Kratos vs Galen Marek
The Force flowed around the young apprentice, his eyes closed but mind focused on his disassembled lightsaber floating before him. The dark metal interior of the Rogue Shadow provided little light other than the humming red glow from the lightsaber's crystal. It was during these times that Starkiller felt most at peace, most at one with the Force.
Heavy automated breathing broke the Sith apprentice's focus, the pieces of his lightsaber falling to the floor with metallic clinks. Starkiller rushed to his knees and fumbled to pick up the pieces, only to raise his head to meet eyes with his dark master, Darth Vader.
"What is thy bidding, my master?" Starkiller bowed his head in submission, kneeling above his disassembled lightsaber.
"You have but one more mission before you are ready to take my side against the emperor," the imposing figure of Vader spoke down to his apprentice.
"But I've done everything you've asked of me! I am ready now!" the apprentice clenched his fist, his glare seething with anger.
"No." Vader scolded. "You have defeated Jedi, but have yet to face anyone of true power. My spies have located a threat far more powerful than you, but if you defeat him you will be ready to take my side against the Emperor."
Starkiller gritted his teeth as he nodded to the ground.
"You will travel to Midgard and destroy the man known as Kratos." Vader continued. "Though he is not a Jedi, you will need to embrace the full power of the Dark Side to stand a chance."
"Yes, my master," Starkiller complied as the hologram of the Sith lord faded into static, revealing his android PROXY to be the skeleton of the illusion. He rose to catch his robot, falling from electrical fatigue.
"You know I hate being him," PROXY remarked, receiving a knowing smirk from the Sith assassin.
"Juno, plot a route to Midgard," Starkiller declared, walking into the pilot cabin of his ship, the Rogue Shadow. The blonde, sharp-featured pilot nodded, flipping through menus of a virtual console in front of her. A few menus later, a perplexed look fell upon her face.
"Midgard doesn't seem in this star system," she said, flipping through more screens, "or this galaxy for that matter."
"Impossible," Starkiller muttered, nudging his way to peer at the screens as well. "Vader called for Midgard, it has to be out there somewhere." Juno bit her lip and shouldered Starkiller back to regain her room, pressing buttons and flipping switches, the screen rapidly changing from star system to star system, the myriads of planets flashing before them.
"Found it," she exclaimed, the images freezing on a star system unfamiliar to the Sith assassin.
"Where is that?" Starkiller asked, his glance bouncing between his pilot and the screen.
"A galaxy far, far away," she sounded exasperated, spinning her chair to look out to the vastness of space. "Buckle in and prepare for the long haul."
Starkiller nodded before turning to walk back to his quarters as Juno turned more dials and eased the hyperdrive throttle forward, throwing the ship into lightspeed as the stars around them blazed past them.
PROXY followed the Sith apprentice back to his meditation chamber, his bright yellow eyes illuminating the path before the two of them.
"PROXY, what can you tell me about this Kratos?" Starkiller asked. On que, electrical whirring erupted from the android, a hologram enveloping its metallic frame. The hologram flickered to solidarity, showing a hulking mass of muscle of a man, seemingly in his 40s, his skin as white as ivory except for a red tattoo tracking from his left eye, across the back of his bald head, and wrapping around to envelop a band lengthwise around his torso. The man wore little, a crimson loin-cloth and a golden armored sleeve on his right arm, with chains wrapped around each of his forearms. A permanent scowl was burned onto his scarred face, the only hair belonging to a tufted goatee. The gruff look was betrayed by PROXY's neutral impersonation of the herculean man.
"Kratos. Born in the city-state of Sparta, where he quickly rose to the rank of general, and earned the favor of one of their culture's deities. After RESTRICTED he became his culture's god of war. Official records claim Kratos is dead, killed by his own hand after RESTRICTED."
Starkiller sat staring at the massive man before him, memorizing his face, for soon he knew he would be destroyed for the glory of Vader.
Snow fell lightly on the pristine Nordic landscape. The old man lumbered out of the small wooden hovel, a long iron-headed axe dragging behind him. He moved silently between the conifers, eyes surveying each of the towering trees. He had become grizzled with age, a full beard with specks of gray throughout, a deep scar over his right eye faded with time, and a red tattoo over his face and body, covered only by a fur and lamellar pauldron and chest-piece.
Kratos placed his palm on one of the tall shagbark trees, feeling for its density. He removed his hand and raised his axe and, with a mighty grunt, cleaved clean through the sturdy tree sending it tumbling to the ground. It would be enough to keep him and his boy warm for the coming winter.
