Recent Posts

“Eh, sorta.” Firecracker shrugged. “Within a… couple hours of dying.” It really sucked to learn that limitation of his power the hard way.

“Anyway….” What else could she say about him? “Here’s a weird thing about him: he didn’t care a lot if people treated him like a God, but what he really wanted was for his followers to help make the world a better place. So there were some former Christians who followed him. I guess he reminded them of Jesus or something. Except for the part where he exists.” Now that she thought of it, maybe that whole humility thing was what held Orochi back.

“He also promised to make some of his followers immortal like he was, if they showed him that they could do something special to make the world better. Like… Styx. Sebastian made Styx immortal because, if you make a promise while he’s around, you can never break it. So Sebastian made him the God of Oaths.”

“Then this jerk called the Oracle ruined everything. He has the power to look into the future, but he’s only right most of the time. One time, he looked into Sebastian’s future, and he thought Sebastian was gonna try to destroy the world. Actually, the end of the world was his fault. He thought he could save everyone by killing Sebastian, so had someone else use their powers to make me blow up this whole city.” She took a deep breath. “That’s how he started the nuclear war that almost ended the world. And it didn’t even kill Sebastian.”

She let out a bitter chuckle. It was kind of funny, in spite of everything, that Alister went to all that trouble and sacrificed so much to kill one person, then proceeded to not kill him. What a strategic mastermind.

Well, if Lord Orochi actually liked it when people showed up to gawk at him, Kaitlyn wasn’t going to ruin that for him.

“I’m not a very good story-teller, Lord Orochi, but if you want to hear it…”

She sat down, cross-legged. The cold, stone floor of the Dragon’s den was not being kind to her feet. It may have been more polite to take her shoes off before entering, but now she was beginning to question whether it was worth it.

“I think the story should start with…” Alistar? No. Her own origins? Hell no. “Sebastian.” Sebastian was the central character, really. “He was born before the Trojan War. He actually knew the ancient Greek Gods, back when they were alive, but I guess they weren’t actually immortal. He actually is, but he can make himself look as young as he wants, and he heals anyone he touches. He can also turn into a unicorn. But even when he looks like a human, he has a tail, and a…” at a loss for words, she pointed at the center of her forehead. “Horn. On his head.” Right there, where she was pointing.

She cleared her throat, buying herself a few seconds to think. “Nobody thought of him as a God until a few years ago. He revealed his divinity, you could say, by killing a guy called Perry and bringing him back to life. Perry was one of his first followers, but we got a couple hundred pretty quick. We were kind of a big deal around here for a year or two.”

Kaitlyn turned to face Serena, staring at her with her seemingly three-pupilled eyes.

“I, uh… Yeah. Kinda.” This was accompanied by a weak, nervous chuckle. Kaitlyn was afraid this would happen. She would make a big mess in the kitchen, then someone would see it, then she would start dwelling on the time her dad made her lie to the doctor about falling down a flight of stairs that didn’t exist.

“I promise I’ll…” She sounded terrified. That wasn’t right; Serena wasn’t going to attack her or anything. The reasons she felt terrified were all stupid reasons, and she needed to get over them already. She cleared her throat and started to speak again, this time with more confidence: “I promise I’ll clean up after myself.” The redhead turned around and stared down at her little recipe printout, then she took a deep breath. She could get through this.

The redhead followed him with her eyes. Nod. She knew about Hiroshima. “That was one of the cities that got nuked in World War 2, right?”

She was right.

But that bit about his mother made her uncomfortable. Others’ good memories about their biological parents contrasted too sharply with memories of her own. As he stood up and spread his wings, she tried to focus on the dragon, stared at a certain part of the membrane on one of his wings, fought to push those intrusive memories aside.

A sharp breath in. An twitch of the eye. For a moment, the booming voice faded into the background. Kaitlyn was eight years old again. Powerless, small, weak. No amount of struggling could save her from --

No. She wasn't eight, and she wasn't Kaitlyn. She was thirteen, she was Firecracker, and she was in a cave with a dragon.

