Gathering God's

A bony, hand pierced with weapons broke through the roof of a bar and grabbed Dog, who yelled, "Hey! What's going on?!"

A black hand descended from a portal above the Darkone Dungeon, destroying the little entrance and breaking through the entire cave system to reach the bottom. The hand grabbed the Dark Empress, who was attached to an altar and brought her up, along with Iiustus and Sinistra who attached themselves to the altar. Her teammates were brought out with her in the black hand, who said, "Why were you so low? Come on!"

"Where?"

A molten red clamp broke through the Vane's building, melting directly down its side, passing the floor that the two Vanes were on, and reaching Heavy, still bound to the floor. They clamped on and dragged Heavy out of the building. A gruff voice said, "come on!"

Pishku swung his scythe onto Heavy's foot in a split-second decision, trying to get as far away from Death as he could.

Page saw the same thing and instead took out a piece of paper and said, "Item escape!"

The paper vanished from his hands and appeared in Pishku's pocket.

'What happened?' Elton ran over to look up at them flying away.

'We're about to find out. That piece of paper was the last of it. I used my escape spell to teleport a mass teleportation circle. Once we get Skwil back, let's teleport away.'

Nadaho took his eyes away from the giant hole to look at Page. 'Get Skwil back? Didn't she just run into Death?'

'Yes, but Death hasn't cut her with the scythe yet. The body only drives them insane.'

As each human flew away with their Gods, they questioned and were answered. "I just detected the power of a God in mortal form."

"I can't believe whoever it was couldn't hide their power."

"Who were they fighting?"

"Who is it that had to use so much?"

"This will surely be fun."

Dande watched as streaks of all colors soared through the skies towards her like comets. "Drat." she hit the floor, cracking it. "I was so careful not to have powerful energies to mix with. Where the hell did that mortal come from?"

The deities cast down their humans one by one with a beam of light. Dande yelled, "it's me, Brivyc. Remember our deal!"

"Yes, yes, we know." A voice said from the skies. "Only our Power Holders may attack in physical forms."

"This is going to be so fun!" someone screeched.

Someone excitedly clapped and yelled in a low voice, "Hehehehahahaha, commence! Commence! Hahahaha!"

A beautiful, honey voice sang, "beautiful blood~ dance on the canvas~!"

Someone happily hollered, "Brivyc, I can't believe you're the one down there! Actually, yes I can! Hohoho! Have fun!"

Brivyc created a crown around her head and a longsword in her hand. Ice hanging in the air hovered around, twinkling. She shouted, "you don't need to fight your God's battles. If you step away now, I won't hurt any of you."

"If you step away now," the gods said, "we will kill you. None of us will hesitate to destroy a toy that won't work."

The people who seemed hesitant at first readied themselves for battle.

In the middle of the battlefield, the ground tunneled about, lifting dirt like a mole was under it. A God said, "Mole, is that you?"

A short person with long, metal claws watched the ground move about and replied, "no."

'I can't believe someone else can move so fast underground.'

Someone struck a scepter with a blue bulb directly in the path of the tunneling dirt, hitting something. Black, who was still rubbing his forehead, trying to move around, was suddenly bumped on the head with a stick, shaking him from his distress. Angrily, he burst at the scepter, biting it with his sharpened teeth. He exploded from underground, ripping the arms off the person holding the staff and eating it.

A deep, echoed laughter burst from his chest, terrifying the people.

A chubby, make-up-covered woman hyperventilated, "W-what is that?"

A man with a curly mustache and suit stood tall, telling her, "Dude, stop panicking."

"Are you insane?!" she grabbed his collars, shaking him, "he's-he's- I don't even know what he is! I don't have a word for it! I can't face him!"

The man backhand slapped the girl in the face, magically lifting her in the air. "Please don't touch my attire. You would not believe the time it took for my servants to set it right."

She crashed down on the ground, furiously clenching her fists, which grew into a black, spiked club. She swung it at him, shaving off half his mustache and cutting his lips.

He shakily touched his lips, feeling around and seeing the blood. The rocks around him began shaking and then lifted into the air. With one eye glowing grey, he glared at her and let all the rocks fall. They struck the people around him and slowly, everyone began attacking one another.

