Chapter 111 — Capture Target: END
Oh?
You’re still here, I see.
The story’s over, you know. As far as it matters, anyway. You know Elizabeth’s journey. You know how she became who she was. The end can be -- fill in the blank, I suppose.
Everything ends perfectly.
Happily ever after.
I know it’s not as satisfying to make it up as it is to have confirmation, but you humans are great at imagination. I’m sure you can come up with a wonderful ending.
…Besides.
Real endings tend to be a bit messy, even if they end happily.
Elizabeth is already gone, anyway. I’m afraid I don’t have her… unique voice. I wouldn’t do her tale justice.
…Well, if you insist.
I suppose you can hear just a bit more.
I, of all beings, can grant you that little dignity, hmm?
This was her third time flying through the nothingness that is the vast majority of reality, tossed like a softball from Axiomanager to Axiomanager, yet Elizabeth felt like she’d never really get used to the sensation.
…Sure, the first time she traveled she wasn’t exactly a goddess, so she didn’t actually remember anything, but still!
It’s the thought that counts.
Or something like that, anyway.
She just hoped that Dignity kept his promise. While the various realities couldn’t break causality -- every event must come after the event that causes it -- they could… speed themselves up, so to speak.
She had been a goddess for around a year now, and the vast majority of it was spent in another reality entirely. If Dignity was being honest, then she’ll arrive with her passenger mere moments after she left.
If he wasn’t --
-- well, if he wasn’t, they were all screwed anyway in so many different ways. It was a bit too late to question trusting him.
Thus, Elizabeth utilized her time-tested strategy: Don’t Think About It!
In the eternity that lasts a moment that is every Moment between the worlds, those were her thoughts before she was flung, almost violently, back into the messy reality of MISSY.
…She found herself sprawled on her tits as she broke through its weak, and still decaying, membrane.
“...Oooow… so much for these things being good cushions…” she grumbles under her breath as she gets up. Her divine shards already integrating themselves with the reality from which they came, subtly enforcing the local laws of physics on her. Her breasts became a bit perkier. Her libido a bit sharper. She almost sighed in relief at the sensation.
She had truly become a local before she left, and she had missed the unique sensations that MISSY brought to her sexualized body.
With a thought, she let Modesty know that she had arrived and was ready to visit.
…And moments after Modesty had shown up with her unofficial second in command, Raleine, in tow, did she realize that she had forgotten to dress herself.
…With a light blush she summoned a gauzy, pink dress. The cleavage was clearly hanging on her nipples to avoid having her tits pop out, and the dress itself was short enough that a slight breeze would reveal her panties. This was not helped by her ballet heels that almost locked her into walking on the tips of her toes.
If anything, it was worse than being naked.
Not that the other goddesses commented on it; compared to what some of their peers wore, it was downright tame.
Modesty spoke after the clothing settled onto Elizabeth’s form. “...You managed it?”
The question was superfluous, of course. They could all tell that two entities had crashed into MISSY, not just one. …They could also see the figure in question, lying in the background.
He was… slightly knocked out, due to Elizabeth’s shielding during the trip being… inexperienced.
…
He’d be fine.
“Yup!” Elizabeth said with a bright tone, holding up a ‘V’ for victory sign. The very motion sent her tits jiggling in a very calculated manner, designed to attract attention.
Shame neither of her viewers bothered to give it more than an appreciative glance, but that was fine.
It was time for Serious Things, after all.
“Everything’s still ready here, right?” The newest Goddess asked, frowning slightly as she lowered her hand. “...We’re still ready to… with Futaba…?”
Modesty’s face settled into a determined, flat expression as she nods. …In contrast, Raleine grimaces in an almost audible fashion. “I can’t help but feel like we’re missing something. Argenta always says that we shouldn’t assume we can predict our lord god.”
“Well, if Argenta would help us…” Modesty’s tone has enough bite in it that Raleine sighs in response.
They all had opinions on Argenta.
