A/N: Time for Mike to continue teaching his lessons to his kids…through repeated brutal beatdowns of Kratos-Freddy. Don't forget to watch videos of the King Hrolf Kraki boss fight for God of War: Ragnarok, specifically the New Game Plus (NG+) version, so that you have a visual guide for the kinds of attacks that Kratos-Freddy and Dark!Mike are throwing at each other.

ThePencilDude: The ghost kids would definitely be spending a lot of time getting used to living and doing things that normal, living kids do. They'd also be trying to make a lot more friends in real life now that they can do so without their very existences setting off a lot of alarm bells. Mike would definitely be putting his foot down on Susie's appetite so that she doesn't become obese though, lol.

Guest: Even if the COVID-19 Pandemic did happen (which is open to interpretation), it already ended by the time Mike adopted the ghost kids so it wouldn't really affect the story anyway. I have not watched Across the Spider-Verse so I don't really have a good answer to your question about canon events and fate right now, and I haven't had time to think about it since my focus was just on getting this chapter out.

Chapter 203 – Ghost Children's Ragnarok Part 2

Mike watched with unhidden amusement as he watched the ghost kids quickly whisper amongst themselves trying to decide who to should fight against his dark aspect next. After a few seconds, Susie floated up to the controller and took hold of it. "I'm gonna go next!" she declared, trying to hide her nervousness behind a façade of bravado.

Nightmare didn't even pretend to hide his skepticism. "NOT MY FIRST CHOICE FOR WHO I WOULD HAVE CHOSEN TO GO NEXT, AFTER ONE OF YOUR GREATEST PLAYERS FAILED MISERABLY," he commented.

"I'm not that great at the game," Susie freely admitted. "I know I'm not. And since I know I'm going to lose, I figured I might as well use my turn to get as much information out of Dad's attacks as I possibly can before I die and let someone better than me at the game play."

"You're trying to think critically and make a plan. I like that," Mike's voice had a thoughtful tone, although it quickly hardened. "But you shouldn't be creating your plans with the expectation that you're going to lose. How are you going to succeed if you base your plans around the idea that you're going to fail?"

"I like to think of it more as scouting out for information," Charlie challenged, coming to her sister's defense. "Seeing what our enemies are capable of and coming up with ways to counter them accordingly. Like what we did when we went to collect intel from Fazbear Entertainment's offices in the middle of the night."

"A fair point," Mike admitted, "but keep in mind that you will only have a limited amount of time to gather that information. And the chances of that intel being incomplete or flawed when the actual trial begins are far from nonexistent. Do not think for a second that gathering intelligence by itself will give you the win, as important as it might be."

"I get that," Susie acknowledged. Her father didn't say anything more, which Susie took as a sign that it was time for their second try to begin. The controller in hand, she directed Kratos-Freddy to reach out towards the dark gravestone in the center of the arena, and once again it exploded outward in a pillar of darkness, bringing forth Mike's dark aspect in all of his terrifying glory once again.

"Gabe's first performance was disappointing," Mike growled, his eyes glowing a menacing red. "Let's see if you can do better this time around."

Susie didn't immediately go on the offensive, instead waiting carefully to see what Mike would do before she tried to attack. Her caution immediately proved itself warranted when Mike didn't attack the same way he did last time, instead leaping backward from Kratos-Freddy and far out of range from any of her melee attacks.

The two hand scythes in Mike's hands transformed into a giant scythe more fitting of the traditional image of the Grim Reaper, and a red ring formed in front of Mike's body. "Remember, Susie! You can't parry the red ring attacks!" Cassidy warned from behind her.

Susie didn't have the chance to thank Cassidy for the reminder as Mike suddenly leapt towards Kratos-Freddy, raising his giant scythe high in the air as he did so. Kratos-Freddy dodged to the right in the nick of time, Mike's blade slicing into the ground where he had been seconds before. It was an attack that the ghost kids had seen King Hrolf Kraki utilize before, all the small blasts of dark magic that erupted in a small radius around Mike's feet were definitely new.

Susie had successfully dodged the attack, but Mike wasn't done. He seamlessly transformed the giant scythe back into the two hand scythes and swung them at Kratos-Freddy, who held his Stone Wall Shield in front of him and blocked both of the attacks. As Mike's second strike bounced harmlessly off Kratos-Freddy's shield, the shield icon next to his health bar disappeared, signaling that he was no longer protected from being staggered.

Seizing the opportunity, Susie commanded Kratos-Freddy to swing the Leviathan Axe theatrically as he leapt into the air, the blade of the axe glowing with an icy blue energy, before smashing the axe head into the ground. The moment the axe hit the ground, it unleashed an explosion of ice and frost that smashed into Mike and caused him to stagger and stumble backward with a growl, knocking off a decent part of the first segment of his health bar. Susie immediately followed up by unleashing the Hilt of Skofnung just as Gabe had done, summoning the twelve ghostly green swords frenziedly slice into Mike's body while Kratos-Freddy switched to the Draupnir Spear and started stabbing and swinging viciously at Mike with the spear, destroying the first segment of Mike's health bar and starting to eat into the second.

