A/N: Here's the last chapter of Mike's God of War boss battle, and we will soon see which ghost kid scores the W against their father.

Before we begin, here's a question that I probably should have asked years ago back when I first started writing fanfics in general. When do you guys typically read fanfics? I've been experimenting with different upload times over the years but could never find the best, consistent one that leads to the most exposure, whether it be through reads or reviews. The best answer I could find is Thursday or Friday in the evening, but I'm not confident about that any means. Any feedback would be appreciated so that I can find the best upload time that's most convenient for you all.

Deadsuffolk: I actually didn't know about that OSHA regulation…and honestly, as an author, I'm okay with the Mike and the ghost kids either missing it as well or only discovering about it just before the events of Security Breach start happening and it's too late to do anything about it as far as Gregory's night is concerned. For narrative purposes, Security Breach would be way too easy for the good guys to solve if every fire exit was free to use during the night. And it would demonstrate that the ghost kids aren't perfect, that they can still potentially miss things despite their willingness to atone. Especially if Mike missed it too, as he didn't really deal with OSHA building regulations back in Eisensteel. He might be very knowledgeable and intelligent, but everyone has knowledge gaps in some field or another and nobody is perfect.

Besides, clearly the OSHA missed the mark too when it came to the Pizzaplex in canon, and if the OSHA itself messed up in enforcing their regulations in that security hellhole then how could one realistically expect the ghost kids to do any better?

ThePencilDude: Thanks for the compliment! To answer your question, some things like caffeine could potentially have an effect on the ghost kids, but it would be a muted effect. I know back in Korea somebody made a joke about Fritz being high on caffeine if he was possessing Mike while he drank coffee, but that could have also been a joke more than anything else.

With regards to your question on time travel, that's actually a very loaded question despite how simple it seems on the surface. You have to consider multiple factors, like whether interfering in the past would end up making things worse somehow, or if other kids wouldn't get murdered to replace the ones Mike saved. If he could save his ghost kids with 0 negative repercussions, he would probably do it as long as the ghost kids agreed to it. But if going back into the past would lead to someone other kids being gruesomely murdered in their place, Mike and the ghost kids would probably accept the fate they've been given because none of them would want other innocent kids to get murdered in their places (some people could justifiably consider that selfish given how happy their lives are currently).

Chapter 204 – Ghost Children's Ragnarok Part 3

"I BELIEVE, UNLESS I AM MISTAKEN, THAT IT IS THE PUPPET GIRL'S TURN NEXT," Nightmare commented idly as he glanced into the empty arena, save for the dark gravestone that was even now reforming following Liz's attempt and subsequent defeat.

"Yeah, I'm next," Charlie confirmed. She took the phantom PS4 controller and changed the Guardian Shield to the Stone Wall Shield. She also added the Remedy of the Bifrost to account for Mike's sudden use of darkness, noting that the name of the enchantment itself had been changed to Remedy of Darkness. "Honestly, I'm not as good as Liz at parrying, so I'm going to change back to the Stone Wall Shield for now."

"You're probably the best gamer here out of everyone," Susie commented.

"If anybody can beat Dad, it's you!" Cassidy cheered.

"I'm not so sure, but I'll do my best," Charlie promised. "Ready, Dad?"

"You know what to do when you are ready to begin," was Mike's only response, his voice echoing from everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. Charlie finished making adjustments to Kratos-Freddy, took control of the warrior, and made him reach out towards the dark gravestone. Once again, the gravestone exploded and summoned Mike's dark reaper aspect to the battlefield, signaling the start of yet another round.

Mike wasted no time going immediately on the offensive, swinging his two hand scythes right into Kratos-Freddy's face. The warrior held out the Stone Wall Shield, standing strong and deflecting the two blows before dodging out of the way of the unblockable overhead swing that Mike unleashed next. Mike then followed through with one of his more devastating attacks as he roared, "Drown in darkness!" Charlie immediately recognized the phrase as the one he used whenever he was about to devastate the area around him in a massive explosion of darkness, expertly dodging backward twice to avoid the blast radius and then blocking the row of black spikes that Mike always followed the attack with. As his Runic Shield disappeared, Charlie summoned the Hilt of Skofnung to viciously barrage Mike with the flurry of ghostly green swords, before summoning. Having opted to keep the Flames of Anguish and Nemean Crush runic attacks that her siblings had been using, Charlie ordered Kratos-Freddy to summon pillars of flame with the Blades of Chaos and slamming them together with a huge, fiery explosion to deal as much damage as possible while the Relic Shield was down and Mike was distracted with the green ghostly swords slicing apart his body. Charlie finished her combo by having Kratos-Freddy slam the Stone Wall Shield on the ground in front of him, hitting Mike with a particularly powerful shield bash just as his Runic Shield came back. All the while, she constantly had the archer representing her animatronic self firing Sonic Arrows at Mike, remembering the advice her father had given her about using all resources available to her while she had them.

