Raith arrived at Welayta Mountains with his entourage in tow - it was quite a sight to behold. One colossal Dragon led the way in the skies, two Boreas Dragons following directly behind the magnificent creature in a V formation, a Sphinx settled between the three massive beasts, keeping pace with them despite being far smaller than they. On the ground Raith's Storm-Runed Wolf Haydn trotted alongside his Master, the small Ataiyan Dragon Raith had picked up settled upon his back.
The God was surrounded by his loyal Pilgrims and the Celestials at his command - they would not attack unless called upon, but they felt it their duty to remain with the Deity despite that… they were drawn to the raging fires within his heart and could not help but swarm to the warmth of it - even despite the chance of being burnt by it themselves. Flanking the Deity, moving silently across the ground despite their size, were two colossal Basilisks - their scaled hides a shimmering midnight blue in the bright daylight. It was lucky for Raith that he was blind for once, for the sunlight held no sway over his ability to sleep - when you couldn't see a fucking thing anyway what did it matter if the lights wouldn't go out? 

Indra and Shachi hissed, giant jaws opening to reveal their elongated fangs, hoods quivering as they took positions behind their Master, the pair swaying as they held themselves upright, cutting a far more intimidating sight as they snapped at one another, tails shivering at the tips. Raith raised his hands to the pair and they lowered their heads, eyes closing as they pressed their noses into his palms. They were merely feeding off his anger, and while he really needed them to calm (lest they attack one another or someone from his party) he also needed his anger for the battle to come. The angrier the Deity was, the stronger he was, and right now he needed all of his anger in order to unleash it upon Sirona and her hoard of fucking do-gooders. 

Before them stood Sirona's Angels and behind them, Raith could see (through the eyes of Firefly and Silence) Sirona's Anointed - they would be more trouble, but he could let his anger build on the pathetic Angelic forces first before he dealt with that particular menace… and deal with them he would, and they would feel the full force of the Blind God's Wrath, they would see just why he was Commander of that particular domain and he would relish the smell of their charring skin. That self-righteous Angelic tart of a Goddess was going to learn a very valuable lesson once he had dealt with her minions. 

Never piss off the God of Wrath. 

With a snarl Raith balled his hands into fists, flicked out his wings and threw back his head in a war cry - the time for words was over, he had lost all sense of that in his rage at this indignity. Without hesitation his companions echoed his cry, all of them bounding forward as soon as Raith shifted, the Deity leaping forward and tearing the first Angel apart with ease - already his strength had amplified enough to render them useless… but he would relish every torn limb and taste their blood before he turned his attentions to the Anointed, let them fear what was to come… it would only make punching them sweeter. 

The oddity of battling alongside one of her fellow deities was lost on Serafina as she arrived in Weleyta with Raith and his followers. The vaewolf goddess had summoned some of her own assistance - a pack of six hellhounds, straight from the depths of Inferos, accompanied her. Though they were not visible, their snarling, barking, and panting could be heard as they kept formation behind her, waiting on their master’s command.

The goddess had donned the seldom-worn battle armor she kept for very, very rare occasions, and her usually flowing blonde locks were tied into an intricate braid and secured at the base of her neck, save for a few flyaway strands framing her face. Her eyes burned a bright crimson, exuding the rage that burned within her. Sirona had destroyed her bar, her brothel… this had become personal.

Serafina stood back slightly as Raith took on the first of the angels before them, well aware of the fact that several of the Anointed had congregated behind them. While not targeting those nearest Raith, Serafina turned her attention to a side flank of the angels that were advancing towards them. Her eyes gleamed for a moment before she whispered a single word.

”Hisco.” The earth beneath four of the angels began to crack and open, gleaming with the glow of Hellfire. Shadowesque tendrils resembling human hands reached out from the gaping cracks and wrapped themselves around the ankles of the angels, and within moments, they had been pulled into the depths of Inferos itself. Of course, this was not a tactic Serafina would be able to employ on a larger scale, not without exhausting a large amount of her power, but it was a show to the Anointed of what she was capable of.

