"End me, Ares. I'm done."
Napoleon closed his eyes.
His body went slack. His grip loosened. His breathing slowed.
For a moment, it looked like surrender.
Ares froze then burst out laughing.
"You give up that easily?!" the god of war sneered, spear still raised high. "What a pussy!!!"
The gods jeered. Some turned away, already bored, convinced the moment had passed.
But deep inside Napoleon's mind,
The arena vanished.
18th June, 1815. Waterloo, United Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Rain poured down upon endless fields of mud and blood.
Napoleon sat tall upon his horse, cloak soaked but unmoving, eyes sharp beneath his bicorne hat. Cannon smoke rolled across the hills like storm clouds, the thunder of artillery shaking the earth beneath him.
"Today," Napoleon said calmly, voice carrying through the chaos, "we defeat the British."
He scanned the battlefield, formations, elevations, wind direction, morale. Every detail burned into his mind like a living map.
"And we take back Europe."
The soldiers around him straightened instantly.
"YES, SIR!" they roared in unison, saluting despite the rain, despite the fear.
Napoleon raised his hand.
"THEN LET US BEGIN."
His eyes hardened.
"CHARGE."
Drums thundered. Infantry surged forward. Cavalry screamed across the fields. History lurched toward its turning point.
"VIVE L'EMPEREUR!"
Drums beat faster, harsher, skins stretched tight by rain and cold hands. Columns of blue surged forward, boots sinking into the mud with every step, bayonets angled like a forest of steel. Cannon crews hauled their guns into position, wheels screaming as they bit into the soaked earth.
"Artillery, fire at will!" an officer bellowed.
BOOM.
The first cannonade tore through the mist, iron shot ripping gaps in distant red lines. Men vanished in sprays of mud and blood. Smoke rolled low across the field, clinging to the ground like a living thing.
Napoleon watched it all from the ridge.
Calm. Still.
His eyes moved constantly, counting seconds, distances, hesitation. He saw the British squares forming, rigid and disciplined. He saw the Prussian horizon, empty for now… but never ignored.
"Marshal Ney," Napoleon said quietly, "press the centre. Do not overextend."
Ney saluted sharply and spurred his horse forward, sword raised high.
"CAVALRY. WITH ME!"
Thousands of horsemen thundered down the slope, sabres raised, hooves churning the battlefield into chaos. The ground shook under their charge, the sound rolling like an oncoming storm.
The British guns answered.
Grapeshot.
The air screamed.
Horses collapsed mid-gallop, riders thrown like dolls. Lines buckled, but did not break. The French kept coming, shouting, bleeding, slipping, advancing anyway.
Napoleon clenched his gloved hand once.
"Hold," he murmured. "Not yet."
To his left, the Imperial Guard stood motionless. his final blade, untouched, immaculate. Veterans. The men who had never failed him.
"Soon," he whispered to them. "But not yet."
Thunder cracked overhead as rain intensified, blurring friend and enemy alike. Orders were shouted, misheard, shouted again. Flags disappeared into smoke. Time itself seemed to fracture into moments of terror and resolve.
Napoleon's eyes narrowed.
The British line did not break.
It held.
Grapeshot tore through the advancing French ranks again and again, ripping holes that could not be filled fast enough. Men slipped in the mud, trampled by their own comrades as the rain turned the field into a grave of sucking earth.
"Forward!" officers screamed. "FORWARD!"
But the charge had lost its fury.
Then. A distant rumble.
Not cannon.
Footsteps.
Napoleon turned his head sharply toward the eastern horizon.
Dark shapes emerged through the smoke.
Columns.
Too many.
His blood ran cold.
"Prussians…" he whispered.
The words tasted bitter.
Blücher's army poured onto the field like an incoming tide, banners cutting through the haze. Fresh troops. Fresh guns. The final weight France could not withstand.
"Emperor!" an aide shouted, galloping up through chaos. "The right flank, it's collapsing!"
Napoleon said nothing.
He watched as French units were forced back, their formations breaking under pressure from two sides. The battlefield that had once obeyed his will now moved against him, every calculation unraveling at once.
He turned toward the Imperial Guard.
"Now," he said.
The Guard advanced.
Veterans marched forward in perfect order, musket fire cracking with brutal discipline. For a moment, just a moment, the British line wavered. Smoke swallowed the ridge. Shouts of panic rang out.
Hope flickered.
Then the order came.
"La Garde recule!"
The Guard slowed.
Stopped, turned and retreated.
A single sentence rippled across the field faster than any bullet.
"La Garde recule…"
The words spread like a disease.
Napoleon remained mounted, unmoving, as his army began to fall apart around him.
Soldiers fled past, faces streaked with mud and tears, shouting prayers and curses in equal measure.
The rain did not stop. The cannons did not stop. But France did.
By nightfall, the field of Waterloo was silent except for the wounded and the dying. Fires burned where regiments had stood. The tricolour lay trampled into the mud.
"Your empire falls today Napoleon." The Duke of Wellington steps in front of Napoleon. "You are now a subject of the British until we are done with you."
He hunted.
"STAY DOWN," Ares roared, charging forward, spear cocked back for the kill.
Napoleon's heart hammered.
Not like this.