"Blastr Maeigaon!" Mike snarled as his hands began to burn with the same cursed black flames that he had taken Liz by surprise with, and Charlie barely had time to dodge to the side as Mike unleashed an explosion of cursed darkness in front of him where Kratos-Freddy had been standing seconds earlier. Even if she could have theoretically blocked the blow with the Stone Wall Shield, she did NOT want to have the equivalent of Bifrost on her this early on in the fight if she could help it.

"Wait, Dad's using Maeigaon attacks already?" Jeremy asked in disbelief. "He didn't use them at all until Liz got him on lower health!"

"YOUR FATHER WAS KEEPING THAT LITTLE TRICK A SECRET UNTIL HE TOOK ONE OF YOU BY SURPRISE," Nightmare pointed out with unhidden amusement. "NOW THAT YOU ALL KNOW ABOUT IT, WHY WOULD HE HOLD BACK FROM USING IT AT ANY POINT THROUGHOUT THE FIGHT?"

"And besides," Mike added his own retort, "Hrolf Kraki uses Bifrost attacks throughout the entire fight, not just halfway into it. You should be thankful that I didn't use my Maeigaon attacks until now when I easily could've."

He leaped back into the air and suddenly floated into the air. "Maeigaon Vengi!" he shouted, and the ghost kids all gasped as his hands began to blaze with cursed dark fire and he slammed them together, plunging the entire arena in darkness save for the faint outline of an ominous red glow around his hands.

Fortunately, Charlie kept a level head. She took out the Draupnir Spear and hurled a projectile towards where she knew Mike was, causing him to stumble back onto the ground and dissipating the energy gathered in his hands. She closed the distance to him and hit him twice with two stabs from the Draupnir Spear, before backing away slightly as Mike summoned his giant scythe and tried to swing it towards Kratos-Freddy. Charlie deflected the blow as Mike spun his body around and around, using the momentum to swing his scythe against the Stone Wall Shield over and over again. Charlie held strong with her shield up, releasing it and dodging only when Mike tried to impale the blade into Kratos-Freddy's head with a powerful, unblockable swing. As the Relic Shield disappeared again, Charlie smashed the fully charged shield onto the ground, causing Mike to stumble backward as she activated the Draupnir Spear's runic attacks, first charging towards him in a swift and unstoppable movement that impaled the spear into Mike's body and then throwing it into the air, unleashing a volley of spear tips that fell onto Mike and caused him to stagger repeatedly until the Relic Shield returned.

It soon became apparent to everyone that Charlie was just as skilled in fighting Mike as Liz was, but in different ways. Unlike Liz, who was more aggressive and made multiple opportunities to get attacks in through her skill in parrying, Charlie was more defensive, methodical, and careful in her approach to the battle. She didn't parry as much as Liz, instead relying more on the Stone Wall Shield's ability to block yellow ring attacks to avoid the damage from them. To make up for the lack of attack opportunities provided by the parry, Charlie was more skilled in evading Mike's attacks. Whenever Mike leaped into the air and slammed on the ground with his elemental death-from-above stomps, she could merely sidestep the attacks with pinpoint precision when another one of her siblings would need to fully dodge-roll, which gave her the opportunity to sneak in one or two attacks in before Mike's next attack. She also found opportunities to Mike in more subtle ways, utilizing the follow-up attacks after dodge rolls more skillfully than any of the other ghost kids and throwing an extra attack here or there at Mike in the spaces between attacks when her siblings might have been too scared to. Individually, each attack might not seem like it had accomplished much. But all the small attacks added up, and while she might have been slower in reducing Mike's health than Liz was, Charlie didn't make any major mistakes up until that point either.

"I honestly have no idea who's better at this game, Charlie or Liz," Fritz commented as Charlie brought Mike's health down to half with an Ivaldi's Anvil runic strike, causing him to roar and manifest a shield of bright orange flames around his health bar. By now, the ghost kids had heard the roar enough times that it no longer scared them, although the sound still did unnerve them to a degree. "They both play the game kinda differently, but they're so good at it!"

"Honestly, you could make the call for either one and I'd get it," Jeremy remarked as Charlie hacked away at the shield with the Leviathan Axe, stopping only to block two electricity-imbued fists from Mike before destroying the rest of it with a Winter's Bite runic attack. "At that point, you're talking about differences in playstyle and that's just people's opinions at that point."

The battle between Kratos-Freddy and Mike raged on, with Kratos-Freddy slowly whittling down Mike's health and staying alive through Charlie's careful and methodical playstyle. The former Marionette inhabitant and unofficial leader of the ghost kids had made the fewest mistakes out of all of them, although she had ended up dying her first pre-Resurrection Stone death because she missed a parry when Mike charged at her with a shadow-imbued fist. Charlie had activated both Spartan Rage and the Hilt of Skofnung after Kratos-Freddy's revival, and the subsequent brutal beatdown was more than enough to destroy both the remnants of Mike's sixth health segment AND his entire seventh health segment. Once the segment had been fully wiped out, Mike let out another inhuman roar and covered his health bar with another elemental

shield, this time a neutral gray-yellow colored one.

