[Snowy]

In the Maldera Desert, life is scarce. One would be hard pressed to find any evidence at all that this dead wasteland used to be a vast ocean, but then again, if one looked back far enough, everything was submerged in the sea. Stiff winds occassionally move the sand from dune to dune, creating a pattern that only the gods could comprehend.

In the West, a figure shimmered brightly, almost ethereal in it's shine. Most would have dismissed it as a mirage, but as it came closer, it's shape was clear. A man was traversing the desert.

After awhile, he stopped between two large dunes. He was clothed in white robes, and his hair was dark gray. He had a worn face, with several scars that gave him a tired look. He had no laugh lines, but his face was long, as if he were accustomed to wearing a frown.

He had a huge sword on his back, in a pearl white sheath. Upon close inspection, one would notice that the intricate snowflake design on it actually consisted of pearls. The sword was a hand-and-a-half sword, it's hilt was pure white.

The man was pale. He looked out of place in the desert. He had a presence around him, though, in spite of his weary posture. This was not a man to {expletive ninja'd by Cspace} with.

[Darkness]

OOC: This topic takes place in an alternate reality, a world that has no effect on the normal world of Darkstorm. It uses original characters (made by Snowy and I) that exist in another world, but uses the lands of Darkstorm as the scene. No epic destruction that might happen in this topic will take place in the normal world of Darkstorm, and likewise, no other characters may join in -- for they do not exist. And we don't want you. Unless we tell you that you can. If you seriously want to (though I doubt anyone will, especially considering the inactivity of Darkstorm), PM me. But I'll probably say no.

The wind blew. It increased in ferocity, a few miles away from the man robed in white. The dunes almost seemed to... shift. Moving, as if of their own accord, as the winds tore at the sand. Vision was almost obscured, as the gusts picked the sand up into the air, twirling it around. Of course, there were none in the vicinity to have their vision obscured.

But then, a man was there. As the sand subsided momentarily, a man was seen in the midst of the storm, walking unaffected. He was taller than most men, and he wore dark armor with a morning star at his waist. He moved with a dignified air, and a solid pace, not seeming to even noticed the sand that blew against his face and threatened to engulf his feet with every step. He reached the top of one tall dune.

His hand moved to his face, as if he suddenly felt the sand that whipped against him. And then, the wind stopped. Sand dropped from the air, and the gusting sound stopped. The man's head turned, looking out across the dunes, across miles and miles -- locking upon the man in white. The distance was one no normal man's eyes could see across, and yet this man's gaze seemed to have no difficulty.

[Snowy]

The man in white noticed a small, confined sandstorm. Vuurin. He unsheathed his sword in a quick, smooth motion. He calculated the distance to the dark man. He began to run. He ran faster than any other man, the sand almost dissolving under his feet from his speed. When he was less than a mile to his target, he took two more gigantic leaps, and then bounded into the air.

He rose higher and higher, still moving forward at an incredible rate. As he started to fall towards the desert, he drew back his sword. He landed with a thud, the earth beneath him groaning and shuddering. He stood directly in front of the dark man.

"Vuurin. The years have been good to you. How long has it been? A couple of centuries?" The man in white coughed out a barking laugh.

[Darkness]

Vuurin's morning star was in his hand before the man in white had even begun moving. The armored man waited almost patiently as the other rushed towards him, prepared for whatever happened. A battle was likely all but unavoidable, but Vuurin welcomed battle. Especially with this one, his rival since before the beginning of time.

"Far longer, Raniel. I haven't had the pleasure of your presence for almost fifteen hundred years... Surely you recall. The night I slaughtered your wife, and all the rest of those you loved. You should have known better than to fall in love with a mortal. Their lives are far too short, far too fragile." Vuurin's voice was almost taunting, as if welcoming -- no, encouraging the battle.

The long spikes of the morning star seemed, if one were to stare at them long enough, to shimmer, almost like a flame. Perhaps it was only a trick of the eye... Indeed, likely nothing but a mirage, created by the desert's heat.

[Snowy]

Raniel's grip tightened on the hilt of his sword. His eyes darted to possible weaknesses in Vuurins armor. He found none. After all, when someone makes armor for a god, if they {expletive ninja'd by Cspace} up they die.

After hearing Vuurin's voice for the first time in well over a millenia, anger grated Raniel's nerves. He restrained himself from flinging himself at Vuurin. He wasn't young anymore. He had control. Now was the best time to use it.

Raniel took several deep breathes through his nose, calming himself and not giving Vuurin any signs of weakness. At the mention of his wife, Raniel cracked. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and he shuddered violently with suppressed sobs.