Orochi wasn’t standing anymore; she only realized this a few seconds after he stopped showing off for her. She forced a smile: being a welcome friend was a good thing, and thing she was supposed to smile about.

“I didn’t choose to be small. It’s a side effect of the immortality I was granted, and the… um… I’m gonna call it time travel?” That was the less complicated explanation. “Long story. But sometimes, it’s nice that people don’t know I can blow up cities.” She shrugged, visibly uncomfortable about admitting this, even ashamed. She quickly changed the subject: “And at least I look older than I did when I was fifteen.”

Killing millions of people and starting a nuclear war still made Firecracker feel a little guilty, even if it technically didn’t happen, and even if her heart was in the right place when it... didn't happen? Time travel was a headache.

There weren’t many people still alive who knew what it was like to be a god.

Kaitlyn was one of those people. Or, ‘Firecracker.’ Not exactly a grand title, but she didn’t think she would need any grand titles anymore, once the Church of Everlasting Life dissolved. Only two years – a surprisingly short lifespan for a cult that promised its members eternal life, and could have truly delivered.

Firecracker stood before the den of the Dragon. “Orochi.” Supposedly, he had a cult following in Japan, which is why he kept stomping around telling everyone he was a god. And in this modern day and age, with its modern deities, nobody believed him.

The fools. Their modern deities hid in holes where science could never find them, too detached to care for mortal lives, probably long dead or having never even lived in the first place. They believed that all true gods needed to be so beyond reach, so inscrutable, so weak, and anything they could actually see was a ‘mere mutant.’ They had all forgotten the truth: their own gods were all ‘mere mutants,’ much like Orochi. Sebastian had met the gods of the Greeks, or so he claimed; they were all ‘mere mutants,’ but at the same time, they were so much more. And that ‘Jesus’ guy? With the power to turn water to wine, walk on water, and raise the dead? Probably a ‘mere mutant,’ but a legendary one.

How does one approach a god? She knew how to approach Sebastian, but he was different. Ceremony was not something he encouraged, but something he tolerated. The man lived in an apartment – a nice apartment, but still an apartment. Kaitlyn could even approach him as an equal, once he elevated her to godhood, just as he had done for himself.

Orochi, on the other hand, lived in a freakin’ shrine. He had never met Kaitlyn before; he had no reason to pay her any respect, and every reason (as a god) to expect it from her. He and his cult probably loved ceremony.

The redheaded girl took her shoes off and entered the shrine-cave. Her socks did little to protect her from the cold, but it would be better to have cold feet than to disrespect his home by wearing shoes inside. Thanks to some light from outside, she could see the dragon, and He could see her. She bowed to him: hands clasped in her lap, back straight, waist bent at around 70 degrees (any farther and she’d certainly fall over). She held this position for several seconds (just like she read about on the internet) before she stood upright to speak.

“Hello. You can call me ‘Firecracker.’ I have heard you called ‘Orochi,’ but from people who don’t seem to respect you very much. How should I address you?”

Even though she read that making eye contact is bad in Japan, with her new eyes, Kaitlyn thought she could get away with it. Nobody could tell where she was looking anymore, apparently. And it would be hard not to stare - he was an impressive creature.

Kaitlyn wanted to make cookies. It was more difficult than she expected, thanks to the mishap with the flour. She had wiped most of it off of her little printed-out recipe. Her clothes still had a little bit on them; she could wash that off later. As for the powder on the floor and the counters, she could fix that later. She didn't know what to do with the flour that was on the ceiling. Ignore it, maybe? Get a ladder? She would cross that bridge when she got to it.

Another result of the flour mishap: she would need to start over. Frustrating, but not a huge deal. She set the bowl of mostly-flour off to the side and grabbed an empty one.