Raleine’s oldest friend gone crazy, Modesty’s long-suffering pain in the neck, and Elizabeth’s -- uh --
…Elizabeth wasn’t really sure what Argenta was to her.
A very confusing, asshole-shaped puzzle piece that thought it was an ally?
…
That sounds about right, actually…
“...I’ll get the wedding done as soon as Mr. Studmuffin wakes up,” Elizabeth says, breaking the silence before it becomes awkward. “I can already see how it works through the world shard -- it should be easy once I get his, and her, confirmation.”
Modesty nods. “That will alert our lord god.”
“Probably,” Raleine interjects, causing Modesty to roll her eyes.
“That will probably alert our lord god, who will probably summon all of us for a chat about his ‘daughter’ being wed. At that point, I’ll take care of Futaba, and we’ll immediately vote him out of his position.”
“And in the moment that he’s no longer invulnerable…” Elizabeth’s statement is halfway to a question as she looks at the ‘leading goddess’.
…But Modesty has a few secrets still, even amongst those most closely allied to her.
“...He’ll be finished.” Modesty’s tone is grim satisfaction covering ‘relief’ more than ‘glee’ at the thought.
Raleine raises herself up on her long tail, the echidna-like goddess resting a hand on her pregnant belly as she does so. “...Hopefully this will work better than the first time.”
“It will.” Modesty says. Modesty insists. After all, “It has to.”
Elizabeth muses that it should not be this easy to wed a goddess and a mortal in questionably holy matrimony. Two nods of the head, one from each, should not be enough! Sure, the confirmation is easy to detect when you’re a goddess, and that’s enough to convince the World Shard to let it work, but still!
Where was the romance? The passion?
The sex?!
…Fuck, it had been too long since she had a good dicking…
Elizabeth shakes it off. Not important.
It’s trivially easy to finalize the marriage request, and… done.
They should be summoned by their Lord God right about… now.
…
…
…Now?
…
…Aaaaany moment now.
…
…
…Would Pandora be upset if Elizabeth borrowed her new husband for a quick fuck…? At this rate -
Hello my loving girls! And as of a few minutes ago, my brand new son-in-law! It’s time for the End of the World Voting Ceremony! Come to the main Fuck Room in our godly domain, and we’ll see who wins: Lord Hyper-Cock Extremus, or his loving, if tragically mistaken, harem!
…
Well.
Fuck.
…Not enough time for a quickie, and ‘Lord Hyper-Cock Extremus’ knows what they’re up to.
…Elizabeth isn’t sure which is worse, frankly.
“Babe, babe, babe!” The self-named Lord Hyper-Cock Extremus says, almost laughing at Argenta’s fretting. “Chillax, already, it’ll be fiiiine. I’m not a moron, you know.”
Argenta gives him that look that makes him want to fuck that haughty attitude out of her brain.
…
Maybe later.
This is ‘important’, after all.
But he’s sure it’ll be fine.
He’s the god of gods, the dick of dicks!
…Wait, that second one sounded off…
“It is not fine, my lord,” Argenta says with narrowed eyes. “I’ve told you that they must have some reason to think that they’ll win.”
Lord Hyper-Cock Extremus laughs, nudging next to her and gripping her by the ass. He ignores, or doesn’t notice, the expression on her face as he gives it a pleasing squeeze.
He knows she loves it.
He can make her love it, after all.
What does her verbal attitude matter when her body is much more honest, after all?
“And I’ve told you, babe, that it’ll be fiiine. Even if a few of my chicks are wrapped up in some kind of…” he waved his hand, uncaringly. “...Feminine… power… whatever, it’ll just be a quick vote, they’ll learn they can’t beat me, and then they’ll realize that it all works better when I’m in charge. Just like last time.”
His grin is full of his normal, self-confident attitude.
“We’ve got the numbers on our side, and they’ll realize that I’m not that bad in the end. Just like you. Right, babe?”
“...” Argenta refuses to look in his direction. “...Right.”
Okay, Raleiene thinks, going over the shard count as she slithers towards the ‘end of the world vote’.
