Chapter 43: Battle of the Gods, 1193 BCE

A/N: Sike, I lied.

and apologies, it's been a while since I've written some action scenes, just comment on what you think is bad in this chapter, honestly, I'm not really satisfied with it, I just don't know what to change.

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[Somewhere near Troy, minutes before Pluto showed himself.]

In an invisible spaceship, Ajak and the other Eternals stood in front of a window, peering at the sea of humans in front of the city of Troy. They were tense, anxious, and nervous.

"No sign of him, but he's definitely there." said Phastos, looking at a golden hologram.

"Should we just scatter those humans?" Ikaris questioned as he kept staring at the scene in front of him, not missing anything.

"And hurt them?" said Sersi. "Our mission here is to minimise the casualties caused by Pluto, not attacking the humans."

Ikaris sighed. "I got it, Sersi."

They kept staring at the scene, looking for any sign of Pluto.

"Let's go nearer," said Ajak. "Once he showed up, let's talk to him first."

"Talk?" asked Ikaris. "You want to talk to him?"

"If he hasn't attacked anyone, we don't need to engage Ikaris."

Ikaris just nodded, and he continued to stare at the scene as the Domo flew near Troy.

Then, Pluto showed up amidst the army of men in front of Troy.

"There he is." Sersi commented. "Let's go down, he hasn't done anything yet."

All of them quickly came down to Domo, trying to sneak into the city of Troy itself. But Ikaris stayed inside the Domo.

"Ikaris? What are you doing?" questioned Sprite, who hasn't come down yet.

"He's doing something." said Ikaris, looking at the way Pluto is standing. "He's going to throw his spear, he's attacking!"

Ikaris didn't hear the shouts of Phastos and Sprite from the inside of the Domo, he went through the window of the Domo, and flew at the speed of sound towards Pluto, not caring about the damage he had done.

He ultimately didn't care about the spear that was about to hit Hector, he just wanted to punch Pluto.

The spear nailed Hector to the wall, and Ikaris didn't care whatsoever. Mere seconds after Hector died, Ikaris finally arrived at Pluto's location.

"I should've done this years ago!" shouted Ikaris as he shot golden beams from his eyes to Pluto. It looked like a direct hit, Ikaris could feel it, but he felt something was wrong.

He deactivated his golden beams, and saw that Pluto blocked his attack with his palm. He now saw that Pluto is glowing golden as if Cosmic Energy had overrun him, and his hood is still hiding his face.

Ikaris didn't falter however, and he sped up instead. He wanted to beat the hell out of Pluto, to prove that he is the strongest one, he wanted to prove himself to Arishem, to his god.

he was about to punch Pluto, his fist was so close to Pluto's face, but all of his momentum suddenly stopped, and he realised that Pluto was grabbing his head by the face. Ikaris panicked, and tried to escape, but Ikaris felt that Pluto was stronger than ever, stronger than him, stronger than Gilgamesh.

He tried to break free, desperately. He punched Pluto's hands, he used his golden beams to burn Pluto's hands, but to no avail.

"Ikaris… why did you attack me?" Pluto asked Ikaris softly.

Ikaris couldn't say anything, his head was grabbed by Pluto, Ikaris could feel that Pluto could literally pop his head if he squeezed it any tighter. So Ikaris kept fighting, trying to break free, again, to no avail.

"I see…" said Pluto. "I see it in your eyes… Envy… Devotion… Desperation…"

Envy? Ikaris seemed enraged as he heard that. He never felt jealous, he never envied anyone.

Pluto then used his other hand, he opened his palm, and touched Ikaris's chest. "Here, I'll return everything to you, don't disturb me again, I need to kill them all, for Helen."

Slowly but surely, Ikaris's chest felt hot. Literally. Seemingly abundant cosmic energy was gathering in Pluto's palm, and not a second later, a burst of energy exploded in Ikaris's chest.

"ARGH!" shrieked Ikaris.

Ikaris couldn't breath, he was thrown to the walls of Troy, making a hole in it. For the first time in a while, Ikaris felt pain, immeasurable pain. He clutched his chest so tightly, trying to breath, and he was cowering like a shrimp on the ground.

Suddenly, Makkari dashed to Ikaris, checking his condition. Ikaris's condition looked pale, and he couldn't breathe. Looks like his lung is literally shattered. Makkari then disappeared, and not a second later, she had brought Ajak, and Ajak is now looking at Ikaris with worry.

"You're too impulsive Ikaris." said Ajak as she tried to heal her. "You underestimated Pluto."

