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CS Worlds Destroyed Chapter 25

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CHAPTER 25


"Wait a second, you don't remember any of it?" I questioned him later in the night, after he'd healed completely, and after we got up and moved a couple hundred yards in a different direction to leave the carnage and other dead cherub body behind. He sat there tiredly, preening himself while I tried not to laugh at him; but the entire underside of his body was coated in blood, now all dried to his skin and apparently it was pretty uncomfortable.  He looked back at me, 'spitting' out dried blood and cringing the entire time.
  
"I remember the cherub taking you, some parts about flying behind them and having a hard time catching up, then suddenly  I'm just kinda falling down some time later all cut up and bloodied with you falling along with me. " He preened out one of the longer flight feathers, talking more with his back mouth instead, "The rest is a haze."

I kinda frowned at him for a moment, thinking it over. More then a few odd things were happening here and I'd feel better knowing just why they did.

"You ever been subject to blind rage before?" I mentioned as he stopped his preening, confused. " Is that a cherub thing?"

"I don't think so..." he said cautiously, looking out and away, back at the dead cherub that rotted like a distant and smelly hill. About to turn back around with another line of conversation at his own defense, he held on it, remaining  glued to the corpse in the distance. Poor guy.  "Can i go check and see just what I did? Just five minutes." I was already shaking my head back and forth. The depressed speech about not considering himself worthy of a name, the plea to keep his cherub brethren around, safe; then to flip your lid and murder one outright, that couldn't be Raziel's work. He was not that type of guy- I didn't want him to suffer and worry for something not his doing.

"It's a pretty gruesome mess, you're not going to gain anything besides torture yourself if you did. " I thought back on the battle myself, a little struck. "Hell, you and the other one were foaming at the mouth like you had rabies"  The bird almost laughed, preening his feathers quickly before turning back to me, finally distracted from the dead cherub behind us.

"What, like this?" He grinned, mouth full of foam and spit and all sorts of glorious other things like that.  His grin stopped for a second, hacking up on the foam off to the side before turning back, wiping his mouth. "Cherub blood is incredibly bitter. It's supposed to deter two cherubs from fighting with one another. The reaction when that blood hits our mouth is a very unpleasant foaming...fizzy result"

"I never noticed that in the Colus" I  sat cross-legged, contemplating on building a fire or something.  We weren't sitting around anything specific. Just chose a spot atop a meager hill, around something that didn't exist. Maybe I should buy a flashlight and sit around that, just...something needed to be there, i don't know.

"Did you even have taste-buds like that? " He  suddenly made this sort of honking sound, squawking out once as he winced in pain, feathers matted with blood glued to his beak as he ripped out a patch of them near his shoulder.   He sat there, frowning and watching the new patch of feathers grown in like fresh daisies. The question of how he was suddenly able to heal himself annoyed him more then it did me, it just plain intrigued me. It was also an incredibly helpful skill to have in a world of people looking to kill you.  Or people that hated birds.  My mind ran back to the taste-bud subject; frowning.


"I didn't. I actually think i made the decision to go without them because i did... uh...'interact' with cherubs so much."  I watched him try and pull the wad of bloodied feathers from his face, swinging his head this way and that  in frustration like a systematic response as he stopped. Looking back to me, slowly lowering his head like a sheepish lump.   I stared at him, shaking my head and pulling the clump of feathers from his face, tossing them behind me on the ground.  

"Thanks for that. Not having hands...sucks."

"I imagine so." I looked at him for a second more as he went back to it,  preoccupied. One of his wings was just overhead to me, just out of reach, counterbalance to him as he tried to pick all the dried blood away.  All the patting, physical contact that we'd had before this whole event, and even after it, never lead the same sort of shock that happened on just a casual pass with Paul. Though it never was some kind of weldable power, was never something I could control, never gave me the ability to use the colus from it either.  Never shocked me enough to shoot me across the field with it, come to think. So why did it act differently here? Why hadn't I been zapped, just a little? Did that mean we really weren't compatible. Thinking,  I suddenly got  up, jogging a distance out of the way and sat back down as Raziel watched in concern.  Maybe it was something else.


"Just stay there okay, I'm testing something out."  He raised an eyebrow and continued to watch me, looking around in confusion.

"Am I supposed to be doing something?" He shouted for me; the two of us roughly about fifty yards apart.  I shook my head no, sitting there quietly.

