_POV:dele-(thunder monarch)
The Thunder Palace of the storm emperor touched the clouds.
200 floors of black glass and lightning rods. Today it was dressed for a coronation.
Red banners. Gold trim.influential demigods filling the sits
Today my father became "Storm Emperor".
Today my mother died for treason.
I stood in the crowd of nobles, in my white agbada, with a knife in my boot and Ṣàngó's blood in my veins.
"And so," my father's voice boomed through speakers, amplified by thunder tech, "we enter a new age. An age without gods,An age of Man."
He stood on the balcony,200 floors up, In his hand,sàngó's double-headed axe, Oshogbo.stolen from the vault.
At his feet,my mother,On her knees,Head bowed.
"She conspired with cultists," my father said. "She prayed to dead gods."
"Liar," my mother whispered. Loud enough for me to hear. "I prayed for you."
The axe came down.
Lightning flashed,Not from the sky,From the axe.
My mother's body didn't fall,it turneded to ash.
Something in me broke.
The noise of the crowd vanished. All I could hear was thunder,Inside my ches
My mind felt stuffy and i vomited blood
_AVENGE,something said. Old. Royal. Furious.
Ṣàngó.
The axe in my father's hand pulsed. And answered me.
I moved.
Thunder coursed through my veins,I didn't know how. The Path chose me when I chose rage.i could feel it in my body,the power of Ṣàngó
I vaulted the balcony railing,Guards fired anti demigods exploding arrows,i caught them with my hands. Lightning poured from my skin and turned them to dust.
"Traitor!" my father roared. "Guards! Kill him!"
Thunder Mechs dropped from the ceiling. 3 meters tall. Built to kill Demi-Gods.
I laughed,my father has going too low conniving with people from thelower realms to steal the power of the gods,he had become intensely irrational since he started
Loosing his connection with his spirituality,that serves him right,.
I had no weapon,i didn't need one.
I reached up and pulled,lightning from the rods on the palace,It came to me,Into me.
First punch: shattered a mech's chest.
Second punch: sent another flying through 4 floors of glass.
Third: my father shot me with a thunder spell
The blast threw me off the balcony.
200 floors.
I should have died.
Halfway down, the sky answered.
Black clouds. No rain,Just pressure.
Lightning caught me. Not to hurt. To hold.
I landed in the scrapyards of Ago-Iwoye in a crater of my own making.
My white agbada was gone. Burned off. My body was covered in glowing sigils. Blue and white. Kings' marks.i steadied my breath
And in my hand: Oshogbo. Ṣàngó's axe. I'd stolen it mid-fall.
From the smoke, footsteps.
A boy. My age. Left arm made of iron. Red light in his palm. Eyes like a forge.
He looked at me. At the axe. At the crater.
"You're not part of the pandora dynamics Corp," he said.
"No," I said. Blood in my mouth. "I'm the storm."
We stared at each other. Two weapons. Two Paths.
Behind us, the sound of drones. Coming closer to both of us.
The boy ,flexed his iron arm.my name is kunle he said
"You fight?"
I hefted the axe. Lightning cracked across the blade. "I'm a king."
"Good," Kunle said. "Because they brought an army."
The first Iron-Wraith mech stepped from the smoke. 20 more behind it.
Iron meets Thunder.
The war started.