Now, gods and mortals falling in love was strictly forbidden. When a god and a mortal were together, they balanced each other out. The mortal became super, while the god became less than godly. When a god was with a mortal, that god became vulnerable to bodily harm, and was susceptible to death. The mortal in the relationship would become stronger, faster, more vital and would live a long time, but they were still mortal. Raniel had accepted these consequences for his love. Everything had been wonderful for several decades, before Vuurin tracked him down. Vuurin had killed everyone. His children, grand-children, his entire family. Dead at the hands of a vengeful god.

Raniel used his free hands to wipe his tears away. He composed himself, and looked into Vuurin's fiery eyes with tears brimming in his own. God's weren't suppossed to cry, but Raniel no longer cared for etiquette. "You will pay for what you took from me. Everything you have done to me in the past was nothing compared to... that night. How could you ruin me? I would rather have died a mortal than gone on living broken."

[Darkness]

Vuurin felt a kind of perverted pleasure at the other god's tears. The Raniel he remembered was quick to anger, yet otherwise cold with his utilitarian outlook. He was indeed a God of Neutrality. Vuurin had heard Raniel say, on several occasions, 'I will do what I must.' Raniel had committed acts that some might consider to be wrong. None would go so far as to call him evil, but some of his actions -- all done in the name of balance, of course -- were akin to things Vuurin had done.

Yet Raniel scorned Vuurin for his evil. It was true, Vuurin did not regret the things he had done. Maybe that was the difference between them two. Perhaps Raniel had cried, too, when he was forced to do evil. If he had, Vuurin had never seen it. Or perhaps it was that night that had reduced him to such weakness.

"Perhaps you misunderstand the circumstances, Raniel. You think I killed them all simply because I wanted you to feel pain? Because I hated you? Surely, you know me better than that. Their deaths caused me no gain, and I am not one who is easily consumed in such blind rage as to act without thinking. No, I was chosen to do it. You knew it was wrong to marry a mortal... You should have expected it. Did you really expect the rest of us to simply allow the travesty to continue? Perhaps Valorem didn't think our actions were necessary. Nor Lenwe, or any of the other 'Gods of Light'. But many of us knew something had to be done. And I was chosen to do it."

It was partially true. Many of them had decided it had to be stopped, but Vuurin had decided to do it before the others' deliberation. And only Vassagor had completely agreed with his methods.

[Snowy]

"Who told you to do it? Skar? Or was it Vassagor? You always were her favorite pet. Always at her 'beck and call'. So do have you made a habit of doing what other's command you to do? Your a god Vuurin. A god. No one can control you. You would find that Skar himself would be vexxed if he had a rebel deity in his hands. No, we trust Skar to maintain balance, and that's why we don't revolt. But you. You have always been a problem. I should have eliminated you long ago. You have been blinded by darkness Vuurin."

Rhesal tightened his grip on his sword. "Allow me to show you the light." He whipped his sword at Vuurin's face.

[Darkness]

In an instant, Vuurin's weapon was up, blocking the attack. But it wasn't his morning star -- that was in his right hand, which remained at his side. It was a sword, but before there had been none. It was made of a sort of... solid fire. Not lava; there was no earth. Vuurin did not control earth. But it was fire, made solid. Flames flickered off of it, and its edge was finer than the sharpest steel, able to cut through flesh and armor as easily as something very easy to cut through (so as to avoid the so often used analogy of cutting through butter).

"You're right, Raniel. I am a God. I see your skills of deduction have not dulled in the past millennia. And you're right again. No one can control me. And no one has, or will. Not even Skar... though we all know he'd like to make puppets of all of us. That's what we were originally intended for, after all."

He pushed at Raniel, breaking the lock. "And blinded by darkness? I am Darkness, you fool. Or have you forgotten the source of the mortals' myth of Hell!" He held his blade, ready to block again.

[Snowy]

"WHY CAN'T I KILL YOU?!" All the anger and frustration in his past failures that Raniel felt came rushing into his mind. His sword simply... burst. It was still solid, but there was so much power focused into it that it would be blinding if a mortal glanced in it's direction. Raniel threw his sword like it was a common dagger at Vuurin's chest. His hands flashed white when the sword left them, and several throwing knives appeared. He threw these with deadly accuracy. One for each of Vuurin's eyes, one for his deceitful tongue, three for his loins, so that he may never hope to reproduce.

Raniel's hands once more flashed brightly. He held in his hands a sword of pure energy, so bright that even if Raniel attempted to look at it long enough in his mortal form, his eyes would burn out of their sockets. Raniel swung at Vuurin's head. All of the attacks were so close together, to the mortal eye it would have looked like one.

