Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter in any way or form.
AN-1: Short chapter, and a late update, but I was playing Ghost of Tsushima—they need to make part 2—and now Shadow of Erdtree has dropped. Rellana is stupid AF, lemme tell you. But resuming updates and writing today onwards, cheers.
AN-2: if you WISH TO, you can read the NEXT SEVEN CHAPTERS right now by coming to my P*T*R*N.
Harry moaned in pain as he found himself crashing through a car, before his body dug a hole into the ground. This was not going well, he winced, feeling the burns on his face slowly heal from the mutated fiendfyre Faust had somehow learned in a single second. Grimacing as he felt the remains of a human his body had gone through, he apparated high above the city and vanished the gore on his back. Barely five minutes had gone by since he had learned the name of the sorcerer he had lured into the City of Sin, and yet, almost a fifth of Las Vegas was destroyed in the fire and explosions.
"You certainly are made of sterner stuff than most of those who dared to oppose me," Faust drawled as too teleported in front of him, his purple robes flapping in the wind as he clasped his hands behind his back, "What is your name child? For the talent and power you possess, I shall do you the honor of remembering your identity after I finish you."
"Dream on you fucking asshole," Harry snarled, raising his hands and creating dozens of lightning bolts above his head, each one easily capable of killing a dragon in one stroke. Thunder crackled around them as he directed every single one at Faust, a blinding explosion of power filling his vision for a moment as each one of them converged upon him. However, after seeing what the ancient sorcerer was capable of doing, he knew that it was a fool's hope to consider that a point in the battle. Rushing in with every bit of speed he could muster mid air, Harry brought his fist back and struck the red shield that had protected the sorcerer from his attack, his muscles tightening to the extreme as a powerful shockwave blasted out from the impact.
The remaining clouds around them vaporized away into the wind, and even the fires below blew out from the sheer force behind his fist…but yet, there was no change in the shield. Faust stared at him blankly as he slowly raised his hand, and feeling every bit of his anger and irritation bleed past his mental barriers, Harry roared and started wailing away at the barrier between them. His hands blurred into an invisible flurry of punches, each one faster and stronger than the last as he attacked Faust's barrier dozens of times in that single second. However, once again, he failed to breach the magical shield that was protecting the mage from him. A blast of magic erupted out of Faust the next moment, the red wave sizzling and bubbling with power, and Harry hissed as the skin on his hands burned away underneath its power. Bringing his skinned and bleeding hands back towards his chest, he created a shield over his body as another burst of corrosive magic came from the ancient sorcerer.
In that single eyeblink that it took for him to pull back, Faust reared his palm back and thrust it forwards. A swirling ball of blue magic formed over his hand as the shield around him dissolved away into nothingness. Preoccupied with saving himself from the corrosive magic that the mage had thrown at him, Harry was just a split second late in detecting the buildup of magic in Faust's palm. A beam of pure power came at him from point-blank range, and fast as he was due to Zod's experiment…Harry was severely limited in the air at this short of a distance.
The attack tore through his side, and Harry screamed as he felt the pain of a hundred Cruciatus' crash through his mind. Blood and flesh flew into the air half of his abdomen was sheared off, and he fell through the sky as he lost focus on the magic keeping him afloat. WInd rushed through his ear as he fell towards the city, stinging his wound even more as the corrosive magic within continued to eat away at his insides. His vision swam for a moment as blood practically fountained by cupfuls out of his side, and he spun head over heels as the light of the evening sun slowly got to work on his wound. Forcing his magic to heal the wound in tandem with the sunlight, he groaned as the acidic effect finally stopped…only for his back to break through the roof of a building. Grunting as he crashed through floor after floor, he winced as he broke through a wall, once again falling freely through the smoky air.
However, before he could fall more than a few feet, someone grabbed him midair and dropped him on the next building. Groaning weakly, he dropped his hands to his wound even as Kara knelt by him, and he felt her own magic ghost across his body, healing and rejuvenating him the best she could. "What the fuck are you doing here?" He asked, feeling bile rise up in his throat as his liver regenerated, flesh bubbling and shifting as his cells multiplied exponentially underneath the effects of the ritual as well as their magic. He sat up straight and pushed her away, blinking the spots in his vision away as he gasped for breath. Bringing his hand in front of his face, he blinked at the sight of the blood upon his fingers. Turning towards Kara, he vanished the blood on his fingers and stood up, taking a glance at his exposed insides, "Fucking Hell! Did you also use a numbing charm along with that healing one?"
"I did," she nodded, staring up at the slowly growing black dot in the sky, her hands glowing a soft yellow as she placed them by his regenerating abdomen, "Who the hell is that, kicking your ass all over the place so easily?"
