Bab 78: Chapter Seventy-Eight: Sick
"You..." Thor growls. "What have you done!?"
"Wait..." Zia says as she thinks. "I thought gods were limited to their domains?"
"Yes, Thor. I thought gods were limited to their domains." Ares taunts as he looks at him and smiles. "Care to explain?"
"Thor... what is going on?" Athena asks.
Thor looks down in anger and guilt, trying to think of what to say next without losing control of his anger. "It's because he was never a god, isn't it?" Siran asks without taking his eyes off of Loki. Many of the crew turn and look at Thor as Siran says "He's just like me, isn't he? That's why Chronos had his eyes on him... He knew Loki wasn't limited as a god. He's a human given strength."
"Thor, say something!" Athena argues.
"... Ascended human." Thor says. "That's what father called it. Loki was given a piece of our father, Odin. With that given to his body, he was able to take on more and more endo as he slowly rose to the same level as a god. He was welcomed into our family, though he was just a human. A human who never aged. We raised him, to make him what he is. We are the ones who made up the story of Loki, to keep other gods from digging too deep into it."
"But he's not the level of a god..." Athena says in an annoyed tone. "He's worse! Much worse! What were you thinking!?"
"That's why I could never figure out what magics were in his domain!" Zia says. "At first I thought he used like... illusion magic and distortion magic. But the first time we met him, in the Philippines, he used shapeshifting magic! Didn't he!?"
"Aye, he did." Thor says. "A unique trait that very select few could ever grasp. Turns out he gained it as a byproduct of having been fused with the eye of Odin, after he sacrificed his eye for wisdom."
"Wisdom my ass, Thor!" Athena yells. "Do you have any idea what you and your stupid father have done!? People tell rumors that he's supposed to be all knowing, but the more I learn about him, the more I find out he's just a gambling man with a few lucky guesses!"
"Yes, yes..." Ares says with pity in his tone. "The great Odin never was all knowing. Just overreaching. Loki was never a god, but a human who is way past his time. And just like any human, he is filled with deep regrets of having stayed around this long. Right, Ishmael?"
"Kiss my ass!" Siran growls.
"But of course, his anger and regrets is how we got control over his mind!" Ares taunts. "So long as they accept an idea or emotion I try to plant in one's mind... using my mind control domain, I can control how strongly they feel about that thought and when. Using the shards of Chronos, I can keep dumping magic into their minds, until I'm able to erase all thoughts except the one's I wanted them to feel. When their minds become empty, it's but a simple task to fill it with new ideas. Truly, a long process. But, the end result is like watching a complex prank unfold. I always get a kick out of it. Especially, this one. You see, we already knew how out of touch your father was. With his son having been revealed just mere days ago as our captive, where do you think that lousy, self centered rat is now?"
"No..." Thor says. "You didn't."
"But we did!" Ares says. "You see, you kill one of mine... I'm killing one of yours. We leaked information to your brothers, whom we know took it directly to Odin. With all the things just out of reach for him, the poor adoptive father figure must be rushing as fast as he can over to his black sheep of a bastard child. Any moment now, he'll be here."
"What are you planning!?" Athena asks.
"Don't play dumb with me." Ares replies. "You already know. Instead of asking questions, why don't you make yourselves useful and try to stop me, if you think you can. I'd love to see you try."
Immediately, Thor rushes forward to attack Ares. "Thor, no!" Athena yells as she chases after him. "Siran! Take care of Loki for us! Kill him if you have to, but don't let Ares kill Odin!"
"Don't kill Loki!" Thor yells as he tries to throw his hammer at Ares. "I'll never forgive you!"
"Thor! You're not thinking straight! That's not Loki anymore!" Athena argues.
Siran gets back into a fighting stance as Loki stretches and pops his neck. Remaining emotionless still, Loki gets into a fighting stance as well. "Zia, get the kids out of here." Siran says calmly. "Silas, I'm leaving it up to you and the rest to make sure nothing happens to HQ. I want all of those who are still injured to get to safety now. I'll be right there with you soon." Zia hesitates for a moment, then Siran says "I promise. It won't be long."
"It better not take long..." Zia says, then leaves.
