The Price of Failure

Elysha was captured, as was Saol, but Baelbus managed to escape to another plane of existence and thereby evade punishment. Such were the perks of being chaos incarnate. The captured gods did not have long to wait before Jinju thought up the most perfectly cruel game in which to punish all that opposed her and her brother. The prisoners were forced to battle one another for the amusement of the new sovereigns of the heavens and those who supported them. Since gods cannot die, the contests would be until one of the combatants was grievously wounded. The loser would be shifted to the side to heal, while the winner would have to continue fighting the next combatant. If neither combatant would fight the other, one of the gods that supported the new rulers would have the honor of wounding the stubborn combatants in the most agonizing way they could imagine.

The only exception to this was Elysha. It was discovered very early on that because it was in her very nature to balance things out, any time she fought the battle always ended in a stalemate. Her power countered anything her opponent tried to use against her, and she refused to injure anyone she fought against, despite the penalty for such a rebellion. It was not long before she was imprisoned again until she would be more entertaining for her audience.

But Jinju was not the goddess of cunning for nothing, and soon she had a wicked idea on how to deal with the difficult goddess. She sent Loli, the goddess of change, to hunt down Baelbus and wrap their mind against their friend. Once that was done, Loli and Baelbus returned to enact the next part of Jinju’s plan. While Loli turned Baelbus against Elysha, another one of the twins’ lackeys, Kurnt, the god of power, was sent to torment Elysha’s younger sister Saol. Kurnt went to his task with vigor and it was only a matter of time before Saol was broken, swearing that she would do anything they asked of her as long as the torture stopped.

With Baelbus and Saol promised to help, Jinju set in motion her plan. First, she sent Baelbus to Elysha’s lonely cell and now that Baelbus had been turned against her, they began to abuse and demean the imprisoned goddess. This new form of persecution went on and on until Elysha’s mind could take it no more and finally, she snapped. In a fit of rage, she lashed out at her former friend the instant her mind broke, nearly ripping Baelbus’ head off because of the fierceness of her attack. Baelbus escaped once again to another plane, but that reaction from Elysha was just what Jinju had been waiting for.

Without hesitation, she ordered Saol to create a replica of her sister’s body. Happy to be free of her tormentor, Saol did so without question. Carefully Jinju removed the broken piece of Elysha’s mind and placed it in the body Saol had made. Now there were two Elyshas, one light, one dark, but both broken and incomplete. With that done, Jinju ordered the split goddesses to fight, and fight they did. The battles between the light and dark sides of Elysha were the stuff of legends and kept the new sovereigns and their court entertained.

In spite of this, the twin gods bored easily and it wasn’t long before they went off to build a world and created a childish challenge. With the rulers occupied with other things, the imprisoned gods were finally freed. Saol came to Elysha to beg forgiveness for her weakness and explained everything that happened to her at the hands of Kurnt. Both halves of Elysha were appalled by what she heard and promptly forgave Saol for her involvement in Jinju’s plan.

Her sister tried to make amends by offering to join the two bodies together to make Elysha whole again. Elysha readily agreed, but when the sisters tried to merge the bodies, they found the damage to her mind was too severe. The goddess would never be whole again. Elysha wept over this news until she had no more tears left in her. Once the tears were gone, the despair she felt gave way to a new feeling, a new reason for her broken existence. She would have her revenge.