A huge piece of the temple crashed to the ground next to Minerva, one of the goddesses who lived at the Celintian Cloud.

"Watch out!" Anetta, another goddess, shrieked. She launched a fireball at the next approaching slab of rock, knocking it out of the way. She turned, only to be attacked from behind by a creature with six arms that were covered with black scales. The creature writhed eerily in the light of the sunrise. She spun on her heel and engulfed the monster in flame. She continued to fight them as they came their way.

Minerva ran away from the temple, swerving this way and that, trying to avoid the slabs from landing on top of her. The sound of the cracking rocks was deafening as they hit the ground. She streamed beams of ice at them, knocking them out of the way as she ran. Gasping for breath, she stood next to Aemont to help him with fighting his round of creatures.

"Where did they come from?" Aemont asked her.

"Space." She didn't have time to say anything else before she had to create a wall of ice behind Anetta to prevent her from getting hit by a large arm, covered with black scales. The wall stopped the monster, but as soon as Anetta turned around, her fiery aura melted it, rendering the ice wall useless once more.

Minerva sighed,  "Sometimes I wish I could shift something other than water and ice."

"Hey! Your ability is better than mine!" Aemont ducked another flailing arm. "I can't make any projectiles at all! I can't kill anything! All I've got is blasts of air!"

"That's because you've got a peaceful, quiet soul!" Anetta shouted from across the cloud.

Aemont didn't have a response to that.

Minerva laughed. Aemont had a soul quite full of excitement, in fact. To say that he had a "peaceful, quiet soul" was far from accurate. She took a few steps back and her smile faded as she saw the dreadful creatures approaching closer and closer.

"Erm..." Aemont looked around worriedly. "We would appear-" He blasted another monster back. "-to be losing this fight."

Gods and goddesses all around were getting pushed to their limits, unable to hold the monsters back from the edge of the cloud any longer.

They weren't powerful enough to stop the army of monsters that poured in from the dark, blank expanse above them. Many of the gods and goddesses were already lost to the vastness of space. If they continued down this path, the monsters could very well go on to destroy the planet of Zenaria in its entirety.

"Retreat for a moment!" Minerva called to all who could hear her. They regrouped to one of the only buildings that still remained. The others continued the futile battle.

"What can we do?" Anetta asked Minerva in desperation.

"I'm not sure. I was hoping one of you had an idea."

"No. I can't think of anything." Anetta, Aemont, and a few others hung their heads despondently.

"Ahem." A voice spoke from behind them. Minerva and the others spun around.

"Yes?"

"How could you be so blind? The answer is obvious."

"Yes? And what might that answer be?" Minerva was secretly annoyed by the way that the other goddess had spoken, but she supposed there was nothing that she could do to change the personality of others.

"None of us individually is strong enough to defeat them. We all are limited to certain skills. Take Anetta and Minerva, for example. Anetta can only create fire, and Minerva can only use water. It's not a wide range of things, wouldn't you say? It's quite pathetic. Even I am more powerful than that."

"Well-" Minerva clamped a hand over Anetta's mouth to stop her from finishing the sentence. She had no wish to create such a conflict in such a time of war.

"However," the goddess, Vespara, continued, "if we all put our skills together, then we might have a chance. If we combined them, then launched them at the monsters, then they would never torment Zenaria again." Her dark eyes gleamed.

"But we would disappear. To create enough power to do that, we'd have to give up what keeps us alive."

"But don't you see?" Vespara placed her hands on Minerva's shoulders. "That doesn't matter anymore. Don't you care for the beings which live here? Or are you too selfish to care!?"

"No, no! I care." Minerva crossed her arms. "I just... I feel that there must be some other solution."

"Well I'd be delighted to hear any ideas that you have. But you are running out of time." Vespara jabbed a finger towards her.

Minerva had to think fast. She knew Vespara was right. They were running out of time. She looked at Vespara. She sensed that Vespara had another plan, a plan for herself, that didn't involve her dying. But she couldn't think of what it might be. But she had time to think about that later.

Suddenly, an idea formed in her mind.

"I suppose we could transfer part of ourselves into humans, to live on in that way. Someone needs to make sure the creatures living here -- particularly humans -- don't destroy all the life in this world." And to stop whatever Vespara might be planning. "We could use the other part of ourselves to put into the energy grenade. Then we would defeat the creatures, yet not be dead. The power that we use to defeat the monsters would become part of the planet core, like in your idea, so none of the natural balance would be disturbed."

"Yes, I suppose you could." Vespara gazed at the monsters, screeching in the distance, and appeared to only be paying attention partially to the conversation at hand.

Minerva studied Vespara. She certainly looked as if she were up to something, but Minerva couldn't quite place her finger on what. Her thoughts quickly shifted back to the matter at hand, however. "But I bet a lot of the other gods and goddesses wouldn't like that idea. It places too much trust in humans." Minerva shook her head.

"THAT'S ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!!!" Someone shouted in Minerva's ear. Minerva sighed.

"We can't trust humans with us! They would misuse us and try to take over the world! I'll never do that! I'd rather go with Vespara's idea. In fact, we all will. You do whatever crazy idea you want. We're going to do the sensible thing. The thing that will save the rest of this planet." The god stormed off.

Minerva climbed on top of a rock and took a deep breath.

"Well, anybody who's with my idea, to transfer part of your power into a human receptacle to live on in that way, only give part of your power to the energy grenade. But do whatever you believe is right."

Vespara had already informed the others about the plan.

The gods assembled. They stood in a semi-circle, facing the monsters, which were approaching the edge of the cloud. They knew the creatures would enter the rest of the world and continue their rampage if the gods did not stop them.

In a flash of light, almost all of the gods projected all of the power that they had. A few merely transferred some. All except for Vespara.

Unnoticed by all the others, Vespara crept to the edge of the cloud and peeked over the edge. She knew that she needed to hurry if she didn't want anybody to see her. As she looked over the edge of the clouds she picked a random child down on the surface of the Zenaria. Without hesitation, she transferred all of her powers into the child. Her soul as well.

As planned, nobody noticed as Vespara faded away off the edge of the cloud, and a certain child gained an inner darkness and malice which would never fade away.

One by one, as the other gods transferred all they had into the now pulsing, glowing ball of power, they faded away and disappeared. The sphere continued to grow, and a few of the gods gasped in surprise as they saw the colossus. Then it exploded.

The sphere's explosion sent out a huge shimmering wave which disintegrated the monsters at its touch.

Minerva watched as the wave of power single handedly wiped out the entire army of monsters. "It worked. It really worked." She whispered. But when she looked around, her heart sank. Barely anybody she knew was still there.

Anetta and Aemont turned to Minerva. "Looks like you were right. They didn't go with your plan."

"At least Garnell made it." Anetta shrugged.

"Garnell?" Minerva was a little confused.

"He can do things with rock and soil and earthy stuff." Anetta smiled.

"Ah."

"Well, what's next?" Aemont looked to Minerva for an answer.

"We don't have much time. Choose a child, any human child, and transfer all you have left to it. Don't be picky. Choose any one. Do you understand?"

Anetta and the others nodded. But then Anetta turned to Minerva, a downcast expression on her face.

"We'll never see it again, will we? This home, here in the clouds?" Anetta asked sadly, looking behind herself to get a final glimpse of where they had lived for thousands of years. But she already knew the answer.

"No. We won't." Minerva sighed. Then she assumed a determined expression. "Now let's go choose our humans."