"Some ancient sorcerer that goes by the name of Felix Faust," he answered, zooming in on the pale red shield that was protecting the mage from every single attack he had tried so far, "He is powerful, and that shield of his is proving to be a big bothe-"
"Let me try my hand then," came the response from his sister, and Harry opened his mouth to refuse…only for her to blast towards Faust at full speed. A sonic boom echoed out amongst the buildings, and Harry watched with a frown as Kara crashed into Faust. Her flight was a great boon to her fighting ability in the air, and it was proven once again as all that momentum made her punch exponentially stronger than what Harry had been able to do just a few moments ago. For the first time since the battle had started, Faust was moved from his position. Standing straighter and creating a miniature sun in the palm of his hand, Harry's eyes widened as the purple-robed sorcerer was pushed back by several feet.
The building shuddered beneath his feet, and the windows around them cracked and shattered from the force of the hundreds of punches Kara laid out onto that shield. "Come on. Come on, come on," he whispered furiously, eyes flickering down to his visibly regrowing liver, muscle and skin before he looked back up at the sight of his sister punching away at Faust like he was a pinball. However, he knew that despite Kara's greater range of movement and speed in the air, Faust was untouchable as long as that shield remained. And for as long as that shield remained, Faust could easily defeat them with one well placed attack if the blood on his hands was an-wait.
Blinking as a train of thought formed in his head, Harry looked down at the blood on the roof and on his cloak, before he looked up at Faust—the sorcerer was pinned for the moment by the continuous strikes from Kara, who was flying all over the place and hitting his shield from every direction with all her power…but he would soon adapt to her instantaneous movements if the caliber he had shown beforehand were any indication.
And before that happened, Harry had to execute his plan.
"Fucking. Break. Already!" The woman shouted into the wind as she passed by his magical barrier once again, her fist crashing into it with literal mountain-crushing force…and yet all she achieved was pushing him by a few meters—which was all she had been able to do in the last few moments, "Bombarda!"
"How curious," Felix muttered as he watched a blue spell splash harmlessly against his barrier, his eyes flickering all over the place as the witch flew around him at speeds much greater than what his eyes could follow. He hadn't seen her face yet, but based on the flickers of her cloak and the feel of her magic, she was related to the mage that he had killed a few moments ago. However, unlike him, she seemed to possess an innate, non-magical, and much better way of flight than what he had. That man, on the other hand, had been much more powerful magically, and more refined in the mystic arts—especially that fire spell that he had used, "Your flying is irritating."
Weaving his hands together for a moment as his shield suffered innumerable blows from the girl, he poured his power into one of the many talismans he had collected over the hundreds of years he had been alive. The Egyptian locket on his chest glowed a ghostly emerald, and for just a moment, the world around him slowed to a crawl as he invoked Thoth's power over space and time. A ripple expanded out into the air, and Faust smiled as the witch's form finally became visible—and yet, despite slowing the time down to a thousandth of a second, she was still somewhat blurred, her hand extended for a punch as she dove down at him. Waving his hand in front of him, he launched a veritable tsunami of fire at her, the orange flames tinged with the black of the spell the dead wizard had taught him just a few minutes ago.
With the locket being bathed in his blood, its effects didn't limit him and his magics, and due to this, his spell instantly surrounded the still-slowed witch in a deluge of flames as hot as the sun itself. Amidst the roar of the magical fire as it swallowed her almost still form, the immortal sorcerer chuckled a little as he placed a hand over the locket, stroking the runes upon it and thanking his excursion into the Egyptian kingdom all those centuries ago. Closing his hand into a fist, Faust brought his hand down sharply, conjuring a lightning bolt right on the top of the woman as his lips spread into a satisfied smirk. A moment later, the world resumed its pace and he smiled blissfully as the woman screamed, her voice quickly turning inaudible as the lightning slammed into her back.
As the flash of electricity went away, he watched her smoking body sail past him, her momentum and the lightning bolt sending her on the crash to her death as he felt her blood splash on his face. Licking the drop by his lips, Felix hummed a little and crossed his arms behind his back, staring down at the falling body of the woman. Tilting his head as he felt the magic in her blood burn against his own before it destroyed itself against the numerous rituals he had performed on his soul and body…he teleported. Appearing on the ground where her body was supposed to crash, he looked up at the rapidly approaching black form, crossing his hands behind his back once again. The wind howled through the block as fire raged in the building to his right, while at a distance, he could hear the humans scream in terror like the mice they were. As she crashed onto the road in front of him Faust raised an eyebrow as the ground shook from the impact. He had guessed her to have a lot more physical strength than humans, but to shatter the street and upheave the ground like that instead of her body bursting apart… was interesting.
