"Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but it is lightning that does the work." -Mark Twain.
Well now... do I really have to go there? I could tell that fate was about to bring another disaster to my face as a giant black cloud hovered above the village which was unfortunately my next destination. A loud thunder cracking can be heard from so far away as the sky roars in anger. Ah shit... here we go again. As I reached the village, heavy rain poured down, completely soaking me. I supposed this is a sign for me to take a bath.
The villagers were all covering themselves with everything they had, as they rushed to take cover under any roof. I walked towards one of the groups and asked, "What is going on here?" One of them replied, "The thunder god is mad again! He didn't approve our offerings and he is now raining down his wrath!" The other guys added, "He has been killing people who failed to give him proper offering recently, and it has only gotten worse."
Thunder god? I didn't know there was a thunder god. I have met the lightning god, Gundala, but never heard a thunder one... or are they the same god?
"Where is this thunder god?" I asked, but it seemed the rain disrupted my words too much for them to understand it. I shouted once more on top of my lungs, "Where is this thunder god?"
One of them heard me and pointed to a nearby forest. Shit.. why does it always have to be a scary forest. I quickly headed towards the forest when all of a sudden a bolt of lightning struck me down. I was burned to ashes and I must have lost my mind but I heard the thunders speaking with a deep voice,
"You dare approach me in my wrath?"
Well damn... I guess there is a thunder god. I recreated myself and kept walking towards the forest before being struck down once more. Fricking, when I get to this guy I am going to obliterate him. I pressed forward, no matter how many times I got burned. The thunder turned from arrogant wrath to pathetic pleading. "Do.. do not go any further or I will disintegrate you!"
"Try me!" I shouted as I reached the center of the forest. There was a temple of gold with a lot of offerings in front of it. Huh.. this must be it, but where is the guy? A bolt of lightning suddenly appeared from nearby, piercing my stomach, and leaving a giant burned hole. I quickly searched for the source to find... a frog. What the actual... The frog opened its mouth and shot another bolt of lightning, piercing my head. I quickly recreated my damaged parts which scared the frog as it began to run away.
"Oh not so fast you, I will cook you alive!" I chased the frog, the frog proceeded to shoot more lightning bolts at me, clearly lacking intelligence. The frog jumped into a nearby lake and I proceeded to dive into it, clearly lacking intelligence, as the frog summoned lightning which electrocuted the entirety of the lake along with me and burned my body to a crisp. The frog then jumped into a hole in the ground, I proceed to bash the ground with my metal rod, hoping to hit the frog beneath it. The frog is a fricking spammer, as lightning kept striking me. Eventually, I hit enough ground to force the frog to leave the ground, and that is when I caught him with my bare hands. The frog tried to resist, shooting bolts of lightning at me, but I just bitch slapped it and started to choke it. I was winning against this frog until a huge bolt of lightning struck me once again, obliterating me along with the ground beneath. I recreated myself once more only to see a familiar humanoid figure.
With all his glory, shining armor, and all of that, the lightning god Gundala appeared before me. Well... shit. I cleaned myself up and confronted the lightning god.
"It is a pleasure to meet you once again oh great Gundala, what may have brought you here?" I asked very calmly.
"Enough with your sarcastic charade, Jack Hollow, I have come here to protect my champion."
Wait ... no...
He held the frog in the palm of his hand and said, "This frog whom you have tried to assassinate is my humble servant, and I shall punish you for your actions."
You got to be shitting me... I could have sworn the frog looked at me and smirked.
"Surely you jest, Gundala. Did you choose a frog as a champion? Are you making a mockery of what a champion is?"
"You dare question me?" the god replied with anger.
Well the personality match I guess. "Okay, first of all, your champion started it, he terrorized this village with heavy rain and roaring thunder, he is abusing his... your power for his own pleasure. It doesn't help that he called himself the god of thunder which is an insult to you. I wish to speak face to face and he tried to kill me for it. If you stand for your champion's behavior's, then you have fallen from grace, Gundala." I stood my ground against this foolish arrogant god. The god looked at the frog and furiously asked, "Tell me, is he telling the truth?"
The frog, filled with fear, denied my accusation, "Ribbit Ribbit, Ribbit, Ribbit Ribbit Ribbit."
"Ah I see, you lied Jack Hollow."
The heck .. does he speak frog language or something?
"Lie? Looked around you, the entire land was flooded by this abomination of a frog, how come you assume he is telling you the truth?" I yelled.
"Enough! There is only one way to determine the truth!" the lightning god shouted.
"Which is?"
"A death battle of the champions!"
Upon hearing that, I tried to contained my laugh and I could see that the frog was absolutely in fear.
"Well if it is a battle to the death, then so be it," I replied confidently knowing that the frog could hit me with a billion lightning bolts and it wouldn't do a thing to me.
"Do not be so prideful Jack Hollow, it may be a death battle, however, there will be a time limit, if you, the immortal one are incapable of killing my champion in less than 10 minutes, it will not be a draw, rather it will be my champion's victory."
Well, I suppose Gundala is not that dumb.
"What is the prize then?" I asked.
"A prize?" Gundala asked.
"I have no reason to indulge myself in this fight, even if I leave right now, the frog will only bring trouble for you, so if I were right, then wouldn't it mean I would be getting rid of your problem."
