The battle against Cortes went more smoothly than Jaguar had at all envisioned as being possible.
There had been perhaps as many as a hundred proper Conquistadors on the large ship that they had sailed in on. About another hundred sailors worked the boat itself, with a total of a little over two hundred Spaniards in total. Perhaps they were not all as delighted at the prospect of invasion and plunder as Cortes... Jaguar vaguely recalled stories of the ships being burned or scuttled to force the sailors to join in on his venture.
It hardly mattered what the historical record showed. In the history he knew, Cortes had not started his work by detouring with one of his ships to attempt to find the city of El Dorado in the jungles of South America. There had never been a map to the city, because it had never existed to begin with... it had only been invented out of whole cloth and wishful thinking when the Conquistadors discovered a rare ritual where a new king was painted with gold dust while some artifacts were pitched in a lake, and they concluded that this was obviously not enough.
A hundred armored Conquistadors against a dozen Jaguar Warriors seemed to be a terrible mismatch on the face of it. However, tromping through the jungle while searching for clues to a hidden city of gold ripe for the taking as long as you killed all the inhabitants first was a difficult endeavor. It was tricky to move everyone in a group, and so Cortes had ordered them to spread out from a base camp, in five groups of roughly twenty each.
Twenty Conquistadors against twelve Jaguar Warriors was much closer to being fair even before the Falna was taken into account. Added to how they were used to moving silently through the jungle, creeping after their targets as they waited for the right moment to strike, compared to loud and obnoxious invaders that couldn't stop complaining about all the plants in their way in the jungle? Stomping on branches and hacking away at brush to clear paths, they could hardly be more noisy if their armor was a worse fit and clanging like pots and pans being banged against each other.
The hammers that had been prepared, soft masses of heavy gold fixed on the end of thick and heavy clubs like maces, those would brain a man just as well through a helmet as they would if only his hair was in the way. For the most part, however, it wasn't needed.
The breastplate and helmets left the faces and necks of the Conquistadors bare. It was a smaller and more difficult target than the torso, but it meant that there was nothing protecting them from hurled javelins and hunting arrows there, and the blessing that Jaguar had given them meant that the Jaguar Warriors were more capable of hitting those harder targets... When they didn't just silently creep up on a target, pull them down or out of sight somehow, and just cut their bare throats with obsidian knives.
The first attack was clumsy. They were still getting used to their increased strength and the benefits of the Falna. It came down to an open fight, with weapons clashing against each other, steel breastplates being battered and hammered in, injuries taken that left a few of the Jaguar Warriors scratched and battered and one ashamed of needing to stay out of successive battles on account of wounds, and some unfortunate damage to the equipment that meant it needed to be replaced.
By the end, comparatively? The Jaguar Warriors had become a well-greased machine. Cut one throat, throw a sharp rock to lodge in another, and if everyone did it correctly and with the right timing when a signal was given? In the blink of an eye, twenty Conquistadors became corpses that just hadn't finished bleeding out quite yet.
Except for one. One that was captured alive, for a very specific reason.
Cortes, who was brought to El Dorado in the grip of the two largest Jaguar Warriors while the rest went to raid his ship, intent on capturing it before the sailors aboard decided to leave and carry word of his disappearance away.
... That would at this point be even closer to slaughter, even if they had guns. The Jaguar Warriors had discovered that even their Blessing would not quite hold up to taking sustained fire from Muskets, after all, shown by the unfortunate who needed to rest as the lead pellets were extracted, so they knew that they couldn't let the sailors have a chance to unload on them. Unfortunate, but there was nothing to be done about it... Jaguar left the seizing of the vessel to them, however they felt was best.
Meanwhile, Cortes.
He was much taller than the historical individual. Broader shoulders. Bigger, manlier chest leaving him with the triangle-shaped body from shoulders to hips that was iconic of animated manly-men. He spat, bitterly, in Jaguar's direction as he was dragged along the stone.
"Wretched, abominable heathens." he sneered. "You won't get away with this. My god shall cast you low, into the pit of fire, for your offenses!"
Oh yes. How dare you fight off the invaders come to plunder. Truly, that was unforgivable. Jaguar rolled his eyes and then raised a hand to have the ranting cut off by the back of a Jaguar Warrior's hand.
"Cowering behind women." Cortes spat out, along with a bit of blood. "Your barbarism shall someday be your undoing."
"How droll. Hernan Cortes... you came for gold. Far be it from me to deny it to you." Jaguar said dryly, waving servants forward.
They clasped bands of gold around his arm and around his legs, tapping them shut with small stone hammers as the confusion silenced the conquistador for a moment. Then they stood back, bowed their heads, and stepped away.
"Am I not generous, Cortes? You shall see more gold than you could ever spend." Jaguar declared, before pointing with his thumb towards the stone platform jutting out over the lake believed to be the entrance to the Spirit World. "... Toss him."
Cortes roared and he struggled, but held fast and weighted down he was unable to escape before he was pitched over the edge, getting in one last snarling curse as he descended.
A sacrifice in Jaguar's name.
He waited patiently, feeling the presence in the sacred pool, and breathed in with his eyes shut as the last traces of life flowed out of it. The power of such a ritual sacrifice flowed toward his reserves, ready to be processed into something that he could use...
And then Jaguar's eyes snapped open, as though he had been splashed in the face with cold water, or slapped, as it was jealously ripped away. Snatched up, and with an extra slice of raw power torn away from him as an added insult, to boot.
"Rude." Jaguar hissed in exhalation, his knuckles popping for a moment before he calmed himself.
Well then. That was something to take into account, going forward.