Chapter 5: Devotion

The pair teleported outside a coastal city, with Etris still at her 5 mile height and Utixx still roughly plum-size and floating by her shoulder.

“Alright the goal of this part of the exam is to just go around the world and get as many people praying to you as possible. It’s a test of how much your mortals, the sapients of Earth, respect and worship you. Now we haven’t visited this city before, but all the ones we have you destroyed so it’ll have to do. In any case, everyone in the world's heard of you by now.”

The professor continued.

“This human settlement known as Los Angeles, and it’s an independent city state known as the techno-pirate capital of the world and-”

“Yeah yeah I got this.” Etris said. She walked right up to the city and her careless steps flattened the dune buggy brigade that guarded the settlement’s spike-barricaded border. Her movements were a bit less graceful, her face a bit tense. The prospect of receiving an imperfect grade hung over her like a shroud, but no shadow could ever last long in her luminous presence. She was flawless, radiant, and she shined brighter than anyone else.

She’d ace this test in flying colors.

“People of Los Angeles, it is I, your most radiant and just goddess. I beseech you all to clasp your hands and bow your head in praise of my name.”

She smiled wide, sure she’d succeed. She had to! She was Etris, after all. A few seconds passed and she crossed her arms and tapped with her bare foot. Mild tremors wracked the city.

‘Come on’ she thought. ‘What’s the hold up.’

She reached out with her mind to detect any sort of prayers and found a few, but for the most part the city’s people were in a panic. They scrambled to their sea vessels or hid in their shanty-towers. Other men and women ran to towering rusted turrets and fired volleys of dynamite laden spears at her titanic form. They burst harmlessly against her shins and knees and her eyes twitched.

“I don’t have time for this! You’ve heard of my power, now bow!”

Her foot stamped down. An earthquake wracked the city and sink holes swallowed up entire blocks.

“I can destroy you, so bow!”

The citizens stopped fighting her to flee. The number of ‘devotees’ increased, but the entire rickety city started to collapse from the cascading quakes of her steps.

Professor Utixx sensed Etris’s growing anger and had to get her out of here.

“Perhaps this city wasn’t the best choice. Let’s go to another one shall we.”

Etris glowered down at the city, watching them literally crumble from a single step.

“Sure.” she said, and the two teleported to an island nation.

“Ok this city is known as London. They went the route of steam over silicon and built their city of brass and gears and-”

“They will bow.” Etris said confidently. She projected her image to every screen in the world, and her voice to every radio.

“Did you hear that? You stubborn mortal filth. Bow to me, praise my name! You are in the presence of a being better than you infinitely-fold.” her voice rang louder than the bells and clock-towers dotting the metropolis. The blue of her eyes glimmered gold and she raised a finger. An orb of light formed at the tip. “I’ll give you one minute before I sear you down to hot air.”

Professor Utixx tried to intervene.

“Etris this isn’t how yo-”

“Shut up!”

Copper-clad zeppelin soared up to intercept her. They over-loaded their steam engines, making clouds of warm fog along the way. She saw through it with her burning gaze, and from that same gaze fired beams of blinding light which fried the air vessels so hot they didn’t even smoke.

She dug her toes into the rock of the Earth, clenching in anticipation. She expanded her senses to the humans of London to see if they yielded to her satisfaction. About 30% were bowing or praying for salvation.

She wanted at least 60%.

“Fine. I see how it is! Well, you can serve as an example for the rest!”

Etris waggled her finger forward and the golden orb moved towards the center of the city.

“Etris stop!” The Professor moved her body in the pat of the light-sphere

The divine student batted her globe of a professor aside with a smack of her hand.

“Stay out of my way. You’ve been holding me back this whole exam!” she bellowed, gritting her teeth.

As it traveled, the sphere grew from its boulder thickness to the size of a great meteor, then bigger still. By the time it reached the city, its radius occluded the entire settlement and engulfed it in its luminous embrace. When the burning flash cleared, the city was gone. The student stopped sharing her image and voice with all the displays and speakers on Earth.

Etris took a few quaking steps closer, callously snuffing out thousands more lives beneath her soles. She looked down at the smooth glass coating the area where the city once stood. She saw herself in the reflective surface. Her hair was shining gold, her eyes bright with light. She smiled at the sight. She admired the perfect whites of her teeth and the perfect skin of her face. She radiated beauty and power.

She really was incredible.