Unfortunately, the Runic Shield protecting Mike from being staggered reappeared, and Mike wasted no time leaping away from the swords to prepare his next attack. The swords followed him and continued to damage him, but he ignored them, transforming his hand scythes into a towering glaive with the skull-headed blade transformed into a spear tip. "Drown in darkness!" Mike snarled as he raised his glaive above the ground and absorbed the powers of darkness into the blade tip, covering the area around him in a mist of black malevolent energy that seemed to consume the ground in a large radius around him.

A large radius that Kratos-Freddy was currently still in. "Dodge out!" Fritz urged. "Do it twice, remember!"

"I know!" Susie called back in an irritated tone as she directed Kratos-Freddy to do so. He barely managed to roll out of the radius before Mike slammed the glaive into the ground and unleashed a massive explosion of darkness and shadow that would have almost certainly wiped out most if not all of Kratos-Freddy's health if he had still been in. Unfortunately, Mike had added his own innovation to this attack like he had for the other ones, shooting out a line of dark, shadowy spikes from the ground that beelined straight towards Kratos-Freddy similar to the one that he had unleashed just before he had smashed his scythes together in the last run. This time, Susie was prepared, and held her shield up to block the trail of scythes instead of being skewered by it like last time.

"Good!" Jeremy commented approvingly. "Now see if you can find try to fight back!"

The problem was that Susie couldn't fight back, at least not yet without horribly exposing herself. The Runic Shield icon was still up, and Mike wasn't closing the gap and giving her the opportunity to strike. Instead, he flew into the air, an action which by itself provided almost no information since Hrolf Kraki had countless different aerial attacks. "Pyrping Eldr!" Mike shouted, as his hands started glowing with bright orange flames that he hurled towards Susie. The former Chica inhabitant and her siblings had seen this attack many times before from multiple Berserkers, a group of four homing, unblockable projectiles of elemental energy that would track her and need to be dodged to the side right when the projectiles were about to hit her.

Except Mike had thrown two additional fire projectiles straight at Kratos-Freddy right in front of the four homing ones, and Susie was so taken by surprise that she couldn't dodge in time. The two fireballs crashed into Kratos-Freddy followed swiftly by the four homing ones, knocking off more than half of his health and setting him on fire. "Crap!" Susie exclaimed as Mike leapt into the air and out of sight, followed swiftly by the same red circle with dark vortex pattern appearing on the ground underneath Kratos-Freddy's feet. Remembering what had happened last time, Susie made Kratos-Freddy dodge with a backwards roll as Mike slammed onto the ground in front of him, the impact of his fall creating a miniature explosion of ice shards and frost around his feet. Susie then had Kratos-Freddy dodge to the side again, neatly avoiding the follow-up shower of freezing ice that descended from the sky and struck the ground where he had been seconds earlier.

By now, the Runic Shield protecting Mike had disappeared, and Susie finally had an opening to attack. Taking out the Blades of Chaos, Kratos-Freddy slammed the blazing blades together in a fiery explosion that almost destroyed the rest of Mike's second health bar and sent him stumbling backwards, and then followed up by swinging one of the still fiery blades in an upward motion that called forth small pillars of flame. As the pillars crashed into Mike and caused him to stagger further, they destroyed the rest of his second health bar and started to chip away at the third.

"Use your Rage!" Liz warned. "We're almost dead, if you die before you using it, it'll be such a huge waste!"

"Got it!" Susie affirmed. She pressed the L3 and R3 buttons on her controller, and Kratos-Freddy let out a very un-Freddy like roar as his entire body burst into godly red flames. Susie ordered Kratos-Freddy to relentlessly pummel Mike with his fists, each and every hit causing Mike to stumble out of any attack that he might have attempted. Kratos-Freddy's rage-fueled punches might not have done all that much damage by themselves, but there were other benefits. They did heal Kratos-Freddy one bit at a time, Mike had no protection against the staggering effect that they caused even with the Runic Shield, and each punch filled the stun bar under Mike's health bar just a little more. By the time Kratos-Freddy's rage bar had finally run out, Susie had done enough damage to knock out the rest of Mike's third health bar and part of his fourth.

"A much better showing than before," Mike commented approvingly. "You actually remembered your Rage this time around. But you still have yet to fully learn one of the lessons I wanted to teach you."

"And what's that?" Cassidy asked from the sidelines.

"In dangerous situations, situations where people's lives might very well be on the line, you need to use all the resources available to you. And I do mean ALL of them," Mike explained. "Something that neither Susie nor Gabe has actually succeeded in doing yet."

"Wait, what?" Susie exclaimed. "But I used my Rage this time!"

Mike chuckled darkly. "Oh, really? Are you so sure about that?" He suddenly swung one of his hand scythes out of nowhere towards Kratos-Freddy, and only Susie's preparedness with that particular trick allowed her to see it coming and dodge out of the way. "Then why haven't you tried to use those green health stones scattered around the ground during our fight?" He challenged. "And why hasn't the Puppet Archer companion I so generously gave you during this fight fired cast a spell or even fired a SINGLE shot, may I ask?"