"No, go ahead and keep doing what you're doing. I'll be back there in a moment."  I tried to concentrate, distanced from him and on my own.  My theory was that near/ close to him, this shock was a kind of ongoing thing, constant;  I was unable to really feel  when it happened since I 'd grown used to it. It became a sort of thing when i was trying to  find him in his own mind, after it had faded residually, but it held power to it. But distance and away here might prove more interesting results; i couldn't pin down just exactly what it was.  I had always thought of it as a spark between two souls,  not like some kind  of...regenerating generator or anything like that.  I stood back up, concentrating, trying to bring that electrical surge back to the surface, trying to gather it.

"Raziel, lower your head towards the ground so I can try this out."

"Why, what are you doing?  He did as he was told, eyes wary and unsure.

"The same thing that brought you back and gave you those awesome regenerating skills. I'm seeing what else you're hiding."

"What? " He pulled his head away slightly, worried.  "I'm not hiding anything!" I laughed.

"Probably not, but you start speaking Latin from the first one and its a little intriguing.  It'll be fine! You've got those fancy re-gen skills if it's not " I smiled, intensifying the spark to it's maximum as my arms started to burn.  "Here we go! This should be fun!"

"Wait! waitwaitwait"  I took off like a shot barreling straight out for him, giddy.  As soon as I got close enough to be in the same field, the current started receding, getting sucked away by the cherub. But I pushed on with as much as I had as he kept his head near the ground, cringing in anticipation. Nothing was going to happen, I was expecting maybe a bit of a shock for both of us.   Putting my hand out in front, his eyes narrowed before going wide, looking once more to my face before back to my hand. I don't know what I was expecting; maybe another line of romantic Latin, maybe the power to...i dunno, shoot...lasers or something.   I wasn't anywhere near being right.


Throwing everything into that pulse, our two ends connected and my vision immediately changed. Much higher up, much taller, at least around the height the cherub was. But that was the thing, barreling straight at him, he wasn't there. I tumbled exactly through where he had been, my feet crunching under me in a pathetic attempt to stop, tail swirling behind me as i just managed to look back. The Colus; in full form, wings partially out; i was in the body of the Colus.  My confusion turned to glee for just a  fraction of  a second, before back to confusion, spotting to me what looked like a small man where Raziel had been, human, crouching out preemptively like he was going to be hit.  He opened his eyes at where I had been as i somersaulted above him in slow motion, catching sight of my tail to look back at me in the face; beyond startled as I grinned. It was him!  His human self!  His shock panned down in that half a second this all took place in,  spotting a hand in even more shock, before looking back to me. As I exited where his cherub self had been, reality snapped back together and we were both back exactly the way we had been; i was human and he was some kind of mutant bird.  I hit the ground hard with momentum, bouncing and rolling to a stop some distance behind him.  Laying on my back I looked straight up, too surprised to say a word, too shocked.  Raziel broke the moment.


"What the SHIT just happened?"  he bellowed out in dismay, something of a smile to his tone.  His voice grew louder, turning back towards me , "What the hell was that?!"  I laid there still, looking to one hand to make sure I was indeed human  , breathing hard.  With one deep breath I started laughing out loud, sitting myself up; completely disoriented.  Raziel walked up alongside me, eyes wide like bowling balls, neck compressed and almost swiveled off to the side, fixated on a spot with the same completely fried but loving it grin that I held.

"I was just human for a second, wasn't I?"  he tilted his head, laughing out some more as I nodded, at least agreeing that him and I had the same crazy vison just then...if it was a vision.  "I do still have a human form!"  he smiled all the way down to his shoulders as I jumped on his bandwagon, fully realizing that myself. It did mean just that.  He had to be sitting in some similar position that I had been back as the actual Neri, stuck in a large form because I didn't know how to escape.  I smiled happily, smacking him in the wing.  

"I'll teach you to get out of it, let's get back to the higher ground we were camped on before!" I practically skipped my way back where we originally sat, excited.   Right on the edge of our camp without a campfire, I stopped, holding a hand out in realization. " Wait...wait I wanna try something first" Raziel nearly trampled over me, shuffling out of the way as he sat there, excited.  

"Sure, what's that?"  I almost laughed at his incredibly ambitious and excited self, like  some kind of Christmas puppy jacked up on sugar, damn near opposite  of what I thought of him originally, hell, how i even thought of him as Christopher.  I lingered for a second longer, laughing, shaking my head.

"Here, lower your head back down" I motioned to him, back to being solemn, back with a new bin full of questions I needed to have answered.  Thank god life still had some twists and turns to keep me preoccupied, the thought of dying never once entered my mind; it barely lurked like a sickened notion much at all anymore.

"What are you going to do?" He asked, back to cautious, frowning all of a sudden, "Better question, what just happened?" It was impossible not to grin.

