Moon Fall

I tilt my head to the right as I dodge the creature's claws. Stepping into its defenses, I grab it by the throat and snap its neck. It barely takes a second for it to recover and return to its undamaged state. Unfortunately for it, that second is all I need to inscribe a rune on its back that cancels out its ability to heal. Once that is done I dodge a claw to my face, grab its other claw that is heading for my throat, and with my remaining hand I conjure a dagger that I stab through its chest killing it.

"You are getting sluggish my love. Close to two hundred years of facing nothing challenging has made you complacent and slack off in your training. Perhaps I should take over and train you once again." comes Scathach's teasing voice from somewhere behind me.

I cannot help but let out a huff at her statement. Me? Slack off? And in my training of all things? That is ridiculous.

"If I am slacking off, then what are you doing? The last time I checked, I have won our spars three times in a row now, and I have the lead in the overall number of wins by five." I tell her as the creature turns into ash and I dissipate my conjured dagger.

We are currently in a clearing near a forest in what will eventually become England. It is currently night, and the full moon is out in full force, making the skirmish I just had more troublesome than it would have been normally.

"All jokes aside however," Scathach says as she stands next to me and looks down at the creature's ashes "These creatures and their progenitors' constant assaults are becoming an annoyance. At first it was intriguing since their bodies naturally return to their normal state before receiving their injury. Then we figured out how to cancel out that ability so that they may die, making their constant efforts to defeat us admirable. However, after two hundred years of this, I find their assaults to be more of an annoyance than anything."

She is right. When we first encountered the Dead Apostles, it was intriguing. They have the normal vampire claws, and according to what I remember from my life before the jumps, very few conceptual weapons can even harm them. I would not know if that is the truth here since I have never bothered to check. They can all ignore damage from most sources as their body will revert to the pre-damaged state rapidly, and I had to create a runic array to cancel that ability out since the novelty of seeing it happen quickly wore off. At night they are almost invulnerable, and their power is at its peak during the full moon.

However, the most intriguing thing about them is that they can not only regenerate most wounds rapidly, but even re-form their body completely after taking damage. Although it does take the majority of their power to do so, rendering them in a somewhat weakened state. They also have Mystic Eyes that enable limited control over others, such as the ability to plant suggestions. The color of their eyes changes to gold when they are active. One of them even had the audacity to try it on Scathach so that she would have sex with him. To this day I pray for him, because no one should have had to go through what she put him through. By the gods, it was so bad that I ended up actually feeling sympathetic towards the poor fool.

However, while they have been a constant source of entertainment for the past two centuries, they have unfortunately overstayed their welcome.

"Perhaps it is time we hunt down their creator." I tell her.

"There is no need, for I am already here." a voice says from behind us.

Without wasting time, Scathach and I turn as we hop backwards away from the speaker. Looking at the speaker, I cannot help but curse internally. Scathach is correct, I have become complacent. Two centuries of dealing with nothing but fodder Dead Apostles and killing two True Ancestors has made me let my guard down. I should have sensed him coming. I was trained by Batman himself, then I was a literal N7 Shadow Infiltrator, whose training makes them some of the most dangerous assassins, and in addition to that, the effects of all that training is being boosted to absurd levels due to my heightened sense from my supernatural physiology. There is no reason why I should not have sensed him coming, even without my use of my domain.

"Why don't you step out from the shadows and show us who you are." I say with narrowed eyes as I straighten myself out, summon my trident, and prepare myself for perhaps the hardest fight of my entire existence in the nasuverse.

Just being around this man makes every single one of my danger senses go haywire. It is similar to being near Tartarus' heart, only the danger is about ten times worse. With a chuckle the man steps out from the tree shade, yet for some reason I cannot make out what he looks like, only his blood red eyes. Even in utter darkness I should be able to see as if it were daytime.

"You are not worthy of knowing my name." says the man with a smile that I am somehow able to make out and sends a chill down my spine. "Not yet at least."

For the first time since the beginning of my jumps I feel true fear. My grip on the spear tightens to the point that if it weren't as sturdy as it is, it would shatter. I can feel my leg muscles tighten in response to my sudden urge to flee, my mouth dries up and my throat tightens, and suddenly I find myself hypersensitive to everything going on around me. Before things can get worse however, Max kicks in and suddenly I no longer feel any emotions, the only thing driving me now is pure calculated thought. My senses are heightened as much as possible without hindering me, my perception is enhanced as much as possible, and all physical enhancement runes tattooed on my body and in my rune suit are activated as lightning strikes in my mind and my magic circuits activate. To finalize my preparations, I activate my domain in full force and control the clouds overhead in preparation for a hurricane.

