[IC] MONSTORY

[Dead Cruiser]

Cerasus looked down at Izzy, as he was much taller than her now. Even though she looked away from him, she could feel his gaze most literally, as it carried a warm, palpable pressure. Pressure. That was the easiest way to describe his presence. The feeling just before a storm, the air roiling with energy. Power rolled off of his body in seething waves. The vampire Dramatic Theurge had nowhere close to such a presence. The idea of a being as powerful as Cerasus was chilling to Izzy. She dared not look at him directly, as the aura of his strength combined with his inhuman radiance would likely force her to her knees.

A monster. He was a monster, truly. It was little surprise that three disparate vampire hunters had banded together to kill him.

Cerasus had nothing eloquent with which to reply to Izzy. In fact, he didn't really have anything to say at all. Rather, his small, dignified smile widened into an ear-to-ear grin. His eyes widened like a child's as he beamed, no longer able to contain himself.

"YES!" He shouted, throwing his hands in the air. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!"

Cerasus shook with excitement, hugging himself and running his hands feverishly over his restored limbs. He quickly was unable to keep still, and bounded about the room as he continued to cheer. He wasn't jumping about, he was... practically skipping. Cerasus frolicked as he hooted and hollered, simply overjoyed by having his power returned to him.

"I'm me again!" He cried out, exuberantly. "Heeheeheehee!" His exclamations of joy became giggles, like a schoolboy.

Slowly, his immature giggling heartened and took on a depth that Izzy had not heard since she awoke as a vampire. Again he rang out in gruesome laughter, his innocent grin turning devilish. He stopped running about by a classroom wall. He balled up a fist and struck the wall at chest height. Immediately the wall caved and shattered, the very force of the blow sending a wave of air that blew back Izzy's hair. The chunks of the destroyed wall carried into the next classroom over and destroyed its far wall. And the wall behind that one, in the next room over from that. Part of the ceiling collapsed in on the now triple-wide room, revealing the floor above them.

Cerasus sighed in satisfaction from the small show of strength, basking in his own capacity for destruction. His demeanor seemed to have calmed, his pure exaltation now worked out of his system.

[Riven Wight]

Izzy focused on trying to even out her breaths, her gaze never leaving the floor. She shifted her weight beneath the feeling of his stare and shoved her hands in her pockets. It was all she could do to keep from collapsing. The King of Aberrations indeed. She glanced to the door as Cerasus grinned, wanting to get as far away from him as possible, from the surge of power emanating from him. A shudder ran down her spine.
She gasped and startled back at his outburst in answer to her comment, her wide eyes rising to him in surprise. She blinked a few times as she incredulously watched him bound around the room. She shied away from him, keeping as much space between the two of them as possible for fear he had gone mad. It was strange, even unsettling to watch someone in the skin of a grown man and radiating such an overwhelming presence prance about like the child she had first seen him as after being turned.
“I think you spent too much time as a kid,” she breathed as his childlike giggling filled the room. “It’s infected your brain.”
When his demeanor and laughter changed in a heartbeat, it felt like her stomach dropped. A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature encompassed her, and she stepped ever so slightly closer to the door, which she had left open.
She watched him warily as he went to an interior wall. Expecting his strike to only leave a large hole in its wake, Izzy gasped and stumbled back at the effect his fist had, tripping on her own feet and falling hard to the floor of the classroom as the walls and part of the ceiling of the building completely collapsed, stirring up a plume of plaster dust and debris, and a squealing rain of desks crashing down from the upper floor over the classrooms. She sat there, stunned. For a couple seconds, her lungs forgot how to work. At last, she managed a quivering exhale as the dust slowly began to settle.
What have I done? she thought, still staring at the gaping hole in the ceiling. She scooted back a couple inches, not trusting herself to return to her feet. She could not get far enough away soon enough. As soon I’m human, she told herself, he won’t be my problem anymore.
“W-what...” she faltered, and swallowed against her fear, unsure if she should ask her question. If he could do that to the building, she shuddered to think what he could do to her if she got on his nerves. She hated to imagine what might have happened to his last thrall, if that rumor was true. “What about our deal?” she finished softly, her voice quiet even in her own ears. “Your limbs for my return to humanity?”

