Preface

Happy Chuseok! This week's release falls smack dab in the middle of the 3-day holiday. Chuseok is the Korean harvest festival, not dissimilar to Thanksgiving. I won't be celebrating because I live alone and I have Korean friends, but you can with a double release of War.

Chapter 6: Oil

Atreus, Aspect of War

My shield blazed with celestial fire as it collided with Lung's wrist. Its edge met the metallic scales of the not-dragon and sheared cleanly through. Metal immediately melted and boiled, loosing ugly streaks of smoke into the air. The acrid scent of roast pork filled the air as mortal flesh and bone met starfire.

The girl dropped and I caught her, tucking her under my spear arm like a package or one of those pigskin footballs the locals here seemed strangely obsessed with. She did not resist, nor did Lung react to the sudden blow.

It was shock; I'd seen it before. A strike from a celestial weapon was often so lethal that the target had little chance to feel the pain before the battle was lost.

Then their senses caught up to my strike and Lung reeled back with a raucous roar. I quickly tossed the bug girl aside, sending her rolling to her not-basilisk controlling ally, and kicked my opponent in the chest. Or it would have been his chest had he not been so tall. Instead, my second blow landed on his lower abdomen, causing armor-like scales to rupture and shatter as he was flung through the air.

I did not seek to immediately overwhelm and kill him. Losing control of one's subordinate was not an execution-worthy crime, not even among the Rakkor. So, I refrained from throwing my spear and allowed him the chance to recuperate. If he died, he died, but I had another objective in mind.

To be truthful, there was a small part of me that wished to see the "Dragon of Kyushu" at his strongest. This city's authorities had gone out of their way to warn me of his immense power and I was admittedly curious. He had defeated every one of the Protectorate at once before carving out his own territory like a warlord of my world.

The Caretaker had sent me here, fished me out from the space between worlds to enter this one. He was known to intervene in the affairs of men in times of great turmoil, existential turmoil. His actions were as mysterious as ever, but I could not deny the threat posed by these endbringers. My presence here spoke volumes.

If the Caretaker really did send me here to slay them on behalf of humanity, was it not natural to gauge their strength? An endbringer was out of my reach but here was a man who once fought one to a standstill. Surely he would prove to be a good measuring stick for this new mountain I was expected to climb.

That part of me that challenged Pylas daily despite losing every match, the warrior spirit of a Rakkor, flickered to life in anticipation of a worthy foe. After all, with no bakery for me to return to, what else did I have? I figured I may as well indulge my curiosity. In the end, this was his fault; his poor management of his own subordinates had drawn me out from retirement.

"Lung, master of the ABB, surrender yourself to the lawful authorities of this city. Disband your gang and relinquish the one called Bakuda so that she may be put to death for her crimes," I declared. This was it, his one.

So few could meet an Aspect in battle that I had taken to offering all mortals the chance for surrender. At the end of the day, I was a protector of men, one who stood against gods for the sake of those who could not find the strength to stand on their own feet. There were wicked men who deserved death, but I had no interest in turning my spear on those I'd sworn to protect.

Besides, I'd promised the PRT; it was only right.

I waited for several seconds and took the chance to scan the room. The one called Kaiser remained unconscious, though his two shieldmaidens had reached him. One placed him on her back and both seemed eager to withdraw. I saw no reason to stop them. Their ideals were idiotic, but they had stepped forward in the city's moment of crisis.

The one who wore the mask of a hound had picked up the bug girl and gone to the sun-maker. The sun-maker looked like she wanted to flee far away, wise, but her cohorts were stubbornly readying themselves for battle. It was a strangely warm feeling, knowing that random people thought I would require assistance against a sole individual, however great he might be. Unnecessary, but I appreciated the sentiment; it had been so long since any had mistaken me for a mere soldier.

"Leave," I told them, "lest you die here in the flames."

"His arm's regrowing!" bug girl yelled in warning.

