Battle Against a Titan!

Finally the entire city was rescued from the clutches of this costumed chaos, and the people’s spirits were lifted in support of Jess and I as their rescuers. As always, it felt good to know that we managed to put things back the way they were.

There were a few anomalies that took place in the wake of their deliverance though. The first, and most positive change, was that any destruction caused within the demon domain was reverted. So that meant any craters caused by a particularly big monkey were put back right.

However, there was something that had me on edge. A strange anomaly of those blue flames began to spark up everywhere. The same kinds that I saw come out of the boy when we exorcized him of his darkness. The flames collected high into the air until shooting off like a bolt of lightning toward Mount Inai.

“What was that?” Jess said.

“‘Suppose we better find out.”

Mount Inai wasn’t far from the city. Just a few minutes by wing or musical instrument.

We landed at the weathered gates of the castle fortress on top of the mountain. Viro was already there and leaning against the right most stone pillars at the side of the door. He was obviously very bored up until Jess and I approached him.

“I’ve been up here waiting for you girls to show, and you thought it would be fun to have a concert for all your adoring fans?” His smirk told me he was loving every second of his snarkiness.

“So you saw our show,” I grinned with a tinge of sass in my stance and tone. “I hope you enjoyed it while doing nothing helpful up here.”

“I’d give that performance a six out of ten for you,” Viro remarked to me. “However, your friend here was quite the unexpected treat. Full points to you, musical witch. Brava.”

“Thank you, sir.” Jess performed a curtsy. “But I wouldn’t have been able to do this without Yalda, so please be kinder to her.”

I liked that Jess was sticking up for me, but Viro had a habit of criticizing the things that he liked. Or so I’ve been told. I think he’s just a jerk at heart, personally.

“Anyways…” I spoke up to get our focus back on the mission. “How have things been up here?”

“Quiet,” Viro replied. “Once you dispelled the domain, I could sense a large amount of mana gathering up inside the castle.”

“He must have been sensing those blue fires,” Jess noted. “We should get inside and stop Prometheus before he can use those things.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice.

The castle door was barred up tight. This place was built like a fortress, so there wasn’t any easy way of getting in outside of breaking it down.

I posed my hands above my heart and gathered a radiant pool of mana energy. The energy condensed down into a small sphere and charged with a loud ring.

“Mana cannon…” I announced the name of my attack and forced my hands forward, pushing the bubble of mana forward as well. “Fire!”

*BWOOOV!*

A beam of mana shot from my hands and struck the door. It blasted apart and sent splinters flying.

Mella strummed her instrument and sent out a weak shockwave that prevented the splinters from hitting us.

“Thanks for that, Jess,” I said.

“My pleasure,” she said with a cute smile.

“If our Hallowed Angel wasn’t so destructive, perhaps we wouldn’t need protection from her collateral damage,” Viro said.

“Viro, go eat a cactus,” I said as I stomped inside the castle. “Come on guys. I’ve got a read on Prometheus’s location…”

~🎃🔥🎃~

The throne room of this castle had long since been raided by governments of all the nations for over a millennium, so it was hardly much to speak of at this point-barely even a skeleton of its former glory. But one thing I could say for sure about it was that it certainly did not have this many blue jack-o-lanterns littered around it. Especially not a particular pumpkin man seated on the only remaining seat at the head of the room.

“You sure redecorated this dingy place,” I commented to Prometheus.

“Like it?” he asked in his snide voice. “Just wanted to give this ol’ castle a little personality.”

Nearly all the pumpkins had those blue flames within them. There was one in the corner that was hot orange and facing the wall. Jess poked it out of a dangerous sense of ditsy curiosity, but there was no response.

After that pointless poke, we all turned our attention back to the prometheus, who seemed very amused by our bumbling about.

“You kids keep having fun.” He waved his spindly hand toward us. “That’s what Halloween's all about, isn’t it?”

“I think you like the trick part more than the treat, Prometheus,” I commented. “Before I clean up that soul you’ve got, mind telling me exactly what all these blue flames are for?

“Since you won’t be making it out of here alive, I don’t see any reason why not.” he said in a cackly voice. “These blue flames you see are cursed pieces of souls I’ve stolen. Each flame holds the power of whatever costume the particular person who had it was wearing.”

If I had to guess, he was probably doing this for his own gain.

“You’re stealing these powers so you can use them,” Viro concluded. “I have to hand it to you. This plan might have been incredible had we not been here.”

“Actually, I preferred the Eighth Star was in the city, since she was affected by my curse as well,” Prometheus said. “That gave me plenty of time to gather up as many powers as possible.”

“Prometheus, you need to stop this!” Jess shouted, turning her bouzouki into a flute and holding it at the ready. “Why are you doing this, anyways? The Prometheus I knew would never try to hurt people.”

“That was before I saw how pathetic humanity really was,” he replied. “They can’t do anything for themselves. What happens when the gods become angry with them? Decide that it’s time to take some of them up as slaves? Your mother wasn’t treated any better than cattle.”

