Kratos/Asura

Asura

**Kratos/Asura.**

A former Guardian General, Asura turned against the Pantheons who betrayed him. At his death he was reincarnated as Kratos.

Much has been written of Kratos of Sparta. Hero, villain, madman, savior, god slayer- he has been all of these things and more.

## Asura

On Gaea(a primitive Earth), Asura had a somewhat happy life with his wife Durga and his child, Mithra. He and Yasha were students of Augus and they participated in numerous battles against the impure Gohma. At some point in the Emperor's castle, Sergei, Wyzen and Kalrow confronted Asura and Wyzen tried to persuade him to join Deus's cause, The Great Rebirth, but he declined. Later when his daughter was appointed new priestess, he was outraged and didn't want his daughter to be involved in war.

During a giant battle in space against the Gohma, Asura was angrily dedicated to wiping out the Gohma all by himself. But when Vlitra popped out of the earth and decimates most of the fleet just by opening its mouth, Asura and Yasha were overwhelmed by the attack, and would've died if Mithra hadn't prayed them enough Mantra to survive. Supposedly thanks to the Mantra given by his daughter, Asura became strong enough to subdue Vlitra and prevent any more casualties.

After the battle, Asura walked up to Emperor Strada only to see him turn around and flop into Asura's arms, his body cut open. Wyzen took this as treason and attacked Asura. Despite Asura's pleading for Wyzen to calm down and let him explain, Wyzen didn't listen. After he managed to defeat the Guardian General, Asura ran across Gaea to find Durga fatally wounded. Durga pleaded for Asura to find their daughter before dying in his arms. Enraged, Asura found Mithra captured by the rest of the Guardian Generals. When Asura rushed in, he was attacked by Deus, who he realized is the true murderer. Deus subdued Asura and plunged him into Naraka. His daughter kidnapped, and his wife killed, Asura was cast down from Heaven by the Guardian Generals, and was now on a quest of vengeance fueled by pure rage.

Asura’s spirit awakened dangling from a pillar in Naraka, a realm of the afterlife ruled by a mysterious figure known only as the Golden Spider. Suffering from amnesia, he began to ascend the pillar as the Golden Spider hinted about Asura’s past and what the mortal world had become in his absence. Fueled by his unexplainable anger, Asura broke out of Naraka and inhabited his body, freeing it after 12,000 years in a massive explosion from beneath the surface. Asura wandered Gaea, which had become a vast wasteland afflicted with blood red skies and frequent lightning storms, soon after coming across a human village amidst some ruins that were under attack by the Gohma. While Asura rescued the villagers, a capital ship descended to the village and deployed Trastrium warriors led by the former Guardian General, Wyzen.

Wyzen explained that the Eight Guardian Generals disbanded after the coup, becoming the self-proclaimed Seven Deities. Wyzen continued to monologue, but was soon interrupted by Asura's fist, prompting a duel between the two. As they duel Wyzen transformed several times, eventually tapping into the Brahmastra’s mantra reactor to become Gongen Wyzen, a form increasing his size to the point that he dwarfed the planet. As Asura was about to be crushed under one of Wyzen’s fingers, Asura recalled his entire past, empowering him and activating his Vajra form. Asura's subsequent concentrated onslaught towards Wyzen's finger was so great that it obliterated Wyzen. However, Asura's arms were completely destroyed in the process and, exhausted, Asura fell to the ground unconscious.

Upon awakening, Asura was confronted by Yasha, his former brother-in-law, who told him to move on and to forget about Mithra, mocking him for returning to life and attempting to oppose the Seven Deities. Asura, revitalized once again through his own rage, savagely attacked Yasha despite the loss of his arms. Though he managed to crack Yasha's mask with a powerful head butt, he was ultimately overwhelmed and literally cleaved in half by Yasha's final attack.

Asura was awakened in Naraka by his uncontrollable rage and thirst for vengeance a second time, haunted by the sound of his daughter crying and fueled even further by anger, Asura climbed the pillar again into the mortal world.

500 years after his second death, Asura returned to his body. Petrified in stone at the base of a mountain, a shrine had been built around it by the descendants of the villagers he saved. The remaining humans believed him to be a guardian against the absent Gohma. The Gohma finally attacked just as Asura broke free. A Gohma chieftain kidnapped a girl that was visiting Asura's shrine - a girl who bore a striking resemblance to his daughter, Mithra - prompting Asura to pursue it to the now besieged village.

