Lauren: ...
Disclaimer: ...(You know by now)
Pit had been thrust at the ground by some really angry winds, thanks(no thanks) to Aelous. But for some reason, his body didn't hurt, nor had the fall killed him. Or maybe he had died for good and ended up in the Underworld? But this place didn't look like the Underworld. Last he checked, the Underworld hadn't been covered in snow.
With some difficulty, he managed to dig his legs out of the snow, and looked around. There was nobody in sight.
"Where am I?" He muttered.
"Your final resting place," said a familiar voice. Pit jerked his head around and came face-to-face with Aima, the red headed, grudgingly pretty, and very disturbing empousa. Pit could have sworn that he had to be more-than-half-blind to have missed her when she literally had her claws at his throat.
Aima frowned. "Or it should have been. How are you still alive?"
"Um..." Pit searched for something to say, but Aima dangerously close, and it was distracting, not to mention embarassing. The wind blew around him, oddly warm.
"What is it? Cat got your tounge?" She grinned widely. "Or do you just like my presense?" Pit was a little too intimidated to say no. "Just tell me how you're alive, and I'll convice Lord Kronos to spare you. Isn't that what you want?" Up close, she smelled sweet, but not a nice kind of sweet, but a sickly sweet scent that made Pit think of a poisonous flower.
The wind that should have been icy cold was starting to really bother Pit. It made the falling snow shift from side to side, like a nervous bystander watching a bloody fight, getting ready to interfere if the situation got bad. A few of the flakes that were already on the ground moved to the right side of Pit's view. Some snow started to swirl in place, gathering with the wind.
Aima glanced to her left. "I should have known," she lashed out and left deep gashes in the wind nymph's arm, "that it was never in your nature to kill anybody." Pit looked at the wind nymph with long flowing hair, and recognized her as Zestos. Her eyes were brimming with tears as she clutched her arm, dripping blood.
"Betrayal." Aima growled, "Time to die, wind nymph. You tried to let this angel live, and now you will pay for it."
Zestos shook her head. Aima blinked.
Zestos screamed at the top of her lungs.
Aima blanched. "Are you mad?! He'll be here any second now!" Zestos nodded with a proud, pained, and slightly sad grin. The empousa snarled and disappeared with a poof and a small cloud of fog.
"Wh-what just happened?" Pit asked.
"Aima values her life, so I made her leave." Zestos said with a shudder. "Wind nymphs are peacefull spirits, so we would rather not side with Kronos. But we must follow our master's orders, otherwise be brutally punished."
"I don't understand-"
"Please, I sealed my fate by bringing you out of your fall. The most I could do is drive that empousa away." Zestos's gaze hardened. "I would have died anyway, so the most you can do is to convince him that you are Kronos's enemy."
"Who's him?!" Even as the angel said it, the bright outline of a large man in shining golden armor with a golden sword appeared behind Zestos.
"He is-"Zestos didn't get to finish her sentence as she was slashed from shoulder to hip and exploded into a cyclone of warm wind, leaving nothing behind but a daunting scream.
"Chrysaor." The man finished in a deep voice. "Son of Medusa."
"You didn't even try." Dark Pit said to a trembling wind nymph. "First you let me live out of instinct. Then you decide to kill me so that you don't get punished. But then you don't want to kill me so you think about it until I wake up, and finally you decide to kill me, but get disarmed in a matter of seconds. Am I right about that?"
The wind nymph nodded. Dark Pit was glad to not have a slit throat, but couldn't help but think that this wind nymph would make a really dreadful assasin.
"It's Chilaros, right? With a silent C?" Chilaros made a surprised face and nodded. She was curled up in a ball of shame and fear, the fight with Dark Pit had been really humiliating, and he now had her at knifepoint for it.
"Alright. Can you tell me about Phosphora and Perdix? And possibly how Pit's still alive?"
"Huh?" Chilaros blinked in confusion. "The white angel is still alive?"
"We're two sides of the same coin, he dies, I die." Dark Pit gave her the simplest explanation he could think of. Chilaros might not have understood, but she was in no place to ask for a more detailed explanation.
"I think Zestos let him go, she hates violence and death. She'd never kill anyone." Chilaros said. "I saw the lightning sprite fly away, she's probably being hunted now. Can't have gotten far, though. The empousa are really scary hunters." She said thoughtfully. Dark Pit glared at her and she said, "But the mortal girl is dead for all I know."
"Why do you think so?" Chilaros trembled under his sharp gaze. This news was not making him happy.
"B-because Kryo went after her when she tried to get away. And my big sis..." Dark Pit didn't need to hear the rest. He remembered Kryo from their short meetings in Skyworld. She was cold, stern, and would do anything her master told her to.
