Xantheaa was at a total loss. It didn't make sense at all for Ruach to abandon her suddenly. She deftly and elegantly swooped and skirted by the larger woman's merciless physical attacks, who—despite her profuse lacerated appearance sending a shower of metallic yellow fluid across the earth with every sudden movement—seemed almost undeterred in her actionable aggression. Her stamina seemed just as bottomless as her skin was firm, and her muscles turgid.
She tried to think about what she could have done to put herself in this position, but Ma'at was a relentless and fearsome warrior the likes of Heracles or even Perseus. She barely could keep away from her, now that she was functioning under the power of her stamina.
Every time she managed to pull together a burst of speed to escape her range, the incarnation of order would gather a space-rending magnitude of strength in her thighs until they swelled like a gourd under water, and pounced directly on top of the path of her escape. It was clear that she would have to think of something else, and fast; because the current tactic was simply exhausting herself. In contrast, Ma'at appeared completely relaxed.
Thrall hooted and hollered, pulling his hair in anguish. He couldn't imagine standing up to gods because of just where he came from, and even less physically assaulting one! He repeatedly called for her to stop, to reconsider, to apologize—anything would be better than this!—He didn't want to watch her perish.
She ignored his shouts, and focused all the attention she could on her breath, the oxygen in her lungs, the air filtering through her primaries, and binding heavily against her carpal edges—and in those glimpses she found the shape of a rune flitting timidly through her mind. The more glimpses she found, the more she recognized its shape. It matched a center of power buried deep within her chest.
'Ah, there you are!' she marveled, as Ruach meekly smiled back. He didn't want to bother the other words in the room who were having their fun. She encouraged him to remember how much he loved her.
Then, a sudden violent shockwave burst across the scene, as even the massive sinewy brunt of Ma'at was cast into the air with all the force that this implies. The fury expressed by Xantheaa in that moment was a true divine expression of the care that word had for one of its treasured manifestations.
Not to be outdone, the goddess deftly curled her legs into a beautiful athletic back tuck, followed with a reverse handspring that left deep impact craters in her wake, and permitted her to stick that landing like it was second nature. The two women merely stared at one another for a few moments, breathlessly registering what had just occurred.
Thoth simply balked at the impossible sight before him. "How is this even possible?! That power doesn't belong to you! You cannot use those words in my domain. I made sure of it!"
Thrall was just as amazed as the god behind him. He was beginning to understand why she could stand before the might of these deities. "You only commanded the words in the air and space of this world that you have constructed. She comes from a world where words are baked into their very flesh, and so have no jurisdiction over the power she now expresses. Ruach is a part of her, as much as Knowledge is a part of you. This battle is over."
"Do not listen to him, my love." Ma'at spat. "The girl is but a mere fraction of the word Ruach. It cannot express its full might without the rest of her brood. My vengeance will not be denied." and with that, she dove headlong into the air to thrash her competitor. Her fist cracked against a hard, invisible barrier that the young creature had erected in the middle of the air between them.
"All of Ruach loves me, for I am but a part of them. Can a word truly abandon part of itself?! You are blinded by arrogance!—" the floating instigator replied, but her words were clipped by an unexpected antecedence as the air shattered like glass into a myriad of sharp bits of solidified Ruach. One word was clearly not enough against the might of an entire incarnation. The woman before her was as if Order itself were given form and a body!
She focused her attention onto a sphere of air about seven feet in diameter around her body, which more than tripled the hardness of the surface. Still, when Ma'at punched the surface, the force blasted her across the room at nearly subsonic speed. Then, when she had finally managed to slow her procession to a manageable impulse, noticed that a hairline fracture had still managed to appear.
Fear suddenly gripped her heart, and she quickly sealed that fissure with more of her innate propensity. It wasn't long until the goddess leaped out of the ether with all the force from her multi-ton body and terminal velocity from her meteoric upsurge, joined with the force of her forearm's impeccable swing speed; all acting in perfect concert for an ideological maximum impartation of physical energy into the glossy surface.
That punch was the likes of which had only been imagined in the minds of mortal men, who chiefly practiced that action for their entire lives. The ideal punch, that took full advantage of every single atom of her potential—from which all other punches are nothing more than a meager reflection—crashed against the smooth skin of the shield, and it sheared off a substantial portion of the substance.
The shape of the globe had redirected the force across the breadth of its structure, significantly diminishing its impact to the point where only a quarter of its volume had been reduced, and the crater resulting in her ejection from the ensuing chaos was only a mere fifty feet wide. While Ma'at tutted her teeth at that pitiful occurrence, Xantheaa quickly refilled the crack with more power.
Ma'at quickly dropped onto the surface of the small desert she forced into the middle of Thoth's pristine garden, and switched tactics; clutching the orb between her outstretched hands to lift the whole thing into the air. Xantheaa laughed, nervously, as the very ludicrous idea of what she was seeing clicked into her mind. "Hah! Do you openly jest?! Surely you do not intend to crush between your arms the artifact strong enough to withstand your most potent martial strikes! Just admit that you cannot harm me, and let it be over with!"
Yet her laughter slowly petered off once she heard her imprisoner start to whisper, "Simple minded loon of ocean, you have caused too much commotion. I can call upon emotion to fuel my power more. So, sit still, and wail and fetter as I pluck your every feather. You should have considered better to fear what the gods abhor."
The harpy swore, "Oh, prýmni̱." as she registered what accompanied those words spoken open by the deity, before her eyes. Soon, the ball of gas surrounding her body began amounting less and less hindrance; compounding in a crash to seize her prize.
"Got you now," Ma'at grinned madly, as her fingers tightened gladly around her windpipe, which sadly was helpless beneath her palm.
Xantheaa wrenched her eyes shut, and kicked her feet fruitless to butt uselessly against her, but the surprise let her shout "RAAM!"
The second rune of power brightly lit up in her chest and lightning fired from the sky igniting both their bodies without fail. Coughing, wrenching in her chest, Xantheaa managed to repress the shivers warbling her breath, and glowered as the goddess fell.
Maybe one word wouldn't have done it, but Xantheaa had five of them buried deep inside. She clutched Ma'at by her quail-feathered hair as black as midnight, and whispered a word into her ear.
"Yield."
The Goddess of Order may as well have been the goddess of pride, for how little change in expression her appeal effected. "You couldn't dare to kill me." she murmured, weakly. "Your honor impels you. Justice will always prevail."
"I do not serve your Justice," Xantheaa replied, and wrapped the wide, striated throat in her large talons. "and honor is something that you know nothing about."
Then, she went to rake her sharp protuberances through the delicate flesh underneath; until Thoth shrieked in a loud voice, "Wait!" and he barreled over to his wife's side, and he fell upon her with all his might. "Please, spare her. You-you've made your point. I will give you anything you ask!"
"Th-thoth... no. Don't do this." she whimpered between gnashed teeth. "They don't deserve—"
"You, shut up." Xantheaa spat, as mercy filled the stores formerly occupied by anger. She dropped the head to the floor below, and turned back to the other god sprawled over her back. "and you... have a deal." She smiled politely.