With one flick of her wrist, two of the hellhounds advanced on two of the other angels, immediately tearing them limb from limb, an invisible force tossing severed limbs aside and splattering blood upon the ground. The hungry snarls of the hellhounds could be heard amongst the screams of the angels as they were dismembered.

When that scene had unfolded, Serafina turned her attention back to Raith, seeing that he was certainly in need of no assistance. With that, she turned to face the Anointed, the hellhounds circling around her, quietly growling as they resumed formation when the two she had ordered to destroy the angels returned. She was waiting - she did not want to attack the Anointed at the wrong time, and cost them the battle.

”Timore,” she breathed, and one of the hellhounds gave a small bark and moved to her side. The goddess reached down, laying her hand upon the invisible canine’s head. ”This day we will fight - and this day we will destroy these wretched excuses for beings,” she breathed, to which Timore gave a reassuring bark. ”You will feast on the flesh of the Anointed this day,” she breathed, mentally preparing herself for battle.

Raith was glad, or as close to that as the Deity expressed such mediocre emotions as gladness, that Serafina had decided to join him on the front line to deal with Sirona and her deluded ilk. He did not hold most of his fellow Deities in high regard, since before his Ascension he had believed them soft, even those of the ‘darker’ nature’s cow-towed to Angela and her every whim. She might be the oldest Deity, and he might owe her a favor but he would not bow to her for no reason whatsoever, she saw the world in a different light to him, he would not ignore his instincts purely to please her. Sadly the others did not seem to share that sentiment and seemed determined to be best friends with one another, it was why Serafina’s arrival had surprised him somewhat. He had assumed the others would sit upon their laurels and expect the mortals to deal with it, so this was a nice surprise to say the least.

He could hear, and smell, Serafina’s Hellhounds beside her and he smiled - their pets alone would rend the flesh of their enemies and fertilise the mountain with their insides, and he would relish in that knowledge and the fact that he had dealt Sirona a blow of some kind. He did not care if it was a small blow, it was a blow nonetheless. As the two Deities stood together, ripping apart the Angelic army before them, Raith gathered his magic to him, kneeling upon the ground and whispering ancient words in his mother tongue. The more they killed, the more of an army he would soon have - it was ironic he supposed, that he should fight alongside the Goddess of Death and be calling upon the dead himself, then again he had learnt Necromancy from an early age and old habits died hard, including calling upon those old magicks within him to raise a whole new army. That and there was something rather poetic about using the dead from Sirona’s number against her…

Indra and Shachi stopped alongside their Master, tongues flickering, hoods erect as they turned their gaze toward the top of the mountain and hissed in unison. ”Serafina, I suggest we head to the source of this insanity and deal with her ourselves. Agreed?” He called out to the Goddess as his Dragons flew low overhead, burning and freezing those in their path. 

Serafina knew that this was most certainly not the beginning of a beautiful friendship between her and Raith. They were coming together to fight a common enemy, but that did not mean that there would be any sort of relationship forged between the two. Of course, Serafina could see the possibility that this unification between the pair would result in some sort of alliance, though to what extent she did not know.

Having been rather complacent as of late and being so focused on the Second Circle and its business, Serafina hadn’t experienced battle much as of late, and the thrill of the coming fight was absolutely exhilarating to her. She knew that her hellhounds had been hungering for the flesh of enemies, and here they were, able to feast on the angelic flesh of Sirona’s army.

The goddess found it a bit humorous that her current ally was raising the fallen angelic soldiers as an undead army of his own to fight - surely it would have been something expected of her, and not the Raith - but she assumed that he must have been a practitioner of Necromancy. She took no offense, instead offering her own power to imbue the strength of the risen army, offering them the full power of Inferos.