"I will allow it. He is permitted this respite to make up his mind," I said with a nod. I shouted to him, "Do you yield to my terms, Lung?"

Another several seconds passed before Lung was up. He stomped angrily out of the rubble. He was bigger now, twice my height and thrice my bulk. His wings had all but grown in, making him seem even larger. A halo of heat surrounded him like a true dragon, but his maw was parted in fourths like a creature of the Void.

He let out a monstrous roar and charged.

"Idiot!" I heard one of the shieldmaidens, the one with a spear, yell.

I snorted and met the charge Aegis-first. A corona of starfire surrounded me as we collided in the middle of the warehouse, he, a hulking monster of savagery and flames, and I, a shooting star fueled by mortal will.

Naturally, the star won.

There was a deafening boom as claws met my divine relic and were repelled. The impact left a crater on the concrete floor and loosed a shockwave that blasted every window clear off its frame.

Surprise flickered in his inhuman eyes as I held my ground.

"Come, creature," I growled. This wasn't about Bakuda anymore. She would have her due, but in the moment, I wished to see one of the greatest warriors in this world at his finest. "Show me the strength you are so proud of. Show me why they call you 'dragon!'"

"Aill 'ill oo!" my opponent roared. He was barely intelligible now that his face had so morphed from a man's, but his ferocity needed no translation.

He slashed at me with claws longer than daggers. His hands were clad in metal scales finer than most gauntlets. Fire shrouded him with heat hotter than Master Frank's ovens. A normal man would have burned alive, the very air ripped from his lungs by the heat even as his blood boiled and his clothes melted onto his body.

My blood boiled with the siren song of battle. I was of Rakkor, the Tribe of the Last Sun. My people believed that Runeterra's sun was the last in all creation, and that we, the Ra'Horak, would one day be called to defend it from the darkness. That was why every man, woman, and child of the Rakkor could wield a spear and shield. I was quite literally born for war, a promised battle at the end of creation in which my people would stand shield to shield against those who sought to unmake all existence.

I no longer sought such a glorious end, but my upbringing could not be denied. As tired as I was of the fighting, there was an unquenchable flame in my heart: Here I was, promised an opponent who would never grow weak, never grow weary. If he was not worthy of me now, he would become worthy soon.

Here stood a warrior who promised me the thrill of combat, who promised to provide a test like none before.

How could I resist?

And so my blood boiled.

A battle cry tore itself free from my throat as I took a man-sized fist against my shield. He was growing bigger, faster than he had before.

Good.

He stood closer to twenty feet tall now and every flap of his wings sent a torrent of superheated air around the warehouse. The bug controller's insects turned to so much dust in seconds. Seeing that there was nothing they could do, the others wisely left us to our duel.

He lunged forward like a viper to take a bite out of my shield in an attempt to rip it from my grip, but I held strong. My muscles burned with a familiar strain as I willed myself to be his match. Fangs closed over Aegis and he lashed out with his left claw, only for me to rip it off with a swift swing of Skyfall.

Even as the severed hand arced through the air, I could see the stub begin to bubble like a cauldron's surface. The wound was being filled with rejuvenated tissue and I knew that his healing had grown along with his size.

I roared, pouring more of my will into my shield. Celestial fire burst forth in a hellish inferno, surrounding Lung's snout. The smell of scorched flesh filled the air once more as he shrieked in agony. He flinched back from the heat, my flame greater still than his, and I took the opportunity to stab him through his kneecap, scales and bone alike parting like water before my thrust.

"More!" I shouted. I leapt into the air, kicking him in the chest and throwing the now twenty feet tall not-dragon out the warehouse wall. Cement exploded and evaporated with the heat and he landed with a deafening crash.

He was up in seconds.

I grinned and launched myself towards the one who promised so much. The battlelust was upon me now. The Solstice of Astrea blazed with a comforting warmth as the myriad constellations streamed in my wake.

"Give me more, Lung! Stand up! Face me again!"

