Burning brighter than the Sun Part 3 – The burning of Pompeii

Nathalia stayed with Romulus. He was interesting, he knew interesting people and finding Rome again and again would be annoying, so she just moved in after the banquet. Nobody stopped her, although Sol attempted to before being stopped by her sister and her master. She didn’t really keep track of time, although Romulus introduced her to the concept of some sort of calendar. Nathalia found out a lot of things, about Romulus and the gods at large. She made good friends with the fire elemental, which would be known as Krieg later on, Luna and the Horned Rat. Last of which she ever only could meet when Romulus wasn’t around. At first, she only contacted him to find out what he had meant by the words uttered at that first banquet, she received no real answer but he was a somewhat interesting conversationalist, despite being young for a god.

She found out about the two great sins of Romulus, the thing he did to his brother as well as something that, when he revealed it to her, made her actually afraid. For the first time in always, Nathalia felt afraid when he heard him say it. It was one day at the top of the Vesuvius. They didn’t even need an Illusion Barrier here, Romulus had tactically settled only Abyss Walkers here, making it a safe haven for beings like them.

“This is Pompeii, the city that will kill Gaia.” Those were the words that would shatter their trust. “What do you mean, kill Gaia, Romulus? You cannot kill her, she is a law of nature.” “She is not,” Romulus stated as he looked down at the city, from where they stood, they had a nice overview of it, “she is a goddess, an incredibly powerful goddess, but a goddess nonetheless.” “Yes, a goddess so powerful she is almighty,” Nathalia stated as she studied the city below. Now that Romulus told her about it she could see it, the lines of the streets, the shape of the buildings, the whole city was nothing but a mana nexus, currently it served to simply try and turn Gaia’s eyes away from here, but that could be altered within a moment’s notice.

“If she is almighty, why would she allow this place to exist?” Romulus asked her. “Why wouldn’t she? It’s not like it will hurt her,” Nathalia countered the argument, “All it will do is painfully tickle her and then she has an excuse to kill you.” “Nathalia, I have the help of 142 gods and goddesses, I had hoped you would help as well,” Romulus, sensing that he wouldn’t have success on that line, tried a different angle. Nathalia fell silent for a second, “Why are you doing this?” she asked the emperor. “To free the Abyss from its shackles. As long as Gaia exists we cannot use our powers freely. We live in bubbles separated from reality, in pomp and glory, while normal humans starve to **** and succumb to disease, just because a higher power says we cannot use our gifts to help them.” Romulus looked Nathalia into her eyes, “I know you have no love for humanity, but even you would want to stretch your wings freely under the real sky, would you not?”

“I would bring destruction to most of humanity Romulus, the moment the Abyss collapses so does our relationship, the only interest I have in reality is burning it,” Nathalia denied his point, “all you will do is anger Gaia, don’t you remember the tower of Babel? They tried something just like this and look how many of the gods that attended are left, what of the Mesopotamian Abyss itself is left?”

Romulus nodded, “Indeed this whole thing might backfire, but that is a risk I am willing to take,” Nathalia looked at Romulus, then at Sol and finally at Luna, they all looked determined. “You cannot be serious? Gaia will not stop at you, she will purge all of Europe in her wrath.” “That is a risk I am willing to take. The Abyss will one day break out into reality, even if we don’t succeed, the world one day will. This try will start tomorrow, whether you participate or not, Nathalia.”

Nathalia grit her teeth angrily. “I will not die because of your hubris Romulus,” she spat out, “I have much more to succeed in then to be wrapped in your ‘grand designs’.” “Sacrifices have to be made,” Romulus said, then furrowed his eyebrows as the earth shook, “The Vesuvius has been acting up lately, I hope it won’t interfe…” his eyes spied an otherworldly influence that grasped at the earth itself. He traced it back all the way back to Nathalia’s hand, clenched like she was grasping at the magma chamber itself. “What are you doing?” “Saving myself from your idiocy, I cannot flee far enough to escape Gaia but you are just mortal, you I can evade,” Nathalia said and stirred the volcano. She never had worked with a real volcano before, usually she created them from scratch inside Illusion Barriers, however with where she was in the Vesuvius being close to eruption anyhow she felt that Gaia would not care this time around, or at least not enough to threaten her life.