"Oh crap, Dad summons a SECOND shield when he gets to 30% health left?" Liz asked in shock. "He REALLY isn't making this easy for us, isn't he?"

"I don't think that's his only trick left either," Gabe added grimly. "Remember that whole Bifrost aura thing that Hrolf Kraki activated around him when he got him to REALLY low?"

"Shoot," Cassidy groaned. "I forgot that was a thing. Dad's gonna activate something like that too, isn't he?"

"Best case scenario, yeah," Jeremy muttered. "Worst case scenario…he's got something else planned on TOP of that."

"We're gonna find out soon enough," Susie pointed out. "Hilt of Skofnung's gonna come back soon!"

Charlie seemed to recognize this, as she started whacking and stabbing away at Mike's shield with the Draupnir Spear. Mike didn't make it easy for her, jumping away from Kratos-Freddy and throwing multiple attacks in her face including a Veggur Maeigaon and a Pyrping Eitr poison barrage, but she dodged all of them without getting harmed once and managed to destroy the last of Mike's shield right as the Hilt of Skofnung came off cooldown.

"Go, Charlie!" Fritz cheered as she activated the Hilt of Skofnung, summoning the host of ghostly green swords to slash apart Mike while she charged at him, activating the Winter's Bite runic attack to hurl a vicious frost-imbued upward axe swing straight into Mike's chest and unleashing another frost-imbued explosion with Ivaldi's Anvil while Mike was still staggered. Between the Hilt of Skofnung and the runic attacks, she was able to destroy most of his eighth health segment. Mike tried to swing his hand scythes across Kratos-Freddy's body, but his Stone Wall Shield held strong against the attacks, and two more axe attacks was able to bring Mike down to only 2 health segments. It was the best that any of the ghost kids had ever done against him so far…but Mike had no intention of giving up, no matter how backed into a corner he might have been.

Mike let out another demonic, terrifying roar…but this time, it was accompanied by far more than a shield. Up until now, throughout the entirety of their many rounds battling each other, not once had the black flames burning on Mike's body changed from their dark purple hue. Even when he had roared his fury into the sky and summoned his elemental shields around him, or when he had been firing off his lethal Maeigaon attacks, the flaming aura itself hadn't intensified in any way.

For the first time, the fiery aura surrounding Mike's body erupted into a roaring inferno, a pillar of red and black flames that blazed with a newfound savage ferocity. His eyes started glowing with scarlet malice, and Charlie felt a chill crawl down her spine as she realized that Mike had transformed into the "enraged" version of his dark self that he had battled Nightmare Springtrap with just before crushing him utterly in his full demonic form.

The sheer force of the explosion of power from Mike was enough to blast Kratos-Freddy back far away from Mike, although thankfully he didn't suffer any damage from this. What was much more concerning to the kids was the fact that Mike twirled his hand scythes briefly before connecting them together into a glaive, spinning the weapon threateningly in front of them before holding it up over his head. It was a weapon that NONE of them had seen Hrolf Kraki or ANY of the Norse God of War bosses had ever used, but it was one that was very familiar to them after watching Puss in Boots: The Last Wish…and beholding the iconic and unstoppable Wolf that embodied death itself.

And to top off the disastrous news, the "Bifrost aura" effect from Hrolf's battle was still carried over, slowly covering Charlie's health bar in darkness that threatened to obliterate it at any moment.

"…fuck," Fritz mumbled, his mind unable to come up with anything more coherent than one single word. "We're so screwed."

"Dad made a new weapon?" Susie asked incredulously. "Just for this fight? What the hell are we gonna do now?"

"I think Charlie's gonna have to play defensive for now and hope for the best," Gabe replied with a sigh. "Even though playing defensively is a bad idea by itself because of all the darkness on her health bar."

Charlie seemed to be on the same page as her brother, as with a look of resignation she controlled Kratos-Freddy to hold out the Stone Wall Shield in front of him protectively. This turned out to be the right call, as Mike suddenly charged towards him with his dual scythe-glaive in hand. Spinning it like it was a whirlwind of death, Mike frenziedly struck at the Stone Wall Shield with a deranged laugh, slamming blade after blade against the shield in a deadly rotation that filled its four charges practically instantly and didn't give Kratos-Freddy any room to breathe. After the fourth swing, Mike spun the glaive once and raised the blade high above its head, a red ring briefly appearing to signal its nature as an unblockable attack. Eyes wide in shock, Charlie barely had time to dodge to the side as the glaive's scythe-blade sliced into the ground where Kratos-Freddy had been standing a second earlier. Charlie decided to slam the Stone Wall Shield down on Mike, a maneuver that was meant more to expend the charges on it than anything else. As Mike's Runic Shield was still up, Charlie settled for two swings of the Leviathan Axe to get a little extra damage on him, as well as cleanse some of the shadow that by now covered Kratos-Freddy's entire health bar. Afterwards, she dodge-rolled twice to the back, hoping to get some distance (and therefore, safety) from Mike and his new scythe-glaive.