As the man dragged the tree back to his home, his ears pulled his head to the sky as a loud screech cracked the heavens. His first thought conjured up a dragon as he instinctively gripped his axe, letting go of the tree. Above, however, flew a metallic construction the likes Kratos had never seen.
As the construction flew low to the ground, Kratos abandoned his tree, running quickly to the house.
"Atreus!" Kratos called inside, keeping an eye on the flying construction hover a few hundred meters into the woods from the house. His eyes tracked a small object drop from the flying machine, dropping to the wooded floor below. A boy clad in furs and a bow strung on his back creaked open the door to see his father running toward him.
"What do you need father?" Atreus shouted, reaching for his bow.
"In the floorboards, hide there boy," Kratos said in a hushed voice as he reached the house, his hand reaching to push the bow back to Atreus' back. "There is a bundle of red cloth under there, fetch it for me and do not come out of hiding no matter what."
"Who is out there?"
"I do not know. Hide."
Atreus nodded, throwing the rug to the side and raising the trap door. The boy jumped into the hole, finding the bundled package easily and handing it up to his father. Kratos took the bundle and threw the trap door shut, flinging the rug back into place. Kratos unfurled the red cloth, revealing to chained blades which he wrapped around his wrist and attached the blades to his back, just in case.
As he affixed his blades there was a knock at the door.
Starkiller approached the small shack in the middle of the snowy wood. The cold was not as bitter as the snowy fields of Hoth, but bit through his training gear nonetheless.
The image of his target flashed through his mind, the middle-aged man with ivory white skin and red markings. Starkiller counted himself lucky that he didn't need to worry about being seen, as Midgard was far from the Emperor's watchful eyes. He approached the house, knocking on the door, hoping to gain any information to his target.
"Go away." came the gruff answer from inside the hovel.
"I just need some answers." Starkiller called back. "I'm looking for a god of war, maybe he's given you trouble in the past?"
There was a long pause, but again came the gruff voice, much angrier this time.
"Go. Away."
"Listen, I just need you to point me in the right direction," Starkiller insisted, becoming irritated at the unseen voice, but he was interrupted by the door slamming open to reveal a tall stark white man with red markings. Starkiller's hand instinctively twitched toward his lightsaber, but held back as he noticed the man before him was much older than what he was shown was his target. From his experience, similar markings could simply be the race of the deity he was searching for.
"Whatever information you want I do not have it. You should move on." The man said, firmly clutching a two-handed axe in his right hand. Starkiller eyed this man suspiciously; such low-tech weaponry had no chance of harming the Sith assassin.
"I am looking for someone like you, but younger. Is there anyone else of your kind out here?" Starkiller asked, trying to peer behind the hulking man into the cabin. The man puffed out his chest and moved in the way of Starkiller's gaze.
"I am the only one of my kind. You are not welcome here." The man put his foot down, readjusting his grip on his axe.
"There must be someone else," Starkiller insisted, looking upward to meet the man in the eyes. "Perhaps a son or…"
Kratos placed his offhand onto the assassin's shoulder, firmly pushing him away.
"Leave. My. Home." Kratos grunted, his patience being tested.
"You know what," Starkiller ignited his lightsaber, the red glowing blade extending backwards to run parallel with the back of his forearm. Either this old man was his true target or killing him would get him one step closer to his true goal.
Kratos eyed the glowing energy blade in the assassin's hand, not having seen a weapon like that before, but did not recoil out of fear.
"Last chance, old man!" Starkiller warned.
"You do not want this fight." Kratos gritted his teeth.
Without another word, Starkiller swung his saber upwards, catching the half-god by surprise and searing a diagonal slash from his hip to his shoulder. Kratos stumbled backwards at this blow, but countered with a hefty left hook to his would-be-killer's jaw. Starkiller flew back through the snow, coming to a stop on his back at the base of a large tree.
Starkiller braced himself against the tree as he rose, eyes fixated on the ivory man in the door frame. The still glowing singe marks his lightsaber had left began to close, healing before the Sith's eyes, until the man looked as fresh as before in a matter of seconds.
Without a word, Starkiller threw his saber at Kratos, the red blade spinning so fast it looked to only be a red flying disk. The god of war instinctively reached up to catch the weapon, only to be singed by the laser.
Kratos recoiled in pain, looking at his burned hand as his regeneration took a bit longer to heal this wound. The lightsaber boomeranged back to the waiting Sith assassin as the aura around Starkiller's other hand began to pulse. He forced forward his hand, throwing a wall of distorted air at the ivory man.