Everyone's eyes widened as the realization sank in. "Shit…" Fritz mumbled. "I completely forgot that those were even a thing."

"It's one thing to lose to an enemy because you were outmatched or outsmarted. It's another thing to lose because you lacked the awareness to find and use a tool that could have meant the difference between victory and defeat," Mike commented as he leapt away from Kratos-Freddy, "and one of those is a lot less excusable than the other. SLOD ELDINGA!"

The attack had been shouted at the last minute as yet another cheap shot that Mike was so fond of throwing in to his lessons, and Susie barely had time to block the cascade of lightning that he threw onto the ground and shot towards her in a line. As she did so, she stomped on a nearby health stone and ordered the Puppet Archer to fire sonic arrows at Mike, making sure to implement the lesson that he had just finished trying to teach her and her siblings.

Mike wasn't done with his onslaught, though. He transformed his hand scythes into the giant scythe again and raised it above his head, leaping into the air as he did so. It was a relatively simplistic maneuver that the ghost kids recognized from the earliest Berserkers, Fraekni the Zealous and Hardrefill the Callous, a slow but powerful attack that should have been relatively easy for Susie to dodge or block with the Stone Wall Shield.

Unfortunately for Susie, she failed to notice the two shadowy projectiles that Mike had launched from his scythe that had sneakily arced to the side and converged upon Kratos-Freddy's body. By the time she had noticed them, it was already too late. The shadowy projectiles tore into Kratos-Freddy, wiping out the health that she had regained and sending it straight into red. Susie yelped, caught off-guard and now too distracted to defend herself against Mike's much more dangerous downward swing. Mike sliced down into Kratos-Freddy with his giant scythe blade, shredding through his body and wiping out what little was left of his health.

"One mistake," Mike commented as Kratos-Freddy fell lifelessly to the ground. "All it takes is one mistake to lead to a complete failure."

"I didn't even see those two blasts coming at me," Susie admitted. Fortunately for her, she still had her Resurrection Stone left. The Puppet Archer flew over to Susie and channeled their energy into the stone hovering over Kratos-Freddy's lifeless body, bringing him back to life with a sliver of red health…and a full rage meter. "I'm not gonna make the same mistake Gabe did!" The former Chica inhabitant declared as she pressed L3 + R3 to activate Kratos-Freddy' s rage once again, and the warrior immediately started pummeling Mike with his fists again, this time with the Puppet Archer firing arrows alongside Kratos-Freddy. Together, they were able to destroy the rest of Mike's fourth health bar segment and chip away at the fifth.

"Susie, the Hilt of Skofnung is back!" Gabe pointed out. "And his Runic Shield is down!"

"You're right!" Susie realized. She activated it, and Kratos-Freddy summoned the twelve ghostly swords to frenziedly strike at and shred Mike's body. At the same time, Susie took advantage of the distraction to have Kratos-Freddy take out the Draupnir Spear and throw it into the air, where the spear turned into an entire volley of smaller Draupnir Spear tips that rained down upon Mike from above, staggering Mike even further and allowing Kratos-Freddy to stab and whack him with the Draupnir Spear. Between the volley of spear tips, the sword spam, and the free attacks of opportunity, Susie was able to destroy the rest of Mike's fifth health segment.

"Great job, Susie!" Liz praised. "You're over halfway there!"

Unfortunately, that was when Mike's Runic Shield came back, allowing Mike to recover and leap out of the way of all of Susie's attacks. The dark reaper warrior he had become let out an unholy, inhuman howl of rage that filled the arena, a demonic roar that wouldn't have been out of place straight out of the depths of Hell as the rest of his health bar became covered in a fiery orange shield. Mike's roar was so terrifying that everyone watching was taken completely by surprise, with Susie losing focus as she was forced to fight against the sudden fear that surged up to overwhelm her. The distraction was more than enough for Mike, who shouted, "Blastr iss!", charged forward, and smashed two fists covered with an aura of ice and frost right into Kratos-Freddy's with a devastating explosion of frozen power. The raw power of the devastating attack was more than enough to wipe out what was left of Kratos-Freddy's health.

"Game over," Mike growled as Kratos-Freddy fell for good this time, marking the end of this particular round. He looked over at Susie, who by now was looking more frustrated rather than afraid at her loss. "You did better than I expected, Susie," he admitted, "but you and your brothers and sisters still have much to learn."

"What else do you wanna teach us, dad?" Cassidy wondered.

"Oh, I have plenty more lessons for you to learn," Mike replied with an amused chuckle. "When you lowered my health to half and I let out my roar of rage, I could see the fear in your eyes. Not just in your eyes, Susie, but in your siblings' as well. Did seeing that make you uncomfortable, I wonder? Or perhaps, even afraid?"

"…" Susie couldn't deny the question even if she wanted to, nor could the rest of her siblings. They knew that any denial that came from their mouths would be empty and an obvious lie.