After defeating the Gohma, a fleet commanded by the Deity Kalrow came to investigate. As Kalrow taunted Asura’s status as The Fallen One from the safety of his ship, the Trastrium warriors began harvesting the souls of the grateful villagers, who believed being absorbed into mantra was ascending to heaven. After dispatching the Trastrium soldiers directly responsible for harvesting the souls of the villagers, Asura destroyed the fleet, crushing a fleeing Kalrow inside his own escape pod.

Crashing into a mountain, Asura was found by his old mentor Augus, now one of the Deities. Augus carried the unconscious Asura to a hot spring, presumed to be Augus' own residence. There Augus informed Asura of Deus' ambitions: Deus wanted to achieve The Great Rebirth, an end to the War of Creation that would usher in a new era of peace and prosperity at the expense of billions of humans harvested for the cause of destroying Gohma Vlitra, the heart of the Gohma, once and for all. After recuperating in the hot spring at the attendance of Augus' own personal attendants; Asura and Augus launched themselves onto the surface of the moon for their final showdown. Evenly matched in hand to hand combat, Augus drew his sword, Wailing Dark, and in doing so proceeded to level the moon with the shear force of his attacks and the length-altering blade. In an effort to finish Asura off, Augus impaled Asura upon the fully-extended blade (now longer than Gaea's width), pinning Asura to and piercing through Gaea. As Augus prepared the killing blow, Asura broke Wailing Dark and, grasping the broken blade by the hilt with only his teeth, used it to kill an impressed Augus.

Not long after paying his respects to his fallen mentor, a Gohma Striker appeared, followed by a horde of other Gohma on the horizon; upon noticing this, Asura prepared for battle again. The girl found Asura a few days later, once again turned to stone but reviving soon after she found him. She returned him to the village, presumably to introduce him to her village and family. However, just as they arrived another fleet commanded by the Deity Olga launched a barrage of missiles to purify the land. Asura survived the attack, but found the girl’s charred body in the rubble. Consumed by fury, Asura went berserk, transforming into a form known as Berserk Asura, and wiped out most of the fleet within minutes. Distraught that Asura's power has somehow surpassed what took the Deities 12 millennia to gather, Olga commanded the now-completed Brahmastra to fire directly at Asura. Yasha tried to stop the firing sequence, but failed to shut it down before Asura was caught in the blast, merely diverting the blast but giving Asura a chance to escape.

Some time later, while Yasha and Sergei were purifying the Gohma and gathering souls from mortals for Brahmastra, Asura, his body burnt and broken by his own rage (a form simply called his 'Wrath form'), carved through Sergei’s ship and disemboweled Sergei. With his last breaths, Sergei revealed to Yasha that it was he who kidnapped Mithra, and killed his sister - Asura's wife - Durga, to which Yasha stated that he was aware of Sergei’s actions at the time but chose to restrain himself for the cause. Asura then brutally thrusted Sergei to the ground before crushing his head with his foot and began to attack Yasha. In the beginning of their confrontation, Yasha attempted, in vain, to reason with Asura in an effort to return him to his senses, all the while suppressing his emotions underneath his mask. As the battle wore on, Asura momentarily gained the upperhand, interrupting Yasha's pleas with an attack that destroyed his mask. Yasha, now free to express himself, furiously retaliated against Asura; all the while knowing that Asura's wrath would destroy his own body if he was not subdued. Driven by raw emotion, Yasha tapped into his own mantra of Melancholy and cracked open Asura’s form, returning his sanity but placing him in a temporary coma.

While in his coma, Asura was visited by the Golden Spider. Despite regretting his loss of control, Asura was informed by the Golden Spider that carrying out his revenge and defeating the Gohma was his "destiny". Asura, enraged but awoken, rises and heads for Shinto. He arrives at Deus’ office to find him already in the midst of battle with Yasha. After a lengthy brawl, Deus escapes to the Karma Fortress and commandeers the Brahmastra, to become Sakra Devanam Indra Deus, 'the most powerful being in existence'. Yasha and Asura battle their way into the heart of the Karma Fortress, all the while avoiding being crushed or vaporized by Deus and the security forces. After a second, furious battle, Asura slays Deus as Yasha frees Mithra from her incarceration. Before father and daughter can reunite however, Asura and Yasha are interrupted by the sudden reemergence of Gohma Vlitra on Gaea.

