Everyone was gathered in the town park in front of Eli’s home / castle / throne room so they could say goodbye and he could give a few instructions now that he knows the nearby safe zone’s situation better. Everyone was relaxed except Alora who had just been in the safe zone and knew that half the people she saw there were going to die, if not more. She had struggled with the decision to tell Eli the truth, knowing that under her recommendation to leave, he would. She just wanted to get to the conference so she could distract herself from the thoughts of the people she met during the two days she spent gathering information.

  “I want everyone to take it easy while we are gone. The only thing I need from you is that our home and those in it be kept safe. When we return, we will be moving toward the center of the continent so if you have friends in the safe zone, say your good-byes now. I doubt we will come back.” Eli explained to the group.

  Lucy approached him quickly with worry clear on her face. “What about my group on the ground? We are just going to leave them here to die?”

  “Pick the best one of the group to lead them. Then pick the two with the most potential and let them know they can come with us if I approve of them.” Eli said with a hand on her cheek wiping away a tear with his thumb.

  “So we are only saving two? We just let the other die?” She asked with more tears. Everyone was still there and listening, but he didn’t look up at them.

  Eli kept his eyes locked to hers. “You trained them, their lives are in their own hands now. We do not save people. We make room for them to save themselves by removing those who are holding them down. If they become reliant on us, then we are what is standing in the way of their own growth and strength.”

  “What if I…” she trailed off.

  “If you wish to stay, no one will stop you. In fact I will be proud of you. You have until we return to make up your mind. Get them ready, things will be moving fast when we return.”

  Everyone left after that, just having a feeling that they should really think about his words and whether or not that is something they want to follow. In particular, Stevens was having a hard time getting his head around the line ‘we do not save people’. Eli was always a fly by the seat of your pants kind of person, throwing them into a completely chaotic and unwinnable situation and somehow turning it into a victory. Special Operations Command treated him like a lucky charm, sending him and his team on whichever mission they thought had the least chance for success. The whole team knew this, they even would overhear some of the brass call him ‘foot’, as in lucky rabbits foot.

  So when he said they weren’t going to help people, which would be the short-term planning he was good at and instead they were going to take the long term approach and just remove obstacles, it was difficult to understand. Part of him wanted to run for the hills because every long term plan Eli had ever implemented failed miserably and it was only his quick on-the-spot decisions that saved the mission and their lives. Another part of him was absolutely dying to see how it would all play out since it was either going to fail spectacularly or it would show a level of character and personality growth that is so rare in people he had never even heard of it happening before. In theory, it would take something extreme to see that change and in that moment Stevens knew he would stick around to see how it played out.

  Bethany and Alora were sitting on one of the benches in the small park in the center of Crater Town watching everyone talk and slowly make their way back to their homes. They watched Mint coax Stevens back to where they were living as he was deep in thought, Bethany could tell that they still hadn’t taken any steps towards an intimate relationship. She was happy to see him being sensitive to the trauma she had gone through and letting her come around on her own time. Then they watched as Beau and Arinya seemed to be communicating volumes between each other with simple looks and smiles. Alora especially noticed how Arinya’s focus seemed to be entirely on Beau and his on her, not a scrap of attention was anywhere else.

  “Do you think we will find what they have?” Alora asked.

  “With Eli? Or like, at all?” Asked Bethany, she knew that she meant ever but wanted her to make that distinction in her mind.

  “Eli doesn’t seem to look at Tara, you, or me like that. So I guess ever. Will we ever have that?”

  “First of all, Eli is carrying the planet on his shoulders so he can’t afford that level of narrowed focus. I think that's what I love most about me and his relationship, he is my entire existence, but I’m not his. It gives me the illusion of choice.” Bethany was beginning to answer but was interrupted.

  “Wait, you are going to have to explain that to me. Do you like the one sided aspect of your relationship?”

  “Of course. When I was in the corporate world, I slept my way up the ladder to a high position. I knew I meant nothing to those guys except something to brag about and an ego boost, which allowed me to use them in return. The whole thing felt like a game and I was comfortable with it since I knew the rules and no one got hurt.” Bethany sighed and smiled a soft smile at herself before continuing. “Then the world ended and I ran into a guy who was so powerful that his mere presence threw me to the ground so hard I broke my arm. I knew immediately that I didn’t have anything to offer him, so I hoped for a repeat from my past.”

  Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  “So you only sleep with him so he keeps you around?” Alora asked in a loud shocked voice.