The smile vanished from Mike's face. "Well that's just too bad, because you're just going to have to get used to it," he declared, his tone now rougher and much more businesslike. "You are going to be facing off against a monstrous enemy in an unknown, almost certainly hostile environment. In these circumstances, you do not get to enjoy the luxury of comfort. There is always going to be a permanent level of danger, if not to you, then to the innocent people you're trying to protect from Glitchtrap's schemes. Think back to your encounters with Nightmare, with William Afton as Nightmare Springtrap, with Glitchtrap. Were you comfortable, relaxing, or taking it easy against any of these enemies?"

The question was a completely rhetorical one, and everyone in the room knew it even without the mocking way in which Mike had asked it. Those had easily been the most stressful and nerve-wracking experiences of the ghost kids' lives following their adoption by Mike, even if they had risen to the occasion and overcome their fear each and every time.

"Let me repeat myself once again. You do not, and will not, get the luxury of comfort when it comes to challenging Glitchtrap in the Pizzaplex," Mike emphasized. "Especially when it is an unfamiliar environment where Glitchtrap's puppet will have the home advantage. You are always going to feel uncomfortable, nervous, even afraid. It's up to you to overcome that fear and keep a level head through it all. You've done it before, I know you can do it again. But it's up to you to steel your nerves, because I can tell you right now, I will NOT be letting up on the fear factor during this battle."

"You're right, Dad," Gabe admitted. "Everything you said about us being in an uncomfortable and scary environment is completely right. We can't let our nerves get the better of us, or else we're just gonna up our chances of panicking and making mistakes."

"Yeah," Liz agreed. "We've faced scarier things than this battle against you and didn't panic. We gotta keep a level head, guys."

"AS AN EXPERT IN TERROR AND HORROR MYSELF, I CAN ASSURE YOU THAT FEAR IS AN EMOTION THAT IS DIFFICULT TO CONTROL," Nightmare commented, his voice taking the kids briefly by surprise as they had all forgotten that he had been there the whole time. "BUT YOUR REACTION TO IT, AND HOW MUCH YOU ALLOW IT TO CONTROL YOU…THAT IS A DIFFERENT MATTER ENTIRELY."

"How very true," Charlie murmured. Their fundamentally opposite moralities meant that she would forever disagree with Nightmare on many topics, but this wasn't one of them.

"Do you have any other advice before the next round, Dad?" Jeremy asked.

"I have one more piece of advice for now," Mike answered, directing his focus on Susie. "When it comes to fighting an enemy, you need to find the right balance between taking the initiative and attacking first, and waiting for that enemy to create an opening in their defenses and giving you an opportunity to strike in that weakness."

"Wasn't I doing that, though?" Susie asked, confused. "I waited until your Runic Shield went down before attacking you with my runic and relic attacks so I could stagger you with them, and I thought I was doing a good job of that."

"That part isn't the issue," Mike replied with a smirk. "The problem is that you are too passive, too dependent on waiting for opportunities to come to you before going all-in on attacks. It's true that attacking your enemy at the wrong time can lead to absolute disaster, but it's also true that if you only wait for that enemies to make their own moves before trying to fight back, you're increasing the chances that either they'll attack you in a way that you won't know how to properly defend yourself against, or you'll make a mistake when you try to react. You need to take the initiative more and create your own opportunities to attack. And I can tell you right now that there is some gear in God of War: Ragnarok that can give you those opportunities that you're not using right now. That's the only hit I'm going to give you."

Mike's voice fell silent, and when he didn't speak again for several seconds the ghost kids took it as their queue to strategize and plan. "I think we need to change our shield," Charlie advised. "The Stone Wall Shield might help us block yellow attacks, but it's just too defensive. We need to use a shield that will give us more openings to attack."

"Like the Dauntless Shield?" Liz suggested. "It gives a great cooldown boost and we can hit Dad hard with a really powerful shield bash if we get a good counter."

"I think the good old Guardian Shield might honestly be even better," Gabe countered. "It gives us invincibility frames and lets us stagger Dad with every parry. It gives us more opportunities to attack AND can give us a window of safety if we're good at parries."

"Whoever fights Dad next should use the Guardian Shield, I like that idea better," Jeremy recommended.

"I have another idea!" Fritz chimed in. "How about we use that Ares Chest armor? Doesn't it power up health orbs to boost Rage AND cause a much bigger explosion that could stun Dad whenever we stomp on them?"

"Ooh, I didn't think about that!" Cassidy eagerly agreed. "I think having an armor with a special ability like that is honestly better than having an armor with good stats that does nothing special. Plus, we can make our Rage last even longer if we stomp on health stones while punching Dad with Fury!"

