The Gorgon

[darioteixeira]

DARIO

"Everybody has something they want to protect."

THE END

The Eye: Trained to kill and well-studied, from a young age Dario was brought up and taught to hunt and kill creatures of the supernatural world. Lethal and efficient, protecting Sanem and the interests of The Eye are his top priority. Many chimeras lose control but his modifications keep his humanity in check and available at all times. Super Soldier: Outfitted with the latest technology available to The Eye's soldiers, his body modifications were built to benefit his Gorgon attribute. His suit is malleable nanotechnology that will reform as he shifts, allowing him added protection and versatility in who he chooses to come into contact with, and turn to stone. While his gorgon skin is already impenetrable, the suit will absorb any shock should something grab hold of him physically. An energized blade with augmentations that allow him to generate fields in combat pair with the suit's functional A.I.

Ammunition: Aware that Death has been fickle as of late, Dario and the rest of The Eye were outfitted with rounds meant to incapacitate rather than kill. Though should the latter become possible again they equipped to change between ammunition at any time.

Gorgon: Impenetrable scales with a hide as strong as stone, the claws that come out from his suit are razor sharp. Armoured, bat-like wings protrude from his back while a den of snakes rests beneath his helmet. Any that he comes into physical contact with, even through his suit, will be turned to stone.

[ariadnesenatus]

who: @senatusstarters where: Meryasek & Dareth's wedding notes: a lot is happening so im smushing everything together and making it kiss, its a Mawage! (if u didnt hear the priest of princess bride saying that ur wrong)

Ariadne always knew how cruel Fey would capable of being and so she learnt young and fast to never underestimate their capacities, it was on one of the snowiest peaks that she laid one of Asterion's toys in sacrifice to Auril and it burned in the hearth of the Winter Flame. It was meant to bring him peace when they escaped Crete together and he never had a chance to play in the light of day and so she laid it to rest in hopes that the frigid winter would allow mercy on the townsfolk down below.

Sounds of wedding echoed from underneath the peak and she began her trek to join in the festivities, feeling too raw and too far away all at the same time. She lets the happiness that the wedding couple have bask over her, the radiance of their joy warmed her to her core despite how she just stepped in from the cold. "What a beautiful wedding, what a beautiful wedding.."

[darioteixeira]

Well, the Overseer title had changed hands once again. Ariadne wasn't anything like his father and Dario meant that in the best way he possibly could. While the title had shifted from Overseer to Director, Dario felt that the dissolvement of the military arm of The Eye left Ariadne and the research teams that worked under her vulnerable. Things were changing, reforming, and expanding all at once- where that left the chimera raised in the depths of the labs, Dario couldn't say.

For now he was at the wedding because where the Director went the Gorgon was not far behind. "We can leave whenever you want." He wasn't subtle and after last year's debacle in the Otherworld he absolutely was not going to be eating or drinking anything her. Some people cried at weddings, Dario wasn't one of them, particularly something as gauche and over the top as this. The whole world needed to know that two immortal creatures were shacked up. Good for them.

[darioteixeira]

@corvinxs location: Bar starter for the boys notes: what happened during the apocalypse? Guess we'll never know

"Is this more recon?" Dario asked as he leaned in a bit, it wasn't a nice place, but seeing the dark elf anywhere outside of the Court or somewhere that wasn't lurking on the outskirts of some secure establishment was new. His memories of the days following the apocalypse were intact, he remembered Amadeus being taken, and remembered dying in the process. Not exactly pleasant. "Scoping out how mortal bars compare to the Court's?" Dario leaned back again, "What's the verdict? Do you even have bars?"

[sabinabrutus]

She had become unconsciousness for awhile and when she awoke to the voice calling for Sanem, she directed their attention to where they had become buried by the collapse but shielded by the disassembled androids. She felt them began to dug them out and once she had enough space to breath, she sat up and coughed up dust. Tried to not think of what the damage her brain might have sustained, it had proven strong and if she left with her life, she left lucky. She had a pounding headache and when she reached for her hairline, she drew back with blood on her fingers. Feeling disoriented, her brows knit. "She should be right beside me.." Looking to her left and seeing that she was alone. "..I don't know where anyone is." For once her mind was quiet and she had never hated it so. Getting unsteadily to her feet, she swayed in place for a moment as she tried to gain her bearings. She had to be tougher than this, she refused to be undone.