Ikaris could only agree, after all, he was the one in pain, not Pluto. So he took a rest as Ajak was healing him, sitting against the wall.

Makkari then narrowed her eyes as he saw Pluto coming closer to them. She dashed towards them, she was so fast that even Ikaris couldn't see her run. She ran towards Pluto, she grabbed his neck, and tried to slam him against the wall.

But Pluto suddenly grabbed Makkari's arm, Makkari could feel pain once Pluto touched her arm. She saw that some kind of acid was digging through her skin, slowly burning them.

She couldn't hold the pain anymore, and she released Pluto, making them both slam against the wall, rolling on the ground.

Pluto just stood up, as if nothing had happened, but Makkari was in a lot of pain. She never felt this kind of pain before, the pain of dismemberment dwarfs the pain that she's feeling right now. She felt like she should just die to avoid the pain any longer, but she held onto it.

"Again… Why does everyone want to disturb me?" said Pluto calmly. "I just want to save Helen, I just want to take revenge…"

"Stop Pluto!" shouted Ajak, who was done healing Ikaris, and was now running towards Makkari. "You are consumed by anger! You have to calm yourself."

Pluto didn't listen. Instead, he dashed towards Ajak, wanting to silence her. As he neared her, Ikaris stepped in, preventing her from getting hit. Ikaris dragged Pluto to the sky, intending to fight above the ground, his domain.

But boy he was wrong.

As soon as they were quite high in the sky, Pluto grabbed Ikaris's hand once again. He used the same acid that he used to Makkari, making Ikaris writhe in pain as he kept dragging Pluto to the sky.

Ikaris was tenacious, he kept dragging Pluto, showing no signs of stopping. Seeing this, Pluto crushed Ikaris's hands, making them fall towards the ground. Pluto then grabbed Ikaris's neck. He turned so that Ikaris's back was facing the ground below them, and he readied his fist.

He slammed his fist to Ikaris's head, making a loud boom that shook the entire battlefield.

Ikaris roughly slammed against the ground, making a huge crack in the ground. And to top it all off, Pluto used the force of Gravity to stomp Ikaris, making a deeper crater on the battlefield.

"Ikaris!" shouted Sersi desperately as she ran towards them.

Pluto turned sharply to Sersi, his feet still on Ikaris's face. His eyes then glew golden, and 20 or so constructs with different shapes and forms suddenly appear beside Pluto.

He only pointed at Sersi, and the constructs dashed to her, as if they had just found their prey.

"NO!" Ikaris shouted from below Pluto's feet, trying to break free.

Sersi was overwhelmed by the constructs, she desperately transmuted anything around her. The ground to quicksand. The ground to water. Rocks around her turned into steel to protect her from the bites, but the constructs were overwhelming.

But then, Gilgamesh arrived. He slammed his feet towards the ground as it glowed, and the constructs were thrown away instantly.

Ikaris finally found the strength to break free, and he flew to the direction of Sersi, who was writhing in pain from the bites and scratches.

"Where are you going… Ikaris?" questioned Pluto suddenly. Ikaris then could feel a string was restricting him to fly. That string came from Pluto's wrist. Pluto quickly conjured more and more strings, and finally, Ikaris was covered up in it, and he couldn't move whatsoever.

Pluto walked slowly towards him, and again, he stepped on Ikaris's head. He looked at Ajak, Gilgamesh, Sersi, and the recovered Makkari in front of him. "Could you please just go home? this is not your business."

"You know our rules, Pluto." said Ajak. "We can't allow you to proceed."

"I will deal with the consequences myself Ajak, I don't want to hurt you all." continued Pluto. He looked at the crowd in front of him, and asked. "Where's Thena?"

"She refused to fight you." Ajak answered solemnly.

Pluto sighed. "That's a relief, I don't want to fight her…"

As Pluto and his opponents talked, the soldiers of Greece and Troy shed a cold sweat. They couldn't interfere at all, it is beyond their capabilities. In front of them was the battle between gods.

—

"Are we… safe?" Paris questioned as he saw that the fight between the gods stopped temporarily. He had recovered from the shock, and quickly commanded the others around him to secure Hector's body.

"We… don't know, my prince." said a man beside him.

"The gods are with us today. Surely we must be safe." said Paris, trying to convince himself that they would win.

"But the other god… seemed stronger than the rest…"

Paris gulped. It's true, his 'side''s gods were beaten up by a single enemy god.

Paris just clenched his fist, hoping that he would survive this ordeal.