Siran runs towards Loki, and Loki causes several small rock pillars to shoot up at an angle towards Siran as he runs forward. Siran puts his foot on one and leaps over it, lands on another one and jumps off as he gets close to Loki. Siran clasps both his hands together as he comes down towards Loki as if to use his hands like a hammer. Suddenly, another pillar shoots up from below Siran as he was falling and unable to dodge. Siran slams his fist against the pillar and completely shatters it with an explosive force. As Siran finally lands on the ground, Loki gets his distance and throws a wall of fire at Siran. Siran jumps to his left to dodge and the wall of fire curves and creates a large circle around the two of them. Loki creates two pillars that shoot up directly in front of himself and slams them together. As Siran ran towards Loki, Loki uses a debuff field while hiding behind the stone wall and throws punches rapidly at the rock. Each punch sent a large rock out of the wall, flying at an incredible speed at Siran like a huge bullet. Siran kept running around the inner perimeter of the flaming circle, trying to keep up his speed to dodge the rocks as he closes the distance between the two of them. As Siran finally gets close, Loki digs his fingers into what's left of the rock wall and pulls out a rock shaped like a long and sharp sword, covered in armament magic. Siran leapt at Loki with his fists covered in reactive endo, and Loki slashed horizontally at Siran's midsection. Using incredible speed, Siran threw up several digital shields layered on top of each other to act like a multi-layered shield, which slowed down Loki's sword by just enough for Siran to roll and flip over the blade. Just as Siran threw a punch at Loki, Loki used distortion magic with a backhanded slap and the pressure from the distortion spell caused Siran to collapse and slam into the ground. As Siran's head hit the ground, Loki kicked with his left foot and a distortion spell hits Siran in the nose at the same time a much smaller stone pillar shoots up at an angle and hits Siran in the chin. Siran tumbles towards the flaming wall and the fire suddenly intensifies in anticipation of swallowing up Siran. Siran stops himself from tumbling into the fire by digging his fingers into the rocky ground. With his fingers still stuck in the rocks, he used elemental magic as he seemingly lifted a large chunk of the ground in front of his, pulling the ground out from under Loki's feet as he stands. Loki jumps back onto stable ground dodges just in time for Siran's magic missile spell. The magic missile spells barely missed Loki's face and flies behind him, but suddenly turns around to face Loki. Loki appears behind Siran in a flash and goes for a punch on Siran's back. Siran turns around to elbow Loki, but Loki withdraws his fist and steps backward as he feints his attack. Now the magic missile attack was aimed at the back of Siran's head. Siran throws a distortion punch with his right hand aimed at Loki and Loki braces with his forearms to protect himself, but the force from the punch never hits him. Instead, the magic missile appears out of the distortion spell from Siran's right hand, gaining power and reactive endo as it passes, and slams into Loki's arms. Siran had used his left hand to catch to spell he threw and feinted a punch to catch Loki off-guard. Loki skid across the rocky ground from the force of the attack but rolls backwards and gets back on his feet again. "Not bad..." Siran says, then picks up the sword Loki dropped. "But I'm not going to let this keep going on forever." The blade lights up with reactive endo as Siran stands in a pose with his right hand holding the sword in front of him and his left hand behind his back as he hides small claws made of reactive endo on each of his fingers on his left hand.
Thor and Athena keep trying to alternate attacks on Ares, but he easily parries each and every attack that comes his way. Athena and Thor form a plan to attack at the same time from opposite sides of Ares, but Ares stops their advance by grabbing Athena by the face and slamming her chin into the rocky ground with an explosive force. At the same time, Ares kicks backwards without looking, stopping Thor and all of his force he charged with using only one foot. Dazed and confused from the kick to the face, Thor was unable to stop Ares from wrapping his left around his neck and sit on top of Thor, choking him. Ares makes a short dagger out of fire and rock and aims it down at Thor's face. Just as he was about to thrust downward, a shield was thrown at Ares's hand and caused the dagger to fly out of his hand. The shield bounces off of his hand, then a tree and returns to Athena. Unamused, Ares stands up, makes the ground shoot up from under Thor to raise him to waist height, and kicks Thor into a tree with a powerful wind spell. Athena charges Ares with buff magic and her bare hands. When Athena throws her left hook, Ares grabs it and stops her from moving her arm. Then Athena throws a right jab and Ares grabs that too. Ares smiles and jumps up, planting his feet into Athena's stomach as a pillar shoots up from under Athena and a powerful wind spell comes from Ares's feet and shoots Athena into a tree in the opposite direction as Thor. "You're not getting it." Ares says with a laugh. "You and I were never equals. Especially after now, that I have acquired the shards of Chronos even from Dolos. Just save yourself the energy and surrender. You're going to need that energy and unbroken will to cry when you watch Odin die. Unless, of course... your will is already broken..." Suddenly, Thor rushes from behind with his hammer and a cackling roar of force coming from the hammer. Ares Throws his left arm outwards to the left as if to gesture his hand simply to the side and a powerful wall of wind redirected Thor in mid-flight. Thor slammed into another tree as a boom went off from his hammer destroying several trees around him. As Ares began to lightly chuckle, he felt a powerful presence as a large portal began to open behind him. Ares slowly turned around with a smile on his face as he watch this portal slowly grow in size, in anticipation of what was to come next.
