Water laps at your bare feet and your every sense tingles, heightened, painfully aware of the world around you as it shifts with the tides. He's close; you can smell a hint of him above the sea salt - whiskey and sweat and blood.
Durga drifts behind you. Her feet don't break the surface of the beach, but the wind pulls at the jasmine in her hair and the tail of her saree as if she were really on the same physical plane as you. It doesn't really matter either way, though, because she's always with you. Always has been, always will be.
The banyan tree overhead creaks as if something heavy rests upon its branches, and the air overhead sparks with electricity and you suddenly feel very cool in the midday sun.
"How was your trip?"
"Not too bad."
He's American. Somehow, the voice matches the scent. Still, you don't turn to face him, but you continue to gaze across the ocean.
"I'm not in trouble, am I?"
It takes some effort not to roll your eyes because of course he's a wise guy, of course he's trying to be funny. Like he doesn't know.
You can just make out Durga moving in the corner of your eye, approaching the trunk of the banyan tree with her head tilted back. What she's looking at, you have no idea, but she remains silent. She just… looks. And something flutters in the breeze, something you can't see.
"You've been causing quite a bit of chaos, Mr. Spector," you say as you trace the outline of a flower into the sand.
"Call me Marc."
You stand and stretch your arms above your head, to either side, bend over and touch your toes, and you can actually hear him bristle at you ignoring him. Once the sand is dusted from your skirt and saree, you turn and give your own name.
He's handsome. Maybe too handsome. Olive skin, dark eyes, and even darker curls add up to a long, muscled, dangerous streak of a man.
"You have something that belongs to us, Marc. We'd like it back."
He smirks. "Yeah, not gonna happen, sweetheart."
Your eyes flicker to the banyan tree where Durga stands, but she is entirely unbothered. She seems focused on a particular branch that hangs out over the water. You take her disinterest to mean that this Marc Spector will be easy to defeat, that you won't need her help.
"You can fight me for it, though. If you think you'll win."
He's trying to bait you and you know it, but it's almost working. He has the audacity to steal from your goddess, to stake claim to the evidence of her justice in this twisted, muddy world, and then he thinks he can prod you like a cattle and get under your skin with that infuriating smirk? Anger flares to life inside your chest, even as you fight it, because you know better, you shouldn't be so easily goaded into fighting, you should be following Durga's example - violence out of necessity, not out of ego. But his smirk stokes your fire all the same and at some point there's just no point in holding back anymore. If Marc Spector wants a fight, then it's a fight he'll get.
You relinquish yourself to brahman and allow its power to flow through you until you are no longer just yourself. The saree around your body melts and fuses with your blouse, then bursts into a billowing kameez while your skirts splits down the middle and seams itself together around each calf. You feel a bright, warm spot begin to glow in the center of your back, stretching from your shoulder blades to nearly halfway down your spine, as your arms materialize above and around you. It feels right, it feels holy as the world folds itself around the shape of you.
The smirk on Marc's face is long gone and that fills you with pleasure. Good. At least he's sensible enough to know when to be afraid. You raise one hand above all the rest, the hand that holds Durga's sword, and lower yourself into a crouch, waiting. Your trident hands ache, clasping at nothing, and you feel your conviction burn hotter.
॰ ॰ ॰ ॰
Marc is not the kind of man to think that a woman lacks strength. If anything, women are stronger (and smarter) than any man that's ever walked the Earth, and he knows that for a fact. But he hadn't really expected much from the sweet face and quiet voice of the woman he met on the beach. He knows, in the heartbeats between watching you transform and summoning his own avatar state, that he was wrong.
He throws a crescent dagger your way. It whistles and thunks against the shield in one of your- God, how many, eighteen hands? The dagger falls into the sand and you step over it without a second glance to advance on him. All three of your eyes are burning righteous as he stumbles back in a daze. He's faced avatars and villains alike, seen and done unspeakable things, and come out the other end still alive, but this is different. He's never met someone quite so fierce or terrifying as you.
A brassy discus comes hurtling towards his face and he barely manages to duck out of the way to avoid breaking his nose. He swoops to the side and throws another two daggers, this time aimed at your nearest pair of arms. One of them lands with a sickening squelch in the flesh of your forearm, but the other lights off the tip of your mace. The angry, pained sound that comes out of you is little less than a lionesses battle cry and it's enough to bring him to his knees.
Shit, shit, shit. One of his ears is ringing. His knees are wobbly.
"Where is it?" you roar as you advance on him.
Marc raises his arm to block the blow of your mace, but half a dozen arms come swinging forward and he doesn't have enough time or leverage or body to fight them all back. Your javelin pierces through his ribcage, sliding neatly between ribs, a lung, and his spine, while your sword cuts into his stomach and four other hands all grab at his robes and cloak. At least two of your hands are tipped with the claws of a giant cat and they dig into his armor, bending and breaking it until they finally tear into his skin.
"I can rip you apart here and now, Spector, but I don't want to. Not if I don't have to." You lean in close and your lips are crimson. His stomach drops. "Where is the trishula?"
"You're not gonna get it-."
"And you don't understand the gravity of your situation."
Marc huffs and he can feel blood in his mouth. It's probably staining through the front of his mask by now. He steals a glance at the banyan tree on his right, but Khonshu is unbothered, still resting in its branches. If ever that stupid pigeon skull of his looked like it was smiling, it did now.
Your eyes are threatening to swallow him whole. "Give it to me, mercenary, and I'll let you live."
That does it. Marc summons his mask back into the void so he can see you properly. He's still on his knees and he's bleeding and impaled and furious, but this fight isn't over yet. It happens in a flash, but he throws himself back with as much force as he can muster and he flings you overhead. The javelin splinters inside him and he almost blacks out from the pain, but he presses on. He has to. He spins around, pulls your sword out of his stomach, retrieves another crescent dagger, and pins you to the ground by your collarbones.
"Let me make it real simple for you, sweetheart," and his voice is honey sweet with a hint of fire. "You and your god can still walk away from this, but I am not giving that trident back. I serve Khonshu, and I serve justice." You're mewling beneath him like an injured cat, writhing and burning in a mess of blood and gold. He pretends it doesn't make his heart drop into his gut. "And we're done here."
"Justice?" Your laugh is ice cold. "Justice? You serve a rotting vulture who makes a mockery of justice!" You try to grab for him and pull him down to your level, make it an even fight, but he just unleashes another barrage of daggers into your hands and arms until you're properly pinned. "You think you know what justice is? You think Durga isn't the mother of all things just and wise and great? You think Khonshu could ever have grasped the concept of justice without Durga's legacy before him?"
This time Marc is knocked flat onto his back. Your roar echoes in his ears and his world is spinning, even as you stagger to your feet with blood and daggers riddling your body.
॰ ॰ ॰ ॰
"Perhaps we should tell them before they-."
Khonshu shakes his head and leans a little farther back in his seat. "Not yet. Let them wrestle a little longer. I'm eager to see how Marc gets himself out of this one." He waves his hand over his lap and a long iron trident appears across his knees. "Yours, I believe?"
Durga doesn't even try to hide her smile. It materializes in her hand with the snap of a finger and shimmers into the hands of her avatar a moment later. She watches you pause mid-fight as realization sinks in. You turn, hair flying and eyes blazing, and she nods.
"Next time, beloved, you might try something a little less conspicuous." She hopes he doesn't.
He hums and rubs a finger over the curved end of his beak. "I might." But he probably won't.