[darioteixeira]

"Can you reach them can you-?" No, no she couldn't not when she wasn't connected to that machine. "There's a safehouse on the outskirts of the city, I suggest you get to it. Quickly." Dario said as he started to write down the coordinates, "If anyone reaches you, destroy this." Giving her this much might not have been wise, but she'd already proven to be an invaluable asset to The Eye, keeping her alive was a priority, but it wasn't as important as tracking down Sanem. "I have to keep looking for the Overseer." She was their greatest hope at this point.

[arastirmacii]

Ephraim. The name repeated in her head, over and over again as she pushed through the rubble. Her hands hurt, lacerations that marred her palms from the sharp debris she had pushed and pulled. Her lungs ached with the dust that filled them, the smoke that lingered in the air around her. She knew that she needed to get out, to get to fresh air before irreversible damage was done. But she couldn't leave, not until she found the Overseer. Not until she had made sure that he was alright, that he wasn't gone. For the last thing that she had seen of him, he had fought to ensure her safety. And that of Sabina and Isla. So he couldn't be gone.

How she had gotten outside, Sanem wasn't certain. One minute she was scrambling through debris, the next she was standing just outside of what had once been the Pyramid. Voices all around her were shouting orders, were calling out names frantically, and she could only stand there. Ephraim was gone, the laboratory had been destroyed, and it felt like only a matter of minutes before the rest of it slipped through their fingers. Seven percent, that was what had been relayed, the last words from the Overseer.

Those were the new words that repeated within her thoughts, until her gaze landed upon another that was familiar. Dario. For a moment, she couldn't seem to move, as if she were frozen to her place within the debris. But she knew that she couldn't mourn Ephraim, couldn't stand and do nothing while others continued to fight for their survival. She had trained for this, had prepared for this. So she moved, slowly at first, before her footfalls became quicker. Perhaps she should have called out his name, for as she neared, he turned quickly, gun raised as he had always been trained to. "Dario," the name was out of her mouth quickly, as she came to a sudden halt. "It's me, it's just me. Are you alright, are you hurt?"

[darioteixeira]

In a moment the weapon dissipated as Dario surveyed the Overseer instead, his prime directive was to ensure that she was alive and well, that she was unharmed. The gorgon had suffered minor wounds, but nothing that would take precedence over the doctor, he needed to evacuate her to a safehouse where they could regroup. A battlefield was no place for the Future. "Unharmed, doctor." Dario stated simply before he looked towards Sanem's hands, fingers that looked like they'd been clawing through rubble and debris. "We need to get you out of here, there's an exterior facility beyond the city's limits I can take you to. You'll be safe there until we can regroup and figure out our next steps."

[thepraetor]

Her squad had been separated on the move to Rome, most of her animations spread throughout Rome seeking to aid those in dangers now that their main task had been clouded. She doesn't know where the Necronomicon is, doesn't know what she would do if she were to find it, and so she leaves that work for those who would. Rome is on fire around them, Nero's fatal concert barely comparing to the level of ruin that she is witnessing. And somewhere amidst the chaos, it's the family she has built for herself. Kay, Gabriel. Zagreus, and countless of others. Komos, Sabina, Micah. All the halfblooded and demigods that had followed her as she settled on her role as Senator.

She could not failed them. Not now.

The Sentinels that had traveled with her fan out around her as she seeks survivors. Battered and bruised, she still has enough magic to control them, to enforce her will upon them and send them to look for survivors. For there must be survivors, people are not dying and she refuses to believe that temporary stoppage is gone when they needed most.

It is half an hour through her search when she sees another soul. One of the Eye soldiers, the one that feels like a druid but she has difficulty seeing as one when there is a clear dislike between factions. In the end, it doesn't matter. Numbers are safety, and they need to focus in search and rescue before those trapped in the rubble succumb to an endless cycle of suffocation while undying. Or that is what she believes— She is not quite sure he does the same, what with the gun he has pointed on her direction. Raising her hands on the air, Cloe sends him a bemused look.

