Rebirth and Second Chances

Chapter 212: Titan Unleashed

The illusion worked, but only for a few seconds. Tisiphone was not able to see through the glamour I had created, but she didn't need to. She simply destroyed every bird I had used as an anchor that I had tied my illusion too. Her destruction never discriminated, she killed everything that flew until the sky was bereft of movement.

Once the last flying creature had fallen, I was the only target that remained. I had been able to dodge and evade her bloodlust, but with my glamour destroyed, she was quick to target me. She didn't hesitate in attacking me, her hands projecting claws created by Divine will, the stuff of chaos fashioned into deadly weapons.

My height, something that had been a liability in most instances, became an advantage as she moved within melee range. I was barely over three feet tall, forty inches at the most, while she had manifested in her aspect of Vengeance, her massive size was more suited for intimidation. She would have been better off remaining the size she was when Caesar summoned her, by embracing her Domain and becoming a giant, she lost some of her agility. I was like a buzzing fly, a mosquito that was able to attack and move much faster than she could respond.

She should have stayed at range, levying divine bolts and area devastation towards me. She would have had a better chance of hitting me. But up close, my diminutive size gave me the advantage. Her advantage was our location. Knockers were not creatures of the air, my ability to fly was only possible because I could affect magnetic fields. I controlled the metal that I was standing on, creating boots to anchor me to the discus I had created. It allowed me to surf the planet's magnetic field.

Manipulating magnetic fields allowed me to fly and maneuver, but it was ungainly. I might become adept at this method of travel, but it was something I had never bothered to practice. And attempting to master a new skill in the middle of combat was idiocy. Tisiphone's size slowed her enough that she telegraphed her moves, allowing me to identify what and where she was going to strike. That was my saving grace, it allowed me to adjust my position, just enough that I was able to evade every attack.

There was no way that I was going to beat Tisiphone at her own game. She was a battle goddess, created from the primordial forces that was released at the Universe's creation, and I couldn't afford to trade blows. I needed to advance this fight by embracing my own talents.

If illusion was the strongest magic the Sidhe had evolved, our connection with nature was our most powerful trait. Druids paled in comparison to the relationship we formed as we cultivated and nurtured a symbiotic harmony between ourselves and Danu as Earth Goddess.

One of the reasons it had been so easy for me to channel rivulets of magma and create a volcano was the connection that existed between the Sidhe and nature. My Domain, my control over metal powered the spell that caused a new volcano to form, but Nature responded to my designs and allowed that volcano to form where none should.

Releasing a multitude of metal cubes, I began the transformative process, ordering covalent bonding to occur between molecules, even forcing pair bonding that would never exist without magic. The metal became fluid as it responded to my magic, as an army of Mecha, metal constructs of Silinium, Mithral, Adamantium flowed and formed. I released enough metal cubes to create hundreds of the constructs, behemoths that had battled Krakens and won.

An army I had created using the abilities that made Knocker's unique among Sidhe, a people to be feared. Mecha formed in different shapes and sizes, some as small as insects, a dozen as large as Tisiphone, each created for battle. If I were going to have to fight the goddess of destruction, I would do so using every advantage that a Knocker of the Sidhe possessed.

Nature, Metal, and Illusion.

I broke away from Tisiphone's attack heading toward a grove of trees, using my metal knights to screen my retreat The Mecha army expedited my escape, a bulwark of metal and magic that Tisiphone was forced to confront. Each automaton that she destroyed, I repaired. A burst of magic that triggered the self-repair enchantment inscribed on the atomic level, the Silinium that had been seeded throughout the construct responding to that enchantment by recovering lost metal. Reforming so quickly that a shuttering effect occurred as they were destroyed and repaired instantly.

The delaying action gave me enough time to land, to send my distress and needs to the trees, the earth, the sky. Enough time for me to begin layering illusions, illusions that I tied to the very metal that could be found in the earth's crust. These illusions would not be so easily destroyed.

I began by creating the illusion of a rift, a great maw splitting the earth that would open into the Olympus underworld. Instead of fire and lava, I re-created the river Styx. I gave weight and heft to the illusion; the river was more than a body of water that divided the living from the dead, Styx was a god in his own right, the water his life's blood. To swim in those waters and return would grant a person, immortality.

Once I had the gravitas of the river firmly in place, I moved on to create the illusion that I was counting on to turn the tide and force Tisiphone to retreat. I began by releasing a hundred more cubes, almost the last of my stock, but enough for this seeming.

The cubes triggered and changed to their Mecha form; I embraced my Domain to re-mold them, to shape them into the semblance of dragon and snakeheads. Once formed, I withdrew from my spatial device a sprig of Hawthorne and Oak. Planting them, I channeled the gifts of Nature that were Sidhe by right and encouraged them to grow, to take on a new life.

And as they responded, I had the dragon and snakeheads weave between the branches. I anchored them together, forming a construct of illusion, metal, and nature, a work of magic, will, and intent that gave life and movement to the braided tree of Hawthorne and Oak. As the last of my illusion snapped into place, Typhon was given shape and substance.

Born of Gaea, angry at Zeus and his Pantheon for destroying her children, Typhon was her last child, a true Titan. A son born for vengeance, his destiny to overthrow and contend with Zeus for dominion and control of the throne of Olympus.

Tisiphone was the embodiment of vengeance and destruction, but Typhon was a Titan. The child of Chronos and Gaea, his strength was exponentially and quantifyingly more. There was a vast pool of anger that he had access to that emboldened his attacks enough that even the Furies were forced to cede their Domains.

Once I had all three aspects, metal, nature, and illusion merged together, I direct the Mecha army that was contending with Tisiphone to part. But the reprieve she enjoyed as my army allowed her to pass was short-lived. Typhon rose up from the river Styx, one hundred dragon and snakeheads breathing great gouts of fire. Fire so fierce that the ambient temperature began to rise.

Buried within each of us is the instinct for fight or flight. A protection mechanism that allows us to react. Even the Greek Gods feared. They had waged battle and over-thrown the Titans because of that fear, choosing to fight overflight in that instance.

But that was when they had joined together, had acted in concert, the new Pantheon acting to remove the old.

Here.

In this moment.

Tisiphone came face to face with the last Titan. Zeus' Bane. The judgment of God's. And she was alone. She didn't even have her sister Furies to support her.

Logically, she must have known that Typhon could not have been real, that there was no way I could have released him to fight for me and confront her. But my weaving of illusion, metal, and nature was so powerful that the lines between what was real, and what was fake had blurred.

The Gods had joined together to fight the Titans, but Tisiphone was not a God. She was a minor goddess of vengeance, and her hind-brain was screaming at her to retreat. I ordered my army to re-engage, to attack her from the rear, at the same time the Mecha that had transformed into Typhon let out a ground-shaking roar before moving en mass to release another onslaught of fire and brimstone.

Tisiphone finally reacted, releasing a pulse of Divine energy that allowed her to traverse Universal ley-lines. This time the confrontation ended in flight, as the goddess of vengeance and destruction fled. Her will was broken, her fear stronger than her resolve to fight or her ability to see the truth.

[Quest Complete - Delay Tisiphone for seven days. Bonus Reward for defeating Tisiphone - Lord Aesin had discovered where and who bought the materials needed to re-create the Hadron Collider.]

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