I’ve heard legends of that person
How he traveled the breadth of the land
Reducing all he touched to rubbleRevered by many I, too, revere him
Feared by many I, too, fear himNow that person stands at my side
Now my friends are with me -- Anon Guest
[AN: Nonny - are you trying to get me into trouble? These are lyrics (translated) from Super Smash Brothers Brawl. A line or two is fine but the entire song? Please don't. I've trimmed a lot of the original prompt to try and keep things safer for all.]
They called him Varg the Destroyer. It wasn't precisely his fault. His mother, according to legend, had made a lot of promises and one mistake in counting and the contest over her child had resulted in a concatenation of curses. Which resulted in him leaving a trail a mile wide in his lifelong quest to at least end some of them.
Heroics had been pure happenstance on the way. Armies of evil and cities of wickedness had no defences against the combined forces of demonic, angelic, and faerie curses. It might have been easy for Varg to become a power for evil, but such was not the case. Evidently, having the ability to cause great harm from a young age also creates a tremendously light and gentle touch in the holder.
He slept on a bed of granite, which he carried with him. He ate out of a special bowl made from starmetal, and even that was dented with use. He had, through a series of deeds, actually toned things down to the point where he could interact with the mortal world without being an automatic menace. Nevertheless, there were still a few interesting valleys that used to be mountains along his path to get there.
Valirin had once tried to raise an army of formidable, powerful people in order to stop him. The usual line-up. One who could run faster than the wind. One who could create copies of himself as he stood to become an instant army. One who could enlist the services of any living animal or insect in the area. And so on. All because Varg had emptied a lake to quench a gigantic fire he'd accidentally started[1]. In the face of the legendary team, Varg had done the unthinkable.
He befriended every single one of them. Even Valirin. For all his destructive tendencies, he was just a big, likeable lug who honestly didn't mean to leave a trail of destruction so huge that it left an impact on the local geography.
And now there was this. A big bad so big and so horrible that it even managed to hurt Varg the destroyer. He ordinarly did the heavy lifting in such encounters, and his injury had scared the crap out of all of them. The witch Aesel busied herself in brewing up her special salve, that which could cure any injury but death, while the rest of the group attempted to come up with a plan.
Planning was Valirin's strength. When Varg wrecked something, it was Valirin who had the plan to make amends, often on the spur of the moment. This one, however, was going to take a little more effort.
"He has forty arms," said Glaasijahl the Swift, "and twenty weapons.A pair of eyes for each of the compass points. However we approach him, he'll see us coming and defend himself."
Uno the Multitude added, "And if I try to surround him, he has that Blade of Many Strikes. He can cut me down almost as fast as I can multiply."
"Almost," echoed Valirin, doodling in the dirt. He's written down Forty arms. Twenty weapons. Eight eyes. Almost as fast as Uno, and now appeared to be drawing a map of the area.
Silans the All-speaker sighed. "Each pair of his eyes has one eagle eye to see far in the day and one owl eye to see far in the night. There's never a moment when he's blind."
"He doesn't need to be," murmured Valirin. "We just need to be invisible."
"I'm already busy," complained Aesel. "You know my healing balm takes all day."
"There's more than one way to stay out of sight," Valirin grinned. He had a plan. "Have any of you heard of the Roving Shrubbery of Dunsinnae?"
Two days later, healed of their previous wounds, every single one of them was all over mud and dirt, their raiments bedecked with branches, moss, and vines. Only one of them was immediately visible, and that was Varg. Standing tall on top of a hill and boasting about his new power, and how none could defeat him.
He was the bait. It was the rest of the team who would be doing the heavy lifting this time.
The eagles eyes and the owls eyes each could only see movement. Each of them would only move when the eyes facing them blinked. Uno was already a multitude and prone to form a hedge. When things were right, they would all strike at once.
All Varg had to do was blind one pair of eyes with a handful of dirt. That would leave an opening for Glaasijahl. It would be his job to restrain at least some of their enemy's arms and weapons with the chains of binding.
All they needed was an edge. Something they had when they were together and working as one.
It was a good thing Varg was so great at making friends.
[1] Never mix fart flares and faerie curses, kids.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / kharlamova]
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