Chapter 15: "A Twist of Fate"

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"Besides, you and I both know the real power in this world ain't magic. It's money! Buckets of it."

- Dr. Facilier, ('The Princess And The Frog', 2009)

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<(Atem POV) >

"Ok, are you sure this is safe? Morgana told me that the last time you made her the New God of magic, you almost collapsed. If this is going to hurt you, we might as well try other ways of achieving immortality or increasing our powers. I mean we have already invested a lot in different projects to achieve the same purpose, so, we could even have a breakthrough in the next decade at the most." Jean expressed her concerns with the most worried expression I had ever seen on her face.

 "Well, it's not like I am going to die... at least I don't think so. But look, this is the fastest and most efficient way to truly make sure that we have some big guns in case of a big attack against us. I can already make sure that people remain virtually immortal by keeping them young or bringing them back to life or at their peak every time they die with my divine healing ability but that's not efficient since there are a lot of conditions on using that ability like having to use it within a day of the person's death and stuff like that. So we need this even though it seems like we don't. Believe me, it's better to be prepared and not need something than be unprepared and need it." I reasoned.

And it was completely true. Right now, making a new... New God (that actually sounds really weird) isn't a necessity for me but an investment and a countermeasure against other powerful gods and entities that could one day try to antagonize me.

"Are you ready Irene for the life-changing experience that you will be undergoing soon and also, are you sure you don't want to wait for your wife to return for this?" I asked genuinely worried for the masked woman standing before me as I and Jean reached the test chamber where the conversion was scheduled to take place.

"No, I want to give a surprise to her. Your healing has been extremely helpful in recovering my health but my prophecies have been equally as strenuous on my body and mind if not more and recently my gifts haven't been working as well as they used to. But I don't want to stop.

Mystique has done a lot for me over the years just like you have done for us and the entire metahuman community and if I can help you with my powers, I want to continue doing that. That's why this conversion is so important to me because this might enable me to help all of you more, it might give me the purpose I had always wanted." Irene Adler, aka, Destiny argued with an expression on her face that seemed extremely genuine.

She wasn't lying, I could feel her thoughts and emotions radiating off of her. She really wanted to be of help. Her wife was one of our most important spies who was responsible for collecting highly valuable intel but she on the other hand had been steadily losing her importance over the years, especially with her progressing age and the fact that my appearance had basically cast a veil on her visions making her only see rough possibilities which most of the times never came true especially when the vision had something to do with me.

"By the way, before we start, I have to ask this. Did you see this happening in one of your visions? Did you see what the divine awakening would grant you? The new abilities that you would have access to if the process is a success?" I asked, hoping that if she had then I wouldn't have to make a decision on which powers to give her.

"No, I am sorry but unfortunately I hadn't been able to see anything past this moment. I had repeatedly tried to use my abilities to see how my... awakening would go but every time my vision ended with you holding my hand and me being surrounded by a bright flash of light. So, I have no idea what is going to happen after the conversion." Irene admitted with a helpless smile.

"I see, I guess there is no other way of finding out the full effects of the awakening on you than to just go ahead with the conversion," I said as I went towards her. "Jean, you should leave the chamber. I have no idea how the awakening might affect bystanders. Things tend to grow quite bright during the process." I said as she nodded and left the same way we came.

"All the preparations are done. Every scanner is operational. We are ready to record and document everything that would be happening inside the chamber." A voice came from the nearby speaker a few minutes later signaling that Jean had reached the control room.

"You are not afraid, are you?" I asked as I watched Irene open her golden-colored mask slowly revealing her tired yet beautiful face.

"Nope, it's my pleasure to serve you, Lord Atem. After you rescued me and Raven from Mr. Sinister's lair, I had been searching for a way to at least try to pay you back for your kindness, to be of use to both you and our community instead of having to depend on everyone else all the time. And now, that there is finally a chance for me to be useful, there is no way that I'll be afraid of it." Irene smiled fearlessly as her sightless greyish-blue eyes seemed to stare into mine.

The couple appeared to have developed a deep loyalty towards me for saving them from their captivity as well as bringing Irene back to her peak from her old age, a loyalty that had even prompted them to try to get me on their bed, however, I didn't respond to their advances simply because I wasn't into sleeping with happily married couples. I preferred my wives or lovers to have a sisterly relationship with them instead of being lovers to each other. I mean I enjoyed girl-on-girl action as much as the next guy but that was only if I was present in the room having given my girls permission to indulge in the activity. yep, I was a stinking hypocrite but I was proud of it.

But the biggest reason of all why I hadn't slept with the couple was because I simply wasn't interested. I already had a blue-skinned appearance-changing metahuman as my lover in the form of Vanesa Carlisle, aka, Copycat. I didn't need another one. As for Irene, she was undoubtedly extremely beautiful but that was it, she didn't really have anything else that attracted me. Even the crazy psycho-like personality that most Marvel girls seemed to have in them was absent in her making her less than interesting to me.

Also, I could have easily slept with the couple once or twice, just to increase my body count since they were more than happy to do that as they were the experimental type but that would vastly damage their relationship and might even destroy their marriage. Why? Because let's just say sleeping with me and ingesting my fluids might be the most addicting thing one could ever do in their lifetime because of my Golden Rule perk. Very few females would be able to have sex with me and get over the fact that they would never be able to sleep with me again and I didn't want the sweet couple to be two of those people who could no longer enjoy each other's company on the bed because they miss my touch too much.

