The Falling( warning: long as shit)

[Cerverous]

"Are you out of you fucking mind!?" Zeus roared from his throne. "I will not allow it. No is my answer." The massive hall was empty save for himself and the target of his words.
Cerverous lingered. As many times as he'd looked over the peak of Olympus, he still found the view to be excessively beautiful. The sun never set on the gods and so the clouds that weaved in and out between the buildings and over the walkways were always some shade of pink or gold, and the buildings themselves were of the most ornate And luxurious design. Each one was a castle in size, made of ivory, marble, ruby, jade, saphire, onyx and more, all carved with impossible detail to depict some scene from their denizens' past. They constantly shined in a rainbow blaze of color and Cerverous often fiund it hard to tear his eyes away from it. He managed this time and brought his gaze about to fall on the 'king', long, milk-white silk fell lazily into place behind him. "That's not fair at all old man." His words came out calm an quiet, no need to scream, Zeus heard him all the same from across the great golden room.
Zeus recoiled as if he'd taken a blow across the face, only to recover with a loud bark of amusement. His thick mane of hair bounced gently at his back, in sharp contrast to the other's, it looked almost exactly like a cloud, his toga was clasped by a golden lightning bolt at the one thick muscled shoulder that it hung from. "Fair?" He spat. "Who ever said I have to be fair? I am king of the gods, GODS, of OLYMPUS! You are one of those gods and I have grown weary of your constantly questioning my authority! You will do as I say and that is final." The final word slapped like a crack of thunder and carried so far it caught the attention of nearly all the olypians.
Cerverous was unphased, on the outside, his calm flawless face betrayed nothing, only a normal white eye and a solid black pool staring back as he stood statue in no more than a pair of whit jeans. Satisfied, Zeus turned to reseat his throne, the red anger bleeding quickly from his face. As soon as the movement began Cerverous took motion. Three quick strides closed the massive distance between them like it were only a few short feet. Completely void of sound, he pulled his hand back and pushed a sword forward. The blade was a solid white energy a full foot wide, double edged, and nearly once again long as a man is tall. This blade buried itself, almost to the hilt, in the back of Zeus' throne, just about taking his nose with it.
Zeus froze and watched the divine sword slide through his chair as if it were made of water. His head turned slowly to lock eyes with Cerverous. The rage between them was no longer hidden. It sparked and crackled the air. The two gods stared each other down for a what could seem an eternity, the anger and cotempt of the years all coming to the surface in the one moment to choke the air like poison.
Zeus went to stand, he wanted nothing more than to take the other's neck in his hands and crush it to splinters, to punish this utter outrage, to destroy every fiber of this insolent pup before him. "I refuse my right to a throne" the words spilled from cerverous' lips with all the purpose in the world and hit Zeus full in the face like one of his own bolts. Just when Zeus reached the point his hatred couldn't become any stronger, he felt a real bolt, in fist form, on the side of his head, then he was fliing through the air.
Cervous jerked back and pulled the brute right from his throne, jerked back And sent him careening at the end of a thin white rope into the floor with a huge metal denting thud. No sooner had Zeus hit than he was on his feet jerking the rope with on hand while the other shot over head to launch a bolt of lightning lile a baseball. With a quick back swing, another bolt flew out with a whistling hiss. A blade tip pressed against his throat and he watched With wide-eyed confused fury as Cerverous ripped it away just as the two bolts he threw blew his own throne into nothingness.
