Among Gods

by Grave_Mind

Issue 1, Chapter 8

Issue 1: Tower of Babel

Chapter 8

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The Titans all attacked in unison, leaping down into the fray together. Rarity, AJ, Spike, and Dash stood their ground, ready to meet these costumed enforcers head-on. Of course, none of this would have happened if Rainbow Dash just kept her cool and not KO’d a Green Lantern with a single punch, but it was too late to go back now. What started as a simple misunderstanding now spiraled out of control. It was up to them to set it all straight, and if that meant resorting to violence, then so be it.

Rainbow Dash jumped high into the air, brandishing her mace like a mighty hammer. She swung and it connected with Starfire, who was sent flying upward from the blow. The end of Dash’s mace began to sparkle and crack as bolts of electricity jumped all around it. Starfire managed to catch herself in the air and quickly moved to return fire, tossing green bolts of energy at her winged opponent. Rainbow Dash defended herself, using her mace to deflect the barrage. Each bolt bounced off the metal weapon, going in random directions before dissipating harmlessly in the air.

As Dash was busy deflecting Starfire’s bolts, the Tamaranian Titan quickly flew down toward her, dropping down to try and disarm her of her mace. She grabbed it and attempted to wrestle it out of Rainbow Dash’s grip. But Dash wasn’t going to let go, the two locked in a desperate grapple in the air as the battle waged below.

While the two wrestled in the air above, Applejack jumped out of the way to avoid an incoming downward punch from Superboy. The punch left a rounded dent on the metal floor.

"Yo! Watch it, Superboy!” Cyborg shouted from across the room. “I just finished reinforcing the Watchtower’s floor plan!”

Superboy grumbled in frustrated acknowledgement. As he recovered from missing the punch, AJ counterattacked by landing a powerful kick right into his solar plexus. The kick sent Superboy flying across the room and he tumbled as he landed. “Tell that to the girl who hits as hard as I can…” he muttered before he got back on his feet and leaped back into the fray.

Over on the far side of the chamber, Nightwing was trading blows with Rarity and Spike. He blocked a high twirling kick by Rarity and prepared to follow it up, but his counterattack was stopped short by Spike. Nightwing quickly spun around to deflect incoming arrow from the young archer by swiping them away with his twin escrima sticks.

“Rarity!” Spike shouted as he readied another set of arrows. “Get down!”

Spike let loose another barrage of arrows, one after the other in rapid succession as Rarity ducked down to avoid getting shot. Nightwing jumped forward and twirled in the air, avoiding every arrow with all the grace and poise of a professional circus acrobat. Spike began to back up slowly, firing more and more arrows desperately to no avail. Nightwing kept jumping and twirling as he approached Spike, still avoiding the arrows in the process.

Spike was losing it. He was starting to panic. His aim was starting to sway. He couldn’t get a bead on this guy! He just wouldn’t stay still to get a good shot! Nightwing smirked. He knew this. When he made his next jump, just barely brushing against another arrow as it whizzed past him, he threw one of his escrima sticks at Spike. Spike had no time to react as the electrified stick flew through the air and found its mark, connecting with his forehead. The stick sent a painful jolt of electricity through his body when it made contact, causing Spike to let out a cry of pain as his head was thrown back, his body following shortly after.

Rarity gasped audibly, seeing it all happen as if it was in slow motion. “Spike…” she stifled back a sob of his name. “N-no…”

Then, everything suddenly stopped for Rarity. Everything except the chirping calls of canaries. The chirping grew louder and louder, almost as if it came from all around her. Her breath was short. She covered her ears to try and drown them out, but it was no use. They kept chirping and crying and calling. She cried out something inaudible, her own voice drowned out by the canaries. Suddenly, it all stopped. Rarity then heard the familiar voice of the Spectre call out to her.

“Awaken, Black Rarity. The cry of the canary is now yours. Quickly, use it to save your friend, Arrowspike.”

The world returned to Rarity and she stared at Nightwing, who was now standing over Spike. In reality, he was reaching down to retrieve his escrima stick. To Rarity, however, it was as if he was taking the moment to gloat at his apparent victory. She narrowed her eyes at the man and took a brave step forward. “Get away from him!” She demanded, her voice drowned out by all the fighting around her.

Nightwing seemed to ignore her, turning Spike’s head over to make sure he didn’t hit the boy too hard. Something suddenly wrapped around his midsection and pulled him away from the unconscious Spike. He twisted and spun along the floor, but managed to retain his footing. Rarity had used her whip to pull Nightwing to her, his back facing her. She leaned up so that her face was now inches away from his ear.

