"No?" Dahlia laughed in Joy's face, "you watch David ripping the sky into pieces above our heads and you think to deny us our one way to hurt him?" Dahlia had not taken Joy's denial well.

"Yes. This fight is not about hurting David. And to let you kill someone innocent who can't defend herself from you would leave a bad taste in my mouth."

"Innocent? You think this demoness is innocent? She is one of the masterminds behind David's whole plot. How can she be innocent?"

"But she's not the one trying to execute a defenseless enemy."

"You're weak, Joy."

With a single motion of her arm, the dragons disengaged David and Ramses turned to face the confrontation between Joy and Dahlia. This was bad, oh so very bad.

Dahlia flicked her wrist and opened her magic book. That book was one of the most powerful gifts given during this age of man. Joy had heard and seen its power in action. At thirteen, Dahlia was given a gift by Magic which was a grimoire of untold wonder. Every single day, a new spell would form inside of it. The rules for the spells were nonsensical to an outsider's perspective, but she had been amassing spells for years. There were thousands upon thousands of spells hidden away in that tome and she simply had to cast them to win.

Even if Dahlia didn't have her super-powered henchmen, Joy would have been screwed in a normal fight. Luckily for Joy, nothing he ever did was fair.

Before Dahlia could even twitch a finger, Joy asked, "do you want to play a game."

For what might be the final time, a bored voice sounded in Joy, Dahlia, Ramses, and the dragon's minds. "Rock-Paper-Scissors. Do you need the rules explained to you?"

Ramses and the dragons moved to engage Joy in battle, while Dahlia softly said "yes" and disengaged to the backlines to learn the tricks of Joy's game.

Joy didn't need to know the rules, because it was truly simple. These were games, nothing more and nothing less to them. So, he was ready to play.

The dragons swooped down. One's mouth was building up a terrible pressure to release a gout of flames onto Joy and Rose, while the other was diving towards their position with its claws bared. Ramses also whispered things into the air and hundreds of shimmering crescent moons formed in the air around him, buzzing with a malign energy.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!" Joy declared at the dragons and the man while slamming his fist into his open palm. His position was a little preposterous since he had to balance the stone that held Rose's life in one hand. At shoot, Joy kept his hand in a fist, locking in rock.

A massive dome surrounded Joy and Rose, and a glowing rock came into existence around them.

Talons screeched like nails down a chalkboard as they tried to find purchase on the unyielding stone. The sea of flames erupting from the other dragon was parted by the structure. Ramses' crescents were easily rebuffed and the rock stood strong in the face of it all.

"We're going to run now. Ready?" Joy asked while pulling along Rose.

"No, this is insane. What are you doing? Why are you helping?"

"No time!" Joy screamed as he started slamming one hand into his other again.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot." This time, two of Joy's fingers splayed in the Time renowned symbol of scissors.

The glowing dome of rock disappeared from the sky. However, in its place, a glowing pair of scissors descended from the sky. Joy pointed his hand at the dragon which had swooped down on them and the scissors descended upon the beast faster than it could react.

Its wings were clipped, and the massive beast was sent crashing to the ground. A scream of pain erupted from the dragon as the scissors kept attacking it once it crashed. They snipped and cut at its spindly neck and clipped its talons.

The other dragon released another gout of fire upon the illusory object, but it simply washed off the construct, leaving it untouched.

Ramses summoned warriors that looked like fashion models. They streaked across the sky in an attempt to help the fallen dragon. Their fists bounced ineffectually off the scissors.

Joy laughed at the scene. Three figures of immense power brought to their knees by something as simple as scissors, what a laugh!

This was what he lived for. Maybe it was not the most intellectual way to live, but he felt alive. The world was goofy and strange and that kept the darkness that he had touched at bay. He felt the Joy that had killed Ian so many months ago and he could deny him. The scissors were not doing any real damage to the dragon, they were just humiliating them, because that is what everyone needs, humility and to not take themselves too seriously.

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Joy's levity was short lived as he heard the voice of princess Dahlia from across the battlefield. "Don't get caught up in the game, Joy is in charge. Cut the head off the snake." Then after a brief pause where Joy could detect a sigh and eye roll, he heard, "rock, paper, scissors, shoot."

A floating rock appeared above Joy's scissors and shattered it into a thousand sparkling motes of light.

"Shit." Joy said as the remaining dragon and Ramses turned a fierce gaze on him. He grabbed Rose's hand and started running into the city proper.

In the sky, the fight between demigods was chaotic and insane, giving Joy the few moments he needed to rush into a covered area. One giant mouth was brawling with a thing made of carrots and bad breath. The two unearthly combatants crashed into the remaining dragon and Ramses, giving Joy the brief respite he needed to run.

