Sirens from emergency responders filled the air outside of the lobby where Stu and the gods were all in a standoff. There’d been many 911 calls placed after everything that’d happened here today. It probably sounded like a terrorist bombing had been going on here. Stu could see SWAT and other heavy-duty officers staging outside the building. He asked, “What do you plan on doing when all those people out there come in here with the army?”

  Prosperity rolled her eyes saying, “Really? You think I’m worried about them? Breaking news stupid! They are as threatening to me as flies are to you.” She sensed something though as she was now face to face with Stu. What was that? It was nagging at her; it wasn’t the humans.. What was this? It wasn’t the injured god, what the hell was going on? Prosperity quickly stepped back from the elevator saying, “You are nervous, not scared… that’s what’s bothering me. I thought you were terrified of me, but that’s not it is it? Why does that make me so uncomfortable?” Stu still stood there protecting Chaos. The sweat on his brow was still there, the increased heart rate and everything. It appeared he was scared. The eyes told her what she suspected, he was plotting something. Narrowing her eyes at him she asked, “What are you plotting stupid?”

  Stu’s posture changed as he said, “Alright, can we just call me Stu? My name isn’t actually stupid or Stu, it’s…”

  Prosperity cut him off yelling, “I don’t give a rat’s ass what your name is! I called you stupid because you’re human and not a god!”

  Stu turned red with embarrassment as he felt stupid now. “Oh, okay.” He said resuming his defensive posture. Taking a deep breath he said, “Then I guess the answer to your question is nothing..” Silence followed as the two stood there facing off.

  Without looking back Prosperity pointed over her shoulder at the police response outside saying, “That’s of no consequence to me, but you should be very concerned. They will kill you. I’m too smart for you to plot against, and the clock is ticking. If you just give up I promise you your death will be quick and painless with some assemblance of dignity.”

  Stu might only be human, but he wouldn’t be talked out of living. Prosperity was right about one thing; Stu had been plotting this entire time. Ever since he’d made his first move. The end goal was quickly coming, and one way or another he wouldn’t underestimate prosperity again. when she said she was a god he really thought it was a joke the first time. The possibility that she was a god was pretty good. Plotting was the only chance he had at standing on ground even close to on par with a god. He asked her, “Where’s the cop from earlier?”

  Prosperity said, “He’s over there on the sidewalk behind me. I’m pretty sure he is the reason all the cops are here now.”

  Breathing a sigh of relief, he figured if she left that cop in good enough condition that he could call for backup, then this might not turn out so bad… He asked, “So, he’s alright?”

  Prosperity looked confused as she explained, “I don’t think so! I threw him off the roof. He landed on the sidewalk behind me. I suspect that the dead body on the sidewalk drew all the attention.” Her statement was so matter of fact that it seemed cold and unflinching.

  Stu’s heart didn’t just sink at this news; it crashed like a space shuttle to his feet. The stakes were clear, this was life or death, and no in between. Steeling himself Stu said, “Alright, let us leave or I’m going to have to kill you.” He pulled up his fists, ready to fight.

  Prosperity smiled saying, “Oh? Well, I’d like to see this. In fact, I’d like to see this very much indeed. I want to see this so much, we shouldn’t be interrupted. It’s just the worst when things get hot and heavy, just to be interrupted..” As she finished her sentence the windows in the lobby all blew out in sync as SWAT entered the building. SWAT poured into the building all at once. Rushing up to the elevator the police had guns on everyone and issued commands to surrender. Prosperity turned facing them and running at them like a distressed little girl yelling, “Oh thank God! Help! Help!” Running to the first SWAT member, the man with a ballistic shield pulled her behind it and on to the next cop. She quickly disappeared in the crowd as the cops continued yelling orders at the man that had been with two high school girls, and one which was critically hurt in an elevator. Everyone was now focused solely on Stu, at least thirty guns were trained on him. Stu removed his glasses slowly and wiped the blood and dirt from them, then replacing them on his face.

  The swat officers were all still yelling different commands at Stu until he yelled back at them saying, “Listen up, that girl you are trying to protect is the person that did this! You have to listen to me, she’s dangerous!” If everyone wasn’t so scared right now, they’d have probably laughed at this claim.

  The officers didn’t take this comment seriously, keeping all of their focus trained on Stu. Suddenly. a scream of terror rang out from behind the wall of officers driving them all to silence at once, they froze with hesitation. The silence was interrupted by the sound of something rolling. The lead Swat member had a head roll out from between his legs. It was still twitching and rapidly blinking. The cops all turned around and encircled Prosperity as she stood there smiling. They had all weapons focused on her and began screaming orders at her. So incoherently that the noise was unable to be understood. The officers were terrified. Prosperity held up a finger for silence. The crowd slowly quieted.