“Pardon me, darling,” she said. “But it’s rude to ignore a lady. I believe my words were... “

The shrill cry that came from Rarity was incomprehensible. It came out in a massive blast of sound that shook the very floor at their feet and even disturbed the animals residing in the nearby trees. Nightwing yelled out in pain and covered his ears. He tried to stumble out of the way to avoid the source of the sonic disturbance, but only met Rarity’s swift kick to his side instead. He skidded across the floor and stopped against a tree, grunting as he struggled to retain consciousness. His ears rang, his vision blurred, and he felt a sharp twinge of pain from one of his ribs.

As Nightwing struggled to get back to his feet, Rarity approached him and glared down at the Titans’ leader menacingly. She took out her whip and cracked it near his face. “Maybe that will teach you not to mess with my Spikey-wikey."

Nightwing only smiled and barely uttered a chuckle. He was about to return a rather quippy response, but something stopped him from doing so. The floor beneath him quaked once. Then twice, in rapid succession. Rarity noticed it too and looked ahead, squinting as she stared deeper into the greenery. Leaves were rustling. Birds and other creatures fluttered away and retreated from the disturbance, cowering in fear from something deeper within the artificial forest. Then another THUDshook the ground, this time enough for the fighting to cease entirely as both sides looked out to the artificial garden. Something was coming. Something big.

Cyborg was the first to notice something was amiss when it happened. Someone was missing in action. “Uh… guys? Where’s Beast--”

Cyborg got the answer to his question before he could even finish it. A hulking, green gorilla came out of the forest, flying backwards from the dense greenery. It landed next to Cyborg before it morphed back quickly into the smaller, lankier, more humanoid form of Beast Boy. As Cyborg moved to help his friend back up, a loud and monstrous roar erupted deep within the forest.

A massive, fanged dragon suddenly barreled its way out of the trees, its scales a light green and its underbelly a familiar shade of cream. It barged into the fray with a look of pure rage and anger. It let out another bellowing roar that forced all of the attention on it. No one cared about fighting each other anymore.

Nightwing winced as he stumbled back to his feet and looked at Rarity. “Uh… so,” he said to the Black Canary lookalike with forced smirk. “Truce?”

Rarity was too busy standing with her jaw agape to even register Nightwing’s proposal for a moment. She shook herself out of it and nodded at him. “Y-yes… that sounds… rather nice, thank you.” She responded, sharing the same sheepish grin.

Spike was beginning to come to as well, the roaring dragon shaking him out of unconsciousness. “Mmm… what happened?” He groaned, somehow finding the strength to sit up as he blinked his blurry vision away. When it came back, he found himself staring straight on at the towering reptilian behemoth. He screamed as he scrambled back to his feet, immediately drawing out his bow and moving to Rarity’s side.

“Um… Rarity,” Spike asked, his voice trembling. “What… what the heck is that?”

“I… don’t know, darling,” she replied, just as confused as he was. “I… I think that’s Fluttershy!”

Nightwing scoffed at that, taking out his escrima sticks and running them against each other. Tiny sparks of blue electricity ran across the black stun rods. “Beast Shy is more like it,” he said. “I don’t think your friend is too happy with us right now."

“Pfft. That’s an understatement.” Spike commented flatly.

The three began to back away slowly as the beast focused its attention elsewhere. It could almost sense the fear and tension it caused. It was almost afraid as they were. In a frenzied panic, Spike took out an arrow from his quiver, but it stumbled in his hand before he could get it to his bow. The projectile bounced off the metal floor, echoing across the tense chamber. The dragon sensed this and quickly turned its head to look down at the retreating heroes.

Spike gulped audibly as the monster that was once their friend stared them down. “... oh boy.”

The dragon howled again, its maw wide open as it got on all fours and stomped the ground angrily. The group shielded themselves from the sheer blast of the roar. Nightwing was about to give the command to run, but something apparently already got the message. A pair of faint streaks came rushing in, picking up the three and setting them down with the others. Pinkie and the Flash had just come in and saved Nightwing, Spike, and Rarity, the group now consolidated together.

“Hey guys,” Flash greeted with a smirk as he skidded to a stop. “What’d we miss?”

Nightwing chuckled. “Glad you could join us, Flash,” he said. He noticed Pinkie and raised an eyebrow at her. “Friend of yours?”

