The Extra's Rise

The lunar dust hung suspended in the vacuum, a grey fog of war illuminated by the starlight and the glow of the demon fleet burning in orbit. Through it, the burning eyes of Wrath approached like twin suns. He was charging again, a mindless, repetitive cycle of violence, a hammer that knew only how to strike. Behind him, Envy drifted like a vulture, patient, parasitic, and utterly confident.

I tightened my grip on Valeria, forcing the conceptual edge back into the blade through sheer will. Envy could steal the property, but as long as I held the source—the Grey Divinity—I could reforge it. But reforging took energy, and I was bleeding energy with every second.

'He steals what I project,' I analyzed, watching Wrath's thunderous approach. 'He envies the outcome of my actions. My cuts, my speed, my health.'

If I attacked Envy, Wrath would crush me while I was distracted. If I attacked Wrath, Envy would negate it or reflect it.

The solution wasn't to stop attacking. It was to attack with something Envy couldn't steal. Or perhaps… something he wouldn't want to steal. Or better yet, something he couldn't control because it didn't belong to me.

Wrath was upon me. He raised both fists for a hammer blow that would likely crack the moon's crust down to the mantle.

I didn't dodge. I didn't block. I dropped my sword.

Valeria vanished into a pocket dimension. I stepped forward, directly into the shadow of the descending colossus. It was suicide. It was madness.

"Arthur!" I heard Rachel's psychic scream from orbit, faint and terrified, watching the feeds.

I ignored it. I focused entirely on my third Gift. Soul Resonance.

Usually, I used it to connect, to understand, to copy. It was a bridge. But a bridge could handle two-way traffic. And a bridge could be used to dump poison into a well.

As Wrath's fists descended, blotting out the sky, I extended my hands and slammed them against his burning, magma-rock chest. My Grey aura flared, not to protect me from the heat—which was searing my palms instantly—but to force a connection.

"Look at me!" I roared telepathically, driving my will into the chaotic, screaming storm of Wrath's mind.

It was like sticking my head into a blast furnace. Pure, incoherent rage washed over me. There was no logic, no language, no strategy. Just a desire to burn, to break, to end. It was a primal scream that had lasted for eons.

I didn't try to calm him. I didn't try to dominate him; his Divine will was too thick, too heavy, too ancient.

Instead, I used Soul Resonance to align. I vibrated my own soul to match the frequency of his rage. I became a mirror. And then, I tilted the mirror.

'Why do you hold back?' I whispered into the storm of his mind, my voice becoming his inner voice. 'Why do you wait?'

Wrath faltered. The hammer blow paused inches from my head, his muscles trembling, the magma veins pulsing erratically. The confusion I had sensed earlier returned, magnified by my resonance.

'You are the storm,' I projected, pushing the thought deep into his psyche, wrapping it in his own rage. 'You are the end. But he...' I shifted my focus, using the resonance to highlight Envy's presence behind us. Envy, who was cold. Envy, who was calculating. Envy, who held the leash. 'He is the one who stops you. He steals your kill. He envies your strength. He thinks he is your master.'

It was a lie, and it was the truth. Envy did control him. Envy did use him. To a being of pure instinct, control felt like chains.

"What are you doing?" Envy's voice cut in, sharp with sudden alarm. He sensed the shift, the foreign resonance pollution in his puppet. He lashed out, a tendril of shadow aiming to sever my connection, to reclaim his tool.

But he was too slow. Or rather, he had misunderstood the target. He thought I was attacking Wrath.

I wasn't. I was pointing a loaded gun.

"NOW!" I shouted, pouring every ounce of my remaining mental strength into one final, projected image: Envy, standing over Wrath's broken body, laughing, stealing his fire, mocking his strength.

Wrath roared. It wasn't the battle cry he had used before. This was a sound of betrayal, of primal territorial fury, of a beast realizing the cage door was open and the keeper was within reach.

The hammer blow didn't fall on me.

Wrath spun, his massive body moving with a speed born of pure hatred. His colossal fist, wreathed in the fires of a dying star, swung around in a flat, devastating arc.

Envy was rushing forward to intervene, to sever my connection, his attention focused entirely on me and the 'glitch' in his puppet. He was completely exposed. He had expected me to dodge. He had expected me to attack. He had never, in eons of manipulation, expected his own shield to become the spear.

"Wrath, cease!" Envy commanded, exerting his authority, his voice a lash of will.

But an Edict of Authority means nothing to a natural disaster.

Wrath's fist connected with Envy.

There was no sound in the vacuum, but the impact sent a ripple through the lunar surface that threw me off my feet. Envy's shadow-shield, hastily erected, shattered instantly. His slender, robed form was caught squarely by the mountain of magma.

Envy's telepathic scream was a high, thin sound of shock and agony. He was launched backwards, skipping across the lunar surface like a stone across water, crashing through ridges and dunes, his aura flickering violently. The blow from his own peer, fueled by absolute rage, had shattered his defenses in a way my attacks never could.

The synergy was broken. The loop was shattered.

Wrath stood panting, confused, his rage vented but directionless, looking between me and the cloud of dust where Envy had landed.

I didn't hesitate. I summoned Valeria back to my hand. The Grey Divinity surged, no longer fighting a war on two fronts.

"Now," I whispered, the cold certainty of the kill settling over me.

I folded space, not to escape, but to hunt. I vanished, reappearing instantly above the dazed, broken form of Envy, who was struggling to rise from the debris, his robes torn, his shadowy form bleeding miasma.

He looked up at me, his eyes wide with hate and fear. "You... you turned him..."

"I just showed him where to look," I said.

I raised my sword. This time, there was no Wrath to guard him. This time, there was no time to steal the cut.

The War of Gods had turned.