The voice of that annoying professor took her from her righteous self-admiration and had her turn from her reflection to the noisy orb whose green mist sparkly mist shimmered with every grating word.

“Ok that’s enough. Not only have you disrespected me, but you’re outright slaughtering the mortals!”

“Wait! Listen to them, across the globe they are praying to me.”

She spoke true, since her show of force, about 70% of the Earth got on their knees and prayed. The number steadily rose.

“You’re doing it wrong!” began Utixx.

“Fear and destruction should be used sparingly and selectively. You haven’t made people respect you, you’ve made them cower, and worship not of admiration but only to spare their lives.”

“I got the result you wanted.”

“You did not!”

“They bow to me!”

“Not out of adoration! I’m rolling back this universe’s time-state till before you touched it, this exam is over.”

The professor focused, her green mist glowing but, try as she might, she couldn’t move time back a single second. She gasped.

“Etris, what are you doing?”

The blonde student spoke with hurried gestures. The concept of finishing this test with anything less than a perfect score horrified her. She needed to buy time. The professor was a powerful divine to the mortals, but Etris was far beyond that globed being. Not a picosecond would roll back without the blonde divine’s permission.

“Just wait! Give me another chance and I can get them to bow peacefully. I just need a moment to think of an idea.” said Etris.

“You will release your hold on the time this once, the University-”

“The bond to not mess with time and space, or usurp a professor’s will, exists only within the Omnimento Dimension. We’re not on school grounds.”

“You can’t harm me here!”

“Of course I can’t, but I can hold us both here forever!”

“You’d do that to corner me into giving you a perfect score.”

“No, I’ll earn that. All I want is a chance.”

“This sort of extortion is highly unethical. You can’t just make people do things you want like this!” said the professor, her voice infused with fury.

That’s when a realization hit Etris. Forcing people to do things she wanted... She remembered some words from earlier on how to be a good deity.

“I’ve got it! I know the perfect way. Professor, please just one more chance. I guarantee they’ll love me! Not a single one will be harmed.” said Etris.

Professor Utixx grumbled. She shouldn’t give in to something like this, but what choice did she have? It’d be countless years till this universe died, and even then Etris could just roll things back. At least this way she might get it out of her system.

“Fine, but you have to promise this scheme of yours won’t harm even one more mortal to get them all to bow.”

“I promise.” said Etris, and she disappeared. Utixx stayed on Earth while her face filled the sky.

Etris assumed a celestial scale even bigger than when she first warped by Earth at the practical’s start. Rather than a comparative basketball as it was then, it now floated before her less than half that size.

Her white wraps flowed impossibly in the void of space to enhance the image she shared to the mortal minds. She kept the same form as before: fleshy in make. However, her blonde hair shined a brighter gold, and as she spoke the pupils of her blue eyes sparked up in that same luminescent shade.

She reached out with her mind towards everyone on Earth--sans the professor, of course.

“Adore me!” spoke her voice, both mentally and aloud.

Then, a simple thought from her tweaked every mortal below. People stopped what they were doing and bowed down in prayer. It didn’t matter who they were or what they thought before. The cyborgs of South Africa knelt down in awe; the billions in Neo Greece genuflected. The neon city of Seoul turned off their lights for the first time in decades so as to better take in her face above. Adulations flew into her as their minds were swamped with love for her being. They gazed to her face above, crying tears of joy or, if on the wrong side of the globe, tears of sorrow at an empty sky. Either way, they praised her.

Profess Utixx flew around with her globe body and circumnavigated the planet to take in all the sights. She reached out with her own mind to get a measure on how many mortals presently kowtowed with love in their hearts.

100%

The Professor was incredulous. How could she have done this so fast? Utixx didn’t like to do this, but ESP was permitted on mortal sapients outside the University’s dimension. She peeked deeper into one human’s mind and saw the thoughts inside. It was all Etris; all the mortal’s thoughts revolved around her.

Utixx’s misty form flared up inside her globe. The clear sphere warped up to Etris’s shoulder at about the size of the planet.

“What you did now, overriding their wills it’s... it’s...”

Etris turned to her professor and smiled.

“Wonderful? I know right. It’s such a genius solution. All I did was think back to what you said earlier. ‘A deity should use any appropriate tool at their disposable’ So, I simply forced them to love me and made them bow.”

“You’ve violated their free wills!”

“So? They love me! All of them bow, and not a single one was harmed.”

“You’ve committed a grievous evil! This isn’t what godhood is about!”

Etris scoffed.