A strip of crimson marked where his skin had been ripped open. It flew through the Air on wings of pain, and had two larger companions from Zeus' back and shoulder before it hit the ground. The feeling staggered him, he'd not been harmed in so long he forgotten he could be and what it felt like. Cerverous poted a third time, but now Zeus swung a huge right back hand into empty air, just as it filled with the blade of his opponents sword. The act did little to help and his arm was sliced open followed by another massive strike across his chest. A massive jet of blood followed the blade's arc through the air and time seemed to slow down in Zeus' mind. Thats my blood. He thought. Mine.
Zeus flew into a rage. He was falling backward from the assault, paced with his own blood, but when the crimson liquid gore fell he did not. A single step back caught him, releasing a shockwave of epic proportion. The sound was deafening, like two trains, a tornado and a missile All colliding at once. It ripped the very floor apart beneath him and grabbed Cervous up like a rag doll.
Too mad to care why the wretched bastard still stood before him after the wake of destruction, Zeus simply scowlex and beant his knees. His hands came back and crossed behind his hip. A charge formed in his palms, what was left of the ground began to shake and lurch and spikes of electricity tore through the air around him. His hair lifted up as if he were floating in water and his eyes turned into spotlights. He could destroy the whole of the heveans with this one blast, but lucky for the rest of Olympus, he never got around to it. His mistake was simple, had he been fighting someone else, he couldve done it, but he was fighting Cerverous, one of the quickest and fasted paced creatures to ever see the begining and end of a battle.
Cerverous stood and watched Zeus' rafe set him completely up for failure, the shockwave was a simple move, teleport through it. "Die you pompous little sorry ungrateful sack of-" zeus' words were finished for him by the sound of metal sliding through bone and flesh. The sword protruded from both hands and through to the inside of his leg. Zeus' blind madness was ripped from him like a scab and he regained his senses just fasted enough to feel the serrated blade of a scyth punch through his stomach, glance off his spin and saw it in half as it passed and came out his back.
Zeus' feet left the ground and he lurched forward, getting his head only far enough to vomit blood into Cerverous' face. The man's eyes came open slowly and bore into his own. "You are weak" the words laced and drowned in venom "pathetic little shit. You sat there on your fucking chair for centuries and now look at you!" Cerverous jerked the scythe and twisted it sideways a bit. The pain shot through Zeus and banished the darkness that was creeping over him. "I hope your proud of yourself mister king," he continued "you used to be the best, but your senses have grown dull, your movements have rusted.. Release me, spare me the shame, and ill spare your pathetic life."
For a moment all he did was stare stupidly as if he was already dead, at least cerverous thought he would be son enough. Then Zeus raised his hand slowly and put his finger tips to the other's face. His fingernails began to glow, setting small veins of light into Cervous' skin the light spread and grew, reflecting red off the blood everywhere around them and gold off whatever pieces of the place were left. Their eyes never left each other, Zeus' tired and dumbfounded and Cerverous' hard and angry. The light grew and grew. A whining pickup and soon became the scream of a jet engine until the light consumed all that was around themand blotted out the world.

