บท 37: The Thief At Last
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Now, Read on! Two Chapters today. This is the first. Refresh if you can't see the second one!
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Since time was of the essence, I left for Europe as soon as I was ready, which meant the day after my talk with Narada. Since he only told me that the troubles whatever they are, were mostly focused on the Celtic Gods, and only a bit on the Aesir, I decided to start from the North this time.
Only this time, I focused more on playing detective, than laying with Gods.
For the first few weeks, I got only disappointment in return for my efforts. Today however, Lady Luck shined on me.
I was still in the north of the Celtic regions, which will be known as Scotland in the future, when I used my superior Detective skill to spy something.
A fire. A big ass fire, that was burning a big part of the bar, which was to be my next destination.
"What the fuck happened here?" I mumble to myself, and immediately summon a rain storm to snuff out the fire.
Unfortunately, no one was alive. There were 13 people inside the bar, all mortal. Two of them were stabbed in the heart, while one was decapitated. The rest, were killed in a more gruesome manner, with their limbs thrown in different directions.
Touching the body of the decapitated mortal with the palm of my hand, I whisper, "Tempus Mortum." And focus on my magic to cast the spell. Scathach had some really good spells, funnily enough. One of them, being the Time of Death spell.
It does as advertised, and I immediately understand that the man was killed 20 minutes ago. So not that long has passed, the attacker could still be here. Brandishing my sword, I walk outside, staying vigilant.
Behind the bar, was a whole different story. I can see that there were signs of battle everywhere. A few craters made by something sharp being hit on the ground, by someone at least as strong as me, trees cut down, and some charred pieces of land, as if a grenade was thrown there.
And lying in one such crater, was a Goddess. And by the Queen, even in an injured state, she was one of the prettiest women I've seen in my life.
As I take a step forward, to try and heal her, something in me screams to jump. So, trusting my instincts, I jump immediately, and fly up. As soon as I get about 5 meters above the land, I see, and feel an explosion occurring in my previous spot.
"BOOOOM!" The explosion sounds, as I see a heatwave approaching.
As the heat of the explosion passes me by, I feel the magic within it, and frown. That's.. not good. That explosion wouldn't have killed me, but it would have burnt my skin if hit directly. I'll have to rely on my senses to defend myself.
Barely a second after the explosion, I hear the clicking of the tongue, of my hidden enemy, and again, I'm forced to fly away.
This time, though, the I clearly recognise the explosive device as an arrow. And now that I've seen it, I can guess where it came from.
As soon as the second arrow explodes in my original location, without touching anything but air, I summon lightning from within myself, to my hands, and fire it at the most probable location, based on the speed, and angle of the flying arrow.
"BOOM!" my lightning crashes into a tree, and explodes, turning the tree completely to ash, and frying a few neighbouring trees with it.
While my aim proved true, the enemy managed to jump away in time, and land in the clearing, closer to the beautiful unconscious Goddess than I was.
But now, at least he's visible. My attacker was a tall figure, about 7 feet tall, and as wide as Thor. But, just by looking at him, I could tell that he isn't as strong as Thor.
He was also fairly ugly, with some scars, and I don't recognize him from anywhere, not even my visions. But, I do recognize his clothes, which were Celtic in style, a bit similar to the traditional clothes that Scathach wore, once or twice.
But, what caught my eye, wasn't his facial scars, or his choice of clothing. It was what he was wielding.
In his hand, was the bow I've been looking for, and boy, do I recognize it. The Pinaka.
Recognizing this person as the Divine thief, I frown, and look at his back, where I could see two swords, which I don't recognize, but realize that they must be the swords of the two War Gods, the Olympian Ares, and the Celtic Neit.
No wonder the Celts refused to share any information, the thief was one of them!
As I observed him, he too observes me, and I can feel his greedy eyes pause on my mother's swords.
"Another Olympian, eh?" the thief says, licking his upper lip with his tongue, while his eyes were still glued to the swords.
Well, at least the bait worked. He thinks I'm an Olympian, and he's now going to try and get my swords.
