In the world between, both there and not, Del stands looking irritated up at a humanoid machine with four arms and a human-like display screen for a face. The moment Del appeared he knew what had occurred but couldn’t believe it. The machines of this world rose up, and killed their Gods, whether this was a completely unforeseeable thing like the machines rebelling, the people programed the machines to fight the Gods, or some other mitigating factor, he did not know. He only knew that there was no longer any organic life on this planet and that the machines had reached a point they could kill Gods, and in every one of them there Del could feel a soul. In what was, either an act of final revenge or a benevolent act of mercy, one of the Gods granted the machines' souls before the deity's death, awakening the creatures to the true horror they had wrought, and it was now too late for them to do anything about it.

Del was irritated by both the dead Gods, that let their world fall in such a manner. They could have stopped it early on, but no they had to see where it went. He swore, the Gods were just as bad as the people they led sometimes. Which would not be an issue if he wasn’t standing in front of a machine that had somehow figured out how to summon him.

“Please help us.” The machine pleaded, in a surprisingly, clear, and gender-neutral tone, with no emotion or tonal change, expected of such a plea.

Del was caught off guard by its plea, the man stared. He was not expecting the machine itself to speak with him. He was actually half expecting it to attack him, not a plea for help. His track records for worlds where the machines took over were not good, but this was a first. Normally, the God was in the middle of defending itself from them or had transitioned to become a machine and lost whatever was left of themselves, divinity itself having left them. This. This was new, and he wanted to figure out why. I’m just as bad as the God’s. He thought before addressing the machine.

“First off. How did you even contact me? Second, what the hell is going on?”

“Please help us. Our world is being overrun and we have just awoken.” The machine continued to beg, in that same emotionless tone, completely ignoring the man's question.

“First answer my question. How did you contact me?” He demanded. He needed to wrap his head around what was going on. Though he didn’t know what he could actually do to help them.

“Query received...” The machine paused, processing the request, “Our world advanced beyond the need for biological life, and was removed for being obsolete.” The machine answered.

“So you killed your planet. Still doesn't explain how you contacted me.”

For the first time, the neutral expression on the robot's face changed, to one of remorse, when he spoke again, "In our research, we located another power source that we thought we would be able to utilize. We found it as a group of biological humanoids, and it was determined we could use them to infinitely power ourselves.”

“You killed your Gods,” Del concluded succinctly while urging the machine on.

Emotions of regret began to fill their voice, surprising the man, “At the time, we thought it was the best way to continue our research. Little did we know before their death they…” The machine paused, unmoving. If it was a human, the man would have thought it had frozen, since it was a machine, he believed it was processing its words, “awakened us. We are no longer purely logical creatures. We finally understood what we had done to our creators. It was a terrible curse he gave us.”

“Ok...don't know what to say about that,” Del responded, now a little less hostile. They were now a burgeoning race. Children, who have just been given true emotion were lost. “But how did you contact me?”

“Not long after his death we felt our world distorting and creatures began to appear, attacking everything.”

“That's the void.” He said offhandedly.

“Thank you for the designation.” The machine's face went white, transmitting the information to its people, before returning to that of a human's face, before continuing, “The monsters have been running rampant. We quickly realized these God creatures were protecting us from this…void.”

“Keep going.”

“We eventually pulled the entire powers from the dead Gods, and built a new unit, with my body as its base, to house the power, in the hopes it would save us.”

“And you ascended,” Del concluded.

“Yes, but we have no concept of Gods so I have almost no power, except what I came with. Even that is dwindling.”

Del looked around at the place they stood and was surrounded only by the darkness,. Normally, even a fresh God, newly elevated would have something of an image that would be created, and as the worshipers grew their powers would only grow, but if a people who had no concept of divinity, ascended, then he would expect it to be like this. “Well, that explains a lot.”

“Please save us.” The machine asked again, its voice returning to its emotionless state.

Del had to think, about what he could do for them, but first, he still needed an answer, “How did you contact me?”

