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"Heh… Ragebait Successful…"
Margit stood tall, his twisted horns glinting under the moonlight, a thin line of spectral blood running down his jaw. His cane-spear scraped against the ground as he straightened, golden eyes burning with murderous disdain.
Above the narrow causeway, the wind howled through the cliffs like a living thing. The sea crashed far below, dark waves frothing against the jagged rocks.
"Was that," Marika began dryly, her golden form flickering into view beside John, "strictly necessary?" Her expression was a study in contradictions, guilt and amusement intertwined beneath the cool poise of a goddess.
John smirked, never taking his eyes off the Fell Omen. 'Entirely necessary,' he said. 'I need to ragebait Morgott as much as physically possible. Payback for all the times he annoyed me.'
Marika blinked, sighed softly, and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Ah. Thou speakest of thine 'prior experiences' again."
'Damn right I am.'
Margit's growl rumbled low, like grinding stone. "Such insolence. Such… pestilent mockery." His fingers flexed around his cane. "I shall flay the jest from thy tongue, Tarnished."
He lunged.
The cane-spear blurred in a sharp, sudden thrust that split the air. John twisted aside, the weapon scraping past his ribs close enough to tear a thread of his tunic. The impact cratered the stone walkway where he had stood a heartbeat ago.
John slid back into stance, Zweihander in hand. His buffs shimmered faintly around him. Golden Vow's soft radiance was pulsing beneath Flame, Grant Me Strength's crimson aura. He felt the heat of his blood surge in rhythm with the flame sigil scrawled across his heart.
Margit swung again, this time in a sweeping arc meant to catch a dodge. John dropped low, boots grinding against stone as he rolled through the motion.
"Careful, Grandpa," he called, grinning as he rose. "You'll throw your hip if you keep that up."
The Fell Omen's nostrils flared. His tail lashed, his cloak snapping in the wind. "Insolent cur-"
Margit slashed again, a series of sharp, rhythmic strikes. It was the same pattern John had memorized from too many humiliating attempts in another life. The first thrust was easily dodged with a sidestep left. He had then already started rolling before the follow-up sweep rushed towards him.
The overhead strike that followed was all too easy to backstep, then punish.
Steel met ethereal flesh with a brief flash of gold. John's blade grazed the Omen's arm before he withdrew, already anticipating the retaliatory tail whip that cut the air where his head had been.
'Same moveset, same rhythm,' he thought, heart thundering. 'And the same rage issues.'
Margit snarled, his spectral daggers flickering into being. The knives launched like golden streaks in the air. John rolled through them one by one, perfectly timed, laughter bubbling up between the dodges.
"Nice aim!" he shouted over the wind. "You almost hit the castle that time! You never got any aim training growing up? Oh wait, those horns of yours probably didn't help with that, did they?"
The Omen's attacks grew faster, less measured. His spacing began to crumble. The subtle rhythm of his combos, the hallmark of a disciplined warrior, devolved into sheer aggression.
John's grin widened. He could feel it working.
'The more pissed he gets, the worse he fights. Just a little more-'
"Tell me, mine Champion," Marika's voice slid into his mind quietly, hiding a veil of guilt underneath her tone. "Art thou certain this… 'Ragebaiting' is the only available strategy? Or dost thou take delight in flaying open mine greatest mistakes through his visage?"
The words froze him for half a heartbeat, he hadn't thought about how his hurtful words would have affected Marika.
Margit's cane-spear feinted right, then snapped left. The reversal landed square into John's gut. The force blasted the air from his lungs, pain erupting through his ribs as he was launched backward across the bridge.
He hit the ground, skidding on stone, his boots scraping sparks as he fought for balance, but the momentum carried him right over the edge.
"Ah, shit-!"
His hand shot out, and his fingers barely caught onto jagged stone. The edge bit deep into his palm as his entire body hung over the abyss. The sea roared below, the sound deafening, the salt spray cool against his face.
"Johnathan!" Melina's voice echoed faintly from the tunnel behind, sharp with panic.
Millicent cursed, already drawing her blade, but Melina grabbed her arm, remembering his words: Let me fight this one.
"Up, mine Champion," Marika commanded, her tone suddenly hard again.
John grit his teeth, fire burning in his chest. He swung his legs, found a foothold on a loose stone, and hauled himself upward just as Margit's spear smashed into the edge where his fingers had been.
Chunks of rock exploded outward and fell into the sea below.