"Scathach, do you still remember that runic array for gathering an extreme amount of energy I had you memorize about a century and a half ago?" I ask her using hand signals from my arkhamverse jump that I thought her.

"Yes." she answers with the corresponding signals.

"I need you to inscribe it while I buy you some time. Just in case" I answer back.

Without communicating another word, she nods and begins to work.

"I assume that you are the creators of these creatures that have been constantly attacking us?" I ask as I approach him.

"In a way, yes I am their creator." he answers as he looks down at me.

For a being that stands at about seven feet tall, it really is not particularly difficult.

"Now, enough talk." he says and in a burst of speed rushes me.

Even with my enhanced perception, he is moving extremely fast. Dodging the hook to my head, I bring my left leg up and kick him in the face, launching him back into the woods. Without a second thought I use mana burst and race after him. As he tries to recollect himself in the air to land on his feet, I stab my trident through his neck only for his body to restore itself as soon as I remove it. With renewed effort, I try to slash his neck and remove his head, only for his hand to come up and catch the trident. Before he can use his grip on my weapon to his advantage, I recall the trident back to its ring form while summoning my spear into my hand and stabbing it into his skull. Like my previous attempt, his body returns to its previous, unharmed state. However, unlike my previous attempt I notice that the effect was not instantaneous. Almost as if his ability glitched before kicking in. It is nothing that would negatively affect him during the fight, at least not in my spear's current state.

While the glitch is not enough to give me a major advantage, it is enough for me to grab him by the throat and drag him through the ground before launching him at the sky where a bolt of lightning powerful enough to incinerate a Dead Apostle strikes him.Naturally he simply shrugs it off as if it was nothing tries to reorient himself to land on his feet. Unfortunately for him, I have no plan of letting him do that. With a particularly strong mana burst, I launch myself into the air and spear him through the stomach. Not waiting for me to remove the spear, he grabs me by the head, removes my grip from the spear and throws me back to the earth. Before I land I rearrange myself and land on my feet just in time to see him get electrocuted for attempting to grab my spear. Not wanting to let him recover from the shock, I conjure dozens of perfect replicas of my spear, Gae Bolg, and my trident in the air and launch them at him. Unlike my usually stable conjured weapons, these are conjured with runes inscribed all along the shafts and tips. When the weapons pierce him, the Gae Bolgs strike where his organs should be, if he has any in the usual human places, the tridents summon lightning bolts to strike him, and the spears burn him from the inside. With a pained roar, he attempts to remove the weapons from his body with his hands, only to once again be electrocuted with enough voltage to incinerate a Dead Apostle. Unlike the previous time however, he powers through the pain and removes the weapons one by one.

"W-w-what was that? Is this what pain feels like?" he says as he straightens himself out, my spear still sticking out from his stomach.

Something is not right. My runes had no effect on him. If I have to hypothesize, then I would say that the only reason he felt pain is because the spear holds a major part of Odin's authority, and the trident is the weapon of Neptune himself, with his authority infused within it. The Gae Bolgs and the runes however had no effect on him whatsoever. If my theory is correct, then the only things that will work on him are weapons that hold the authority of a god or curses.

"Not much of a talker are you?" he says. "Come, show me what you can do."

Ignoring him, I summon my spear back to my left hand and adjust its size to a short spear. Then I turn my ring back into its trident form and roll my shoulders. Now that I know that I have identified my opponent as Crimson Moon, I can use the information to decide how to fight. Unfortunately, that severely limits my repertoire based on what will be effective. Anything that does not possess the authority of a god or is true ether will be useless. Even the egyptian Divine Words will be a nuisance to him at best. That leaves me with just my spear and trident, and the powers that come from them, with the egyptian Divine Words serving to make openings so that my weapons can deal damage. Ideally I would be running from this fight, unfortunately that is not something he would let happen. I just hope that Scathach finishes inscribing the runes quickly because I am going to need a lot of raw power to even survive this upcoming battle. It is a good thing that Scathach is currently inscribing the runic array.

