Fate/Defiance Ch23

Fate/Defiance

Chapter 23 [Bastard]

By theMadLad

It was too quiet.

Icarus paused, freezing in his place in response to the forest which seemed to become suddenly silent. The chirps of birds or animals disappeared as only the faint rustle of leaves in the wind remained.

It was unnatural.

“Paimon, Atalanta, get ready for an attack.” Icarus commanded as he brought his bow into his hand while Atalanta crouched low with Paimon at her side.

Then the sounds of branches and leaves being destroyed reached his ears. Icarus turned as a faint metallic reflection caught his eyes as a metal discus shredded through the trees, sawing down everything in its path without losing momentum.

At the same time a girl erupted from the shrubs nearby, she had short blonde hair that gained in length towards her sides—but Icarus wasn’t paying much attention to her appearance, he was instead more focused on the weapon held in hands.

A sword.

Icarus smirked.

The discus reached him with deadly precision and supernatural strength but Icarus merely smiled with confidence. As the discus arrived he brought his forearm up to meet it, while directing his other forearm towards the girl attacking him.

The discus reached his forearm and slammed into his mirrored armor—and disappeared. Then it erupted from the adjacent mirrored forearm, straight at the girl attacking him!

Icarus wasn’t completely preoccupied while he was teaching Atalanta, he would also stay up late into the night in his little workshop to work on things… such as upgrades.

Now his mirrored armguards could teleport small objects between them, bringing a far greater offense measure to his mostly defensive gimmick.

The girl yelped as she was suddenly confronted with an attack that she never believed would be directed at her. The discus arrived in front of her instantaneously, with only a cry of alarm shaking her out of her brief shock, “Pollux!”

Pollux hastily brought her sword to deflect the attack, using her semi-divine strength to knock the blow aside… but not without losing all her momentum and defense in turn.

“Y-You!” Icarus heard the same voice shout from the direction that the discus was thrown from, but he ignored it. Instead choosing to pull back his bow and notch in a blunted arrow before firing it directly into the girl’s chest without hesitation.

“S-Stop!!”

Icarus didn’t stop.

They had ambushed him, attacked him while he was with his new little sister! While he may not want to kill them after realizing their identities, that didn’t mean he would let them off unscathed!

Because it was ‘just’ to defend one’s self from an unprovoked attack, Icarus bow was further enhanced in its offense, as he let loose an arrow that bombarded Pollux with enough strength to punch through her divinity enhanced durability.

Castor finally broke through the treeline just in time to see the arrow burrow into his twin sister’s torso with enough force to launch her out of the clearing. Her body continued to fly from the strength of Promachos’ attack, until eventually she slammed into a tree with enough force to collapse it on impact.

…and was left completely unconscious.

“Y-y-YOU! I’m going to kil—!” Castor screamed in rage towards Icarus. Perhaps if this was Icarus before he had encountered the centaurs he would have been able to finish that sentence… but now Icarus had learned the hard way, that talking truly was not a free action.

With a flick of his arm, Icarus freely launched a barrage of feathers from his wings towards Castor, who had no choice but to swallow his words and hastily retreat… unable to do anything in response.

“Heh.” Icarus taunted with a snide laugh as Castor felt his blood boil like never before.

Then from out of the treeline, came someone else. Someone much larger, and stronger. Icarus made eye contact with the person likely around his age even though they were perhaps a foot taller.

Icarus recognized him on sight. There was no mistaking him after all, even in his youth—it was clear to see that the person standing ahead of him was Heracles. The person that Icarus wanted to surpass more than anyone, the greatest hero of Greece.

…Not knowing that due to Jason’s words, Heracles felt the same way. He also wanted to surpass the boy in front of him, the boy who carved out his own legend as an 8 year old child.

They both stared into each other’s eyes and grinned.

Heracles charged forward without a weapon, unable to find one to wield one which could withstand his strength. Icarus simply pulled back his bow once more in response, using his full strength to further compound its power.

As Heracles arrived with an outstretched fist, Icarus fired.

The blunted arrow slammed into Heracles with enough force to easily kill a centaur and destroy a fortified building—It contained more than triple the amount of power that was used on Pollux.

Heracles gasped as the arrow hit him, before being lifted from his feet and slammed into a tree similar to Pollux before him.

However, unlike Pollux… Heracles got back up.

Icarus' grin widened.

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Jason underestimated the new guy by quite a bit.

He was honestly pretty s-scared when he saw Heracles go down. But everything was fine! Heracles got back up, he was the strongest for a reason after all!

“Hey Asclepius, go heal Pollux while I try to capture that girl.” Jason said as he directed the person next to him, who rolled his eyes in response, “Maybe I can take her hostage or something.” He continued, until he realized… he was alone.

Asclepius had already left to go heal up Pollux, as he intended to do regardless of Jason’s words.

Leaving Jason to grunt in annoyance as he then approached the girl to attack…

Only to come face to face with a deadly bronze bird.

A bird with a beak long and sharp enough to devour flesh, with feathers sharp enough to shred the trunks of trees and talons deadly enough to eviscerate countless heroes.

“…Fuck that.”

He ran away.

—Atalanta and Paimon chased after him.

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He was getting swarmed.

Pollux had gotten back up as she quickly met back with Castor. Together they turned into a whole different beast, with perfect synchronization as they fought like they could read each other's minds.

