The relationship between man and God is fickle. Faith is a promise, a deal between a deity and their subjects: scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours. Eventually, both sides stop reciprocating, and both sides suffer. Most people never get to know the truth of what it means to truly worship something greater than them, and it's no wonder why. Gods became lazy over time, and because of humanity's infinite capacity to forgive, some people will always hold faith in the ones they pray to. Others, however, forsake their gods— be it by using their name for selfish gains, pledging their faith to another, or even denouncing religion altogether and moving through life on their own means.
It goes without saying that the bond- the contract- between man and god needs both sides to participate in order to be effective. Some Gods chose to go about it traditionally: uplift the pious, and punish the sinners.
Send messages to their strongest warriors to kill the followers of 'lesser' gods, and convert the survivors.
Leverage the follower's guilt for doing human things, just to forgive them and gain more faith.
Gods became reliant on human emotion to feed them their power. It was simply unsustainable. That reliance was faith, too, and over time that paradox diluted their divine might.
Eventually, all the gods could do is watch as their subjects became to govern themselves using the tenants their Gods gave them. Some gods only survive in the modern day by having their names evoked. Many are on Death's door, and even more have died. Lack of worship made them fade away, into wisps, floating off into the ether.
The death of a God isn't anything particularly special to the average mortal… but what happens to followers after their God has died? What happens to the heaven they've created? To the Hell they've left their demons to run? To the power the faithful gained for gaining favor…? Thankfully, all of this fades as the God does… although for those mortal souls unlucky enough, their eternal afterlife ends around the same time.
With all of this in mind, the goddess known as LAW made sure to bullet-proof the way she wished to be worshiped so that she'd never fade. LAW made sure her system was based on logic rather than emotion.
She granted her followers the use of magic. She spoke to them regularly to let them know she was real, and she cared. She even guaranteed peace after death, regardless of the actions taken by her subjects. Best of all, she wrote it all on a binding contract.
The only rule they had to follow was this: complete all of her orders to the letter, immediately, or die.
She kept her religion small, and despite her efforts, unhealthily fanatic, LAW was one of the strongest Gods of her time. She never weakened, even in the modern day. On top of that, her followers, although reclusive, maintained an unbroken line of magic throughout all of history. Her gambit worked perfectly.
Except for one thing.
She never truly prepared for her own death. Killing a god directly had never been done, and so there was no real need to prepare.
The power required was well above anything anyone could imagine, herself included.
****
A young boy ran ahead of his parents, as hyper as he'd ever been. He had a red cape and black mask on, prancing around the lobby of the movie theater.
"It's ICE to meet you!" He had just poured a whole cup of ice down the back of his father's shirt. Before he could get away, he got grabbed by the shoulder and hefted up into the air.
"Phillip, you're supposed to be Robin! You can't plot against your partner in crime like this!" Phillip's father put him down and made a big show of bringing his own cape up around to face… before shaking all of the ice out of his shirt. Phillip giggled hysterically at the sight of the huge man shiver and subtly kick the ice to the far corner of the room.
"Daddy, I wanted to be Batman!" Phillip didn't plan on letting this slide. He had back-up ice in his pockets, ready to go.
"My cape is too big for you. Besides, your voice can't get nearly deep enough to pass." Jean-Paul's eyes darted to the wet spot slowly spreading in his son's pocket. He used his cape to cover his whole body, defending himself from another ice cube attack.
The two of them circled each other, completely entranced in their stand-off. Jean-Paul's size alone kept bystanders from getting in the way— just how he liked it when Phillip got like this. For a five year old, he was a conniving kid. Meanwhile, Beverly stood back, smiling at her boys. She was glad her husband managed to share another interest with their son. He was practically cloning himself, and seeing a brand new person borrow all of the things she loved in Jean made her heart swell. They had a full day planned ahead of them, and this was only the first stop. She sifted through her satchel, pushing aside her pen and paper to double check if she had enough cash to get everyone ice cream on the way to the park. Well, more like she was making sure the money wasn't stolen. Rikers City was easy to get robbed in and she had already lost her credit card a few days before. She did not want to be the one to explain to very hyper, very sugar-addicted men that a pickpocket got the drop on her. She valued all lives, and even thieves deserve better than the ditch her boys would've dumped them in if they ever found the one who did it.
She wouldn't have to worry about that. LAW had just given them a command.
[Follow me into the heavens. Your place in eternity shall be secured.]
Beverly turned to Jean-Paul. He used his cape to blind Phillip, and looked back at her. Their faces were grim.
With a warm smile pasted on his face, Jean picked up his son. Whispering in his ear Phillip suddenly lulled to sleep, and with their son in his arms, Jean-Paul walked to Beverly. They embraced in one big hug and left the theater.
20 minutes later, while dreaming of fighting crime with his dad, Phillip became an orphan.
And not 5 minutes after that, LAW was killed.
For the first time in his life, the boy was alone.