Silhouette

An impossibly tall hooded man in a magnificent red robe with golden linings stood in the middle of nowhere, the view to the infinity of space and time mesmerizing. As nebulae, stars and galaxies danced all around him, the white opening in the shape of a doorway in this grand infinity that lied behind him began to churn before more robed men walked through, a transparent material appearing beneath their feet at every step. These men were smaller, closer to the normal height of a human being, and yet they only reached the hips of their leader, their plain light red robes contrasting with his darker and more elaborate attire.

Once all the men had taken position, forming a circle around their leader, he began to speak, a calm yet booming voice defiling the silence that had ruled so far.

"My children, the time has come. You now stand before infinity itself, the holy sanctity of the void given life, the figment of reality we have the audacity to call our universe."

The man raised his arms and extended them as far as possible.

"Yes, the time has come to fulfill your destiny and reforge the chains of fate!"

""Burn the sun, scorch the stars!""

Golden scorching energy began to rise from the men as they too raised their arms, unbearable heat that would melt mountains being released from the ritual, as they all focused and began drawing runes that would forever change the way of the world-

"Not so fast, Prometheus!"

One voice dared to interrupt the ritual, the pale blue energy subconsciously infused in the words powerful enough to disrupt the runes and erase them, rendering the cultists' work so far completely moot.

"Who dares stand in the way of mankind's freedom from its divine slavers? Who dares protect the strings of servitude and preserve the hedonistic puppeteers who have the hubris to claim their tyranny is mercy?"

"It is I."

""Captain Cyan!!!""

James looked at the ratlings as they shouted the Hero's name perfectly in sync with the series' narrator.

You know, I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't start restricting how much time they can spend with a screen...

After their little heart-to-heart, there had been a vote to decide the family's next activity. Unsurprisingly, watching Captain Cyan won with five votes out of six as soon as it was proposed.

"I call shenanigans. I'm an adult and you're all children, I should at least have a right of veto."

"Shhh, talk."

"I won't let you rewrite reality, Prometheus!"

"You dare? Even if this alteration to Kronos' foul creation is for the betterment of all? For the salvation of humankind and all of sapient life?"

"The past is the past, Prometheus. History shouldn't be trifled with."

"Foolish child, I am history! I am the one who brought civilization to your kind despite the gods' wishes to keep you in the dark, to treat you as obedient sheep that they would farm and slaughter for faith, fun, and worship!"

"Sorry, I'm an atheist."

"YOU DARE-"

"Dad, what atheist?"

Today is the day of hard questions, eh?

"You see Foudre, an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in a god."

"But gods exist?"

"That's... A really good point. Uh. Where I come from there is no certainty about whether there is a god or not, and which is the real one is an even worse debate, but in a place like this..."

"Foolish child, you have Zeus' pride! You fail to see how wrong you may be and enforce your ignorant worldview on all no matter what!"

"If this is the worse trait of Zeus I own then I don't mind!"

"Worry not, for soon you shall share his tendency not to look human - for you will be ashes in the wind!"

"I guess being an atheist in a world where gods not only exist but constantly manifest themselves may just refer to the fact they don't worship or follow any? I'm not sure, we should check it out at one point."

Lucille's interest had been picked.

"Papa atheist?"

"Well, I didn't think much about religion in my past life, so I'd say I was agnostic - that means I believed neither in the existence nor inexistence of a divine entity, instead I simply lived my life thinking that I would see once I'd be dead. Now though? I don't know, I haven't taken the time to take a look at the local pantheons. It appears some of them match those of my old world, though."

"Prometheus?"

"Yep, he's in one of them. Well, he wasn't actually a god there either but he still wasn't a mortal."

"No spoilers!"

"Fine, fine."