His responding roar was accompanied by a massive wingbeat that flooded the city block in flames. Whether it was the sky collapsing upon the void created by his hungry flames or the sound of his wings, thunder boomed in the sky, a clear warning to all and sundry to stay clear of our battle.

He launched himself towards me again. He was even stronger now. Each slash of his claws, hammer blow of his fists, reminded me of Renekton, that Butcher of the Sands who was still hellbent on becoming a kinslayer.

'No,' I thought as I ducked a blow only to leap up with Aegis in a rising uppercut.

His head snapped back and I jabbed Skyfall into his throat, trusting that he could regenerate from this as well.

He retaliated with a slap of his wing. No matter how strong I was, I was a man and weighed like one. I was slapped out of the air and flung back to the asphalt, landing with a dull, squelching splash. Even the road burned around us, melting into a tar-like sludge that clung to my body.

Disgusting.

With a thought, the Solstice of Astrea burst into a corona of starfire that burned the tar from my person. I gazed up at him. He stood more than four times my height now, and sure enough, the wound over his throat, fatal to any other, had already closed. His hand had fully grown back in our brief clash, this time with noticeably thicker scales. Behind him, a tail began to form, finally making him resemble the dragons I knew.

A full-bellied laugh welled up from my chest. He was so aggressive, I wondered how he'd do on the defense. I decided to initiate this time.

With a thought, cosmic fire surrounded my spear in an aurora of golds, blues and purples. I leapt towards him, point aimed towards his heart. I was not as swift as I could be so that I might test his mettle, but he had thusfar kept up well with my expectations.

His eyes widened comically and he swerved his body to the side to protect his heart. The turn carried from his feet to his hips and shoulders. In the same motion, he launched a backhand the size of a recycling bin at my head. His tail, now fully grown and as long as he was tall, followed with a whipcord crack of displaced air.

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I ducked the backhand, just enough to let it deflect against the dome of my helmet. Then, in a maneuver akin to my initial strike, Aegis met Lung's tail edge-first. But this time, thanks to his thicker armor, he did not lose the limb entirely. Instead, I felt his vertebrates tear out of their sockets with a wet pop.

At the same time, my spear found his chest, closer to the liver than the heart. It visibly burned him, a corona of blue and gold that overwhelmed his crimson flames.

He let out a howl of agony as I swept my spear to the side, cleanly ripping it free from his chest cavity. I cut diagonally rightward, cracking through his sternum, multiple ribs, stomach, and kidney. Skyfall tore itself from his chest in a shower of gore, leaving my opponent only half-attached to his lower body.

He slumped to the ground with a pained groan, his tail limp from the damaged spine. And yet, even now, I saw him begin to heal.

Rather than pursue the killing stroke, I kicked him away and planted the butt of my spear on the ground. It made an unpleasant squelching sound against the tar-like asphalt, but there was little I could do about that.

"More, Lung!" I shouted. He was far from a Darkin in strength, nowhere close to the might of even the weakest Ascended, Aspect, or spirit god. And yet, he had demanded a respectable amount of my effort. I wished to see how much more he could offer me. "Grow stronger still! Show me the best this world has to offer!"

So saying, I waited in silence, standing proud among the freshly made hellscape. I wasn't overly concerned with the damage we'd wrought. I'd come to understand that this city once had a thriving maritime culture, which was lost through self-sabotage in the form of a "tanker" that had ground itself into the bay. Since then, these warehouses were largely abandoned.

And if any had not left by now… As Iula once said, stupidity was a sin, its fruits the just reward.

Lung healed quickly. His tail thrashed with agitation, letting me know that his spine had reconnected itself. The gaping rend in his side had bubbled and boiled as fire cloaked him, expelling what black tar had made its way in from my kick. The wound closed itself even as I watched and I knew I could soon resume my test.