A faceless God made up of mirrors reflected everything she saw onto a cloud, showing Black chuckling while drinking blood.

"Mayhem!" he yelled. The hushed voices in his head kept saying, "Eat, eat, kill, slaughter!"

She asked, "Who is that?"

No one answered.

"Come on guys. I know he's an assistance holder. Brivyc wasn't using enough energy to alert all of us, he had to have amplified it."

Once again, no one replied. The Deities simply continued watching the destruction below.

"Hiding your affiliation is of no use, delaying your reveal will only harm you."

Black bashed his head against the ground while laughing.

"No one wants to claim him?"

"Maybe it's none of us."

"What? What are you getting at?"

"You know what I'm getting at. Look at him."

Black scratched at his head and back. Brivyc watched it all from the safety of his ice tower while creating traps.

"Not even Schizo's claiming him. So what if he's claimed by Mother."

The gods went silent. One leaned over the clouds and yelled, "attack the Frost Giant God, not each other, morons! Fight each other later!"

The people stopped fighting each other instantly, pausing where they were. The floor was covered in blood, teeth, and traces of magic which was shifted about until everyone was facing Brivyc.

"Hail!" Brivyc yelled. Spiked mallet of ice rained from the skies, flying down at the people. In one area, the mallets stopped mid-air, hovering in the shape of a bubble. Beneath that was the mustached man holding a bloody, weakened hand up to them. Brivyc stomped on his ice tower, sending an even larger crystal at him, which pushed through the bubble and crushed him. But on the other side of the tower, a giant magma demon rose from the ground, absorbing the mallets and hugging the tower. Inside the magma was a little red lizard controlling the demon. As it hugged the tower, it sank in like a pillow as the cold water ran over it steam escaped and covered the battlefield.

Heavy, who watched the magma man melt into the tower, jumped to action.

"Scythe man, apologies," he bellowed at Pishku, "big enemy God wants dead. We fight later, is that okay? My life in danger."

"That's okay. I didn't want you dead anyway."

"Get ready, Heavy." he sighed, jogging away, "Let's go kill again."

Heavy stuck a hand hastily into the ice, sinking in as well.

As soon as the magma man got to the center of the ice tower and bent it, water fell over the sides and froze over, trapping the magma inside and cooling it into rocks.

The water ran down and froze over Heavy's hands, freezing him as well. The ice crept up his hands, stretching over his body. "Awe, beets."

Inside the dungeon, people were trying to escape but the man-made stairs were crushed. Everyone who saw Zeeth reveal himself wasn't able to tell anyone else and simply talked amongst themselves. Dadan whispered, "that wasn't him. Oh god, it was him! How could this have happened? Why did you guys let me fight him! Why didn't anyone help?!"

"Dude, we didn't know."

"Oh no," he curled up, "it's over. What am I supposed to do now? Didn't one of you try to spit at him?

Maybe we'll just go into hiding."

"Or maybe work for him. Prove that we're useful and he won't kill us."

"He's just a human like us, he's probably not that bad."

"He's a famous hunter. Almost all of them have a temper."

"What was he doing at our school?! Doesn't he have demons to kill? Monster to hunt?!"

On the floors above them, Edmund looked up and down the hole.

"What are you doing?" Dan asked.

"Nothing," Ed stepped away from the teacher, "just. Determining something."

"Should I ask?"

"It's this." Ed ran at the hole, jumped, and fell.

"What are you doing!?" Dan looked over the hole.

He felt hot air blasting up. Ed flailed about mid-air with heat radiating off his palms pointing downwards. Slowly, he floated in the air and rose. But as he steadied himself, he rose faster. He stood as if the air was solid, blasting heat below him. People watched in awe, surprised that he could fly.

"Ed?"

"The heat I absorbed from the lightning. It's so intense that I can use it to propel myself like this. See you later!"

He pushed his hands down, releasing concentrated jets of air and shooting out the ceiling. He flew past a giant ice spike, narrowly avoiding it and turning his head to look at the path of ice behind him. "What the hell happened…?"

He turned around and saw a sight he couldn't comprehend. A massive tower of ice with a giant Frost Giant, larger than normal ones, and a black golem frozen in the center surrounded by hundreds of people with beans of colorful light from the sky. Behind them, a giant iceberg trapped a grunting, six-legged beast. But most importantly, some man who looked just like Zeeth popped up from the ground and yelled, "PAAAIIIN!! ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!"