Everyone agreed with this strategy, and the appropriate changes were implemented. Fritz volunteered to take the controller next and fight Mike as Kratos-Freddy next…which promptly ended in disaster. The former Foxy inhabitant fumbled a parry early on in the fight, leading to Kratos-Freddy getting two fists in the face and an explosion of sickly green poison from Mike. To his credit, Fritz did keep enough of a level head to activate his Rage before Kratos-Freddy died and followed his onslaught of fiery fists with a runic and relic attack combo once his rage meter ran dry, but the disadvantage was too much for him to recover from. His first death came from a "Pyrping Eldinga" attack that he tried to dodge away from too early, although it did provide the onlookers with valuable information: the first two elemental projectiles Mike threw as part of the attack were actually aimed at Kratos-Freddy's current location in a straight line and were at least partially a distraction, while the cascade of four projectiles that followed afterwards were the ones that actually tracked Kratos and needed to be carefully monitored and dodged at the right time. Fritz did his best, and to his credit, actually did manage to avoid some of the traps that Gabe and Susie had fallen into while trying to utilize the new strategies that he and his siblings had discussed. But the disadvantages were too overwhelming, and Kratos-Freddy died for good when Fritz mistimed another parry and Mike sliced one of his hand scythes cleanly across the warrior's body, causing him to fall lifelessly to the ground while only managing to wipe out merely two of Mike's health bar segments.

"I can see that you are trying to adapt and implement new strategies," Mike commented. "But as you probably noticed, there is a difference between coming up with new strategies in theory, and actually implementing them successfully in practice. And while I can respect the fact that you are trying to innovate and adapt, Fritz, an underwhelming performance is an underwhelming performance."

"Yeah, I know I dropped the ball on that one," Fritz admitted. "Who wants to go next?"

"I do!" Liz immediately answered, raising her hand. "Can I?"

"Go for it," Jeremy replied. Liz took the controller and positioned it in her hands. She directed Kratos-Freddy to reach out towards the dark gravestone just as he had done before starting every attempt, and once more the gravestone exploded and brought forth Mike's dark reaper aspect in all of his menacing glory. This time, he charged directly towards Kratos-Freddy, trying to get in some early hits with two frost-imbued punches. Liz parried the first one at just the right time with the Guardian Shield, absorbing the momentum of the blow and slamming the energy-imbued shield right back into Mike's body, causing him to stagger backward even with the Runic Shield still active. Liz took the opportunity to strike her father's avatar with two quick swings of the axe while the Puppet Archer fired a few arrows at him, making her the first ghost kid so far to get some early attacks in against her father right at the very beginning.

"Great work, Liz!" Charlie praised.

"Thanks," Liz replied as she disengaged Kratos-Freddy from Mike, knowing that she couldn't risk any more than a few basic attacks during the window of opportunity provided by the successful parry unless she wanted to suffer a brutal retaliation.

"Good," Mike nodded in approval. "Already, you've found a way to seize initiative and score first blood right from the get-go. And you took advantage of that opportunity without overextending and unnecessarily risking yourself. A much better start already."

"AS A VETERAN OF MANY BATTLES AND WARS, SCORING FIRST BLOOD IN ANY CONFLICT IS MORE IMPORTANT TO VICTORY THAN MANY MAY THINK," Nightmare provided his own thoughts. "BUT DO NOT OVERESTIMATE ITS IMPORTANCE IN A BATTLE EITHER. IN THE HISTORY OF EARTH AND HELL ALIKE, MANY HAVE SCORED FIRST BLOOD ONLY TO LOSE THAT ADVANTAGE AND SUFFER DEFEAT FOR ANY NUMBER OF REASONS, SOME MORE FOOLISH THAN OTHERS."

"I know, especially when your enemy is really tough and can hit hard and fast like you," Liz agreed as she kept a careful eye on the battlefield.

"Let's see if your follow-up is as good as your opening. Daudahogg!" Mike suddenly interrupted his own sentence, weaving back and forth to the left and right as he tossed two projectiles made of sickly green poison to Liz's left and then to her right. Noticing that no red or even yellow ring appeared, Liz held her Guardian Shield up to block the projectiles and render them harmless, although she had lifted her shield a bit too early to actually try and deflect them back towards Mike. Her father floated up into the air and shouted, "Isa Vengi!" Large red circles began to appear under and around Kratos-Freddy, forcing Liz to maneuver the warrior out of the way as showers of bitter cold and frost rained down in the area of the circles. However, while the attack would undoubtedly have been devastating if it hit the warrior due to both the damage and the frozen status, the showers themselves were actually fairly slow and easy to avoid. Liz was not only able to dodge them fairly easy, but also summon the Draupnir Spear and throw it a few times at Mike, impaling his body with multiple spear tips and shaving off a few slivers of health. When Mike returned to the ground, Kratos-Freddy slammed the butt of the spear on the ground, exploding the spear tips already in his body and doing even more damage. It wasn't a lot, not even enough to destroy the rest of Mike's first health bar segment, but every little bit counted.

And with the Runic Shield protecting Mike's health bar currently gone, Liz could do a lot more than just "a little bit" now. She ordered Kratos-Freddy to activate the Hilt of Skofnung, summoning the 12 ghostly green swords to fly at and slash apart Mike's body as Liz activated the Mountain Splitter runic attack. Kratos-Freddy channeled light golden energy into the spear and swung it three times in front of him in a wide arc, unleashing three powerful slices made of wind that allowed the warrior to attack Mike from a safe distance while he was distracted. Liz followed through with an Artillery of the Ancients, ordering Kratos-Freddy to throw his spear high into the air and once again summon a rain-like volley of spear tips from the sky to further stagger and damage Mike. By the time his Runic Shield reactivated again, Liz had cleanly destroyed the first segment of Mike's health bar and more than half of the second segment.