[Dead Cruiser]

Cerasus looked to Izzy quite calmly. The mad look in his eyes had disappeared, and while his gaze was still sharp and penetrating, his eyes had returned to the cold look they usually held.

"Yes, there is that matter." He said in a cool tone. "Stay calm, I will turn you back. But first, my dear servant, won't you talk with me for a while?" He quickly followed up this question, almost a non-sequitur, with, "There is much... well, really not so much to talk about. There is something I wish to discuss with you before I can return you to being a human." He seemed completely serious. What was there that he could possibly want to talk about? And for what reason was he asking her so politely?

[Riven Wight]

Izzy returned Carasus’s golden stare for a short moment before looking away. Though calmer now, less menacing, she still could not bring herself to meet his gaze for long.
Calm, she thought with a snort. Right.
Her nose pulled up in a half snarl at, yet again, being called his servant, but she bit her tongue. Her expression turned to one of surprise as he gave his request.
“What?” He wanted to talk? She looked back up to him, ignoring the urge to turn away, as he continued. “Okay,” she answered uncertainly, drawing out the word. She drew in a breath and slowly returned to her feet, still keeping a fair distance between them. She tried to keep her voice even as she continued. “And what is it we need to discuss?”

[Dead Cruiser]

"In a moment," Cerasus said, his eyes flitting elsewhere, "Let us change the venue."

He departed the room swiftly, and with his much longer stride and quicker pace, Izzy nearly had to jog to keep up with him. He ascended the stairs onto the third floor, and seemed confused that the stairs did not continue upward. Apparently he had never ventured onto the roof, as Izzy had, and found out that the roof access was in the corner of the building. He seemed perplexed by this, with a sort of sullen expression now crossing his face.

Not to be put off, Cerasus entered a nearby classroom (thankfully not one which he had caved in the floor underneath), and stood in the middle of the room. He looked up at the ceiling, glared sharply at it, and a portion of the ceiling blew off. Izzy felt the effects of what he had done a second later, a wave of energy passing over her like a slow but strong tide. It was now clear that, though it was no longer raining, the sun had set, and the starry sky shined clear through the improvised skylight.

As concrete fell down around Cerasus, he made no effort to avoid it and merely said, "Come with me, my servant."

Then, as though it were the most natural thing in the world, Cerasus sprouted wings. Batlike, leathery wings ripped their way through the back of his suit, and with a few beats, he had ascended up through the hole he had punched in the roof. The hole he had made with nothing but an evil look. This was the first true indication of the degree to which his powers outclassed Dramatic Theurge and Psychotic Episode. Neither of them had anything resembling an ability that potent. Even his transformation seemed a step beyond Theurge's, in how quickly and elegantly he was able to form wings to fly on.

Izzy had taken a lot of effort to transform into a tree, and wings were beyond her, despite how cool they looked. She could easily just jump up through the hole though. Even that much was fairly impressive. Regardless, Izzy found Cerasus atop the roof, where she had met Riley scant hours earlier. He sat over the edge of the rooftop, where the safety fencing had fallen away, his legs dangling over the side. His wings had vanished, as had the massive holes they had ripped through his suit. "Matter generation," was that?

He sat silently, leaning back on his arms, letting his long waves of blond hair fall back behind him. From where Izzy stood, she couldn't tell where exactly he was looking, but it was clear he was staring out into the long, empty darkness of the desolate town. As he sat there in the starlight, almost melancholic, his earlier intimidation seemed to slip away, but a new kind took its place. It seemed almost as though he were perfect. A perfect form, a perfect figure. A perfect existence. A greater existence. A sort of timidness overtook Izzy as she looked at him. For the first time, he truly felt like his thrall, an existence not merely inferior, but subservient. She didn't like the feeling, to say the least.

Cerasus turned slightly to look at Izzy over his shoulder. "Hmm? What's the matter? Come, sit."