[Darkness]

A God's mind is capable of computing and acting hundreds of times faster than any mortal's. And so, to make sense of Vuurin's next actions, it can only be described as if time were passing more slowly -- or all would be lost in a single blur.

The energized sword that Raniel first threw sped towards Vuurin at a slow rate, rotating as it flew, the hilt making circles. Vuurin hefted the morning star, and the head of it dropped down, as if falling off -- but a chain of fire seemed to appear, connecting the haft to the head. He swung the flail, and the head and chain twisted around the blade, tangling it and disrupting it's trajectory. Not allowing the momentum to be lost, though, Vuurin then swung backwards -- and the chain unraveled from around the sword. The sword was thrown backwards across the sand. But already had Vuurin begun to face the knives. He swung his sword at the knives that seemed so slow, swinging vertically from beneath, up towards them. The blade, so sharp it could almost cut between atoms, sliced each knife in two, and their pieces fell harmlessly to the ground.

Vuurin then raised the blade again, easily parrying the blade. He swung the flail, hoping to hit Raniel's side.

[Snowy]

Raniel grabbed the head of the flail as it came swinging at his side. He crushed it in his hand, causing blood to gush down his arm. At this point, he didn't care. He ripped the flail out of Vuurin's hand and threw it carelessly behind him. His hand was almost gone. His right still held the sword, but his left was now useless. He didn't care.

Raniel's sword of pure energy was hot at the hilt in his hand, simultaneoulsy sending waves of euphoria up into his mind, and burning his hand. Raniel bowed his head and closed his eyes. Miraculously, it started to snow. It was snowing in the desert.

[Darkness]

As the flail was wrenched from his hand, Vuurin let it go, knowing he was just as easily capable with a sword. Trying to hold on to it could send him off balance as well. As the snow began, the flames of Vuurin's sword seemed to burn stronger. He stabbed at Raniel's stomach.


OOC: Only because you're bothering me to post fast

[Snowy]

Raniel slapped the blade away with his left hand. When he examined it, he noticed that it was barely attached to his wrist. With no sign of pain, he ripped it clean off. Blood was flowing heavily from his stump, and Raniel closed his eyes.

Another bright flash of light, originating from Raniel's left hand, seemed to explode in the snow covered desert. Everywhere around the two battling deities, snow and sand alike were blown back with such force that the immediate circle around the two was void of sand and snow, and consisted of a hard packed dirt that one would expect to find in an area where water was not a luxury.

Raniels stump was glowing fiercly, and when the energy subsided, there was a large ice fist where a hand would normally be.

This hand was huge, probably close to three times the size of the hand that had moments ago been in it's place. It was transparent, and so dense that one flick to a mortal's temple would kill him instantly.

Raniel flexed the hand experimentally. The fingers reluctantly parted from the clenched fist to an open hand. After a few flexes, the motions were smooth and uninterrupted. Raniel started to smirk, and looked up at Vuurin. "Get ready to get your {expletive antidisestablishmentarianized by Cspace} kicked, flame boy."

[Darkness]

Once Raniel had deflected the blade with his... hand..., Vuurin brought it back, holding a defensive stance should the Ice God try anything. He turned his wrist, and the blade spun in a neat circle. An old habit of his, that he did often while waiting to strike. His knees bent, he prepared for another attack. Vuurin allowed Raniel to grow himself a new hand of ice. At last, Raniel delivered a cocky threat. Vuurin could do nothing but laugh. His head back, his laugh was cold, unlike his power.

The fiery blade disappeared. He raised a hand before him. The other came up behind him, and then in a smooth movement, the one in back arced overhead in a half circle, coming together with his other hand as he took a step forward. With the arc, fire appeared. In a great wave, it followed his hand, flaring outward. It exploded towards Raniel as it came down to his other. Then the sword was back, and Vuurin slashed. But he was too far away to hit Raniel... yet with the swing, fire appeared once more, following the arc and flying outward towards Raniel in a wave of fire.

[Snowy]

Raniel raised his blade in a defensive stance, and the fire waves dissipated once they hit the pure energy of the blade. Raniel brought both of his arms back behind him as he rushed Vuurin, a sword of pure energy in one hand and a solid ice fist for the other. He whipped his arms around to the front, the blade aimed at Vuurin's neck, and the fist aimed at Vuurin's side, a kidney shot.

Raniel brought his arms together with such force, that a large crack filled the air. The air had quickly filled the space where the arms had once occupied, creating a sonic boom.