He twisted and turned between the newly refurbished streets of Vena Cava, trying to be innocuous as possible.

In a random corner after a quiet moment, he turned to Rose and smiled at her.

"It's all going to work out. Take this." Joy handed the rock over to her, clasping her fingers tightly over it with his hand. "Dahlia wasn't kidding, this thing will kill you if it ever touches the ground. Now, run away before Dahlia kills you. If you survive long enough, David will absorb you into his god."

"But why? Don't you hate what David is doing? Why would you help me?" Rose asked as Joy started rummaging on the ground for a similar looking rock to the one he had just pawned off on Rose.

"I disagree with his end goals, but David is trying to do the right thing. He wants to free humans from their bondage under the gods. I just worry that he won't ever give up his power."

Joy looked like he wanted to say more, but a giant glowing beacon of red light appeared above him in the sky. Obviously, Dahlia had started pulling some spells out of her spell book.

"Time to go. Good luck!" Joy left Rose behind, and he hoped to never see her again in his very short lifetime remaining.

A dragon, a man, and a princess were fast approaching Joy, but he refused to be cowed by these opponents. He was not the strongest, or the fastest, or the most powerful combatant on the field, but he would not yield this game up to any of them.

"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot." Joy made the motions and summoned another pair of scissors high in the sky to combat the dragon.

Barely a moment later, a giant rock came and smashed his scissors into pieces. It had been too much to hope that they would just let him use the same old trick again, but that was okay because Joy was full of tricks.

Another quick motion and recitation of the incantations made a floating sheet of paper appear beneath Joy's feet. But this paper did not attack his enemies, nor did it defend them from their oncoming onslaught of teeth and blades. Instead, the paper started to fly higher and higher into the sky. Normally, this would be a bad idea, to challenge a dragon in their natural territory. However, today the skies were claimed by a battle between godlike beings, and it was a no man's land of brutality and terror. It seemed like the perfect place for a final showdown.

David and Lillian were goliaths. Great mouths descended from the sky only to be scooped up by large eating utensils that spoke with the voice of children. It was an abstract painting that had come to life and Joy dove headfirst into it.

The air whistled in Joy's face as he surrounded himself with the insanity of this battle. He refused to look too closely at anything that was around him, he simply trusted that he would be safe in the sky.

Joy could hear the world sing in the back of his mind. It gave him an unthinking path through the maelstrom of battle.

Once at the peak of his flight, Joy looked down on his enemies. Maybe "enemies" was too strong of a word. Joy looked down on the scared girl, the dragon, and the lonely man. The stared up at him in the sky and he could feel their hate.

Those people wanted nothing more than to say that David was wrong. They were products of the good that this world produced and Joy would never deny them that happiness. No matter the cruelty that the world could produce, happiness was possible.

Happiness was possible for the humans, but the time of gods was over. They were an eternity that was denied by existence. The world created by them had to end so that a new world for the impermanent humans could flourish.

So, how could Joy ensure that this world for humans was not just the same prison of eternity that the gods had been trapped in forever?

He was not powerful, and he was not some storied hero. He was Joy and he had only one thing to give the world to save it, and that was his life.

Purpose shone through Joy in one unflinching moment. He was not the aimless fool he had been a few moments before. He could see that perfect path towards the ending he desired waiting for him. Joy thought back to Sam's words; his choices did matter. He would save Rose because that was what he wanted to do. And he would show David what the world could look like.

However, to do all of that he needed to survive the fight he was currently in.

Dahlia and her remaining dragon and friend stared at Joy from their position on the ground. He saw Dhalia chanting something and smirked as he stood atop his flying piece of ethereal paper surrounded by a clash between gods. He was untouchable up there and they were so focused on him and the rock that they had forgotten that they could just kill Rose the old fashioned way.

The world shifted. To Joy, it felt a little like a chill had run down his spine. Something whispered in Joy's ear, "I'm sorry."

A red beam of light erupted from Dahlia's tiny figure on the ground. The red beam cut through the air separating Joy and the former princess.

Just the way that a path had cleared for Joy to escape into the fray above, a new path formed to allow this red beam to journey all the way to Joy's right hand, where he held a stone that looked vaguely like the one Dahlia had used on Rose.

The red beam touched Joy's wrist, and his world exploded into pain. A searing pain climbed up his arm and agony consumed him.

The game disappeared around Joy and the paper holding him in the air vanished, causing him to fall from the sky.

As Joy fell, he saw an object falling alongside him. A single perfect hand holding a stone mirrored Joy's quick descent.

There was no blood. Whatever magic Dahlia had used had cauterized the wound instantly, but Joy stared despondently at the mangled nub of a hand he had left. No more card tricks, no more Joy.

The ground was approaching quickly, and Joy felt The End approaching him inexorably.

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