[Xiomara]

During the study of certain herbs one of Xiomara's eyes began to see something entirely different than the other, the pot slid from her hands and crashed on the floor since she was in the middle of a transfer and her palm moved to cover the eye seeing the greenhouse. The other was filled with a blinding light and then the sky, plummeting like seeing through the eyes of a hawk. It was all a mixture of sky, earth, clouds, trees, and water and it made her senses reel. Leaning forward she grasped the edge of one of the flower beds and breathed in shallow gulps, afraid that deeper ones would make her upchuck her morning breakfast.

It took only a few seconds for the world to stop, the blinding light fading and then the things she saw began to gather and make sense. She didn't call for help, instead she picked up a couple of knives and quickly buried them somewhere in her person. Up the ladder she went and propping the latch open slid her frame onto the glass, braced only by her feet over the dome of the greenhouse. After shutting the latch she slid down, jumping off at the last moment and landing with a roll before she gained her footing and took off like a bat out of hell. The trees were easy to navigate, the lands familiar beneath her booted feet and her hair, longer than before whipping behind her with the speed of her rat-race. Her legs were strong and long, loping through the woods until she past Halina springs and into Caliph territory.

She came to the clearing before the lake and spun around, there were still some things she was seeing and others she wasn't. Nothing like this had ever happened before, it threw her off-kilter. Panting she whirled around, scenting the air and looking towards the skies. "CERVEROUS!" That name ripped from her throat with a sudden desperation, the man that had saved her life many many times before was nowhere to be found but she knew he was in trouble. Her eye told her that much and her gut clenched at the thought, if he was truly falling there was no way she could break his impact.

[Cerverous]

Dark clouds began to form in the sky around the lake. It was an unnatural happening, wrong according to nearly everything man thinks they know about the world. They spiraled and blackened and spiral tighter and tighter till they made a flat tornado in suspension. The wind picked up with a ferocious rapidity, but, oddly enough, it blew toward the center of the circle directly. The wildlife had long abandoned the area or fallen silent without any way to leave. The wind grew and grew and grew, whistling louder and louder with each second, until the water at the center of the mass expanse began to reach out to the sky. It rose higher with each passing heart beat in a smooth spiral tower. The clouds wasted no time mimicking. The wind's whistle turned to a thin humming that intensified slowly, then more rapidly till the ground shook with the sequel of a jet engine. The air grew dense and taught and began pushing toward the double spiral, like if a person tensed every muscle in their body as hard as they could in a single direction.

Just when it felt like the entire world would shatter, the cloud spiral rebounded like a ruber-band with a deep, gut wrenching roar, and a white ball of fire shot from the center about the size of a grown human. It took about the time it'd take you to snap your fingers to reach ground level by way of the water spiral. The force was catastrophic, the closest thing the lake would likely ever be to a tsunami, the fireball had literally cut a hole through the water. Empty air steamed above Cerverous' body just before the water crashed down on him to fill the space again.

[Xiomara]

The phenomenon took her by utter surprise and she slid back as the spirals of water created a vortex of their own and sucked the water out of the lake bed. Droplets which usually were peaceful suddenly turned painful, cutting portions of exposed skin as the forces called them towards their center, towards the eye of the storm. Arm raised to cover her face from the whiplash of the leaves, the trees groaned against the current as they were pulled from their roots. Their creaking sounded like screams as they were torn against their will by the awesome power of the tornado.

then the sound, which was already loud in her ears, it became a jet engine's roar, that annoying high pitched sound intensified tenfold. Causing her hands to go to her ears and cover them completely, though it didn't drown out the sound and her head felt like it was going to explode. Breathing raggedly she tried to focus on something other than the fierce stabbing pain in her ears, but one of the ear drums ruptured and blood leaked down the side of her neck into her clothes and hair.

The sound of water splashing and her body pressing agonizingly painful against the tree's trunk finally seemed to relax. Her clenched muscles and teeth also ground together until finally it all came to a stop with the loudest splash possible. It created a small tidal wave and drenched her to the knees until she moved over towards him, stepping over the fallen trees and uprooted shrubbery. Stumbling to the edge of the water she looked around, spotting his body floating in the river. Without second thought and partially deaf she dove in, curling an arm around his shoulders and dragging him towards the shore.

[Cerverous]

(imma use this as a doorway post, kk?)

His body was limp in every way, complete and utter dead weight. Xio would have her work cut out for her in bringing him ashore but she could handle it. When she finally managed to drag him up into the cold mud he would look much the same as he had before, save that all that was white was now black along with the first two fingernails of his right hand. In the sky, all signs that anything had just happened were nonexistent, only a thin spread of clouds remained in the early morning sky. The ground was a contrast as sharp as night and day. Utterly destroyed could make for a nice description, uprooted trees, their leaves and branches scattered about every inch of the place, the water still making little headway in seeping back to the river making it all seem as if it'd just rained and stormed unbroken for aweek. The quiet, disturbing at best, stretched on, and a light snow began to fall as the sun peaked its head up over the horizon to say good morning.

