Maxwell
I looked at the intruders with interest. They were indeed very young if they thought to take me on. I, Maxwell was the second to oldest of the summons, and the ancient magic resided in my power.
“Are you going to just stand there all days youngins or are you going to attack?” I smiled a bit.
I wanted to see all these two had before I destroyed them. In my years as a summon, I had come across many strong humans that wished to make pacts. Would these children prove to be as strong as those of the past? Only one way to find out.
The first youngin, a man with black hair and red eyes, with a keyblade in hand ran at me first. The second young man just shrugged and seemed to wait his turn. How foolish of them to take me on one at a time. It would have proved so much more useful if they had taken me on at the same time.
I smirked and moved the hemisphere I rode move backwards quickly using a simple twist of magic. The man missed and instead of hitting me, he dug a hole into the tile of the floor. Black flames formed out of this hole and soon started spreading like wildfire.
“Ah I see,” I nodded a bit. “That is your power is it not? The element of darkness that then takes the form of flames. Most interesting youngling, but you will have to do much more than that to harm me.”
With that, I opened the great book in front of me. The pages of the book broke free from the binding at once and circled around the room folding into crane as they made their pilgrimage through the air. The paper bushed together and hissed a bit as they cranes began to move faster about the room. The first young man that attacked me seemed to focus only on my presence still and ignored the birds all together. The second one seemed completely oblivious to the entire fight that was going on. How foolish.
“Now Great Paper First Secret Strike!” I said snapping my fingers. In an instant all the birds dive bombed the young man as well as his partner. I would finish both of them off. Even if they managed to fend a few of them off, the sheer masses of them.
Before a single one of the cranes managed to pierce their target, they were all instantly pierced through what would be their chest cavity and destroyed. At first I was stunned as to how the man with the black fire had done this, but in a split second I realize d that it was his fighting partner that was indeed doing this instead. I had not sensed any flow of power from him before, but now there was a steady stream of something running through this other young man.
I snatched one of the remnants of my destroyed creations from the air and looked at it. A playing card was sticking out of it. I ran my finger along the card and watched as fresh blood ran down my finger. The card was indeed sharp, but there must have been more to it than that for all of my cranes to have suddenly been blown back.
As I looked up, I found that both men were eyeing me. I knew that look. It was a look that all but said, his guard is down attack. I wondered if they were both so young as to believe that thought, but it seemed that neither of them was planning this. Indeed they were older in mind than I had expected. They knew better than to attack when there was no obvious defense to react to. A move like that would prove fatal, and for a moment I remembered a particularly young group of pactmakers like this who indeed suffered dearly for believing in their own foolish thoughts.
“Well now,” I began calmly. “I see I will have to be serious if I am to test your strength further.”
“Is it all just a test?” the young man that had wielded the cards asked. “I was made to believe Kratos told you not to let anyone alive pass through this area.”
“Ah child child child….” I smiled a bit. “Indeed Kratos set me up as a guard of this area, but as long as I stand within that parameter then I may do as I like with intruders.”
I smiled a bit. It made an old man happy to see such confusion in the faces of children. They didn’t understand pactmaking in the slightest it seemed. I laughed a bit and closed the book in front of me. I reached into the hemisphere and took out a blank book. As I opened it, once again the paper within it was released and fluttered about the room.
“You don’t honestly mean to attack us with the same attack again,” the man with the keyblade stated darkly.
“Maybe that is the only trick that this old man has, very boring,” the second man continued.
I laughed a bit and leaned forwards in my hemisphere.
“You two are very young to even considered the fact that I would use the same attack twice,” I answered. “I have lived longer than both of you combined, and in that time, I have grown stronger than all the summons. I have more tricks than the simple one I just showed you.”
With that, I snapped my fingers and the papers came together and formed two identical copies of the two men. Without a word the paper copies attacked their corresponding opponents. Sensing something, the man with the keyblade lunged forwards and attacked his copy before it could launch an attack. One swift swipe across the paper copy, and it was cut in half. Before the paper could even fall to the ground, it burst into black flames. I sighed a bit and snapped my fingers again. The paper reformed instant and stood in front of the man once again as if it had never been attacked.
“Regeneration of paper is such a neat little trick, no?” I asked.
“Then I will just break it down until you can no longer regenerate,” the man answered.
I knew it; these youngins had anticipated an easy battle because my age seemed to signify weakness. What fools. If not for the other summons obviously taking care of the others on different floors, I would finish these two off quickly and go after the others. But because these were my only two opponents, I wanted to enjoy this fight to the highest extent.
I turned my head and found that the man with the cards had yet to attack his copy and was instead defending himself against the paper copy’s constant attacks. It was obvious that the two men had different fighting styles all together, and for a moment I wondered if they had ever even fought together.
