Centaurian Ch. 05

"He's not listening to you," said Kratos.

"That's because Zeus is sacrificing you to learn what I can do."

Kratos ran toward Ronan, but Ronan wanted to keep him as far from the superstructure as possible, so he ran toward him even faster, luring him to the middle of the ship.

A god or not, Kratos had many vulnerabilities. He expected to kill Ronan by brute force because he fought his enemies, and with no shields or weapons he wanted it to test their strength in some form of hand-to-hand combat.

However, Kratos had never met an enemy who avoided fighting him the way Ronan would. He wanted to get in his punches, to hold Ronan above his head only to slam him down, to dig a hand into his chest, to search for whatever he had for a heart and pluck it out, but Ronan was having none of that; he wouldn't play his game. Ronan ensured that every attempt by Kratos to hurt him hit nothing but air. He sought only to eliminate a threat to the people he cared about, and that was all.

Dodging a series of punches, Ronan asked him, "Have you ever felt afraid?"

"No," said Kratos taking a swipe at his opponent.

"Well, no wonder you're such an efficient killing machine. You may not realize it, but fear is important; it helps everyone stay alive longer."

Kratos paused his attempts to get at Ronan as he assessed him for a better strategy. "I'm a god, what have I to fear?"

In a deep menacing tone, Ronan said, "Me."

It took little more than two seconds for Ronan to push Kratos's hands together grabbing both of his thumbs with one hand in an unbreakable grip, then, after knocking him face-down off his feet, he grabbed the god's big toes with the other. As Ronan lifted Kratos from the surface beneath them, he raised him high enough to look him in the face, Ronan sneered at Kratos for forcing him to deal with his sorry ass, and he continued in the same voice, "and you should be absolutely terrified."

The way Ronan held Kratos he couldn't do much but squirm a bit, and with a mighty push-off from the ship, Ronan made a vertical jump as hard as he could. The air rushed past as they rose into the sky, and they just kept rising. He hadn't a clue how high he could go but even with the lurch of the ship down into the water as it bounced, he had to have made a mile-high leap holding Kratos's squirming body by his thumbs and toes.

On the way up Ronan prepared himself for what he would do, he felt the pressure of containing the buildup of a massive amount of heat, the likes of which one might only find in a neutron star, and the moment he felt their direction change to free fall, he released a directed microburst so intense it burned blue-hot and lit the night sky like a flash of lightning that, within that split second, vaporized Kratos, and as with Kakia, his destruction sent out a shockwave into the atmosphere, but this one had no building to destroy.

However, it shoved Ronan's nearly naked body off course and out from over the ship. As it was, he would fall into the water, and this time, he would have no cargo containers to land on when he resurfaced. That would cause him to remain separated from Liam for a long time unless he used that untapped power within him, and if he needed the power to keep himself close to the man he loved, then so be it. Prometheus was right, he would use it for the best of reasons. He tore from his body what little remained of his shirt and shorts.

Transforming into Chiron's idea of how he should appear, felt like a rush of energy, and it happened all at once. In an act of pure creation, he grew and changed from lines of embering on his body that glowed in the night sky like the smoldering edges of burning paper but in reverse. As he bent his knees a little, he felt his feet lengthen as his toes became hooves. The hair from his waist down thickened and turned pure white, as a horse tail with long white hair emerged from the base of his spine. The appearance of his human cock grew more equine to a massive 24-inches of pale horse flesh. His legs thickened and stretched, making him a beautiful 7-feet-tall Centaurian with a god-like power that would both fascinate and frighten. But to stop his fall, he sprouted from his back a powerful set of giant Pegasus-like white wings. He struggled with them for a moment but slowed his descent, swooped down in the darkness to only a few yards from the water, rose into the sky, and headed back to the tiny oasis of light floating on the black sea in the distance.

On the return, however, he recalled the captain saying that the ship had CCTV cameras. He wasn't quite ready for the public to see him as the centaur, so he returned his lower body to its usual appearance.

Having used his abilities, he hadn't felt different. To him, he seemed the same Ronan Stallion, the Centaurian, the one whose mission was to help people. If he was a god, that hadn't interested him; he only saw a greater capacity to help others with his abilities. He and Liam would have to discover all he could do.

As he approached the ship in the darkness with the illumination from all its floodlights, he could see Liam, Emma, William, and several other crew members looking out from atop the shipping containers for any sign of him.

As he slowed his descent, he flew into view of those people standing on the cargo and the bridge. The lighting reflected off his white wings causing him to glow, and not once had it occurred to him how it may have looked to anyone else. He carefully set his bare feet onto the metal surface giving his usual affable smile, and while he noted everyone's look of awe, his own relief at having gotten back to the ship in one piece made him just chalk their reaction as his simply having returned. Sure, he had given himself wings, but he had obliviousness of his actual appearance. After all, he had looked closer to a Pterocentaur only a minute earlier.

Liam gave him the brightest biggest smile and rushed to hug him. Thankfully, the short duration of the heat used, and his exposure to so much air had cooled him without the need to dunk himself into water.

When Liam wrapped his arms around him, Ronan asked, "Do I stink?"

"You're far too angelic to stink, but ahh...you might want to ixnay the ingsway; you are giving people the wrong impression."

As Ronan eliminated his wings, Liam saw that their disappearance began at the tips with a thin fiery line that burned them away until it reached his back. Emma and William had joined them along with several members of the crew.

"You used your abilities," said Emma.

"Yes, if I hadn't, I would have been separated from Liam for an unknown amount of time. We've reached the middle of the Atlantic, so when Kratos's destruction threw me several miles that way"—he pointed—"I would remain in the pitch blackness of the depths for maybe a month until I walked out of the ocean, or I could just use my abilities and return to Liam's side where I belonged. I have already experienced a short separation from Liam once, I won't do that again."

William had a big smile on his face. "You are one well-hung angel."

"My favorite kind," said Emma and put her arm around William.

Ronan gave Liam a look of concern. "I will probably need the wings on occasion."

"We'll deal with that later."

"Why did we need to go down into the ship?" asked William.

"I hadn't known how far I could jump, and if it was too short, I needed all of you as far away from the blast as possible when I vaporized him. We've already seen what the destruction of a god can do at the hotel in Miami. By the way, Emma, has Kratos always stunk like rotten eggs and horse dung?"

Emma nodded. "Pretty much, yes. He says it's so off-putting that it helps him win against his opponents."

"Yeah, well, he's dead now, so a fat lot of help that was. How do you think Zeus will react to Kratos's death?"

"I'm unsure," she said. "You may want to ask Prometheus."

"Well, after something Kratos told me tonight, Prometheus and I need to have a long talk."