God Looked down in pity on the world yet again. “They’ve done it again Hades.” He said as he looked over toward his celestial friend.

 Hades looked up from the underworld. “What? You mean you're still playing with the humans?” He said incredulously. “Come on man, just give up on them already. Everyone else has already moved on. I mean, seriously Prometheus.”

 God glared at Hades. “I told you to call me God, or Jesus, or Christ, or-or something.”

 “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. Just like how you called me Satan for a while, but I don’t see you doing that anymore either. I mean, are like all of those interchangeable or what?” He said with a snort. “ Look, they're a doomed race man. I mean, I know you made them and stuff, and they were fun for a while, but come on. Its been eons! They just, ain’t up to snuff… sorry. ”

 God just shook his head and turned back to earth, or what was left of it.

 It’s just like it had been the millions of times before. Scarred, pitted and destroyed. By a multitude of means had the apocalypse occurred. Weapons of mass destruction were the most common means of annihilation. However, global warming and biological plagues were also close contenders.

 This time God had really gotten his hopes up. They had made so far, they had colonies on the moon for Creator's sake! But then an asteroid just happened to come along and just happened to hit a fault line in just the right way to cause a massive tectonic shift that set off the super volcanoes. Which super volcanoes?

 All of them.

 God just put his head down and sighed. For not the first time he thought about abandoning them, leaving them to their fate of extinction. ‘Perhaps I could try the elves? They’ve been all the rage recently,’ He thought. He shook those thoughts from his head. If he didn’t take care of them, then who would? 

 Every other celestial had abandoned them, despite the favoritism they had shown in the past. Once the Creator declared that direct interference with any race was illegal and immoral, all the celestials had been forced to leave. Without those gods there to overwatch and protect them in physical, tangible forms, the humans fell into chaos and anarchy. 

 Oh sure, a few celestials stuck around after they were kicked out of Earth, but most left. Earth was more of a vacation spot than anything else and without the ability to directly manifest avatars, managing the humans became more of a chore than a relief. 

 One after another, celestials dropped out, leaving the cursed race to their suicidal tendencies. Eventually, only God was left to endlessly rewind and rewatch humanity’s destruction by their own hands. There also seemed to be no hope that he might be relieved of his duty. No other celestial would touch them and new celestials were told immediately of the cursed race and its keeper.

 This left no successor for God. No one he could leave it to. Ideally, he would leave it to an Ascended human but the humans never survived long enough to produce an Ascended. And it’s not like God could just create an Ascended to take his place...

 ‘Wait. Could I?’ God raised his head.

Quickly he dug through his desk drawers searching for the rule book. He found it at the back where it had been discarded for millennia. Blowing off the dust, he quickly flipped through the rules... and sighed. It was there, plain as day, written cleanly and concisely.

 Article 23. D-173. No Celestial shall force, coerce, or otherwise make an Ascended. To do so is to go against the will of the Creator and will be punished with banishment to the Plains of Chaos.

 He sat back and thought for a long while, before furrowing his brow. He leaned forward and flipped through the rule book once again. Specifically, he studied the rules and guidelines for champions. He searched and searched for centuries before perking up. It would work.

 He smiled, and almost started shouting for joy before realizing that that would be seen as odd and a bit strange compared to his usual countenance. He needed to be careful with this. Though it was not strictly defined, what he was doing could be portrayed as illegal. 

 God quickly and quietly set about trying to find the perfect Earth for his plan.

  God most certainly didn’t want a dystopian world. A world like that was not ideal for anyone, except maybe the people on top. Utopias never happened, well, not without immediately collapsing afterward. A magical Earth was possible but was more trouble than its worth. There was always that crazy guy that wanted to destroy the world and magical worlds made that so much easier.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

 Eventually, God found what he was looking for.

 The year was 2123 and the world was in... a reasonable position. 

 Nuclear war was mostly avoided, though there were several terrorist attacks around the globe perpetrated by a variety of different people and causes. These attacks caused a shift in the world’s view of nuclear weapons. Across the world people spoke out against nuclear weapons. Riots broke out, Politicians argued, and the public debated. Eventually, the superpowers of the world agreed to nuclear disarmament.

At least publically. 

 Climate change was also mostly avoided, though not before several coastal cities were swallowed by the sea. There was also a brief panic where people fled the coasts for more inland provinces. However, that issue solved itself after awhile and there were almost no lingering effects.