"So you've gotten yourself an early advantage," Mike acknowledged. "Good, good. But let's see how long you can keep it. Slod Eldinga!" He shouted, as he fired another cascade of thunderbolts along the ground, which Liz was barely able to block in time with the Guardian Shield. He summoned his giant scythe and shifted the weapon so that the blade was pointed directly in front of him while a red ring formed briefly in front of his body. "I will gut you like a fish!" Mike snarled as he suddenly charged at Kratos-Freddy with inhuman speed, with Liz only barely dodging out of the way in time with a roll to the right. As Mike zoomed past Kratos-Freddy, he left behind miniature sparks of dark energy in his path that promptly exploded, although thankfully Kratos-Freddy hadn't been close enough to them to be damaged.

Mike wasn't done yet, however. He floated into the air again, this time lifting his giant scythe into the air, as the same two projectiles that had taken Susie by surprise flew out from the sides of his body and towards Kratos-Freddy. Thanks to Susie's experience, however, Liz was prepared, and she successfully controlled Kratos-Freddy to raise his shield in front of him to block them as a yellow ring briefly materialized in front of Mike's body. Kratos-Freddy lowered the shield as Mike leapt at him and swung the blade down…only to raise it again at the last possible second, pulling off another successful parry that he promptly followed by smashing the golden circular shield against Mike's body and staggering him backward like he had the first time. Liz took the opportunity to get in a few extra strikes in with the Draupnir Spear before disengaging. Mike tried to retaliate by repeatedly raising the giant scythe blade and slicing it down on Kratos-Freddy's head with powerful, unblockable attacks…but Liz was able to dodge out of the way each time while getting one quick attack in after each dodge. Combined with the arrows that the Puppet Archer had been firing this entire time, and it was enough to destroy the rest of Mike's second health bar.

"You're doing great, Liz!" Fritz cheered.

"Those are some amazing parries you're doing!" Jeremy agreed. "Keep it up, and Dad's gonna go down in no time!"

"Thanks, guys…" Liz called back. She couldn't say anymore as she was too focused on the battle, but her lips twitched upward in an appreciative and excited smile regardless.

"A strong showing so far, I will admit," Mike acknowledged. "But how long can you keep this up without making any mistakes?" He challenged. "If your upcoming fight against Glitchtrap is anything like the nights that I spent defending myself against the animatronics in Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria all those decades ago, then you may very well find yourselves in a test of endurance. It's one thing to succeed in a given task in the first stage or two. But whether you can you continue succeeding is a different matter entirely. Can you keep doing the right thing and avoid making major mistakes, over and over again, for an extended period of time that can range from several minutes to several hours, when even a single careless mistake can completely ruin your chances of winning? It isn't enough to get an early advantage. It's even more important to keep that advantage, or at the very least not to lose it for too long, right until the very end."

He leaped into the air and out of sight, forcing Liz to keep track of the red and black circle following Kratos-Freddy's feet to ensure that he wouldn't be crushed by the impact. Kratos-Freddy narrowly avoided getting flattened by Mike's electricity-imbued stomp, and Liz neatly rolled to the left to avoid the follow-up thunderbolt that hit the ground from the sky where Kratos-Freddy had been standing just a second earlier.

As the battle between Kratos-Freddy and Mike's dark reaper incarnation raged on, it soon became clear to everyone that Liz had been paying very close attention not just to the King Hrolf Kraki battle in the God of War: Ragnarok game proper, but also to the adaptations and changing attack patterns that Mike had introduced in this recreation of that climactic battle. She recognized Mike's attack patterns when they were coming, and knew how to counter them with dodges, blocks, and parries when appropriate. Her great performance came as a particular surprise to her siblings.

"How is she even doing so well?" Cassidy asked the question that all of them were thinking as Mike raised his hand scythes to his sides, shooting out a line of dark magic spikes towards Kratos-Freddy as he prepared to unleash the same devastating explosion that had killed Gabe the first time. Liz countered the attack by having Kratos-Freddy lift up his shield to block the line of spikes, and then he charged towards Mike and smacked him in the face with his shield, interrupting the attack and giving Kratos-Freddy the opportunity to hit him with several slashes of the Leviathan Axe. "I know Liz is one of the better players of the game but I don't remember her ever doing this well!"

"I think it's cause of the shield change," Gabe remarked as Liz parried yet another attempted ice-infused punch from Mike and staggered him with the counterattack. "Now that I'm thinking about it, Liz always kinda struggled with the Stone Wall Shield. We mainly used it cause that's how some of the less skilled guys among us could defend themselves, but I think with the counterattack from the Guardian Shield it's really maximizing Liz's potential as a God of War player! Those parries are just so on-point, it's amazing!"

"I think she can do it!" Fritz insisted. "She's almost destroyed half of Dad's health, and the only hit she did get was from one of Dad's scythes. She's still got more than half of her health left AND hasn't used Rage yet! I think she can beat Dad this time!"