Despite the Brahmastra being depleted, Asura and Yasha leave with Mithra’s blessing to face Vlitra. Asura and Yasha battle their way to the 'face' of Vlitra, but were overwhelmed by the beast. Mithra, having sensed this, granted Asura the mantra within the Karma Fortress and healed Yasha, transforming the former into Mantra Asura. Now stronger than ever, they managed to force their way into Vlitra's core, the very heart of Gaea, encountering a colossal monster that startlingly resembled Asura’s Berserk form. Realizing that this was the source of Gaea’s wrath, Asura, with the aid of Yasha, slayed Vlitra and escapes out of Gaea. As the remaining Gohma were pushed back on the planet below, Asura returned to the Brahmastra to reunite with Mithra, but was interrupted by Olga. Despondent over Deus’ death and the loss of her fleet, Olga took Mithra hostage and threatened to kill Mithra as revenge. She attempted to kill Mithra, but the Golden Spider suddenly appeared and killed her, stating that he could not allow anything to happen to his “vessel”.

The Golden Spider weaved a web around himself and Mithra. Now transformed, he revealed himself to be Chakravartin, the one true god and the "Spinner of Mantra". Chakravartin stated that he himself unleashed the Gohma to test the inhabitants of Gaea, in the hope of finding a successor and ending his need to watch over Gaea. Asura attacked Charkravartin only to find himself severely outmatched, even while in Mantra form. Asura, growing more furious by the second, unleashed his Wrath form in the hopes of saving an imprisoned Mithra. Mithra, sensing that her father would destroy himself if he continued to struggle, launched him off the rapidly deteriorating Karma Fortress and back down to Gaea, requesting that her uncle Yasha, whom of which had already launched after and successfully caught the falling Asura, protect her father.

Asura, after unknowingly having the Mantra Reactor of the Karma Fortress and Yasha's own reactor implanted to him, awoke on Gaea to find a masked Yasha eager to battle him. Though confused, Asura accepted the challenge. The two clashed in a flurry of blows, where Asura, thanks to the activation of the Mantra Reactor, gained the upper hand. However, before Asura could deliver the final blow to Yasha, he observed Yasha smiling underneath his mask. Asura halted his attack, but the bandages that covered Yasha's chest were blown away from the force of the onslaught - revealing Yasha's now heartless chest. Asura then realized that Yasha revived him, and Yasha, now knowing that Asura is at his strongest, died contented with a smile upon his face. Asura delivered a fist bump to Yasha's outstretched fist, causing his rival's body to fade away.

Preparing for his final confrontation, Asura meditated underneath a waterfall, seeing visions of the other Deities and reminiscing about Durga, strengthening his resolve and purpose. Riding atop what is presumed to be his own flagship, he headed into space to confront Chakravartin. Chakravartin attempted to destroy Gaea in a single blast, but Asura, with the power of the Mantra Reactor, transformed into a god-like form called Asura the Destructor and deflected it. Asura engaged Chakravartin, who again requested that Asura become the new god of the planet only to be rejected once again. The very fabric of time and space began to come apart as they dueled at the edge of Creation for the fate of Gaea. Chakravartin is eventually pressed into his final form, but was brought to his knees by Asura's sheer force of will. As Asura prepared to kill Chakravartin, Mithra broke free and urged him to stop. Mithra stated that if Chakravartin was killed, all the mantra in the world would be forever lost. This would render all of Shinkoku's technology and the power of the demigods useless, including the Mantra Reactor keeping Asura alive. Asura chose to destroy Chakravartin nonetheless, resigned to his fate and happy to die so long as Mithra can live free from danger. As the landscape around him collapsed, Asura shared his final words with Mithra and vanished, finally free of his wrath.

## Kratos

### Relatives

Zeus(father), Callisto(Mother), Lysandra(first Wife), Caliope(Daughter),Freya(Wife), Atreus(Son)

## Physical description

### Servant fo the Gods

Kratos is the first known reincarnation of Asura as a mortal. His birth date is unknown, but he is known to have been a son of Zeus (like many Greek heroes). He is mentioned by Herodotus as having been a minor noble in Sparta. He quickly proved himself to be a capable military commander. It was during his campaigns against the northern barbarians that he caught the attention of the god of war, Ares, who was also Kratos’ half-brother. During a battle with a barbarian king, Kratos made a deal with Ares- if the god would grant him the power to defeat his enemy, Kratos would serve Ares loyally for life. This was exactly what Ares wanted- long jealous of his sister Athena, Ares had begun to plan to destroy her.