“Mother…” Jess had a pained expression on her face. “You’ve always been worried about us, Prometheus. They’ve punished you so many times because of it, yet you never stop being a thorn on Olympus.” Jess’s pain turned to pride, and she glared down her once close friend. “That’s why we need to get that demon out of you, so you can be that kind being again!”

Prometheus’s smile had faded while Jess had made her speech. Her words broke through to him once again, which told me there truly was a chance to rescue his character from its dark captivity.

“If you think you can, kid, then come at me. But I won’t make it easy for you.” he snapped his spindly fingers and the flames within the jack-o-lanterns burned brighter. “But I don’t think any of you silly kids will be able to match what’s coming.”

The blue flames left their pumpkin cradles and snapped to the pumpkin who’d summoned them. They phased through the rind flesh of his head and joined his inner fire.

“Oh yeah!” he reeled in his fingers, shaping them like claws. “I can feel the power! All for me, baby!”

“No you don’t!” I shouted, blasting forward with my spear drawn.

Prometheus was wide open and did very little to avoid my strike, which kept me alert and defensive. But as I approached to finally stab the Spear of Destiny right through his gourd, time slowed to nearly a crawl, as if I were coming closer to a black hole.

“You can’t touch me,” Prometheus taunted. “I’m the strongest there is!”

Although my body was unable to respond to my commands, stuck in an endless forward momentum and unable to reach its target, my head was still present in the moment, which meant I was more than able to draw out my powers.

A blaze of radiant energy burned around me, like a rainbow aura. The sparkling stardust negated the effects of his cursed power on me and brought me back to fighting speed.

Prometheus evaded my swift jab as if his body moved instinctually. The blue flame of his head turned silver momentarily.

I quickly spun back around for another jab. He dodged, his fire blazing silver again, then I performed a to his head, but tricked him with a faint to catch him off guard with a slash of my spear.

He still dodged everything, and even did so while spawning a cup of tea to sip at. Viro joined in and surprise attacked him, reinforced immediately by a stardust aura that I provided out of proximity, but Prometheus easily managed to keep away from his spear as well.

“Stay still!” I shouted to our foe.

“That’ll get him steady, for sure!” Viro gave a sarcastic remark.

“You can’t be any less frustrated than me right now!” I commented as the two of us skidded back, side by side.

“The difference between the two of us is that I turn frustration into focus,” Viro said. “Perhapse you should do what you’re best at and remain calm under pressure?”

I was trying to. The more I was able to remain calm in times of stress, the more hallowed power I could draw from within me. But right now I was more confused than anything and the process of working through that held my mood hostage.

Jess joined in on the fight by giving us supportive background music to tango to. I felt a rush of strength, stamina and speed enhance my performance, while a visibly red swirl traced around our adversary. A clear sign that her powers were handing Prometheus debuffs.

“That’s not going to work, Euterpe,” he said to Jess, calling her by a strange name. “I have more than enough power to negate your debuffing magic.”

A ball of energy swirled to life in his hand and fired at Jess, who was too stunned to dodge.

I flew in and slapped the energy away, feeling its abhorrent sting on my knuckles as it blazed through the selling and exploded mid air.

The ground shook and the air was racked with a thunderous boom.

“Jess, stay focused,” I told her. “He may be your friend, but we have to knock some sense into him. So remember to stay alive.”

“R-right!” she nodded with determination, then began playing her flute once more.

I had to admit, her flute playing was even more masterful than any of her other previous instruments, which was both impressive and inspiring. Perhaps that was the intended effect.

Once she started playing again, Viro and I flew in at triple our previous strength thanks to Jess and assaulted Prometheus as best we could. Viro focused on a rear attack, while I kept the frontal offense. Nothing was landing.

“How is he dodging everything?” I questioned.

“It’s like he’s not even thinking about his movements either,” Viro said. “It’s odd though, because I can’t even sense him anymore to gauge his power.”

Prometheus probably had access to a lot of different powers active inside of him thanks to his curse, but trying to figure out each one of them was going to be tricky.

“One thing I can tell you is that he’s tapping into a divine form of mana right now,” I said. “You can’t sense it because you're not trained to.”

“Isn’t divine mana dangerous for lesser beings to use without some sort of blessing?” Viro asked.

“Yeah,” I nodded. “But if what Jess told me is true, then this guy was practically a god before he came here. If I had to guess, he’s well conditioned to that power, even in this form.”

“Right-o, little angel,” Prometheus snapped his fingers my way. “I can call upon the best powers I’ve pulled from these mortals. Now that I’ve gotten the swing of things, why don’t I retaliate?”

In the blink of an eye his fists were in both of our guts. We were launched into the ceiling.

A blaze of powerful black fire burned around our bodies and caused us major distress, nearly destroying our protective aura of stardust energy.

“It’s over for you two!” Prometheus laughed, hardly breaking a sweat at this attack. “Give up and I may spare you.”

