Chapter 2: Practical

The two zipped in right by the planetoid “Pluto” in the Solar System. The icy brown sphere was roughly the size of Etris’s pupil. Also, to her surprise, she noticed the Professor’s misty form and surrounding bubble had shrunk to be roughly fist-sized. The orb of a professor hovered by her shoulder.

“Why’d you warp us here Professor Utixx? Isn’t Earth billions of miles closer to the star?”

“Correct Etris, but remember your lessons.”

“I never forget.” said Etris.

“Err yes of course. Well, then you know the first thing a deity should do is introduce themselves.”

“So why aren’t we over there?” she crossed her arms, debating on just warping over herself now that she was off school grounds.

Utixx’s patience held strong.

“Knowing the theory is different than the practical. Think how to apply things. Remember humans and look at your current form. Is that something you think they could comprehend properly? Sure you are shaped as a human, but without features you might not be very relatable. You’d probably hurt their eyes with that light. Now, not every student can shape-shift of course, but you are one of them. A deity should use any appropriate tool at their disposable, after all.” said the orbed mist.

“Shape-shift? But I am already shape-shifting.” Etris pressed her hands to her arms, glided and glowing as pure light. “As part of the University rules I’ve had to compress myself to this little figurine.”

“Wait, you mean you never shape-shifted for fun before attending Omnimento?”

“Why would I Professor? My original form is perfect. Stretching through the ethers in a-”

“Well now is the perfect time to try!” said the Professor again. Etris seemed unpleased to be interrupted, but that green globe was grading her here.

“You see.” she continued. “Many gods appear to mortal civilizations all the time in shapes more recognizable to them. Local fauna and the like.”

“Local fauna? You want me to shrink down to the level of such insignificant creatures?” Etris’s tone was indignant at the thought, arms crossed.

“Now now, they may be insignificant to us, but remember the lesson I mentioned on the first-” said Utixx

“Yes yes, significance is a matter of perspective and context.”

“Exactly! But to answer your question, no. This is a more relaxed exam. There will be a grade, and some practices to get through, but you have a lot of liberties to do things as you please. I expect most students to want to be at least a bit bigger than the mortals.” said Utixx.

Etris huffed. “Fine, I suppose I can shrink a tad and adopt a more familiar form.”

The luminous-being closed her stark white lights of eyes and focused. In a near-infinitesimal amount of time, white garbs covered up her body, wrapping around her top with another piece about her waist to trail down to her knees. Beneath the robes were silk undergarments, also white. With clothing out of the way, the blinding surface of her body shifted to fair human flesh now only gently aglow in a very slight incandescence. Her hair of light tendrils turned to blonde strands, and when her eyes opened they were human in design: blue iris on white, vein-less sclera.

The woman set a hand to the flawless skin by her stomach. She shivered.

“Urgh, so this is what it feels like to be meat.” she said. Her face sneered at that last word.

“Now now Etris you shouldn’t judge like that. Mortals, and even many divines don’t get to pick and choose like you do. Why, I can’t even shape-shift myself. Without my globe, my own form is diffuse.”

It occurred to Etris she was doing something someone else couldn’t. She smiled again.

“You’re right, I suppose I could get a little used to this.”

Etris scrunched her fingers and toes and stretched her limbs.

“Alright.” she continued. “This should be acceptable. Time for my introduction!”

“Yes but just make sure to to-”

Before Utixx could finish the sentence, Etris had warped the two of them outside Earth’s orbit.

The citizens of Berlin, Germany went about their bustling business. They marched through the streets in their silver leotards, waiting for the hover-cars to finish zipping by before they crossed the LED-laden streets. It was a usual busy day in the city till a great big eye filled their sky. Unblinking, it focused its pupil right on them.

Hovering outside the planet was Etris, staring down at the basketball-scale world. Utixx was at her shoulder, scaled as she was to the student before. Etris opened her mouth to address the world before the shocked professor had a chance to interject.

“People of Earth!” she began, then stopped. The entire western hemisphere had been charred black.

When the divine spoke, she grossly underestimated the sheer power of the gesture to mortal forms. She was used to lowering her means of communication while enrolled at Omnimento, but even that level of converse was far too much. Her size had the volume of her voice near unintelligible, and she spoke with a radiant timbre that literally seared everything her words reached. Billions of lives were expunged in an instant: dissolved by her divine words or ripped apart by storms of syllables.

“Ah I think they heard me!” she said.

Etris turned her head towards Utixx, whose green mist lit up with mild fury.

“Etris! You said you would shrink.”

“I did professor!” she said. Those words obliterated a bit more of the world.

“Not nearly enough, and you also aren’t stymieing your voice enough either. You’ve just killed over half the world’s population! That’s hardly a good introduction at all.”

Etris grit her teeth. There was silence, but the professor’s sigh broke it. The green mist in that globe settled back to its minty, gently sparkling state.

“Forgive me, but I do get a bit passionate about these lifeforms. Thankfully we can fix things here, but first let’s warp a bit further away.”

Etris did so, still a bit in shock at the criticism. Once they were by Mars, the Professor glowed a bright green. She visibly strained, her mist pulsing and thrumming till the Earth was restored to the time before Etris broke it. The universe around them, too, was adjusted as such.

“Wew” gasped Utixx. “That takes a bit of energy on my end, so try not to break the planet too much. You must remember our definitions of small are very different from theirs. Try a more ‘down to Earth’ approach as the humans say.” she chuckled.

Etris raised these new eyebrows of hers. Sure, she destroyed half the planet, but the other half definitely knew she was there. In her mind, that was ok far as introductions. Sadly, the professor was the one grading her still.