She could teleport, but… she’d rather have just a bit of time to think, first.
Shard simulations had an artificial feel to them; she’d rather go through this naturally, in real time. Or as real as time ever got in MISSY, anyway.
We should have the numbers on our side. There’s a total of seventy three shards in place -- well, seventy two, really. Sixty four originally. Three axiomanagers stayed here, giving a total of plus nine. And the World Shard won’t count for either vote.
Our Lord God has… thirty two under his direct control. Thirty personally; of the starting sixty four, one is the World Shard, and he gave away thirty three others. Twenty seven to the goddesses and three to each of Pandora and the Evil God. …But effectively it’s thirty two, as he’ll still have control of two of Pandora’s three…
Better than the thirty three it would have been if Elizabeth didn’t come through, though I’d prefer it if -- no, no, focus, Raleiene. Focus.
Roberta will obviously vote with him, and she has three shards, leaving him with a total vote of thirty five. And Argenta won’t vote with him.
…
No, I refuse to accept that she might. She’s gone far, but not that far. She’s still who I used to know.
…Somewhere in there.
…Why didn’t I trust her…
…The vote. Focus on the vote.
So, a total of seventy two, and he’ll have thirty five.
Seventy two minus thirty five is thirty seven.
That’s a victory by only two points, but… that’s enough.
If we don’t kill the traitor, then it won’t be. We’d have thirty five to his thirty seven, and we’d need to steal two of his votes or find three more shards. …So Futaba better be the one who actually betrayed us, or we’re screwed.
…We have the numbers.
It’ll be different this time.
Raleiene comes out of her thoughts as she arrives in the so-called ‘main fuck room’, the white expanse making it clear that there were two different sides.
One had goddesses of every stripe. From Goddess of Rape to Goddess of Sensation, Goddess of Hyper Sizes to Goddess of Bimbos, there stood twenty five goddesses -- twenty six with Raleine arriving -- and one hooded figure, the newcomer Elizabeth brought back with her.
On the other side stood, in some kind of… toga-like outfit, their Lord God, with Pandora reluctantly standing behind him.
…Along with Roberta.
…
And Argenta.
…Not again…
Elizabeth was trying to keep her giggles down.
It was inappropriate, and the situation was super serious, but the chief god had put up a cheesy sign with the words ‘Welcome to the End of the World Voting Party!’ in big blocky letters in the center of the room.
With the death of the Evil God of Chastity and Purity, the reality bug situation had slowed down… for a few hours.
Then it got a whole lot worse.
Without the chief gods dumping ground for reality bugs, they had nowhere to go but ‘everywhere else’. Reality itself was effectively paused -- which would only make even more reality bugs in the long term -- as their ‘lord god’ decided how to solve this situation.
…But still.
‘Welcome to the End of the World Voting Party!’
She couldn’t -- no, no, she can.
No giggles, Elizabeth, no giggles.
Serious time.
Serious face.
…She almost lost it until the sound of holy metal slicing through divine flesh, and she suddenly remembered the murder they were planning on doing.
She decided it wasn’t worth seeing Modesty claim Futaba’s shard if she had to see her decapitated body as well, so she just -- looked somewhere else.
And tried to ignore the startled screams and shrieks that burst out amongst the other goddesses.
…Well.
Argenta didn’t expect that.
For somebody who claimed to always have the moral high ground, it always tickled her when Modesty shed her moralistic facade.
And to aim for Futaba of all goddesses… there is some grand humor there, she can tell.
Still, how did she manage that…? No blade from MISSY should be able to kill a goddess. Argenta herself might be able to make one, but nobody else was even close to the skill required.
She glanced to the side as her Lord God summoned the blade out of Modesty’s hand and into his, peering at it curiously. “...Huh,” He says, sounding -- is that worry? Please let it be worry. Please let him take something seriously for once in his pathetic existence -- “...Fun start!” His bright tone shatters Argenta’s hope, like it always does, as he casually tosses the blade behind him.
It vanishes into the white, to -- somewhere.
Probably destroyed.
Shame.
