What truly makes a man?
Is it the work he does?
The sweat off his brow?
Keeping calm in the face of unprecedented circumstances?
No, if one truly wishes to see what makes up a man's essence, one would need to look deeper....
Push further.
For once a man is at his limits....
Thrusted towards the jaws of death.....
Will one be able to see if a man stares death in the eyes and shows fear....
Or if they'll stare at the jaws of death and welcome them with open arms.
For what truly waits a man at the end of the day....?
Other than their own demise.
-R.A. Dickinson
~January 22nd, 2024
______________________
Odin, the All Father, the all seeing God of War and Death in Nordic Mythology, and the current opponent of one Puck Gier was currently at his wits end.
He was currently stuck in hand to hand combat with a salmon haired young man with a white scarf around his neck.
Which was actually pretty impressive, seeing as such a young mortal was actually capable of forcing a god into a corner via hand to hand and dance style combat.
Now, you may be asking, how could it be possible that a mortal of all things is capable of fighting on par with the elderly God....
....and where the hell is his spear?!
Well the answer to that was rather easy actually, for the salmon haired young man wasn't alone.
While the young man with flames enveloping his fist was locked in unarmed combat with Odin, he seemed to be relishing in the feeling.
Scales slowly began to develop on the young man's face and his flames seemed to glow even more vibrantly than before!
Not to mention that every time Odin tries to summon forth his spear or use any magic, a yellow rat would come out of nowhere and try to blind side him with electricity!
Now, a tactic of this level would never be able to escape the All Father's all seeing gaze, all he'd need to do was dodge and let the attack pass harmlessly by....
If it wasn't for the fact that an orange dragon with a blue stomach would come out of nowhere and spew fire out from the opposite direction, meaning that if he were to dodge the lightning coming from the yellow rat, then he'd be wide open to the fire from the orange dragon.
Again, an attack of that level would be nothing to the Norse God, but the moment he let his guard down then the trainer of these creatures would come out of nowhere, landing a rather shocking haymaker to his cheek, sending the elderly God reeling backwards.
Then the salmon haired young man would devour the flames from the orange dragon, giving himself an even larger power boost and healing his wounds.
Not to mention the fact that Odin also had to deal with a humongous orange/brown creature with golden chains on its arms.
Odin made the mistake of taking his eyes off him for a moment, and it nearly cost him an arm as it fired a contracted orb of energy that Odin blocked with his spear, only for his armament to be sent flying away as his body was sent tumbling backwards.
At least it seemed that Puck wasn't joining the battle....
That's what the All Father thought at first at least.
_________________________________________
Ten Minutes Earlier ~ The Beginning of the Battle:
Puck moved to charge into battle next to one of his beloved childhood protagonists, only for him to pause mid step as a thought came to mind.
He allowed Ash to fly by him and engage in battle with Natsu and Exodia by his side as he sat down, cross legged, next to Yami Yugi who gave him a questioning look.
"Are you not going to join the battle?" Yugi asked in his usual deal tone.
Puck simply scoffed and gave the pharaoh a grin in response, "I should be asking you the same thing! You have over fifty cards in that deck and you managed to draw all five pieces of exodia? Is that deck even regulation?" He snapped back before closing his eyes and beginning to concentrate.
Yugi simply smirked at this before revealing his deck of cards, "Regulation? Last time I checked there were no rules in war." He replied calmly as he revealed that his entire deck held only pieces of exodia, Egyptian god cards, and pots of greed.
Even though Puck couldn't see, a small smirk still made its way on his face as his golden aura returned with full force.
"I fucking knew it...." He mumbled to himself, allowing Yami Yugi to guard him as he allowed his consciousness to fade.
Even though he couldn't see the notifications from the system or the system itself, he was still able to use his skills due to his connection to Dark.
He realized that the moment he summoned Red from his pocket inventory (a place he uses to store emergency summons in case of situations where he ran out of cost/mana).
So didn't that mean he could access his more lethal skills and summons without restrictions?!
There was only one way to find out....
_______________________
Odin had finally managed to restrain the orange giant using several Nordic runes and the yellow rat-like creature was on its last legs, along with its trainer.
Though the salmon haired young man, whom Odin found unbelievably annoying, and orange dragon were still in fighting condition.
Speaking of which, Odin had completely forgotten about them in his hurry to get rid of the nuisance that was the giant orange/brown creature!
This proved to be a grave mistake as an intense, nigh suffocating, heat suddenly engulfed the void.
It was to the point where even the elderly God was having problems breathing.
Odin quickly whipped his head around in time to stare in the eyes of two enormous red dragons.
The young man seemed to be concentrating an ungodly amount of fire magic into his body with enough intensity to cause the image of a great Ruby scaled dragon to appear above his body, and the orange dragon's eyes were glowing an ominous white as it's body went through some type of evolution, causing blade like fins to come jutting out of its small arms, its wings to grow in length and rigidness, and for a third extra large horn to appear on its head.
The All Father failed to notice Ash's smirk and the glowing bracelet on his wrist.