Etris waved her hand dismissively. “Fine fine.” she said. “I think I get the idea. I’ll shrink real low and try talking more ‘to their level’.”

The two warped back to the planet. Citizens of Denver, the capital city of New Colorado, turned their heads to a sudden boom. Looming outside their city, miles tall, was a blonde woman staring down with a smile. That noise they heard was one of her building-dwarfing toes wiggling and stirring up a casual tremor. A transparent globe of green mist hovered by her head, flicking with little lights.

“Greetings humans of Earth. I am your god, Etris. Please tell everyone else on the planet this.” said the divine student. She set her hands to her hips and nodded, satisfied.

The city shifted to a bout of confusion. Silence and whispers filled the air. “What is this?” “Some new hologram display?” “It couldn’t be, I felt those quakes.”

Professor Utixx observed. This type of confusion was normal with a deific introduction. In time, their lesser minds would begin to relax and try to communicate with Etris. Surely then she’d realize how rewarding caring godho-

“Professor, when are they gonna do something?” said an impatient Etris. She had turned her head towards Utixx to speak, and her golden locks turned with her. Not used to having a more material hair-style, she didn’t think about the passenger jet caught in its way. Strands meters in width clipped clean through the chassis of the craft. Travelers burst apart on the impact which, less than a second later, exploded the entire jet by slamming through its fusion engine.

“Etris no!” cried out the orb.

Fiery chunks of metal rained down from above. Jagged shards of titanium sliced right through the chrome skyscrapers below. A chain reaction of building destruction ignited with how dense the structures were packed. By the time things fully settled, about a quarter of the city lied ruined.

Hover-cars stopped in their tracks, holding up traffic. The masses filtered from their office buildings and crowded the monorail stations to try and get back to their habitats before transit closed. Fights broke out everywhere.

The Professor talked a fluster.

“Etris! Mortals take time to process things. If you had just waited they would hav-”

“Also, those aren’t the humans I’ve been reading about. Where are their skirts and jeans?” said Etris, ignoring the professor’s words.

“This universe formed earlier than the average one, so humans here are farther along. That’s besides the point. Your introduction is ruined, now they fear you. We should rewind things again an-”

“Nonsense nonsense. I aced the written exam so I can ace this. I’ll just calm them down is all.” interrupted Etris once more.

The student thought long and hard about how humans calmed one another. In addition to being something of a pop culture phenomenon that many of her peers obsessed over, they were an occasional case study throughout the course.

‘Ah, humans typically hug one another in times of stress, or lay a hand on each other’s shoulder. They touch each other. Of course!’ thought Etris.

The godly woman’s clothes fluttered in the wind while she addressed the city. “Do not worry about that bit of destruction tiny humans. I, Etris, your infallible god, shall comfort you all.”

She raised her bare foot above the city and lowered it. Utixx was too confused to speak, and her silence let the rest happen.

The divine student thought herself a genius. She obviously wouldn’t shrink down to hug them all, and doing so at her current size would be impossible. So, what part of her body could they touch? Why, her foot of course! She was even bringing it to them so they didn’t have to move. ‘I’m so generous’, she thought.

She smiled wide as her foot came down. Etris’s wrinkled sole filled the sky of the city’s survivors, which still numbered near one hundred million. The gray patch got eclipsed by her foot, and soon after it grazed the tops of hundreds of skyscrapers.

“Don’t worry, I know you can’t reach that high.” she boomed.

Still smiling, she set her perfect ped down further. Shining silver structures broke against her sole. Rubble tried to slip into the wrinkles of her foot, but the dim glow permeating her skin expunged such intrusions, sending the metals and polymer-lattice chunks down to the streets as more destructive rain. Millions more died beneath the collapsing buildings which, despite her abilities, she didn’t even think to protect them from.

Her sole almost touched the ground, laying close enough that the extremely few survivors--a scant few million--got pinned with either their face or back to the city ground and the other faced right up against her sole. A few humans even popped, having been unlucky to fall on their sides and be unable to adjust positions while she stepped seemingly without mercy. There were no more screams to be had, as they were muffled and swallowed by the ground or foot-flesh. All the mortals wiggled and writhed, their primitive minds having them try and do anything to escape.

“Oh, do not worry little mortals. Even at my scale I can feel you touch me in return. It’s... admittedly quite nice.” said Etris. She closed her eyes and basked in their affection, not thinking to realize that those squirms she cooed about were death throes. Air was running out beneath her oppressive miles-long step. The squirms faded as they gasped for the last bits of breath hidden in the meters-deep wrinkles of her sole.

Etris opened her eyes when every last movement faded. She lifted her foot and set it to the side of the destroyed city. “How was that professor? I managed to calm down that entire sentiment with just my touch.”

Utixx shook from her stupor. “Etris, you’ve killed them all!”

The student tilted her head. “What do you mean? They’ve stopped fighting with one another. No punching, no yelling.”

The professor, bewildered, “Etris, humans need oxygen to breath. Also all those buildings you stepped out of the way had to go somewhere and that somewhere was atop-”

“Oh I get it!” said Etris. “They became so excited at my attention, that their hearts couldn’t bear it, and they died. I couldn’t think of a more peaceful way for the things to go out!”

Etris shined with self-assurance. The professor wasn’t sure how to reach her on this matter, so she moved on after making a mental note for the ‘performance’ on this part of the test.

“Let’s move on to the other parts of the practical.” said Utixx.

“You mean there’s more? Haven’t I shown enough?”

“No. Well, perhaps in a sense, yes.” Utixx sighed, then regained her professionalism and continued.

“A good deity does more than just proclaim their existence. Let’s see how you can directly help out the mortals of this planet with some divine interventions”