With a wave of her hand, Serafina motioned for her hellhounds, who had taken up formation behind her as she approached Raith. Her eyes glanced to the army he had resurrected, and then to his dragons circling above them. ”What a wonderful idea,” she said, her eyes narrowing slightly as she shifted her gaze towards the mountain. ”Let’s teach that bitch a lesson,” she breathed, malice in her voice. Moments later, however, she remembered the Anointed that had gathered behind them, which truly left them with two options: that which Raith had suggested, or turning to fight the Anointed. While she was sure that a pair of gods would be able to take on the Anointed without much difficulty, the idea of hunting down Sirona on her own turf seemed all the more appealing.

”I’ll make this a bit easier,” she called to Raith. She turned, facing the Anointed that were advancing towards them. Her eyes flashed to a crimson red as she focused her power, and soon the earth was cracking between the gods and the Anointed, much in the same way it had when she had summoned the damned from Inferos to take down some of the angels, though this time the crack was much bigger - large enough where it the Anointed would not be able to make their way across it, even with a running jump. Every few seconds, bursts of green Hellfire shot forth from the ravine, even more of a deterrent.

”That won’t hold them for long, but it will slow them down,” she said to Raith. ”Let’s move,” she added, and with that she began the ascent of the mountain, her hellhounds in tow behind her. She was unsure of what they would find when they met their destination, but she had every intention of knocking Sirona from her pedestal and showing her that she was wrong.

Before the Infernal Queen or the Blind God could get much further from the sky roared a hammer and a sword. The hammer crashed into the ground in front Raith, in an attempt, to stop him, while the sword dug into the ground in front of Serafina. They hadn’t been aimed to strike either Deity, just stop them from going any further for a moment. A ray of pure sunlight shone down a few yards in front of the two Deities and Sirona appeared from it, her white wings stretched out, brilliant blue eyes glowing as she eyed both her sibling Deities. ”You shall go no further.” She spoke calmly as she outstretched her hands and her weapons snapped from the ground and she caught them both as they flew back to her.

She glared at Serafina for a moment before looking to Raith. ”I am sorry, Raith, that it is under these circumstances that you and I should meet.” She started. ”Please, know that it is nothing personal towards you that I do this, but it is something I will see through to the end. Accordingly, I ask of you, to please step down from this fight so that you and I may talk in private, I am sure that we can come to some accord. I will admit, I know not much about you, and that fault is my own, I should have introduced myself before hand, but I did not. Please, stand down, at least so that we can talk first.”

Looking to Serafina next Sirona eyed her for a moment, no, this fight with her was going to happen, Sirona knew that. There was no need to try and be civil with Serafina, it probably wouldn’t end with peace anyway, just the two of them tearing each other to pieces like what was probably going to happen now. ”I assume you have something asinine to say, Serafina?” While her voice while speaking to Raith had been amicable in tone, there was all kinds of vemon when she had addressed Serafina, perhaps hinting to Raith there was a person grudge between the two women.

Raith had to hand it to the Goddess; she wasn’t entirely the whore he had believed her to be - it seemed that Death was very much her domain, and he could respect that at least. Maybe they could form some semblance of a friendship after this, if they survives long enough, not that he intended on dying today or any time soon. Sirona would not take his life from him no matter how strong the Goddess may or may not be.

His undead soldiers hissed and spat, surging forwards as Serafina fueled them from the Inferno’s at her command… speaking of infernos. A smile crossed the man’s face as his hands burst into flames, the blue Celestial fires burning bright and threatening to consume anything that dare come close enough. With a flick of his fingers he set his warriors on fire, relishing in the sound of the flames flickering and cracking along their flesh as they set anything they touched on fire also. 

He he chuckled as he heard her fire roar to life at their backs, ”Allow me Sister Serafina,” the man growled in a husky tone relishing in every moment of this fight as he realised that he could indeed find a kindred spirit amongst the ridiculous Pantheon he was now part of. Again he called his flames to him, and again he flicked them away from his body, feeding the fire Serafina had brought forth until Hellfire and Celestial fire danced and entwined as one, a barrier only fools would dare tread. 

