Magical Girl Cosmos got called back to the office.

  “Darn it.” The magical girl enjoyed the little vacation on the floating isnd with the cute slime girl. But it looked like the thing with the local kingdom might have caused some trouble upstairs. “I’m sorry Merumeru but I’ve got to go. I’ll leave you in charge here because it might be a while before this mess gets sorted.”

  “Meruuuu!” The slime girl saluted the cosmic magical girl, a serious look on her face. It mostly served to only make her look cuter.

  “They shouldn’t be let go.” The magical girl continued. “The demons use humans with a ruler css to prolong their infestation of Terre. They should be safe up here. Because, in my opinion, we are not on the pnet so those silly accords don’t apply. If they want to invade this little moon then we’ll treat them like the st alien invaders.”

  Cosmos winked pyfully at the slime girl, a gesture of camaraderie and shared secrets, before gracefully waving her wand in an elegant arc. A shimmering, iridescent portal materialized before them, its swirling depths hinting at distant realms and untold adventures. With a final, confident smile, Cosmos stepped through the portal, vanishing into its ethereal embrace. The portal shimmered for a few fleeting moments, then dissolved into nothingness, leaving behind only the lingering scent of magic and the echo of unspoken promises.

  Meanwhile, in her lunar office, the star-outfitted magical girl reappeared with a subtle pop, her arrival heralded by the soft hum of residual magic. She had responded promptly to Luna's summons, her sense of duty overriding any lingering desire for rexation. However, the office was eerily silent, the expected goddess repced by an unsettling stillness. The only sign of life was the magical crystal on her desk, its pulsating glow and incessant blinking a stark reminder of the backlog of work that awaited her. Cosmos grimaced, a wave of annoyance washing over her as she contempted the mountain of neglected tasks that had undoubtedly accumuted during her brief respite at Alex's house.

  Luna's absence was a clear indication of her displeasure. Cosmos knew that her recent actions had likely caused a stir within the divine community, potentially leading to unforeseen consequences and diplomatic headaches. The thought of having her hands tied by bureaucratic red tape and celestial politics frustrated her immensely. The combination of frustration and the looming threat of reprimand did little to improve her mood. With a sigh, she decided to tackle the backlog of work, hoping to appease Luna and mitigate any potential fallout from her recent escapades.

  Cosmos, with a frown creasing her brow, delved deeper into the crystal's depths, the ethereal glow illuminating her face with an otherworldly luminescence. The case file shimmered before her, a tale of a young magical girl, an orphan from a seafaring astral race, who had embarked on a grand adventure with her familiar. The contract had been signed, the journey begun, leaving behind a wake of unintended consequences.

  Cosmos' memory stirred, recalling the details of the case. The young girl's belongings, her cherished possessions, had been pilfered by the other children in the flotil, a cruel act of opportunism in her absence. Cosmos, ever the problem-solver, had taken swift action, enchanting the stolen items to return to their rightful pce. A simple solution, or so it had seemed.

  The crystal's update painted a picture of chaos and confusion. The magical return of the items had not been met with joy or relief, but with fear and superstition. The room, once the girl's sanctuary, had been decred cursed, its contents jettisoned into the vast expanse of the astral sea, adrift and alone.

  Cosmos' annoyance fred, a spark of indignation in her eyes. "Rude," she muttered, her voice ced with a hint of frost. The audacity of these people, to discard a young girl's belongings, to cast them aside as if they were nothing but refuse. A wave of her hand, a flicker of energy, and a stasis spell enveloped the jettisoned pod, the magic crossing dimensions, freezing the adrift pod in time and space. "We'll retrieve it when she's done with her quest," Cosmos decred, her voice firm and resolute. The girl's belongings would be returned, her sanctuary restored, and those responsible would be held accountable. Maybe that st part might be too much of a pain but if her meager belongings are intact then the escation department did its job successfully.

  “I suppose that’ll work.” A familiar voice appeared from behind her desk. “Though I think it might be a problem you created yourself by over correcting because of the problem.”

  The magical girl jumped up from her chair with a start. “Luna! You surprised me there.”

  The goddess of cuteness patted Cosmos on the head. “It looks like you are up to the usual shenanigans.”

  “Well, you know.” Cosmos giggled awkwardly, sensing trouble. “Delicate work isn’t really something I’ve got a good track record with.”

  “That’s not good because I need you to attend a meeting with the other representatives of the pantheon.” Luna gave a cute, but predatory smile.

  “I hate going to those.” Cosmos pouted. “Everyone gangs up on us.”

  “Maybe you should have thought about that before pushing the line with your st stunt.” Luna tsked, but didn’t really look upset. Like always she looked cute. “You know that you are the only one I can send on Terre, everyone else is too low level and each time someone from the demon faction shows up they go on about killing god and repcing them.”

  Cosmos rolled her eyes at this. “I know. It is stupid, real deities are eternal by definition they don’t have an ending. Can’t they learn that?”Cosmos let out an exasperated sigh, her eyes rolling towards the heavens in a gesture of mock despair. "Honestly," she began, her voice ced with a hint of weary sarcasm, "it's beyond me. These so-called 'deities' they create, it's all so... ludicrous. Don't they understand the very concept of divinity? True deities, by their very nature, are eternal, boundless, and infinite. They exist outside the constraints of time and mortality. They don't simply cease to be."