“You’re just impossible to please professor! I was making them bow before with fear, but you put a stop to that. Now you told me to do so without harming a single one, and I did. I proved I could meet whatever challenge you threw at me. A bright enough light can fill any container, no matter how arbitrarily complex or twisted. In that same way I mastered all your tasks.”

“You’re the one who’s twisted. You may have heard everything I said all class but clearly you weren’t listening! Why I-”

Etris interrupted again.

“I see what you are worried about. Perhaps this won’t last, right? Well let me show you something.”

Utixx was livid. “I don’t want to see anything more of!”

“Quiet.” said Etris and she glared back down at the planet. She’d prove herself to the professor whether that orbed clod wanted her to or not.

Another thought and the mortals no longer felt the need to bow. Still, her grace was at the forefront of their minuscule beings. Her majesty and her unending luminescence deserved as much as they could give. Their minds teemed with ideas on how to best worship her.

The blonde divine in the sky smiled. Without a single gesture, the world began to spin fast before her and the professor. It rotated around the sun with haste passing them for but a moment before zipping back around the star again.

“What are you doing? Wait, you’re not-”

“I’m speeding up time for the Universe. Look at what they are making.”

Every rotation about the sun, Earth changed. Politicians met in board rooms with architects to deign new monuments for their goddess. Soon, how best to worship Etris became the most dominant aspect of any political agenda. With every few years some new sculptures of the divine student formed. They started as stone effigies just 10s of feet in height, but each creation pushed forward the minimum standards for the next. One hundred years in, bejeweled statues of precious metals dotted the lands. Each monument towered taller than any skyscraper, and loomed more detailed than the finest works of art till her arrival.

Fashion shifted to revolve around her. Leotards were ditched in favor of those white demi-toga-like coverings she wore. Even the men matched the style. Mortal educational institutions devoted almost all their required courses to her. Entire fields of research developed on Etris. People dedicated tens of years to studying the history of her acts and the intricacies of her appearance down to every wrinkle. Entire theses were written on how best to praise the blonde goddess to please her most. Centuries long arguments on the topics dominated academia.

Entire nations went to war with one another over slight disagreements on how to worship their deity. The USA united with the mutants of Canada to assail the European nations who believed that their goddess preferred standing bows to kneeling ones. Neither side had any proof on either claim, but it was enough for them to blow each other up regardless.

Eventually Etris stopped fast-forwarding the cosmos for her and the professor. The planet rested before her once again after millennia of development. Countless nations and mortals perished, but the one surviving nation covered half of the scarred planet with their cities. The other half of the planet was dotted with monuments and imagery of gold. All of it of her: all of it for her.

Even if Utixx had a face, she’d fail to express a fraction of the depths of anger and sorrow which stewed in her being. Etris, meanwhile, beamed a smile down to the mortals beneath. They all bowed and sung her praise at that smile: the slightest change in her expression after hundreds of years. All this praise and devotion felt wonderful. Even better, she totally showed her professor how it’s done.

“See look, even if I don’t tell them explicitly what to do, they still worship me.” said Etris, turning back to the globe at her side.

“You... you are an absolute monster! Look what you’ve done to them! They don’t even have space travel cause they were focused on you. They are far less advanced then they could be. Their wars over you ruined the planet. And all that time without free will.”

Utixx’s mist stirred.

“This was a mistake! Let me roll back time at once.”

Etris went from bliss to scorn in a second. “I don’t see why? I’ve completed the practical exam in-”

“You’ve failed the practical exam!”

Etris grimaced. Her eyes shined bright and her hair flared up. Her skin shined so bright that the planet she just ‘nurtured’ disintegrated in its embrace with its survivors thanking her for the opportunity all the while. She didn’t even think of them at all now. Her focus and anger were on Utixx.

“Don’t interrupt me while I speak.” she barked. “I’ve simply outsmarted your exam.”

“Not at all Etris. I’ve emphasized empathy and care my entire class. You were focused only on the results. Moreover, you’ve shown a mindset utterly incompatible with the values of Omnimento. I have never done this in all my quintillions of years of teaching, but I invoke my powers to temporary expel you from the University! Once we return to its dimension proper I’ll move to finalize the procedure with the appropriate committee. Now I know this is harsh, but for the good of the Infinity Nexus we can’t have someone like you at our institution.”

The Professor tried to warp out of this universe back to Omnimento, but couldn’t. She noticed a smirk on her former student’s face.

