Twilight the Campione

by ilbgar

Shiva

Twilight had flown from Italy to India, since there weren't any direct flights to Japan from her current location. Her plan had been to take a flight from India to Japan, but a storm had blown up all of a sudden, a very bad thunderstorm that left all flights cancelled until it blew off.

She suddenly felt rather strange, like she was itching for a fight. She tried to shake it off, but the feeling persisted. What was going on? It had to have something to do with her new status as a a Campione. She wasn't normally a violent person, and certainly not an adrenaline junkie.

She went outside for no real reason beyond wanting to make this surge of restlessness die down, and found a strange man waiting outside. He possessed the aura of a God, a garland of skulls, a third eye above and between the other two which was closed, a crescent earring, a skirt, was covered in ashes, an ax in his left hand, and a trident in his right. His skin was blue, his hair was molten gold and matted. This was obviously Shiva, the destroyer and/or transformer of the big three Hindu Gods. "Well crap. You're not here to kill me, are you Divine Shiva?" she asked, the honorific was so he wouldn't become angry at her for over-familiarity, rather than out of any personal reverence beyond the basic fact that this was a God. Although, being a Campione put her on relatively even footing compared to a regular person, or even a Divine Ancestor.

Divine Ancestors were basically fallen Gods that lost their memories and became the loving, willing brides of the ones that had defeated them, though they retained power far exceeding what a mortal mage could hope to achieve. They would live a great deal longer than a human, two to four times, depending much on the specific God, then recover a portion of their lost power, and their memories, upon death.

"Actually, yes. Whenever one of you Campione enter India, we lose a half dozen Gods, I'm here to prevent that and to take revenge for Sati and Parvati, whom are members of the fallen." Shiva said. Several ghostly soldiers began to form out of greyish mist, balls of fire were conjured, rain collected into spheres, snakes and vines slithered towards her, and the ax and trident transformed to become arrow-like. From what she knew of Shiva, Sati and Parvati were his lovers, so he was avenging his loves, and his fallen comrades, there was little to no chance of avoiding a fight.

What followed could only be described as chaos as the attacks were launched one at a time, only for Twilight to frantically teleport out of the way of each, before activating her Authority from Cronos. "Time is my dominion. Time marches ever onwards! The hands of time obey my will!" she called, using the power of her Authority to increase the speed at which her time moved by 25%, thus increasing her speed by the same amount from the perspective of anyone else. That gave her 40 minutes before her Authority ran out. She didn't want to take her chances with a God's magic, even with the Authority from Hecate that increased her Magic resistance. So far as she could tell, neither of the Authorities she usurped from Hecate caused any drain, and they hadn't required any reactivation after that first time.

"Your speed is impressive." Shiva said, reloading, for lack of a better word, his ax and trident each time he fired them like arrows, and a trifle concerned that none of his attacks were connecting. "Though I sense that the Authority you used is partially responsible. That teleportation spell is annoying as well." Shiva said calmly, increasing the intensity of his attack and adding small pillars of earth sprouting up at random intervals to the mix. Cows also began charging at her in a rage. This was going from ridiculous to just plain insane!

Shiva had a stupid number of Authorities, and since his comrades and lovers had been killed by Campione, he was not likely to listen if she tried to reason with him. She couldn't hope to outrun a God, who had centuries of experience, allies in the forms of worshipers and fellow Gods, and a far superior knowledge of the area, which left one option. She had to fight back. It took her about two seconds to run through this line of thought from her perspective.

She could create only rough, very rough, approximations of the force she was up against, but that was because she was overpowering spells to breaking point to come up against Authorities. She used fire to incinerate the plants, conjured weapons with magically enhanced strength and speed backing them against the soldiers, fireballs to cancel out the spheres of water by evaporating them, skewered the snakes, dodged the ax and trident, dodged the cows' charges, and smashed through the pillars of earth, which luckily were made only of soft clay that had been further softened by rainwater.