  “There are some demons that are more than a match for you.” Luna, being a real goddess, had dealt with her fair share of pretender demon gods in the past. “But we excluded them from Terre for a reason and now that they are here in such a big way we have to give them a seat at the table until it is fixed.”

  “I know it can’t be helped.” Cosmos compined. “But it is one of the tasks I hate getting stuck with. Just get it over with.”

  And with a cute poof, the world around Cosmos vanished and she appeared in the pne of limbo.

  Limbo is a realm of shifting and unstable forms, where the very fabric of existence was in constant flux. Its ndscape was an amalgamation of ever-changing shapes and texture,a swirling vortex of colors, from deep, shadowy bcks to luminous golds and silvers, blending and separating in an endless dance. Isnds of solid matter drifted like ships on a chaotic sea of amorphous clouds, some resembling jagged cliffs or twisted spires, while others appeared as smooth, polished surfaces that gleamed with an otherworldly glow. The air was thick with a strange, swirling mist, and trails of flickering light darted and weaved through the haze like living streaks of lightning. There is no fixed sky; instead, the heavens churn with whorls of energy and fragmented patterns, as if the very concept of a horizon was rejected. Everything within Limbo existed in transition, its physicality defying permanence.

  “Limbo.” Cosmos didn’t like this pne of existence. It was really easy to get lost because getting from point A to point B never involved going in a straight line. But if they were meeting here, then there was a silver lining. Her magic, while not the most physically destructive, didn't need to be here. Sending someone away could be a fate worse than death in this pce.

  Not long after she arrived, other figures phased into existence nearby. They looked wildly different but fit into two camps: Those of the light and those of darkness, or good and evil. Some of the deities would switch sides but they usually aligned with the side that needed help in most cases.

  For example, a toddler-sized doll in some strange armor appeared then flopped sideways on the ground. It looked like it had a saw in one limb and some kind of ranged weapon in the other. Cosmos knew it was from the god of grudges. And having a doll show up showed some kind of message. That blob of gray sent messages that were both subtle and cryptic.

  Eventually an annoying one showed up. A demon, it looked like a lizardman at first gnce but had red scales, and a crown of obsidian with sharp spikes. It had hooves instead of feet and bck wings on its back.

  Some gnomes appeared that looked more machine than person. This was another fad, the gnomes had taken to exchanging their bodies for magitech. She didn’t like dealing with them either because they were increasingly fanatical about all things technology. A lot of gnomes worshiped it and their machine god blessed them with weird csses.

  A very rge hobgoblin started the not-fun. “As the high priest of the god of tyranny, I call this meeting of the divine to order. There is only one agenda item: a viotion of the accords that Cosmos and her deity Luna agreed to.”

  Cosmos crossed her arms, not saying anything but imagining teleporting the overgrown goblin to some random pce in this pne.

  “How did she viote the accords?” One of the representatives asked.

  “She banished a tier 3 succubus and a whole vilge of demons.” The demon ground out.

  “I didn’t do anything to the vilge of demons.” Cosmos gred daggers at the lizard-like demon.

  The other onlookers gred at the demonic figure.

  “She’s right.” A halfling woman spoke up. “Hestia says that the doll there did most of the killing in the Yvne barony.”

  The doll waved a hand, then went limp again.

  “But the eclipse and the attack on the kingdom of Jass.” The demon looked almost enraged to be questioned. “It all screams Cosmos. She should pay for her transgressions.”

  “The demons are the ones that broke the accords.” Cosmos calmly stated while admiring her fingernails. “They attacked a familiar.”

  “But it wasn’t the succubus that attacked the familiar.” The demon continued to press. “You banished her, breaking the accords.”

  “She tried to charm me.” Cosmos yawned. “So I sent her back to hell.”

  “Fmingos are banned from any of the Demon queen’s vassal states.” The demon shook his head. “They shouldn’t be in any of our nds.”

  “I would argue that is a viotion of the accords.” Cosmos tried this argument before but no one would back her on it. “Forcing such rules limits familiars from finding worthy candidates to form contracts with.”

  Cosmos looked around for support but there was none.

  The accusation kept getting flung for a bit. None of the light gods wanted to lend their support to anyone in Luna's group. They stayed quiet, except for that very small gesture from the little doll. Cosmos, like usual, had to endure a lot of persecution about how terrible Luna was and how she shouldn’t even be allowed on Terre and how Luna should follow Catalina’s example and just leave.

  “It is just a matter of time.” The demon just couldn’t resist saying the one thing he shouldn’t. “I’ll kill one of your patrons and then I’ll be the immortal demon god.”

  The group was not impressed, but the demon had signed his own death. Why do the ones so far along in their cultivation always do that?

  But in the end, after hours she did get one st ugh. As everyone started vanishing by divine power back to Terre, she primitively cast a spell to screw up the summoning spell that the god of Tyranny reversed to bring the demon here.

  Cosmos couldn’t do anything to stop a deity’s power but apparently that deity was annoyed enough at the demon to leave him here.

  That was one of the demon’s generals out of the picture. The problem was that 10 years from now because of the demon queen there’d be another one that would get just as powerful. Sitting around doing nothing and gaining strength was just such a cheating way of increasing one’s strength.