"Cloe Corvina, senator and member of Squad 3," she offers, trying to avoid a gun shot wound she will not die off. "I figured the search and rescue would go better together."

[darioteixeira]

"I know who you are, senator." Dario holstered the weapon as he looked past her to see if there was anyone coming up from the rear. Stragglers or enemies following the woman hoping she'd lead them to others in hiding. At a visual check she didn't appear possessed in any way, though after the destruction of the control room and the central lab, his interface with The Eye's systems had been interrupted. For the first time in years Dario was well and truly on his own out here; the men he worked beside were almost all gone, but until he saw Sanem's body with his own eyes he wouldn't believe that she was gone. "I'm looking for the Overseer, Sanem."

[sabinabrutus]

A ripple of raw magic echoed throughout Rome's landscape, waves of magic crippled their defenses and they were blown away as debris and rubble began to rain down from that which had been destroyed by the tidal wave from the Necromanteion. It swept through the foundations of the Pyramid and one final order went out from the control room, seven percent. She hadn't known what it meant, she only knew that she witnessed their ranks become brutalized.

She hadn't just witnessed the fighters fall from but she had watched as Rhia had become lost, connected to the Cerebro, she had a clear vision of the vampire she loved dying and yet she couldn't look away, she would honor her by seeing her death through and so she kept at her work even when the tears dripped sore and an anguished scream died in her throat.

The androids had dismantled and covered them as the magic ripped through the Pyramid, killing the connection that she had with the Senate allied army. She had been knocked out during the attack and had only come too when she heard digging through the rubble, someone was trying to find the three of them and so with a desperate cry, she calls from her place among the rubble. "We're over here! We're alive!"

[darioteixeira]

That voice, by now Dario recognized that voice anywhere. Immediately he holstered his weapon again, let it dematerialize as it flickered and faded back into the band on his wrist that hadn't been destroyed yet. Sabina had been close to Sanem at the time, in the control room, she had to know something, she had to of seen something. "Sabina!" Dario called back as he pulled at the rubble and tore through the ground with his bare hands. Ineffectual, the gorgon shifted as skin became the hardened and scaled hide of his chimeric origins, eyes yellow and bright. Snakes coiled down his shoulders and Dario commanded the element of his truest nature to lift and move. Carefully so as not to cause a cave in, he shifted them and reinforced the roof as he held the chamber open so that Sabina could climb out. "Where is she?" Dario asked, "Where's Sanem?" If Sabina had lived, then there had to be a chance that Sanem had made it out as well.

[destinedgray]

The good news was that the archdruid no longer felt burned out to the wick, the horrible news was just about everything else. After making sure Oztalun's tree remained unharmed there was no time to take stock of everything that they lost and everything that they had yet to lose, only act. With Evelina once more at his side, the desperate hopelessness that continued threatening to overtake him was gone. She'd only left to find anyone that she possibly excavate from the rubble and Aren was now doing the same.

But the sound of that familiar make of gun was enough to make the gust of wind that blew it out of Dario's hand a little harder than it should have been. The air around the archdruid siphoned away all the dust near as he approached and so he was finally able to make out the face. "You need to get out of here," Aren said as he approached, the relief on his expression fleeting. "I'd suggest now." He had little idea what had happened to the lycans, Evelina's capture had stalled him far too long. All he knew was that this explosion wasn't their doing and that they were incredibly near.

[darioteixeira]

The composite weapon was back in his hand in a moment, dispelled as the assimilation of energy that it was and reconstituted in his hand. He wouldn't fire on the archdruid, but disarming the gorgon in the middle of a war zone was indicative of the man's lankier inexperience. "Not until I find Sanem." The Overseer was his top priority, his only priority, "If you're not going to help me, then stay out of my way." Dario said as he walked past the other entirely. This was no longer a battle that could be one with brawn or magic spells, they needed a mind that thought a hundred steps ahead of everyone else, someone who considered nothing but the Future. Sanem, her team, and people like her: they were the only ones who'd have the capacity to help them now. These aspects were fond of throwing their weight around, the be all and end all, but people like them had caused all of this.