The pulse caught Kratos off guard, the blunt force pushing him back through his home, crashing through a wooden table, cracking through an oak support beam, and out through the back wall of the house. Kratos tumbled and rolled through the thin layer of snow, looking up in time to see the man clad in dark fabric walking through the wreckage toward him.
"This sorcery," Kratos squeezed out between labored breaths as he rose to his feet, "which god has granted you such power?"
"You have no chance to comprehend the power of the dark side of the Force," Starkiller said, emerging from the rubble of Kratos' falling house. Starkiller charged up another Force push in both hands, preparing to launch his foe into the tree line.
Another distorted wave of energy flew towards the god of war but as it neared, Kratos rolled to the side with frightening speed.
'Surprisingly agile old man,' Starkiller thought to himself, igniting his lightsaber once more as he saw the ivory man hurl his axe. The axe dripped with magical ice as it spun through the air, Kratos building up speed to charge his would-be-assassin. Starkiller's lightsaber caught the hardened blade of the axe and to the Sith's shock, did not cut through.
Kratos had reached full speed by the time his axe was blocked, a scale-armored shield forming on his left arm to bash into the Sith apprentice. Starkiller was only able to guard against the bash by using his offhand to exert a Force-push against the shield itself, the two forces being dead even.
Kratos reached around his shield to retrieve his Leviathan axe, finding the warped handle and spinning to catch Starkiller in the shoulder. Starkiller screamed in pain as the blade dug deep into his deltoid, forcing him to expel the Force outward in every direction, once again sending Kratos off his feet sliding backwards.
Looking at his now bleeding shoulder, the Sith's eyes flared with pained fury. Bright blue lightning crackled around him, flowing down his arms as storm clouds gathered above.
With an enraged shout, Starkiller held out both of his hands sending multiple arcing lightning streaks towards the downed god. Kratos was barely able to raise his hands to attempt to block himself from the full brunt of the attack, but the lightning surged through his body paralyzing him in electrical convulsions.
Kratos struggled to even keep his eyes open as the assassin did not relent, but he was able to see the trap door rise within the wreckage of his hovel.
"Bruma!" Kratos' son shouted, letting loose the string on his bow, shooting an arrow imbued with lightning into the shoulder blade of the man torturing his father. The arrow lodged into Starkiller's back, shooting electricity throughout his body and mixing with the Sith's Force lightning, backfiring and now surrounding the assassin. Starkiller's fury turned towards the boy as he pushed the lightning from his system, using the Force to remove the arrow and flinging it back at Atreus, catching the boy in his leg.
Atreus fell to the ground clutching his leg, unable to notch another arrow at the infuriated assassin. Kratos however, now freed from the paralyzing lightning, saw his menacing foe advancing towards his son.
Rage built up inside of the god of war as his pure warrior instinct took over, shouting as he launched himself forward to protect his boy. Kratos caught the Sith just as he turned, grabbing him by the shoulder cloths and pinning him to the ground.
Starkiller's eyes filled with panic as the Spartan warrior unleashed a barrage of fists into the assassin's face and chest. The assassin did not submit, however, as he drug his lightsaber across the rage-rattled god's torso as well. The two traded blows, Kratos having the upper hand solely because he had the Sith pinned, both of their blood turning the ground a sickening crimson.
The Sith assassin was only able to gain a slight advantage by using the Force once more to send Kratos flying high above.
Kratos was ready this time, however.
As the god of war flew backwards through the sky, he reached for the dual blades on his back, throwing them both at his aggressor on the ground. The chains linked to the back of the blades rang out as the weapons beelined towards the assassin.
Starkiller raised his lightsaber and caught one blade, bouncing harmlessly to the side, but the other blade found its mark, burying deep into the left side of the assassin's chest. Starkiller choked up blood as his lightsaber extinguished, looking down at the massive blade in his heart. He looked upwards once more to see his killer pulling himself downward with incredible velocity as the last thing he saw.
Kratos slammed into the man on the ground, smashing what was left of his ribcage and finishing off the assassin for good. The old man pulled the blade from his victim's chest, only now realizing how injured he was after the fight.
Burn marks scored across the entirety of his body from the assassin's sword and lightning, many of which would not fade regardless of Kratos' godly healing. He looked to his house, the place he had built with his own hands and one of the last remaining sentiments he had of his wife, of Atreus' mother.
"Boy!" Kratos coughed up blood, limping towards his son, only recently being able to pull the arrow from his leg. Kratos collapsed to a small patch of untouched snow, allowing the cold to numb his pain. Atreus rushed to his father to begin tending his wounds and find out what they were going to do now.
Winner: Kratos