"Everyone, Revelations is being put on hold indefinitely as Mui and Sin try to introduce Azathoth to new forms of entertainment! Will this lead to a peaceful solution, or is this a futile effort?"

The crowd was abuzz with discussion about the unprecedented pause of the tournament and whether Azathoth can be changed, and whether she has the right to change after all she has done.

"Shut up!" Azathoth's command was followed, nothing but the hum of the universe's oscillations audible to hear.

"Okay." Mui tried to create a pleasant mood. "Azathoth, thank you for agreeing to this, it's very brave of you."

"Don't patronize me."

"Sorry. So, I want to make it clear starting off that you need to be open to this. Part of you agreeing to this is letting go of any feeling of spite or any desire to make this little endeavor of ours fail, okay? You need to actually try."

"Obviously."

"And will you do it?"

"Yes, I will. Don't pester me."

"Sorry, I just wanted to make sure. We're going to try a few different things, since nobody likes everything. We don't wanna try one thing that you end up not liking, but then it turns out there was something else outside your current wheelhouse you would have liked but we didn't get a chance to attempt. This'll be trial and error."

"You only get five chances. I'll try five different activities, and after that, I decide whether you've succeeded or not. If you win, Revelations is over, everyone gets to live, and I won't rule all totality. If you fail, we go back to the tournament."

"I'm fine with that, Sin?"

"I can accept that. I'll get this started." Sin cupped her hands, and in a blink, the empty space was filled with three yo-yos of different colors. "Yo-yoing is one of the funnest things ever, there's no way you won't enjoy this." Sin spoke like a giddy child.

Excluding a minority, everyone was skeptical of how much Azathoth would enjoy yo-yoing. It wasn't that they denied that playing with yo-yos could be fun, but they couldn't really relate to Sin's apparent infatuation with the toy, nor did they think it was a good idea to use one of their only five attempts on a simple game that not everyone likes.

Even Mui was lacking faith in Sin's idea. She tip-toed over to the daughter of the devil and whispered in her ear.

"Sin, I think yo-yos are neat, but are you sure this is a good idea? Not everyone's into yo-yos. Maybe we should try something with a broader appeal."

Sin looked like someone had just backhand slapped her child. "Yo-yoing is, like, the coolest thing ever, though."

"Is it?"

"Of course! It's simplistic genius! It uses physics and basic engineering to form the most appealing experience ever, to watch or to use!"

"I hate to tell you this, but not everyone feels that way."

"Well, maybe you don't, but everyone else does, right?" Sin turned to the crowd, expecting vociferous agreement, only to be met with disquieting silence and averted gazes. "Right?"

Mui patted Sin on the back. "It's okay. As long as you like it, that's all that matters, or at least in most cases, but it's actually really important that we pick things that are more popular since it'll increase our chances of success."

Sin dejectedly looked to Azathoth. "Can I change my first choice?"

"No."

"Fuck."

The Nuclear chaos pawed a pink yo-yo from Sin and began twiddling with it.

"I get how yo-yos work, but how do you do it right? I don't wanna waste time because I missed some tiny detail about how I should hold this stupid thing."

Sin helped Azathoth set herself up, showing her how to hold it and demonstrating the method of manipulating the device using her own blue yo-yo, Mui getting an electric green one.

"This trick is called walking the dog!" Sin's yo-yo slid on the ground as the fallen angel walked forward before it was pulled back to her hand by its string. "This one's the elevator! And this is called around the corner!" Sin showed off one trick after another. "Here's the double trapeze! This is the roller coaster! Gyroscopic flop! Gondola!"

Mui and Azathoth quite easily imitated each of Sin's demonstrations on their first tries. Considering both of them possessed superhuman precision due to being such powerful and experienced individuals, it shouldn't have been a surprise.

"This is easy, and boring." Azathoth threw her yo-yo at the ground, turning it to dust. "You messed up your first chance. Next."

