Marcus…
“You’re a big one…,” he muttered as he sized Raime up.
He looked to be over seven feet tall, shirtless and barefoot as he wore only a pair of pants made from dragon skin. He was absurdly muscular, with next to no fat on his body, with swirl tattoos on his chest.
His eyes, which were an orange-ish yellow color, stared at him with such intense anticipation that he thought they might bore a hole through him.
As the announcer called for the match to begin, Marcus pulled Light Taker free from its sheathe just as the battlefield expanded around them.
Before he could have a moment to think about how the battle was going to start, Raime lunged towards him with his arms stretched out wide, as single blade protruding from his knuckles.
He moved so fast that Marcus could hardly perceive it even while slowing down his perception of time.
Shit!
He nearly panicked as Raime sped up the flow of time around his body to land the first strike and slammed his bladed right arm into Marcus’s guard.
His arms screamed in pain as he struggled to push back against his attack.
I can’t afford to gauge his strength, I need to go full power NOW!
“Full release!” he shouted as his Dragon Glass armor surrounded his body and blue electricity sparked off of him.
“FINALLY! NOW LET US CONTINUE TO KILL EACH OTHER!” Raime shouted with excitement as a wave of energy pulsated across his body, causing his skin to glow with the same hue as his eyes.
Raime pressed his attack as he swung his left bladed arm horizontally so as to cut off his head.
Marcus gripped his sword tight as he brought his guard up to block the incoming strike, and Raime’s blade connected with Light Taker. However, the force of the impact was too great as the shock caused the armor around his arms and his helmet to crack.
What the hell? How did he crack my helmet without hitting it? Was that just the air pressure of his swing?
Raime then took a sudden step forward, pulling his right arm back, and swung it underhanded.
Marcus could not hope to guard against that and instead stepped back to avoid being cut in half, but the wind pressure of his swing was so great that is fractured his armor and slashed open his chest.
FUCK!
I can’t afford to be on the defensive for much longer!
He focused as much of his spiritual energy into his sword as he could while reaching for his revolver and held it in his left hand.
This’ll be about as good a time as ever to test this out, he thought to himself as he pointed it at Raime who stared at it in confusion.
With a pull of the trigger, a bullet made of Dragon Glass shot out faster than he could process, and struck Raime square in the forehead.
His entire body lurched backwards from the impact but he did not fall over as he merely stumbled but caught himself.
He looked at Marcus with a stunned expression on his face as shattered fragments of Dragon Glass fell down his face.
I can’t allow him a moment to recover! Marcus thought to himself as he lunged forward and swung his sword down upon Raime as he caught the blow with his left blade.
Before he could counter, Marcus fired three more shots into his chest rapid fire, knocking him back several feet, but every bullet shattered upon the his skin.
While he was stunned, Marcus changed the form of his sword from a longsword into a katana and created a sheathe of Dragon Glass. He sheathed the sword and started to compress as much spiritual energy into it, increasing the gravity surrounding it as well, and preparing for an Iai style slash.
Raime’s head suddenly jerked as he looked up at Marcus, sensing the surge in energy, and crossed his arms in front of his chest to block the next attack.
“χάος ξίφος (Void Blade)!” Marcus roared as he unsheathed his sword and swung it through the air, using Light Taker’s omnipresence to pass through Raime’s body despite his tough scales.
As his sword passed through the air, the light became bent around the blade from the intense gravity he forced upon it to make its swing even heavier.
A flash of light illuminated the battlefield as Marcus’s attack split apart the surface of the planet and cut Raime in two.
The God of Madness stood speechless as blood leaked from his mouth and a long gash spread from the right side of his waist to his left shoulder. His whole right hand was severed at the wrist as it flopped to the ground.
Raime coughed up blood and fell to his knees suddenly, causing his top half to slide off the rest of his body with a sickening splat.
Huffing from exhaustion, Marcus reabsorbed his armor back into himself as he looked down at Raime and said, “I gotta say, for Malthael’s son and King Dagon’s right hand, you’re a disappointment. I expected a bit more from you.”
