Chapter Text
"Into the Forecourt of Heaven came humanity, and the God of Creation wept."
Soap crinkled the scroll up in his hands, rolling it back up to its original state. He pressed his fingertip to the folded paper, the material rising with steam as the seal of light was singed into it. He placed it on the rack with similar scrolls, ordered from history regarding The Old Kind, Humanity, to the war that had started 1000 years ago, stories written by scholars long since having found their tombs. He blew on the sheets, dusting off the ones he had marked with seals.
Once regarded as the holiest writings of work ever done, they were now just ephemera, no one left to appreciate their beauty besides the gods that had been left centuries ago by the people that once worshiped them. Now just mere fragments of what they had been, time had been forgotten as a moving force, instead becoming a faint memory in the backdrop of their minds. Amongst themselves their kind earned the name "perennial", meaning existing forever, or continually recurring.
It was the kind of nightmare Soap never wished to find himself in.
He read on the philosophies of the past a lot, often wondering why he even still existed in the first place; he had no reason, no purpose, no meaning to still be alive. His actions would go unwatched for...well, ever, no being or mortal to ever observe them. It made him wonder if anything he did even still mattered, or that he even did them at all. His mind often went back to a philosopher, of course, long-since forgotten by his species, a man by the name of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, whom he shaped a lot of his thinking around. Phénoménologie de la perception, an excellent work crafted by the author, illustrated the idea that reality only existed when those observed it.
A hellish thought, indeed, but being the god of light, he could let the others know he dabbled in such dreadful thinking. That was more meant for his counterpart, the god of darkness.
The god of darkness, a being few knew and few sought out, only seen during the times of the bloodiest battles. A shadowy, mysterious figure that kept to himself, even Creation avoided him, choosing not to go near the brooding deity, who normally could be found in the middle of a fight with their enemies, blood soaking his hands and staining the grandiose ground below.
Yes, definitely not a benevolent figure one wanted to approach on a daily basis.
The war between the gods and the creatures that had emerged out of the humans, now apherals, had been ranging for 1000 years now. The deathly, terrible, formless atrocities that had crawled their way--literally--out of the skulls of Humanity wished to whip out the heavenly race, and the gods, in turn, wanted the same. There were no truces, no treaties. There were no ties. No common ground was ever found.
Ever.
Soap had given up fighting in the war a few hundred years ago. He saw the absurdity of it, how neither side would ever win, and decided he would coop up in his abode for the next couple millenia...or until the end of time. Until someone got tired, at least.
That did not stop the rest of the gods from commonly knocking on the door to his oasis high in the clouds, begging him to join the fight, and perhaps, maybe, maybe, they would win. He never did. He never saw the point of joining. A very short while ago, about 50 years, he'd chosen to twice. And it didn't change anything. Both sides were equally powerful, and no one would stop until one party was in their grave.
It was absurdly boring, honestly.
Which is why he didn't understand why Price, the god of time, had to wake him up from his nice, 4-month nap, to report to him about the recent news of the war. Not that he cared, anyway. The other guards just thought it was good to keep their teammate in line with the score, despite the fact he didn't play.
He sighed, casting one look back at his precious scrolls before he descended from his cloud of light to the ground below. The time god shielded his eyes, always annoyed with him for having his thing so bright. He always scoffed at that. Go blame Creation, then.
"It wouldn't hurt to control your wavelengths, ya'know - " Ah, yes, the first words out of his mouth and they were some kind of bickering. Lovely.
"Particles," Soap interjected, knowing Price could give two hoots for the particulars of physics that Humanity pioneered in so avidly. "An' I like it broght." For some reason, Soap had chosen to shape his accent around that of the Scottish people's a couple...well, he had lost count by now. It was unknown whether he could even go back to normal.
"Roght, particles, yes," Price also had an accent, but it was never fully revealed what exactly he had chosen. Just a mix of a deep, gruff voice, supposedly British, supposedly Yorkish. "I needa have a word with you, Soap."
Soap raised his eyebrows, opening his hands and gesturing around to his fluffy, cloudy domain. Islands floated in the sky, majestic, tall, and beautiful, with waterfalls running down from them, disappearing into the sky. Palaces rested atop them, made with gold and silver, but they were barren and empty now, save for the few visits Soap conducted rarely. Bridges made of light connected the islands, but they were not needed, of course. Just for aesthetic, pleasing purposes. Once for humans who dared traversed the lands to meet him, but no longer.
"It's not like I'm busy," the light god said sarcastically. He stood in front of Price, arms crossed over his broad chest. Price was only a few inches taller than him, dark eyebrows creased in a way that made him look like he was criticizing him. He always had that look on his face, though, like he constantly looked for something to judge. "Might as well get on with it."
"Lighten up a lil', Soap," Soap couldn't tell if he was serious or just making a cruel pun towards him, but he really didn't have time for Price's antics. Price brushed away a few wisps of cloud that entered his personal space, trying not to look annoyed when one got caught in his beard. "Why don't you come to the meeting with me, for once? I'm sure the others would be delighted if you decided to finally grace them with your presence."
