~ Chapter Twenty Five ~

Things you can't Outrun

"If you're only here to exult, then get lost. Besides it's hard to have another when you never had one to begin with, Ares. Or were you secretly planning on turning gay?" When he hit with words, Xena only aimed to hit back harder as remanent images of their night of passion incessantly began invading her mind.

"And tell me, was it 'beautiful' when I was corrupting an innocent little girl by turning her into a rampaging killing machine!?" She snapped, aggravated by the God's disgusting display of praise and honour.

"War goes hand in hand with logic and psychology, and the most difficult battles are unquestionably the battles of the mind. What happens on the field is merely the projection of what has just unfolded in someone's more or less well equipped head, so getting to understand your enemy's judgment ultimately means winning the war before it even started. The moment you enter a fight you must be three steps ahead of your opponent. The first one keeps you alive, the second gives you a slight advantage and the third leads you to victory. Do not ever forget that, for the moment you do, you're as good as dead, if the Fates prove to be willing to send you to the Underworld fast enough as to spare you the humiliation of being raped, tortured or degraded by your adversary, that is." Ares used to tell his Chosen during their trainings, and that was a lesson that he knew by heart better than anyone.

It took him centuries to learn it, and millennia of practice to perfect it, but now he was able to outguess almost any mortal or God's actions, reading them like an open book, just by simply observing their behaviour.

It only took one single glance in Xena's direction for her already tense body to tell him more than he needed to know.

She felt torn between the burning desire of gutting him like a dead fish 'til there was nothing left of his Immortal interior or squashing him like a bug under her boot, spitting on his broken carcase once he was gone, and, since neither of the two were close to a future possible reality, she had to deal with her well hidden desires to just leave everything she was standing up for and throw herself into his arms, in some other efficient way.

Stinging words were, as they had always been, the number two resource that she frequently accessed. No news there. Quite predictable actually. He could even figure out the centre points of her lines, seconds before she started.

He was already expecting some smart comebacks related to their relationship, the damaged freak running loose, and of course, his evil, evil nature.

And still, knowing what he was up against was one thing, and literally hearing them from her own mouth was another.

Her steely but somehow vulnerable voice betrayed that difficult to put behind pain that he had inflicted voluntarily or not across the years, the countless disappointments she had lost track of; labelling all as plainly 'blood under the bridge' was too much to ask, even from her strong character.

All in all, in spite the fact that his well trained eyes could read far to well between the lines, aware that she was just playing the game, aiming to hit her mark by disabling him psychically, throwing in as many fake leads concerning her real state of mind as she could, viciously defending her weaknesses, fathoming that he knew her better than she knew herself and that he was taking advantage of every single possible opening that he might have found in her attitude, he couldn't help himself facing the challenge, competition was in his blood after all, so he did what he usually did best, hitting back with twice the force of her own attack.

"Never had you? Hmmmmmm, I don't know Xena... you seemed pretty much mine last night when you had to bite your tongue to prevent that 'I love you Ares' from leaving those teasingly delicious lips of yours. But then again, I must have been imagining the whole picture. Must have been in fact some dull priestess lying there beneath me eager to be fucked, and the images running wild through your head right now, some... unfulfilled desires, maybe while still longing for a certain climax to happen? But hey! That's just me talking. What do I know, right?" The God spat, waiting for quite an explosion of overridden feelings to exteriorize through familiar violent techniques that he appreciated so much when it came to her, and when her incoming outburst seemed to delay its appearance, he just added, stimulating her dangerously rising anger.

"Innocent little girl... Well, I guess I have to admit, you're right on this one. She had stopped being mommy's little girl the moment she witnessed the incarnation of death and destruction itself cruelly slaughtering her entire family and burning her home village. Score one for the Warrior Princess! But it was in fact your own fault there, I suppose you know that. You should have left no one alive, just like I told you. You should have killed them all and then this mess could have been avoided. But never mind that, no point reliving the past, is there? I've actually came down here in all my Godly glory to mourn the loss of these poor, righteous peasants, whose tremendous end broke... my heart." The God stated wiping off a tear, while displaying the cheapest performance he was capable of offering, hoping to cause a nervous breakdown for the loss.

"You're so full of shit." There was that smart-assed, disapproving scrutiny of hers again.

"If there's carnage to be had, you're on it like the stink of a warthog. Or maybe I'm wrong? Maybe this time, it's that overbearing less-than-standard God obsession of yours drawing you here. Does telling you to piss off outwardly imply something else?"

"Everything you say implies something else Princess. You did have a good teacher after all, didn't you?" Ares grinned, stroking her face lightly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, never breaking her gaze, and when she turned around abruptly he knew he'd hit a soft spot.

"What would you do if I said yes?" She challenged, maybe Ares would really stop trying once the chase was over?

Ares suddenly found himself facing two choices, he could either make use of the advantage he now held upon her, forcing Xena to snap or he could just elegantly withdraw, as it was as clear as daylight who had actually won this round, without any need to take it further.

It was a matter of perspective after all, and luckily, this time, their opinions seemed to have reached some mutual understanding; they were too much alike to just waste their time blaming one another, inflicting even more pain, throwing in nastier words that could slash their hearts faster and deeper than the sharpest sword.

He went for the first option of course, the second variant barley reaching his mind before dismissing the thought at the speed of a mad hurricane, his thoroughly active brain, already beginning to look for the proper words meant to express that never endless cortege of ideas he had in mind at the moment, struggling to find the right sentences, perfectly fit to do the most physical damage they could, just to prove to himself that he still had the same devastating effect on her as he always had.

Nothing new so to say, he was just being his plain old self.

"What would I do..." He whispered, almost longing for her to drop the act and give him what he needed, allowing him once and for all to explore her heart and mind at ease, as she once did back in the past, but that would have been way too easy, he couldn't deny that he simply loved that thrilling expectancy between decoding her reaction and her volcanic outbursts.

And yet, the times when he came to realize that he'd had more than enough of that cat and mouse game were not exactly few in number.

Always chasing her, always plotting up schemes to get her back, very often saving her butt, even when they weren't on speaking terms and never getting something, anything in return, not even a 'thank you Ares,' most of the time.

Lately, he felt more tired and depressed than he ever cared to admit, and during awfully lonely moments like those, the staggering urgency to feel her warm body against his own, or for her to let her guard down, at least for a few seconds, enough for him to check if he was still there, inside her soul, and that he wasn't in fact chasing long buried dreams and desires, was tearing him to pieces.

His Princess opening up to him... sadly that didn't occur but on rare or extremely rare occasions.

"I would have you become my Goddess in a heart beat if that meant forcing you to eat that Ambrosia." His eyes screamed at her as a more appropriate sentence left his lips, challenging her.

"Well, for starters, to my utter relief, I could finally admit at least to my self that you're not an even bigger coward than this ridiculously looking Buffon, and that you have at least the guts of acknowledging your own feelings if acting on them is not an option any time soon. And second... well, I guess I would clear my agenda and dump any other future plans I might have and that I know you wouldn't find suitable to your taste, since you'd be the centre of my universe and my only concern, upsetting you in any way being out of the question." The God stated, cunningly letting a fine shade of delusion echo in his voice, skilfully misleading her into thinking that it was all a lie, that his words had nothing to do with the real God of War standing beside her.

The conviction in his words was enough to convince her, for Ares had cried wolf way too many times trying to come up with tactical temptations of having her seated upon the throne.

For what seemed like an eternity of existence though, she turned and paused, the two of them gazing attentively at one another, aware of the perilous choice she was about to embark.

"I love you, Ares."