A Shame He Wasn't
*A few minutes earlier*
Griffith's eyes dimmed, his thoughts slowing to a crawl as he experienced death for the first time in thousands of years.
His bony jaws parted, and a light breath passed through them from seemingly nowhere. His body slumped to the ground, visible in the corner of his eye. The faces grinned at his decapitated head, their eyes flashing with joy and vindication.
He tried to smile, but the expression was unreadable without lips. He could only part his teeth slightly.
One of the faces on his back started screaming, only this was a different scream than the ones they usually made. This screech was primal and high-pitched, expressing all the fear and pain of having one's soul burned for fuel.
Which is what was happening. Griffith's eyes slowly regained their liveliness. Thin, ghostly green tendrils shot out from his neck, the screaming face now burning in green fire as the tendrils attached themselves to Griffith's head.
The other faces joined in, creating a chorus from the depths of hell as they vented their rage and hatred of Griffith vocally. The transparent, slimy green ropes slid Griffith's head against the floor.
When the tendrils had brought his head to rest against the base of his neck, the first face vanished in a flash of fire as flames burst out of his neck, melting and mending the flesh to reattach his head. He pushed himself to a stand, turning his large body in the direction the two Embodiments had gone and entering a bounding run.
He needed new companions on his back.
*Back to the present*
They made it out of the forest and over a hill where they could see where their ship was hidden before turning and fighting. They pivoted on their heels just as Griffith came bounding up the hill they stood on, head fully reattached and eyes blazing with rage and ghostly green fire. He roared furiously, shaking the air with the force of his rage.
"It's over, bear creature! We have the high ground!" Fate shouted from atop the hill.
Cait gave him a weird look before throwing a telekinetic wave of force at the bear below. Fate pulled out his Miao Dao, charging down the hill to occupy the creature. They met in a clash of sparks as the bear blocked his sword with its claws, then raised onto its back legs and slammed down with both paws.
Fate rolled to the side just as a rush of Cait's Divine Intent slammed into the bear, causing it to stagger backward and fall on its back. Fate took the opportunity to rush forward, slicing at the bear's neck. His sword was shoved to the side by an invisible force, then he was sent stumbling back by a paw swipe to the chest.
The bear rolled onto its belly and stood, growling as it met Cait's Divine Intent with its own. Fate threw his Divine Grasp into the fray, knowing the bear's special Divine Energy would burn through Cait's like gasoline. And so it was that they slowly pushed through the bear's formidable psychic strength, neither side able to move as they focused their entire beings on making the other party submit.
Griffith growled as the duo's Divine Reaches got closer and closer, his flaming eyes flashing with resolve as he suddenly brought his Divine Reach back and around him in a barrier. Fate and Cait's Divine Energy surged forward.
What didn't slide off the barrier went completely through the bear, the ground behind the creature becoming drowned in sticky green liquid. The bear's jaws parted slightly as it laughed, stalking forward through the continued useless assaults of Fate and Cait.
Noticing the futility of their endeavors, they switched to different tactics. As if they were of one mind, Fate engaged the bear in melee as Cait took time to cast out with her Manifest Power in hopes of finding a way to quell the bear. Fate became a veritable blur, a whirlwind of steel and inky blackness trailing through the air, left behind by the Divine Energy Fate had coated his sword with.
He was sure he would make Master Geifong proud if the man could see him. He felt as flexible as the air itself: ducking, dodging, whirling, and twirling; hacking, slashing, chopping, and slicing. Every action from the bear had an opposite reaction from Fate, but there was nothing equal about the two.
A swipe of the bear's claws was met with a duck and a slice across the stomach. A brutal chomp was met with a leap as Fate sliced his sword across the creature's back. An attempt at a bear hug was greeted with a thrust toward the bear's exposed throat.
Griffith racked up wound after wound, Fate taking nothing but scratches here and there. He needn't worry about the bear's caustic Divine Energy seeping in; Cait had decided her best course of action was to influence the desires of Griffith's energy itself, quelling its raging qualities and turning it docile enough for Fate's focused aura to sap away at it.
With the two of them working together, the bear's greatest strength, his telekinesis, was rendered moot, and Fate suspected that was the only way for the creature to use its special energy.
He tore into the bear with the unyielding strength of the earth, the relentlessness of the wind, and the flowing movements of water. It was a shame that his Manifestation wasn't any of the Elements, because he felt he would've had a massive breakthrough just then if it was. As it is, he was content to become untouchable by the bear.
Any attacks that would have hit him were reduced to light cuts as his intangibility took the physical sting out of Griffith's claws, leaving only the meager Divine Energy it could still bring to bear (heh, bear) against Fate, which was quickly whittled to nothing by his Divine Grasp.
Thirty-seven minutes later, Fate stood over the panting creature, breathing somewhat heavily but more than capable of doing it all over again if need be. He held the tip of his sword against the bear's forehead, allowing Griffith to stare hatefully down the blade into Fate's apathetic eyes.