He remembered the Guard retreating.
He remembered the moment hope died on that field.
And something inside him snapped.
"No," Napoleon muttered. His fingers curled into the stone. "I do not die in defeat."
Ares lunged.
The spear came down in a brutal, perfect arc, aimed straight for Napoleon's heart.
At the last possible instant, Napoleon moved.
Not fast.
Not strong.
Correct.
He twisted his torso just enough.
The spear tore through his coat, ripped flesh, and slammed into the arena floor an inch from his heart, punching through divine stone like paper.
Blood poured down Napoleon's side, but he was alive.
Ares froze.
Eyes wide.
"You" Ares growled, wrenching the spear free. "You should be dead."
Napoleon staggered back, clutching his wound, then straightened, pain etched across his face, but fire blazing in his eyes.
"I've stood on battlefields where hope died," Napoleon said, voice shaking but steady. "And I learned something there."
He picked up one of his fallen blades.
"When you believe you've already lost." he raised it, steel trembling, "You stop fearing death."
The human stands erupted.
"HE'S STILL UP!"
"NAPOLEON MOVE!"
Even the gods were silent now.
Ares snarled, fury bleeding into uncertainty.
"You are nothing without victory," he spat.
Napoleon smiled faintly, blood running down his fingers.
"Wrong," he said. "Victory is nothing without will."
"HOLY SHIT!" Bialorus clutched his head, fingers digging into his hair. "How is he still alive?!"
"The spirit of a human never truly dies, does it?" Ferbiris grinned, eyes blazing. "KEEP IT ROCKING, NAPOLEON!!!"
"GO ON, NAPOLEON!!!" Joachim leaned so far over the railing his glasses nearly slipped off his face.
In the arena, Napoleon clutched his chest, blood soaking through his uniform. One blade remained in his hand,chipped, stained, heavy but his grip was unyielding. His eyes were sharp. Focused. Determined.
He exhaled once.
Then he ran.
Ares snarled and surged forward at the same time, spear crackling with divine fury as he met the charge head on.
"THIS IS AMAZING!!!" Mercury screamed, voice echoing across realms.
Ares struck first, fast, brutal, thrusting the spear straight for Napoleon's chest.
But Napoleon turned.
At the last instant, he twisted his body, letting the spear graze past as he spun, using its momentum. He leapt—boots scraping the spear shaft—and vaulted over Ares' shoulder.
"Huh?!" Ares barked, skidding to a halt,
momentarily disoriented.
"Look behind ya, dipshit." Steel flashed.
Napoleon brought his blade down across Ares' back in a vicious slash, cutting through armour and flesh alike. Divine blood sprayed, hissing as it hit the arena floor.
Ares roared in pain.
Napoleon didn't stop.
"Let's put that divine spirit to work," he snarled, teeth bared. "La dernière entaille!"
He drove the sword in again, harder this time, twisting the blade deep into Ares' back, the point grinding dangerously close to the god's spine.
Ares screamed.
Then laughed.
With a furious snarl, he reached back and ripped the blade out of his own body, divine blood pouring freely as he spun around to face Napoleon, eyes blazing with hatred.
"Your human spirit isn't shit," Ares growled.
Before Napoleon could react, Ares grabbed him by the head, fingers digging into his skull and hair and hurled him.
Napoleon's body flew across the arena like a cannonball, slamming into the stone wall with a sickening crack before crashing down to the floor in a cloud of dust and debris.
Ares stepped forward, each stride shaking the arena floor. Divine energy radiated off him like a storm ready to consume everything in its path. Blood still trickled from the slash on his back, but his eyes burned hotter than ever, rage and disbelief intertwined.
Napoleon lay on the stone, one hand pressed against the floor, the other gripping his remaining blade. His chest rose and fell rapidly, blood staining his uniform, but his gaze locked on Ares with unwavering determination.
"Still standing…" Ares growled, his voice low and dangerous, each word reverberating. "You've made a mistake, mortal."
Napoleon slowly pushed himself to his knees, chest heaving. "The only mistake," he spat, blood flecking his lips, "would be thinking I can be beaten so easily."
Ares crouched slightly, lowering his massive shield, spear ready, muscles coiling like a spring. He took another step forward, and the ground beneath him cracked from the sheer weight of his presence.
"Time to end this," Ares said, voice dripping with lethal intent. He lunged, spear aimed directly at Napoleon's heart, his divine energy flaring, a storm contained in a single, unstoppable strike.
Napoleon's eyes narrowed. He rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding the impact, the spear carving a line through the arena floor where he had been a heartbeat ago. Dust and sparks erupted into the air, and the echo of metal against stone rang across the stands.
He sprang back to his feet, clutching the blade like a lifeline. His body burned with pain, but something deeper, something unbreakable fueled him. The memory of past defeats, the fall of empires, the relentless human spirit, it surged through him.
Ares stopped for a fraction of a second, cocking his head. "You… persist."
Napoleon grinned, despite blood streaming down his face. "I told you. Humans never die unless we choose to."
The god of war's eyes narrowed, and with a roar that split the air, he charged again, spear spinning like a comet aimed to annihilate. The next strike would decide whether humanity had a chance… or if a god would crush it utterly.