Bringing the second sword to my hand, I ask, "And who are you supposed to be?"
The thief chuckles, and lifts the bow up. He says, "Doesn't matter, Godling. You're going to die anyway."
And with that, he pulls the empty bowstring back, which somehow conjures three arrows right on the string, and lets loose.
Knowing the time for talking is over, I fire my Lightning through two swords, destroying two arrows before they can reach me. The third, however, was still in the air, and flying towards me, fast.
Just like before, I jump up, and watch the arrow explode underneath me. The thief wasn't idle, however, and I see 2 more arrows strike the ground at the exact location, fired before I was flying.
As I look at him, he lets three more arrows loose, and I frown in annoyance. While he wasn't hitting me, he was keeping me away from himself, and probably hoping to tire me out first.
Flying at the speed of sound, I dodge the arrows. Surprisingly, this time, the arrows change their direction, and spin around to follow me once again.
Damn it. Homing arrows? Really?
Not wanting to waste any time, I allow the arrows to come close. As soon as they're just a couple feet away, I summon an illusion of myself, turn Invisible, and using my Lightning, activate the exploding arrows, allowing it to swallow my illusion.
As they explode in front of me, I immediately fly towards the thief, who was carelessly walking towards the downed Goddess, dismissing me as either dead, or dying.
Since he wasn't expecting me, I manage to land a surprise attack on the back of his head, making him drop to a knee. As I land a foot away from him, I turn back, and land a damn powerful spinning kick on the elbow of his right hand, which was holding the bow.
His grip proves strong however, and he doesn't let the bow go. Instead, he pulls a sword with his left hand, and swings it towards me, while jumping back.
I jump back, dodging the swipe of the Adamantine sword of Ares, and land extremely close to the Goddess, who had stayed unconscious even during our extremely loud fight.
Meanwhile, the thief lands about 15 meters away from me, holding his right elbow with his left hand, the sword back in it's scabbard.
Scowling, he asks, "How did you survive the explosion? You shouldn't have!"
I just shrug, and say, "Maybe the weapon you're wielding does not accept you as it's true master, and hence is weaker than you'd expected."
He flinches, realizing that it might be true. Damn, that's gotta be the most ridiculous bullshit that I managed to convince someone of.
No time to celebrate. As his elbow heals in front of me eyes, telling me that he was truly a God, I jump towards him, getting close, and start swinging my sword.
The first swipe, the thief blocks with his stolen bow. Unfortunately, that proves to be a bad idea, as he's not the actual owner of the weapon, while my weapons are my mother's. My bullshit does have a bit of truth behind it.
The bow cracks a bit, although not too much, and the thief jumps backwards again. As I jump right in front of him, he fixes the bow to his shoulder, and manages to bring the swords to block my attack, by making a cross with his swords.
Spinning his swords, he pushes both my swords away from my body, and kicks me in the chest, hard, throwing me away.
"Ouch!" I whisper, feeling the pain of being kicked. He's still weaker than Satannish, but a bit superior to me in strength. Looking at the still unconscious Goddess, I mumble, "Gee, you'll sleep through anything, won't you?"
The reason? When the thief had kicked me, I had dropped literally a foot away from the Goddess.
Getting up, I dust myself off, as the thief looks on. He says, "You. You're good. You also fight like her. I will have the name of the God who managed to stall me, before I kill you."
"Her?" I ask instead, getting a bit curious.
"Yes. Her! The bitch Scathach! You fight like her, and I'm already looking for her. It seems I will have to start with her student instead." The thief says, still staying in his spot.
He's after Scathach? What for? Her staff? That's probably that. But his anger looks more than just greed. It's personal for him, this hunt for Scathach. He knows her, that's for sure. They're from the same Pantheon. Maybe she did something to him.
Getting out of my musing, I answer, "What's the use of introducing myself to someone, if he's going to die anyway."
While I meant the thief is going to die, the thief thinks the same about me, and snarls, "And I will gladly ensure your death, Godling!"
As he starts running towards me, I kick the Goddess away, and block his first downward swipe, with my left sword. Inclining it downwards, I let the attack slip by, and stab the right sword forwards.
