The Amazon howled as she swung her sword, dispatching another pawn of the Magos. Her amber eyes blazing in rage, covered in the redness of all she had done to reach this point, she now stood alone. Tunic stained purple, short brown hair caked in crimson, shield dented and scored with blows deflected, wounds of attacks she hadn't dodged still leaking her own blood... but even as her chest heaved with exertion, she could not stop. Not while he still lived. The slayer of so many of her Amazon sisters, the man who had weakened the very power of the Gods in the mortal realm.

He had at first arrived as a friend, slayer of monsters. But as time passed some warned this man, this magician, was removing obstacles to his own power. They had been ignored.

She had been foolish enough to be amongst those dismissing those claims. And now she may well be the last of her people. He had unleashed such power as to rip the land asunder, boil the seas, and sink continents. As the influences of the gods had been destroyed he had claimed all their power. He was in effect a new god himself.

Well, she swore an oath, and if she had to slay a god to fulfil it, her blade would taste the blood of the one who sought to be ruler of all. He waited here amongst the rubble of a once great city. He had claimed the old palace as his own, likely to perform some final ritual to enslave all of humanity.

She burst through the wide doors, entering the chamber of the Magos. Marble pillars held aloft a high ceiling and a purple carpet led to a throne, simple wood with some small silver ornamentation. But the room seemed barren otherwise. No paintings, no sculpture. Just her, and at the other end of long carpet, her foe. Cracks and some small chunks of rubble were evident, the damage of the Palace from the fighting having still reached this hall.

Even now, as the most powerful being in existence in the mortal realms, he looked like nothing special. A lightly built man in his late thirties, short brown-blond hair, and dark green eyes. He wore a simple white toga. An illusion of weakness and humility.

"Ah, I see you have arrived, Amazon. Last of your kind. Last of anything with ties to the gods outside of myself and those loyal to me. You seek to slay me, yes?"

"I do not merely 'seek' your death, monster. If I, Oleia of Themiscyra am truly the last Amazon, the last thing stopping your dreams of conquering the world, then I swear it!" She snarled

"Do you now? But, to who do you swear, Amazon? To the Gods now sealed away in Olympus? On your fallen sisters? On your own name? Well, Oleia of Themiscyra, here is your chance. You only need to. Makebarely two dozen paces to reach me."

She made to cross that paltry distance.... But found she could not. As she moved to charge her body froze, warcry dying to silence in her throat, blazing eyes locked on her foe, blade raised.... Utterly still, not rushing forth at great speed, not slicing the already bloodied blade into his flesh. He sighed almost in dismay.

Oleia felt her frozen limbs growing heavy, numb. Her heartbeat was slowing, her breath had halted. The silence of the room seemed to have a faint noise like falling pebbles growing louder. She could not close her eyelids, but her vision grew darker. And then the Magos spoke up.

"I do wish it hadn't come to this. But humanity must be free. Not dancing to the whims of Gods and their servants. I am no conqueror. I am a liberator. As the minds of mortals relegate it all to myth and new history is written, the sheer amount of different beliefs shall stop more Gods, more magic polluting the world. So I have taken it all into myself and ended that which I could not take. I will live forever, to ensure that humankind can be more than just toys of gods and wizards."

The fire in her eyes grew weaker and weaker, as her body shifted from living flesh to pale inanimate alabaster. Soon, her eyes were growing pale too, blanking out slowly, the room growing darker.

"The price was high of course. All the death and destruction. Turning historic fact into fable and fiction. I could erase it all, but in a way, I need to keep some memory of it all alive outside of myself, for eventually humans may start believing something else. And that's where you come in. The last of the Amazons, the last factual evidence of the Gods... the first symbol of the myth. You will be immortal yourself. A statue of a mythical warrior woman."

The Amazon, now almost all stone except a few flecks of amber in her eyes, said nothing as the stone claimed even that. As her vision grew fully dark, as her ears ceased to hear, and her thoughts froze utterly, eternally. Only one thing could ever restore her to flesh. And he needed a statue of a myth, not a living example of fact.

The Magos kept his gaze upon the statue for a few moments. Only her flesh was stone for now, but with another wave of magic, the bloodstains on her faded away, and the colour of her clothing, weapons, and armour began to shift to the same white-grey as her body. The ground shifted below her, the carpet splitting open as the marble floor rose up, fusing to the petrified sandals of the Amazon, creating her pedestal. The heavy statue moved aside onto the bare floor, the carpet reforming.

"And that is that. Now I have a world to rebuild and a history to rewrite.... Farewell, Oleia, last of the Amazons. Perhaps some day we shall meet again...."

And with that, the Magos walked away, and the world ended quietly, as a new one slowly took shape....

