//------------------------------// // Chapter Fourteen, Oh Goddess Why: Anti-climate tick. // Story: Airship Mauled // by Darkonshadows //------------------------------// -Sekhet- The mouth of the one Jade called ‘the feathered serpent Quetzalcoatl’ opened and a building beam of lightning blasted forth. I flipped backwards and grew to my full sized sphinx form while spreading my wings. The beam struck the barrier I formed in an instant in front of the wagon and the ones behind me. Eventually the attack died down and I prepared for battle, it has been a while since I’ve met a worthy opponent. A possessed god of weather versus a god of war, this will be a lofty battle and I will not go easy on my opponent. Their soul needs to be freed of the outside influence. “I’ll take care of this mortals.” I put my paws before me and fire several beams of light that was met with a beams of lightning. We held our beams against one another and we eventually canceled out each other’s attacks. I turned to the mortals for a second. “Do what you will when I draw his attention, just don’t die!” “Can’t you deny him his ability to fly?!” Priest Jade asked as I took to the air and faced down the winged serpent. “No, his flight is divinely powered!” I forged several spheres of light and sent them flying forward, the serpent countered by breathing out several balls of swirling winds that intercepted my magic. “If you haven’t noticed he isn’t exactly flapping his wings to fly, it is like how he cannot stop my healing abilities in the same respect. I will eventually win in the battle by attrition, but that will take a while. The one who controls him has control of the field of battle and thus currently controls this fight.” I felt a feeling of gathering energy in the air, I darted the left and a large bolt of lightning crashed into the sky from the ground. Afterwards several smaller bolts fired at me from the energy traveling along the clouds, I rolled, swerved and dove around them. “Let go of his soul and your end will be mercifully swift!” I turned upwards firing a beam of light that he dodged out of the way of, he returned it with a vortex of razor sharp wind and ice. -Jade- “Fluttershy, you need to get the lemmings moving and out of this valley!” I did not want to be anywhere near this valley at the moment with the wind whipping up like it was. If Quetzalcoatl starts making it rain enough to flood, the lemmings are attention deficit disorder ducks. Sitting ducks would imply that they could hold still for more than thirty seconds. “They can’t stay here, one powerful tornado or enough rain and they aren’t going to survive. Even we won’t survive if we get caught in the battle between those two.” “Right, let’s go!” Fluttershy flew shakily over to the lemmings and started to direct them, the wind around here was beginning to shift for the worse. It was becoming harder for a weak flyer like Fluttershy to stay airborne. Sekhet wasn’t wrong to say that Quetzalcoatl controlled the battlefield. It had yet to really get heated between the two gods, Sekhet was firing beams and bolts and trying to avoid getting struck by lightning with swift aerial movements. I saw the goddess get tagged with a bolt of lightning in the middle of a roll, she wasn’t exactly the fastest being in the air. She only grit her teeth and fired an ankh shaped blast at Quetzalcoatl. The feathered serpent seemed to just lazily swerve around the blast, he was at home in the air and he had control of it. It, however, did not seem that Quetzalcoatl could detain or stop Sekhet from being able to fly. Sekhet flew straight for him and tried to ram him. He dodged to the side lazily once more and at a much faster than normal speed, only to get several long claw marks trailing along his scales close to his head. Sekhet had extended several thin looking beams of light from her right paw. The serpent turned his head about to bite at Sekhet, only she had already backed off. The cuts on Quetzalcoatl’s body started to heal slowly. He might not be a god of healing, but he still had some healing. “Come on Jade, let’s go!” Fizzle wrapped her hoof around my right arm and tugged at it. I turned to her and then looked to Fluttershy who had landed and started to lead the still happy looking lemmings on hoof at a gallop down the valley. Not a single squeak of fear among them compared to Fluttershy’s panicking form, ignorance was bliss for the rodents that were happy to follow the pony around. Fluttershy would likely get out of here safely as she didn’t have to worry about monsters, not with the weather picking up and getting as bad as it was. “We’re not leaving Sekhet behind, Cheerilee you can follow Fluttershy…” I simply received a