Now the arbiter of Ares’ will, Kratos fought against the god’s enemies, quickly becoming the most feared man in all of Greece. Kratos’ greatest victory during this period was at the Battle of Marathon, where he personally slew the Persian Emperor Darius, which Darius's son Xerxes would witness and vow revenge. But tragedy soon followed triumph- shortly after the battle, Ares tricked his servant into murdering his own wife and daughter, by transporting them to a city where Kratos was on a mindless rampage slaughtering innocents. Overcome with grief and rage, Kratos forsook Ares, and sought vengeance.

Unperturbed by the loss of his finest servant, Ares decided to go through with his plan of ousting Athena. He launched an all-out assault on the city of Athens, using hordes of ravenous monsters as his shock troops. Athena approached Kratos, asking him to help fight the mad war god. He reluctantly agreed, and he undertook a quest to the Temple of Pandora, where Pandora’s Box. This device to bare the name was created by Hephaestus under orders from Zeus to house the recaptured negative aspects released from the first form of Pandoras Pinthos. This new version was a massive literal Box. Pandora was made into the key and adopted by Hephaestus as his daughter.

In an epic battle in the Athenian harbor, Kratos opened the Box, unleashing its power on the world and himself. The Box gave Kratos the power to destroy Ares. While Kratos killed Ares, the God of War's body was buried on Mount Olympus while his soul was restrained on Themyscira, under the care of the Amazons and Hippolyta I. Opening the box also brought with it a terrible curse. Within the Box was sealed terrible evil, and now that it was opened, it began to infect the gods of Olympus. Slowly, the Olympians became corrupted by this darkness, becoming twisted shadows of their former selves. But the last power from the Box- Hope- was sealed within Kratos himself.

### God of War

After the death of Ares, Kratos seeks forgiveness for killing his family but received none, out of depression, he attempted Suicide only for his life to be spared by Athena who offered him the position of God of War. Kratos was made into his replacement as the god of war, being one of only four mortals to join the ranks of the Olympians (the other three being Heracles, Arkantos of Atlantis, and Romulus). The Themyscirans and other Greeks were made to worship Kratos in place of Ares to diminish his powers. But power seems to have gone to Kratos’ head- as the new patron deity of Sparta, Kratos began a campaign of conquest through Greece. The Spartans worshipped the one among them who became a god and now granted them many victories. This led to Kratos becoming unfavorable to the other Gods, who preferred non intervention in the affairs of mortals, and also disliked that Kratos did not demand sacrifices, often personally aiding or leading the armies. Zeus, now thoroughly corrupted by the evils of Pandora’s Box, took Kratos’ powers during the Battle of Rhodes. Zeus killed Kratos with the enchanted Blade of Olympus, but his soul was saved from the Underworld by Gaia, Zeus's mother. Seeing her son's corruption, Gaia vowed to help Kratos gain revenge.

### The Quest to the Sisters of Fate

Kratos embarked on a quest to see the Sisters of Fate and prevent his own death. The Gods sent many Heroes and Monsters after him, including Theseus, Perseus, the Kraken, Jason and the Argonauts, and Cerberus. Hades even released the Barbarian King Kratos had nearly been killed by to make his deal with Ares. Many of the heroes were corrupted like the Olympians. Perseus believed his love Princess Andromeda has been killed by the Kraken(It is believed the figures of Greek mythology existed In a cycle in which they repeated their most famous adventures. Kratos however had killed Medusa during an earlier adventure, and as a result Theseus could not do so and use the Head to turn the Kraken to stone), however he was also corrupted so that he attacked Kratos simply so he would gloat over his victory.

Kratos succeeded in travelling back in time, preventing his own death and battling Zeus, tricking the God into thinking he surrendered so that Zeus would attempt to kill him with the blade of Olympus only to fight back. However, before Kratos could impale Zeus with the enchanted blade, the goddess Athena leaped in the way and took the weapon to save Zeus. This death hurt Kratos as Athena had been his largest support among the gods, especially during his battle with Ares. Athena claimed she couldn't let him destroy Olympus. Kratos insisted he would only kill Zeus, and leave Olympus alone. Athena revealed killing Zeus would destroy Olympus. Kratos proclaimed that if all of Olympus would stand in his way, all of Olympus would die. Kratos swore revenge once again and embarked on a quest to release the Titans from the dimension known as Tartarus (the Greek Sector of the realm now more commonly known as Hell). Thus beginning the Third Titanomachy.