Ah, so he was mocking him. Cheeky bastard. If not for being stuck in this never-ending turmoil, Soap guessed he would have strangled him by now. He often wondered what life would have been like if they had been Human. If they could have lived peacefully, with no apherals, nothing in their way of happiness. Just a regular life, maybe a hundred years, and then vanish. A few breaths he'd steal from the world, and then he'd be nothing. Forever.
If they hadn't failed.
"Nay," he dismissed him with a wave of his hand, bringing up two pillars of light beside him. Glowing, black diagrams represented words. He brought a few out, twisting them in the air and forming them into another shape. Just to keep the date in check. It was hard to remember everything when you'd been alive for so long, when your conscience had a risky design.
Conscience. The state of being Humans had never been able to figure out. 'Tis a shame. They could have done so many great things with their discoveries. Even after conquering the universe, discovering what lied beyond, how had they not? Such a simple science transcended even their advanced thinking. Had they been gifted with the gift of clearsight, maybe - no other alien species had been given something like a consciousness, so incredible, so amazing, so profound. Creation had truly favored His first project, and He'd squashed it. Soap had had such high hopes. After all, why would the gods base their form around Humanity if not for their propitious complexion?
He put his beams of light away, compressing them till they fit into his palm, and then rid of them with a snap of his fingers. He looked back at Price. "No war, no nothing anymore." He walked ahead of the time god, venturing away from him. "Have a jolly good time with it, Cap'n."
"Soap - " Price groaned in frustration, pinching his brows. Soap liked to remind him of his past as a great leader, one that the Humans looked up to, a time where he had actual power. If not brutal, it was a harsh way of reminding him of before.
"Soap, dammit, it's important," he rushed forward to grab his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks. Soap's gaze darkened, but he didn't move, or even look at him. "I know what you want from me, and you know I can't do it. I can't just stop time - "
"Why?" The god of light whirled around, slapping Price's hand off of him. He didn't react, but the expression on his face told him it stung. Or hit a nerve, deep within him. "Why can't you? Why cain't you just fookin' stop time? I don't care what it does to us. At least it ends our torment." The anger was visible in his eyes, manifesting in the form of glowing white pupils. Too much. He thought, but he was too far to stop now.
Price was used to a few fights with his fellow immortals, but never one that hit so hard. Soap knew where to hurt him the most. Or maybe he didn't realize the damage he'd done. "Because it would kill - "
A flash of something dark whisked over their heads, long and narrow, like a spear. It crashed into one of Soap's islands, sending water and rock flying. He barely had time to register the events before it was crumbling, the bridge breaking off, falling into the abyss below, the palace above giving out and collapsing, centuries of hard-thought work gone in an instant. Black, liquidy ooz now crawled out from where the spear had hit, climbing up what remained of the island and engulfing it whole.
"What the - " Soap's cries were drowned out by the snapping and splintering of the light bridges, disintegrating as if they were nothing but twigs of wood. He watched helplessly as an entire section of his abode fell apart, mouth open in shock like he'd lost the very soul he'd clung onto all this time.
"I'm sure you can make more," a deep rumble suddenly filled his senses. He was alert now, incredibly alert of the new voice that had joined his party. He forced his gaze away from the destruction in front of him, trying not to grit his teeth as Price looked too.
A giant behemoth of a man now stood before him - no, a god, with the tallest, strongest figure he'd ever seen before that looked like Creation had personally spent the first few decades of his existence deciding how to make him look better than the universe itself. He was huge - biceps bulging out of his sleeve, gloves straining against the effort of his clenched fists. Each step he took caused the earth to break, tremors to form, and Soap wouldn't be surprised if somewhere off at a distant coastline, he'd caused a tsunami with his massive boots. The mysterious deity did not give much light to his appearance, shrouding himself with a cloak over his head and a cape as black as the night sky, littered with thousands of tiny white dots. If Soap actually cared to squint his eyes, he could make out the patterns of constellations and even planets - those were real stars.
If this was not the epitome of perfection itself, then the war might as well not be going on. Only had he been given the pleasure of seeing this godhead up close twice in his perpetual contract of life, both times needing saving from some danger. It was odd that he didn't see his espoused counterpart much. In another time, maybe they would have been soulmates.
But the god of darkness rarely let himself be seen by his kin, much less by the one he might as well be tied to by a string. Only in the fiercest, bloodiest of battles were even his hands shown, covered with the blood and guts of his enemies - the Reaper, they donned him, a title so grim it rightfully fit him so.
And there was no battle right now, none Soap could see, at least, and he could see most things, being the god of light and all. The only battle going on right now was his inner self, crushed by the destruction of his habit, and the urge not to cry in front of such an intimidating figure.
"We've got more important matters," Soap almost forgot he was there, so absorbed in his thoughts he'd mistaken the burly god for a trick of his own mind. Which would not have been very surprising, considering the things his mind could do, all the tricks it could pull to make him think something was there, when it really wasn't.
A ball of darkness formed in the god's hand, slowly shaping into another point-ended weapon. He held it up to Soap, as if offering him to take it. "You're right in the middle of a fight. And you just so happen to be the target."
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OHHHHHH god(s) I hoped you liked that!! It took me so long to write, unbelievably, thanks to my excellent procrastination skills. This is the longest fic I've ever written. Next chapter underway! Let me know what you guys think ☺ Enjoy!