Sin's upper body dangled in shame while Mui sprung up, looking uncharacteristically excited.

"We may have failed our first attempt, but we've got four more, but we won't even need them, because I'm about to present is not only my favorite hobby, but is the greatest pastime ever that everyone loves, flying kites!" Mui declared.

A familiar reaction from the crowd gave Mui a feeling of déjà vu.

"Oh no."

As if watching the yo-yo attempt on repeat, flying kites ended with Azathoth still being bored.

Mui was curled in a ball on the ground, absorbing her failure while Sin caressed her side.

"Is this really the best you've got? This was a waste of time. I knew I was right."

"No wait, we've still got three more chances, just…give us a minute for a group huddle, we need to…have a pep talk. You wait over there."

Crouching close to Mui, Sin whispered her panic. "Mui! We're really stupid and weird! We don't know what people like! What should we do?"

"We probably shouldn't pick things based on our personal preferences."

"I think so, too. Our choices so far have been activities based around skill, based on one's own capabilities. Let's try something with a different foundation, one alien to Azathoth' s current beliefs.

I got it! Let's go with something that's about being creative! There is no winning and there's no skill necessarily involved. It's about expressing yourself, which I think Azathoth needs. What should we go with specifically? Painting or something like it won't work since Azathoth might feel compelled to compare her art to famous artists and make it something competitive. It has to be a form of self-expression that isn't commonly associated with competition or comparison to others."

"I have an idea. Can you make it snow?"

"Yes, I can." Sin knew exactly what Mui was going for.

Snow covered the ground like a blanket while clouds gently gathered and released flakes that gradually dropped towards the land. A chill permeated the air and breath became a white mist. Everyone in the audience felt winter attire appear from nowhere upon their bodies, each matching the tastes of the individual they formed upon.

Sin wore a faux fur long coat and a faux fur pillbox hat, Mui only had earmuffs and Azathoth wore a puffy pink parka.

"This is stupid already." The Daemon Sultan griped. "What're we gonna do, a snowball fight?"

"Nope, no snowball fights." Mui leapt onto her feet. "We're not going to be competing with each other, we're going to be working together."

"Doing what?"

"Playing in the snow."

"Playing what in the snow?"

"Nothing in particular, or rather, whatever you want."

"You mean we just do whatever I want?"

"That's what I said. As long as it involves the snow and it's cooperative, not competitive, it's clear to fly."

"That's not all." Sin clapped her hands together, and the barrier around the battlefield crumbled. "Everyone else gets to join in! C'mon everybody, let's have some fun!"

There was hesitancy. It was sudden, but the appeal of having a reprieve from the massively building tension of the final round was like the pull of a magnet on ferrous metal. A few people climbed down to the battlefield and began rolling around in the snow, making snow angels, snowmen, and igloos. More people joined in, then more. Soon enough, everyone was on the battlefield, having fun in one way or another. Humans, gods, and all other manner of entities played together, all forms of division falling away in the face of childish entertainment.

Amaterasu and Uzume were cuddling atop a snow mound as they listened to Khutulun badly play her morin khuur. Ōmeteōtl, while split in two, was sledding with the four Tezcatlipocas. Isis and Horus were building a snow fort with Jeanne d'Arc and the knights of the round table. In'ei, Shaka, Neumann, and Ādi-Buddha were dyeing the snow to make perfectly symmetrical mandalas. Death and Astaroth were making snow angels, though Death's ended up being more like a snow eldritch horror.

Azathoth watched everyone revel in the winter wonderment, confused at what it was that enraptured them so, but also unable to feel a curiosity at what it must be like. Deep down, she wanted the joy of the gods and mortals around her to be infectious, to infect her. She wanted to know what such humdrum happiness was like, for she knew it not. She wanted to know what it was that was making people laugh and smile as children built hills of snow and slid down them while the elderly watched contentedly. She yearned for that pleasure that contrasted the endless malaise she felt as day after day passed with nothing making her happy. A unique depression, as most would at least be dragged forward by the daily routine they had, monotonous activities like daily meals and work, but Azathoth didn't have to do anything, nothing at all. She had no obligations or needs, she had nothing to drag her forward. Her only potential light in the still darkness was fun, but up to this point, it was only a hypothesis in the deity's mind as joy was a feeling she had only been brushed by.

