Astarte, Undasis and Vestec
Astarte pondered about her actions--She had created a place to relax in, but was it
really a place to relax in and have fun in right now? It was possible her siblings didn't know how to find her, as she couldn't feel their presence nearby. Most were still back at the planet, Galbar.
A long moment passed, and Astarte sighed and threw herself onto the grass, sighing as she looked at the sky. Then, an idea sparked in her mind.
She could feel Vowzra at work right now, and it was clear he had created something--Life of some sort. So she took a quick trip and teleported over to Galbar, grabbed a single ant and teleported back to her personal plane. At the same time, she willed forth the existence of a small pond of fresh water in her plane, and she also sent a message to two of her brothers.
'Vestec, Undasis, it's Astarte. I caught an ant, and I believe it'd be a great subject for some creative experiments. There's a pond of water here, so I expect us to work together to see if we can make the ants live underwater.' Astarte said, telepathically.
'You should be able to come here if you follow the essence track I'm sending with the message.'Vestec was taken from his observance of the actions of Vowzra and Svieand, giggling at the tsunami inadvertently created, by the arrival and rapid departure Astarte. "My, my. What is she doing now?" He wondered aloud. A moment later his question was answered by her offering him a tour of her home. For a brief moment Vestec's ever changing clothes and mask turned solid black, his usually cheerful tone disdainful and arrogant. "One ant? For experiments? Really? How..simple." He landed on the surface of the planet himself, gathering up his own ant, his usual colors slowly returning. "There. Now we can have true tests."
Following the essence track he was soon in the Ranges, standing next to Astarte. "All we need is the water god...goddess...both?, to show up and we can figure out how to make ants breathe underwater. But we need more ants for that...I suspect there will be a lot of trial and error." The ant in his hands shook for a moment, before multiplying in numbers. In a moment, the God of Chaos was covered in ants, giggling in amusement again. "Think this'll be enough?"
Astarte laughed and nodded, "That'll be enough."
Woman of the Waters was resting in her undersea home (which was less of a home and more of a giant, empty space) when the message of Astarte shot into her mind like an arrow. She didn't think she was ever going to fully adjust to the sensation of another's thoughts. Kraken was unusual, but at the least his spirit and mind resembled her own.
Astarte, on the other hand, had a truly alien way of thinking. Her mind did not flow like water or winds, it was more...random. Undasis' thoughts traveled in waves, but Astarte's was diorienting.
She enhaled deeply- tasting the air for the first real time- and allowed herself a moment to recover from the mental shock.
"You want to aid in underwater life? Of course I will attend! Half a moment!""Why do I find myself skeptical? You are not one of the waters, you are an enemy" Kraken was awake.
Despite his declared disagreement, the Woman could feel her counterpart's reluctant acceptance. He was much more bark than bite, it seemed.
And, at that, they were off. Woman bent the deep blue waters around her into a spiral, which began to move faster and faster until they were nothing but a blur of sea-foam, and from that a portal was created.
Undasis stepped into the newly-made portal, appearing in Astarte's realm with a flash and a bang. As she arrived, part of the ocean tried to arrive with her. The purest salt-water poured into The Ranges before the portal closed.
"Oh...sorry for the mess.", she said,
"I hope you've brought your own ants, because, as you may have noticed, there are tragically few at the bottom of our ocean. But, hey, maybe we can change that.""What do you gain from this, Astarte?" The voice came from the Woman's mouth, but it was unmistakably that of the Kraken; it spoke with a low, sadistic voice that seemd to come out of a great depth within her.
Astarte covered her eyes as Undasis made her way into the Ranges, protecting herself from the bright flash, if only a little bit too late. She also deflected the incoming splashes of salt water with a barrier of her own. When Undasis'... Interesting entrance was over with, Astarte looked at her and smiled. She walked over to the pond's edge and sat down.
"Uh, I don't gain much. I don't understand how you people can just watch things and be happy with it! It's so much more entertaining to do things yourself. Besides, I want to create things, and I can't imagine anything. Nothing's better to cure that than messing around with what already exists, right?" She said.
"Now," Astarte make a motion towards Vestec, beckoning him to come towards her as she moved the group of ants through the air, towards the pond. She left them suspended barely an inch over the water's surface and brought two of them over.
Astarte patted the ground at both her sides, and grinned at her two guests.
"Come on, let's get this started."Woman of the Water levitated a few feet above the grassy ground of Astarte's home. She moved towards the pond as gently as the coming tide, and came to a sudden halt directly before one of the world's first flying (and almost swimming) ants.
"Don't be afraid, we won't cause you or your queen any harm" She spoke not to it's ears, but to it's mind and soul. It's shaking body seemed to calm somewhat.
"Are you honestly trying to comfort this insignificant creature?"Ignoring Kraken, the Woman begin focusing her divine power of creation into a single finger and lowered it towards the small ant. When she made contact with its form, it was imbued with the essense of the sea, rewiring it's respiratory system to filter out water and keep only oxygen; thus allowing it to breath as easily beneath the depths as it would above them.
She tightened her firm grip on the insect, and it begin to grow flat, webbed paddles in the place of feet. These would function as legs on land and a sort of fin under the water.
"Drop it, Astarte, and let's watch it swim!" This was exciting- she had not yet formed the first sealife, so this ant could very well serve as the predecessor of all underwater organisms.