[Xiomara]

"For the love of the stars, wake up Cerverous!" She starts compression when he doesn't come around, giving him mouth to mouth to make sure his body and brain get oxygen. The place has grown strangely quiet but there is still some ringing in her ears and she can't quite place the strange sound in her right ear. There's blood and water mixing with dirt and leaves and a static in the air that hums just beneath the surface. She'd managed to get him out, but he was so lifeless. And there was no making heads or tails of the new darkness that had seemed to expand in her absence. Where had he gone all this time? "Wake up, damn you! Why are you such a pain in my butt!"

[Cerverous]

Xio was at it for some time, she would likely be starting her third or fourth rotation through the steps when consciousness finally came to him. He regretted it soon after. first he felt cold blanketing his back, frigid as if heat had never even existed, a wet that seeped so deep he thought he'd never drink another glass of water so long as he lived, a stone slab pressing thousands of needles into his skin. Something so pillow soft it could make a man cry pressed against his lips, but with suck force he was scared it would shatter his bones, and the heat blazed as hot as the sun's surface. Air was forced into his lungs so hard he believed they would explode. He could hear every single little thing down to the air molecules moving around him. It made a cacophony of noise completely indistinguishable and so loud it brought a ringing to his ears akin to a micro stereo system blasting monotones inside them. He moved his hand, the resistance given by the air cutting gashes into his nerves, and his fingers viced around the first thing they found. Needles shot into his fingers and the heat from Xio's neck seared his skin. Through all this, he was able to open his eyes slowly. His first sight was Xio's likely surprised or even scared face before literally everything else came into view. He saw her organs, her skeleton, her veins and vessels, muscle and each layer of skin all at once, the light from the sun was nine different shades of color and beyond blinding. Even then he could see every single star for hundreds of light-years and even some of the closer black holes in the morning sky. His eyes literally split down the middle, blood trickled slowly from the wounds out to the corners of his eye sockets and down his cheeks.

He could feel his brain melting from the stress when his fingers jerked open into contortions, shivering so violently they might've broken themselves. Cerverous rolled away from her onto his side, a whimpering whine ripping from his throat near identical to the sound a dog would make when it knows its about to get the ever loving fuck beat of it. He jerked and quivered as he slowly curled into a tight as ball as he could possibly get his body into.

[Xiomara]

She was past the point of no return, if Cerverous had been any old human being or even someone like her he would have been dead and drowned, but he was unlike any she had met before, defying even the ancients that had ravaged their lands. Which was exactly why she continued to breath air into his lungs until finally he awakened. Though the first thing he did was clench his fingers around her throat, cutting off some of her air. She would have flailed around if she hadn't known better, tilting her head back and holding still to keep some form of air flowing into her lungs and brain. The next was the agonizing migraine from her eye, since her ear were still ringing, and then everything was brilliantly alive and seeing her own flesh and bones layer by layer was unbalancing, disturbing to say the least. It made her head spin and her fingers barely touched at his hand, so that he would release her.

When his eyes began to bleed she reached a hand out, tentatively placing it over his eyes. Just barely brushing the tips against the lids, and drawing them down. Trying to convey the message that he should be still and keep his eyes closed. Soon however he released her and turned around, his back to her while he curled into the fetal position and began to jerk and quiver. His limbs spasming, her breath finally coming steadily though quieted for some unknown reason and her right eye closed. The shard had been disorienting, and it made her queasy each time she could see through his eye.

It appeared Cerverous suffered the same way she had when she had been in the throes of the Obeahman, every sound, color and touch had been overwhelming. The temperature bothered her skin and even clothes caused the greatest of agony. Without touching Cerverous and in lieu to make him feel better, Xiomara closed the other eye and flung her arm, as if she were tossing a pebble up into the sky and over her shoulder. Clouds gathered quietly and the soft falling of snow encompassed the area, diminishing the warmth of the sun. Though to regulate she would cause breaks in the clouds, keeping the climate to what would be bearable for her broken friend.