"I wanna…I wanna make a snowman." Azathoth pushed out.

"A snowman? Alright!" Mui grabbed Azathoth's hand and jogged with her over to a large pile of snow.

"This'll make a good starting point." Sin said. "I'll round it into a sphere, you two make the other balls."

Mui got onto her knees and began gathering and rolling up snow. Azathoth followed her lead but she tried to do it at super speed, only for the heat from such accelerated movements causing any snow she tried to collect to melt.

"Azathoth, you gotta do it normally."

The Daemon Sultan reluctantly complied, gradually bringing snow together at speeds that were agonizing for a being that lived on a timescale such as Azathoth's. But, she was surprised at how enraptured she was in the simple activity. She was filled with anticipation as she went on to roll the mound of frozen water, making it bigger. Every time she noticed it was distinctly larger she felt punched with a wave of energy, motivation rising. She wanted to see the snowman completed. Her mind was filled with flashes of her imaginings as to what the finished product would look like. White puffs of her breath appeared more frequently as her anticipation grew larger.

Finally, the three balls of snow were made. Azathoth's was supposed to be the head, but it was nearly as big as Mui's, which was going to be the body. It made the Nuclear Chaos anxious that she might have made a mistake and it would make the snowman collapse.

Mui gently placed her ball of snow atop Sin's, or orb seeming to snugly sit atop it without issue.

It was Azathoth's turn, the tiny girl grabbing her ball and floating up so she was high enough to actually reach where she needed to palace her snow mound. With as precise a hand as she possibly could, she slowly, slowly placed her ball atop Mui's, creating the head of the snowman. With hesitancy, Azathoth let go and floated back to the ground, anticipating the creation to collapse under its own weight, but it didn't.

Azathoth's face hurt from how big her smile was. They did it, the snowman was able to stay up. She couldn't explain why, but Azathoth felt intense joy at such a success.

"Alright, now we need some stuff to make the face and arms, and also we should find some extra decorations." Sin said while looking around.

"Can't you just create anything you want?" Azathoth questioned.

"That's no fun. Haven't you ever heard of art through adversity?"

The trio began scanning the area for anything they could use to complete their sculpture of snow.

Eventually, Mui poked two holes into the snowman's face to act as eyes while Sin plucked all the buttons from her coat, lining them up into the smile for the snowman. The daughter of the devil removed her hat and placed it on the snow sculpture's head for decoration.

It was left to Azathoth to find the arms.

Struggling, Azathoth racked her brain, considering every single thing she spotted as a potential candidate for the limbs of their snowman, looking over the same things time and time again, dismissing every option for the same reasons every time.

The Daemon Sultan was beginning to feel guilty, she felt like she was holding Mui and Sin back and wasting their time. Then, she thought about how odd it was that she cared.

Before he could get hung up on that idea, Azathoth got an idea for what to use as the snowman's appendages.

The Nuclear Chaos gripped one of her arms and tore it off like it was nothing unusual, drawing the horrified attention of everyone surrounding her.

Thrusting the bleeding arm into the snowman, it acted as the snowman's, well, arm.

Regrowing the limb that was lost, Azathoth ripped off her other limb and put it on the snowman, giving the snowy simulacrum a full set.

The pink deity looked at the snowman with pride as the frozen water gradually dyed redder from her blood.

"I guess that works." Mui gave Azathoth head pats.

"Seems you had a good time." Sin said with a pleased expression.

"What? I'm-I'm not, I, I'm not! It was whatever."

"Then why were you smiling?"

"I'm always smiling."