  Prosperity asked, “Don’t you all want to live? If you leave now and let us finish what we started here then I will spare your lives. Anyone who stays or attempts to intervene will die today.”

  The officers shared nervous looks, Stu yelled, “Run you fucking idiots! She’s going to kill all of you!” The officer that had a head roll between his legs broke rank and dropped his weapon making a break for the outside.

  Prosperity laughed saying, “I’m surprised that one of you was smart enough to run away. I’ll ask one last time.. Are any of the rest of you smart enough to run away and save your lives? Are the rest of you alright with never going home again? Are there any others willing to take my mercy?”

  A cop said, “I’m sorry chief! I-I have a bad feeling… I can’t do this, I’m sorry!” This guy and another cop that said nothing, both ran for it. Those must have been the last two cops that could sense the impending doom. The other cops raised their weapons and began to issue commands once more.

  Prosperity smiled looking directly at Stu. She pulled out her dagger, and the police went silent becoming eerily still. Stu watched their heads all bounce across the marble floor as the bodies stayed standing with necks looking like the Bellagio fountains putting on a show in red. The lobby was painted in blood literally. The blood geysers were so terrifying that the staging area retreated from the building’s premises to a safer distance. Prosperity stood in the middle and didn’t have a drop of blood on her from the whole thing, despite standing in the center of the literal blood geyser.

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  Prosperity didn’t break eye contact with Stu the entire time, so far as he could tell. He weighed his options figuring that he’d probably fucked up on this one. A hand pulled at the heel of his pant leg, looking back Chaos said, “Thank you. It means a lot to me that you even tried.”

  Stu’s chest grew tight, that was a painful bit of honesty to hear at the end of your life. His heart began to physically ache, it was hard to hear it said out loud. Being told your failure was good enough is hard under any circumstance, but it was especially difficult to hear right now. Staring at the floor the pain in his chest turned to pure heartbreak as he weighed the odds that he’d die a failure very soon.

  Prosperity smiled, she knew that the last display of her abilities had finally broken the annoying human. At last, she thought, his will to fight was faltering. Finally, this had taken more than she’d anticipated.

  Stu slid to his knees; they were growing weak and unable to hold his growing weight. As if he grew heavier for some reason. There was no doubt, Prosperity was an extremely powerful being. She’d just decapitated thirty plus officers all with their fingers on the trigger before even one could pull it. What could he even do besides allow her to kill them quickly?

  Prosperity sweetly spoke, “You can still forsake your old god, and join the winning side. Just say yes and kill Chaos… That’s all, I swear! After that, clean slate I promise.”

  Sitting on his knees with his head and shoulders slouched in defeat. The shame weighed heavily on his shoulders. “Alright..” He muttered holding up his hand while still sinking slowly onto the floor.

  Prosperity approached Stu placing her dagger in his hand. Slowly he began to pull himself to his feet, without warning he collapsed on the floor landing flat on his face with his glasses breaking on the floor. The dagger slid out of his hand across the floor, and he lay motionless softly crying. She yelled at him, “If you want to live today then you must kill Chaos! If I have to kill her, then I have to kill you too!”

  Through his tears on the ground, he could barely be heard saying, “I can’t, I’m sorry…”

  Prosperity scoffed kicking him in the ribs, causing him to roll over from the impact. He groaned in pain. She sneered at him saying, “Never mind. I don’t need you anyway. You’re pathetic.” Picking up the dagger off the floor she walked past the pathetic human and stood over Chaos. The two girls looked at each other for a moment before prosperity crouched next to Chaos. Tears fell from Chaos’s eyes as Prosperity’s expression was stone cold. She said, “We both knew it’d end this way Chaos. It was inevitable.” Taking the dagger with both hands and raising it above her head, a noise caught her attention. Looking over her shoulder at the shuffling sound all she saw was the flash of light reflecting off of metal. In a futile effort to dodge, somehow she moved twice as fast as she should’ve been able to, slamming into the side of the elevator causing it to tilt a little. The dodge saved her life, not her left eye. Now lying on the elevator floor as well she covered her wound with her hand letting out a blood curdling scream. Her blood was perfect crimson as it spilt out everywhere. She looked up from the floor, what happened? She saw Stu standing there holding Chaos’s dagger still dripping with her blood. Immediately looking at Chaos lying next to her, she hadn’t noticed her sheath was empty. One small detail had cost her an eye. How had he managed this?