The rest of the episode went exactly as you would expect, with Captain Cyan and Prometheus duking it out with fireballs and bursts of blue energy in a grand fight to determine the fate of the world in The Anteroom of Creation, the Hero doing all he could to prevent the Titan from altering the flow of time and ensure the destruction of the Grellasian Pantheon. The episode was a bit more serious than usual compared to the rest of the series - at least by James' standards - but it ended like any other episode, with Captain Cyan saving the day, stopping the Villain, and giving them a quick moral lesson before sending them to prison.

To Prometheus' credit, he didn't cry how unfair it was that he was defeated, or that he would have gotten away with it were it not for this meddling mortal, or curse Captain Cyan, or swear that he would take his revenge. No, he did none of that. He only said he was disappointed that mankind had grown so fond of its shackles and sorry that he couldn't stop it. Even Captain Cyan didn't know how to react until his companions joined him to celebrate their victory and the show's ending theme began.

"Daddy, why Captain Cyan sad?"

"Well, Prometheus is supposedly the one who gave mankind fire, one of the first steps of civilization. I suppose Captain Cyan felt guilty about fighting someone who helped humanity so much."

"So Prometheus good?"

Oh boy. The difference between good and evil. How am I supposed to teach rats- no, remember, James. They are intelligent, they are children, and every parent has to teach their kids about good and evil at one point. You are their father now, it's your job.

"Well, he was benevolent at least."

"Why fight Hero if good?"

"Well... You know how you kill cockroaches to eat them?"

"Yes?"

"From the cockroach's point of view, you are a monster trying to kill it."

Goliath didn't take that thought very well.

"Oh. Are we... Bad?"

OH GOD MY HEART-

"Of course not! This just means that everyone sees the world in their own way, and sometimes those different perspectives clash."

"So... Captain Cyan and Prometheus good, but fight because no think same thing?"

"I'd say that the concept of good and evil are flawed. You shouldn't think of them as objective truths but rather as selflessness and selfishness."

He could see the gears turning in Foudre's head as she tried to process James' explanation.

"Captain Cyan want protect people and Prometheus want help them in different way so they fight?"

"Exactly. Prometheus wants to change history to prevent bad things from happening, but Captain Cyan stopped him because these bad things had a lot of good consequences."

James' explanation didn't seem to convince Blanche.

"But why save bad things?"

Oh boy, how can I explain the concept of greater and how people learn from horrible events... Well, there is a way...

"Think of the Scavenger. If it hadn't attacked your biological parents, they would still be alive today, but without the sound of the fight, I wouldn't have found you. If you could make it so that the Scavenger's attack never happened, would you?"

The pain and confusion that appeared simultaneously on all of the children's faces broke James' heart but it had to be done. This was the best way to make them understand that sometimes, no matter how bad things were, they could have wonderful consequences.

"Daddy... Hard to..."

James wasn't hurt by their difficulty in making a choice. Frankly, had he been in their position, he too would have a hard time knowing what to say. But wondering even further, would the choice be this hard if they had already been sapient when their parents were alive?

"I know. And that's the kind of choice Captain Cyan faced."

Blanche nodded solemnly.

"Heroes no only fight bad guys, Heroes fight hard choices."

"Old man opinion?"

"I think... I think there is some credit to Prometheus' plan, but he should have listened to what people wanted. I also think that sometimes, what happened afterward is too important to change the event."

"So father agree with Captain Cyan?"

"In this case? Yes. I'm not familiar with this world's history, but I can hazard a guess as to how important 'mankind's slavery to the Grellasian gods' may have been for their civilization's development. It's also possible Prometheus misunderstood the situation or was biased against the gods. It's also possible that Captain Cyan himself was influenced by his friends and families on how to view religion."

"Who right?"

"Usually, everyone is, at least partially. They're just too prideful to find a satisfying midway point and would rather leave everyone miserable."

"Sounds stupid and hard."

"Welcome to the world of morals, politics, and ethics, as well as that of clashing philosophies. That's one of the big downsides of sapient life."

"Sapient?"