Argenta would have loved to study it.
“Normally I’d be more upset about killing a member of my harem, but, eh… we can all agree Futaba was an asshole. So whatever.” He laughs. “I’ll keep your punishment light. Now, everybody! My loving harem! Welcome! To the end of the world!”
…Nobody was taking this seriously.
They all thought it was another dumb joke.
Argenta’s hand tenses into a fist before she forces it to relax.
“I think Missy’s had a good run, but I think we can all agree the situation’s gotten a little bit out of hand with the whole ‘reality bugs’ -- thing. Sooo I figured it was time to start over!”
Argenta feels a thrum of satisfaction at the horrified hush that fell across the other goddesses.
She used to feel guilty about feeling happy at others misery.
It’s amazing what one can get over given enough exposure.
“We’ll let you lot do your adorable little ‘voting’ thing -- oh don’t give me that look, did you really think I wouldn’t notice? Maybe keep the blatant actions down a bit if you want to keep things secret, babes -- and once I win, we can get to designing a new reality full of fun! I’ll just erase everything and --”
Argenta coughs.
“-- everything except the City of Alchemists that my adorable Argenta here has asked to keep -- and we can create a new world in the void!” Lord Hyper-Cock Extremus grins his stupid grin. Like everybody will agree with him that this is a fine idea. “I’ve got tons of new ideas of how to make it tons of fun!”
“...” Roberta could feel the accusations on her skin. She doesn’t give them the dignity of a response.
She understands what they’re asking with their stares, and the answer is yes.
She pushed him to this choice.
Because it was a fast death or a slow one, and if it was a slow one they wouldn’t be able to save anybody as reality bugs chewed every law of physics out of existence.
At least this way she can save some of them.
And if those she saves happen to consist of those loyal to her --
-- well.
She’s sure the others would do the same.
She can’t save them all, after all.
Not on her own.
“Now,” Lord Hyper-Cock Extremus continues, “since this vote is really important…” He makes a whistling sound, like one would to summon a dog.
Argenta almost barks out a laugh at seeing Modesty’s expression fall as she realizes something Argenta already knew.
Futaba wasn’t the traitor after all.
Modesty stares as Leola, goddess of submission, slips out of Daria’s leash and, head down, quickly walks over to their Lord God.
She can’t process this.
Leola -- Leola was the traitor?
But the Sexual School of Submission --
-- that they --
-- never found the core artifact for.
And Futaba adored ‘breaking’ sluts, much moreso than Leola ever did… she preferred being on the other end of it…
…Futaba was just an asshole.
One that their Lord God let be an asshole out of some moronic -- what? Attempt at equality? Fair play? Freedom for the harem he shackles for eternity?! What kind of -- how can he be this stupid -- the permissions he gave her when she complained were large enough to drive through them! And yet…
…what burns most of all is that Modesty can tell.
Argenta knew.
When she figured it out, Modesty doesn’t know, but she knew and she didn’t tell anybody.
It’s fine. It’s -- it’ll be fine. They should have enough votes anyway.
The vote was… with Argenta and Roberta with the Lord God, it would be… thirty eight versus thirty four. A difference of four. Doable.
With Leola on the other side --
-- thirty nine versus thirty three.
A difference of six.
She feels her anger wash out of her, replaced with a sense of pure dread.
A difference of six.
They can’t win.
Six votes.
They’re off by six votes.
Elizabeth watches in -- is it horror? She thinks it’s horror. She watches in horror as Modesty tries to get Argenta and Leola to change their minds.
They’re off by six -- they need to take four of the chief gods votes in order to reverse the outcome. Argenta and Leola, combined, would make four, but…
…Elizabeth can already tell.
Modesty won’t be able to convince them.
Modesty is an amazing people person. She’s not manipulative, not really, but she is just -- friendly. Bright. Bubbly, at times. Filled with passion and a desire to do good.
Given enough time, that kind of ceaseless earnesty and good will can get through almost anybody.
…almost. Almost everybody.