[Riven Wight]

What’s wrong with here? she thought, exhaling through her nose, but she dared not voice the complaint. When he left the room, Izzy hurried after him at a consistent jog. She had expected Cerasus to head to the front door, but instead they ascended through the building.
Realizing what Cerasus was looking for, she opened her mouth and pointed toward where the stairs to the roof were, but he had already stepped into a classroom. She went after him, catching the door before it swung closed on squeaky hinges.
“The stairs are just--” Her words cut off with a gasp and she stepped away as a portion of the ceiling blew apart with no more than a glare from him. She leaned her weight heavily on the door frame, her fingers digging into it as the residue of his energy exertion flowed over her, making her shudder, and debris of the ceiling rained down on Cerasus, apparently no more of an irritation than the afternoon drizzle had been for her.
She watched with fearful awe, a knot forming in her stomach, as a pair of wings spread out from his back, making him look that much more like a creature of the night, like the king of darkness itself.
“Show off,” she muttered, trying to sound teasing, to lighten the atmosphere, if even by a fraction, but her voice shook.
She did not bother trying to mimic his transformation.
Steady, legs, she thought, prying her fingers from the door frame. She ran into the room and jumped up through the hole after Cerasus, hoping he was not expecting her to follow on wings. She landed catlike on the roof, then straightened and looked around for him. Thankfully, he had not taken off from the roof, situating himself not far from his self-made exit.
With his back to her and his posture an almost human one, he looked less menacing. But the waves of power that rolled form him warned her otherwise, made her feel like a pathetic excuse of an existence, an existence bound to serve the likes of him, to attend to his every whim. He was a statue carved from the finest marble and formed by the hands of the most talented of sculptors, while she was little more than a mound of playdough squeezed into a messy blob by the hands of a toddler.
The knot in her stomach tightened painfully. She looked to the rooftop, scrunched her eyes shut, and formed her hands into tight fists as she shook her head in an attempt at expelling the thought and feeling.
I am not his servant, she told herself, holding her breath, her mental voice growing stronger as she continued. I’m not his thrall. And I am not inferior to him!
She glanced up when she heard Cerasus’ voice, flinching when she noticed him looking at her. She shook her head at his question, sure he already knew the answer. The overwhelming urge to do as he requested made her walk toward him, but she refused to let him have that much power over her. Though there was plenty of space beside Cerasus where the fencing had fallen, she went to where a portion of it still clung to the rooftop a few feet away and gripped a part of the rusty railing.
“I’d rather stand, thanks,” she said, her voice stiffer and quieter than she would have liked. She tried to keep her posture straight and confident, and expression impassive, not wanting to show him how strong of an effect just his mere presence had on her.
She let silence fall around them for a short moment, trying to steady her nerves, before taking a deep breath.
“What did you want to talk about?” she asked without looking to him, the hollow bar beginning to cave in beneath her grip.

[Dead Cruiser]

"Oh, don't be so difficult." Cerasus said as Izzy indicated that she'd rather stand. Neither scolding nor commanding, perhaps almost playful in tone. "Well, when I said there was something I wished to discuss, I meant just that. Something. Anything. I would just like to... sit. Talk a while. Indulge me." While his aura remained as strong as ever, there was no indication of command in his voice. These were requests. Favors, even. He desired idle conversation, which was never something he had asked before. All of their conversations beforehand had been long-winded diatribes or interrogations. It almost seemed like he was trying to be friendly, in his overbearing vampire lord sort of way.

[Riven Wight]

Izzy looked to Cerasus in surprise. “Really?”
Slowly, Izzy moved to the end of the railing, her gaze leaving him only to make sure she did not step over the edge of the roof. She sat and crossed her legs beneath her, and placed her hands on her knees. She sat there awkwardly, trying to think of something to talk about, her eyes turning out toward the faint glow of streetlights of the town she called home.
“So, uh...” she began, looking at him sideways and trying to sound at least semi-friendly. “Where’s the mysterious Cerasus Orion Damocles from?” she finished, voicing the first conversation piece she could think of.

[Dead Cruiser]

"I don't remember," Cerasus answered simply. "And it's not something that I could return to light by mucking about in my own brain. It's been... much too long." His voice became quieter as he spoke. Whether this was some sort of misplaced nostalgia, or subdued sorrow, Izzy couldn't tell. "You lose a lot over five-hundred years. In fact," Cerasus shook his head, laughing bitterly, "I don't even remember my real name." Eager to change the subject, his head snapped up to look at Izzy. "What about you? Were you... born here?"