Pinkie rushed over to Nightwing and shook his hand rather vigorously. “You bet your patootie, mister! Call me Pinkie Quick! You must be Nightwing! I see you already met my friends! Oh boy! This is so exciting! I always like meeting new friends and my friends like it too! Ooh! I should throw a new-superfriends-party!” Her voice was going at a million miles an hour at this point, even faster than usual for Rarity, Spike, and the others.

Flash placed his hand on the pink-haired speedster’s shoulder, silently telling her to stop for now. There was a time and a place for everything, and this wasn’t it. She quietly obliged, but couldn’t stop herself from bouncing up and down excitedly. The Scarlet Speedster rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. “Heh… sorry. She gets like that,” he explained to Nightwing. “It’s a long story, but she told me what’s up. You guys need a hand?”

The dragon roared in rage again, stomping its massive feet as its prey managed to escape. Smoke began to billow and pool out of its mouth as it stared the united heroes down. They turned to face the beast stood their ground, staring right back at it.

“Uh… never mind. That answers my question.” Flash said quickly, getting into a running stance. Pinkie quickly did the same, only jogging in place instead.

The others readied themselves as well. Cyborg’s arm morphed into his signature sonic cannon. Beast Boy morphed back into the hulking gorilla from before and pounded his chest. Starfire hovered above them, her hands began to glow a piercing and brilliant green. Rainbow Dash stayed right next to her, wielding her mace in front of her as it crackled with electricity. Applejack crossed her forearms together, the golden bracers on her wrists glimmering with intensity as she brought her arms down into a fighting stance. Superboy was right beside her, his eyes glowing red hot as he stared down the monster. Rarity cracked her whip and Spike readied another arrow, this time with a new sense of bravery and resolve. Finally, front and center of the united groups was Nightwing, who smirked as he tossed one of his escrima sticks up high into the air and caught it, pointing it at the monster. With two simple words, he gave the command...

“TITANS, GO!”

The two groups charged forward together, with Nightwing, Rainbow Dash, and Starfire leading the charge before Pinkie and the Flash moved on ahead. Beast Boy leaped forward at the dragon, landing on one of its front legs and crawling all over its body to pound away at its scales and otherwise be a nuisance to it. Cyborg raised his arm cannon and fired a few pot shots at it while Starfire and Rainbow Dash took the air to keep it distracted. Starfire tossed a flurry of starbolts at the dragon’s face while Rainbow channeled lightning with her mace, which bounced off it and into the dragon’s large, bat-like wings.

Superboy and Applejack charged up to the beast and leapt high into the air, delivering a massive punch square into the dragon’s jaw. The dragon stumbled back and quickly regained its footing. It glared at the two smaller powerhouses and roared again, this time letting out a ferocious blast of fire from its mouth.The two managed to dodge out of the way, but the stream of fire now separated them. The fire quickly dissipated as Superboy simply blew the wall of flames out with his super breath. Superboy then got an idea.

“Hey!” He shouted to Applejack. “Put up your bracers!”

“Say that again, sugarcube!” She said, narrowly avoiding a stomp from the dragon.

“Just do it!” He said, his eyes glowing red like before.

“Gah! Okay! Okay! Ya don’t have ta get all angry eyes on me again!”

Applejack obliged and raised her bracers up, crossing her forearms together. A blast of heat vision came from Superboy’s eyes, the twin lasers finding their mark square in the center of AJ’s gold bracers, the beams reflecting straight up to the ceiling. AJ immediately got what Superboy was trying to say earlier and slowly guided the newly-focused beam with her bracelets. The lasers hit the dragon’s soft underbelly, causing it to screech in pain. It recoiled back and moved one of its forelegs to protect itself, shaking Beast Boy off in the process. He caught himself in the air by morphing into a hawk, and then landing back on the ground into a gigantic wooly mammoth. While it paled in comparison to the size of the dragon, it was still enough to pose a serious threat to the beast. Beast Boy charged forward, ramming straight into the creature’s underbelly, trumpeting and grunting as he tried to shove the monster back.

Spike let loose a series of quick explosive arrows as he stood back with Cyborg, helping him try to keep the monster distracted from the others trying to bring it down. Nightwing and Rarity ran ahead, trying to get closer to the dragon. “I don’t suppose you can try telling your friend to calm down before she wrecks the Watchtower?” Nightwing asked Rarity, sliding under an incoming swipe from one of the dragon’s clawed feet.

Rarity grunted as she did the same, leaping over it instead as they managed to get behind it, its tail thrashing wildly against the thick trees. “I would love to, darling, but it’s kind of hard when she suddenly feels attacked and scared like she is now!”

