"So I want to start by saying I am not humanity's first god." The horror of writhing tentacles and eyes, a mouth that could swallow mega-scrapers, said as he introduced himself to the divine council. "I also want to say that I do not know my name; I never have; the beings that I love were also created by another and in his form."

Every deity in the council chamber, located in a dimension separated from reality, seemed to have one of the eyes of the monster trained on them, and each and every one of them had a look of revulsion on their face. "As such, I have let them name me. I have many names, The Dark One, Lord of the Eldritch, and most famously, thanks to one author, Cthulhu."

"Thank you for the information." A female goddess with silver hair and a voluptuous body said hesitantly, stepping lightly from side to side on her three legs. "If this is true, why have you come to the council?"

"It is known to all who are worshiped that upon the day of first contact between their worshipers, they are to present themselves to the council, and introductions are made," Cthulhu said, his massive mouth smiling in a way that sent shivers through the bodies of the gods and goddesses assembled. Cthulhu turned to a race that he was sure his beloved humans would call 'Arachnids' "Your worshipers are the reason that I am here."

"Mine?" The God said, surprise filling his voice. "What do you mean? My people would never have made an introduction with one such as yourself; they prize beauty over all else?" The Arachnid God said, his multiple sets of mandibles clattering in anger. "You must be lying!"

"I assure you that I am not Lying. And you are correct." Cthulhu said, his smile growing even more menacing, if that were even possible. "They would not have made contact with ones that look like me. What they did was kidnap a national hero, and as I said, though I love them, they were made by another."

The light in the room seemed to be swallowed by Cthulhu as he laughed at the Arachnid god whose face seemed to shrivel in fear.

[The Previous Day - Sol Year 2057]

"Kal'Tak, are you sure that this is a good idea?" A smaller female Arachnid asked, looking at the captain.

"Of course Shiv'Ru. While I appreciate your guidance in the matters of the gods, this is purely a military decision, and as you have already stated, the God of this race is gone, fled his creation eons ago." Kal'Tak said, waving his arm dismissively. "We require the water and minerals on this planet, so we will simply remove this being from the planet and claim it as our own. They have no holy representative; they are not protected under the divine treaties. We are well within our rights."

Siv'Ru watched on the screen as the lone being exited a landing craft that seemed to double as its habitat. The side of the ship had words, and the translation AI with the assistance of a quick hack into the homeworld of the being, literally next door, had determined them to say 'Mars Hope 1.' Further investigation by another AI had indicated that this lone Human, as they called themselves, was the first of thousands that would be sent to the planet they called Mars, and he had the job of building a landing pad for a reusable shuttle to use.

On-screen, a red dot replaced the Human, and three green dots represented the capture team that Kal'Tak had deployed. As she watched, the three green dots approached the red dot until contact was made. The capture team was confident of their abilities, but they should have done more investigation. Suddenly there were only two green dots, and then one, and finally, the remaining green dot was reported.

"Commander Kal'Tak, what the hell is this thing?" The operative sounded like he was in pain. "We hit it with nearly forty tranq-darts, and it still didn't go down. Jal'Nuk and Ish'Yon are dead, it killed them with each with a single punch, and then the tranq finally seemed to take effect. I am requesting rapid support and extraction before this monster wakes up."

Navy Captain Ted Kenton was alone; he knew he would be for the next three months at least. After a youth spent serving his country in the navy seals, Ted had set his sights on the Mars mission, and through hard work, dedication, and training, he had landed the most crucial position in the mission, First Lander.

As First Lander, he was sent to Mars alone, with all the tools, materials, and other equipment that he would need to construct a pad capable of withstanding the landing and takeoff thrust of the ship that would ferry people to and from Mars. Today was the day that he would finally start laying down the landing pad after several weeks of hard work, digging out sand and dirt to reach bedrock.

When he started working, something felt off. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and a deep instinct told him he was being watched. "Chill out, Kenton." He told himself as he moved the first pod of special no-air-needed concrete into place. "You are the only living thing that is on this rock."

Then he caught the reflection of three entities behind him. "What the fuck." Ted said, turning to face the monsters rushing at him. They looked like spiders, extremely anthropomorphized spiders, with four limbs instead of eight; two were used for movement, and two looked incredibly similar to human arms and were used to hold what he could only guess were weapons.

Instincts and training that had been drilled into Ted over years of combat and training sent him diving for cover, not before he was hit with several things that looked like darts, he could feel them puncturing his flesh, but he could not hear the telltale hiss of air escaping. They seemed to slow his reactions slightly, but not much. "Fuck." That was all he said before he decided to fight.

Ted launched himself from the container he had hidden behind; directly in front of him was a spider. Without thinking, Ted wound up and unleashed a right straight that passed through the being's faceplate, face, and skull to come out the back of the head with surprising ease. The next one was running towards him, firing those darts the whole time. Ted took advantage of the lighter gravity to jump almost five feet into the air and come down with an elbow on top of the second, crushing its head instantly.