"You sir, have an exposed wire in the back of your brain, did you know that?"  Raziel instantly frowned more, looking at me like I had been huffing paint fumes all day.  " I think I have one too."  He opened his mouth slightly, giving the most awkward and confused look back.

"....a wire?" he said skeptically.

"It's a metaphorical thing, you don't literally have a wire there, but the brain tends to make up what it wants to associate with.  We seem to be opposite conductors for....something."

".....conductors"  I groaned out loud as I motioned him to stay there, walking a dozen feet or so away.  Waiting a moment, i motioned his wing a little closer, jumping up and smacking it, exhibiting a minor spark.

"That." I walked back towards him as the cherub inspected his own wing, confused once more like it had been secretly lined with batteries.  " I don't know where it comes from or why it's there, but I think that just might be...."  I reached out, holding one hand on his head and taking a deep breath, trying to calmly summon the Colus to my other.  Nothing happened as I readjusted my grip, concentrating and trying to pull that image there, trying feel the weight of it in my hands, tried to pull some of that energy to make it appear.  Searching, wandering through my conciousness, i could see it there for a second, slowly reaching out to grab it, different in the ways I summoned it from the past.  It had always been a spur of the moment, waiting to be called item. This was like taking it's hand like a long-time friend.  I tightened my grip on the dream, snapping my eyes back open, the full and real thing right there.  I laughed in surprise.

"It's energy."  I kept the weapon held out, twisting it and turning it around, happy to see it.  I looked back to the cherub, "You're okay, right?"  He was looking to the weapon before back to me, nodding quickly.  

"The Colus was always the embodiment of the devotion and love that people had for me as a psuedo-god, when i came to lead hell's battles, the meaning changed to that, and the visage changed too.  Originally the full sized Colus was this kind of goat-like deer thing. Became more of a battle element later on, and more lizard/dinosaur esque after that. "  the veins on the weapon that were usually red, seething with 'evil' and 'hatred' described by my adversaries, now ebbed this sort of soft, white glow.  I twisted it around a few more times, noting that it was existing a lot longer then it had trying to injure the cherub, my hand still on Raziels head.  "You're an outlet spirit now, eh?"  Raziel looked back to me.

"All cherubs are"  I nearly smacked my head hearing that. Duh. Should've known that myself.  "What happens if you let go?"  Eyes back to the weapon, I gave it a sort of longing, sad smirk.

"Easy."  I let go of his head, holding the Colus for a second or two more as it suddenly burned in this upwards white flame, different then before.  My eyes bugged out a little. "Or not so easy. That's a new transition. I wonder what the fire theme's all about."  Waiting a second I put my hand on the cherub's head once more, recalling the weapon easily as it looked exactly as it had, this odd, soft and ebbing white glow emitting from it. Letting go it burned like a phosphorous charge, back into nothingness. I stared where the weapon had been, frowning as my brain ran circles. If just one of these things was happening; the body switching, the fire-colus, the spark, the immortality, i could pin that down.  But these were all unrelated events happening at the same time, and it drove my sanity up the wall. The common link was Raziel.



"So it's just spirit energy?" The cherub croaked at the same nothingness I was glaring at.  I took a few steps around, thinking about it.

"I'm not sure, to be honest. "

The cherub leaned closer, still excited, still giddy as I snapped back to what we were supposed to be doing.

  "You want to know how to get out of that body, don't you?" I said slyly as Raziel scoffed.

"No, i'd prefer to stay like this, using what best I can tell is the back of my wrist like a hand"

"Fair enough, let's give this a shot"  I  went and sat crosslegged, sitting directly in-front of the beast with it's eager eyes. " Take a seat or something "

"Too excited to take a seat"  

I looked at him for a second longer  as that childish personality broke through the otherwise reserved soul, smirking once before holding my hands up.

"Fine, but if you fall out of that form and bust your head, you're the only one to blame for that."

"But I'm immortal now, so that doesn't matter" he grinned as I shook my head.

"You're able to heal yourself, you're not immortal. Under the right conditions you're still very able to die"  Taking a deep breath, I tried to remember how I escaped that hellish form; it'd been a few years now, and for 97% of the time using that weapon, it was something so basically natural that it was difficult to describe, much like explaining to someone how to laugh or breathe.

"Close your eyes. Calm yourself down as far as it goes, to a level barely above sleeping."  I could hear his breathing get a little slower, but still fast enough that the gust was messing my hair up. " Slower then that. Ease it down; slow, deep breaths Raziel."  the breathing grew slower and slower, listening to the empty sounds of nature and wilderness around me as our breaths camouflaged themselves into the scenery.  After another minute, his breathing was matching mine. I grinned.


