In an unfathomably cold and dark place, Aasha, the goddess of humanity and hope, wept as she gazed upon her creations. Imprisoned under a titanic glacier in the realm of gods that was so large that entire worlds could rest upon its tip, she could only watch as the humans that she had cherished so much fell to the influences of the other minor gods and negligible gods, all of whom drew power from either the acts or worship of humanity. Two kinds of gods existed: the four major gods that governed primordial forces, which did not need worshippers or acts by humanity to remain powerful, although these worshippers and acts certainly didn’t hurt, and billions upon billions of minor gods, who did need them. The four major gods were Caelus, the god of space, Aetas, the god of time, Pravus, the god of evil and despair, and the aforementioned Aasha. Some of the minor gods were named, the most commonly known and worshipped being Pugna, the god of war, and Meto, the goddess of the harvest. Aasha, though a kind and peaceful goddess, was viewed by the minor gods as a threat since she grew immensely powerful just from the very existence of humanity, which is the primary cause of her imprisonment at their hands. The other was that she opposed too many minor gods, such as Pugna and Lues, the god of disease, as they drew their power, solely or partly, from the suffering of humanity, since Pugna had very few followers, and Lues had none, just to name a few.

While she was imprisoned and her power limited, Aasha was still a major god, and still sent tendrils of her power into the human world to try to limit the suffering of her beloved creations. But she had too little strength to do much. Every day that went by, thousands lost hope to strife, war, famine, or pestilence, and her power waned. She would never fade so long as humanity persisted, yet soon she would be unable to shield them against the ploys and plotting of the other deities. Desperately, she sent a little bit of her power into the human realm to search for a pure-hearted and righteous human who would become her avatar, protect humanity in her stead, and, Aasha hoped, create enough hope so that she could one day, perhaps millennia in the future, regain her power and face the gods who had dared to toy with her creations.

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Her power took on the form of a luminous and golden butterfly and fluttered throughout the realm of man. It soared over vast stretches of farmland, was carried by ocean breezes of lakes and seas, flew past children deep asleep and old men playing chess, to finally alight upon the sleeping form of Franco. She did not know this boy or his name, but she knew that his heart was true, and so she sent out the last vestiges of her power to bless this boy and all that he might do. This was a desperate gamble, for if he died or was led astray, Aasha would never be able to escape her imprisonment, but there was no other way. She reached out to her avatar with her mind and asked “Will you be my avatar in the realm of man, and protect humanity?”

In his sleep, there was only one thought in Franco’s mind: “I do.”