disapproving headshake. “Can’t do that Jade, you and Fizzle are my students. I know Fizzle won’t leave unless you do and I feel responsible for both of you!” The wind started picking up and something slammed into the ground and Cheerilee covered her face as bits of rock struck her body at high velocities. “If the both of you stay, then I stay. I’ll move the wagon to a safe distance and try to get to a higher ground. If one of you gets hurt, then the other needs to bring them to me immediately. You better come to the wagon when you’re ready to leave, do you understand me?” “Yes teach, we understand you clearly.” I looked to the sky and saw Sekhet and Quetzalcoatl spiraling around one another and firing beams, Sekhet’s attacks were notably punctuated by bright flashes of light against the dark sky. Cheerilee started moving the wagon on her own. She hadn’t exhausted herself too much today, I made a note of the direction she was heading in. Turning back to the fight, every flap of Quetzalcoatl’s wing sent powerful blades of winds, his mouth sprayed both ice and lightning at the goddess of war. Sekhet was holding her own for the time being, sending beams of light to deflect the lightning and was physically smashing away the chunks of ice being fired at her with her paws. The whole area was getting darker thanks to the cloud layer being created by the feathered serpents building storm. Eventually Quetzalcoatl roared to the heavens, after that it started to rain heavily. The clouds above us turned into a spiraling vortex and lightning started striking the ground at random around the area. My fur started becoming soaked, the rain was really quite cold. I was shivering until a pair of hooves wrapped around me. Fizzle was hugging me in an attempt to keep me warm, a nice sentiment given the current situation. “Jade we can’t help Sekhet, we’ve got nothing to throw at her opponent.” Well Fizzle wasn’t entirely correct, it’s just the things we could do wouldn’t really help immensely in this situation. Fizzle was limited on her magic and despite it being powerful, it probably wouldn’t do any damage at all even if she hit Quetzalcoatl with the full force of everything she had directly. “Not necessarily.” I had a few tricks up my sleeve or in my pack, but their effectiveness against such a powerful god was questionable. I could hardly see the fight thanks to the sun being blotted out by the dark clouds, but my Abyssinian night vision helped somewhat in this situation. It was the falling sheets of rain that was the problem. Fizzle didn’t have the same luxury of night vision for her eyes as she looked to the sky with her mane plastered against her neck from all the rain. I pulled the griffon mask from my pack and placed it on my face, it’d stop the rain from blinding me somewhat. I was going to use it to keep track of the two battling gods, even with the masks abilities I could hardly keep up with the two large figures battling for dominance far above. Sekhet hit Quetzacoatl in the tail with a ray of light and he roared a beam of lightning in retaliation at her, she put up a barrier and held it long enough for Quetzalcoatl to eventually stop firing lightning at her from his mouth. Neither of them looked to be tiring at all. Their fighting was vicious as they continued flying in circles attacking one another. They bit with their teeth, slapped with their wings and launched volleys of power at one another with great force. The whole world seemed to be shaking from the impacts of their battle. Quetzalcoatl attempted to wrap up Sekhet and detain her. She retaliated viciously by exploding with light, knocking him off of her and scorching his flesh. Feeling something around my ankles, I looked down. We were both knocked down by the shockwave of a large bolt of lightning striking. Poking a shaking and frightened Fizzle who was still trying to keep me warm, I pointed towards the nearby bedrock hill. Fizzle helped me up off the ground and we started climbing upwards as there was a thin film of water building up on the ground in the valley, nowhere was safe around here anymore. I hoped Fluttershy was doing alright, because right now we couldn’t do much while trying to survive the storm being whipped up by the feathered serpent god. The wind was picking up. I could hardly hear the sounds of anything over the wind ripping through the air, the cold rain falling upon us and lightning exploding everywhere. There was a particular problem with the roaring wind, as it sounded too loud. Looking to our right, I saw a tornado forming. “Fizzle, Tornado!” She gave it the same wide eyed look of horror I had when she saw the quickly building whirling wall of deadly wind. “Lay flat and try