“Etris what ar-”

Utixx paused. Everything was gone. The Sun. The stars. Golden light took it place.

The illumination surrounded Utixx’s globed form. It was blinding, but the professor didn’t need eyes to see and she had other means of assessing space. She sensed and saw this expanse of light go on and on. Too far, in fact, for even her to fathom.

“Where I am? Etris, where did you go?”

Silence.

“Etris answer me!” her voice flared with anger. She hovered, racing through this light at unfathomable speeds. Still, she got nowhere. This place seemed to go on forever.

“Etris. Please explain what’s going on. Where am I?”

“There we go.” said a feminine voice resplendent and overwhelming. It reverberated all around and at once within the omnipresent light. Utixx recognized it as her, now former, student.

“That’s the sort of deference I expect from my inferiors.” said Etris.

“Inferiors? Etris what did you do?”

“You shouldn’t have invoked temporary expulsion Utixx.”

“What? Where’s the universe we were in.”

“Dissolved. Well, most of it at least. I left a bit of space.”

“Where am I?” said the professor. Her voice was a hurried mess as she tried to piece things together.

“You’re inside me.” said Etris.

“You ate me?”

“I engulfed you yes, but don’t worry you haven’t been digested yet.”

“How? I didn’t even notice.”

The student’s laughter echoed all around Utixx.

“Sweet simple Utixx. You may be a big deal to those universal microbes from the exam, and even to many of your other students. But to me, you’re nothing. Were my body made of atoms, you’d be as atoms to those atoms. Less, even. That’s the difference in our immensity: in our power.”

She continued.

“Simply put, professor, you were too lowly to process how fast I can act. You’re too stupid to even fully comprehend my body as it is now. You have more in common with those humans that perished beneath my toes than a being like me.”

Utixx roiled with indignation. “You won’t get away with this, when we get back to Omnimento I’ll-”

Utixx was interrupted, not just by the voice that followed, but by a sudden inability to speak.

“You won’t be going back to Omnimento. As I said, you should have never expelled me as you did. What a shame you let your primitive grasp on your emotions get the better of you.”

She tutted, the smug ‘tsk’s hummed around the professor.

“Surely you didn’t forget, in your impotent rage, that the code of conduct only prevents students from harming faculty while enrolled right? Such an impatient, simple thing you are. If you had just waited till back at Omnimento’s dimension you’d have been safe. You just couldn’t wait to try and punish me, could you? To try and ‘take me down a notch’ as the humans say.

She giggled, then spoke on.

“My greatness is absolute though, and certainly can’t be marred by an insignificant thing like you. I am infallible, unlike you. You went and made yourself vulnerable right in the open like that.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk”

Utixx could speak again. By now, her anger gave way to dread. Anxiety seeped over her entire airy being.

“You won’t be able to get back into the University though!” she yelped.

Etris giggled again.

“Of course I can. It’s a temporary expulsion, not even shared with anyone else. Once you’re dead, the decree melts away if not finalized. That’s how those work. I’ll back to being a student with a default “A” on the exam since, well, you’ll be gone.”

The light around Utixx hummed in a piercing pitch. Her orb began to crack. Utixx felt fear for the first time in countless eons.

“No stop! I need that orb to contain my form.” begged the professor.

Etris spoke.

“Another one of your pathetic limitations, I know. Don’t worry, I’m not gonna kill you yet. Eventually, sure, but first I’m going to show you just how wrong you are. I realized the reason I’ve been getting since harsh treatment this entire exam wasn’t because I was doing anything wrong, but because you’re just too old-fashioned. A set-in-their-ways sphere of inertia. You’re just so close-minded. It’s very immature of you, especially since your orders of magnitude my own age. Why, your ego’s just as fragile as this dome of yours.”

Utixx wanted to point out the irony here. She wanted to reiterate how understanding she tried to be, but her focus was on her own body. Her consciousness and her very being depended on her enclosure to be stable. One more crack and she’d be exposed to the outside and denature. Etris knew this, and Utixx knew she knew.

“Wait please don’t do this!” said Utixx.

“’A deity need not always heed the pleas of her subjects’, I remember you said that in class. Don’t worry professor, I’ll show you how to properly be a god.” said Etris.

Etris’s golden light shattered the transparent globe and dissolved it in her existence. The professor felt her green fog of a form destabilize. Her coherency grew loose. It became hard to think. Before her senses faded, the last sound Utixx heard was the laughter of her former student.