Leola is…
…Elizabeth feels a pang of pity, staring at the goddess that stands behind her master, face looking down.
Leola is afraid. And ashamed of her fear, which makes it worse. Cries to rise up are only making her shame worse, because she knows in her heart she won’t change -- even if, in theory, she could change? She knows she won’t.
So she can’t.
She needs comfort, and Modesty can’t offer that right now. Not when she needs the votes immediately.
And for Argenta…
…Argenta views herself as a creature of logic.
In practice, by now, she’s more one of spite, but she believes she’s one of logic.
Cries of passion will do nothing to change her mind.
She needs evidence. Solid evidence.
And Modesty doesn’t have any to give.
“Have you lost the ability to count? Even if I change my mind -- which I won’t -- that’ll lead us to a tie. Nothing changes.”
“You want my trust? My faith? You killed the wrong goddess! Every choice you make makes me trust you less!”
“I’m just being pragmatic. Saving who I can. Your emotional tantrum won’t change the facts.”
Argenta’s words are dripping with self-righteous venom, and Modesty doesn’t have the words to face them. And yet she begs anyway.
…So Elizabeth does something that she never thought that she’d do. Not once, not since she came to MISSY.
She prays.
To anybody, anything that’ll listen.
She doesn’t want to spend an eternity trapped with this Lord God in charge.
She doesn’t want her friends to vanish as he simply gives up on this world to make a new one.
She can’t -- she’s done everything that she can. She can’t do more. She has nothing more to give.
So she prays for help.
And something answers.
You didn’t really think I’d go through all of that effort, and not leave a small bit of insurance behind, do you?
As the goddesses shift, and fidget -- more than one of them starting to waver from their defiance, only an instinctive desire to not draw attention holding them back -- a tiny, high pitched voice speaks up.
Mini is the magical girl mascot of Jessica; she is an entity designed by a foreign god, one that rules another reality, and she flies up from where she was hidden. Inside Modesty’s clothing.
“Um, um!” She says, her voice enhanced. “...I have a shard! I vote against the jerk!”
Just one shard wouldn’t change much.
Instead of being behind by six, they were now behind by five.
But that did mean that a goddess with three shards could change the result.
Argenta realizes this instantly. She can feel the shift in the vote, as their lord god is ahead by just a little bit less.
Where the shard came from didn’t matter. She can sense the truth in the flying dolls words, she can feel the shard as it’s revealed.
She stops talking. Frozen.
Every goddess has their breath frozen as they stare at her.
…In the end, it comes down to her. As it was always going to. She’s the one who prepared. She’s the one who thought things out. She’s the one in the position to change the fate of MISSY, decide who wins and who loses.
They’re finally listening to her.
If she decides to change sides, right here, right now, then they win.
From losing by five, to winning by one.
But if she does so -- she’d be supporting Modesty.
Even if she supports her now, there would be no way for her to have any form of influence, any form of power, in what comes next.
She refuses to believe that any of them would forgive her when she’s gone this far.
But -- to not support her… would mean supporting the Lord God.
Her face takes on a tortured, conflicted expression, as she -
BANG
All of MISSY shudders.
The chief god has been outvoted, and in the same instance, a simple pistol was fired right at his head.
His immortality was ripped from him at the same moment his life was.
The scene is frozen in Elizabeth’s mind.
Argenta, struggling with what to choose.
Mini, flying above the goddesses, shining with holy power and the last gift from Dignity.
Modesty, transitioning from shock, to relief, to determination.
Their newly-deceased Lord God, an expression of near perfect confidence on his face -- combined with a hint of very slight, very minor surprise. Like he can’t quite understand what’s happening; like he’s seen something impossible, and is trying to brush it over.
It’s the face he has as he starts to slump and fall over, never quite understanding, not even at the very last minute.
…And then there’s Roberta.
Hand holding an Atlantean pistol, which she just shot at their late Lord God’s head.
The Lord God slowly falls, and as he does so, MISSY trembles. So much of what it was, how it worked, relied on him being directly plugged in, and now it -- stumbles.
When Argenta damaged the Evil God of Chastity and Purity, the goddesses had a preview on what this would feel like. As something critical is torn from the web of reality, those that rely on the subtler interactions with the World Shard are stunned.
Things suddenly stop working as intended.
And the goddesses need time to adapt to that fact.
Every goddess is affected. Some more than others.
They all rely on those subtle, automatic features their shards provide, after all. Using simulations to predict outcomes is only the most obvious one. And the more a goddess relied on those features to function, the more stunned they are.
That, with few exceptions, correlated directly to how long one has been a goddess.
The longer they’ve been one, the more they rely on those features.
…except for Argenta.
Argenta realized long ago that she didn’t want to rely on those features. It was one of her many small quirks; she stopped using simulations for conversations, ceased receiving input from the ‘stud-ometer’ their moronic Lord insisted on building, and in general cut herself out of anything that had her lord god's touch.
She recovered quickly, and immediately moved to protect herself from Argenta. And then she moves to their Lord God's body.
Thirty shards.
Thirty shards.
Out of seventy three -- seventy four, now, with Mini’s reveal -- but even so! With that many shards, it doesn’t matter what the rest say. She’d have thirty three, nearly half! She could fix everything, make a reality where things made sense, where things worked properly --
-- but she was too late.
Because one goddess used those features even less.
Elizabeth, Goddess of Bimbos, had only been a Goddess for under a year. …And of that year, less than a week was spent in MISSY itself.
She had seven shards.
With the thirty from their lord god, that made thirty seven.
Half of seventy four is thirty seven.
…and Mini, her sisters mascot, will always side with her.
Argenta has managed to achieve nothing.
And Elizabeth, Goddess of Bimbos, has become the new ultimate power in all of Missy.
Elizabeth had no idea what the fuck she was doing.
…No, really, she didn’t.
She panicked, and moved on reflex.
She saw the chief gods body fall, and she knew that it was going to become a massive cluster fuck the moment people realized what that represented.
So she moved.
Somehow -- she’s not sure how -- she got there first.
And now she has what she’s tentatively thinking of as ‘ultimate power’.
…She could plug herself back into reality.
Just like their late moron of a leader did.
Make herself invulnerable, enforce the rules of reality to follow her subconscious desires.
A world filled with her wants, and her wants alone.
A magical realm.
If she could convince Mini to give her her shard -- and she’s pretty sure she could -- that would leave her with over half of all shards in MISSY.
Nobody would be able to stop her.
That’s not a wild thought, that’s a fact.
…It’s tempting.
It’s so tempting.
…
She makes her choice.
Immaculata is not a goddess of import.
Everybody knows that, and Immaculata knows it most of all.
With her addiction to improving her own appearance, she can barely think most days, and spends every hour pampering herself and seeking simple, vain pleasures.
She’s long since accepted that about herself.
…But that doesn’t mean that she ever forgave their Lord God for what he did to her.
Trapped in a cycle of reincarnation, forced to fail again and again, to be raped and fucked and twisted and turned into a parody of who she was until she embraced it --
-- so she took the first opportunity for revenge that she could see.
She sided with Modesty.
She was going to vote with her no matter what happened, win or lose.
And for an uncomfortably long time there, it looked like it was going to be ‘lose’.
Until the doll -- thing -- flew out, followed shortly by the reveal of what Immaculata was certain was the reason Modesty was always so confident in her success. She hasn’t had her thoughts confirmed, but she’s certain she’s right.
Roberta was never on the Lord Gods side.
She was a mole from the start.
A goddess designed by Atlantis specifically to assassinate him at the first opportunity.
…And then, as she was processing her realization, she passed out.
She relied so much on her shard to function that when reality shook as badly as it did, she had no defenses.
She slowly comes to, and sees the twenty seven -- twenty eight, now? Or is it twenty nine, with the doll? -- goddesses spread out around her in a circle. They’re all sitting at a -- table. And they’re all next to each other? While also across from each other?
…Somebody is having fun breaking the laws of physics.
She reaches to the side, curiously, and finds that no matter how far she reaches, she can’t actually touch her neighbor. No matter which ‘neighbor’ it was.
She can hear arguments starting to crop up from those that woke up earlier, and she slowly realizes that there’s one goddess not sitting around the table.
She’s instead sitting in front of all of them. To the side of all of them? At the head of the table?
…Whatever, she’s clearly visible and also clearly separate from them, and she has a frustrated look on her face.
Immaculata glances around, and sees that she was one of the last goddess to wake back up…. though like the traitor, Leola, seemed to be the last one. Immaculata feels a snarl of anger rise up from her at the sight. If they’re killing gods now, why stop with Futaba and their moronic leader? Leola and Argenta sounded like an excellent followup to her. She wonders if --
Enough!
The word echoes, cutting every argument off, as Elizabeth draws their attention to herself.
She takes a deep breath, to settle herself, then nods, and puts on a smile.
Then she speaks.
“Hi! I’m Elizabeth. And in case it isn’t obvious, I’m your new boss! …For now. Until I feel safe quitting.”
That started up another wave of shouting.
Starting with Argenta, saying she’d gladly take the position off of her hands, followed by Modesty staying the same. Roberta spoke up immediately after, then everybody speaking up and now Immaculata is getting a headache --
-- silence.
…Oh. Elizabeth just erased the concept of ‘sound’ from reality.
…Okay then. If there was any doubt she had a majority of the divine shards before, they were now gone.
And then sound returns, as easily as it left in the first place.
Elizabeth looks kinda pissed off, though…
“Let me make this clear,” She says, voice sounding thin. “The asshole is dead. Yay us! Go team! But he’s dead. And now, now we’re going to get a happy ending!” She puts a smile on her face. …Immaculata winces when she notices how strained it looks. “We’re going to figure out what form of divine government we’re going to have, and presuming it’s not stupid and has enough failsafes, I’ll give the shards up to whosoever runs the place.
More arguments.
Silence again.
…Immaculata takes out her makeup kit to freshen up her face, as Elizabeth visibly forces herself to calm down.
Sound returns, and Elizabeth continues when it does. “I get it.” Her ‘happy’ tone and smile are obviously fake. “It’s been a tense situation. You all have centuries, if not millennia of feelings about each other. This isn’t what we expected. Some of us made mistakes. Some of us were on other sides. It’s complicated. It’s ugly. It’s messy.” Her smile gets both wider and faker at the same time. “As somebody who has been dealing with divine nonsense without a speck of power to my name for over five years, I don’t give a shit. Everybody that is alive, right now, stays alive. Everybody works together to create a divine government they can agree with. We get a happy ending. And then this mess is over and done with.”
There’s more than a few noises of disagreement.
Who can work with Leola?
What can Argenta compromise on?
How can any of them trust Roberta, or Modesty, who hid her nature from them?
Those arguments and more fill the room, and with twenty nine individuals talking, it feels like there are eighty seven separate opinions.
Silence.
Sound.
…Immaculata takes one look at Elizabeth’s smile and feels herself shiver. That was genuine glee on her face -- spiteful, spiteful glee. Like she had just come to a decision that she knew she probably shouldn’t make, but wanted to anyway.
Elizabeth says, with far more glee than she should be capable of, “I don’t care! No shits given. Happy ending. We’re making one. I have the shards, I get to choose, and that’s my choice. We can sit here for eternity if we have to to figure it out.”
Sullen silence.
More arguments.
Elizabeth grins. “And since I seem to be the only one that can be responsible without external motivation…”
Immaculata feels like that’s an unfair characterization. A solid quarter -- no, somewhere between a third to a half -- have already accepted her rules and are trying to get to work. It’s the emotional flare ups from the rest of the divine that are making progress futile.
But Elizabeth has clearly already made her decision, and with a snap of her fingers, she enacted it.
Erasing something subtle from reality.
Something subtle that makes every goddess in the room go pale.
…Immaculata can feel it herself.
No.
She didn’t.