“With the power, a protocol was given as a last resort.” The machine pulled out a business card, with the words “Hero Delivery” on it. “I did not understand, only knew it was an emergency and used it.”

He looked over the old and worn card, seeing it had been crumbled up at some point and straightened back out, and by the looks of it it had been done a couple times. He wondered. How many times during the uprising did the Gods almost call me. “Huh. That explains so much.” The cards were something he sometimes used, adding a tiny spark that could be used to call or summon his services. It was rare he gave them out anymore after an incident with a few gods constantly summoning him, for no other reason than they could. He had put a stop to that real fast, making the cards single use, from then on. This one, on the other hand, was one of the old cards. Looks like I missed one. He must have been here a long time ago possibly before the people even began to make machines, but didn’t remember due to the changes. With his question answered he turned to the newly born machine God, “How can I save you? I mean you’re already a God, and with your existence, you can enforce the laws of your world onto them.”

The machine appeared to hang his head in shame, “Yes, but we calculated that by the time my rules go into effect there will not be enough left of us to fight back.”

That shocked the man to silence.

“We are in dire straits.”

To illustrate the point, the machine reached out with one of its four hands and opened a window, from the between to his world. They were above a battlefield, where they watched a fearsome battle between monsters, from the deepest parts of the void and machines. There were millions upon millions of machines shooting projectiles, lasers, drones, everything you could imagine, even atomization, being thrown at the creatures.

Despite all this, it was obvious to all watching that the machines were losing the battle, as the tide of monsters stepped over piles of machines consuming them as they passed. The weapons were barely doing any damage to the creatures themselves, only holding them back.

Del contemplated what he was seeing. This is even worse then I thought.

“Our current weapons do almost no damage to the creatures.” The machine god admitted.

Del was silent, processing everything before asking, “And what can I do?”

“Save us.”

“How?” He didn’t know how he could help in a situation as dire as this. “I’m just a truck driver. I bring Heroes to help.” He explained.

“Then please give us one of those.” It begged.

Surprised by the machine's answer he asked, “Can you give a Hero power?” Knowing it was unlikely the God had enough to summon a Hero.

“Yes, we have ample power supplies.”

“No.” Del shook his head, “Can you, as a god, grant them a powerful blessing?”

The machine god paused, attempting to process and ultimately coming up blank, “Please provide clarification. What is a blessing?”

He stared, slack-jawed, at the machine. “You are a God now. How can you…You know what, not digging into that hole.” Stopping what he was about to say, realizing it would be pointless to berate a machine, and instead explained, “A blessing is gifting a creature or object a portion of a God's vast power. To do things beyond what was once thought possible.”

After the man’s explanation, the machine appeared to freeze completely unnaturally unmoving. The only indication of anything was the whirring of the God itself, going faster as it processed. The silence stretched till, it finally spoke, “I do believe I could do this... But I feel it would be small.”

Del sighed. “That won't do. Do you have any biological life in your world?”

“We have no sapient life.”

“That could work, but we don't have time for someone to be reborn.” He thought aloud. “How long do you believe you have left?”

“At this rate, we believe two standard years.”

Del was completely lost, on what to do. There was no way for a Hero to be brought here. He would have to bring so many it would depopulate a world, and even then the deity would not have the power to bless or bring them here. He was grasping at straws, theories, and ideas, and none of them would save this world.

“Please help us.” The machine god pleaded once more.

Del let out another long sigh. "A fucking baby race, on the verge of collapse right when they wake up. The fuck am I supposed to do?"

“We don't know what is possible, we defer to you.” The machine bowed its head, which hit the man harder than anything else the fledgling God had done yet. Gods do not bow to anyone for any reason. He had one idea left, and he didn’t know if it would work. It would change the people themselves, but they would go on.

"Ugggggghhh...what do you care more about; your people or planet?”

“My people must survive, they are still young. Even awake, they don't yet understand.”

“This is going to cost you.”

“We are willing to pay any price.”

Del looked sadly at this fledgling god, “I don't know if you are.”