Unfortunately, Shiva retaliated with lightning striking at her, and fiercer winds hindering her. She managed to get past them, and began to pepper the God with spells just strong enough to hurt him, before using a more powerful one she was charging in-between the other lesser spells to seriously harm him.

Shiva began to grow angry. "You think to bring me down with mortal magic with a Campione's reserves and an unknown Authority backing it up? I will not fail my comrades from wounds like these!" he cried, his third eye opening, and reducing the spot of ground it looked at to ash.

"How many Authorities do you have?!" she asked. This was insane! She was lucky to doge all the projectiles so far, now she had to deal with an eye that reduced wherever it looked at to ash?! She had 17.5 minutes left, so she decided to increase the acceleration of time to double it's normal rate, reducing it to 8.75 minutes of remaining use by the normal perspective.

Shiva was unprepared for her sudden acceleration, and was unable to adequately defend for the first minute from her perspective. However, he adjusted after that, and she was forced to increase it to four times the normal flow of time, reducing her time from 8 minutes left to 4 minutes. She was simply too fast for him after that, and eventually she overpowered him, she immediately deactivated Temporal Manipulation to let it rest once she was sure Shiva was taken care of.

She gained a number of Authorities that she'd experiment with later, but then a strange man with long greasy black hair, and an overall lack of having kept up his appearance beyond being physically fit came into view. His presence was that of a God, but he had an overall evil feeling about him.

"Hey there. I was drawn to your conflict, and I can sense you're a good person, so I'm going to kill you." he said pleasantly. "I am Angra Mainyu, All the Worlds Evil." He waved his hand after that brief introduction, a wave of shadow emanated from it, she could tell simply from the feel of it's magic, that if that... evil so much as touched her, she'd die. Her instincts screaming the same thing was rather unnecessary. She sent several spells at him, but they corroded into nothingness upon impacting the wall of evil energy, and she had only 6 minutes left of use on Temporal Manipulation, which she'd taken advantage of the momentary distraction caused by flinging all those spells at him to reactivate her oldest Authority.

She tried using one of the new Authorities she'd gained to fire a slew of various weapons at him. Weapons of War, which allowed her to create and control instruments of war, on the condition that she could imagine every aspect of the particular object. Luckily, that was how conjuration worked beyond energy-to-matter conversion, so she had plenty of experience. However, only a few newly (and heavily) rusted and pitted versions made it through, and he dodged all but one which barely nicked him. She tried again with a whole battering ram, and got through with about twice the thickness of a normal staff, on the upside, it was much pointier now. She tried again with plants, fireballs, spheres of water, and lightning from the still-present storm thanks to her new Authorities, but he simply dissolved or rendered almost harmless everything she threw at him with the sheer evil he emanated. Simply being this close to it was making her feel sick.

She was running out of time as well, she was growing more precise with the new Authorities as she went, but she was also starting to feel the drain from all the magic she'd been using. Finally, she used a last ditch attack of all the previous attacks on him combined. She finally broke through his evil power, and dealt a lethal blow.

She didn't like the feeling as she got an Authority from him. When she got an Authority, it had a sensation based on the God she got it from. With Cronos, it was accepting, with Hecate, it was curious, with Shiva it was restless, but ultimately submitted. However, with Angra Mainyu, it felt horrible and disgusting, but eager at the same time. Once it passed, she resolved to test her new Authorities out as best she could while she waited for the storm to pass. She really wanted them entirely under her control.

She spent the next week figuring out the Authorities, and practicing with them. Shiva was God of many things besides destruction, and was closely associated with a number of other Gods to the point where they were synonymous for each other, so it really made sense for him to have such a ridiculous number of Authorities.

First was Weapons of War, which in theory would allow her to create and control enough armaments to equip an army, from swords and guns, to siege towers and tanks. Combined with her own skills in conjuration and levitation, she could be considered a literal army of one. In practice, however, she couldn't operate such an army to it's full extent for a very long period. She simply didn't have enough magic for such a large-scale conjuration, levitation, and of course, use of an Authority.

