” David said calmly, not bothering to breathe in between the words.

“How long have you been awake?”

“It’s been six months now. Most of my memory is gone, but I still have you! They told me you’d be back soon and six months is soon enough. Compared to ten years it’s a blink and even that isn’t much.”

“Oh?” David took keen interest in the words.

“What’s the oldest thing you can remember?”

Amanda blinked. What was the first? She had thought it was her first kiss, but that wasn’t it. There were flashes of something just outside the edges of her vision, known and yet impossible to see clearly. Explosions? Blood? War?

“I’m not sure. A fight I think.”

“A fight with who? And where?”

“In the sky, with my friends and allies.”

“Why?”

“Something about restoring things to the way they were? I don’t remember the details.”

“Mhm.” it had become clear that Yadabaoth’s power contained more than just energy. It was vestiges of his memory, lingering pieces of his essence that fought to preserve the will of the eternal creator. He lived on in the world…

This meant it was a person with goals and ambitions that opposed David’s ascent to absolute dominion. It meant there was one source that could be stamped out.

He looked Amanda in the eyes, forcefully ripped his arms from her embrace, then placed one around her waist as the other tilted her chin just slightly upward.

“What do you want to do now?” He asked.

It took her several seconds to gather enough wits to speak.

“Be together like this forever.”

David smiled. This was good. This was right.

“Then let’s go, we have some work to do.”

He took her hand and interlocked the fingers tightly, then began to rise in place. She quickly followed and they took to the skies.

It did not take long to first arrive at and then smash through the windows of a giant gold box atop the tallest tower in the pathetic cage called a city. It would have been trivial to erase the windows from existence, but exploding shards of glass made the perfect confetti to announce the gift of his presence to this war-room in desperate need of strength.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

None of the elders moved; it was clear this had been expected.

Ultra-Grand-Supreme-Omega-Undefeated-Heavenly-Zenith-of-All-Creation-Absolute-Master-of-Quintessence-and-Stacker-of-Paper Chad Anderson acknowledged David’s prescence with a nod, gesturing implicitially to take one of the empty seats prepared for him.

David had deflated so much he didn’t bother to stand.

“So, where were we,” the Grand-Elder began.

“Ah, yes, we need a unit to draw heat away from our exterior forces.”

“We can’t count on him, can we?” some ancient female bag of bones practically spat.

“And why not?” Zi-Lor asked for the room— and for David.

“What keeps him from betraying us?”

David laughed before anyone could interrupt with an answer.

“Nothing. Nothing keeps me from betraying you.”

“See? He mocks us even as we ask for his help.”

“Hmm” Grand-Zenith-Elder-Master Chad made no acknowledgement of which side he took in this debate.

“Why did we even bother making an oath against the life of someone we knew had died before?” This time it was a tall and thin male drapery of skin loosely hanging from a flagpole at its center that spoke.

His nose was too pointy for David’s liking, but at least the voice was tolerable.

“It bought us time.” Chen-Thai answered.

“But not enough, and now the piper comes for his toll,” quickly retorted the first hag.

“One would think in a society of immortals that the appearance of youth would be as important as vitality, but nooo, I get stuck with the fucking uglies,” David thought to himself in boredom. This was growing tiring, he had places to be.

Whoever was speaking got interrupted,

“If you want me to help you, you’ll need to provide me something the enemy can’t give more freely.”

A young and beautiful woman perhaps in her thirties with delicate pure jade skin and brilliant sapphire eyes shot daggers at him.

“Like what?” Zi-Lor engaged, ignoring the impropriety David had just displayed.

“Like—” David began, but was swiftly interrupted by the jade beauty.

“He should be removed immediately. Who does he think he is interrupting me? Me?!”

David didn’t turn his head, but emitted a clear statement of intent in his body language all the same— if this topic continued she was going to die, rules be damned.

“You’re not in a position to refuse my offer.”

Chad Anderson tilted his head and David continued. The child of thirty years scoffed.

“When I came here the first thing I noticed was these walls. So high, and for what? Those counted among your enemies are capable of flight.”

David pushed out his chair.

“You know what I think?”

and stood.

“I think these walls are a cage.”

Step by step he turned away to the glass he had just broken.

“A cage keeping the useless cattle you keep around as fodder trapped inside.”

Turning back to face the elders he gave a proposal.

“Give them to me and I’ll protect you against whoever and whatever comes. Let them unleash hell itself, it won’t be enough to stop me.”

“Please, do clarify what you mean by “give”,” a husky bear of a man with the voice of an actual bear grunted near-unintelligibly.

“Please,” the jade doll began, “he means to slit their throats after we sell them like cattle.”

“We’d be next!” the flagpole shouted meekly.

Chen-Thai did not speak.

Grand-Elder Anderson did not allow either silence to fall or the voice of another dissenter to be raised.

“If you stay your hand, we will consider your offer.”

“Fine then. But remember that as powerful as you are, death is your final end. I will wait, but if you delay past the point of your inevitable defeat I will not hesitate to leave.”

“I have no desire to take possession of a pile of rubble.”

David turned his back again and jumped out the window. Amanda had stood roughly behind him the entire time, unspeaking, but again they tightly gripped each other's fingers and found their way back to what had been Henry’s harem home.