Dahlia did not have a better plan than to go to David and tell him "We have your friend. Pretty please don't consume all of humanity in your grand scheme to destroy the gods and the world."

Joy was not pleased by the fact that he, Lillian, and Ramses had pulled off an elaborate human heist and all they had to show for it was one bad-mouthed hostage that nobody knew quite what to do with.

Rose had quite a mean streak in her. She had said that his haircut did not suit his face. He could take insults, but that one went straight for his vulnerabilities. He knew that his hair wasn't perfect, but that didn't mean that she had to make fun of it.

All things considered, he couldn't blame her though. She was probably a little mad about being kidnapped. So, he wouldn't hold the things she said against her… no matter how much they hurt.

Ramses had left the room with her after her insults had started to go in a darker direction with his dead lady love, which just left Joy and Lillian sitting in the room, staring at their hostage.

"Do you think that David will actually stop his plan if we make him choose between her life and his ambitions?" Lillian asked the question that had been one everyone's mind.

Joy started to answer but was quickly cut off by Rose. "Of course he would not. We do not do this for petty reasons. We do this to save all of you. Why can't you see that?"

Joy and Lillian shared a look. They wondered how much of their words David and Rose truly believed.

According to Rose, the two of them had realized how unfair the world was. It was designed to make humanity suffer and that it was solely for the gods' amusement. And where was the justice in the suffering of conscious beings just for the amusement of ephemeral concepts?

However, these two people had not believed this when they were children. No, their minds had been made up once they turned 13 and were not given the gifts that they felt they deserved.

Was it justice or anger? Joy would not speak for David and Rose, but he didn't believe the shit they were spewing.

Joy looked at Rose and asked, "what would you do with your eternity once David gave it to you?"

Rose looked angrily at him and turned her nose up. She thought that he was making fun of her. He wasn't. He was genuinely curious what this intelligent woman thought would come after she had overthrown the gods.

"I'll make a deal with you." Joy sat down next to Rose. "We can play a game, you and I, and if I win you must answer my questions. If you win, then we will let you go." Joy looked at Lillian, and she was shaking her head. She obviously didn't agree with him agreeing to let her go, but Joy was a fair man, and he wanted to know what this person believed.

"Why would I ever take that deal? If I ever won the game, you wouldn't hold your word." Rose turned away from Joy, obviously assuming that this would be the end of it.

"But I can promise it and mean it." Joy stood up and walked to the side Rose was facing. He dangled a key made of light. It was the key that he had won from Game oh so many years ago that let him use something close to a gift. "If you go to the penthouse in the clouds, any deals made there are enforced by the law of gods."

The deal was too tantalizing. Rose knew all about Joy's skill at games and his unlikely luck. But this deal was far too good for her. All she had to do was make the game a coin toss and then wait for the fifty-fifty odds to fall in her favor. It didn't matter how good a man's luck was, she would win eventually. Joy wanted to ask many questions, but Rose just needed to win once.

Joy watched the calculations go on behind Rose's eyes. He had seen those calculations before. It was the trap of the intelligent. They could not believe in the improbable. They believed that the one true rule of the world was the law of averages.

Joy knew that they were wrong. The one true rule of the world was that the exceptional existed everywhere, and there was nothing average in the whole wide world.

Rose slowly nodded her head, accepting the deal. Maybe it wasn't fair, but Joy was not above using the tools he had.

Joy sat down next to her and started building a house of cards. He was not sure why this odd power from Game required him to do so, but it was a calming exercise.

Soon, he was done and a bright light shone from the depths of the cards. Golden light erupted from the house and enveloped the two players. Rose and Joy disappeared.

The personal game room of Game was never consistent. It was fluid, shifting from fancy to fancy, never sitting in one place. This time the room was ultra-modern. Everything was sleek and white. There was a homogeneity in the room that irked Joy's more colorful tendencies. There was nothing in the room, it was just a blank white box that had no imagination of feeling.

Rose looked just as displeased with her surroundings. Joy imagined that she cared a lot about color, given that her gift gave her such perfect control of it.

Joy sighed and spoke, "you decide the game. We will have to agree on our terms, but once we do the room shall provide."

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Rose couldn't hide the smirk on her face. "We will flip a coin. I will call it once it is in the air. If I am right, you will free me and allow me to escape from your shitty prison. If I am wrong, then you will get to ask me a question."

"Well, that is not very fair, is it?" Joy smiled at her. She thought she was very clever and that was her weakness. She had spent so long believing that she was the cleverest that she couldn't fathom a world where anyone tried to match her wit.

"Why wouldn't it be fair?" Rose did not have a poker face and Joy could see her disappointment that he had caught on to her trick.

"Well, I can ask you questions at any time. What I want are answers. My counter terms are the same for you, except if I win, you must answer any one question I ask truthfully."

Rose rolled her eyes but nodded her head in assent.

A coin dropped between the two of them. One side was pure silver and the other was pure gold. Joy slowly reached down and grasped it.

He placed the coin gingerly on his forefinger, with his thumb primed to toss.