He uses his own second sword to divert my sword, and does something that surprises me. He does the move that Scathach taught me. Using both his swords, he cuts me into my right hand's knuckles, and throws mother's sword away from me. As I'm shocked, the thief manages to land one knee on my face, before I regain my composure and block the next one with my now empty hand, and kick him away from me.
Seeing my shocked look, he says, "You're not the only one Scathach taught her moves to, brat. I Learned swordsmanship from her, before you were even born!"
Well, this just makes this that much harder. He's older than me, stronger than me. And he's also taught by Scathach. And he has the weapons of two War Gods, which do Queen knows what.
But, I'm not defenceless yet.
It would have been a lot harder, if I didn't have my Magic. And he's hunting for Scathach, hoping to either kill her, or steal her weapon. Both of which, I can't allow. Can't forget my quest to recover those weapons either.
Waving my hand, I summon mother's sword back into my hand and place them both in their scabbards. Wiping the blood away from my now healed nose, -and why does everyone target my bloody nose?- I gather my magic within me, ready to cast spells at a moment's notice.
"Quitting so soon? I haven't even begun having fun yet." The thief taunts, and starts walking towards me.
As soon as he takes the third step towards me, I tap my right foot lightly on the ground, discharging some of my magic, and creating a local earthquake. As he stumbles, loosing his footing, two spikes made of Earth shoot out of the ground, aiming for his chest.
The thief manages to use his swords to destroy both of them. Unfortunately, he does not see a third a blunt pillar forming right underneath the two. It hits him right in the head, sending it back.
As he grimaces in pain, dazed by the hit another spike emerges, and stabs him in the back of his knee, dropping him down.
"AAAARHGGHH!!" The thief yells in pain, and stabs the sword in the spike, destroying it.
He gets up, slowly healing, and glares at me. Glaring back, I spread my hands around me, summoning a thunderstorm above us, and create a few more spikes, of Earth and Wood, that start trying to stab him.
This time though, he neatly dodges them, and those he can't dodge, he destroys with the swords.
As he destroys the umpteenth pillar of Earth, and cuts another wooden spike, he puts the swords in front of him, crossing them. As soon as he does so, a Lightning blast lands down from the sky, right on to the swords.
Fortunately, for him, the swords are Divine, so he does not get the full blunt of the Lightning attack. Unfortunately for him, the swords are still metal, and now he has twitching hands, thanks to the high current he just got shocked with.
As I prepare another attack, he suddenly pulls out a head mask from somewhere, and puts it on. He yells, "You will pay for this, Olympian! Remember these words!" and then disappears.
I try and cast detection spells, but nothing turns up. Not even my Earthly senses work right now, in finding him. Damn it!
I should have kept an eye out for the Third Eye!
Using Echolocation, I check to see if the thief is anywhere close to me. Scanning for a few hundred miles, I sigh in relief, not finding him anywhere, and approach the location I threw the Goddess in.
Could I detect the thief with Echolocation? Who knows, but if it does, I don't want to use it. For starters, I might have to answer the questions about how I found the thief so soon.
But the main reason, is that I don't want to rely on my echolocation for everything. Sure, it's OP, but there are still beings capable of hiding from my Cosmic senses. My mother, Atum, Agamotto, and Uatu just a few of them.
If I have to fight someone like this, then I don't want to panic when my Echolocation fails.
"Now, what to do with you?" I mumble, looking at the still unconscious Goddess.
She must have been hit one heck of a punch, to knock her out for this long. Shaking my head, I put my hand on her head, and start feeding her my Magic.
The least I can do is heal her, so I can at least get some answers. Plus, she's not bad on the eyes. But before trying to seduce her, I need to find Scathach. I can't delay it any longer.
'The next time we meet, thief, you're dying, and I'm taking the weapons back to their rightful owners.' I think, and focus back on healing the Goddess.
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A/N: Reviews! How was the fight? Am I making it too vague? Or am I making MC win everything despite being against stronger opponents?
Thank you for reading, and thank you for your support!
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