"Not the way you were before. That wasn't your usual sleepy smile, it was a big happy smile."

"You, you, you don't, you don't know what you're talking about! Don't tell me what I'm feeling!"

"I'm just making an observation."

"Well stop observing shit! Is this attempt over? Attempt three! Is it over?"

"We said before that we'll do what you want to. If you wanna stop and move on, we will."

"Then let's move on!"

Without a word, Sin clapped and all the snow vanished, clearing the battlefield. Most everyone was sad they could no longer play in the garden of white.

"Don't worry everybody! I've already thought of the next activity and it's also something we can all enjoy together! Mui, you mind?"

"Not at all, I trust you."

"Thanks a bundle." Sin snapped the fingers on both her hands and the battlefield changed, everyone finding themselves sitting in a theater, cozy seats for everyone and a giant screen ready to play films for everyone's viewing pleasure. "Is everyone ready for movie night?"

Applause and cheers rose from the audience.

"Movies? Really?"

"Don't knock it, Azathoth. We showed you how working with others can be fun, now we're gonna show you how empathizing with others can be fun."

"I don't see how this is gonna get me to empathize with others, or feel anything."

"We'll see."

The projector at the back of the theatre came alive and displayed the first film on the screen.

Starting off was a marathon of the original Star Wars trilogy.

Azathoth didn't want to like the films, but she couldn't help but get sucked into the fantastical narrative, interest forming in her as to how the journey of the characters will end, if they will succeed in the long run, if they would overcome the Empire and bring freedom to the galaxy. She felt a pang in her chest when things turned dour for the heroes in The Empire Strikes Back, and she hunched forward as if getting pulled into the screen during the climax of The Return of the Jedi. When people hoorayed at the destruction of the Death Star, Azathoth did so without even thinking about it.

She didn't know why, but as the credits rolled, she was happy that the heroes' efforts weren't in vain. When they struggled, instead of looking down upon them for their weakness, she felt a desire to see them overcome the odds, and watching as they did so was cathartic.

They then watch Pulp Fiction followed by Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The comedy of the films, each unique but potent, was scraping away at the wall Azathoth tried to build to detach herself from the film and not laugh, eventually making the girl in pink break. She laughed, and laughed a lot. Each new joke was a punch to her funny bone. The Daemon Sultan struggled to breathe from how much she was guffawing, the comedy was that efficacious.

The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather Parts I and II, 12 Angry Men, Schindler's List, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Fight Club, The Exorcist, The Silence of the Lambs, Oldboy, The Green Mile. Film after film after film. Azathoth shrieked in fear at the horror films, she cried waterfalls of tears at emotional moments, she was deeply entranced at the character drama.

Azathoth couldn't pry her eyes away from the screen. It was as if there were a pair of hands holding her head in place and keeping her eyelids apart, making sure she didn't miss a single detail of each film.

Everything else fell away. Each story that played out in front of Azathoth became her whole world, became the only things that were real.

She watched humans journey, persevere, endure. She listened to stories of mortals and they made her feel. They were weak. Any of the characters in the films she watched were vastly weaker than Azathoth. She would be able to kill them without any effort. By her philosophy, she shouldn't care about them, but she did.

She had never empathized with another being before. She always saw herself as being on a different level from all other entities, and thus she assumed trying to understand those beings perceived as lesser would be a waste of time. But, now she was empathizing with those beings, and as she related to them, the fog that dulled her emotions cleared away.

The credits of the final movie ended and the theatre vanished, everyone groaning and moaning in disappointment, including Azathoth.

"You seem upset. You gonna tell me you didn't have fun?"

Azathoth's face turned red as an apple. "I-you-I-you can't-I hated-well-well-you-how dare you-you-I hate you!"

"You didn't answer my question."

"I had fun you fucking bitch! Happy?"

"Tremendously. You willing to admit defeat and end Revelations?"

"Not yet! I get to decide at the end whether your normie fun bullshit is good enough! You haven't convinced me yet just because movies are kinda okay!"

"Okay. Okay. Well then, let's see if our last attempt will win you over. Mui, group huddle."

"Gotcha."

Sin and Mui began whispering about what they should try for their final shot at 'defeating' Azathoth.

"Video games?"

"It'd have to be a game that isn't competitive. We don't want her falling back into her whole power and superiority obsession."

"Yeah. We probably shouldn't risk video games at all then. Even if it's cooperative, she might try and compare how good she is to us."

"We need to go for something that doesn't really have a goal or require skill. It's gotta be an activity that's fun to do and that's all there is to it. No winning. No competition. Just a time waster."

"It still needs to have a broad appeal. That's the tricky part."

"It needs to have broad appeal. Broad appeal."

"It has to relate to something that all cultures have. Something fundamental to life."

"Food?"

"Alcohol?"

"Animals?"

"Animals."

"Animals."

The duo was ready for what their final attempt would be. Their final 'attack.' The last chance to try and convince Azathoth to let things end peacefully. The deciding moment that would determine whether there was more than violence that could determine the path of history.

Sin was tired of fighting. Even if it meant allowing Azathoth to live, she wanted a peaceful resolution. She wanted gods and humanity alike to step above the barbarism of Revelations. It was indulging in those violent urges in all sapient life that led to Satan's sacrifice of her own life for the sake of her revenge against Yahweh, and it is what allowed such a needless hecatomb as Revelations to initiate.

After nearly losing her brother, Sin was desperate for peace. Every punch thrown before, whether by Azathoth or by Mui, made her whole existence ache. She just wanted the fighting to end. She had to make it end.

"It's time, ladies, gents, all those outside and inbetween! Our final gambit, our final effort to win over the heart of the Daemon Sultan, the Nuclear Chaos, Azathoth!" Sin raised her arms and from the land behind her rose up a dark gate composed of burning bones tied together with chains. The doors were a black metal that seemed to consume even the slightest light that came within its range. The only illumination the demonic entryway allowed was the red glow of its Hellfire. Inscribed in the head of the doorway was the phrase, 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.'

Everyone felt a burning chill.

Death and Astaroth recognized the gates of Hell and wondered what Sin's plan could possibly be.

Azathoth was on guard. She suspected that Sin was about to try and end their little game and attack, trying to catch her unaware.

Mui planted her feet . "Ready yourselves! The final technique Sin and I still possess, our ultimate move, is about to be unveiled! Open your hearts to love and your eyes to a beautiful sight!"

Tension was so thick in the air that it was as if everyone was sealed in a sarcophagus of steel, unable to move, forced to wait.

"Let us begin."

Sin's words were the key that made the infernal gates begin to open with a booming creek mixed with screams, echoes from those once trapped within Hell, cries for release that became etched into the very fabric of the realm built to punish. Hellfire lapped out toward the world from the slit the opening gates made, a gap that widened until the doors had gone as far as they could, and the image of the nine circles of Hell flickered between each other.

Those who had once been in Hell, just as they did during round eleven, began to panic as they felt sealed within their own minds, memories of tortures that should have been impossible in their effectiveness wrapping around their minds like moss growing on a stone.

Azathoth prepared to transform her arm back into Azoth.

Blazing eyes peeked from the gate, trillions of them.

Mui and Sin spoke in unison. "It's time for puppies!"

Hellhound pups barreled out of the gate like a flood, the army of excited little beasties filled with a desire to play.

The tension turned to nothing but air as the puppies hopped around and lapped at anyone near them. Their black fur and fiery eyes that normally would make them fearsome somehow made their cuteness more potent.

People immediately began playing with the friendly pups.

This was the last activity, the ultimate technique Sin and Mui had; playing with puppies.

The Daemon Sultan was getting buried in dogs. They all sniffed and nuzzled her and jumped all over her. The Hellhounds were so excited and they wanted Azathoth to be excited.