Siran ran towards Loki with the sword, slashing at Loki a few times, causing Loki to keep backing up. After Loki got much further back, Siran throws the sword at an incredible speed and Loki shatters it with a reactive endo knife he made. This time, Loki ran towards Siran with his reactive endo dagger as Siran created a large portal-like distortion wall. Before Loki was close enough, Siran revealed his left hand and swiped the direction Loki was. Siran swiped just a little to the right of the distortion and caused Loki to jump to the side as he dodged. Siran used his right hand and grabbed Loki's left wrist, yanking it harshly as he slashed at the distortion. The distortion crackled and lit up as it created a rift-like theist gate that Siran tried to yank Loki into. Loki resisted with an immense buff spell and Siran knew he wouldn't be able to pull Loki through. So he did the next best thing he could think of, and yanked his left arm through the edge of the portal and caused the portal to violently close on his arm, almost up to the shoulder and it cleanly dismembered Loki's arm. Loki jumped back and ran backwards while keeping his eyes on Siran. Siran stood still and raised Loki's arm as if to inspect it, while Loki used elemental magic to sear the skin and reduce the bleeding. Loki let out a beast-like howl as the fire wall slowly vanished as he almost fainted. The howl was met with another loud sound, which was Odin himself appearing through the portal.
Just as Odin stepped foot on earth in his giant form, Athena and Thor saw their chance and tackled Ares to the ground. "Ares, god of war, you have much to answer for!" Odin says as he looks down at them. "Where is my son!?"
Ares could only respond as he started laughing. "What son?" Ares asks. "The Loki you're looking for is no more. What's left of him is an unsalvageable and insatiable killing machine. Just look at him yourself.
Suddenly, Athena, Thor and Odin look off to the side as Loki suddenly appears below Odin, looking down at Ares as well. Without even facing Odin, looking at Thor or acknowledging Athena, Loki was back on his feet in front of Ares. The rest of them noticed Loki was missing an arm, but it seemed to have already stopped bothering him. "Loki!" Thor calls out. "This isn't you! Come to your senses! I know you can do it! You're a fighter! you've always been a strong man.
Loki silently raises his right arm as if to point it at Odin. Ares smiles and yells the words "Do it!" while laughing. Loki lowers his arm and a bright flash of white light flickers for a moment as a line passes across Odin's neck. There was less than a second of stillness that felt like minutes as everyone stood in shock, waiting and watching. Then, Odin's head falls off of his dead body and slams into the ground as Ares began laughing louder.
"No!" Thor yells as he releases Ares and rushes to his dead father, Loki standing still and showing no emotion still. "No! Father! No!!"
"You can leave now..." Ares says to Athena before he backhands her again. Ares stands up, then says "Foxhound, come. Our mission is complete. We got what we came here for..."
"You!!!" Thor yells, tears in his eyes and rolling down his face. Thor rushes at Ares, but the two of them vanish again through another portal. Thor tumbles through the smoke-like endo as the portal rapidly fades and falls to the ground on his hands and knees. He begins pounding his fists on the ground over and over as he keeps yelling the word "No!!" over and over.
Siran rushes to the scene, feeling fatigued from the fight, taking deep breaths. "Dammit!" Siran yells. Siran throws the dismembered arm on the ground in front of Athena who sat on the ground in shock. Siran's shapeshift spell fades as he returns to his real appearance he was cursed with long ago. "We couldn't stop him!"
"Siran..." Athena says calmly. "Get out of here."
"But-" Siran says, looking at Thor.
"Leave. Now." Athena argues. "The moment Thor gets back up... I'm not sure I can hold him back from rampaging. I'm going to return to Valhalla with Thor and the body... just... get out of here, please."
"I'm... sorry." Siran says.
"Yeah..." Athena says as she slowly looks at Siran. "I know. Thank you..."
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone