All were insignificant to me. I would waste no time on them.
When I sailed out of the lava, it was to find a world built on chaos and tragedy. Screams and fire licked across the world; gold covered every surface, and two gods fought with blows that would have killed any other being.
Flicking my hands to either side, I pinned them against the wall. The cracking of their bones was somewhat satisfying. These were supposed to be the most supreme beings in this system of energy, and it was like swatting a fly.
Gliding across the air, I approached the closest one. A woman. Her power buzzed against my bones like electricity. A goddess of storms.
“What the fuck are you?” she stuttered out, fear creasing her almost perfect face. In the reflection of her eyes, I could see the glowing skeletal vision of myself, see the flames in my eyes, the darkness shrouding the rest of me.
“The Mother of All,” I whispered back. Or tried to. My voice boomed much louder than I intended, and she whimpered as blood trailed from her ears.
I didn’t attempt to keep my voice down again. I was not made to consider others. I was made to right the wrongs of this world.
Use us.
My perfect Hellbringers.
They were the omniscience to my power, the ones to allow me to reach out and drain the goddess until she was nothing more than a husk. When her body puffed into a dusty residue, I directed it toward the lava.
The power I’d drained from her swirled inside of me and I briefly contemplated keeping it.
No. You are not made to bow or worship the storms. That must belong to another. Find the one who will remake it in your image.
The entire world of beings flashed before my eyes, and for some reason I paused on one with perfect dark skin and hair the color of the flames from which I was born.
Her.
I didn’t know her. She was nothing to me. But I sensed that she would embrace the storms and bring back their glory. If I couldn’t take on the power, I had to keep the balance.
The balance was everything.
The original magic that had borne gods seeped from my bones, Hellbringers at my center helping me control it all. The storm power disappeared into the universe.
A new god was born.
While I had been focused on my internal view of the world, more gods appeared. They were attacking me with power and energy and their own specific brand of godhood.
Sweeping out with my power, I trapped all of them one by one, holding them in stasis. Each came before me, and each of their powers became mine.
As I stripped a godhood, I then returned it to a new being, one that my power deemed worthy.
When I was done, only two remained, two who glowed with the same molten gold that filled the bones that was all that remained of the being I used to be. Two beings born from the original Mother of All.
Their names were already forgotten. Purpose insignificant.
My power wrapped around them and I dragged them forward. The first was a woman.
“You cannot do this,” she spluttered and I cut her off before she could speak another word. They were all corrupt. They all had to be remade.
This one didn’t really have any significant role in the balance. As long as the Mother of All existed—and she certainly existed inside of me—there was no need for an understudy.
Crushing her in my grip, I destroyed her in the next beat of time. Her power settled inside of me and I decided to hold on to it. For now. There was no need to rush and fill her position, and I had more than enough strength to control her meagre energy.
The Hellbringers didn’t respond.
We moved on to the next being, and a flicker of recognition touched deep within my energy.
“Maddison,” he said, face streaked with blood, eyes wide and gold as they pleaded with me. “Maddison. Baby. Please come back to me.”