[Cerverous]

So this is pain... I can't believe i'd forgotten. Cerverous stood before himself, glaring down at the broken physical body jerk and twitch in the mud, on its way down a quick-track to self destruction. Each passing moment flared his anger and the face of his minds projection twisted to show it. The gods... despite all that power, they are still weak on the inside, and they made me weak. Bastards. Unacceptable. A moment passed in silence before his physical eyes, destroyed and bleeding, jerked up to lock with the flawless ruby red mental pair. His body twitched again. Fuck. Bare feet slid apart and his hand came together before him in identical signs, one pointed up the other down. I haven't used this stance in decades, best pray to someone that it works. He closed his eyes and gave every single ounce of his mind to his heimokinesis.

In the physical world Cerverous' body fell limp completely, without a bit of warning. It lay motionless for a near a full minute before a single hand shot up like the head of a cobra. With a single finger, the hand clawed a pattern into the air resembling an encircled cross. The second time round it actually appeared in thin lines of light. The finger was shoved into the center and turned like a key. The effect was immediate, a small white dot blazed into existence three short feet above the mud and spread vertically in both directions till it met the ground, at which point it did the same horizontally at its highest and lowest points. The door slid open on a solid wall of light, just as Cerverous' body lifted up off the ground entirely like it were a corpse being carried by the shoulders.

The projection stood beneath his own physical body, facing the door that had just been made. A glance back and the darkness of the world retreated slightly and brought a smile to his lips as it revealed Xio sitting just there. Can't stay away from each other, can we? He grabbed his body's wrist and waved her after him before plunging through. On the other side was a massive white room containing and endless collection of weapons ranging from katanas to pistols and from leather to gold plate, from practical to decorative, from plain to eccentric. The projection disappeared from his mind and his body dropped to the floor. HE caught the edge of a table to keep from falling completely, and knelt to collect himself.

[Xiomara]

Tense and alert her body reacted to the sudden movement of Cerverous' body. She got to her feet as he moved forward and her eyes were wary when a door opened before them. Panic set in but since their eyes were no longer linked she couldn't see what it was. All she could do was take from memory and leap in.

Taking a deep breath Xiomara followed after the waving Cerverous and plunged head first into the next best thing. She'd expected him to perhaps have some sort of trick up his sleeve but as she stumbled forward a brief connection of the eyes as they passed through dark to light. The stark white room caused her head to reel, so disproportiinate from the rest. But they were soon gone as she continued to follow. Putting her blind faith in Cerverous. Disoriented and stunned she swayed on her feet, landing behind Cerverous and allowing the rest of her body to catch up. Where in all of the heavens were they now?

[Cerverous]

A mere moment passed before Cerverous was on his feet again. He began to stretch his body, nothing major, just some simple wake the fuck up stretches, starting with the feet. He pushed a hand against his jaw to pop his neck on each side and turned to smile down at Xio, this time she could see it, his eyes were completely healed and ruby red. A hand extended for her to take. There was no doubt in his mind she would accept it, but if she didn't he would stand there until she stood, and pull her until a hug as tight as he could possibly get without actually hurting her. "Hey baby girl, long time no see" The words would come low and deep in her ear and carry with them the fondness of a break in a lifetime of separation.

[Xiomara]

The confusion was obvious on her face, but as Cerverous extended a helping hand she took it. Her face flushed when he pulled her into the hug, but her arms moved of their own volition and wrapped around him. She let out a sigh and a laugh all at once, glad to see that his body was on the mend. His words made the blood creep into her cheeks and turn them red, her face hot from embarrassment but happy at the endearment. His breath tickled her ear, and she just grinned. "Missed you too old man. Where you been all my life?"

[Cerverous]

as much as he wanted to stay there like that just a little bit longer, he couldn't, he had stuff to do. One last squeeze and he pulled back to look down at her face, glowing almost as red as his eyes. His smile widens, his eyes linger and he turns to walk quickly away as he talked, voice compensating for any physical distance that grows between them. "I've been on Olympus, for the past year at least. Before that, I believe I was here, and before we met I was all over the place." He stopped . The rack before him housed several standard sized katanas, the one next to it held just as many twin blade sets, and even further dawn, a wrack of dai katanas. Not a single one looked remotely close to the other save for the curved blade. From metal scabbards to a hilt made up entirely of skulls, the uniqueness in this particular section was surprisingly not the appearance, each one could easily go for a fortune, but in that these were the swords that were actually more than just a sword.