  Stu was towering over Prosperity and staring her down. This was the first time prosperity hadn’t had the upper hand. The sad truth was that he’d tried to kill her, not injure her, that was a mistake on his part. Stu said, “You underestimated me. You won’t take Chaos from me unless you kill me. I’m getting her out of here or going to die trying!”

  Since Prosperity had first awoken in this world she had felt sure of herself, never doubting her choices or abilities. She had written this creature off as pathetic, and he took her eye. She detected no fear coming from him at all. Had the whole thing been an act? No, that had been real, or was it? Why was she doubting herself all of the sudden? Her mind raced. She groaned in pain clutching her eye as she said, “You got lucky. The thing is you won’t get a chance to do it again.” Standing up still covering her wound she prepared to fight with one hand.

  A new voice said, “Prosperity, stand down.” The voice wasn’t harsh in tone but carried a certain authority in the way he spoke. Looking around Stu didn’t see anything except a black cat sitting there.

  Prosperity yelled, “But I’m not finished! The bastard took my eye!”

  The cat said, “It doesn’t matter, this fight was unsanctioned. You could be made obsolete if you choose to continue. My order is to stand down, all of you.”

  Now Stu had seen some shit today, but he felt like the talking cat was just too much. His posture went from defensive to disbelief as he said, “Wait a minute… a talking cat? Isn’t that a little too much for one day?”

  The cat looked at him saying, “I’m sorry, let me introduce myself. My name is Tom and I’m a judge for the tournament. You know, declaring legitimate winners, making sure the rules are followed, blah-blah-blah. You know, the boring stuff.”

  Stu said, “But you’re a cat, and talking…”

  Prosperity yelled at the cat saying, “I want to finish this! That bastard permanently took my eye! This injury wont regenerate and I want retribution!”

  Tom said, “Absolutely not. Any further attempts to continue this battle in any way will lead to you being made obsolete. Do you understand?”

  Prosperity relented but not before saying, “It’s not fair!”

  Tom bluntly stated, “You should be thankful I only let him take your eye, he’d have killed you without intervention. That’s a cold hard truth Prosperity.” Prosperity slowly turned her one good eye looking at Stu, both were taken back by the news.

  Prosperity asked, “Why didn’t you save my eye?”

  Tom responded, “Simple, if you came out unscathed I feared you wouldn’t learn anything. So, you’re welcome for saving your life…” That last part sounded like he was really annoyed with her.

  Stu pointed at the door quickly saying, “Cops!”

  Two guys that looked like detectives approached the group slowly and without weapons. Once they made their way across the lobby to the group, they stopped in front of the elevator. One of them asked, “What color is your essence?”

  Tom looked at Stu saying, “Answer them.”

  Stu confused said, “Blue?”

  The two police officers both pulled out pocketknives and cut the palms of their hands revealing gold blood. The main detective said, “We are the enforcers, is this a full code phoenix?”

  Tom looked at prosperity while he said, “Absolutely. One of the gods got, um, should we say, a tiny bit carried away?” Stu thought, a tiny bit carried away his ass, the blood was still dripping off the ceiling…

  The detectives didn’t say another word. They just turned and exited the lobby to the staging area for the first responders. Stu watched as if they seemed to almost immediately make things happen out there. The crowds began rapidly dispersing. Stu asked, “What’s a code phoenix?”

  Tom sighed, “No human survivors were found from the event. Burn the real story and raise the new one from its ashes.”

  Stu looked around at the scene with bodies everywhere, blood everywhere, a massacre had occurred here. The building would need a month or two of cleaning and repairs at a minimum. How do you bury a story like this in the modern day, he wondered. He was feeling nauseous out of nowhere as his adrenaline levels began to drop and the overall realization of what’d occurred at his work today.

  Tom turned to face the group asking, “So, Who’s hungry? Anyone up for a little sushi?”

  Stu stared with his mouth a gape, while the girls both very weakly raised their hands. Exasperated, he yelled, “Are you serious?!?”

  Tom said, “Come on stupid. Like you really have a choice here. Let’s go get something to eat and have a talk about the rules of the tournament. Just follow me, I’m starving after all this!” He marched out in the lead, followed by prosperity, and Stu carrying Chaos. Exiting out the back of the building they strangely didn’t encounter anyone else.

  The battle on broad street has come to an end. Final report - Death toll: 32 - Gods involved: Chaos vs Prosperity – Victor: N/A due to disqualification – Projected winner under normal conditions: Chaos - Report filed in: Godly Sushi District - Battlefield notes: Possible Steward located during cleanup and recovery; Recommendations passed on to GSD Rep. Tom; Insisted supervision request - Enforcers dispatched: Code Pheonix – Situation Contained – End Report.