The Great White Planet interrupted the toxic cloud of silence with a cough.
“I’m sorry, who is this?” he said.
Normally I wasn’t good at improvisation, or old-timey declarative speak, but right now my voice had never been steadier in my life. The words came pouring out of my mouth like I’d been born to say them.
“I am the Shouhushen Eugenia Lo Pei-Yi, Divine Guardian of the Protectorate of California on Earth, Former and Current Ruyi Jingu Bang, Slayer of Demons, and Conqueror of Red Boy and the traitor Erlang Shen,” I said. “And you damn well heard me the first time. I nominate Guanyin, Goddess of Mercy, to be considered for the mandate.”
Nezha didn’t realize he was on a hot mic. “Can she do that?” he whispered to the Great White Planet.
“The Jade Emperor hasn’t officially been kicked off his chair yet,” I answered before anyone else could. “I still hold his mandate to possess dominion over the spirits on Earth. That’s an entire plane I’m the boss of. My word counts as much as any god. Or goddess.”
I wasn’t sure any of what I said was true. It likely wasn’t. But if there was ever a time for me to go all-in on a bluff, it was now. The slight twinge of hypocrisy I felt for using the power of the Jade Emperor’s name, when I openly thought he sucked, vanished so quickly as to never have existed. I had to use the tools at hand.
The shock on the other end of the line was so great there wasn’t any outcry from the collected gods. The Great White Planet took the opportunity to try and downplay the situation.
“My dear, ah, with all due respect to the Lady of Mercy, she is not exactly suited to the risks of this endeavor,” he said. “You heard me before when I said we face a great force of destruction. Mandate Challenges involve much conflict. Violence!”
I rolled my eyes. Guanyin was twice as useful in combat as me or Quentin. She’d carried us in that brawl with Red Boy and Erlang Shen harder than Superman propping up the Wonder Twins. I took the Great White Planet’s feeble protest as a sign that I was winning. He was resorting to concern-trolling.
“If it’s necessary, Sun Wukong, Great Sage Equaling Heaven, and I can provide physical support toward her cause,” I said. “He and I aren’t gods, so we shouldn’t count against the party limit.” Or so I imagined.
The Great White Planet took a bit of time ge
tting down from the petard I’d hoisted him by. “We need to deliberate this,” he said. “Such a matter can’t be taken lightly.”
Double standard much? I thought, given that the other nominees were made official by screaming really loudly. I was going to say so too, but we got disconnected. From our end. By a long, delicate finger, attached to the person I’d just declared fit to rule over all of creation.
“Quentin, give us ten minutes outside,” Guanyin said while staring at me.
Quentin didn’t take his eyes off me either. He got up from his seat without protest at being ordered around, frowning at me the whole while in case I made any sudden moves. It was like I’d turned into a live rattlesnake in front of him.
The click of the door shutting was the only sound. Guanyin waited for a few moments to pass before letting the blood rush back into her face.
I smiled at her. “You can thank me lat—”
The Goddess of Mercy screamed, leaped over the table, and tackled me straight into the conference room door.
The hinges popped off and we landed in the open layout of the office cubicles. I tried to crawl away from Guanyin, but she grabbed my ankle and pulled my lower half off the floor. We flailed away, wheelbarrowing, until she flipped me over and jumped on my chest. She was still screaming at the top of her lungs. We both were.
I knew what someone trying to kill me felt like, and this wasn’t that. This was off somehow. Unfamiliar. Guanyin’s hands needed to be higher on my throat if she really wanted to choke me to death.
“YOU IDIOT!” she screeched. She mashed my face to the side with the heel of her hand, hoping to friction-burn my cheek against the cheap carpeting. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done!?”
I could speak with only the tips of my lips. “Ge of ee!”
I groped around for a weapon and found a dry erase marker. I flicked the cap off with my thumb and scribbled furiously over her face, but the marker was so old and dehydrated that nothing came out.
As Guanyin bit my fingers, I felt that strange sensation again. Separate from the pain of her teeth sinking into my skin. I kicked up and flipped her over my head, sending her tumbling into a cubicle, but she anchored herself with a fistful of my hair.
“Ow!” I yelped. “Let go!”
She squeezed harder and reached behind her with her free hand, finding a bottle of hand sanitizer. It loomed over my face like water torture.
“Don’t get that in my eyes!” I shrieked. They were perhaps the only vulnerable part of me.
To my surprise she listened and opted for shoving the nozzle down my collar. I screamed at the cold gel flooding my shirt as she vindictively pumped the handle. I pushed away at her face, getting my thumb tip inside her nostril, but she wouldn’t relent.
That was when it hit me.