He looked them over in silent concentration for a moment. His eyes stopped on one that he had used regularly in the past. Six feet long and under the slid black case he knew was a blade just as black, the clothe wrapped on the hilt was red on black and a chain hung a good length from the end of it. You could certainly do me some good out there... A shake of the head and his fingers brushed the hilts of a pair of twins, white on black. The guard of one was a simple circle with four small spike protruding in the direction of the bade, the other a four pointed star of flame canting in two directions to make it actually eight points. Both hands closed around them and when he began to draw them a spark hit. fire bathed the blade of the star and spread as far as the scabbard, tiny fingers of electricity jerked from the blade of the other and pulled at the four points of its guard. He swept them out and paused, just for dramatic effect, Thunder had two rings at the back of it's blade that the electricity channeled through before course its length. flame was serrated from it halfway point to the tip, and only half of it visible.

"So, whatcha been up to." he asked with all the casualty in the world as he pulled the sheathed swords from the wall. The scabbard, which ironically depicted exactly what had happened to the blades when he pulled them, were painted over by darkness, attached to nothing behind his hip and seemd to fade from existence right before the eyes.

[Xiomara]

Xiomara's fingers comb her hair out of her face and arms cross under her chest, she rolls her eyes when he starts going into this bot so elaborate and purposeful over-explanation. Then again Cerverous had always been a smartass and she couldn't help but smile and shake her head, realizing how much she'd missed the man. But her attention wouldn't be swayed, though her eyes lingered on him and then moved to the weapons she sighed and fell into step beside him to look upon his master collection of the blades. There was only one other time when she had been here before, but that visit seemed lifetimes ago. She knew this place connected to his bedroom, that much she remembered. "Don't be a smartass Cerverous, you know it was a rhetorical question."

Looking at the blade he attached behind him right before it got absorbed she frowned, but her mouth stayed shut because this was not her battle but his. Though if he asked she would accompany him, if he didn't then she would just follow him. Things were easier when you had a part of that person that worked like a tracking device. "I've been away at the Southern Ice Caps, fighting my own demons on the edges of the earth. You know, becoming a sort of Queen type of deal. It's all too political for my taste."

[Cerverous]

"Yes, of course. Sorry, i didn't realize." Was his response to the revelation that the question was rhetorical. It was accompanied by a silent snap of his fingers. The room had grown in size sense last Xio had seen it. Before it housed only katanas, now, however it was more a long the lines of a full armory: bows, guns, knifes, armor, ammo. It was all here, alot of the older technologies were revamped with the new, and across the whole compilation, almost every piece either held some form of special property through sci-fi level tech or fantasy enchantment or looked like it should. One very special thing about the room, though, was blank spaces in the wall roughly the size of a double door. They were spaced evenly down the length of the room like passages to other rooms. There was one such space just beside the blade wrack that the two of them stood next to, and it was just at the same time that Cerverous turned away toward another that a small white light popped into existence at the exact center of this space.

He turned around in stride and gave her a look and smile that said 'oh really?' "Queen? In the middle of a war. You must have turned into some kinda badass while I was gone." Another snap of his fingers, another space next to the wrack he stopped at this time. "politics are just a part of such a job. I had to deal with them on Olympus. If its not for you then you could just put someone in charge and mosey on out, never to be seen again." The wrack was decorated high with pistols of every caliber, from the smallest .22 to a massive .50 that only existed in the immortal world. He was scanning it with his eyes as he spoke, but that quickly turned into a light hear-ted accusation at her. "Now that I think about it. It's ironic that I said that, 'cause that's probably exactly what you did."