 The supernatural had also survived in this world, though they only make up 0.5% of the world’s population. Most of the time they’re completely wiped out by human expansion or crusades against them, but this time a few had managed to secret themselves away to remote parts of the world. However, some supernatural bloodlines have become so diluted by breeding with humans that they’ve basically become indistinguishable from them.

 The governments of this Earth were mainly democratic with small smatterings of other government types. Some constitutional monarchies, a few autocracies, and a couple of oligarchies. Many of the world’s governments are facing issues of corporate corruption; in which they were being paid to look the other way about the growing monopolies that were slowly taking over.

 God rubbed his hands together. ‘This is perfect,’ he thought. ‘A good foundation for my successor. Enough technology for them to connect the world and a good mythological base to work from too.’ 

 With an Earth chosen, now all he needed was a candidate to lead it. While searching through the populace of the world God had a few criteria.

 One, not in a leadership position. This was so they would have no allegiance to any specific country, faction, or corporation. 

 Two, they have to be intelligent. Can’t have the power of a god going to an idiot that would destroy the world.

 Three, No emotional baggage. Someone with unresolved emotional issues would be weighed down by the past and therefore distracted from guiding humanity to the future.

 Four, relatively unknown. Famous people are bogged down by their fans and societal expectation, therefore they would have an allegiance of sorts.

 Five, no world-conquering ambitions. For whatever reason, human society tended to... Implode whenever God tried that. 

 Six, flexible and able to deal with change. Change is a fundamental principle of human nature and cannot be avoided. God knew that. Its how he’d designed them after all.

 With these criteria set up, God ran through the population of Earth, searching for his successor. He found a variety of people that met four or even five of his criteria, but none that met all six.

 A Hindu monk in the Himalayas was a contender. However, he was old and set in his ways. A general fighting in the middle east was also closely considered but he was discarded for his allegiance to his country. A charity worker helping those on the street was regarded highly until God discovered his shady and traumatic past. 

 Over and over again God found supposed contenders, but each had issues that made them invalid. God almost gave up, every single person was wrong one way or another.

 Until he found her.

 He perked up. ‘Really?’ he wondered. ‘Will she work? she meets all of the criteria… but…’ Mulling it over in his mind, God considered it. She had no allegiance, to a people or faction. She was intelligent, not overtly so, but it was there. She didn’t have any emotional baggage at all. In fact, her life was so bland it was comical. She was unknown. She didn’t seem to have any world-conquering ambition at all. And she desperately wanted the world to change.

 God studied her life, her hopes, her dreams, and he pondered. Would he really leave the fate of the world up to this girl? He ran it through his mind, again and again, driving himself mad. Centuries passed once again as god thought. 

 He was startled  out of them by a hand clamping out of his shoulder. 

 “Hey God, What’cha doing?” Hades asked. “It time to go,  you know? Me and Ra are going out for some drinks. Wanna come?”

 “Ah, sorry Hades. I’m just trying to decide something.” 

 “Oh,” Hades paused for a second. “Is it a do-not do situation?”

 “Huh?”

 “Like, is it a ‘do I do this or do I not do this’ situation? ‘Cause if it is, I always just flip a coin to decide.” He said with a smile. “Whatever’s going to happen, is going to happen. there’s no point in worrying about the aftermath in my opinion.”

 God just stared at him before looked over at the underworld in all of its flaming, chaotic glory. God could could hear the screams from where he was sitting.

“You know, that explains so much," He commented, deadpan.

 “Huh?” Hades stared back uncomprehending before smiling again. “Thank you.”

 God snorted. “Whatever. Anyways, you guys go on ahead. I’ll catch up in a little bit.” He said before turning back to earth.

 Hades shrugged and walked away, unaware he had just helped decide the fate of a world.

 “Just flip a coin, huh?” God sat back and stared at the ceiling. “That’s ridiculous.” He looked back at Earth.

  ‘Well, this whole idea is ridiculous. whats a little bit more?’ He thought as he conjured a coin in his hand. ‘Heads, I choose her. Tails, I keep searching.’

 And with that decided, God flipped a coin.

 A coin that would decide the fate of billions now and trillions to come. A coin that would decide the rising of nations and the falling of empires. A coin that would make a new god to replace an old one. A coin that would decide the destiny of a race and the planet they inhabit.

A coin that landed on heads.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”