John rolled onto the walkway, breath heaving, pain burning in his side, but he was grinning. "Whew…" He coughed, dragging himself to his feet. "Thanks for knocking. I wasn't home."
Margit bared his fangs, a sound like a beast's snarl. "Thy prattle shall be thy epitaph."
John's stance reset. The fire in his veins roared back to life. "Maybe. But at least my epitaph will say I made you mad enough to miss!"
The Omen lunged again, his cane flashing like a streak of gold. John met him head-on this time, blades sparking as steel met spectral light.
John exhaled through his teeth, his breath clouding faintly in the chill air, the heat of battle thrumming through his limbs like liquid fire. Margit's towering frame loomed before him, spectral light flickering off the jagged stones beneath their feet.
The Omen's golden eyes burned with restrained fury, every line of his body taut, ready to kill. John lunged forward before that fury could take form, raising a hand to the air and calling upon the Besial Incant taught to him by Maliketh, Stone of Gurranq.
"Parlor tricks now, Tarnished?" Margit spat as John hurled the stone. The Omen's spear snapped upward with impossible precision, its golden tip spearing the rock mid-air. The shard burst apart in a brief explosion of dust and splintered fragments that glittered like dying stars.
But Margit's smirk froze when he noticed the movement beneath the veil of settling dust. John was already sprinting through the haze, boots hammering against the cracked stone, eyes locked on the colossal Ultra Greatsword lying where it had landed near Margit's feet. The Omen shifted, trying to react, but by the time comprehension reached his golden glare, it was too late.
John planted one boot squarely on the massive sword's handle and drove his heel down with all the force he could muster. The ground beneath him cracked from the impact as the blade flipped upward in a metallic roar, rising into the air in a slow, shining arc.
He seized the hilt with both hands the instant it reached him and twisted with the momentum, dragging every ounce of his strength into the swing.
The colossal sword slammed into Margit's abdomen with a deep, brutal thump that reverberated down the length of the bridge. The Omen choked, a spray of shimmering spectral blood bursting from his mouth as the breath left his lungs. He staggered backward several steps, boots gouging trenches into the stone, his tail thrashing violently behind him as he fought for balance.
For a single heartbeat, the only sounds were Margit's ragged growl and the low hum of Grace burning faintly on the wind.
"...My apologies, mine Champion," Marika's voice came quietly into his mind, tinged with remorse. "I should not have spoken thus in the midst of battle. 'Twas… ill-timed of me."
John wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, still keeping his eyes on Margit as the Omen steadied himself.
'Don't ever apologize for that.' He chastised, his tone softer than the fight deserved. 'If it means your past still eats at you, then it means you care. It means you actually regret it and want to change. That's… probably the most beautiful thing I've heard from you since I got here.'
There was a pause in his mind, an almost human silence that felt stunned and tender. Then came the faintest flutter of breath, and if John didn't know better, he'd have sworn Marika blushed.
"F-Focus on the battle, fool," she managed, her regal composure wobbling like a candle flame. "Lest thou be slain mid-sentiment."
John chuckled faintly and adjusted his grip on the greatsword. "Yes, ma'am."
Margit straightened to his full height, wiping spectral blood from his chin with the back of his clawed hand. The fire in his eyes had cooled from rage to something closer to respect. Sharp, dangerous and mirthful respect, yet respect all the same.
"Well," he rasped, voice low and resonant, "thou art of passing skill… Warrior blood must truly run in thy veins…"
Then the gold in his eyes flared again, bright and murderous. His muscles tensed as he raised his free hand, and the air around it began to twist and shimmer. Power gathered like thunder beneath the clouds as, from nothing, a massive spectral hammer began to form, white and gold, edges humming with otherworldly weight.
"...Tarnished!" he roared.
He leapt into the air, the force of his jump cracking the stone beneath his feet, and descended like a comet, the hammer drawn high to crush him into the bridge.
But John was already moving. The moment Margit's shadow passed over him, he rolled forward beneath it, the spectral hammer slamming into the bridge with a quake that sent cracks spidering outward.
Stone and dust erupted around him, the shockwave blowing through his hair, but John came out of it unscathed. He spun with the motion and carved a heavy, arcing slash into Margit's exposed side as he landed, earning a bellow of rage from the Omen that rattled the cliffs.
The assault continued in a storm of steel and light, Margit's attacks growing more erratic, his swings sharper, heavier, but less controlled.
Each strike carved chunks from the causeway, fragments tumbling into the sea below. John moved through the chaos with a dancer's rhythm. Ducking, rolling, dodging by inches, his every step guided by knowledge burned into his muscle memory from another life entirely.