Unfortunately, Mike wasn't deterred in the slightest. He might've created a new weapon and some new tricks along with it, but that didn't mean he couldn't and wouldn't fall back to his old tricks as well. He flew into the air and snarled, "Eldingar Vengi!", summoning a storm of thunderbolts from the sky that forced Kratos-Freddy to weave and dodge to avoid getting killed in one-shot. Afterwards, he leapt into the air and out of sight, a red and black circle forming around and tracking Kratos-Freddy's movements. Despite how unnerved Charlie was from Mike's transformation, she kept her wits about her, properly timing the dodges as Mike slammed onto the ground with a small explosion of ice, as well as the small hailstorm that followed afterwards.

"GOOD, YOU REMEMBER THE BASICS," Mike declared, and everyone (especially shuddered) as they realized that his voice had become even more inhuman and demonic than it already had been, unnerving them all with just how similar his voice now was to Nightmare's. "EVEN WHEN FACING NEW CHALLENGES, IT IS IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER YOUR FUNDAMENTALS, RECOGNIZE WHAT TOOLS YOU ALREADY HAVE THAT MIGHT BE APPROPRIATE FOR A GIVEN SITUATION, AND PROPERLY UTILIZE THEM TO GET THE RESULT YOU WANT. YOU MAY NOT HAVE SEEN MY LATEST ATTACKS, BUT YOU HAVE SEEN MY OLD ONES. VEGGUR MAEIGAON!"

By this point, Charlie wasn't the least bit surprised that Mike had tried to sneak in a cheap attack while talking at this point, and Kratos-Freddy effortlessly dodged to the right to avoid the pillars of cursed black flames that fell from the sky. She threw the Draupnir Spear into the air to launch another Artillery of the Ancients, although Mike had his Runic Shield up and easily leapt out of danger after the first few hits. Charlie half-expected Mike to attack again, but he continued talking instead. By now, Kratos-Freddy's entire health bar was covered in cursed darkness, although the red and black flames surrounding Mike had somewhat receded and lessened in intensity, signaling that the "Bifrost aura" effect that he had been constantly exuding had finally come to an end.

Charlie half-expected Mike to follow-up with another attack, but he elected to talk instead. "YOU'D BE SURPRISED JUST HOW VALUABLE AN OLD SOLUTION CAN BE TO A NEW PROBLEM." Before Charlie could ask what he meant, the sinister grin on his face widened even more. "OF COURSE, REMEMBERING YOUR FUNDAMENTALS IS ONE THING. ACTUALLY USING THEM PROPERLY, ON THE OTHER HAND…"

He resummoned the dual-bladed scythe glaive and spun it once in the air, a yellow ring forming at its end to signal its nature as a parry-able attack. Charlie commanded Kratos-Freddy to lift up the Stone Wall Shield, right as Mike swung the glaive's blade down with a powerful swing from one side to the other, before repeating the attack in the other direction. Kratos-Freddy's Stone Wall defense was enough to block the two attacks without breaking, but Mike's glaive strikes had been powerful enough to fill up the Stone Wall Shield's meter just between the two of them…leaving him completely helpless when Mike followed up with a third yellow ring attack, grabbing both ends of the glaive's hilt before he viciously smashed it against Kratos-Freddy's shield. The warrior stumbled backward as his defense was broken, leaving him helpless as Mike began spinning the dual-bladed scythe glaive in front of him like a whirlwind of death, channeling dark power into his blades that grew more intense with every second that passed. Multiple blue rings converged on his body, signaling a powerful attack requiring a shield bash to break. Charlie would've normally been able to counter the attack easily with the appropriate shield bash, but Kratos-Freddy was still staggered from having his defense broken by Mike's previous combo, and by the time he recovered it was already too late. Mike charged at Kratos-Freddy with inhuman speed, swinging his glaive from underneath and impaling the warrior in the stomach before flinging him into the air. Charlie could do nothing as Mike swung the glaive around and impaled Kratos-Freddy in the air with the other blade of the glaive before violently swinging downward and smashing Kratos-Freddy's body to the ground. With how wounded and covered in darkness Kratos-Freddy's health already was, the force of Mike's wrath was far too great for him to withstand and the warrior remained lifeless and broken on the ground.

"SO VERY CLOSE," Mike commented mockingly, "AND YET SO FAR. YOU CAME FARTHER AND FOUGHT BETTER THAN ANYONE ELSE , BUT IT WASN'T ENOUGH TO SAVE YOU IN THE END. AND IN BOTH THIS BATTLE AND YOUR UPCOMING FIGHT AGAINST GLITCHTRAP, THERE ARE NO SILVER MEDALS FOR SECOND PLACE."