As if to validate her brother's confidence, Liz activated the Hilt of Skofnung and struck at Mike with the same Helios Flare and Nemean Crush combo from her Blades, bringing Mike's health down to half. The dark reaper let out the same unholy, enraged roar that had terrified the ghost kids the first time they had heard it. This time, however, the shield bar that protected his health was now a stone-cold gray rather than a fiery orange. Unlike last time, however, Liz kept her cool, and even took advantage of the time Mike spent roaring to hit him with a Mountain Splitter and an Artillery of the Ancients to dismantle his shield. While it wasn't enough to destroy the elemental shield entirely, it did get rid of most of it, and when Mike flew into the air to attempt another Isa Vengi, Liz took the opportunity to throw multiple Draupnir Spears at his body, which was enough to wipe out the rest of the shield by the time he was done."

"I WILL ADMIT THAT YOUR SISTER'S PERFORMANCE SO FAR HAS BEEN THE MOST COMMENDABLE," Nightmare acknowledged. "SHE HAS LEARNED WELL FROM YOUR FATHER'S LESSONS AND AVOIDED ANY MAJOR MISTAKES SO FAR."

"Yeah, I honestly think that with how good she can parry with the Guardian Shield, she might be better than me at this point," Gabe admitted without any jealousy or resentment. After all, a victory for her was a victory for all of them.

A sinister grin spread across Nightmare's face. "BUT HOW WELL WILL SHE REACT WHEN YOUR FATHER INTRODUCES A NEW ELEMENT TO THEIR LITTLE DUEL?"

As if on cue, Mike raised his right hand-scythe and pointed it toward Kratos-Freddy. "Veggur Maeigaon!" he shouted.

"Maeigawhatnow?" Liz blinked as the blade of the scythe burst into flames. But these were not the dark purple flames that Mike had been utilizing for most of this battle. Now the flames were blood-red with a black core, emanating an aura of malice…and with a chill crawling down her spine, Charlie realized that these flames were just like the ones blazing from Mike's body when he had battled Nightmare Springtrap in his dark aspect…one stage before he had transformed into his demon form.

Liz and the other ghost kids yelped as pillars made of the same red and black flames rained down from the sky, falling one after the other in a line towards Liz. She was so shocked by the new attack that she failed to notice the red ring around Mike's body that had signaled it as an unblockable attack, and when she tried to parry she only found herself consumed by the dark, malevolent energy. And to her and her siblings' horror, not only did the attack itself destroy a huge part of her remaining health…but almost the entirety of what little remained of her health bar was now covered in black, glowing an ominous red every second or so.

"Oh, no…" Susie gasped. "This shadowy stuff is Dad's version of Bifrost, isn't it?"

"If Liz gets hit by anything while that dark stuff is still on her health bar, she's screwed!" Cassidy exclaimed, horrified.

"What the hell just happened?" Jeremy was still trying to wrap his head around Mike's latest attack. "That attack wasn't anything like Hrolf Kraki did! If anything it looked more like an attack from the Gna fight!"

"Dad must've been waiting for when someone was getting closer to beating him before showing this off," Gabe realized grimly. "I bet you anything he's going to keep using those darkness attacks now that we know about their existence."

His prediction was proven correct as Mike darted back and forth with another Daudahogg…only this time the elemental projectiles that he hurled were made of the same red and black flames he had just unleashed. Realizing just how precarious of a situation she was in, Liz activated her Spartan Rage and had Kratos-Freddy brutally pummel Mike with his fiery fists while the Puppet Archer fired more arrows, an offensive use of the power that was ironically more of a cautionary move than anything, and one that also had the added benefit of cleansing the darkness that threatened to obliterate her health bar. Unfortunately for her, the sudden introduction of the Maeigaon attacks had shaken Liz badly enough that she missed her next parry…and was punished for it with a point-blank explosion of lightning in Kratos-Freddy's face courtesy of Mike's Blastr Eldinga, obliterating the rest of her health in a single shot.

"I think maybe we should dodge those huge blasts more than trying to parry them," Charlie suggested as the Puppet Archer revived Kratos-Freddy with the Berserker's Resurrection Stone. "Dodging seems like a much safer option in that case."

"You're probably right," Gabe agreed as Kratos-Freddy got back up. Liz activated the Hilt of Skofnung to stagger Mike through the storm of ghostly swords and then fired off Spartan Rage once his Relic Shield reactivated, trying to get as much free damage in as possible to regain at least some of the momentum she had so suddenly and thoroughly lost. To her credit, the strategy did work to a degree, as she was able to get some of her health back and destroy most of Mike's seventh health segment with only a sliver remaining. Once Kratos-Freddy's Rage expired for the second time Liz immediately disengaged, waiting to see what Mike would do next before trying to attack.

"Slod Maeigaon!" Mike snarled as he summoned the cursed red and black flames in his right hand and hurled it onto the ground, unleashing a trail of unholy dark energy that Liz was thankfully able to block with her Guardian Shield. With his attack failed, flew into the air and shouted, "Eldr Vengi!"

