Chaotic Harmony: Do Over

by shirotora

Chapter 45: Cat Fight!

"What do you mean 'it's too late'?" Blue Moon demanded.

Most opponents, he wouldn't give such a declaration a second thought. However, most opponents couldn't see the future. Then there was the massive, multi-color bolt of lightning frozen in air that appeared as soon as she made her declaration.

With his mind returning, he had to wonder if not accepting her offer to retreat might have been foolish. It was clear she knew something he didn't.

He was answered not by Fluttershy, but a deep, powerful voice. "She means, I do not hold the same mercy in my heart as she."

Blue moon turned to see an imposing figure perched upon a boulder, glaring down at him. At first, Blue thought it was a dragon, but upon closer inspection he noticed a mane trailing down his neck and back instead of spines. He also had a more equine snout.

"Dragony are a rare sight, much less two. I take it you're her mate?" Blue Moon guessed.

Fluttershy giggled. "No, he just stayed in one of my birdhouses for a while."

Blue Moon growled. "It doesn't matter. My mind is clear again, and you face a trained and seasoned warrior wielding a divine element."

Jetaga laughed. "You think yourself seasoned? Come, pup, let me show you what that really means."

---

"You guys get out of here. You did enough," I said to the others. "I can take this guy."

"Sh-Shiro... you... I can feel it," Twilight struggled to speak.

"Yeah. Now go on. We'll talk later."

Twilight looked at me, then back at Verin. "Okay. We're counting on you. Let's go."

As they retreated, Verin glared at me. "You're supposed to be dead."

I shrugged. "And you're supposed to be in Tartarus. Guess it's a tigerian thing."

He growled. "You are no tigerian. You are a copy, a replica, a pale imitation. You could never be our equal."

"You're right. We aren't equals. Ah'm version two-point-oh, the natural evolution of the old, outdated, beta version that is you."

My taunting worked, driving him to launch a less than measured attack. It was still precise and deadly, but less than it would have been. Before, it would have been enough to skewer me. After a month of training under a god, though...

I parried the strike and countered. His other arm morphed into a shield and tried to block but a divine element isn't that easy to stop. My blade bit into his hardened flesh a bit, forcing a pained grunt from him. There was little blood, though, meaning it didn't do much actual damage. Still, it was a blow, and not just a physical one.

He pulled away, more defensive than before. He expanded the shield, too, clearly not wanting to underestimate me again.

I thrust at his thigh. When he moved his shield to intercept, spun the weapon, aiming the smaller end at his skull. He raised his blade arm to parry and our weapons clashed. He pivoted to the side and elbowed me in the side of the head, knocking me back a bit, and followed up with a kick to my stomach. I managed to deflect the follow up slice to the neck and knee him in the liver.

Unfortunately, he used the blow to leap away, bleeding away some of the impact. I took a step to pursue, but he whipped his paw forward and launched a trio of hardened spikes at me. This forced me to cancel my charge and dodge to the side. His plan was, apparently, to keep a distance and pelt me with ranged attacks.

"I know all your tricks," Verin taunted. "You rely on tools and trinkets. While you do seem to have improved in melee, you can't simply learn magic you don't have. All I have to do is keep a distance and wear you down."

I smirked. Normally, he would be right. One can not simply learn a magic they have no physical capacity to learn without some form of outside focus. My thaumaturgy uses the reagents and spell paper packets, and summoning uses summoning circles, for example.

However, what he didn’t know was that there was something quite different about me. I didn’t return the same as I was. I returned with more than I left with. That was fine, though. I would teach him.

From deep within, I drew power from Thor’s gift. I threw my paw forward and a bolt of rainbow lightning launched forth, streaking through the air.

Verin tried to move, but outrunning lightning is not an easy feat. The bolt hit his side and arm, sending him twisting to the ground. Though, like a real warrior, he quickly righted himself to one knee.

"You're startin' to get it, aren't you?" I asked. "Ah was dead. Now Ah'm not. How do you think that is?"

