Not The Point

The Angel rubbed what I suppose was its temples.

"Ok, I think I understand how you got to Hell, and why Lucy got you to think up new punishments. But go over what happened next again."

"Sure, they gave me the remit to increase the pain generated in overall terms, ideally while also reducing expenditure. And as I explained, the fire and brimstone approach had rapidly diminishing returns, as opposed to the consistent spread of boredom and nothingness."

"Right, but then..."

"Well the lesser demons complained, they weren't having any fun.

So by switching to harvesting from them, production tripled."

Steer Clear

I had stayed alive by warning others of death.

That is, there would be a few small groups a month that would arrive on the island with grand designs to be the ones to final enter the caves and defeat the evil beneath it and claim the treasure. And I'd warn them not to. A few would listen, most wouldn't. A few would cast detection spells on me, thinking I was part of it, most didn't. But I wasn't, I avoided the caves like the plague, nothing to do with me.

I just lived off selling second hand boats, mostly.

Back

Back.

"-and you'll never-"

Jump to the left.

They shoot. They hit.

Back.

"-and you'll never-"

Jump rightwards.

They shoot, they hit.

Back.

"-and you'll never ever-"

Slide.

They shoot, they hit.

Back.

"-and you'll-"

Throw a knife.

They duck, they shoot, they hit.

Back.

"-and you'll never-"

"Can't we-"

"No."

They shoot, they hit.

Back.

"-and you'll never ever stop me, because-"

Turn to walk away.

They shoot, they miss.

I keep walking.

They shoot, they hit.

Sigh.

Back.

"-and you'll never ever stop me, because you're not the only one who can go back, you idiot!"

Wait, what?

No Problem

The Hero looked at the map and shrugged.

"Ok, so I grab the tornado and toss it out into space, easy."

The silence that filled the room was enough to pierce The Hero's self-assurance.

"What, we want it to hit the city?"

"Look, even if you can grab a-"

"Oh I can, anything I want to grab I-"

"Look, you can't just remove energy-"

"Sure I can, watch this!"

They flew off and did it before anyone could stop them.

To their credit, they did help in the clean-up after the entire weather system went haywire after they did it.

The Usual Cliches

"I never meant to hurt you, I-"

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"Well, no, but-"

"But you want credit for not actively planning on breaking my heart. You want to be sure that since you're not the worst of the worst, that you get some degree of acceptance?"

"I... No, I'm just explaining-"

"I don't need or want an explanation. Unless you're claiming you were drugged or hypnotised or something?"

"Well...

No."

"And that pause tells me everything I had left to ask. Goodbye then."

"Wait, I-"

"This another cliche?"

His silence was all the answer needed.

Regaining Connections

He logged in and clicked on the connect button with all the enthusiasm and vest for life of a piece of roadkill spread across two lanes.

The various AIs and networks all logged in with one of the half dozen phrases they had in their databanks as cheery, personable greetings.

Except one, which just delivered a sad message about needing... Cheese?

He paused mid slurp of Indonesian energy drink and looked into it.

It was connected, data was flowing, but the message section was damaged, and all the flags were wrong.

He deleted the error messages and left it alone.

The Big Fight

For all the prophecy and foretelling about the battle between the Dark Two and the Heroes of Brilliance, none of it was about the battle itself. Admittedly, given none of it addressed the outcome either, people focused on that more than the logistics of the fight.

But of course, all the attempts to prevent or influence the fight just led to it occurring, because predeterminism is gonna predetermine.

And the result, well you're aware.

But as for the actual fight itself?

From the outside, it looked like they just stared at each other a bunch.

But actually... Pretty much that.