Seems like he had found his next source of magical rituals and offerings—after all, in all of his seven millennia of existence, he had never seen a pair of mages and magic like the ones he had encountered today. As he walked towards the hole the woman's body had dug into the road, Felix turned towards the direction he had seen the sorcerer fall in as a thought wormed its way into his mind. The male mage had also displayed quite an extraordinary amount of strength despite not being in the sky, and his magical power had been quite exceptional too.
A slow chuckle escaped his throat as he looked down at his tall, thin frame, or rather, the body of the occultist he had stolen for his soul. That chuckle turned into full-blown laughter as his magic whipped into a frenzy, a dark aura rising off his body as he imagined just what he would accomplish by transferring his soul into the body of the man he had killed today. Magical power was the least of his concerns—even though it was a nice bonus. Rather, this time it was the physical capabilities and power of the mage that was his focus. Over several thousands of years he had been on the mortal coil, physical strength had been something he had never encountered in such a manner—except for the Atlanteans, but they were a reclusive bunch and as hard to find as a needle in a haystack.
His laughter echoed in the streets of Las Vegas as he knelt by the crater formed by the woman's crash, imagining the power of the thousand humans in his arms as he looked down into the darkness. Splaying his fingers open, he reached out into the hole, grasping the limp body and raising it up. He looked over the burned cloak dispassionately, his eyes flicking over the burnt face and the destroyed right arm before he saw the glowing bracelet on her wrist. His magical senses tingled as it pulsed once, a golden glow coming off it for a moment before it returned to normal. Curious regarding what had happened, he extended a hand to it, his fingers moving to unlatch it from the completely burned wrist.
However, right at the moment his fingers were about to touch the metal…Faust felt his shield begin to materialize at once. Danger. He thought with alarm, turning his head up as he poured more and more power into his shield, the numerous talismans and rituals on his soul all flaring up with warnings and wards as his premonition magic positively screamed in his mind. He felt something appear at the edge of his senses, a faint magical energy that he wouldn't have even felt if not for the barren state of the rest of the city.
And the next moment, the world spun for him as something slammed into his half-formed shield with all the force of a rampaging dragon. Faust blinked as he flew through the air, crashing through a building and breaking through wall after wall. His shield protected him from any damage, but it didn't mean he didn't feel vertigo or the jerks from being punted through what felt like a hundred layers of concrete. Two buildings and innumerable walls later, Faust felt himself crash onto the road, cratering the road a little as he rolled and skipped to a stop. Groaning a little as the world around him wavered and spun for a moment, Faust slowly rose up on his legs, staring at the hole he had made in the building ahead of him, wondering what in the name of Amon had happened. This…this reminded him of the battle he had fought with Nommo seven thousand years ago… during which their might had shaken the whole land around them, destroying forests and shaking the mountains under their power.
And as the small flame of magical power ahead of him turned into a roaring inferno reminiscent of a dragon's breath, Faust had a feeling that he was about to remember that fight more vividly than ever.
He caressed her burnt face softly, removing his hood from over his head as hot wind blew through the area. His trembling fingers ghosted over the charred and flaked skin, his eyes staring at hollow, burnt sockets where her heterochromatic eyes had been. Down below, her cloak had protected her body from the worst of the damage, but her arms were completely burnt to the bone, muscle and flesh blackened and exposed. Harry looked at her bracelet next, touching the burning hot metal for a moment before he clenched his eyes shut, a tear making its way down his cheek.
Kara would recover within moments, the phoenix tears and her own Kryptonian regeneration would ensure that. But the one who had done this to her…he was going to suffer before he allowed him the mercy of death.
This, Harry vowed.
He placed a hand over her forehead, creating a dozen different wards over her as he felt her healing go to work. Apparating her body to their flat, he turned around and looked in the direction he had sent Faust in, the buildings between them dissolving away from his view as he stared at the ancient sorcerer.
Dropping his hand to his waist, he gripped the hilt of Diana's sword tightly, the divine metal humming underneath his grip as his magic bled into it. His eyes burned bright crimson as the air above him shimmered and wavered, his rage and hate crashing through his Occlumency like a tsunami. Only a single thought dominating his entire mind…
Suffering.
Unsheathing Diana's sword, he ran his palm over the edge, his blood flowing over the flat of the blood as he pressed hand down on the blade made by Hephaestus himself. Sparks danced in the blood as his magic ran wild; and the divine weapon glowed as it seeped into the metal, his power flowing into the sword in its most potent and destructive form. As the blood disappeared into the sword, Harry leaned forward a little…and disappeared from the road as it shattered behind him a moment later.