Then, Margit halted mid-swing. He raised his cane-spear high into the air and held it there, unmoving. His stance froze, the weapon trembling faintly in his hands, golden light coiling along its length.
John stopped as well, blinking once. He knew exactly what that was. The textbook delayed slam. The one that had baited panic rolls out of him countless times when he'd played Elden Ring years ago.
He exhaled slowly, unimpressed. "Oh, that move again."
Reaching into his inventory, he pulled free a familiar object. It was a small, old, torn patch of skin and flesh overgrown with roots and covered in intricate binding runes. It was a faintly glowing relic of chains and gold.
Margit's Shackle.
"Wait-" Marika's voice broke through his head, alarmed. He could feel the divine energy spike in her tone, a pulse of horror and guilt all at once. "Is- Is this why thou obtained that accursed thing?"
Margit froze too. His eyes went wide, his grip on the cane faltering as he stared at the artifact with something like shock, and pain, and trauma he had buried so deep that refacing it hurt more than any attack he had endured thus far. "T-That shackle-! Where didst thou-?!"
But John didn't let him finish. He pressed a hand to the relic and poured a surge of mana through it.
The object pulsed once, then flared to life in a blaze of amber-gold. A Golden Order sigil bloomed beneath Margit's feet, lines of light racing across the cracked stone, wrapping around him like chains of sunlight.
"Every time," John said, his grin wide and merciless, "you do that lame-ass, annoying-ass move…"
Margit's body seized, the spectral hammer dissolving mid-swing. With a thunderous crack, he was forced to his knees, arms trembling, chains binding him to the ground as if the very air itself had turned against him.
"I'm gonna use this funny little thing," John continued, his voice echoing through the night as Margit snarled and strained against the invisible bindings, "to teach you not to."
The Omen's growl rose to a furious, wordless roar, his golden eyes blazing brighter than the chains that held him. John stood over him, hair whipped by the sea wind, eyes burning with both triumph and mischief.
"Round two," he muttered under his breath, raising the greatsword. "Let's try that again."
Margit's head jerked up, his horns catching the dying light of the golden sigil beneath him as his chains strained and cracked under his strength. His teeth bared in a snarl that was more human than beast, spittle catching the air as he spat the words out through sheer fury.
"I know not how thou camest by that… thing." He growled, his voice trembling between wrath and disgust. "But this, this shall not end well for thee, vile, filthy Tarnished!"
John tilted his head slightly, a shit-eating grin spreading slow and unhurried across his face. "Oof," he said, tapping his chest lightly. "That cut deep, man. You sure got problems, don't ya?"
Margit roared and strained harder, the golden chains beginning to creak, glowing fissures crawling up the sigil beneath him. John only chuckled, leaning lazily on his greatsword as he watched the Omen wrestle free.
"It's almost like the call's coming from inside the house," he muttered under his breath.
Then he turned to the empty air beside him, spinning once with a mockingly exaggerated flourish.
"Uncle Ruckus, anyone?" he called to no one in particular, voice full of smug cheer.
The only reply was a low, guttural growl from Margit and the metallic shriek of Grace-forged chains finally snapping. The Omen surged to his feet, towering once more, spectral energy bleeding from his wounds like golden smoke. His gaze burned with pure hate.
John just shrugged, still smirking. "Tough crowd, huh? That's fine~" he teased, his tone light and taunting. "'Twas a rhetorical question anyway~."
Margit lunged with a roar, his cane-spear flashing forward in a savage thrust that nearly split the air itself.
John met him halfway.
The bridge erupted into chaos once more, the clash of metal and light ringing out across the cliffs. Margit's weapon swept like a guillotine, each strike heavy enough to carve craters into the stone.
John parried, dodged, twisted around each blow. He dodged them barely by the skin of his teeth, but it was enough. He countered with brutal strikes of his own that forced the Omen to stay on defense.
Steel screamed against spectral steel as their weapons met again, sparks cascading in every direction. John ducked under a wide swing, spun on his heel, and brought his Zweihander up in a two-handed arc that caught Margit's weapon at just the right angle.
The sheer force snapped the Omen's grip loose, but not before its handle hooked on his own blade accidentally. Both weapons were ripped from their hands, spinning away into the sky.
They stood there, panting, barehanded now, staring each other down across the fractured bridge.