The pair ascended the mountain together, strange and unlikely allies ready to fight for everything they had, were and believed in. He heard the movement and felt the vortex within the air, stopping short in his stride and taking cues from Indra and Shachi as the pair hissed angrily at this new obstacle. ”I shall and I fucking will,” Raith replied, ”Not even my mother tells me what I can and cannot do, so do not believe that you can Sirona.”

”Go fuck yourself Sirona, or better yet take off the chastity belt and get laid, maybe then that stick up your arse might shift from your brain. I could give a shit if this is ‘personal’ or not, I could give two shits about meeting you - frankly your existence is irrelevant to me, or would be if you hadn’t gone batshit crazy,” the God hissed, wings trembling with his building rage. ”Self righteous bitch aren’t you? No. I will not stand down, I do not agree with what you are doing nor shall I stand by and watch you murder innocent lives in the name of ‘Sin’ because you’re too delusional to realise that the Light needs the Dark to exist otherwise it is nothing. You’ve done your talking with me by starting this war, I intend to tear down your effigy and shove it somewhere that might finally give you some semblance of pleasure.”

If he registered the tone he did not indicate so, hands balled into fists he summoned the flames from his heart to manifest once more. ”Enough talk,” he snarled as he pulled back one hand and threw the gathered flames at the Goddess.

The sonic force created by the sword and hammer flying down from the sky caught Serafina’s attention as she and Raith were ascending the mountain. When the sword rooted itself in the ground in front of her, she was hardly startled. Instead, she found herself more annoyed than anything. She could see the hammer that had landed in front of Raith as well. Her eyes rolled rather violently as Sirona first spoke. By Inferos, Sirona was incredibly obnoxious, and with her power having gone to her head in such a manner, she was even more annoying than usual.

Serafina smirked at Raith’s comment about not listening to his mother before she addressed Sirona herself. ”Oh, I’ll go as far as I’d like… but you already know that,” she said, her voice sultry as she prodded at Sirona about the time she had gotten her drunk and lain with her. It was clear that bringing such a thing up was intentional and meant to piss the angelic goddess off as much as she could.

As Raith said his piece in response to Sirona’s comment about the ‘unfortunate’ circumstances of their meeting, Serafina found herself agreeing with all of the points that Raith was making. She made a mental note that she would have to set some time aside to let Raith know just how much she respected his point of view - it wouldn’t hurt for her to have another ally in the pantheon.

When Sirona addressed Serafina, clearly intent on goading her, Serafina only smiled at her, tilting her head to the side. ”No need for me to do such, sounds as though you’ve got that covered,” she said with warm and syrupy tone to her voice, as though she were being sincere and compassionate towards Sirona rather than insulting her.

”Agreed,” she said as Raith indicated he was through talking. Serafina began to move towards Sirona, fangs bared. ”Can’t wait to tear her fucking limbs off and beat her to death with them,” she seethed through clenched teeth as she advanced towards Sirona. The goddess crouched into a fighting stance as she watched Raith hurl the ball of flame at the angelic goddess. She drew a blade, streaked with black and gleaming green veins of Hellfire, preparing to strike at the first opening any damage or distraction Raith’s flames would allow, unaware of what tactics Sirona would be planning to use.

[crashing the party - woo!]

Isleen had never been around so many dragons before. In fact, she struggled to remember the last time she had been near one. Under absolutely any other circumstances, the wolf would have been too awestruck to offer attention to anyone or anything else. However, the fact was they were ambushing a goddess with an agenda and an army of creatures the wolf had never encountered before. Raith may have been an immortal and the strongest brute in the universe but she and Dae were not. Her gaze watched as the fleet of dragons bound forward. Raith would deal with Sirona; Isleen knew to focus on the Anointed.