The fight dragged on as each time the men finished off their copy, I would regenerate the copy instantly. I could slowly feel them losing energy, and it was only a matter of time before neither man could attack. And then I would launch my attack.
“Lexian this is getting us nowhere,” the man with the cards said. “I’ll take on your copy. Finish off that old man.”
This was the first time I had heard one of the men’s names. Now if only I had the second one’s name….
“Agreed,” the man named Lexian said moving elusively away from his copy and towards me. I would not let this man get so close. Instead, I wielded the copy to continue attacking and not to give the man any way to run towards me.
“Try getting away,” I smirked. “You won’t be able to HAH!”
“You’re being annoying,” the man named Lexian said. “Liliax are you sure you can take them both.”
“But of course,” the other man answered.
The second name!
Before the copy could react, Lexian brought down the keyblade upon its shoulder and the copy once again burst into flames. I quickly moved to regenerate it, but before I could I found that the man named Liliax wielding the cards slashed not only his clone but the regenerating one.
With his copy distracted, Lexian ran at me with his keyblade in hand. I moved back quickly on the hemisphere, but suddenly I backed up to the wall. I hadn’t even considered the area. How foolish. And yet I had one more trick thanks to the names.
“You lose boy,” I said just as he was about to slice my shoulder. “Niflheim, the underworld book! Take Lexian and Liliax!”
With that, a book like no other appeared before me. The black cover with the skull painted so painfully on it appeared before me. I opened it instantly, and a swirling vortex opened. Both men tried to avoid it, but it was slowly sucking them in. I had done it. The fool proof attack. Hades would deal with their souls then.
Suddenly, Lexian did something unexpected. Instead of trying to avoid the vortex that would sure end his mortal life, he jumped towards it with keyblade in hand. What did he intend to do? Attack the book? What foolishness what foolishness.
“You should learn your books better,” I smirked. “You just cut the last seconds of life you hand in half!”
“You’re the one who should learn,” Lexian answered. “Niflheim is the underworld book when used like that, but…”
“But what?” I smirked. This child thought he knew more about the underworld book than me. How foolish how foolish.
“But it’s course is negated when someone goes willingly!” Lexian answered.
Leixan stood right in front of the book’s vortex but did not seem phased in the least, and in that moment, the vortex was shut off.
“Wha-“ I started confused.
“Die,” Lexian said darkly raising his keyblade. He slashed right through me. If I were human or something less, I would have died then and there. Lexian backed away as if he had completed the job, and Liliax seemed to approve, but I smirked and slowly reformed. Both of them gave a startled look that I always loved mortals for having.
“Congratulations,” I said leaning forwards in my hemisphere. “You have successfully defeated me.”
Both of them remained silent and seemed to prepare incase I were to attack again, but I just let out a laugh. Indeed, they were no pactmakers nor would I have expected them to know anything of the culture.
“No, no,” I answered. “You two have won, and I have lost. Fair is fair. Kratos’s pact with me is now over. Do you wish to make a pact?”
“What?” Liliax asked.
“Child, children,” I said shaking my head a bit. “So young so young.”
“Get to the point,” Lexian answered. I smiled a bit and shook my head more.
“By defeating me, you could make a pledge of some sort…a pact, and that would be a formal agreement that I would help you under a certain contract,” I answered. “That is the point of fighting a summon to begin with. To make a pact and become stronger. Usually, a human or elf that makes a pact with a summon will summon the summon to fight as their partner alongside them, but in Kratos’s way, he disregarded this usual stature and had summons fight alone. This causes tension on the pact originally made, and if a summon is defeated, then the original pact itself is voided which means that I may make a pact with someone else. And seeing as you have already defeated me, I wonder if you wish to fulfill a pact.”
Both men looked at each other silently, and I let out a crude laugh.
“I’m sorry for teasing you young ones so,” I began. “I tend to leave things out you see for my own laughs. Kratos is the last of his kind, and no true pactmakers will exist ever again, and summons can only make pact with pactmakers. Forgive me for such a joke children. Now that the pact I was bound to is gone, I will take my leave.”
“Hold on,” Lexian said building his flames one more. “Do you honestly think that we will just let you go?”
“Child child child,” I answered. “Good bye…”
And with that, I opened Niflheim and took my leave.
_____________________________________________________
Just some extra footnotes.
Niflheim is considered to be the underworld book, and in Norse mythology, it is also known as the “house of mists”and is the icy dark world, which also includes the world of Helheim, the realm of death, and the equivalent to Christian Hell.
Also new info: if you defeat a summon who fights without his pactmaker by his side then if you managed to defeat the summon, the pact is instantly destroyed.
Gah my brain just made a suicidal remark =_= I'm going to bed. Night all.
-Soji