Four wavy, red veins grew from his back like wings. They stopped midair and created four rips that opened gates to hell, creating a square behind him. Energy wafted out the gates, surrounding Zeeth and pulling him on all four ends, which kept him there.

"Zeeth?! What is he doing here? What are all of these guys doing here? And why does that Frost Giant look like the headmistress? What's going on??"

He flew down to the crowd, towards a child and asked, "Hey, what's happening here?"

The child twisted his head backward and bared his fifty-long fangs and bloodshot eyes.

Ed jumped back, yelping, "Gah, oh-ho."

A giant woman with long braids and dark skin leaned down and said, "our gods brought us here to kill the Frost Giant God. Who's your god, by the way? There's like three heat-related gods apparently."

"My god? I don't- wait, the gods are real? I thought they were myths. And there are this many?"

"What rock do you live under? Listen, if you don't have a god, you shouldn't be here. I can throw you auto that school if you'd like."

"No, I'm good. Thank you."

"No worries. Then just don't get in the way, alright?"

"Yeah."

"Hey, I'm Dread by the way."

"Oh, hi. I'm Ed."

"Hey, Dread and Ed! It rhymes."

"Yeah, it does." Ed felt an instant connection with her. Anyone who treated him so well was instantly a friend.

"You're the first person I've met that hasn't made fun of my name."

"Yeah, well it's a pretty cool name. You were born with it?"

"Thank you! Finally. Yes, my parents, Drod and Gread gave it to me."

"That's awesome. My dad just named me Edmund after his grandfather, Edward."

She had a mean face and muscular body but during their conversation, he forgot about all that and simply enjoyed her presence.

"So, what are you doing here if your god didn't bring you."

"I was in that dungeon and I just escaped to see the entire kingdom ruined."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I just came as well, I have nothing to do with the ice."

Black grabbed the gates of hell and tried to squeeze them close but nothing worked. The lower gates grabbed his back and the top two grabbed his forehead. The pain was unbearable, like millions of hooks were trying to pull on his skin.

"WHY??!!" Black yelled.

*your punishment isn't over yet. But I suppose we can continue this when you die. I'll really enjoy it then. Hehehe!*

The four gates shut with a snap, yanking the hooks away. But at that moment, when the hooks pulled back, blood splattered from his back and head. Four gaping holes dripped blood. Or at least, where the holes should've been. Instead of fatal wounds, a pair of bloody horns stuck out of his head, and a pair of large, leathery wings opened up, still sticky from blood.

*you're welcome for the gifts. But remember, everything comes at a cost.*

"What gifts? Pain?"

The voice didn't answer. Instead, he felt a surge of pain and pressure in his eyes. When they opened, he could see little threads surrounding every living thing. They wove in and out of each person, running through their entire body.

"Who is that?"

"Doesn't matter, attack the tower!"

A long teddy bear made up of patches and yellow fur took a step toward. Everything about it seemed soft, it had black, shiny eyes, rounded limbs, and an open mouth. But when you swung its hand down, claws extended from it and an entire chunk of the tower cut off and slid away, slicing off an entire leg from the magma man. The tower began cracking and falling where it was the thinnest.

Dande began falling off, tilting the entire thing down. Five icicles shot out from the top of the tower and dig into the ground like nails, holding the tower up. But when she looked down, a girl with large, sparkling eyes and curly hair was holding her finger and intensely locking her eyes. Like a trance, she chimed, "Brivyc, come down from the tower."

She fell from the tower and landed in the wide arms of a frog man. Brivyc fell down, gazing at her the entire time. When she landed, the ground shook and ice rose like gloves to catch her. Vines grew from the ground, hanging onto her with spikes. She tried breaking them off but once they became taught, the vines exploded in a cloud of green smoke and shrapnel. A vice grabbed her head from behind and clamped down, squeezing out a leaking blue liquid.

"We did it, peeps." A dwarf with unusually large arms hopped over the vice to high-five his friends.

In the skies, a god playfully pushed a ring of clouds to have it centered around the dwarf and pretend to shoot him. "Look at that. While the rest were fighting each other, they actually teamed up."