  “Don’t be silly, it started out as it had before, with me chasing a powerful man so I can get in on the power without the burden of responsibility that comes with it. But it changed after about a month or two. Eli wasn’t responding to my flirting because he was insecure and needed an ego boost, he was genuinely grateful that I could make him smile. Despite all the weight he carries for everything that comes with his level of power, I could make him smile a real and genuine smile. In that moment, I was able to lift some of that weight off of him and his smile to me was the most real emotion I have ever seen in a man.”

  “So then you fell in love with him but you somehow are happy that he doesn't love you the same way.”

  “Love is complicated, I told you it is about the illusion of choice. If I felt that he loved me with the same world burning passion that I have for him, I would be terrified of doing anything that would hurt him. Which means I would be more like Tara, someone who has too much of his heart to risk getting killed or letting him down in some way. The way it is with me and him, if I die or screw something up, even if it's a big deal, his heart will recover. So I am free to choose what I do and how I live. I just choose to spend my life with him going on adventures and have the kind of sex that's so good your brain short circuits and forgets how to do brain things for a while.”

  “As crazy as that all sounds, it kind of makes sense in a weird way. But how does that help me?” Alora asked, realizing that her question was never answered.

  “That brings me to my second point. You are with him for fifty years minimum as an apprentice. The way I see it you have two options on how to handle romantic feelings for Eli at that time. You can either sleep with him every chance you get and hope he develops the kind of feelings for you that will linger when your time is up, or you can focus solely on getting stronger. In fifty years Eli will be a god, at least what the system considers a god and he will have half the women on the planet wanting him and half the men wanting him to marry their daughter. You can come out of this with a guaranteed spot in his bed and at his side, or as a goddess yourself and if you're really lucky you could end up with both.”

  “So even if I would only want him to be with me and me alone, you still think it's possible?” Alora asked.

  “Well, given that we will live to be a thousand years old or so and Tara will only live to be 150 or 200. I think there is a lot of time for you to figure it out.”

  “I still can’t get my head around living that long.” Alora said, shaking her head and staring off into the middle distance.

  “Anyways, I want you to do me a favor during the conference. I’ll be watching the lords that are there, I need you to keep an eye on the people they bring. If I was going to plan something like this, I would have my lackeys do it, then if they get caught just deny that I had any knowledge of it.”

  “That sounds easy enough.”

  “Maybe try and make friends with some of the other women to hear how they talk about their lords. While also letting slip some things about Eli. Just play it by ear and do your best.”

  They discussed different things to leak about Eli and other possible scenarios until Eli and Tara returned from their latest effort to get Tara pregnant. Both of them seemed to be glowing and smiling which led Bethany to guess that this time had been a success. To her utter shock, she felt a twinge of jealousy in her chest but quickly dismissed it and focused on how that might change his focus while they were away. But, since this was a new thing for all of them, there really wasn’t a way for them to predict anything. Bethany was noticing a trend of unpredictable events and situations changing how they all have to deal with everything making her job as long term strategist far more difficult than it had to be.

  Bethany had been giving her new role a lot of thought, long term planning had always been something she was good at. Even though her experience with it was mostly about how to get executives to chase her so she could trade sex for promotions, she was confident that if she just found a long term goal she could steer them towards it. While Eli handled the day-to-day chaotic waves of non-sense, she would be the navigator that got them through the storm and safely into a friendly harbor. Nautical analogies aside, Bethany was quietly confident and pleased with her role. If Eli had world destroying power and she was the one aiming him, that meant that she had world destroying power. Another surprise hit her as the allure of power wasn’t as strong as it usually was. Instead of being abstract, her heart wanted to wield his power specifically instead of just any kind of power.

  “Ok, it's time.” Eli said to Bethany and Alora, completely ready to gloss-over the glow that Tara had and the sparkle in his own eyes.

  “We still have over an hour, right?” Alora asked.

  “I just got a system window, we get to arrive an hour before everyone else to check the place out and prepare,” he explained.

  Bethany walked up to Tara and kissed her, then pulled back and winked before following after Eli. “Congratulations.” she whispered to her as she walked away.

  Tara blushed. Alora blushed. Eli was too preoccupied trying to plan his dramatic introduction that it had barely registered to him that it had happened. They made their way to the roof of his home, they didn’t need to be there but it was his favorite spot and it got him in the dramatic mood that he seemed to want to be in when dealing with people. With the three of them holding hands, Eli mentally clicked on the system window and they vanished.