Vestec giggled again as Undasis arrived, tossing water from the ocean into Astarte's Ranges. He only snorted, shaking some of the ants on his body off, at Kraken's suspcious question and before turned his head curiously as the two goddesses began to work on creating the first 'Sea ant.' Creation wasn't a foreign concept to him, merely he saw no purpose to do it while others would do it for him. Giving him plenty of playthings to toy with.
As Undasis added the final touches to the water ant Vestec stretched out a hand, copying her design onto the ants covering his body. "Just so we don't have to create them one by one."
With a flick of his finger, he dropped the ant into the awaiting freshwater pond.
The results were disappointing. After swimming about for a moment, in a decidedly desparate fashion, the ant simply died and sunk to the bottom of the pond.
Kraken laughed at the sight, but Woman only frowned. Astarte cooed in disappointment.
Vestec glanced back towards the water left behind by Undasis' entrance. "I was wondering, Astarte.." Vestec began as he combined the salty puddles left behind into one big one. Half of the ants on his body were dropped into it and began happily paddling along, exploring their new world and abilities, and quickly building an underwater hive. "What made you bring me here?" The ants on Vestec's body began undergoing a notable change. Their bodies became more streamlined, built for moving quickly underwater, and their pincers grew larger and decidedly sharper. Tentacles arose from their backs, ready to grasp anything within reach. Most notably their dispositions changed.
Rather than building a hive, they became obsessed with taking over one and destroying anything in their path. "I am the God of Chaos, after all. Where there is too much of one thing, usually order and peace, I arrive to make sure it's opposite comes into play and chaos reigns." He dumped the new, corrupted, sea ants into the salty puddle, giggling as they began to tear apart the originals. "I'm destined to be everyone's enemy. Because who wants to have their creations killed, their carefully laid plans ruined?"
Astarte shrugged, "Change is entertaining."
Undasis' form begin to change, almost as if she was one of those ants in the puddle. She grew to almost double her previous size, her shapely arms becoming deformed tentacles, her hair falling out and her face devoloping fangs and scales.
Kraken had arrived.
"Ooooh, did I poke the beast once to many times?" Vestec mocked.
"I am more than a beast, but you are not more than a lonely child" The Kraken's voice was full of cold anger. "We both know that creatures as weak as these cannot survive without eachother. We have but two options before us, should we bring them into Galbar."And with that, he waved one of his clawed appendages over the pool of salt water, splitting it into two and multiplying both newly-formed puddles, so as to contain enough space for what he was planning.
Kraken's ferocious stare fell on the pool to his right and one of the deformed ants within grew to abnormal proportions, becoming five feet long and three tall. It crushed and consumed all the ants around it, leaving nothing within the shallow pool but himself
"If it is large and strong enough, it will need none but itself"He lifted his one of the non-clawed tentacles above the pool to his left, and the ants within immediatly ceased their combat and became hive-minded once more. They burrowed into the earth and formed several small holes, starting to toil away at making themselves a tunnel system.
"Or, Kraken said, his voice calming somewhat
"They can work together and form an unstoppable force""I do not hate you, Vestec, but I advice caution. I am not as obsequious as the other who even now hides within me"Vestec giggled at the Kraken. "You and I are far more alike than you'd like to admit, beast. I simply enjoy my work while you are angry all the time. Advising Chaos to be caution is like advising the sea to dry up."
"You two are acting like... Like... Irresponsible Gods." Astarte sighed and stood up, she jumped and floated over to the group of ants making the tunnel system,
"And you're ruining my lovely land.""The reason I brought Vestec here was because change is something I need in order to get ideas for creation. The reason I brought you, Undasis, is because you know best how to deal with water-related things." "Also, don't forget these are just creatures. If they die or get messed with, we can simply create more."A much fainter voice than the Kraken's echoed out of the hulking body of the Sea God
"All life is irreplacable. They are not toys. They are treasures. I expected such from Vestec, but I would have thought better from a Goddes who can create such a pretty realm, Astarte. Nonetheless, if you do not need the ants than I will take them. Both kinds, the large and the small, will find a place as the first life to make it's way in my oceans" Woman of the Waters was none to pleased at the frivolous treatment of these creatures
Vestec laughed at the other part of Undasis. "You will truly hate me then, dear sister. All life is nothing more than something to be thrown into chaos, something to be played with and toyed with. After all, are we not Gods? Is this world, this universe, not our own?" He spread his hands, tossing randomly colored chaos energy between them. "Life is ours to as easily extinguish as we made." With that, he sent the chaotic energy down the tunnels the ants had created, eradicating all life within.
Luckily for them, Undasis had managed to teleport one into her hand before Vestec's energy destroyed them all. The species would survive.
Astarte winced lightly at Undasis' disappointment, but what was she to do? Astarte listened to Vestec's words and agreed to them. What she didn't agree with, though, was the sudden destruction of nearly all the ant population--There was no need for such a move! The ants were their beautiful pieces of art, and he destroyed them without a second thought.
That isn't chaos, that's just destruction She thought.
In a given moment, after they both stopped talking, Astarted waved at them both dismissively, banishing them from her private plane. Keeping them there any longer would only result in her pretty Ranges being damaged even more.
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