Charlie let out a frustrated sigh. She had been so close to winning, and had even recovered well despite the fact that she had died halfway into the fight. But she had honestly forgotten that Hrolf Kraki covered himself in a continuous Bifrost aura, a pattern that Mike had made sure to replicate with his intense aura of red and black flames. Combined with the new glaive weapon and the new moves that had been inspired by The Wolf from Puss in Boots, and the former Marionette inhabitant had proven outmatched in the end. "I feel like maybe I could've won if I hadn't made that one mistake earlier that had killed me the first time," she mumbled with a defeated sigh as she held the controller out towards her siblings. "Anybody wanna go next?"

"Can I try?" Cassidy asked. "I want to try and redeem myself cause I did so bad the first time!"

"Didn't we have an order we did this in last time, though?" Jeremy pointed out. "Maybe we should stick to that?"

Gabe shrugged. "I'm technically next to go up again, but I'm still thinking about a few things. I don't mind letting Cass go ahead of me if she really wants to."

"Ooh, can I go again too?" Fritz pleaded. "Cass thinks she did bad, but I was even worse!"

Charlie shrugged and handed the controller to them. "At this point, I just want to see somebody beat Dad!" she declared.

Cassidy and Fritz both took their turns against Mike, and to their credit, they did perform better on their second attempts compared to their firsts. Cassidy was able to make it to Mike's second elemental shield before going down to an Eldr Vengi during which she failed to avoid a fireball in time, and Fritz was actually able to get Mike all the way down to his final "enraged" phase before getting shredded apart by his scythe-glaive because his Stone Wall Shield had been full and couldn't take any more yellow ring attacks. Importantly, neither ghost kid lost because they failed to recognize and appropriately respond to an incoming attack, instead losing because they had been just a little too slow to respond.

"AT LEAST YOU HAVE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION," Mike remarked as Kratos-Freddy's body dissolved into darkness yet again. "AT THIS POINT, NOT KNOWING WHAT TO DO AGAINST ONE OF MY ATTACKS WOULD BE A MORE SERIOUS PROBLEM THAN MERELY BEING TOO SLOW TO RESPOND PROPERLY. WHEN IT COMES TO POTENTIAL REASONS FOR DEFEAT, A FAILURE TO PROPERLY PAY ATTENTION WOULD BE ONE OF THE LEAST EXCUSABLE REASONS."

"Yeah, you're right," Fritz admitted. "If an animatronic went crazy at the Pizzaplex and we didn't notice it in time before it killed someone, that would be a huge fuck-up on our part."

"I REFUSE to let that be the reason why we lose against Glitchtrap," Susie agreed. "Not only would that mean we failed to redeem ourselves properly, but it would be so, sooooo embarrassing!"

"I'm ready to take the controller now," Gabe extended his hand towards Fritz. "I have this feeling in my gut that I can beat Dad this time!"

Fritz handed the controller to Gabe, who switched out the Rond of Purification with the Rond of Deflection and changed the shield back to the Guardian Shield. "I can hit parries as long as I have that Rond on," he explained. "And Liz really showed just how important parrying can be in this fight."

"You can do it, Gabe!" Liz encouraged him.

"Yeah, man, you got this!" Jeremy clapped his brother on the back.

Gabe smiled, voiced a quick thanks, and then ordered Kratos-Freddy to reach out to the dark gravestone and initiate the fight once again. Right from the get-go Mike came out literally swinging, throwing out two Frost-imbued punches at Kratos-Freddy. Gabe turned that momentum back on Mike, parrying the first fist with the Guardian Shield and using it to get an early counter-attack opportunity on his father's dark aspect. He had enough time to strike Mike with two slashes of the Leviathan Axe before Mike summoned his hand scythes to try and slash at Kratos-Freddy, only for that attack to be countered by a parry as well.

"Good start, good start," Charlie murmured approvingly. "That's two attacks countered so far."

"Don't get your hopes up just yet," Liz warned. "Dad still hasn't used all of his long-distance or unblockable attacks yet!"

As if he heard her, Mike leaped away from Kratos-Freddy and unleashed a barrage of fireballs with an Eldr Vengi, although Gabe managed to dodge and weave through them without getting hit. Mike tried to follow through on his failed attack with a Veggur Eldinga, summoning a cascade of thunderbolts towards Kratos-Freddy in a line that he swiftly dodged to the left to avoid. Mike then held his scythes out as he tried to unleash the first blue-ring charge attack that had killed Kratos-Freddy in Gabe's very first turn, but Gabe blocked the row of spikes coming from Mike with his shield and closed the distance. He smashed the Guardian Shield against Mike's body before he could fire off the massive explosion, staggering him out of his attack and giving him the opportunity for more free hits.

It soon became obvious that with the Rond of Deflection giving him much-needed time on his parries, Gabe's skill level was comparable with both Liz's and Charlie's. Knowing full well that Mike's aura of cursed darkness could easily lead to his doom if he didn't have an answer for it, Gabe resolved to make sure he would have Rage available to dissipate the effect entirely by the time he destroyed eight of Mike's health segments and triggered the final phase. This meant that he could make very few if any mistakes, and that any mistakes he did make couldn't be severe enough to kill him and/or force him to burn all his Rage bar too early.