"What the hell are you doing?" I heard a woman shout from the sky. I looked up to find a blonde woman dressed in form-fitting white. Her outfit had violet accents and some sort of starburst symbol, presumably a personal heraldry of some kind. Her hands glowed with violet light, undoubtedly a projectile of some kind. Were I on Runeterra, I might have mistaken her for a cultist or priestess of an Aspect with a getup like that.

She looked like she was going to descend, but the rising smoke and heat kept her far away. In one hand was a conic device that made her audible over the roaring flames.

"Greetings, flying maiden!" I shouted up at her. "I am waiting for him to recover so that he might be stronger than ever!"

"Why the fuck-Take him out!"

"How else would I test the Dragon of Kyushu? I wish to know how powerful an endbringer is! He seemed like a good measuring stick!"

"You're-Gaahhh! I don't fucking believe this! Do you have any idea how much of the city you two idiots are burning down?"

"There is no one in this warehouse! I checked!"

"The smoke is fucking toxic, you idiot!" she shrieked. Her face was red with wrath as she gestured wildly around her. Then she inhaled some of the smoke and almost fell from the sky in a coughing fit. A globe made of purple light surrounded her head, keeping her from inhaling any more. "His wings have been blowing embers a mile out! You think this is the only block on fire?"

I frowned. That… I had not considered that. I knew fire could spread, but wasn't this city made of stone? It did not seem so vulnerable to fires like many towns I was familiar with back on Runeterra. They even had public servants dedicated to the art of combating flames. Were they not enough?

But then again, smoke was deadly for mortals. It was so easy to forget just how fragile people truly were. With the technological and magical advancements of this city, I had assumed they could cope.

I grumbled, my battlelust thoroughly dampened by reality. As loath as I was to admit it, the loud star-maiden was right; I could not continue this fight here, lest I be complicit in burning down the city. Kyushu itself had been lost to the sea after all.

I pondered the situation for a minute and arrived at a decision: I could not fight here, and he did have wings…

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lung rise to his knees. He was even bigger now, almost thirty feet tall, truly massive by the standards of men. A second pair of wings grew from beneath the first and his neck elongated, making him look more serpentine.

"Very well, I shall test his mettle elsewhere!" I shouted.

"What?"

She yelled something else, but that was all the attention I gave her. I rushed at Lung with a big smile. He tried to claw at me but I leapt atop one of his massive hands, then stabbed the other arm and pinned it to the ground. I ducked below a following wing and reached out to grab him by the tip of his tail. He was large, but smaller than Renekton still.

Then, with a grunt of exertion, I lifted him off the ground and began to swing him like a flail. There was some tension from his skewered hand, but a bit more effort made flesh and bone part against the haft of my spear like smoked pork pulling apart at the seams.

Once, twice, I swung him around. With each revolution, I added more speed, more force. Cosmic fire enveloped us both, melting his scales and empowering me with the might of a celestial. Then, when I felt I had a good measure of the distance, I released him. He scarcely had time to widen his eyes in surprise before I bodily flung him towards the sea.

The not-dragon flew in a beautiful arc, a truly poetic moment, before I snatched Skyfall off the ground and took aim. I blunted it with celestial magic and, matching the trajectory, launched both myself and the spear.

I soared through the sky like a comet, the Solstice of Astrea weaving constellations in my wake. For a brief moment, I saw the star-maiden gape in awe before I passed her and my spear collided with a wildly flapping Lung.

He tried to stabilize himself in the air but could not manage it before I gouged out his right lung again.

"Fight me, dragon!" I roared as I punched him in the snout.

He roared right back at me and we began an aerial dance the likes of which I had not enjoyed since I crested Targon's peak to confront Leona and her Solari fanatics.

He was still a far cry from her equal, but it was rare for me to face a draconic creature. He made up for his weakness with sheer size, ferocity, and three extra limbs in the form of his secondary wings and tail. Though we clashed a dozen times and I came out the victor each time, he healed from his wounds with impressive speed and was always ready for more.