The Champion did not waste any magic or effort to keep up with them. Instead, she ran in her wolf form at a comfortable, but swift pace. She could sense the pack of hellhounds in front of her, led by Serafina. Isleen did not know who this goddess was but could recognize power that was not of their world indicating her own divinity. Two deities are better than one - but where the fuck is Nemesis? she thought to herself, selfishly wondering when Ethan would show. There was no doubt even if the Apex did not come that her mate still would, but as the embodiment of Fear and Darkness he should have been first on the line. Isleen was not impressed with her mate’s patron god.

Isleen slowed as they neared the chaos and dipped into the shadows to shift back and quickly dress. We’re going to need a better solution if he’s going to jump into every battle, she thought to herself. It was just another reminder how much of a hindrance it was to be a vaewolf and not a diowolf. The Unfading Star prowled closer but was careful not to draw any attention to herself. She dug her fingers into the earth and felt a large ley line nearby. The wolf pulled the magical energy into her core, causing symbols to glow upon her fair skin. Her eyes dilated as darkness consumed them. “Lloviendo de Luz,” she grinned wickedly. Clouds began to rumble and the sky darkened just moments before lightning began raining down, aiming towards the Anointed. The irony of using concentrated light to begin wounding them was not lost on the wolf.

The moment Raith started to talk Sirona sighed, fine then, a fight it was. He was just another atrocious being that had gained such power, if he had been mortal Sirona probably would have cut him down where he stood. Alas that was not to be, instead she would have to beat him down and throw him from the mountain, and do the same to Serafina. As for said Reaper, Serafina had better hope that it was Sirona that fell from grace first between the two of them.

Raith started the fight by throwing fire at Sirona. Sirona reacted by throwing up a magical barrier and quickly side stepped out of the direct line of that attack. Knowing that Serafina was out there still Sirona switched her focus to the Reaper hoping to catch her off guard and remove her from the fight sooner than later. Sirona considered Raith the more dangerous combatant, in her mind Serafina was just a whore and only knew how to open her legs and not how to fight.

To keep Raith busy for a moment Sirona focused on his last location and from the growing storm clouds in the sky rocketed a mighty blade of holy light. Aimed at Raith, that allowed Sirona to turn in Serafina’s direction and charged forward towards the Reaper. Sirona threw out a concussive blast of wind ahead of her aimed at Sera’s legs to take her off balance before Sirona would try and move in. Sirona would swing her mighty hammer to try and strike Serafina’s upper body and take her out of the fight in one massive strike. Sirona’s Strength Aspect made her physically powerful, even against other Divine beings, so this wouldn’t exactly tickle the Reaper like getting hit by a mortal might.

He felt the Celestial fire bounce from the magical barrier - the stench of the shields magic assaulted his nostrils and the man snorted as he tried to rid it from his nose. He could not match Sirona for strength - not given it was her domain - but his own powers would give him an edge and he would give her a run for her fucking money of that he was certain. She could hit him, she could hurt him, but he could heal himself and he would do what he had to in order to keep himself alive until the Goddess got her head out of her arse and realised that she could not win this fight. Nothing was going to stop him nor Serafina from bringing that statue down, and if Sirona thought she could stop him by hurting him then she was as deluded as this entire plan of hers was - Xyaban could have told her as much.

Indra and Shachi hissed as the clouds parted above them and Raith realised that neither would be able to get out of the way quick enough. Gathering his full strength (which given his anger in that moment was quite substantial) Raith threw himself at the pair of Basilisks - palms outstretched - pushing them out of the way of the holy light as he shrouded himself in fire. The flames did not negate the holy strike entirely, but it lessened the impact somewhat given he had been unable to get out of the way quick enough from saving his companions. His lips pulled back from his teeth and he snarled, fingers creating deep gouges in the ground as his wings trembled upon his back where he had taken the hit… but it was ok, all it did was fuel the growing rage. 

Pushing to his feet Raith focussed on Serafina and Sirona's scents, using them to direct himself to the pair. Once again he threw fire at Sirona - flicking several balls of flickering blue flames at her in succession, hoping to push her back away from the other Goddess, to push her on her backfoot as he swung at her physically with his fist. She might be stronger, but he would still fucking hurt.