If I can start over: A new world

VIII. History classes. Part 1

The sky turned gray, with specks of darkness that gloomily adorned the firmament. The force of thunder showed the brilliance of heavy clouds, and the weighted rain mixed with sleet fell violently against the meadows and mountains.

The petrichor flooded the vast virgin slopes with snow and scented the arid farmlands. The animals fled in terror when they heard the strong flaps that broke the wind and generated new and powerful currents at their pleasure.

The cry of the ferocious beasts echoed in the sky and was lost midway through the lightning. Two huge birds cut into infinity above the clouds, surrounding each other, stalking each other, giving the impression that they were dancing on top of a cotton field with the moon and stars in the background.

One of them, the largest, looked like a ravenous eagle. A splendid copper plumage all over her body made her glow in the moonlight, even though its monstrous size would easily obscure her completely. It was over a hundred meters long, from its vigorous amber beak to its long, stringy tail, and was even more imposing when it spread its gigantic wings, where it surpassed three hundred meters in wingspan. It wore a metal breastplate on the back that covered the entire thorax of the animal, and on the back, a saddle with two long and massive grappling horns.

Its opponent, a tiny part smaller, but apparently more ferocious: a flaming red Phoenix, set ablaze by the contours and a large part of the wings. The exorbitant beast was considerably taller when looking at the peaks, but it narrowly missed the other's extraordinary numbers. Its armor consisted only of a circular shield about fifty meters in diameter, covering a large part of his chest, fastened with straps as wide as train rails, which cut a huge X underneath the metal, and ended in a hairy and bushy saddle in the back of the bird, with stirrups of skin and bone horn. The chair was strategically placed in the scaly part, in the space of the spine that does not catch fire unless instructed to do so.

Both titanic birds landed on the slopes of a mountain covered by a thick layer of snow agglomerated by the weather and hardened by time. Two riders saw each other in the distance, hatred permeated in their eyes and bald pride in their chests.

From the huge eagle, the first got off. He fell sharply to the ground, stomping and immediately sinking into the crisp fresh snow. He was very tall, at least one ninety, a height commensurate with his beast, and stocky, whose long, aged wine-tinged doublet covered him completely, molded his bulging shoulders and bombastic chest veiled by white silk beneath it, a Hazel silk belt separates the trunk from the lower extremities, covered by barely visible dark cotton trousers. His calloused, stony, dragon-leather boots marked the ground underfoot, imposing his dark presence. His head was shaved flush, showing a broad skull and a pale complexion forehead, like the rest of his hairless face.

The second horseman first ordered the Phoenix to blow out the flames. He climbed the iron scales and descended like a mountain. The fur gloves helped to withstand the high temperature that the animal maintained, as did the bear coat that he wore. He crouched in the fall, similar to jumping off a second-story roof. This one was not that tall, nor that muscular. His short, frizzy black hair stood on end in the wind, and his thick beard of the same color and shape sprouted snowflakes from the sky. He wore a black animal breastplate, padded inside the jacket, which covered him entirely, and dark ocher boots that could be confused with the damp earth at his feet, in total disagreement with his adversary.

Both beasts sat on their backs and puffed out each other's breasts proud of themselves.

"We can avoid all this, brother," the Phoenix rider began when they were close enough to hear each other.

"You want to go back and change everything? That is all I asked for, a real free will, a present molded by us. Do you still don't understand?"

"You know the rules of entropy. If it's not a c***k, we don't have the right to change things." He tilted his face, and the rest of his body, raising his eyebrows. "Nature is wise, and it does not take us when we no longer have a purpose to fulfill."

"What does nature know about love? What does nature know about death?" The eagle rider raised his arms mid-height and dropped them in frustration. "Were we in its plan?

"Obviously yes..." Garpur tried to see some glimmer of hope in his brother, to no avail. "Otherwise, we would already be extinct long ago, and it is obvious that the rest of the human race with us."

"Let me pass and I will not spill your blood in these lands." He raised his right index finger and pointed it directly at Garpur's face.

"Varick... please." Garpur raised his hands in peace, but couldn't lessen his brother's anger.

"I've spent hundreds of years giving my all to carry out their orders, their whims. Don't you realize that they are our equivalents? What if we join forces... we will shape time and lands at our convenience, just as they do?"

"They do not mold it to their convenience... they forge it to ours, to everyone's."

"Everyone's?" He made fists in both hands. "Are you sure they are fair to everyone?"

"Varick, what happened to your son and Blume can never be corrected, but don't blame the alt on the fate..."

"Answer!" Varick unfolded his right hand from the body and clawed the wrist.

"You don't want to do this, I know you don't want to battle me." Garpur looked down at the snow, which grew with the minutes due to the storm.

"Then answer..."

"I have never said that the Alt are fair, they try to be condescending to both the Geister and the Weltlich, neither is more valuable than the other..."

"I know life isn't fair, brother," he interrupted. "I know it is not perfect, I also know that we are not special, even though we invented their machines and saved their families, but no, we are not transcendental." He walked forward slowly, as he spoke.

"Varick, stop..."

"But I also know..." He stopped walking "that you can bring them back."

"If it's not a crack... if I don't see it in my visions, I can't..."

"Yes, you can!" This time he clawed both wrists. The raptor was on guard, raising its tremendous wings and covering a third of the mountain behind it.

"If no such objective has been assigned to me... you know how it works, I cannot intervene ..."