Mike charged at Kratos-Freddy with his fist with blistering speed, which Gabe elected to dodge rather than try to parry. In response, his father summoned his hand scythes and struck at them with the right one, which the former Freddy inhabitant parried and counterattacked to create an opening with which he could retaliate with a Runic combo from the Leviathan Axe.

"AH, INTERESTING…" Nightmare commented as Mike summoned hailstorms from the sky with an Isa Vengi that Kratos-Freddy dodged without issue, taking the time to throw a few cheap shots from the Draupnir Spear while he was at it. "YOUR BROTHER SEEMS TO BE MORE AGGRESSIVE THAN THE LITTLE PUPPET BRAT WHEN IT COMES TO HIS PARRIES, YET LESS SO THAN THE CLOWN GIRL. HE KNOWS HOW TO PARRY WITH THE GUARDIAN SHIELD AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE OPPORTUNITIES ITS COUNTERATTACKS PROVIDES, YET HE IS ALSO MORE CONSERVATIVE AND ELECTS TO AVOID SOME OF THE MORE DANGEROUS ATTACKS ENTIRELY RATHER THAN RISK A FAILED PARRY. I ALSO NOTICED THAT HE CHOSE THE ROND OF DEFLECTION TO MAXIMIZE HIS CHANCES OF A SUCCESSFUL PARRY, RATHER THAN UTILIZE A DIFFERENT ROND THAT COULD PROVIDE A BENEFIT ELSEWHERE. THERE IS A CERTAIN ELEMENT OF BALANCE IN HIS APPROACH, THOUGH LET US SEE HOW SUCCESSFUL IT PROVES TO BE IN THE END."

As the battle raged on between Kratos-Freddy and Mike, Gabe demonstrated exactly why he had been the one to defeat Hrolf in the actual game. Under his guidance, Kratos-Freddy dodged every unblockable attack and difficult yellow-ring attack that Mike hurled at him, and successfully parried and countered every attack that Gabe knew he could time properly. Whenever he won himself an opportunity to attack, the former Freddy inhabitant would take full of it to earn himself a small number of attacks from the three mighty weapons Kratos-Freddy wielded before disengaging and waiting to answer Mike's next move. Gabe also never failed to take advantage of the Puppet-Archer's arrows, as well as both the Hilt of Skofnung and his weapons' Runic attacks to deal heavy bouts of burst damage whenever Mike's Runic Shield went down. By the time he had destroyed half of Mike's health bar and triggered him to protect himself with a frost-laden elemental shield, he had only made one mistake, and it had merely cut his health bar by little less than half.

"Holy crap, Gabe's doing so much better than the first time!" Cassidy exclaimed as Kratos-Freddy neatly dodged out of the way of a Pyrping Maeigaon, and stomped on a green health stone to stagger and damage Mike with the explosion. "He's kicking Dad's ass!"

"Looking at him right now, I really wish I was as good at God of War as he is," Jeremy commented as Gabe took advantage of Mike's moment of vulnerability to destroy the rest of his elemental shield and follow-up with a runic attack combo from the Draupnir Spear. "He's playing like a real pro."

"I think he can actually be the one to win the whole thing, guys!" Susie theorized as Mike leapt towards Gabe with his hand scythes raised high in the air, and the latter dodged out of the former's way by a hair's breath. Mike swung his right scythe at Gabe, only for the latter to parry and counter-attack it. When he recovered and tried to drown the arena in darkness with a massive explosion, Kratos-Freddy neatly dodged out of the way and held his shield up to block the follow-up spike trail. When Mike jumped into the air to swing a giant scythe upon his head, Kratos-Freddy was able to block the pulse of darkness that came before it and successfully parry this attack as well, creating another opening that Gabe was able to take advantage of with a Runic Attack combo from the Leviathan Axe.

It was clear to everyone watching that Gabe had learned a lot from both his former experience fighting Hrolf and from his siblings' attempts, as his play was the closest to flawless as any of them had performed so far. Without taking any more damage, Gabe destroyed Mike's seventh health bar segment and forced him to trigger his second elemental shield, which he promptly tore apart with the Blades of Chaos. Mike viciously attacked Kratos-Freddy with his wide arsenal of elemental magic and weapons, but Gabe kept his momentum going, avoiding or blocking every single attack without fail. As Mike slammed down onto the ground with an explosion of lightning, Kratos-Freddy triggered the Hilt of Skofnung, and the combination of both the barrage of ghostly swords and his own swings of the Leviathan Axe brought Mike down to his last two health bars.

"Now comes the real test," Charlie murmured as Mike let out a wrathful roar, intensifying the aura around him into a towering inferno of red and black flames as he combined his two scythes into the dual-bladed scythe glaive that they had seen him use last time.