The god was silenced. Perhaps he didn't think I would notice.
"Very well then, if you win, then I shall give you one of my powerful lightning rods, you would have slain my false champion, and I shall not intervene in your matters again." Huh, that is actually a pretty sweet prize.
"However, if my champion wins, you shall hand over the Light Orb that you have, along with your Mirror Blade and you will not be allowed to intervene with my champion's business."
Shit... those two items are kind of useful. It doesn't feel like this death battle actually benefitted me that much... but fate will not let me leave this place unless I resolve this story. With confidence, I said, "Deal! Where and when?"
"The fight shall be held here, tomorrow by sunrise, if you choose to withdraw, I shall curse your journey and your entire life, Jack Hollow." Well, I don't need any more of that.
"Very well, tomorrow sunrise, here. You better be ready frog, I will destroy you." I said as I walked away. Knowing Gundala, he is not going to make it easy for me. He has to have some tricks up his sleeve. So some preparations might be in order.
Fast forward to sunrise, I have arrived to the forest once more, greeted by Gundala. However, the frog was not there. Huh, I guess Gundala didn't anticipate if his champion was the one to run away. But for some reason, Gundala doesn't look concerned at all. Unless.....
Gundala looked at the sunrise, summoned a clock, turned to me smiling, and said, "The death battle has begun, you have 10 minutes to kill my champion, or you will lose." as he started the countdown.
Huh..... Looking at him, perhaps he thought he got me. After all, there is no way his champion could actually kill me, so the question is not how to kill me, but how to survive for 10 minutes. Since Gundala made it clear that I have to be in the forest but not so much for the frog, it created an opportunity to change this fight from a direct confrontation to a hunt, where the frog has a great head start. Hence why he is confident that he is going to win. As he was smiling feeling satisfied of his trickery, I used my staff to draw a sigil on the ground.
"You know... sometimes a lot of people forget who I am actually," I said calmly.
Gundala was confused by that statement. "Are you not the champion of Fate?"
"I am, but I am also... a god." I summoned hundreds of flying crows from the sigil, covering the entirety of my body.
I knew Gundala was going to do something funny, that is why I spied on him from afar using crows. I also assigned several crows to specifically give report on the frog's whereabout, he is slippery after all, no pun intended. The neat part is that I have the ability to teleport to any crow in the world, so it is pretty much game over.
Outside the forest, the frog was hopping away at lightning speed and already reached about 15 km distance, fortunately for me, the hopping range is quite short and requires some cool down, otherwise it would be too OP. The crows in the area gathered in a spot ahead of the frog, and I reappeared there. That whole thing took 3 minutes, which meant I still got 7 minutes left. The frog was shocked and immediately tried to turn around, but I quickly bashed his body to the ground with my metal rod. I had drawn two sigils on the rod, before the battle. The first one, once activated, will trigger a massive fiery explosion. Needless to say I immediately activated it to blow up the ugly frog to smithereens. But to my surprise, the frog managed to escape the explosion during the time window between activation and explosion, using lightning hopping. Damn, never thought the term lightning hopping would be a thing.
The frog retaliated, shooting hundreds of lightning bolts at me. Shit, I forgot Gundala also gave this guy an upgrade. My body was shredded and burned by the non-stop lightning bolts, slowing me down. Recreating myself isn't exactly a problem, but this is wasting too much time. At this point, I only have 4 minutes left. The frog is also lightning-hopping away. I then looked at my second sigil. Almost there... almost there..... The barrage of lightning bolts only worsened, making it harder for me to catch up. 2 minutes left. Gundala was hovering on the air looking down on our battle. I could see his tiny smirk.
"I suppose this is your loss, Jack Hollow. One minute left."
Just then, the second sigil was ready for activation. Fricking finally... The frog thinking it already won, focused more on shooting bolts of lightning at me. Unfortunately for him, that was his last and final mistake. I activated the second sigil and threw it with all of my strength toward the frog. The all charged up metal rod turned all the electric energy it has been storing from the lightning bolts into pure energy, and transferred all of it to the first sigil, activating it to the absolute maximum. In a split second, a massive fiery explosion consumed everything within the 5 km radius, obliterating me, along with the frog, as well as creating a massive crater. With 4 seconds left on the clock, the frog was officially dead, gone, reduced to atoms. Gundala was shocked by the result, no pun intended, after confirming that the frog indeed didn't manage to escape, he kept his word.
"Well done, Jack Hollow, even I must admit defeat to such a brilliant strategy, as promised, here is one of my powerful lightning rods, it is both powerful and dangerous, use it wisely." he handed me a purple-colored lightning rod.
"Thank you, oh great Gundala, I shall cherish this gift of yours," I said, trying not to sound sarcastic.
"Very well then, I suppose I shall take my leave. I will have to find another champion to replace Todd." as he bolts away to the sky.
".....Todd? That fricking frog has a name?"
I went back to the village and told the villagers what happened. Most of the villagers were relieved after hearing the news. However, there are some whom were angered by it, fanatics who gained a lot from their fake god. They want me to be tried for my crime, but with a few help from the real lightning god, all of that stuff have mostly been resolved. This whole thing have felt like a fever dream, but at last, my business here is done. I left the village and continued my journey.