Second was Water's Master, which allowed her to control any freshwater nearby, unless it was already under the direct control of another being. It also passively allowed her to breath underwater, though this was only true if it was freshwater, likely because Shiva was a God of rivers, not oceans or water itself.

Third was Ghost Army. This one allowed her to call on those who had fallen in battle within a a mile radius of where she was standing. She didn't like this one because it felt disrespectful to the dead, and very close to necromancy. If it weren't for personal dislike, she could probably use Ghost Army and Weapons of War in tandem to increase their effectiveness.

Fourth was Flame Spirit. She had total control over flame, and could not be harmed by it unless the flame was unholy. However, this Authority did not grant the ability to conjure flames of a massive scale. Luckily she had mortal magic for that, and a conflagration conjured up by her and then controlled by the Authority would be devastating. Though since fire was completely indiscriminate in what it destroyed, she needed iron-control if she was planning to use it with any people nearby. It was theoretically possible to prevent the fire under her control from burning someone or something she didn't want it to burn, but she simply didn't have it mastered to that degree, nor did she have control that fine, a problem intrinsic to having a great deal of power.

Fifth was Mountain Builder, an Authority that allowed her to move the earth around her as she saw fit, but moving an area larger than a city block would be pushing it, though there didn't seem to be anything to limit the vertical movement. This seemed to mean she could in fact create a small mountain or trench, as she was not limited to upward movement. She seemed able to direct the earth as she saw fit as long as it was moving vertically at least slightly.

Sixth was Bountiful Harvest. This Authority allowed her to rapidly grow, and then control, plants. This only applied to plants that were edible apparently. Well, there were plenty of viny plants, and grass seemed to fall under it's jurisdiction, probably because of her being a pony in her home world. Most flowers as well, for a similar reason.

Next came Serpent Shepherd, which allowed her to make snakes do her bidding. It had the passive effect of making snakes more friendly towards her and those she considered allies, while making them more hostile than natural to those she had labeled enemies.

After that was Cattle Herd. She could use this Authority to alter the moods of herd animals by a degree at a time every ten seconds. She wasn't able to mind-control them, but she could manipulate them to a great degree. Though there was a certain icky feeling to manipulating herd animals as ponies were herd animals.

The last Authority she'd usurped from Shiva was Weather Manipulation. She could create or disperse storms, though it took a few minutes to build them up, and amplify or weaken individual factors of the storm system to the point of outright controlling it. Though that was not to say she could just whip up a hurricane whenever she felt like it. Those would be huge drains on her reserves, it was easier to dissipate them than to make them, although that would have long-term consequences to the environment and climate if used too frequently.

From Angra Mainyu, she obtained two Authorities. Endless Curses, and Tolerance. Endless Curses let her fire curses at an enemy or object that could cause anything from bad luck to pain. Unfortunately, channeling such concentrated evil caused painful backlash the moment she stopped using the Authority. She could also 'load' the curses onto an object, though the object would need to be of divine origin, or at least be magical. If it wasn't the object would begin to decay from the sheer evil it was being exposed to and imbued with.

Tolerance, on the other hand, raised her resistance to pain and curses, and appeared entirely passive. It seemed to be a good, if somewhat ironic, match for Endless Curses. She seemed to be getting a lot of passive Authorities, now that she thought about it. Perhaps her wishes to avoid conflict if possible affected the Authorities she'd gained.

Once she cleared the remnants of the storm away with Weather Manipulation, she took the first plane to Japan. Well, the trip was certainly eventful, but she was sure things would quiet down a bit when she managed to reach Japan.

Author's Note:

They won't.

Comments

[Trimontar]

will she ever get home
will update any stories

[Ebonysdagger]

Ooh, campione Twilight. I'm very interested.

[unknownwisdom]

Green Thumb sounds a bit silly i would recommend bountiful harvest instead

[ilbgar]

Hm, you're right. I'll fix that, I'll edit the descriptions of her new Authorites while I'm at it.

[Ze1a7in]

I'm sorry, but Shiva sounded broken AF!

[Spellflame]

So she is still a villain magnet?