He looked up at the sky as it to look at the announcers, expecting the spatial battlefield to collapse around him, but when it didn’t, he grew irritated.
“Hey! Call it already, will you?” he shouted in annoyance as he figured the match had already ended.
“You’re getting ahead of yourself if you think our fight is over already,” Raime said as he stood back up.
Marcus turned his head to look at him and watched as he pulled himself back together using flame magic. The areas where he was cut steamed as his body healed the damage effortlessly.
“I shouldn’t have opened my damn mouth,” he muttered.
Raime chuckled and said, “I shouldn’t have underestimated you. We all make mistakes. I’ll be sure to treat you with the courtesy you deserve.”
His eyes glowed with energy as he leaned forward and said, “Flame of Daoloth: Full Release.”
Daoloth…? I’ll have to ask Ruvick about that later, Marcus thought to himself as orange-ish yellow flames erupted from all across Raime’s body.
He looked at the display of power with an unimpressed expression on his face and said, “Were you not paying attention to my fight against that woman Layla? Flames have no effect against me.”
Raime raised his eyebrows as he said, “I am aware. As a child of Hestia, your skin is immune to heat, and for that, I pity you. You cannot be burnt to death by my flames and granted a merciful death.”
What is he talking about…? Also, how does he know Hestia or that she is my mother?
All dragons biologically inherit knowledge from their progenitor. As I knew Hestia once, so too does my son, Malthael said to him.
Marcus groaned as he summoned his armor once again and compressed it as much as he could.
“Malthael, time to do your job,” he said, to which Raime blinked in surprise.
A mass of Dragon Glass appeared above them and took on Malthael’s form as he roared down upon them. His enormous body rose high above the clouds and blotted out the sun.
Raime smiled as he said, “Its been too long Father.”
Malthael did not reply as he raised his right claw and slammed it down where they stood.
Marcus jumped into the air to avoid it and looked down to try and spot where Raime went but realized that he hadn’t moved. He took on the brunt of Malthael’s strike head on and…blocked it.
He stood under the weight of that claw and held it firmly above his head with only his left arm before pushing it up and away from him. He then took off running, appearing to get out from underneath the claw above him but stopped suddenly when he reached one of his talons.
He wrapped his arms around it and looked as if he was about to throw Malthael away.
Before he could get the chance, Marcus increased the gravity around his body to drop down on him, and swung his sword down at his neck.
Raime turned his head just in time, bearing his teeth wildly as he let go of Malthael’s talon and swung his left blade through the air.
With his left hand, Marcus grabbed Raime’s arm and pushed himself out of the path of his blade just as an arc of fire cleaved through Malthael’s stone body and split the clouds.
When his feet touched the ground, Raime’s right blade retracted as he reached for Light Taker and held it firmly in his grip. He then yanked Marcus forward and his arm flexed for a split second before his blade extended out again and broke through his helmet. Marcus barely avoided being impaled as it slashed his left eye as he moved his head out of the way at the last second.
Raime then raised his left arm as if getting ready to impale Marcus through the chest just as what remained of Malthael’s fractured body let out a breath attack formed out of Marcus’s lightning.
A torrent of electricity struck the ground where Raime and Marcus both stood. With the sheer size of the dragon breath in the form of lightning, the ground all around them was vaporized as the explosive power of the impact resembled that of a nuclear warhead.
While underneath the dragon’s breath, Marcus absorbed it into himself and shrunk Light Taker into a dagger to free it from Raime’s grip.
Yet before he could fully escape him, Raime reached out his left hand and grabbed Marcus by the throat.
He then quickly stabbed Marcus in the chest with his right blade three times, striking him in the lungs and heart.
He then pulled his arm back as if to stab him in the brain, but Marcus forced him to see and feel as if Raime was still holding him in his grip as he turned into electrical energy and jumped backwards.
He watched as Raime’s blade struck the air where his head was before he shook his head and broke free of the illusion Marcus put him in.
“Pathetic mind tricks…the tactics of a coward afraid to fight a god!” Raime shouted as the flames on his body burned brighter and began to trace the swirl tattoo on his chest.