Slowly, I began to loosen more of the restraints on my own power. The halo of celestial fire that surrounded me brightened more and more. Slowly but surely, fire solidified like armor, held in rigid form by the magic of my star. First a breastplate, then an overlapping skirt. Grieves followed, replacing the cloth wrappings I wore in lieu of sandals.

Lung grew in response, faster and faster until even his smaller set of wings were each twice as long as a grown man. His scales had to be as thick as the length of an ax handle at their thickest. Even his smallest claw could be used to disembowel an elnuk matriarch now.

I saw him grow with each clash and I couldn't remember the last time I'd been this thrilled to fight a man. Not a self-styled god or Darkin, a man.

No, that wasn't right. There had been great heroes of Runeterra. That peerless blademaster Yi, the grand sorcerer Ryze. The champion of a bygone era, Jax. The berserker Tryndamere who had the strength of a thousand men. Yes, there were worthy men in my past, but none had turned into a dragon to meet my challenge.

The sky was set alight by our clash. Scalding winds buffeted the coastline. Each impact sent a shockwave of force into the water, raising new, ever taller waves even as the heat boiled them into steam.

Down below, I could hear the wail of a siren, far louder than those they mounted atop the cars of the city watch. Endbringer sirens, I knew, were alarms that were raised only in times of great danger to inform all civilians to take shelter.

It was unnecessary, I'd yet to fight in earnest, but flattering in a way.

Even so, slowly but surely, I grew weary of this game. I knew what the siren meant; it meant reinforcements, so-called heroes and villains who would flock to this city in the hope of containing the threat. It was a valiant effort, one befitting the spirit of true warriors, but I did not enjoy being disturbed.

More, I began to notice something that had initially escaped me in my battlelust: Lung's sense of reason had left him.

It had been slow at first. He was angry and struck out in anger, not unlike that king of barbarians. As he grew, his blows became heavier, but he retained much of his skill. Rather than allow animalistic instinct to rule him, he used his increased senses and bulk to build upon what he had. And though he was no great master of unarmed combat like those monks of Ionia, he possessed a sort of base cunning and experience that made him enjoyable to face.

A pity I saw none of that any longer.

I did not know when it happened, but somewhere between the warehouse and now, he'd lost his inner battle. I looked into his eyes and saw no trace of the man he had been. He was but a savage beast now, lashing out at a threat in a desperate bid for survival. And as quickly as it had come, my lust for battle vanished into the wind.

I let out a disappointed sigh. It was time I ended this.

I was a man, I reminded myself of this fact daily. And yet, I knew in my heart that I was more. Not a god, never a god. But more nonetheless. No mere mortal could do what I had done. I was a man, but with the might of the stars above, who wielded weapons forged in celestial flames and donned a shroud of the myriad constellations.

Sometimes, sometimes it was good to remember that though I was a man, I could no longer be called a mortal.

My star burned like a heavenly herald as I fully embraced my place in the universe. I had not been an Aspect since the day Aatrox burned Pantheon from me. No, for nearly a century now, I was War, no further epithets or titles needed.

My relic weapons, legacies of those who had gone before me, shone like supernovas in the sky. Here and now, I loosed the restraints on my own power. Celestial magic seeped into my body, entwining with my muscles and bones and weaving a corona of flames greater than any armor. My shield shone brighter than the sun. My spear sent lashes of brilliant stars that parted the clouds with every swing. My shroud spread itself over the horizon and turned the day into the clearest night.

I looked upon the false dragon with contempt. He dwarfed many houses now, standing more than ten times my normal height, but his presence felt so small before the heights of Targon. I knew not his story, nor his motivations, but I cared not. What was a dragon before the mountains I'd climbed?

Just a rabid beast to be struck down.

He let out a deafening roar, maybe strong enough to topple trees with his shout alone had he been on the ground, but it all echoed like the petulant tantrum of a child in my ears.