[Riven Wight]

Izzy turned her head to look directly at Cerasus at his answer. Her expression softened ever so slightly as his tone. It was not one she had expected to hear from him, be it from nostalgia or sorrow. She could not imagine what it would be like to forget even your own name.
“Wouldn’t that be a good thing in this world, though?” she asked softly.
When he suddenly looked to her, she turned her gaze back out into the distance, not wanting to meet his eyes.
She hesitated at his question, debating on how much she would want him to know. Slowly, she nodded. “Yeah. My family’s lived here for a couple generations.” She snorted lightly. “But I’m going to break that cycle.”

[Dead Cruiser]

Cerasus answered Izzy's question somberly, "I think it would be a comfort at times to know the name my mother gave me." After her explanation, he said in an even tone, "Hmm, not terribly surprising. You have consistently struck me as an iconoclast. I wonder though what this place has done to wrong you. You are safe here, by and large, are you not? Your life was free of strife prior to my arrival?"

[Riven Wight]

“My granddad always called it being free-spirited.” Izzy glanced to him. She looked away as he continued, asking his questions, her expression growing sullen. She gave a dry laugh.
“Show me one person who's life has been 'free of strife,' and I’ll give the guy an award,” she muttered. She ran a hand through the lose portion of her hair. “This place... took someone from me,” she said bitterly. She exhaled heavily. “I’d think that you, of all people, would know that there’s really nowhere that’s truly ‘safe.’ Even the middle of nowhere.
“On that,” she began, her voice still grim, now the one eager to change the subject as she placed her hands in her lap, absentmindedly trying to pick at her usual nail polish before remembering there was none. “Why’d you come here, of all places? Got a thing for plains and cornfields?”

[Dead Cruiser]

Though Cerasus didn't seem to agree with Izzy, he didn't argue her point, either. He instead quietly mused, "Human lives are so fragile."

When asked why he came to this town, he thought for a moment, but then steadily responded, "I had... been here before. A very long time ago. I came here to see it again, before..." He stopped himself from saying something, and suddenly changed the topic.

"That boy. He is quite a rare specimen. To steal my heart without my notice..." Ah, he was talking about Riley. "I couldn't even say when it was that we first crossed paths. It is purely fortune that he doesn't dedicate himself to the eradication of vampires. Instead merely being an opportunist. He is the most like that man I have met in a long time." Seeing Izzy's look of confusion, he amended, "That is to say, my first thrall."

[Riven Wight]

Of all the things Izzy had seen herself doing when she had accomplished her mission, sitting on a rooftop simply chatting for the sake of chatting with Cerasus was certainly not one of them. She glanced up to the stars twinkling above them when there was a moment’s lull in the conversation as Cerasus thought upon her question.
She blinked in surprise at his response, which changed to curiosity as he cut himself off, changing the topic too quickly for her to question it further.
[i]What had he been heading to do that would make him want to stop here? she wondered. Or, was he expecting something to happen?
“If it makes you feel any better,” she muttered when she realized who Cerasus was talking about, "I didn’t even see him flinch when he put it in my hand."
At the mention of “that man,” she gave him a sideways look that said, “Now who’re you talking about?” She inhaled through her nose and turned her full attention to him when he amended his statement.
“Riley mentioned a rumor about that.” And now was her chance to ask about it. “What happened to him? I mean, if his existence is just a rumor to someone like Riley...” She let the statement trail off.

[Dead Cruiser]

"No, not even that boy would know much about my first thrall. This is my doing." Cerasus spoke evenly, almost dispassionately. "There is not much to say about what happened to him. He died. A long time ago. And in the years since, my existence and my reputation and eclipsed and subsumed his." He looked to Izzy suddenly, and his tone changed subtly. "I told you I wield a sword in battle, did I not? It is a keepsake from him."

Cerasus stood up then, perched on the edge of the rooftop as though he were about to jump. He flattened his hand against his stomach, and then just as suddenly as he had with his head, shoved it directly in. Far less fanfare this time around, only a short spurt of blood from the tear in his clothes. He removed his hand, and was now gripping the hilt of a sword, drenched in blood. He pulled out an entire longsword as if he were performing a magic trick, as there was no way the blade should have fit inside him at that angle. As he finished, the blood evaporated and his wound healed almost instantly. Even his clothes wove themselves back over where they had been torn.