Having come up with a somewhat passable plan, I launch myself at Crimson Moon and hold nothing back. The exchange that follows is perhaps the most stalemated battle I experience simply because the opponent is holding back. At first it seems as if I have the upper hand since every single one of my blows connect in some way or another, however if one looks closely it is easy to tell that none of the damage I do to him lasts. Does it cause him pain? Yes. Does it injure him? Yes. However the damage never lasts long enough to accumulate. He has no technique, and no skills, yet no matter what I do I cannot defeat him, at least not yet. To do so will require him to continue underestimating me, a tremendous amount of luck, and a ridiculous amount of raw power.

I tilt my head to the side to dodge another punch, and borrowing a move from Dick, I vault over him and land behind him before stabbing my spear through his neck. Then, using my trident, I chop off his right hand as it comes up to grab my spear. Naturally, like all the previous time, his body is restored to its undamaged state. As he turns to face me, I look up at him and speak my first Divine Words of the battle to his face 'Ha-di'. Immediately half of his face is blown apart before returning to normal in the next instant. This gives me enough time to stab him through the heart with my spear and trident, even as his hands come up to try and stop them only to be too slow. Before I can even follow through however, his right leg comes up and sends me flying through the woods with a kick to my ribs.

As I smash against countless trees, I can feel the healing runes and my healing factor activate and instantly heal all of the damage. Reorienting myself, I plant my feet against a tree trunk and with a particularly strong mana burst cancel out my momentum to land on the ground only to look up and see him coming towards me at a far faster pace than he ever used before in our fight. Speaking the Divine Words for protect, I am able to summon a protective barrier between us that stops him for two seconds, just enough time for me to speak the Divine Words that summon the Fist of Horus and sends him flying back where he came from.

As I race after Crimson Moon's flying body I suddenly feel a surge of power reach me and can tell that Scathach finished her task and is on her way to join the battle. With this new development, I stop following him and take a deep breath to prepare myself for what I am about to do. Raising my spear in the air, I channel a significant amount of magical energy through it before slamming it back into the ground. From the point of impact, countless runes emerge and spread out through the ground, reaching the boundaries of my domain before quickly becoming invisible.

The runic array I just activated is the culmination of my years of trying to replicate the Hiraishin no Jutsu and a servant's ability to teleport when the master summons them via command seals. Using my domain, I sense the entire battlefield, then I use my spear as a mystic code to send out my magical energy throughout the battlefield and inscribe the runes everywhere with it. The runes inscribed around the battlefield serve as both location beacons and teleport markers. I sense their locations, remotely activate them, and like command seals they teleport me to their position. I could of course use them similar to how Minato uses the Hiraishin, however the last thing I need is for an enemy to displace my kunai causing me to teleport somewhere unintended. Similar to the Hiraishin, these are also cost efficient to use in the battlefield multiple times, the only reason I did not use it earlier is because I was buying time for Scathach to finish. If I escalated the battle he would have followed suit.

With minimal effort, I sense the closest seal to Crimson Moon and teleport behind him with it. Unlike command seals, there is no flash of light and the build up of magical energy is minimal, to the point of being impossible to sense. Which is why Crimson Moon has no time to prepare himself when I appear behind him and decapitate him. Needless to say his body quickly returns back to its undamaged state and turns to attack me only to be struck by a pillar of wind that sends him flying.

The culprit quickly makes herself known as Scathach arrives next to me.

"Do you know who he is?" she asks as she looks at him quickly reorient himself and land on his feet.

"Crimson Moon." I reply, my voice full easily making it clear how unhappy I am about having to face him of all people, especially since I am no longer cutting myself off from my emotions and can feel a certain amount of doubt, fear, and uncertainty I have never felt in combat before.

"I see." she replies as she puts away her Gae Bolgs. "Then that means I will be using magic while you lead the physical assault."

With a nod I teleport myself in front of him and make to stab him through the throat. He brings his hand up to block only for me to teleport to his side at the last minute and a bolt of lightning that was behind me punches straight through his stomach and out of his back making him roar in pain. Naturally he recovers, however like with my spear and trident he glitches for a second. This is why Scathach is in charge of the magical assault and me the physical one. She knows countless curses that can affect him, whereas I have weapons that affect him.

