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"The cycle breaks. I see."
Ananke

Issue 39 of The Wicked + The Divine is was released on 12 September 2018. It is the sixth part of Mothering Invention

Solicitation[]

Well, it’s the end of the arc, in just about every way you could define those particular words.

Plot[]

Ten days later, the Norns are still locked up, and Cass questions how Woden can impersonate a teenager. He states it's easy, and she wonders how Minerva can work with him, and Minerva apologizes.

Woden is having Mimir to built boxes storing the heads of Lucifer, Inanna and Tara to power three new suits to Beth, Toni and Robin that draw on their powers, much like Woden draws on Mimir's. Minerva questions if he is still trying to replicate Dionysus' hivemind, and discovers that he just has readings, with Baal's burning of Valhalla destroying most of his work. Minerva assures him he is going to be here for a big ritual he is planning to defeat the Great Darkness, while Minerva warns Woden that, if he suceeds in copying Dio's powers, mind-controlling others to have sex with him is still rape.

Minerva wants them to focus on finding Persephone. One of the Valkyries warn Woden they sighted Persephone, and they decide to send the trio after her to test. When Minerva states he should go together to ensure their success, Woden dismisses them as cannon fodder. Minerva comments he is learning. She changes the cannon weapon from stun to lethal, telling herself that she can't win.

In 4000 BC, with her dying breath, Ananke's sister creates the fourth and final rule: If her god has a child, the cycle ends, and a Great Darkness would claim Ananke forever. Ananke ponders about the nature of the rule, dismisses it with "I can handle that" and walks off.

Low, 19 March 2015[]

Laura, with her hair shaved and her face clean, using simple clothes, walks into a station. Beth, Toni and Robin step into the station and Laura simply ignores them. As Laura concludes she will be safe if she can make it to the Underground, she is interrupted from entering by a wall of flames created by Beth. Toni reads her and realizes she doesn't read as any of the gods, to which Laura answers she stopped being Persephone ten days ago.

Beth cannot understand the comment, and Robin comments she is sorry for her, as she knew the clinic. A Valkyrie assisting Woden explains it's an abortion clinic, and Woden comments she is no longer pregnant. As Minerva wants them to go proceed with the plan, Beth refuses to stun Persephone, seeing her as a waste of time, hating her because they both wanted godhood, and she got it but gave it up. Woden allows them to go despite Minerva's protests, stating that how she stopped being a god is something they can research, but glad for having one less god to look up to.

Alone in the bathroom, Minerva talks to herself about the game: Baal and Woden can be led to their dooms quietly, the Morrigan and Nergal are isolated and sure to consume themselves (Not knowing that the Morrigan is already dead), and that Persephone managed to destroy herself. She laughes, as she believes her sister got her this time, but is glad that, once more, she wins.

My Long Con Is Longer Than Your Con, 4000 BCish[]

Ananke's sister and her grandson talk about Ananke's approach, and she tells him he must go ahead when she no longer can. She tells him that Ananke can think cleanly and deeply, and that she only built above her work, and will tempt her with an offer she cannot refuse: Opening up her story to allow them both to change the rules, Ananke to improve her place, and her sister to thwart her, and that before she dies, she would throw her a final curse: A lie.

She reasons it will deceive her, for she will believe her lie is the only thing that can truly defeat her, and they must have faith in humanity, that one day, one of the children will find the real way of the trap. Her grandson asks if her sister would believe it, and she states she will, for Ananke believes a story will save her, so she will believe a story can doom her, but story only carries her onwards, and there is only one way to end a story.

In the present day, Laura reflects about how she came to conclude that she was not a god in a moment of clarity, and that after giving up, she cried on the darkness for days, but eventually she got up and went to change her life. She still has the death sentence on her, and concludes she just has to live the rest of her life as she sees fit, and that she is not really ready to be a mother.

She begins to reflect about her identity, and how she distrusts anyone who can answer that question. She questions about who she is now, and decides she is up to no good for anyone until she can answer it, as she snaps her fingers three times. In the fourth, she lights a fireball mid-air, questioning herself what she is.

In a title card page, it reads "Can't Start a Fire, 19 March 2015".

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