Nightwing scowled and rolled under a horizontal swipe of the dragon’s tail. “Hey, I was only doing my job! We had strict orders to bring you in! If you and your friends didn’t run off after attacking that Green Lantern, we wouldn’t be doing this right now!”

Rarity huffed and ran up a tree to avoid another tail thrashing, flipping around and landing back on her feet. “Can we please stop arguing about this already!? Just help me get onto her back! I have an idea!”

“Alright! Alright! Just get a running start! I’ll let you know when you have a free shot!”

Rarity nodded and stood back so she could wait for her opportunity. Nightwing, meanwhile, dodged another incoming tail swipe as he quickly formulated a plan. They weren’t going to get anywhere close with that tail thrashing around. They needed a diversion, something to keep the appendage still long enough so Rarity could use it to climb up the beast.

“Flash! I need you to run a distraction!” He ordered.

“On it, boss! Let’s go, Pinkie!”

Pinkie gave a salute with two fingers and zoomed off in a pink streak, Flash racing beside her in red. The streaks traveled in parallel with each other, agitating the dragon as it stomped its front legs furiously. The two speedsters dodged through its stomping with ease, Pinkie even taking a brief moment to stop and taunt the dragon by jogging in place.

“C’mon, Fluttershy! Don’t you recognize us?” She zoomed back to dodge an incoming claw swipe from her left. “We don’t want to hurt you!”

“I don’t think your friend is going to listen to reason when she’s like this!” Flash quickly said as he ran past Pinkie.

Pinkie just shrugged. “Eh, it was worth a shot.” She said before catching up to Flash in the blink of an eye.

“Whatever you two have in mind back there, guys, you better do it now!” Flash shouted to Nightwing, the dragon’s tail now no longer thrashing around like an angry serpent.

“On it, Flash,” Nightwing said, looking back to Rarity, who nodded at him. He nodded back and readied himself to boost her up the back of the beast.

“Only have one shot at this…” Rarity muttered as she got into a running start. She bolted into a sprint towards Nightwing, jumping up into his hands as the former Robin hoisted her up and over his back. Rarity launched herself from Nightwing’s boost, using it to jump up to his shoulders. She then reached down and quickly pulled out Nightwing’s escrima sticks, which were currently resting behind his shoulders. Before Nightwing could even register what she took, Rarity leaped up high to continue her journey onto the beast’s back.

“Pardon me, I need to borrow these!” She said quickly, her voice trailing off as she spun in mid-air.

He spun around, just now noticing he was missing his signature weapons. “H-hey! Those are… mine,” he stopped himself and smirked, shaking his head with his hands on his hips. “Well I’ll be…”

Rarity spun and flipped in the air, now in possession of Nightwing’s stun sticks. She managed to stick the landing, the sticks firmly in her hands. She stumbled a bit as the dragon swiped and stomped its front feet in a vain attempt to catch the speedsters distracting it. She maintained her footing as she kept herself low, moving carefully along the ridges of the dragon’s back. She eventually found herself at the very top of the beast’s back, now on its neck.

“I’m really sorry about this, darling.” She said as the electric batons crackled to life in her hands. Spinning them around, she quickly jammed them into the dragon’s neck, the electric charge intensifying as it penetrated its hardened scales and hitting its nerve center.

The dragon reeled back onto its hind legs and let out a shrill roar of pain as it felt the sudden electric shock. Its soft underbelly was now exposed to the other heroes, left vulnerable for them to subdue the beast.

They weren’t about to let this opportunity go to waste. AJ and Superboy charged ahead, punching the massive underbelly hard in the gut. The dragon stumbled backwards as a result, but still kept its footing. Starfire and Cyborg soon followed it up, the Tamaranian firing a stream of starbolt energy from her hands while Cyborg likewise fired stream of energy from his arm cannon. The two beams burned and seared the dragon’s underbelly as they traveled up together. Spike then let loose a series of explosive arrows, which flew up and went off in the monster’s face. It stumbled again and raised its front feet in a fruitless attempt to shield itself. The final blow came from Rainbow Dash, who flew straight up the beast’s exposed underbelly to meet it square in the eyes. She glared angrily at this monster that she happened to call a friend.

“I'm sorry about this,” she said, her mace crackling to life. “This is for your own good.”