to dig your hooves into the ground!” Listening to what I said and digging my own claws into the bedrock about as well as I could, we both held on as the tornado passed nearby heading northwest in the direction we came from. “Why don’t we get out of here Jade, what are we even still doing here?!” In response to your question Fizzle I’ll show you, I pulled out a black feather and started removing my knife sheath. So long sheath number seven, I hardly knew you. -Sekhet- My flesh ripped across my cheek as the swing of this serpents wings sent several blades of wind slicing into me. Were I a lesser god, I would not be doing so well and these injuries would be more problematic. I couldn’t hold onto him or get enough hits in to deal with him anytime soon. This Quetzalcoatl was a slippery being and the shadow controlling him is even slipperier then that. He flew up into the clouds, I concentrated and formed a pocket of calm air around me and waited. He came at me from below and dug his teeth into my neck, I immediately pulsed light from my body and then sent a beam downs straight into him forcing him towards the ground. He swiftly caught himself flew up to spray me with a series of small piercing icicles. If only I could get my paws on him for a few seconds to do some real damage! I sent several blasts of light his way and he snaked around them, only to take one of my shots sharply across his right eye. He screeched in pain and sent several wind blades from his wings that I blocked with a quickly formed barrier. He flew at me and whipped his tail around to strike out my left wing joint. I hissed loudly in pain as the wind blades from each individual tail hair had shredded their way through my left wing. The serpent succeeded in ripping up my wing joint and sending me spiraling downwards towards the ground. It took a few seconds, but I caught myself in the air once my wing healed enough of the damage done. I needed to get a hold of him, I had to separate that malignant influence from his soul! “Sekhet, I’m going to freeze him in place, do whatever damage you can to him when I do!” I heard her words clearly, despite the ongoing din of this weather god’s powers. Those words had been spoken in my mind. “Get ready, I’m about to do a cast.” How was she, a lowly mortal, supposed to stop a god? My blows were actually wounding him, so did she think she could do any better than someone of my might? No, she wouldn’t presume herself that powerful, but she had a plan and I would heed her words. I prepared to strike him down. If Jade and Kuril’s magical alchemy could actually have an effect on this god and tip the balance in my favor, I’d welcome it. I would also be worried that she has the ability to freeze a god in place, no matter how temporary. I felt the magic, Jade was performing the cast and she was aiming it at the feathered serpent. I charged for him, he tried to back away. Only he suddenly became immobilized in the air and I could see his glowing eyes widen in shock. I quickly clasped onto him, gripping his head tightly in my paws. I began charging as much of my power as I could, I was going to force the possessor out of this god and I will be owed a great boon from him for this action. All souls are sacred, even immortal ones like his. If he is to be dark and evil, then he must become so of his own free will. I exploded with light and it flooded my opponent, we had been fighting long enough to weaken the possessor for this one action. Slowly, but surely enough, I could see a form separating from the head of Quetzalcoatl and it looked like a sickly cloud with eyes and two spindly arms. Once it was separated from the god, the frightened cloud creature immediately started flying away as the god fell limply from my paws towards the ground. Quetzalcoatl would be fine now, his soul has been freed from control and I now have my true target! I fired a blast of light that sheared off a large chunk of its retreating form. Before I could get in another blow, the blow that would have been quite a fatal one at that, it touched the clouds and dispersed rapidly to the point that I could no longer attack it as it had escaped from my senses. “Coward!” It ran as soon as it knew it could not win the fight, I roared out to the empty sky in my anger. My wounds were superficial and they would heal with time. The dark clouds started clearing up and then the sun shined on the damaged landscape below. I headed towards the ground to see Jade and Fizzle already poking the resting god. As I settled upon the ground I noticed a rainbow arcing way up high over the valley that was now flooded with two feet of water. Is it bad that I wished those dumb rodents had drowned in the flooding?