"Bet you didn't see this one coming, old man.... Now I've got a fire in my belly...." Natsu said dramatically, his eyes glowing an intense red color as his entire body is covered in an ethereal ruby red flame, scales now appearing underneath his eyes.
Odin's eyes widened in horror and he quickly sprung forward in a burst of speed, the void shattering under the force of his launch as the elderly God scooped up his Colden spear along his path towards the two dragons.
But he was too slow, for Natsu took in an unbelievably deep breath and Charizard threw its head back with fire escaping the sides of its maw....
"Fire Dragon's....!"
Odin threw his head up in horror as the intensity of heat inside the void rose to a hellish level.
"ROOOOOOOAAAAAAARRRR!!!"
The young man let out a thunderous roar that was quickly mirrored by the orange dragon by his side, causing a massive sea of flames to go exploding towards the Norse God.
Odin stopped on a dime, his feet digging up the ground of the void as he quickly spun his spear in the air for a moment before finally slamming it into the ground, forming a translucent green barrier with white Nordic runes around his body, shielding himself from the flames.
The All Father managed to wait out the sea of fire that left a trail of destruction in its wake and only narrowly managed to miss Ash, Pikachu, and Exodia by a few feet.
Ash managed to shield himself and Pikachu with aura to mitigate the intensity of heat, Exodia on the other hand seemed less than a little singed from the intense flame however.
Odin panted softly as he lowered the barrier and took note of the path of destruction the flames made before quickly bringing up his spear in order to block a flaming kick from Natsu that caused the ground below them to explode from the force.
Natsu looked to be slightly out of breath, and Charizard seemed to be recharging a bit from his intense flamethrower.
Which gave Odin the perfect opportunity as he threw Natsu away with a mighty heave of his spear.
He then turned on his heel and landed a rib shattering kick to Natsu's chest, causing him to cough out blood as he was sent rocketing into Charizard, who simply caught his fellow fire breather, but at what cost? As they were both sent hurdling backwards.
Odin then took up a throwing stance with his spear, the ground below his feet cracking violently as he took a stomping step forward, the spear in his grip crackling violently with a golden energy as he flung it forward with such force that a shockwave exploded from the spear's point of contact with his hand.
The spear destroyed the ground as it flew forward as a yellow blur on a warpath towards the two dragon wannabes before exploding violently on contact with Natsu's chest, creating a huge mushroom cloud as dust and debris were thrown about violently.
"CHARIZARD! NATSU!" Ash shouted from his place on the ground.
Odin simply gained a crazed and excited look on his face as he waited to see the two mortals, who dared to bare their fangs against him, skewered or blown to pieces by his spear....
But as the dust slowly began to settle....
The grin on Odin's face slowly began to fade and was instead replaced by a look of shock and absolute horror at what he saw inside the smoke.
For standing inside a mountain sized crater with his hand outstretched to catch the spear before it could make contact with Natsu's chest....
Was none other than Puck himself.
But Puck was different somehow....
He felt....
Off.
Even as the spear was held firmly in his grip, sparking violently with yellow and green bolts of electricity due to violent rejection of the Nordic runes along its length and Puck's golden aura, and the bodies of Charizard and Natsu which were held atop his shoulder....
His ominous gold, black, and red aura was a lot more tame and withdrawn, and his usual golden scale/plate armor was replaced with gold and black samurai-like armor. He wore a high collared, long sleeved, black robe with olden armor on his chest/back and shoulders, an intricate black embroidery was woven into the gold and a black fan type symbol was on his back. A black belt with a gold buckle was around his waist and black sandals adorned his feet. He still had the golden, clawed, gauntlets on his hands and the two golden horns jutting out of his forehead, plus the golden marks crawling up his cheeks....
But the most noticeable changes were his eyes and hair.... For his hair now fell to the small of his back, falling over top a weird fan like weapon on his back (a gunbai), and his eyes were now an ominous red with three tomoe shaped patterns surrounding each pupil, spinning lazily.
"C'mon, Ash! If you were really worried about these guys how come you didn't bring out anymore Pokemon?! Don't tell me you left 'em with professor Oak or some bullshit." Puck said with an uncharacteristically calm demeanor, a wide excited grin splitting his face as he promptly dropped Natsu and Charizard at the bottom of the crater like a sack of potatoes.
"Heh, can't let you guys have all the fun, now can I~? Not when I should be the one enjoying this dance~." Puck says in a sing song-like tone as his eyes suddenly locked with Odin's own, causing the Nordic God to take a small cautious step back.
This caused Puck's grin to slowly turn into a crazed smirk as the three tomoe in his eyes suddenly grew in size and the three elongated comma-shaped tomoe around the central pupil connected together.
Puck then uttered a single word that sent shivers down the God's spine....
"Sharingan!"
___________________________________________
End, Chapter 39~
Author's Note: Heh, I know you guys weren't expecting that! Let's see what happens when a Madara infused Luck takes the reins of the Dragon of Freedom's power~!
Please vote and comment if you have the time~!
Sorry for the slow updates! College is a lot harder than I previously thought, lol 🤣