Marcus tried to ready himself for another attack but fell to one knee as his body was still struggling to repair itself from being stabbed in his lungs and heart.
He used stabbed Light Taker in the ground to brace himself while Raime did not move, waiting patiently for him to recover so their fight could continue.
Yet as Marcus looked at Raime while trying to heal himself, his vision began to fail him as he started seeing two of him.
“W-What is…,” he said as squinted, trying to force his vision to focus again. With his left eye still destroyed but quickly healing itself, he wondered if it was just his right eye struggling to see by itself.
However, Raime seemed to understand what was going on as he said, “Ahh…so it seems my flames still have an effect on you after all.”
Confused, Marcus frowned and said, “What? Nonsense, I feel no heat from your flames. They cannot burn me.”
Raime shook his head and grinned as he said, “No no. the true strength of my flames do not lie in its ability to burn, but rather to inflict madness in my enemies. You are just now starting to hallucinate, aren’t you?”
As the words left Raime’s mouth, Marcus began to hear voices that he was certain were not there. Jumbled, discordant voices that spoke all at once, blotting out his thoughts. As he looked at Raime once again, he could see dozens of overlapping images of him, some with various expressions, but many of them appearing the same.
Then, three of them lunged towards him and swung their bladed arms at him all at once.
Panicking, Marcus struggled to stand and brought up his sword to block one of the strikes but felt nothing as the image of the attack passed through him harmlessly.
He looked back at Raime once again, and although he tried to speak, the voices all appeared to overlap at once which made it unintelligible.
In the corner of his eye, he watched Malthael try to reform himself and fight in his place, but was destroyed with a single slash of Raime’s blade cutting him down through the middle and blasting him apart.
The only thing Marcus could do was watch helplessly as his sanity left him and Raime prepared to finish him off.
Raime…
For all this man’s strength, and for as great of a weapon as Light Taker was supposed to be, it was somewhat of a disappointment.
The one attack that had cut him in half did catch him off guard, but it only because he hadn’t expected Marcus to have such an attack capable of dealing that much damage to him even in a suppressed state.
He watched as Marcus attempted to fight through his flames of madness and was curious how far he could push the man into insanity before he became a useless pile of flesh.
He retracted his blades, spread his arms out wide, and compressed his flames into his palms before clapping them together with all his might.
A shockwave of fire swept over the land, slamming into Marcus, and causing him to scream out as his eyes burst into flames and a spiral of madness appeared on his chest.
His hands slammed into his face as he pressed his palms into his eyes, arching his back as he screamed in agony.
“You weren’t nearly as entertaining as I had hoped you were, but for my first opponent, you were a welcome one at the very least. You as well Father. Perhaps we can fight again one day once you have conquered this man’s body and claimed it as your own,” he said as he approached Marcus with his right blade extended and raised above his head.
With one blow, he would end this man’s life and the match would be over.
Marcus, who was still facing him, but whose eyes were consumed with the flames of madness and saw nothing but delusion, was at his mercy.
In one swift movement, he brought down his blade, and cut him-
Raime blinked in surprise as he found that his arm had been cut off faster than he could see as Marcus held Light Taker in his hands once again, with its blade slick with blood.
Raime’s right arm had fallen to the ground next to him as Light Take was raised above his head after having been swung through the air.
“Impossible! How can you still…have you taken over Father?” he asked, thinking that his father had taken control of Marcus’s body.
“I am not,” the voice said. It sounded like Marcus, but it sounded far more cruel and almost hungry.
Though his eyes still burned with the flames of madness, Marcus’s body gave no reaction to it as he raised his head and stared back at Raime.
He then noticed red lightning sparking all around his body and along the length of the blade.
“You are not Marcus, are you? What is your name?” Raime asked as he was intrigued by the appearance of this mysterious force controlling Marcus’s body.
The being did not answer him as he lowered his sword’s guard, tilted back his head, and laughed in Raime’s face.
Irritated, Raime bared his teeth and shouted, “Answer me! Who are you!”
The mysterious being stopped laughing and became deathly serious as he said, “It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is that you are about to die.”
With Marcus’s mind lost to madness, all that was left was Ender.