Heracles was also something that could not be ignored. Icarus had taken to blinding him with his wings or arm guards before shooting him away with his bow so he could have some space to breathe in between their relentless attacks. And if that didn’t work, he would use his feathers to lay enough suppressing fire on the twins so he would have enough time to focus solely on Heracles and repel him!

But regardless of his efforts, Heracles just would not stay down! So Icarus switched tactics, instead trying to take out Castor and Pollux so he could confront Heracles one on one.

But someone kept healing them!

“Stop moving!” Pollux yelled with a snarl as she swung her sword at Icarus, who shielded himself with his wings before quickly retreating as he fired a shot at her from his bow that he had hidden behind the wing he had blocked with.

“Ya gotta be quicker than that!” Icarus taunted with a cheeky grin as he unloaded his arrow onto her torso.

He didn’t want to kill them, so his more lethal means were off the table. If not, he would have just chopped their bodies up with his wings or used Paimon’s shit!

“Arrrghh!” Castor screamed as he ran to cover for Pollux and buy her time to heal. He jumped up as he arrived in front of Icarus before kicking a discus towards him while simultaneously twisting his body in the air to slash at him with another one held in his other hand.

Icarus caught the kicked one with his mirrors, but unlike what Castor expected him to do by reflecting it to the other mirror, Icarus instead used them for their original purpose and simply shot it right back at him!

“Fuck!” Forced to divert his attack to instead block his own discus, Castor couldn’t help but scream out in frustration as Icarus used the opportunity to slam him away using his wings before turning back to Heracles!

Icarus also couldn’t let them get too close, as they utterly eclipsed him in skill and he was steadily running out of hidden cards. But, he was fine with it—as he was only delaying until he learned what he needed.

Their tactics.

Heracles seemed to be the least skilled of the three, but then again he also lacked a weapon of his own which made any measurement of skill biased against him. But Icarus could understand why, as his level of strength made any measure of skill currently unnecessary, he could simply overpower any opponent that came his way.

Pollux seemed the most skilled, but that was mainly due to Castor’s support, allowing her to be a perfect offense as he covered any need for defense, but the same was also true the other way around. They complemented each other as a perfect offense and defense, as Castor could defend against any long range attacks while Pollux could defend against any close range attacks, and Castor could attack at long range with his discus and Pollux could attack at close range with her sword.

But more importantly, he figured out where the healer was.

With Castor’s discus being countered by his mirrors, he was often able to get a few potshots to hit him or Pollux. He would change the position he would shoot them to until he eventually found the spot where they would be healed the quickest.

The closest to the healer.

He laid down one last suppressing fire, this time fired at both the twins and Heracles using both wings. Icarus also made sure to land a few glancing hits as well, buying him time for his next action.

Instantly his wings spread, reflecting the sunlight from the sky into a miniature flash before Icarus took to the skies, blitzing the healer. He could hear them groan in pain from the light as he took flight, quickly arriving at the healer hidden in the bushes.

Icarus tucked in his wings like a shield, losing any sustained flight as he turned himself into a torpedo-ing battering ram—one headed straight for the white roped healer.

Asclepius only had time to have his eyes widen in surprise as Icarus arrived, bulldozing into him without mercy! Icarus was determined to take Asclepius out, as he viewed the healer as the most troublesome of the bunch and by judging from the strength of the other demigods, he would definitely survive the blow.

His current consciousness though… would not.

“Asclepius!” He heard one of them shout as Icarus took to the skies, ready to show them the full overwhelming might of aerial superiority.

They couldn’t even reach their healer before Icarus bombarded them from above with arrow after arrow. They could only run away, ducking between hiding spaces within the forest as Icarus forced them to separate as he fired at them from above.

…And this time, without a healer. Now being shot was no longer a timeout, but an instant defeat for Castor and Pollux. Heracles meanwhile could still tank the shots, but that didn’t mean they were ineffective. He could still feel the immense pain the force of the blows brought him, Heracles simply chose to ignore it and continue on regardless.

Then finally… it happened.

Pollux was hit and Castor was forced to watch the person he cared for the most go down once more… all while he could do nothing.

It caused something ugly to well up on his heart, so much so, that he could no longer take it. He stepped up to scream at Icarus regardless of the situation. Blocking an arrow with a thrown discus while screaming out insults in frustration, “You bastard!”

Icarus couldn’t resist his response even if he tried—it was simply too perfect of a taunt, “Heh, takes one to know one, eh?”

Then he plummeted from the sky.

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Jason had figured out a system of survival. He was pretty much at his opponents' complete mercy, but somehow he continued to escape every time they cornered him.

How? They were fucking stupid that’s why!

The first time they had cornered him, he thought he was done for—when suddenly, he had a flash of inspiration!

He looked over the girl’s shoulders in complete surprise, carefully avoiding the face of that terrifying bird before he shouted out, “Icarus!”

Of course—there wasn’t anyone actually there. But both the girl and the bird fell for it! Hah, he was never so glad to have learned the boy’s name after sneaking out to eavesdrop on Chiron.

At first he was enraged at Icarus, after all, the boy had caused him and the others to delay their training! They were supposed to have traveled to Mt. Pelion months ago! But no, they had to wait for this kid!

It pissed him off.

—But, now. Now, he didn’t care that much.

Or at all, for that matter.

He just wanted to get through this scary day already, and he wasn’t sure how much longer this dumb girl and bird would continue to fall for his trick!

O-oh shit, they were back!

“Behind you!” He pointed.

They turned around in confusion, only to look back and see him gone!

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Author's Notes

Sorry for lateness, I had something suddenly come up.