"Call it." Joy said as he simultaneously flicked the coin upwards. He had flicked with all his strength, so it flew high into the air. The roof above them stretched up higher and higher, to accommodate the careening coin.

"Silver." Rose said quickly, because there was no point in waiting on chance.

The coin lazily came down and landed on the floor, showing the gold side up.

"I guess that is one question for me." Rose looked annoyed, but she knew that her freedom was only a matter of time.

"What does the paradise that comes after you destroy the gods look like?"

"It will be blissful eternity. Imagine having all the time to practice your hobbies. You could become a famous author or become a world renowned athlete. Every human will have the opportunity to do everything they wanted to do but were too limited to do." Rose sighed as she said this. She was truly imagining the bliss of her eternity. Joy internally held in his derision.

"Call it." The coin floated up into the air.

"Silver." The same call.

The coin landed gold side up again.

"What about the evil people: rapists, murderers, and other despicable people – will they also get to partake in this eternity?"

"Yes. People do despicable things because the gods have broken them down. They treat us as playthings and some people break under that pressure. Why would the gods create us to be so flawed and have such pain in our lives? We would give everyone the equal opportunity to be free of those sins in the new eternal world."

"Call it." Joy flicked the coin with additional power this time, trying to vent some of his frustrations into the coin.

"Silver." Déjà vu.

The coin landed with the gold side up. Rose's eyebrows twitched a little bit, but she was unphased. This was only a 1/8 chance right now, nothing too spectacular.

"Going back to the evil people, what if the way they want to spend their eternity is by tormenting other people? What if they choose to continue these mortal failings into eternity?"

Rose truly started to ponder this. Joy was glad that some of his words were getting through to her, she was not just disregarding his opinions. He had had nothing better to do than to try and come up with reasons why David was doing something bad while he was wandering the Dead Continent. So, he had sharpened his questions to a razor point to get to the meat of the matter.

"I'm not sure. With the whole of humanity condensed into one body, I hope that the god Humanity will allow the souls that create them to experience true empathy. Maybe these people will truly understand the pain that their actions cause."

"But what if they don't?"

"Coin first."

The two of them locked eyes and Joy conceded that he had tried to weasel an extra question out of her.

"Call it."

"Silver."

The gold side shone as the coin landed on the ground. Rose ground her teeth together but kept her composure. Joy watched as she wrestled with the improbability of it all. She had known that Joy was beyond lucky, but hearing and experiencing were two different things.

"But what if they don't?" Joy repeated his question.

"Then Humanity will remove those urges from those people. They will be forced to become good people."

"That doesn't sound very nice of you. I mean, what if Mr. Murder McMurderface only found happiness in his life from the killing of small animals and other human beings? Doesn't he deserve a say in the purpose of humanity just as much as you or me? You are effectively taking away the choices of each person. They either conform to what you and David want, or they are effectively killed. And you say the gods are evil."

"I refuse to answer any of those questions without you flipping the coin."

"It was less about the questions and more about the tirade."

"You are sitting on a self-righteous pedestal, Joy. These are bad people. Your Murder McMurderface is not a useful or good member of society. We would be helping all of humanity by removing him. Why can't you see that?"

Joy refused to let his smile show. She had forgotten herself in the argument. She was just talking to him and not thinking about the coin.

"I can see it, Rose, but you would be even worse gods than the ones we have now if you did that. Where would it end if you were allowed to change us in such fundamental ways? Would you remove our depression? Remove suicidal tendencies? Our destructive impulses?"

"Yes, we would, and you would thank us for it!"

"But then what about leisure, and laziness? Pain and misery? How much does being good really mean if you don't have the choice to be evil? Being a person is so much misery and pain, but they are integral to the experience. You wouldn't be saving us from the gods; you would make us into them."

"But we would be better." "Would we?"

The two of them locked eyes, anger was flaring up in their argument but both sides agreed that the other was not stupid. This wasn't an argument between a parent and child; this was two equals trying to find a common ground.

"What would you do then, Joy?" Rose quietly asked.

"I don't know. Maybe it's cruel of me to so harshly judge your methods and goals when I cannot even create a reasonable alternative. I love the world and hate that you want to destroy it. I just worry that you aren't trying to save humanity like you say you are. I worry that you are just trying to make a weapon to strike back at the gods for the injustices of your life."

A silence filled the game room. Rose was thinking and Joy sat down and put his head in his hands.

After a time Rose asked, "can we leave this place?"

"Yes, that's a good idea." Joy wiped away a few silent tears that had trickled down his face and undid the magic that held this place together. With a simple thought, the two humans turned into beams of light that were transported back to the real world where Lillian was waiting.

She was looking behind herself at the former princess Dahlia. She stood proudly there, observing her motley crew and her prisoner.

"Took you long enough." Joy said and felt a wave of relief. Someone else was in charge now, someone else got to make the hard decisions. He breathed a sigh of relief because he could go back to being silly little Joy.

Next chapter will be updated first on this website. Come back and continue reading tomorrow, everyone!

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.