Realising that the battle has escalated, Crimson Moon uses Alt Nagel and sends an immensely destructive pillar of wind hurtling toward Scathach. Without wasting a second I teleport her behind him just as she sends another curse flying, this time hitting him in the back and decaying a majority of it before it returns to its undamaged state. Normally I would not be able to teleport those that do not have a rune on them, however as soon as I had perfected this spell, I had tattooed one on her. This lets me teleport her to any rune as she were me, and by partitioning my mind into two I can focus on both of us without any difficulty.

Teleporting above him, I drive my trident through Crimson Moon's head and watch with annoyance as it returns to normal. As he reaches for me a red curse strikes his neck, severely electrocuting him. I teleport to the ground and cut off his legs. From there the fight dissolves to a game of cat and mouse as I teleport Scathach and I all over the battlefield with Crimson Moon attempting to harm us while we cut, stab, and curse him. Although that seems to annoy him more than it hurts him. Naturally he always recovers, however I notice that the time it takes increases the longer the fight drags on. Eventually however he becomes enraged and ramps his speed and magic, almost injuring us a few times had I been one second too slow.

Teleporting to his left side, I try to cut off his arm only for his massive fist to smash into my stomach, making me spit out a mouthful of blood and saliva as it sends me flying. My runes and healing factor kicks in and heals me. However, I can tell that they are being overworked since that single punch almost obliterated my bones and tore my muscles. If I take more than five of those I will not recover and will die instead. My only chance is to get him to use moonfall. It will take the majority of his remaining energy which will reduce his healing factor to about a True Ancestor's level. I can use that opportunity to blast him with a full powered beam of divine energy from my trident and destroy his body. My only hope is that the beam will also be enough to send the moon back to orbit. Not a perfect plan, but it is either this or die.

It takes me a split second to go through these thoughts and to rearrange myself in the air so that I land on my feet and skid to a stop. Teleporting next to Scathach I quickly signal her the plan before teleporting towards a charging Crimson Moon and blasting him with a minor beam of divine energy from my trident. The damage it causes is far more than any other attack before and causes him to take much longer to return back to his original state, a full three seconds in fact.

From there the battle dissolves into a similar chain of events, however this time I am blasting him with beams of divine energy and some of the damages are starting to actually remain.

"Enough!" roars an enraged Crimson Moon.

He leaps to the sky and creates a mirror image of the moon.

"You are a far bigger threat than I thought! To turn me into such an injured and exhausted state, you cannot be allowed to live for my goals to be realised. Die and take pride in the knowledge that you have been felled by me!" he exclaims as he sends the moon hurtling towards us.

Without wasting a second, I point my trident to the sky and release and release the energy beam I had been building up at the moon. Throughout the last phase of the battle, I had been building up energy for this moment. However, there is only so much energy that can be built up before Crimson Moon noticed. So every time the build up of energy became noticeable I would send out a beam of energy at him to reduce the amount back to unnoticeable levels.

The beam connects with the falling moon easily enough, however the moon is still falling. That is until Scathach activates the second half of the runic array that she had previously inscribed on the earth.

At first glance the runic array's function is to simply draw small amounts of magical energy from the environment and to charge whatever the corresponding runic array is inscribed on, in this case Scathach and I. However, the array's true purpose is to build up magical energy until the second function is activated and it sends the magical energy into a huge burst that can be used for what I am doing now. With a grunt I brace myself as I channel the magical energy into my trident increasing the beam's power tenfold. The beam manages to stop the moon's fall. Unfortunately I miscalculated somewhat as my body is barely keeping itself together as it channels that much energy.

Partitioning my mind once more, I reach up to the sky where I had been building up a storm and bring it all down. Immediately a torrential downpour of rain and wind falls, strong enough to be categorised as a class five hurricane. The water immediately rejuvenates me and the majority of the stress placed on my healing factor and runes are alleviated.

With renewed effort I collapse my partitions and focus all of my attention on sending the moon back, even as Crimson Moon tries his best to collide it with the earth. As more magical energy is channeled through the trident, the power of the beam is increased once more. However I know that I cannot keep this up for much longer. Just as I begin to fail however, a beam of lightning blasts a hole through Crimson Moon's chest allowing me to finally overpower him, destroying his body and sending the moon back. The last thing I see before falling unconscious is Scathach's worried face as she catches my falling body.