"So that's how it happened—the White Lantern, that spirit of existence. That's how it was born." Diana's intelligence was no joke; she made the connection fast.
"Exactly. What I'm saying is—our lives are defined by struggle. If we'd all just kept following the universe's original trajectory, we'd still be nothing. No concept, no definition, no meaning of any kind."
Seeing Diana still turning it over, Thea knew she hadn't quite landed the point. She softened her voice. "Our lives as we know them now—they exist because we rebelled. Going along with the universe was never really our option."
"We're the ones who broke Nekron's stillness. We're the ones who brought color to this universe. If nothing had ever changed, none of this would even be on the table. Struggle is the foundation."
Diana took that in and had to admit it rearranged something. The Warrior Goddess had always thought of herself as fighting for justice, for humanity, for the universe. What Thea was saying framed it completely differently.
Life as the universe's enemy? On first pass the idea sounded absurd. But the longer she held it, the more it made sense.
"So there's no point agonizing over the whole cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death. Live vividly—that's what matters. Of course, if immortality's on the table, take it. Otherwise you miss out on a lot of the fun."
The Goddess of Death savored the look of admiration in the Goddess of Courage's eyes. To return the favor, Thea tackled Diana back down and thoroughly took advantage of her again...
The next morning, she returned to the Underworld.
That long conversation with Diana had made Thea realize something: she'd been taking the long way around.
Originally she'd only wanted to give the Two-Dimensional World life. That part was fine. Then she'd gotten her hands on Fifth-Dimensional knowledge and decided to skip straight to the top—leap it up a whole dimension in one shot. That was the problem that had been chewing on her for days.
Going from nothing to something was already a massive leap. She didn't need to sprint to the finish line on day one.
Her methods had also been too gentle—she kept waiting for conditions to ripen on their own. But the world's essence is struggle. Without some heat, nothing resolves.
She'd already locked down suppression of the world's will. All she needed now was to produce a single living thing, and the project would count as a success.
Life is to the universe what bacteria are to the gut. Bacteria want to reproduce better, so they push to reshape the environment—and in the human body, that shows up as diarrhea and other symptoms. From the human's point of view, these bacteria need to die. But for health reasons, you can't wipe them out entirely either.
Life and the universe play out the same way. One wants to change the other; the other wants to keep it in check.
The Green of All Life, the Black of Decay and their backlashes—that's nature's revenge against life. Entangled and opposed. That's what the real shape of a world looks like. Expecting life to simply emerge as a matter of course—Thea had to admit she'd been thinking about it too simply.
Nothing more to say. Everything was clear now. Crush anything that resists and just push through.
She said "push through," but it really wasn't that violent. The process turned out not to be that hard.
The Two-Dimensional World was too small and its will had been awake for too short a time. Muddled, groggy, unable to get away from Thea but also trying to find a voice of its own.
Thea didn't bother with preliminaries. She went straight to the Fifth-Dimensional method, pouring her will directly into the world.
A storm of tangled emotions crushed what little will the Two-Dimensional World had managed to form, and Thea's own will replaced it.
She didn't wipe it out entirely, though. Whether as an ordinary person or as a New God, she understood the importance of balance. Light and dark, good and evil, life and death. The positive and the negative—neither can be absent. The will of that world now looked more like a blend of her and the original.
A sole proprietorship force-acquired into a joint venture, outside capital taking the lead, the original will shoved into a corner—lying dormant and waiting for its moment to rise again.
The first life emerged from the soil. In the Two-Dimensional World it looked like a giant, its body still made of stone. Newborn, it was curious about everything—touching here, looking there.
And Thea felt a wave of sorrow. She could see this being's fate. Its arc would be brief—an exploration of the world that turned up nothing, then a long lonely vigil, and finally it would burn itself away to bring true life-fire to the world.
The word "death" would appear in this world only after the Stone Man burned. The Stone Man had no name, and his fate was already written. For the Two-Dimensional World he was monumental. For reality, he was just a barely-real phantom. Even as Thea kept reminding herself it was only a program, the sadness lingered.
An inexpressible weight settled in her chest. The whole world breathed with her breath, delighted with her delight. She felt as if she'd shed the limits of her body and become something transcendent—the entire world under her gaze. If she wanted to see, she could see any corner, any event.
In that world she was omniscient and omnipotent.
As if she commanded limitless power—fate, death, everything bowing at her feet.
No. This was wrong. Her core was sounding an alarm. This pond was too small; it shouldn't contain her, and she shouldn't be bound by it. The world outside—that was the real thing.
With enormous effort she tore herself loose from the Two-Dimensional World and sat down, breathing hard.
It took a long moment before she registered she was back in her body. The sense of total mastery was gone; she was back to normal.
Power is intoxicating—no lie there. She'd almost lost herself inside it and become a native-born world-will. The saving grace was that she hadn't wiped out the original will completely, only displaced half of it. Combined with the staggering power gap between her and the Two-Dimensional World, that was enough to let her come back to herself in time.
Exhausted, she returned to Earth.
"What's wrong?" Her mood shift didn't slip past Diana. The Warrior Goddess was baffled. Last night the woman had been so full of energy, so relentless... and now she looked like someone had kicked her dog.
"Come. Come look with me." Thea took Diana's hand, and the two slipped their consciousness into the Two-Dimensional World. She didn't dare stir the world-will, so they observed as outsiders.
The Stone Man was like a newborn child, still exploring this—to him—vast world.
They watched for a long time. Diana started to feel like she might fall asleep. Is everything okay? We came out here first thing in the morning to watch a dumb Stone Man run around in circles?
Just as her mind was wandering—wondering if this world had some hidden boss that would one day invade Earth—Thea spoke.
"This is the world I created. That's the first life born under pressure."
Diana knew Thea was tinkering with her own private world, and it looked fine here. Monotonous, sure, but otherwise it had everything—quite impressive, actually. So what? Why was she wearing a face like she was having a bad week?