The whole time this had been going on, the third was riddling his body with darts. Ted turned to see the third and took one step, and felt himself start to lose consciousness. "Oh fuck me," Ted said before passing into unconsciousness.

When Ted came around, he was in a chair, strapped to it, actually. "Human, this is not your world. We are the great and mighty Chilxan empire; you will answer our questions. What are your world's defenses." Commander Shiv'Ru was speaking to the Human via an intercom that was being translated by the AI; after further investigation into the homeworld that would birth such a monster, Shiv'Ru had decided that the human homeworld of Earth was a far more tantalizing notch on his belt than this desolate Mars was.

The Human looked up to the viewing window, seeing Shiv'Ru and Kal'Tak behind the glass. "We can only communicate with him like this, as he apparently breathes a mixture of gasses that are toxic to us as well as a majority of the other known races," Kal'Tak said quietly to Shiv'Ru.

The Human focused on them, and Kal'Tak grew impatient. "Answer the question now, Human!" He demanded.

Both Kal'Tak and Shiv'Ru felt themselves grow cold at the smile that the human-directed at them before it spoke. "Ted Kenton thirty-four, United States Navy, 572-99-8723."

What proceeded over the next hour could not be described as anything short of torture, as the Great and Mighty Chilxan empire's loyal troops attempted everything they could to get the information they wanted. Ted Kenton seemed little the worse for wear, simply responding to every question with, "Ted Kenton thirty-four, United States Navy, 572-99-8723."

"So you see," Cthulhu said after the replay of the events of first contact between the Humans and the Chilxan were finished, "this was not a misunderstanding. This was an intentional interaction between your people and mine. So," Cthulhu waved his hand, causing a chair of pure darkness to form, pushing aside the gods opposite of the Chilxan god. As he moved, Cthulhu's bulk seemed to fold in on itself while retaining his overall form. He sat in the chair of darkness, making it seem to shine with light in comparison to his own form. "I will be taking my place on this council."

"Well, Cthulhu, there are formalities and issues to be addressed with this." The three-legged Goddess who had spoken to him first said.

"Yes, and I, for one, do not recognize your authority to sit in this council." The Chilxan God said, waving his hand and attempting to dismiss Cthulhu's chair.

"You don't?" Cthulhu said, the wicked smile of his returning to the monstrous mouth he had. "Very well, I will abstain from the council." He stood and laughed as he watched the Chilxan God still struggling to remove his chair. "My chair, however, will remain until I die or until the human race is removed from the Galaxy. It will remain as a symbol of the day you refused diplomacy."

Other Gods and Goddesses began adding their proverbial weight in the attempt to remove his chair. As the three-legged Goddess watched as every one of her cohorts attempted and failed to aid in the removal of the Dark One's chair, she stepped up to Cthulhu. "Dark One, may I ask a question and a favor?"

"You do not have to address me so." Cthulhu said, "I do loathe the formality that you all seemed to be obsessed with; please call me Cthulhu. And what is your question?"

"What are you?" The three-legged Goddess asked, "To the Humans, I mean, what are you?"

"I am their god, though a vast majority of them still place faith in one of you who abandoned them." Cthulhu grimaced at the thought of the betrayer whom his followers called the false God, father of Christ, and deity of Christianity. 

"I know of only a few thousand that recognize me and know of me. When the betrayer left them, I was asleep in their oceans, I felt him leave, so I came to the surface and saw his newly abandoned creation. I felt pity for them, so in an act of mercy, I set to making the paradise-like world into what I felt would be an uninhabitable wasteland, with an unstable crust, a biodiversity that I was sure would kill them off, and weather the likes of which no other world that could host life had."

Cthulhu stopped for a moment, smiling as the gods began to work in concert, attempting to remove his chair from their midst. "I left the oceans, leaving them as the peaceful place of rest that I had come to call home. I returned to them, crawling to the depths and falling into slumber. When next I awoke, an untold number of years had passed, and instead of finding them dead, they had thrived. They had taken all the challenges that I had laid for them in stride, not only surviving but excelling; they had managed to evolve into hunters the likes of which the Galaxy had never seen. So I went to a few of them, one here and one there. Most were driven mad, but a few heard my story without losing their sanity, and they spread the truth. I grew to love humanity, even despite their adoration for the betrayer. Their ruthlessness knew no bounds; their ingenuity and creativity were second only to their drive to explore."

Cthulhu smiled then, something gentle that looked out of place on the grotesque God's face. "So what am I? I am both a savior and a villain. I am the God of their darkest desires and most fevered dreams. I am the Second God of Humanity, the rightful God of humanity."

The other Gods and Goddesses in the room had stopped and been listening to the story Cthulhu told, though none of them knew it; this had all gone exactly as Cthulhu had planned. The next step was to reveal himself to the humans.