Verin's eyes widened as he realized exactly who and what he had been fighting.

---

Blue Moon struggled to keep his rage under control. He was a veteran warrior that fought in dozens of battles. He wielded a divine element. He was feared.

Yet this upstart was bent on humiliating him.

Blue unleashed a lightning fast series of thrusts. Instead of getting skewered like most other unarmed opponents, future seeing bitches not excluded, he ducked, dodged, and weaved between each one.

He sent his chain at the dragony, but the dragony leaped away, exhaling a ball of fire at Blue Moon. Could this one see the future, too? That had to be it. But Blue thought only sundragons could do that. He was obviously no sun dragon.

"What kind of magic are you using?" Blue Moon growled.

"I have no talent for magic," Jetaga replied.

"Liar. There's no way you could avoid every one of my attacks without magic!"

Jetaga laughed. "You greatly overestimate yourself. I'm sure in this time of peace you are quite accomplished. However, there are two reasons you can not harm me. The first is simply that you are too inexperienced. You have, what, twenty years of battle? I have nearly eight hundred."

Blue moon growled again. "Another lie. Your kind may live longer than ponies, but not that long."

Jetaga gave him a predatory grin. "I never said I was alive for all of it. The last seven hundred years have been in service to the gods after I was betrayed and murdered."

Blue Moon snarled, "Enough of your lies!"

He launched a wild thrust, full of rage and malice. A sadistic smirk crossed his face as he watched his enemy stand there, not even attempting to move as his blade struck home directly on the dragon pony's chest... and stopped.

Blue stared, dumbfounded, at the spot his blade pressed harmlessly against his foe. "Wh... what? How?!"

"The second reason you can not win," Jetaga leveled a gaze that could chill a volcano. "A divine element can not harm its master."

Blue Moon struck again, with the same result. The blade that could slice through a tree trunk bounced harmlessly off his hide. "What? How? I'm this weapon's master!"

"You didn't win it in a duel, did you?" Jetaga asked.

"What? What does that matter?!"

Jetaga grinned. "Ares' Armory will only accept one as its master who won it in a duel. If you receive it any other way, it will only grant a portion of its power until it's taken from you in a duel."

Blue Moon was starting to panic. "But... you haven't won it! This fight isn't over!"

"Oh, but I did. Seven hundred and thirty years ago. And it was taken through trickery." Jetaga laughed. "Imagine my surprise when, by fate or happenstance, I see you wielding my sword. Of course, I didn't even realize it still saw me as its master until that last chain attack. That was when I felt it."

"You're lying!"

"Really?" Jet asked with a wicked grin before raising his claw. In a flash of light, Blue Moon's paw was empty and his weapon was being held by Jetaga.

Jataga looked down at the sword and said, "Hello, my old friend. It seems we will get to fight together again. We shall win great glory, as our foe is none other than Kronos, himself. What say you?"

As if in response, the sword shifted into a wicked scimitar and the chain began whipping around wildly.

He chuckled. "I knew you'd like that. But first, shall we teach this upstart the folly of treating such a powerful ally as nothing but a common weapon?"

Blue Moon was too stunned to reply. Everything had so completely come crashing down around him.

"Let us show him your true power, if you would still lend it to me." Jetaga held the blade up and called out, "Cry havoc! And let slip the dogs of war!"

Blue Moon watched, frozen in shock and fear as the blade of the sword lengthened. The chain split into a dozen with long, three inch spikes on each link. As if that wasn't enough, the entire thing was suddenly engulfed in flames, a towering inferno from the blade and twelve chains orbiting around him like buzz saws from hell.

He leveled the sword at Blue Moon. The werewolf readied himself to flee, but was caught short as a searing pain lanced through his calf, dropping him to his knee. To his left, what looked like a summoning circle made of pure magic floated beside him, a spear halfway out and through his leg.

He noticed another light to his right too late to move as a sword blade shot from another circle and into his shoulder.