### The Third Titanomachy

The Titans’ armies of monsters, led by the Telkines, rampaged across Greece, Egypt, and Asia, while the Titans themselves attacked Olympus. But after slaying the corrupted Poseidon, Kratos was betrayed by the Titans- their leader, Gaia, used Kratos as her pawn, and now she had no further use for him. Embittered, Kratos fought against both sides of the conflict, slaying both Titans and corrupted Olympians as he butchered his way to Zeus and Gaia.

The conflict culminated in a three way battle between Kratos, Zeus and Gaia. Gaia's massive Titan form swallowed Zeus and Kratos, who continued fighting. Kratos stabbed both Zeus and Gaia's heart with the blade of Olympus. This seemingly killed Gaia, but in reality, it only destroyed her large form and she would survive in a "Human form" though so weakened was she by this battle that the Entity would be forced to transfer her power into enchanted rings used to summon a powerful Superhero named Captain Planet to protect the Earth.

After killing Zeus(choosing to do so brutally by beating him to death with his bare hands), Kratos was attacked by the Hero of Helos, the gods’ last champion. Mortally wounded by the Hero, Kratos was approached again by Athena, now as a spirit, who told him the truth- Pandora’s box had corrupted the gods, and Kratos held within him the only power that could restore them (and the world): Hope. Choosing redemption over vengeance, Kratos committed suicide, and released the power of hope to the world. The destroyed Olympians came back, with that taint from Pandora’s box removed. Rejuvenated, the gods were able to seal away the Titans once more. Seeing what damage their fighting had done to the world, the Olympians limited their ties to the mortal world from that day forth.

### Afterwards

But Kratos’ story does not end there. He headed to Norway, and settled down somewhat with the Giant Freya, who seeks a way to end the cycle of Ragnarok. They conceived a son, Loki, who Kratos named Atreus after a Spartan Scholar, respected for his intelligence as he was not a fighter. When Freya died, Kratos and Atreus, whom Kratos rarely ever called by name, referring to him as "BOY!". The two journeyed to the top of the highest mountain to spread her ashes. Along the way they were attacked by Baldur, whom they ended up killing, inadvertently beginning Ragnarok(Loki tricking Baldur into being killed being the insinuating event). This was dangerous as Ragnarok now threatened to begin earlier than it should have. Kratos and Atreus found cave murals left behind by the deceased Nordic Giants, showing the pair performing actions they had moments before performed. The Final Mural was concealed behind a curtain, which Atreus refused to see as he did not wish to see the future. Kratos however, did peak behind the curtain and saw himself dead, Atreus holding his body and screaming.

None know what became of Kratos’ soul after death. He was never seen in the underworld or Tartarus, implying that he went somewhere else after death. But history remembers Kratos best through the ‘*Kratiad*’, an epic poem written about his exploits several years after his death. The poem took many creative liberties with history, but is widely regarded as one of the great Classical epics.

In the later decades of the 16th Century, during the wars over the sword Soul Edge, a man claiming to be Kratos was seen seeking the blade. Allegedly he was summoned by a sorcerer whom Kratos promptly killed and then seemed out the battle between Soul Edge and Soul Calibur. He took advantage of the energy released to leap through a momentary portal to travel back to his own time. It is interesting to note that during this time, the cult of Fygul Cestus (who worshipped Kratos’ old enemy Ares) was active. Perhaps Kratos returned to destroy his oldest nemesis? In any case, rumors regarding Soul Edge are to be taken with a grain of salt- some of the other figures said to have been seeking the fabled sword include an elven warrior, a demon from Hell, and a cyborg wizard from another galaxy.

When the Olympians returned to prominence in the early 20th Century, so too did the Titans. Rumors abounded about a mysterious bald man with painted skin fighting against both sides, but these, too, are difficult to prove. Kratos allegedly had a hand in slaying the Norse Pantheon under the command of the Third Reich. He was also seen during the Mortal Kombat tournament, and a similar interdemensional tournament in which Zeus also participated, allegedly this incident convinced both they needed armies, leading to Kratos releasing the Titans and Zeus gathering the Olympians.

In 2011, the Awakening of Magic also caused Kratos, or at least a reincarnation of him, to remember his true identity of Asura. Durga, Mithra and the Seven Deities were also reincarnated into the present day. The identities of Kratos and Asura clashed but the end result was overall beneficial, as this new being was bestowed with Asura's Heroic qualities, Kratos's hatred for Gods, and an unrivaled rage for both. In 2012, A giant meteor appeared in the sky. Feeling a strangely familiar urge to defend the helpless, Kratos Asura stood defiant against the approaching disaster, prepared for battle.