Azathoth had never faced such a powerful assault. There were so many puppies. They were all so happy just to be alive. Such innocent enthusiasm for every stimulus. It made Azathoth feel jealous.

The yips and yaps from the mouths of the hounds were so squeaky that the Nuclear Chaos couldn't reject their cuteness. She had to admit it. These demonic mongrels were adorable. They were the cutest things she had ever seen.

She wanted to pet them. She really wanted to pet them. She really really wanted to pet them.

She knew if she did, she wouldn't be able to stop. There'd be no way to hide from Sin and Mui that they'd found something she'd liked. She already knew they had bested her, but she didn't want to let them win. She wanted to claim they had failed and go back to Revelations. She didn't want to be wrong.

But, the puppies were all over her, being nauseatingly cute.

Azathoth needed to decide what was more important to her, being happy, or winning.

When Azathoth was born from the womb of totality, her first sight was Yahweh who was scared for the first time. The creator sensed the power within the Nuclear Chaos that, despite being her spawn, far outstripped her in power by uncountable leagues.

Instinctually understanding the meaning of her mother's reaction, Azathoth processed her perceived place in reality. Yahweh, she intuitively knew due to the existential nature of her birth, was supposed to be the apex of all beings and non-beings.

But, Yahweh feared the Daemon Sultan. It logically follows that Azathoth was the one who stood at the peak.

After establishing her perspective on totality's pecking order, Azathoth's next self-imposed task was to figure out what to actually do now that they analyzed their situation. They had no goal, their very birth an unexpected side effect.

For a long time, Azathoth observed the life of Yahweh, the one directly below her. The Nuclear Chaos stayed passive, trying to understand the nature of how meaning is derived and how goals are created.

When the day came that Yahweh banished Satan to Hell, Azathoth decided on what she believed was the meaning of all things, and that was to exert dominance. Yahweh was her mother, her role model, and Yahweh used her power to act however she wished, making other beings miserable merely because she could, because she had power.

Doing as she was unintentionally taught, Azathoth embraced the philosophy of power, killing to display that she could. Dominance was not a means to an end for Azathoth, it was the goal in and of itself.

But, she felt a void inside her. She wasn't happy, or sad, or angry. To dominate made Azathoth feel nothing at all. Yet, it was all she knew. It was what she had learned from her mother, and it wasn't a practice unique to the creator. Gods, humans, all manner of being try to dominate one another. When Azathoth's resolve in her purposeless goal wavered, her observations of the state of totality's inhabitants, forever at war to try and grasp even the tiniest morsels of power, made her doubts die.

It didn't stop her from questioning the happiness so many beings seemed to find in life, even if they are at the bottom of the hierarchies they find themselves in. She couldn't understand how they could be happy if they weren't at the pinnacle of their society, holding all the power they could comprehend the existence of.

She wanted to understand where they drew happiness from, and she found a multitude of potential answers. Hobbies, love, use of certain substances. Each time she found a new answer, she never partook of it herself, dismissing it as just lesser being deluding themselves into being happy, trying to cope with their reality.

Azathoth convinced herself that she was happy, that her emptiness was the pinnacle of what beings could feel. It was just the way things were.

But, she truly knew she was empty, and she still endeavored to drag herself out of the bog of her depression. Towards that goal, she acted as her mother would, amusing herself at the expense of others, but due to her philosophy of violence, power, and control, it manifested more destructively. So many universes were lost in failed attempts by Azathoth to feel.

The Daemon Sultan felt no remorse, due to her perception of her status in the hierarchy of totality. She saw all other life the same way humans see the microbial life that lives on their bodies. All the actions humans take kill numerous lifeforms on their bodies every day, but they don't dwell on that fact, and Azathoth doesn't dwell on the lives she slays. To her, their thoughts are so below her own that they don't even count as sentient beings.

But, she still wasn't happy.

She wasn't happy.

Not at all.