***

The statue was found decades later as the ruined city was explored. The explorers of a city-state had it taken away amongst other treasures, looting the rubble. It was 580 BCE.

She was painted by her looters, much as other sculpture of the time was. Gaudy pink flesh, vibrant red tunic, eyes daubed in paint over the blank orbs. And so she stood.

It was 432 BCE. The city burned. Her paint, faded and flaking, shone in the firelight as another city razed the one that claimed her. Broke away as she was looted, another valuable claimed by the conquerors, taken to their city, repainted in their own colours. And so she stood.

An earthquake. It was 341 BCE. The halls shook, the columns cracked, and the many treasures were buried. She stood fortunate, as masonry pulverised a neighbour. And yet in the ruins she remained. And so she stood.

It was 275 BCE. The ruined city was being taken apart, the marble and stonework recycled by another city. As one of the few remaining treasures, she was taken away, restored in new colours. And so she stood.

It was 146 BCE. Men from across the sea, from the City of Rome, burned the city, and looted her treasures. The Amazon was amongst them, loaded aboard a boat and taken away to that distant land. And so she stood.

It was 79 AD. The mountain rumbled and spat forth columns of smoke and rivers of ash. A city was buried, amongst it a statue of an Amazon, paint long faded and almost all gone. As the boiling mud and cinders destroyed all around her, she remained, and was concealed under the layers of destruction. And so she stood.

It was the late 1500s. As an aqueduct was dug, she was uncovered by accident, and sunlight touched the  statue for the first time in centuries. The workers and the architect in charge cared not for their discovery, and resealed the walls as they built. And so she stood.

It was the 1730s. The walls were broken down again, the foundations of a palace being carved into the soil. Naples placed her on display once more with what other finds the digging uncovered.  And so she stood.

It was the 1800s. France held the lands, and the treasures of the region started being claimed. Amongst them, an Amazon statue. Once more she moved, this time over land, over the Alps, and to the city of Paris.  And so she stood.

It was the 1900s. She had entered the hands of private owners, as the gallery she sat in was taken over, and now, they had financial woes. She was put up for auction, and purchased by an Englishman. She was once again shipped overseas, placed on display now in another gallery.  And so she stood.

It was 1940. As sirens wailed, guns fired, and whistling bombs rained down, one struck the gallery. The flames rose up and surged through the building, tongues of fire licking at her marble form. And yet when they died down, amongst the ashes she was, coated in soot and some streaks of grime from firefighters efforts raining down. As one of the few salvaged works, she was placed in storage elsewhere for now under a tarpaulin. And so she stood.

It was 1946. The tarpaulin was removed, the soot and dirt cleaned off after six years. The gallery was rebuilt, and she was to once more go on display.  And so she stood.

It was 1998. As her unseeing eyes watched, a man from the Foreign Office shook hands with the Greek ambassador, after a piece of paper had been signed. She was to be returned to Greece, having been identified as one of, if not the, earliest examples of a statue of an Amazon by historians. But her date to be shipped was some way away.  And so she stood.

It was 1999. Boxed up, loaded onto a plane, she took to the skies. A few hours later she was back on land, and back in Greece. She was moved again, taken out of her shipping crate, and once again, displayed. She of course never realised the gallery she was now in, stood a mere five miles from where that ruined palace once stood. Even the historians never knew,  so utterly erased from memory was that place. But one person still knew. One person, a world away, chuckled at the irony, and pondered a return someday to see his creation once more. But for now, he was busy.  And so she stood.

***

It was 2023. The Amazon stood there as still white marble. Blank eyes and an empty head watched a hall filled with tourists. To her left, statues of marble and bronze, Amazons also, but carved and sculpted, not petrified from flesh. A thinly built man with brown-blonde hair stood before her, dark green eyes looking upon her. He still looked mundane, normal. Just a plain jacket, simple jeans. No sign he was an immortal. No sign he was the man who had created the statue he observed.

The Magos waited a few moments. A nostalgia for events thousands of years past. But unlike the Amazon, he had somewhere else to go. His visit was a fleeting few moments amidst centuries, all the time he truly had. His work was never done, for human imagination was powerful, and he had to work hard to stop anything of myth rising again. To stop mankind's enslavement under Gods again.

Dozens of statues stood, tributes to myth and legends, well known and varied in interpretation. One stood, an eternal monument to history forgotten, transformed into fable. Simultaneously the last to have been real and the first to have represented a fiction. In a sense just as immortal as the man walking away.

The Magos moved on into the crowds until he faded like the world of magic and myth he had destroyed all those years ago, leaving behind the last symbol of his victory.

And so she stood.