"Alright. Think of yourself standing on the edge of a bubble filled with foam beads. Outside the bubble is reality and life, it's noisy. Inside that bubble is quiet and peaceful. " I took a few more deep breaths, at least enjoying meditation even if there'd be no reward at the end. Popping open an eye, I saw raziel sort of squinting with his eyes closed, brows furrowed and confused.

"There's no bubble, it's just...like....full of holes."

Both of my eyes popped open, trying to understand his words. Circles were the easiest things to conjure up, he had to be doing this wrong or freaking out.

"Take it easy, relax. More deep breaths and try again. You'll want to sink into that bubble, head for the center of it. There, at the center is a grain of your true and actual soul. Pull that to the surface."  I watched his closed eyes carefully, i could see them tracking around, worrying more. "Relax....calm and collected."  Both of his eyes snapped open immediately.

"There's....there's nothing there, there's something wrong."  

"It's very possible you've come up with something else to help you  escape the form, Uh..." I tried to remember other stories I'd heard " Some people visualize it like an apple on a branch, something they have to actively fight at and reach for. " The cherub began shaking his head, closed eyes in a complete frown.

"It's like...water...and jagged edges ..."   He looked back to me, frustrated and panicked.  "I think there's something wrong."  

I scooted closer to him, placing a hand to his head.

"You have been spitting out unnecessary Latin lately, i wouldn't be surprised."  Even without concentrating, I could feel the tension through my hand. " You're going to have to relax and trust me, Raziel. " The cherub nodded quickly, sitting down on the ground in a nervous lump.


Leaning in, just starting to try and get into his soul like that, i was immediately booted out.  I frowned, leaning in again, more tentatively, more careful as again, i was kicked right out of getting anywhere. I smacked the cherub on the top of the head, hard.

"Ow!"

"Well quit kicking me out!" I complained as he nodded quickly.   Placing both of my hands on the side of his head, I lowered my forehead to touch his, nervous. Just like before, i was promptly booted from his own thoughts.  With a despondent growl, I pushed a half step back as the cherub looked up meekly. I didn't say a word, only crossed my arm as he looked nervously away.  "Explanation?"

"I'm just...frustrated." He lied, again.

"Frustration's an easy emotion to get through, that's not the issue here. What's the matter?"  The cherub locked on something on the horizon, vegging out and keeping from looking at my annoyed self.  "Raziel... You do remember everything from those 15 years being dead, don't you?"

"No"

I jabbed him in the wishbone as the bird squawked in discomfort.

"Liar. What aren't you telling me? ...Do ...you already know why  you can't become a person anymore?"

" Hey, I'm still a person" he said defensively, vainly trying to change the subject and fluffing up in agitation "I'm not a damn bird"  His eyes flashed with anger, empty and sad.

"I'm sorry, that was a poor choice in words. " I said quietly, sitting a little closer.

"Raziel....what is it?"  He gave this half huff of air, ruffling his feathers up to shake himself out quickly before sitting back down.  My mind connected a few of the dots on my own.

"Does this have something to do with me?"  The look on his face changed, another step closer to him finally blurting out some brand of answer, i didn't mind what kind.  "I'm not going to judge you or anything; You don't have to say it out loud if you don't want to... just open up a little, let me in, let me see for myself."  His eyes looked back to me quickly,  before back away.

"Christopher..."

His eyes looked down a little more, taking a sort of small, defeated huff. Frowning, he  relented and lowered his head back down alongside me.

Looking at him for a while longer, I slowly put my head back next to his, pressing our foreheads together once again. I wasn't kicked out, instead, i opened something up into an entirely different world of memories.  It felt like our two souls flew together, within reach,  wingtips apart,  just for a few minutes as he showed me what I wanted to know.
Chapter 24: [link]

Chapter 26: [link]


Dooohhhh we'll get to figure out why/ how he was able to escape next chapter, and how Neri may or may not have been a key part in that.

As for souls being able to connect with one another like that, they have to be granted access- she was able to kinda weasel in there last chapter because he was...well. kinda dead. It's not like she's psychic, if he didn't want her in there, (like all previous times) he can just boot her out. Certain...types of souls connect better with others. But we'll get to that later.
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I get this is old, and that I obviously haven't read ahead yet, and that my questions may be answered later down the road, but I feel as though this whole situation includes paul in some form, and how he and her practically broke up, and how alot of issues seemed to pop up relative to when that occured. And though I may be wrong in that regard, I find this whole thing rather interesting....but I suppose exploring once spirit and soul is.