With a mighty heave and yell, she clocked the dragon square in the jaw with her mace. The blow was strong enough to lift the dragon off its hind legs. The blow also sent Rarity flying off the dragon’s back. She cried for help as she fell, but her descent came to a sudden, and thankfully soft, stop. She opened her eyes to find she was caught in a spinning vortex of red and pink streaks. Flash and Pinkie were running around Rarity, using their energy to create an upward force of wind strong enough to catch her before she had even hit the ground. She came down daintily and the two speedsters stopped in front of her. She exchanged a relieved smile with them and watched as the dragon landed heavily on its side with a loud THUD! It keeled over in pain, but it wasn’t about to get up any time soon, rendered unconscious by the combined efforts of the Titans and their new allies.

“BOO-YAH!” Cyborg shouted as Rainbow Dash pumped her fist into the air.

“Yeah! That was awesome!” She cheered.

The two teams took the moment to revel in their victory, with Pinkie going to join them and jumping up and down excitedly. Rarity, however, was about to join them when she felt someone lightly tap her on the shoulder.

“Ahem,” Nightwing cleared his throat. Rarity blushed and quickly spun around to see his grinning face. “Those were some pretty crazy moves you did there.”

Rarity chuckled bashfully. “Heh… yes, I guess they were,” she said. She raised her eyebrows, just now remember she still had Nightwing’s escrima sticks. “Um… I believe these are yours.” She said, offering them back to him. Nightwing smiled and took them, placing them once more on his back. She watched as Nightwing then craned his neck to look at the defeated dragon. At first, Rarity raised an eyebrow at him, but turned around to see what he was looking at. Fluttershy was reverting back into her normal humanoid form, the monstrous reptilian shrinking and morphing back to their meek, shy friend. Nightwing went over to investigate her body, Rarity trailing behind him. Despite the damage she just took as a dragon, Fluttershy looked mostly unharmed. Though she was still unconscious.

“All the visible injuries she sustained when she was transformed are gone now.” Nightwing observed.

Rarity looked at him, confused. “Will she be all right?”

Nightwing chuckled. “Aside from nursing a headache even I don’t want to think about? Yeah, I think she’ll be fine,” he said. He looked back at their teams, still reveling in their victory.

“Come on,” he told her with a warm and inviting smile, not at all like the cold glare he gave her and the others just moments before. “Now that we’re done fighting each other, perhaps all our teams should talk.”

Author's Note:

Oh, it feels so good to be back! Hey guys! As promised in my most recent blog, here it is, the next exciting chapter of Among Gods! It's probably the longest one yet, too! The original Google Doc this was imported from was 12 whole pages! I'm actually really proud of how this one turned out, but I dunno. What do you guys think?

Anyway! Thanks again for being patient with me, guys. Again, I'm so incredibly sorry I went dark so suddenly and for so long. Normally, my hiatuses don't last this long. But that's what happens when your house floods and you need to renovate and rebuild everything, I guess.

Also, I've been messing around with different formatting for the chapters. I figured that Fimfic now allows readers to format chapters however they want, I'd go with a simpler paragraph formatting that works with it. I've also been working on re-editing previous chapters, but nothing too big. Just some slight changes to better explain what's going on so far. These edits will come sporadically, but they usually won't be too major unless I say otherwise. So feel free to tell me what you think about these changes!

Hope you guys enjoyed reading up to this point! Next time, as alliances start to forge, a new threat reveals itself and turns everything on its head!

- Grave

Comments

[Mr-Astounding]

okay, aside from the fact that I don't recall Black Canary (in any incarnation) ever owning a whip, this was actually done quite nicely...

[Grave_Mind]

7461012 That's because I took inspiration from both Canary and Catwoman for Black Rarity! Some characters have more than one inspiration for their visual look.

[FleetlordAvatar]

Nice to see this one again.

[Mr-Astounding]

7461019 fair enough

[King of Kings]

"Twilight... are we worthy to walk among gods?"
"I don't know, Fluttershy... but we can try to keep up with them."

Because, you know, they don't interact with gods on a regular basis. And they're definitely not friends with them! Nope!

[Grave_Mind]

7986443 That... wasn't how I wanted that quote to be interpreted, but okay.

[King of Kings]

7989077
First, just in case we understand each other here, my comment was sarcastic. Second: What other way of interpreting that quote is there?

[Grave_Mind]

7989243 Ah, right. To answer that second part, I put it in there for several reasons. For one, I thought the quote was a good way to set the tone for the story and to give the readers an idea of what to expect from it. Secondly, I wanted the quote to be interpreted that this is the biggest challenge our little ponies have ever faced. But now that I'm re-reading your previous comment, I actually stand corrected on what I said earlier. So... sorry. My bad.

Oh, and expect the next chapter soon. I just got finished moving back into my house after it flooded back in September. It's a long story and I'd rather not get into it, but I will be coming back to continue this.