A cascade of fireballs fell from the sky like meteors, hitting the ground in an unpredictable pattern and forcing Kratos-Freddy to spend the next few seconds trying to weave around the red circles to avoid getting scorched to death. But unfortunately, Liz failed to notice one of the fireballs shooting towards an area of ground that Kratos-Freddy was walking towards. Maybe it was because she had been thrown off her game by her father's unexpected Maeigaon attacks after playing most of the fight near-perfectly. Or maybe Mike had decided to throw his Eldr Vengi fireballs in a more unpredictable manner than what the ghost kids remembered from the actual Hrolf fight. Regardless of why, a fireball collided right into Kratos-Freddy's body, destroying almost all of his remaining health and setting him on fire. Liz panicked as Mike shouted, "Pyrping Maeigaon!" and threw a barrage of 6 cursed shadow projectiles. In her panic, she dodged too early, avoiding the first 2 but leaving her completely helpless against the 4 tracking ones. The darkness attack crashed into Kratos-Freddy's body, destroying what was left of his health and killing him for good, causing him to fall lifeless to the floor.

"A respectable effort," Mike commended. "You played most of that fight quite well, playing to your strengths and learning from the others' mistakes. I had to break out the darkness element that is my substitute for Bifrost in order to level the playing field. But you made the mistake of panicking, Liz. And that panic threw you off your game and made you perform noticeably worse." His tone became firmer and more businesslike. "You cannot allow panic to overwhelm you in matters of life and death. Panic can be just as dangerous of a threat as the actual enemy you are fighting, making you so much weaker and less intelligent in the moment and giving your enemy a critical opening to defeat you while you are helpless. On the other hand, if you can make your enemies panic instead, that can give YOU an opening to exploit instead. Something that you could very well use to your advantage against Glitchtrap, even if you won't be able to use that last bit of advice against me."

"You're right, Dad," Liz acknowledged. She was disappointed with how quickly everything had gone straight to Hell after doing so well for much of the fight, but she was also proud of herself for doing the best out of everyone so far, and for being able to successfully implement Mike's lessons almost immediately through the Guardian Shield after she had changed her loadout. "I was just taken by surprise with all the darkness attacks you started throwing at me…especially when I realized that this is your version of Bifrost."

"And?" Mike's voice held no sympathy or apology towards his daughter. "When you fight against Glitchtrap for real, you're going to be up against not just a dangerous enemy who almost certainly has some tricks still left up his sleeve, but in an unfamiliar and almost completely unknown environment. Don't use being taken by surprise as an excuse for a mistake when a possible surprise could be waiting for you at any moment in the Pizzaplex."

Liz winced, acknowledging that Mike was right. She accepted her loss with grace and returned to her siblings, who immediately cheered and gave her some encouragement.

"That was a great performance, Liz," Gabe complimented. "I know you might've messed up at the end, but up until then you easily did the best out of all of us."

"Yeah, you did great!" Fritz praised as he pat his sister on the back. "Hell of a lot better than I did, anyway!"

"Those changes we made are working amazingly," Susie commented with a grin. "I think we might be close to beating Dad for real soon!"

"I hope so," Liz murmured. "Because based on what I remember from the King Hrolf fight, I don't think Dad's run out of tricks to take us by surprise with yet."

/

A/N: Whew, I'm exhausted. I worked as hard as possible to get this chapter out on time. As you can see, even if the ghost kids understood how the actual King Hrolf fight worked, Mike had plenty of tricks to shake the boss battle up…and not just in terms of the changes that NG+ brings to the Berserker fights in the actual game.

There's a lot of good advice that Mike gave to his kids during this battle. Keep in mind that the whole point of this boss battle recreation is to be an educational experience first and foremost, with the "education" being practical advice and lessons that will be valuable for the ghost kids in general, like making sure to use all the resources available to them, finding the right balance between being aggressive and playing it safe, and not letting panic overwhelm you when things go terribly wrong. These lessons will be valuable for dealing with ANY situation, especially when it comes to fighting against dangerous enemies in high-stakes conflicts.

Lastly, Maeigaon is the name of the Heavy Curse/Darkness elemental attack from Persona 5, and in this case it's the replacement for Bifrost. For those of you not familiar with God of War: Ragnarok, Bifrost is a SUPER annoying element/status that can cover your health bar in the stuff, and if you take damage while you have Bifrost on you, you lose all of the health covered by the Bifrost IN ADDITION to the damage you would have already taken from whatever attack you get hit by. Against powerful bosses like Hrolf and Gna, it's entirely possible to have your entire health bar covered in Bifrost…at which point even a pebble thrown at your head could kill you as you watch all your Bifrost-covered health disappear in the blink of an eye. Curse/Darkness is Mike's replacement for Bifrost in this fight, and he was saving it for a moment when it looked like one of his kids was gaining the upper hand so that he could introduce it as a surprise and catch his kids off-guard. Judging by how thoroughly it derailed Liz's momentum, it clearly worked.

As I want to make sure this arc doesn't drag on too long, the next chapter will feature the "winning run." How the winning run plays out and who accomplishes it are questions to be answered next time.

Hope you guys enjoyed!