A second tremor, “SOL!” Romulus screamed and the elemental transformed into a sword of gold, big enough to not even be considered holdable by normal people but in Romulus hands the ornate weapon became nothing but a one-hander. Nathalia was barely able to evade the strike at her head, instead it struck her horn. It broke off under the impact of Romulus' powers, disintegrating into sparks that then flew towards Romulus. Her whole being ruptured as part of her godhood was taken from her and went into Romulus instead, who then quickly tried to use his newly acquired powers to reverse whatever Nathalia had done. It was already too late, the Vesuvius would erupt within the next minutes.

“Nathalia,” Romulus growled, “I will kill you for this.” “Pah, if you kill me directly or hundreds indirectly where is the difference really,” Nathalia said and slowly took steps backwards. Romulus wouldn’t let her and, giving up on his endeavour to calm the mountain, attacked her again. “All you did was hinder me!” he shouted, his first swing missing entirely but the **** from the strike released a shockwave that threw the weakened Nathalia off her feet, “I have Barriermakers down there, gifted with part of my own soul, we will have to materialize the Barrier within reality, a feat never accomplished before, but we will do it, you died for nothing!” Romulus explained while he positioned himself above her. ‘This is it then? Really sucks,’ Nathalia thought and was about to attack Romulus in a last **** attempt when he brought his sword down.

Warm blood splattered over Nathalia’s body, a fact that confused her. She had no blood, through her body pulsated magma, and even that was red, not purple. A body of dark fur blocked her sight but Nathalia realized that the Horned Rat was in front of her, Sol sticking out of his back as he had used his own body to block the strike. “You have nothing,” he laughed, “I took care of that, my prophecy will come true!”

“Rat!” Romulus retracted his blade, ready to strike both of them down with one more strike when the Vesuvius exploded underneath them, finally caving to the pressure. The explosion itself could harm none of them but it still ripped away all of their points of reference, tumbled their whole world up and down. Romulus was thrown off balance and the Horned Rat took that moment to channel a spell too complicated for Nathalia to understand. Romulus however, did. “You two are beyond saving, if you ever dare to set foot into my empire again I will hunt and kill you!” he promised before the world of lava, flying rocks and ash was whisked away and both herself and the Horned Rat suddenly reappeared elsewhere.

She had no idea where they were, but it was somewhere underground. The Rat’s children, Skaven he called them, started circling around them checking what had just happened. “Where have you teleported us?” Nathalia asked as strange rat-man hybrids started coming towards them, “The place where one of the most important cities of all times will be at one point.” The Horned Rat explained, then he coughed, purple blood oozed out of his skulls closed teeth. “Urgh, I will need thousands of years to restore from this,” he lamented as the Skaven helped him up, “but we both got out alive, looks good enough to me.” Nathalia touched the broken off horn, she felt the huge portion of her powers that had left with it like a missing tooth. She wasn’t happy about that. “Why were you there?” Nathalia asked. “I was waiting for today, ever since I first saw a vision of the version where Romulus succeeds in trying but fails ultimately,” the Horned Rat explained, the wound in his chest slowly closing. “And none of his allies warned him of that outcome?” Nathalia probed. “We are gods of knowledge, we just see potential futures, not the truth. The ones at his side saw him succeeding, I did not want to take that risk.” “You are an annoying bunch…” Nathalia said and prepared to leave. “Where will you go now?” the Horned Rat wanted to know.

“Go somewhere where I can still fuck somebody. This thing was annoying but necessary,” she got up and prepared to enter the flow of the world, letting Gaia drift her somewhere safe. “But we landed at the end of the food chain now... tell me Rat, what was that prophecy you spoke to Romulus again?” "His work would burn in the fire of destruction," the Horned Rat answered. Nathalia nodded, "fire of destruction," she smirked, "I like the ring of that."