Margit's shoulders rose and fell, each breath like the hiss of a forge. "Thou hast mocked me long enough, Tarnished," he growled, his claws flexing like hooked knives. "When next thou drawest breath, it shall be through screams. I will flay thee, and thy wretched soul shall know my wrath."
John rolled his shoulders, unbothered. His grin returned, sharper this time, almost predatory. "You know, for a guy who likes to pretend he's someone else, you're awfully touchy about insults."
Margit froze, eyes narrowing.
John stepped forward, voice dropping lower, colder. "Tell me, Morgott, how would your loyal capital folk react if they found out their oh-so-noble king likes to play dress-up and babysit his limp-dick cousin out here?"
The air between them changed. Margit's expression twisted, his voice warping into a low, guttural growl. "Thou darest..!"
'My God he's easy to Ragebait!'
Margit didn't finish the sentence. Instead, he charged, fury bursting from him like an explosion. John didn't retreat, he met the rush head-on.
Their bodies collided in the center of the bridge with a sound like thunder. Hands locked, muscles straining, their feet dug deep into the stone. The sheer pressure of their clashing strength sent spiderweb cracks racing through the causeway beneath them, jagged fractures spreading out toward the cliffs. The stone groaned and split, chunks tumbling into the sea below.
For a moment, Margit had him as the Omen's monstrous power bearing down like a mountain. John's knees trembled, the edges of his vision darkening as the force pressed harder and harder.
Then something inside him shifted.
His heartbeat began to pound, louder and louder, until it drowned out everything else, even the crash of waves and the grind of Margit's claws. Each thud came with a pulse of crimson light under his skin. Sparks of crimson lightning began to arc across his arms, snaking up his shoulders and neck, splitting through the air with sharp, staccato cracks. The power roared through him like wildfire, setting every nerve ablaze.
Margit's eyes widened as the balance began to tip. John's muscles flexed, veins glowing faintly like molten gold beneath the red, and he started pushing back. It was slow at first, then with growing force. Inch by inch, he forced the Omen's massive frame to give ground, their locked arms trembling violently between them.
Then in the midst of their power struggle, Margit's gaze caught John's eyes, and he froze.
John's irises blazed with gold, radiant and alive. It was not borrowed light, but pure, divine Grace. The same Grace that had once crowned kings and lit the gaze of Demigods. The same Grace that had been denied to him and his twin brother at birth. The Grace of the mother who had deemed them unworthy.
His mother.
Queen Marika the Eternal.
The realization struck him like a blade through the heart.
Margit recoiled, stumbling backward, horror, disbelief, and a flicker of self-loathing twisting across his scarred face. His voice broke when he spoke. "Y-Your… your eyes…" he rasped. "Why… why do they shine with the Grace of Gold…?"
John's breathing was rough, the crimson lightning fading, the raw power ebbing from his body in slow, burning waves. The heat drained, replaced by a cold, weighted silence.
He blinked once, still catching his breath. "...What?"
Margit said nothing. He only stared, that haunted look frozen upon his face. A man, or monster, forced to face the cruel joke of a god's design.
John's breath came out ragged and heavy, fogging in the cold air. The golden sheen in his eyes dimmed as the last crackles of crimson lightning bled away into the night. He stared down at his hand, slowly curling and uncurling his fingers, flexing them before his face.
The warmth he'd felt moments ago, that blazing, all-consuming fire, was gone now. It left behind only the faint echo of its power humming deep in his bones
"...The hell was that?" he muttered under his breath, brow furrowing as his palm glowed faintly, veins of light still pulsing beneath the skin.
His gaze drifted back toward Margit. The Fell Omen still standing there, rigid and silent, his claws trembling faintly. John's eyes flicked downward to the object in his inventory, the shackle.
Its runes glowed in low, rhythmic pulses, the light fading and returning, as if the artifact itself were still catching its breath from the energy he'd just channeled through it.
"Huh," he breathed, rolling his shoulders. "Guess it's on cooldown."
He slipped it back into his inventory with a sigh and looked up again. Margit's expression was still frozen in that storm of emotion, a storm of disbelief, rage, something that almost looked like sorrow.
John's voice came out light, careless. "It's obviously because Marika chose me," he said, his grin returning with its usual irreverence. "She granted me her Grace. That's why my eyes glow. Kinda obvious, really."
Margit's face twisted, cycling through more emotions than John could name. First was fury, then grief, then envy, then confusion, until his jaw set in grim resolve. His clawed hand clenched tight around his spear.