Just when I felt the pressure kicking up, the marks on Jess’s skin lit up bright and she shot a whirl wind force gust at Prometheus, which blasted him into a pile of his own pumpkin decorations.

He lost focus on us, and Viro and I were able to escape long enough to come down for another barrage of attacks.

Prometheus still was able to evade our attacks with ease, following up any of our jabs with strikes from his lanky arms.

He was fast, accurate and his strikes hurt a lot. I kicked Viro out of the way, because he would have been turned to paste at any one of these hits.

But I never took my eyes off Prometheus. Not once. I watched his instinctual movements, analyzed his power. It all became obvious at that moment to me.

Prometheus kept up the attack, but now he was missing some of his strikes due to my evasion, which was starting to visibly frustrate him.

Finally I saw an opening in his guard and struck my spear in. The holy weapons edge cut along the side of his pumpkin head as he attempted to evade.

“Huh?” Prometheus uttered, trying to swing at me, but missing entirely.

I retaliated by getting another cut in, which cut off one of his vine-like fingers.

“Impossible!” He shouted, growling as he shoved me away to get distance. “How are you starting to keep up?”

I smirked and tilted my head slightly toward the ground, making sure he knew I figured out a solution to his autonomous evasion.

“You’re not the only one who can steal powers from people, you know?”

“What!?” he uttered in a heavy breath.

I blasted in while he was processing my words and swiftly struck him with dozens of blows per second. My grasp over whatever power I’d copied from him was getting better and better by the second, but came with a heavy strain. I couldn’t mess around here, or it would have put me out of commission.

Just when I was about to get a finishing blow, his body went completely limp.

“Crap…” I uttered as I sensed him behind me now.

He’d transferred his mind to another pumpkin and punched me from behind. I was able to dodge, but was shocked when I sensed another punch revving my way.

Before I knew it, I was dodging several fists at once from these vine appendages. Prometheus was giving me a real run for my money here.

Any openings I saw to return a jab with my spear, I took. Over the course of seconds I was able to dwindle his numbers back down to a one on one. Meanwhile, Jess and Viro had fun pumpkin smashing in the background to prevent Prometheus from getting anymore bodies to use.

I got a good hit in on him and he balled up and spiraled back, hitting the other end of the throne room and damaging the wall. Moonlight seeped in from behind.

“Damn…” he growled. “Not here…”

Although this power was taking a heavy toll on me, I was still plenty strong enough to keep an intimidating glare as a peculiar divine energy brimmed through my body, allowing me only but a further taste of the incredible strength he was drawing from.

“It’s over, Prometheus,” I said, readying my spear as I approached.

He turned back to look at the crack forming in the wall behind him, then slammed his fist into it to fully knock it down. Moonlight spilled in and hit him.

“It’s not over while I still got fire to burn, little angel.”

He raised his hand, somehow grasping at the moonlight and gathering it into a ball. Then he took that orb of light and shoved it into his head.

“What in the world?!” I shouted, jumping back as his pumpkin body began to grow several sizes larger, overtaking the roof of the castel and becoming the size of a kaiju.

Once his growth peeked and his form stabilized, I saw a suspicious amount of ape-like details in his monstrous size, which made me think he’d used the same power as Yamin to transform. His fur was blazing, and any flesh was hard as pumpkin skin.

“Oh no!” Jess screamed. “He turned into that thing that Yamin did!”

“Ha ha ha!” Prometheus shouted in a deep voice, a hot aura blazing around him. “If you thought that weakling mortal was a handful, wait till you get a load of me!” He pounded his chest.

I lost the shock and accepted the situation. He was powered up significantly, but we already knew how to dance to this song.

“Don’t worry, Jess.” I smiled. “I’ve got this. Just play something nice for me, okay?”

“Right!” she shot me a thumbs up and summoned a violin and struck those strings to create an intense tune in my favor. Her heavenly voice accompanied the cords.

Prometheus didn’t waste time and breathed fire at me, like the jets from a fighter plane. I dodged them and made sure to move away from my friends.

Then I flew in fast and got behind Prometheus to see he had a tail back there, just like I hoped.

He realized the obvious weakness and slapped me away like a fly. I recovered and dove back, aware that even though he had strength, his speed was terrible.

“Hyah!” I spun at sonic speeds and dove right for his tail. This attack, inspired by the big bird form I took on before, cut clean through and cut that appendage off!

“What!?” he shouted as he began to shrink, but this time his body was more manlike thn pumpkin, but still blazing a dark flame. “Impossible! Darn you!”

I kicked him hard outside, launching him into the air. Then I trailed just behind, my spear reeled back to finish this fight.

“Let there be light!”

Finally I stabbed my spear straight through his corrupted core, which sent out a luminant shockwave across the sky.

He exploded with energy and his flaming remains spilled to the ground, like dozens of shooting stars.

Among the smoldering flames that sprinkled the mountain side, one particularly massive blaze held a man within, who was clothed in fire and eight feet tall. That must have been the titan's true form.