The scene froze again. “So, there we go. Any hard feelings?” “I lost my powers,” Nathalia growled at the time goddess’ voice. “Not enough to be called anything less but godly,” argued Ferikrona, “did you know that there is a fourth step to attaining godhood?” she suddenly changed the topic. “It is: To realize what you are. If you yourself do not believe yourself to be a goddess, why would humanities faith look for you as its host?”

“Is that your whole lesson?” the dragoness growled. “Indeed.” “You could have just said that!” she shouted, angry at the time goddess, “You waste my time!” “Did I? Maybe I needed to stretch the time you had here to fix something that was broken. Maybe a certain friend of both of us made an arrangement with me should this ever happen.” Nathalia felt as her body was restored to a certain point in time, one before the fight with Romulus, one when she still had… She raised her hand to her regrown horn, “You asinine annoyance,” she rumbled, “Just tell me your purpose and do it.” “I wanted to kill some boredom, now Nathalia, I think you have somebody who needs a reminder who you are.” Nathalia felt power surge through her body, power she had not used in a long time, the true power slumbering inside her, incapable of being used in this form.

Sol was hovering above the sands of time and waiting for Nathalia to get back up. It was better for everyone involved if she finally met her end. The power Romulus had stolen from her years ago would now be her end, Sol was very happy with that. The sea of sand below moved. “Finally coming back up?” Sol mumbled and readied herself. Nothing could have prepared her for what was to come.

“I am…” A giant arm broke from the sands, every single one of the four claws as big as a school bus, “A high dragon of ancient times,” Sol dodged narrowly, the claw slammed back into the ground and helped heave her body out of the hourglass, even on its massive size Nathalia’s true body was notable. “The flame and a goddess of destruction,” A second arm appeared and then her whole form rose from the sands.

She was massive, massive enough that her wings could block out the sun, her long body could wrap around a mountain to find a comfortable sleeping position. It was comprised of nothing but Obsidian and Lava, the volcanic glass making up the form of a scaled beast, giant hind legs strongly built to help her rise into the air while the front legs were more delicate, the claws at the ends even having an opposing thumb. She reared her snake like head and opened her maw, there was an outer layer of crude teeth attached to her lips while inside lied needle-like once. “I am Nathalia!”

White fire filled the sky, Sol managed to dodge once, twice, but the stream of fire was endless, transforming the plain of sand where they were fighting to nothing but glass. Finally, it consumed Sol, the elemental screaming in agony before being burnt to ash. Nathalia closed her mouth.

“Yeah, kill that bitch!” Ferikrona said and flew up to her eye. The goddess of time was a girl with dirty blonde hair, maybe 19 of age in appearance, dressed in a pink pyjama with a fitting hat. She had a nice body, slim waist, average bust, at other occasions Nathalia might have tried to sleep with her. Instead the dragoness tried to eat her. Her mouth closed around the time goddess, but all she managed to get was a mouth full of sand, “Rude!” Ferikrona announced and appeared somewhere else, “I am goddess number 2, you can’t kill me.”

“I can kill nothing that annoys me today it seems then,” Nathalia said, in a somewhat good mood, which manifested in her being a bit less pissed at this whole side-track she had to go through. Even though she could not actually kill Sol, only send her back to Romulus, it still felt good to get that bitch fucked up. Nathalia, with one clap of her wings, was back at the edge where she could stand without being under the constant threat of sinking into the sands of time. She needed to transform back into a human to fit on the path, but that was fine with her. The enormous body broke apart into millions of splinters while it descended and reformed into the much smaller frame of her body. “What will you do now?” Ferikrona asked with a sly grin, “Try getting into that barrier? Didn’t work before.” “Like I really tried,” Nathalia just dismissed and left the hourglass of time behind.