"YOUR BROTHER HAS DONE WELL SO FAR," Nightmare agreed, slightly surprising them with his compliment, "BUT IN THIS FINAL STAGE, EVEN THE SLIGHTEST MISTAKE CAN LEAD TO DEATH."

And then out of nowhere, Gabe grinned. "Just what I was waiting for," he commented as he activated Kratos-Freddy's Spartan Rage. Red flames burst around his body…as it cleaned the cursed darkness on Kratos-Freddy's health bar completely. "Enjoy getting stunlocked for the next couple seconds, Dad!" he taunted as Kratos-Freddy furiously pummeled Mike with his Rage-induced fists, staggering him with every hint and preventing him from even moving as the Puppet Archer continuously fired arrows at him. While each hit might not have been powerful individually, the damage added up, and together they were able to destroy Mike's ninth health bar with what was essentially complete impunity by the time Kratos-Freddy's Rage finally ran out.

Even as badly wounded as he was, Mike wasn't going to go down without a fight. He rushed at Kratos-Freddy, spinning his scythe-bladed glaive so quickly it could barely be registered as a blur to the human eyes, but Gabe didn't flinch. He'd noticed from Charlie's battle that as terrifying as this attack might have seemed, it didn't come up with any rings. Thus, Gabe could get away with having Kratos-Freddy simply hold his shield up while Mike struck fruitlessly at it, only managing to get more cursed darkness on Kratos-Freddy's health bar without actually damaging it. Mike raised the glaive and swung it across Kratos-Freddy with a downward sweep, but Gabe successfully parried it and counterattacked, staggering Mike and breaking him out of the combo that had spelled Charlie's doom a few moments ago. Seeing an opening, Gabe activated the Hilt of Skofnung to summon its lethal ghostly swords before charging at Mike and summoning a rain of spear tips with the Draupnir Spear.

In a move that hinted more towards desperation than anything else, Mike began to spin his glaive in front of him and gather power in his blades, the same blue-ring attack that he had finished off Charlie with. But Gabe wasn't stunned into inaction like his sister had been, and he got Kratos-Freddy to bash Mike with the shield to interrupt the attack before he could unleash the finishing combo. As Mike staggered backwards, Kratos-Freddy got in four clean swings with his Leviathan Axe, destroying the last bit of Mike's final health bar segment in the process.

"ARRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Mike let out a howl of frustration and pain as he dropped his scythes and fell on one knee, the iconic red-rimmed R3 button finally, finally appearing over his head.

"He's down!" Cassidy cheered. "He's actually down!"

"Gabe, you're the best!" Liz added joyfully. "And you didn't even use your Resurrection Stone too!"

"Kick his ass!" Fritz called out eagerly.

Gabe grinned as he controlled Kratos-Freddy to run at Mike and clicked the R3 button. Kratos-Freddy swung the Leviathan Axe twice across Mike's neck, though neither blow decapitated him. As he prepared for a final swing to finish him off once and for all, Mike suddenly grabbed his scythe and swung the blade across Kratos-Freddy's neck, the warrior only barely managing to avoid being decapitated in turn by deflecting the blade with his gauntlet. Mike tried to capitalize by swinging the scythe down upon Kratos-Freddy's head, but the warrior grabbed the handle of the weapon and pushed back, only barely preventing his head from getting impaled. Kratos-Freddy suddenly smashed his head right into Mike's, stunning the warrior and forcing him to stumble backward as Kratos-Freddy grabbed the scythe out of Mike's hand and impaled him in the shoulder with his own weapon. With Mike helpless in front of him, Kratos-Freddy grabbed the Leviathan Axe and cleanly swung it across Mike's neck. This time, the blade struck true, and the ghost kids were rewarded with the rather grisly sight of Mike's head flying off his neck. Kratos-Freddy grabbed the scythe out of Mike's body as both his head and body dissolved into wisps of shadow, signaling that their father's dark reaper aspect had finally been defeated once and for all.

"WELL…DONE…" was all Mike had time to say before the last traces of his body vanished entirely.

"You did it, Gabe!" Jeremy cheered. "Great job!"

"You did that almost perfectly," Liz agreed happily. "I loved how you save that Rage for the aura of darkness so it didn't even affect you at all!"

"And the way you countered Dad's glaive attacks, it was just so cool!" Susie gushed.

"I WILL ADMIT THAT YOUR PERFORMANCE WAS SURPRISINGLY IMPRESSIVE, GIVEN HOW MISERABLE OF A FAILURE YOUR FIRST ATTEMPT WAS," Nightmare conceded. It didn't surprise anyone in the slightest that he mixed in an insult along with his compliment, but that was still better than nothing.

"Yes, yes, well done indeed, Gabe," Mike's voice echoed around them, now returned to its more "normal" echo-y form. "You not only managed to implement the lessons I learned quite well, but you even managed to defeat me this time around without even needing to use your Resurrection Stone. Quite impressive…though I guess I shouldn't be surprised, given how you were the one to beat Hrolf in the actual game."

Gabe smiled. "Thanks, Dad…I learned a lot, both from the game and from you."