"...Enough." he rumbled, voice raw with something older than anger.
He leapt up, leaving a small crater in his way and bounding effortlessly back onto the ruined tower from which he'd first descended.
John blinked, lowering his sword slightly. "...Wait- what?" He pointed upward, his voice echoing against the cliff walls. "Hey! Get back here! I wasn't done kicking your ass properly yet!"
Margit turned his head slightly, golden eyes glinting with disdain. "I have seen far more than enough," he intoned, his tone low and sharp as drawn steel. "I will be leaving."
John blinked again, incredulous. "Leaving?! What the hell are you-?!"
But Margit didn't answer immediately. He stood motionless for a long moment, the sea wind whipping around his tattered cloak. Then, with a sigh that seemed to come from somewhere deep within his soul. When he spoke, his voice was heavy with something close to resignation. "It makes every fragment of my spirit ache to speak thus… but thou art right about one thing."
His eyes closed, a faint tremor running through his jaw. "Godrick is not worthy of my protection any longer. Go on, kill him if thou must. Or not. I care not anymore."
John stared up at him, his eyebrow twitching.
"...You- WHAT?! Oh, no. You don't get to do that!" His voice rose comically, echoing down the ravine as he pointed furiously at the retreating Omen. "You get back down here and finish the fight like a man! This is a perfectly good day to throw your life away!"
Margit blinked at him in silent disbelief, then pinched the bridge of his nose like a disappointed teacher. "...Thou dost realize this is but a projection of mine true form, with but a fraction of my power, dost thou not?"
"I don't care if it's a projection," John shot back without missing a beat. "I still want your runes and whatever else you've got on you!"
There was a brief silence as Margit processed what he just heard, then a low, almost imperceptible chuckle escaped the Fell Omen. Margit's lip curled upward in what might have been a smirk. "Pathetic," he said, the derision almost fond. "Begging thine enemy for spoils… how very Tarnished of thee."
He reached to his side, rummaged through the folds of his cloak, and drew something small and glinting from within. It was a pouch, sealed by a clasp engraved with faintly glowing runes. With a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed it down toward the bridge. It fell in a lazy arc and landed before John with a soft thud, skidding once before stopping at his boots.
"That," Margit said coolly, "is all thou shalt receive from thy meager begging." His tone was dismissive, but there was a hard edge beneath it, a raw and restless mirth.
"I shall return to 'finish our battle' as thou so insist, in due time. Watch thy back… and cower beneath the night, foul Tarnished. For the hands of the Fell Omen shall brook thee no quarter."
And with that, his form began to fade. The air shimmered around him, his outline dissolving into particles of gold that rose toward the sky like sparks caught in an unseen wind. Within moments, he was gone, leaving only silence and the lingering echo of his voice rolling across the cliffs.
John stood there for a long moment, unmoving, his hair tousled by the sea breeze. Then he sighed, heavily, rubbing at his temple. "...Well, that was anticlimactic."
He crouched down, picked up the pouch, and felt it dissolve into his inventory in a faint shimmer of gold. "At least it wasn't a total waste," he muttered, brushing some dust from his shoulder.
He glanced up at the empty tower where Margit had stood moments ago and scoffed. "Seriously though, who walks away from a fight after getting ragebaited that hard? Is he even mortal?"
There was a long pause in his mind, an uncharacteristic one.
When Marika finally spoke, her voice was oddly delicate, caught somewhere between incredulity and secondhand embarrassment. "I… am, frankly, at a loss for words."
John straightened, spitting off the side of the cliff before shouldering his blade again. "I know, right?! What a prick!"
Marika said nothing. She simply stared at him from within his mind, the weight of divinity, millennia, and maternal exasperation pressing like a sigh against his soul.
He had absolutely, completely misunderstood her.
And she hadn't the strength left to correct him.
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Author's Note:
I wonder if this Ragebait will have long standing consequences? Hmmm…
ANYWAYS!
The Moon Knight in MHA fic is out on Questionable Questing, Fanfiction.net, and Archive Of Our Own. I will be holding back on uploading it to Webnovel so I don't get subjected to the demonic WN Algorithm.
I'll upload to Webnovel when I have enough of a stockpile to mass upload.
Here are the links to each site, feel free to have at it if you don't wanna wait.
QQ: https://forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/mha-marvel-the-fist-of-khonshu.37754/
FF net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14556541/1/The-Fist-of-Khonshu
AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81906331/chapters/215484781
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Next Chapter Title: Stormveil Castle.
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