"Your brother is asking you!" A small swirl of wind began to form in each palm in a claw shape.

"Stop Varick, please." Garpur looked up and stared at him.

"At least dead I'll be able to capture your Geist and spawn it on some bastard."

"Lys doesn't deserve this..."

"Lys is dead, bastard." The eddies grew fiercer, but they didn't increase in size. The surrounding snow began to dance fervently around him. "She hanged herself a few days ago, knowing that her only hope to see little Bastian again turned her back on us..."

"You know I wouldn't if I had my hands tied."

"I see them completely free, brother. You can easily return to that point and defend it, but your puppeteers forbid it. I, who have saved more lives than I can count by hunting down those stupid ice giants, risking more than my life in each battle, and they pay me this way..."

"Brother, I'm sorry... but everything has a reason, if I haven't seen it, it's because there's a reason bigger than ourselves. The Oberster Uralt has tied hands."

"Well, bring them here, I want them to face me." He looked at the sky bathed in snowy spots. "Cowards!" Thunders echoed through the clouds, the weather getting worse by the second.

"Stop this, or they'll come and they won't be nice to you."

"Is it a threat, brother?" He smiled wickedly.

"It is not a threat..."

"Well, I have you... I have one for you." He pointed out into the void behind Garpur, amid the thick fog. "After killing you, I will go from town to town across the south, entire families massacred, cities burned to the ground, the Weltlich will really know what a god is..."

"Don't do it..."

"I'll do it until every one of them goes down, and I get what I deserve."

Varick pointed both hands straight at his brother, and a flash of lightning emanated from that joint. Garpur, propelled his arms rapidly, forming a circle in the air. The lightning struck the windshield that Garpur formed and bounced into the forest, splitting several trees in half until it dissolved.

Both birds moaned at the roar. Garpur crouched in the snow, turned, and leaped an inhuman height, managing to reach the neck of his beast, settled into the fur mount as fast as he could before the Phoenix caught fire completely and illuminated everything to a radius of fifty meters.

In the distance, it could be seen the first town, the one closest to the ravine where they were. The grotesquely large eagle lowered its neck for its rider, and he ran within reach, mounted, and with a war cry from the animal took flight.

The Phoenix stepped between the small village and the eagle, challenging it with his gaze. Both birds screamed at each other and crouched their legs in the air.

"You defend those who forbid you to have a family, brother!" Varick's voice was louder than thunder. "You defend those who do not allow you to love a woman or a child!"

"I stand up for what I think is right, nothing more!" He yelled, above the wind and the noise of the storm.

"You?! Speaking of righteousness?! You, the one who cheats on the Weltlich in order to comply with their stupid demands!"

"There is no sin in lying intelligently! Otherwise, the constant truth would only cause chaos and pain!"

"Well, the truth is that you're not my brother! The truth is that I prefer you dead, you and your beloved Alt!"

The eagle then rammed the Phoenix in flames and pushed it into the void for stretches of time. Regaining its composure, the Phoenix lifted his flight even higher and spat a long stream of fire from its jaws.

The Roc covered its body with both copper wings, immune to the heat, and brave the beast wanted to attack its adversary again, but its rider stopped it and made it turn through the clouds, heading towards the town.

Garpur followed closely, blazing the wake left by the Roc as it flew, amidst thunder and lightning in the cold environment. He caught up with him within a few yards of reaching his target and rammed him from the left flank. The Roc lost stability and crashed into a huge mountain, causing rocks as big as a house to fall. An avalanche of dirt and snow was coming down frantically towards the town.

The Phoenix veered in the direction of the avalanche, on the orders of its rider, and spat fire at it, trying as much as possible to lessen the impact. Suddenly, the Roc pecked the phoenix from behind, intending to knock Garpur down. This one jumped from the bird and landed with an extensive expansive wave of air adjacent to the fencing of the village, it was then that the Phoenix completely ignited its entity, expanding its size due to the flames, burning the face of the Roc with the intensity of its Energy.

Varick lost control of the beast, and it went crashing into the trees. Garpur manipulated a phoenix feather into a greenish spear, crouched in the undergrowth, and waited for his brother to come. He ordered the bird to fly around the town and kill any intruders.

Then, with no noise in the air or on impact, a huge hammer struck him in the chest and threw him meters behind where he was. It took his breath away for a moment but managed to recover and get out within seconds.

"You finally learned something while in battle..." said Varick, as he approached and drew the huge hammer towards him.

"You don't trust me, why should I trust you?" Garpur replied, the metal breastplate scorched across his chest.

"This is what they've made you... a lackey. They ask you to murder for them, to annihilate entire nations in their names, to cheat and steal so that things happen as they 'should.'"

"It's not how you cover it up. You are seeing only what you want to see..."

"You'd rather me see what you want to show me, right? You would rather I fell for your traps and tricks."

"I'd rather you reason more often and stop being so proud. It was your pride that killed your son, and your excess confidence that killed your wife."

"How dare you?!" the sky roared sharply.

Varick jumped from his position, about six feet away, and managed to get right to where his brother was. He charged the hammer in the air with both arms, about to hit Garpur, but he raised his spear and put it in the way.

The roar was immeasurably loud. They both began swinging hammer and spear in a deadly dance. They knelt down and struck each other without seriously injuring the other, both skilled in hand-to-hand combat. Rock and wood played in a single rhythm, and exhausted sighs sounded in the background.