Mike chuckled. "I'm sure those lessons will be just as useful for the rest of you, even if Gabe was the one to actually score the win." The mirth in his tone suddenly vanished, leaving it much more businesslike. "That being said, I have one last lesson to leave you with before we wrap up for the evening."

"What lesson, Dad?" Charlie wondered.

"I was originally going to play a trick on you at the end of the battle when you finally won," Mike explained. "After Kratos-Freddy decapitated my avatar, I was going to fall silent for several moments and pretend that he had actually killed me for real. I was going to test your reactions to my silence and fake death, trying to see which of you would keep a level head and see through my trick, and which of you would panic and think you had actually killed me by accident."

"Holy shit…" Fritz muttered. "That would've been scary as hell."

"WAY scarier than anything Mike did when roleplaying as Hrolf," Cassidy agreed without hesitation.

"I decided not to go through with that prank for the simple reason that it would've been in poor taste given our history back in the 1900s," Mike continued dryly.

"Thank you," Liz replied, her voice as equally as dry.

"DISAPPOINTING," Nightmare commented with an evil glint in his eyes. "YOU SHOULD HAVE GONE THROUGH WITH IT. I WOULD HAVE LOVED TO SEE THESE LITTLE BRATS FLOUNDER AROUND LIKE HEADLESS CHICKENS THINKING THAT THEY HAD ACCIDENTALLY KILLED THEIR BELOVED FATHER."

Gabe glared at the demonic bear. "You're an asshole," he growled.

Nightmare merely smirked back at him. "WHAT IS THAT SAYING MY KIN ARE SO FOND OF SAYING?" He pretended to think. "AH YES…WE'RE DEMON LORDS. WHAT THE HELL DID YOU EXPECT?"

Nobody bothered to dignify that with a response. Instead, Mike continued as though he hadn't interrupted. "Since I will not be playing that prank with you, I will instead simply state the lesson I wanted you to learn from it. There may be times when you screw up, or think that you've screwed up, or things just go to shit through no fault of your own. In moments of crisis like these, panic does nothing. All it does is cloud your mind, mess up your judgment, and leave you prone to making the situation even worse. Instead, you must harness the energy and intensity from that panic. Let it serve you, give you focus. Only with a clear head can you approach a crisis and properly solve it."

"Isn't that more or less what Kratos himself said to Atreus in the game?" Susie realized.

"That's exactly the point, and it's good advice both in his word and in the real one," Mike remarked. "And with all that having been said, we are done for the night. Thank you for taking the time to make all this possible, Nightmare. Your help is appreciated…even if your comments on my prank aren't."

"IT WAS CERTAINLY A MORE INTERESTING USE OF MY TIME THAN ANYTHING I COULD HAVE DONE IN HELL THIS NIGHT," Nightmare replied coolly. "I ESPECIALLY ENJOYED WATCHING YOU CREATE THAT DUAL-BLADED SCYTHE GLAIVE YOU USED TOWARDS THE END. I ONLY WISH I COULD HAVE SEEN YOU WIELD SUCH A WEAPON AGAINST NIGHTMARE SPRINGTRAP THE NIGHT HE INVADED YOUR MIND."

"Yeah, that would've been cool, wouldn't it?" Mike agreed with a nostalgic sigh. "That Puss in Boots sequel seriously had absolutely no right to be as amazing as it turned out to be. Anyways, time to go, kids."

And before anyone could say another word, the ghost kids found themselves ejected out of Mike's world and out into reality. They stared down at Mike, who was sleeping peacefully and not at all as though he had fought a Freddy-headed warrior based on Kratos to the death several times in a row.

"Nobody would ever believe us if we told them what just happened tonight," Cassidy was the first to broke the silence.

"Probably not," Gabe remarked. "But Dad did give us several important lessons tonight. We've just gotta make sure we make the most of them when we face off against Glitchtrap in the Pizzaplex."

Everyone nodded in agreement. "You're right, Gabe," Charlie agreed. "And I have a feeling that this is going to be happening sooner rather than later…"

/

A/N: And there we have it! The final chapter of Mike's Hrolf Kraki superboss battle…with a little bit of Wolf/Death action from the Puss in Boots sequel thrown in for good measure! It seems like Charlie was the favorite to get the winning run since she's the most consistently skilled gamer out of the ghost kids, which is why I threw you guys for a loop and had Gabe score the W instead.

I might take a bit longer than usual to post the next chapter, since I actually need to do some proper research on Security Breach to actually write an arc on it. I can promise you that the next chapter WILL advance the plot in some way, even though it might not be through a direct visit to the Pizzaplex.

Lastly, I was originally going to have Mike do that prank where he pretended to get killed for real by Kratos-Freddy. But as Mike himself stated, he opted not to go through with it cause it would've been a real dick move. Also, on a meta level, I was just running out of steam and didn't want to add another half-page dedicated to it.

Anyways, that's all I have for now. Hope you enjoyed this little tribute to the God of War Norse games!