The sword was dazzling even in the dim starlight. Straight and silver, not as long as the broadswords that had been weilded by Dramatic Theurge, but far more artful. There was even an engraving down the entire length of the blade. Izzy could read it quickly despite the gleam of the sword and the low light, thanks to her vampire eyes.

"THE VOYAGE ACROSS THE HEART"

[Riven Wight]

When Cerasus looked to her, though Izzy wanted to turn away from his piercing stare, she forced herself to hold his gaze, and nodded at his question.
“I never figured you for the sentimental type,” she said, not unkindly, wondering where he kept the sword, or if its storage had something to do with a vampiric power.
When he stood, Izzy uncrossed her legs and got to her feet as well, standing further from the roof’s ledge than Cerasus as she watched him, wondering if he was going to jump. She inhaled and flinched when he instead reached into his stomach. Though not as dramatic as when he had rooted around in his skull, it was still unsettling. Her jaw slackened when he impossibly pulled a sword from himself, blood glistening on the weapon.
Weirdest. Storage place. Ever, she thought as his body healed itself and the blood evaporated. Even so, her gaze locked on the well-crafted sword. Though she was no expert on weapons, it certainly looked like a fine one.
“‘The voyage across the heart,’” she read aloud. She took a partial step closer to get a better look at the weapon, unsure if the inscription was meant to be morbidly literal, or sweetly metaphorical. “That’s an impressive sword.” She glanced away from the weapon to Cerasus. “What was his name?”

[Dead Cruiser]

As Izzy commented on the blade, Cerasus performed a gentle, flowing routine with it in one hand. Clearly only someone with Cerasus' strength could wield the sword so easily, as it was only slightly shorter than Izzy was tall. He fluidly swung the blade before himself, effortlessly dancing it between his fingers. Five-hundred years was a long time to practice swordplay. At last, Cerasus swung at a nearby post, the speed of the blow once again casting a gust of wind in Izzy's direction. Even though the blade passed fully through the steel pole, it seemed completely unharmed, and did not so much as ring from being struck.

"I don't know his name. I don't remember if I ever knew it. What I do remember is his title." He held the sword out to Izzy, bringing the tip of the blade uncomfortably close to her face. "The moniker given to him by this. He was-- this is -- the Aberration Slayer. The sword of demon-killing. A weapon so peerless that it can only harm the supernatural."

[Riven Wight]

Izzy placed her hands on her elbows, watching Cerasus’ show of swordplay. There was a lethal beauty and power to each of the movements that held her captivated, that made her not want to blink for fear of missing something.
She inhaled and gripped her elbows tighter when the blade passed silently through the pole. Her attention locked on it, expecting the next brush of a breeze to knock it over, but it remained standing. She gasped and staggered back when he raised the sword toward her, her gaze focused on the deadly point as he answered her question.
“You seem no worse for wear,” she said softly, “after, you know, pulling it from your stomach.”

[Dead Cruiser]

"That is because," Ceraus said, calmly drawing the blade away from Izzy. "This is not the original."

Cerasus held the blade out backwards, the tip facing himself. He slowly slid the sword back into his stomach, the blade vanishing the further he pushed it in rather than coming out his back. It very much looked like he was committing honorable suicide, like a samurai. When it came down to the hilt, it became clear that he was not truly burying the blade in his own flesh, as a soft, golden glow peeked out around the disappearing hilt. By the time the sword was completely gone, there was not even a hole left in his suit.

"The true Aberration Slayer was lost with him. I made this replica myself." Cerasus had mentioned this power before. Matter generation. Powerful enough to recreate a legendary sword from nothing.

[Riven Wight]

Izzy released a breath she had not realized she had held when Cerasus drew the sword away.
“Oh.” She shuddered when he turned the blade toward himself, for the most part expecting what followed. After all, he had to have gotten it there in the first place somehow. All the same, it was a strange thing to see, fascinating, but simultaneously disturbing. “That’s... an interesting storage system you’ve got there,” she said, her voice tense and a hand over her stomach as the sword fully disappeared.
“How did he die," she began slowly, partially expecting him to answer with as simple a response as he had to 'what happened to him,' "that the real thing was lost?” Izzy shifted her gaze from where the sword had vanished to Cerasus’ handsome face.