"Do you see your mistake?" Jetaga asked. "You treated it as if it were a mere sword. Ares' Armory, though, isn't a sword. It's all swords. It's all spears. It's all axes, polearms, and daggers. Every melee weapon that has ever existed, exists within Ares' Armory. The blade is not the element. It's merely the key and conduit. Perhaps after your soul has been purified and reborn, something of this lesson will stay with you... though I doubt that."

Blue Moon could only watch as a dozen more circles appeared around him.

---

"I see," Verin said. "So, the false gods have chosen their herald. No matter. None can stop my lord's return. The seal has been damaged and soon it shall break. There is no stopping it. Even should I fall, my brothers and sisters shall avenge me."

"Then they'll fall, too," I said. "Let's finish this. Ah have a wife and two sons Ah need to reunite with."

I raised my hand and tugged upon that sliver of Thor within me. A rainbow bolt crashed down upon me, flooding me with power. The lightning wrapped around me like ribbons, covering my body and limbs before solidifying into a suit of electric armor.

Verin growled. "Very well. Nothing more held back. We unleash everything."

His body rippled before it practically exploded with hardened spines and plates all over. Every inch of him seemed to harden, growing slightly, with spines and sharp edges all over, but none that would hinder his movement. His claws lengthened to easily a foot long, each.

He kinda looked like a miniature kaiju.

He leaped at me, far faster than anything he had demonstrated before. It would have been too much for me, before. Now, though...

This armor wasn't just armor. It was the manifestation of Thor’s power acting through me. The shard of Thor’s soul within me let me channel his power. However, a mortal channeling a god's power is dangerous. A mortal can't handle even a portion of it for long before it overwhelms them. Thus, there are limiters put in place. However, those limiters can be turned off for a short time, granting the herald speed, strength, and magical power far exceeding what they would have normally.

Thus, when Verin's claw would have bisected me, instead it found empty air. I leaped to the side and launched a counter attack.

I swept my blade at his neck, but he seemed to get faster, too. He quickly interposed his arm between himself and my blade. My weapon dug into his arm, but not as much as the first time. It didn't even draw blood.

He grabbed the shaft of Gaea's Thorn and tried to yank it from my grasp. I refused to let go, though, so he flung both it and me into the air. He clearly intended for me to be helpless as I tumbled back down.

I focused on my power, drawing it into a divine bolt of lightning and, with a grunt of effort, hurled it at Verin.

Just as he began to leap back, the flow of time seemed to slow. My body broke down, losing coherence as it melded into the lightning. My senses remained, despite having no eyes or ears, I watched my foe as I traveled with the lightning. His eyes squinted, not able to see what happened through the light. When the bolt struck the ground at his feet, the world accelerated as my corporeal form reconstituted directly beneath him. His gaze only just started to move as I thrust with all my might at his exposed chest.

He barely reached my weapon before it hit him. Unfortunately, all he could do was push it a little lower.

Instead of ending him quickly with a punctured heart, I speared him straight through the gut and out his back.

I didn't stop there, though. I charged ahead, him still impaled, and pinned him to the remains of Twilight’s library.

Verin shrunk, his empowered form vanishing as his life ebbed away.

"You... have not won," he said, coughing up blood. "I will not... be the last... but I am certainly the weakest... I am... the most expendable... and gladly give my life... for our... God."

His self-righteous glare never faded, even as his life did.

I let out a sigh as I let my power fade and shed my divine armor like a bolt of lightning going in reverse, back into the sky. My first real battle against Kronos' forces was over.

I just had one last-

"Dad!" A cry interrupted my thoughts as I was bowled over by a big blue projectile.

Comments

[Fireeaters]

"Thunderstruck" lmao

[ShadowSpectrumSwordtails]

Will Shirotora be ready for his greatest challenge? Oh I’m not talking about Kronos, I’m talking about facing down his wife for making her think he was gone for good. She is going to throttle him.