"She won't hesitate to kill anyone."
Truth is, Perdix did break away from the fall along with Phosphora, and Kryo did indeed follow her. Perdix had lost her staff when she was thrown out, but she was able to levitate for a split second before landing on her back, unhurt. Her body steamed from the small amount of magic, but cooled down instantly thanks to the snow. Then she was left shivering at knifepoint.
"I hope you realize this isn't personal." Kryo said. That was her only mistake.
Perdix had no idea what Kryo was expecting. To be honest, she didn't even hear what the Hades Kryo had just said. Maybe Kryo had been expecting Perdix the tremble in fear, or plead for her life. She really had no idea. But she did know that there was no way Kryo had been expecting the fist that contacted with her right cheek, or the hand that clenched around Kryo's knife and pulled it away from Perdix's neck.
Thank the gods that she had spent so much time using her hands so she could pull that off.
Of course, Perdix didn't say, thank the gods, but she did say, "WHAT THE HADES?!" (Just so you know, from Perdix's point of view, that was a really bad curseword. It is Hades after all)
Kryo rubbed her bruised cheek, which was a pretty shade of lilac instead of its normal white.
"Now this is personal." She pulled out a second knife and turned into a cyclone, spinning the blade at Perdix.
The brunette knocked away Kryo's knife with her own, and said, "You can't kill me like that! I can parry that much! Turn solid and fight me!" Truth be told, Perdix was lying. She had knocked away the blade out of luck, not skill, and only used knives for chopping vegetables before. But it still worked. Kryo re-formed snarling as she clenched the knife in her hand. Perdix silently wondered if she had doomed herself. Oh, well, at least the wind nymph could be physically hurt now.
Kryo lunged. Perdix did her best to block the blade, while wishing she had her staff. Heck, she would be satisfied with a stick. Anything with more range than this stupid knife. A nice laser couldn't hurt either. It would warm up this cold place. But all Perdix could do was swing her knife. It didn't work nearly as nice as a laser.
"I. Hate. This. Knife!" Perdix growled as she missed for the millionth time. The snow, the cold, and the fact that she was shivering like a leaf wasn't helping her at all. Kryo came in for a stab, aiming for Perdix's side.
She had no idea what she was doing, but Perdix moved her free right hand and grabbed Kryo's wrist, keeping the blade from going in too deep, albeit the wound wasn't exactly a papercut. She came off better that Kryo, though. With her left hand, Perdix thrust her own knife straight into the wind nymph's heart.
Yeah, Perdix is really good with her hands.
Kryo exploded into a cyclone of cold wind, yelling in pain. Perdix got a face full of cold air and snow. It was almost as if Kryo had insulted her on her dying breath, like, "Oh, yeah? Well now you're gonna freeze to death!"
Perdix cursed and tried to stop the bleeding on her right side. At least it wasn't gushing out like a waterfall.
"Ow ow ow ow ow. Damn, why did it have to be cold wind? Why couldn't she be a spirit of warm tropical wind or something?" She picked up the two knives and their sheaths, which were half buried in snow. Speaking of snow, the stuff was up to Perdix's ankles.
"It is really freaking cold here." She complained, her teeth clacking together. She squinted, trying to make out the blurry outlines of... something. Was it a town? "Let's hope it's a town." Perdix told herself.
"Where the hell am I?" Dark Pit asked, trudging through the snow with Chilaros still at knifepoint.
"The Titan's stronghold, well, current stronghold." Chilaros said. " This place is near the western edge of the world. Later, they plan to move to Mount Othrys."
Dark Pit scowled. "You're making this up, aren't you? Mount Othrys is tiny. Nobody in their right mind would make that pile of rubble their stronghold."
Chilaros answered, "It was once the highest mountian, even higher than Olympus, before the Olympians destroyed it in the Titan War. And Kronos is the Lord of Time for a reason."
The black angel groaned. "Well that's just great. He can turn time back, can't he?"
Chilaros nodded. "With enough power, yes."
The duo trudged down what was apparently a snowy mountain, until Dark Pit saw something shifting in the snow. He held the knife high, and Chilaros trembled.
"That's probably an empousa..." Chilaros had migrated behind Dark Pit's back and was shaking there. "They're hunting down the lightning sprite-"
"Then Phosphora should be close by." Dark Pit finished, even if Chilaros probably hadn't been planning to finish her sentence that way. "Better be careful about the empousa."
Lauren: I really hate tests. I studied without eating or sleeping for FOUR DAYS. That's 96 HOURS. So, excuse me while I crash. Zzz...