"You'll have to ingest a drop of my blood for us to begin the advancement process. A simple lick should be enough." I said as I bit into my finger until I drew blood and then extended my slightly bleeding finger towards her mouth, applying enough pressure to keep the finger bleeding and prevent my healing ability from kicking in.

"O-okay... *Slurp*" She slightly licked my finger making quite a lewd sound for some reason which I ignored after which I kept my finger on her forehead and focused to activate my pantheon creation ability. 

Immediately a blue holographic screen appeared in my mind with dozens of choices asking me to select which abilities I wanted to pass on to her. The interesting thing was that I could only choose to pass on my abilities but not my divinity perks or skills. I even had the option to pass on my pantheon creation ability as well which meant I could just have someone else create New Gods for me but for now, I decided not to do that and instead give her the basic ability set that seemed the best for her which included the New God physique which was selected by default, Immortality, Incomprehensible mind, Anchored soul, Allspeak, Low cosmic awareness, Divine Energy Manipulation, Divine Healing and Astral Manipulation.

"This should be enough to make you into a powerhouse strong enough to defend yourself," I muttered as I mentally selected the accept button.

Immediately a light began to consume Irene Adler as it seemed like she was getting reborn inside the light which was destroying her mortal shell and forcing her to be reborn as a new divine entity. The entire light show only lasted a couple of seconds as the light began to fade away slowly after it had done its job.

"This... is... beautiful," Destiny muttered once the light completely vanished, tears leaking from her eyes. "So, this is how gods truly feel the world. I can see everything, smell everything, and feel everything. This is... breathtaking. So much power, so much freedom. Why have you not just enslaved the Earth by now since you should be even more powerful than what I currently am?" She asked as she fixed her now completely blue eyes on me.

'Interesting, it seems that her eyes got back their light. Previously her blindness which was an indirect effect of her prophetic abilities could not even be cured by my divine healing ability at its full power, much less the MX001. But now, the moment she became a New God, she seemed to have grown past her disability. I guess that is one more effect of what divine awakening can do.' I sneered inwardly as I returned her gaze.

"Because that would be really boring," I answered with a straight face, not bothering to expand on my answer.

"..." She didn't say anything and just continued to stare at me with stunned eyes looking like my answer was something she could have never imagined.

"I see. Gods truly work in mysterious ways. I am only beginning to realize the deep meaning behind the statement now that I am also one." She nodded sincerely making me wonder if she truly got some enlightenment from my lazily crafted argument.

"... yeah, sure. Now, let's see if you awakened any divinity... what in the name of Dormammu's huge purple glowing balls, I was right. You awakened the exact divinity I expected you to." I said while holding my breath to prevent myself from doing a victory dance at the gold mine I had just struck.

The Pantheon Creation ability was really useful. Besides making others New Gods like me, it also made them loyal to me on the condition that they were willingly accepting my 'gift', as well as gave me the power to see their status whenever I wanted. But the biggest perk of it all was that it gave them a divinity that they most resonated with, a divinity that they were the most compatible with.

And in Irene's case who could see everyone else's destinies, their fates, the ability awakened the divinity of 'Fate' in her. That alone should place her at the top tier list of divine entities as long as she learned how to wield her divinity properly.

"Is it something good, my divinity I mean? I heard that Morgana got magic as her divinity while you yourself are the God of Domination. Is my divinity anything even nearly as useful as those or did I use up all of my luck in getting cured of my blindness?" She asked with genuine worry in her voice as she looked at me with some trepidation visible on her now young and fresh face.

"Don't worry Irene, you aren't going to be a useless goddess. In fact, I have a feeling that you are going to have quite a big hand in forging all of our destinies and writing our fate." I said quizzically, wondering if she could best He Who Remains in manipulating people's fortunes once she masters her divinity.

"*Bleugh* Oh shit." I felt blood in my mouth as my entire body felt like it was being pricked by thousands of rusty nails and my soul experienced the feeling of being torn into two pieces. "*Cough Cough* Talk about a goddamn nerf *huff*," I breathed heavily, completely understanding how Allmight feels whenever he uses his power too much.

"And that's why I told you not to use this particular ability of yours, you brute," Jean yelled as she came out of nowhere and hugged me, smothering my face in her comfortable soft embrace as she berated me verbally.

"But then I wouldn't have been able to get such a caring hug from you, could I?" I smiled as I continued to hug her, both of us ignoring the new New Goddess of Fate (still sounds weird as hell) who was awkwardly standing there watching us with what seemed like jealousy visible on her face.

'Thank go... me, that all converted New Gods are absolutely loyal to me, otherwise, I would have been really worried about young New Gods scheming against each other just because of something as basic as envy or something.' I sighed in my mind as I counted my lucky stars while throwing a small mental thanks toward my system as well. After all, it might have its own objectives but that doesn't change the fact that it is the only reason I am still alive in this world even after so long. 

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(A/N: I won't be dedicating entire chapters for every New God awakening, this one was only shown to clear any and all doubts about how the pantheon creation ability works and its shortcomings. Also, I really like Destiny and Mystique as characters.)

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