"You have lost yourself, creature," I spoke bitterly, voice colored with the reality that was War. I loathed men like him. The first and greatest foe a Ra'Horak faced was himself. I had seen countless men lose themselves to the whispers of power promised by the Darkin and he was no different in my eyes.

No, they failed to the song of gods; what excuse did he have?

He struck with the force of an avalanche, but my shield turned the blow aside in a vortex of starfire. "Is this all you are? Is this the strength you are so proud of?"

I countered with a swipe of my spear. A blade of starfire cleaved his wings from him. "You cast aside your humanity and are lesser for it."

I did not need to take up my mantle like this, not for him. Even at his greatest, he was no Ascended, though he nearly rivaled one in sheer bulk now. He bore neither the celestial spark nor the taint of the Void, not the magic of the Rune Mage nor the whispers of spirit gods. He was their lesser in every way, even more so now that reason had left him.

And yet, for this briefest moment, I embraced my station and became War in truth. I imposed my will upon my spear, setting it alight once more. Mortality. Death. The last gasp of air that filled the lungs of the recently slain. The carnage that watered the fields and fed the flocks. How ironic it was that I knew them best when I shone above them all?

"How disappointing you are, Lung."

Then, in a moment of supernatural clarity, I brought my spear down upon the beast with all the force of a small meteor. The very fabric of reality screeched in protest, a tortured cry that, for a moment, drowned out the wail of the sirens. Lung could do nothing but flail in terror at the descending calamity.

My attack found resistance in his mail-like scales for only the briefest moment before the heat and force drilled cleanly through his chest and mortality forced itself upon his body, leaving behind a hole big enough to drive a car through without touching the sides.

There was no gore for blood, bone, and viscera instantly turned to so much cosmic dust in the face of my spear.

An instant later, my spear reached the sea with a cataclysmic explosion. For this briefest moment, there was a clear well dug out of the ocean, as though the Tidecaller had parted a cylinder of the sea and exposed the seafloor to the sky above. Then it all came collapsing back and a titanic clap rang through the air. The implosion caused the water to swell outward just as quickly and a small tidal wave crashed upon the city.

Powerful though he was for a mortal, he was nothing special when placed next to the likes of Aatrox and the other Darkin. Every Darkin excelled at blood magic, though some more than others. Dealing with regenerators who recuperate their strength even as we battled was something I had long since grown accustomed to.

I frowned in frustration and allowed the beast's body to fall into the sea. I had not sought to kill him at the start, but faced with a berserk creature rather than a man, I found my willingness to test him wane until I merely longed to be rid of a nuisance. My celestial shroud faded from me as I looked down upon the water. With it, the night sky I'd willed into being vanished, my star withdrawing so that the sun might continue its rightful journey once more.

Sighing, I dove back to the city. No doubt, the Protectorate had a great many questions for me. Worse, the madwoman called Bakuda was still at large.

It mattered not. War would find her, one way or another.

Author's Note

It feels a little OOC for Atreus to go balls to the wall on this Lung fight. At the same time, he is Rakkor. He's been conditioned to delight in the thrill of battle. On one hand, he's this grizzled veteran who's grown to appreciate peace. On the other hand, the moment he's promised a worthy foe, he jumps at the chance to test himself.

A godling and a regenerator wouldn't mind the smoke much, but the rest of the city very much cares. Fires hot enough to boil a city block's worth of asphalt would also wreck absolute havoc far beyond the fight itself and they sent Photon Mom to (hopefully) talk Atreus down because she's one of the few flyers around.

I thought about what sorts of powers War would have. Aspects are far more versatile than the movesets they know in-game. For example, Mihira, the Aspect of Justice, is capable of doing everything her daughters can, as well as creating and summoning an army of angelic drones (as depicted in LoR cards).

As for the powers that come with being War, the biggest one I could think of, besides celestial fire and a quasi-Susanoo armored giant form, was mortality, the concept of a clash of wills and the imposition of an ending upon the defeated.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.