She wouldn’t!
“Thanks for helping me get that through, Mini!” Elizabeth’s smile shines on the doll as it gives a happy wave back from her tiny little doll-sized seat at the non-euclidean table.
“Now! To keep things progressing? Until we’re done, orgasms no longer exist.”
…She did.
Immaculata was, originally, going to ignore the debate.
It didn’t matter to her.
Their lord god was dead. What interest did she have in governmental design now that her primary goal had been achieved?
She would just let those interested resolve the situation.
Besides, it’s not like she did much work before now; why bother when she can focus on touching up her makeup?
But without orgasms…
They’re… every goddess is a massive slut. Their libidos, if weaponized, could destroy entire kingdoms! And they’ve all been banned from release?!
And from the look in Elizabeth’s eyes, she is perfectly fine with just keeping things locked down as they are until she gets what she wants.
…F-fuck.
If she doesn’t actually help, and try to get to a good compromise…
…Immaculata hears herself whimper.
The sound is echoed by over twenty of the other goddesses sitting at the table.
…Governmental design of a new holy system sounds like a fascinating topic to her now!
Elizabeth smiles brightly, seeing how her threat has been taken seriously. “Great!” She says, clapping her hands together. “Now let’s all work together, and make it so that I don’t have to be the one in charge, okay~? Slutty goddesses, assemble! Go teamwork! Let’s earn our happy ending!”
And in the end, nobody was perfectly happy.
…Hahaha, oh, come now. You didn’t really expect a perfect ending, did you?
Things are too… messy for perfection. In that reality, and in every other.
All you can aim for is ‘something better’.
I think that’s enough of the story for you; the rest is really quite droll. But I suppose I can share some details with you.
Elizabeth never did manage to escape responsibility. As the nearly-unanimous ‘least terrible option’, she maintained something of a veto vote when it came to divine dictations. She may not have been, or even be now, a major decision maker, but she was still given several emergency buttons in case their nascent holy court went awry. Much to her very audible dismay.
She was also, with the first and, to date, only unanimous vote of the divine court, forbidden from banning orgasms ever again.
Argenta wasn’t killed. She wasn’t given any excess power, either. Nor was she banished. She simply got to live as one goddess of many, one that nobody trusted or would listen to, even if her points were good. If she wanted more power, she would need to earn the trust of her peers to obtain it. Not even her abilities at shardcraft set her apart -- she was forced to share all she knew.
She is trying to make up for her past actions -- or perhaps it is merely an act. She has yet to make much, if any success, but at least she and Raleiene have begun spending time together once more.
Modesty has obtained some measure of influence of power. Not as much as she wanted, but more than most. The responsibilities of her new position are beyond her, but her capabilities are growing with time.
Roughly one third of the goddesses quit. They are now immortal, with personalized hedonistic estates, and are not forced to help keep reality stable or serve a madman with delusions of popularity and grandeur. They are allowed back into the holy court as visitors should they ever desire to return.
Leola was one of the first to retire. She merely wished to be left alone. Her willing abdication of her post, and her divine shard, was the start of a trend amongst several goddesses. Her request to not be punished or vilified in return for her complete abdication of power was granted… after a great many hours of argument between the more and less vengeful minded sides of the pantheon. She is still recovering from what she did and who she was made into, but she is happier than she has been in a long while. Without requiring that she submit herself to a master, to appease her guilty conscience.
Not that she doesn’t do so regularly anyway, but now it’s for the right reasons. For kinky fun, instead of a crutch for mental health.
The rest -- well. They work as well as they can. And try to make something new of themselves. They fixed up reality -- mostly. Killed the reality bugs -- mostly. Saved the mortals -- mostly. And they’re working on making things better day by day.
And as for Elizabeth’s friends --
-- well.
You didn’t think that they’d let her being a goddess get in the way of her duties as their personal bimbo slut, did you?
And so things went on. And are going on.
They aren’t perfect.
It was messy.
Some people got off easy, some got off hard.
But it was better.
And that, I feel, means it was a job well done.