"If something is conscious and has feelings, then it's sentient. If it's smart enough to have a sense of self and understand philosophy even in its basest form, then it's sapient."

"Sounds like mess."

"Because it is."

"Can go kill things now?"

"I'm sorry David but no. After such a big fight and a major shift in territories, we must give some time to the sewers' local ecosystem to heal. Once it has adapted to all of these changes, then we'll be able to hunt. If you're tired of watching Captain Cyan we could train instead"

"... No. Captain Cyan."

"You know watching too much TV - or phone I guess - can be bad for your health, right?"

"Bad for human, rat superior."

"David."

"One more episode?"

"Fine. But it's the last one today!"

It wasn't.

Five episodes of animated Superhero action later, the ratlings had finally run out of energy, the exhaustion from all of the events of the day sending them directly to sleep. James watched the little bundle of fur they had formed and couldn't help but take a picture with his phone, which surprisingly looked really good despite not using a flash in an area devoid of light.

Once that was done, he decided to do some research on this world's deities. Unsurprisingly he saw a lot of pantheons similar to ones he knew, even if the names of some gods or the countries changed slightly. He also found a lot of new gods he had never heard of, all of them ruling over either classic domains - such as gods of death, nature, the sea, etc - or incredibly niche and weird ones, such as a god of microwave cooking who had somehow made their own blog and were managing it themself.

Apparently, divinity wasn't that far off from capitalism. Most of the gods were well-established old-timers, with the occasional young upstart who came up with a really good idea, and they all competed to have the most faith and worshippers, with the worst of the competition being between gods of the same domain. Sweeter afterlife, charity healing, power boosts, exclusivity deals in exchange for blessings, everything was fair game. Most people followed a famous god or pantheon, though there were still some less famous ones that got by because they were closer to and more personal with their followers - case in point, the god of microwave cooking.

The total number of major gods and pantheons was ridiculous but those followed in Zalcien were thankfully less numerous. The main religion was the cult of the Nine, a pantheon actually made up of seven saints and only a duo of real gods who opposed each other in every way, one praising order and the other chaos while the saints each upheld both a virtue and a sin. They apparently all had a very interesting story but James preferred to research the rest of the local deities.

After the cult of the Nine, there were the classic pantheons that he knew of, with the Greek, Egyptian, and Native American gods - the names of the countries were different but the similitudes were clear enough.

Then some people worshipped this solar system's planets, without any ties to existing religions with similar concepts, the Stellisists.

Following that were elemental gods, some were worshipped in a bundle and others preferred to work alone. To be honest, James quickly overlooked them, their names all sounded the same and it didn't take a genius to guess that Pyraxior was probably a god of fire. Sure, they all had different teachings, one god of the earth praised agriculture and calm while another praised mining and determination, but none of them really stood out in James' eyes.

Then there were the Hivines, led by the Biflora, the religious group that had supposedly indoctrinated that girl on that online forum he visited, HardCored. DaffyDaisy, if he remembered correctly. It seemed there really was a big debate over whether or not they should be considered a Villainous group with religious tendencies or just a plain old new age new religion. That was a mouthful. They praised nature and, surprisingly, mutations. They were against technology and were indifferent to magic, claiming that although the arcane arts were manmade mana itself was natural.

Reading some of the stuff of their site... Yeah, they weirded him out. It was the usual cultist spiel, give everything you have, including yourself, to the cause and its leader. Let nature reclaim the world. Put an end to mankind's tyranny over the world. Bring peace to the fauna and, more importantly, the flora. The way they wrote things, too... There was no doubt in his mind they were overzealous people manipulated by a charismatic leader. The real question was, was this all a scam, a way to stroke his ego while furthering his goals, or did he genuinely believe in all that stuff...

He closed the page. He didn't want to lose his sleep - not that he slept now - over a cult he would hopefully never meet. What were the chances they would come knocking at his door down in the sewers to try and convert him?