[darioteixeira]

@corvinxs location: Rome's Ruins notes: This cage probably got buried under a lot of rubble, you're welcome Deo.

"Beastmaster in a cage, ironic." Dario crouched next to it, woven magic and some sort of feymade material. Considerable and strong, but the crushing weight of the crumbling city, the fallen empire, and the broken tower had weakened it considerably. Death really must have been rejecting people, it was either that or the drow was even more tenacious than Dario had previously assumed. "I need help finding someone. A woman: Sanem Kartal, the Overseer for The Eye." The city was destroyed, everyone was scattered, Dario didn't care much for sides anymore. The drow either had a bloodhound or was part beast himself.

[darioteixeira]

@senatusstarters Location: Pyramid Ruins Notes: Open to all

Everything had... Everything was... The tower had fallen, hit the ground as the drow's flying fucking city crashed into Rome. Dario stood amidst the ruins of what might have once been the Pyramid, but everything about the landscape had changed. A spark jolted at the side of his face and Dario roared as he wrenched the helmet that had been fashioned for him off of his head. His gear broken and ruined, a bit of reinforced metal gouged into the gorgon's shoulder before Dario reached and wrenched it free, tearing the armor that was fried from his body as he did. The metallic sleeve hit the ground as he winced and tried to take in his surroundings.

The Eye was- everything was- it was gone. It was all gone. Protecting Sanem had been his soul focus, he'd charged into battle with the notion that she was safe at the headquarters but that was a foolish nothing. Ash so thick that it choked his lungs, the sky itself might as well have been burning, that eerie glow of the black sun made monsters out of nothing. Whatever sky existed beyond was blanketed in the smoke that rose from Rome, the city that raised him, and the city he'd been sworn to from his childhood's hour.

Enhanced strength pushed over one of the rocks as he dug through the rubble and the wreckage, seven percent, that's what the Overseer had said. Seven percent. The Asphodel needed to be stopped still - maybe? It was difficult to tell, had the book been destroyed? Had they succeeded? Search and rescue. That's what he'd prioritise, Dario was a soldier first he needed someone to tell him what to do, he needed to find Sanem. Dario heard the telltale sound of footfalls behind him and the gun that he'd kept holstered was in his hand in a moment, drawn and ready to fire as whomever approached.

[hemsworthsupremacy-deactivated2]

Smash or pass? 🍑

(Eu macetava esse rabão com gosto! Sou tarado nesse homem de todas as formas!)

[destinedgray]

"I don't believe that you wouldn't have seen her," Aren pushed, eyes narrowing. "A very long time ago, the two of you were Blessed at the same time. Since then, I've known you always reincarnated together." He absently took a step closer. "She had eyes like yours, clear blue... they always got so small when she smiled. But her hair was lighter blonde and there was a birthmark behind her neck." His expression softened slightly at the memories. "She was always more agile and quick to learn but also more hard-headed and proud." Aren could only pray she had been spared her brother's fate, been the lucky one to be seperated young and raised far away from The Eye. But if she was out there then the archdruids would find her. They needed all the druids they could get. And she was a friend to him, a friend who was the one most likely to get her brother out of this situation. "You must remember something."

[darioteixeira]

"You were gone a long time, a lot can happen." Dario didn't know this Freydis person or the woman that Aren described, the description was vaguely familiar perhaps but it that didn't mean anything to him. Maybe she'd died in another life, maybe she'd appeared elsewhere, perhaps she was three-centuries old living across the world and the siblings were destined to be reunited another-blah blah blah. There was something, wood grain across his palms, the smell of salt in the air, laughter. Then nothing. "I don't, but as I understand it if a druid doesn't remember something it's because they're not meant to, or is this a situation where the order cherry picks their beliefs?"

[destinedgray]

There used to be more of us here, as you can see, that is no longer the case. Aren's blood ran cold at the thought of what that must have meant. Chimera. What had this place done to him? And as surely as the frigid dread came, the heat of anger followed. "I gave you the blessing with the belief that you would do well by it." Then he shook his head and held his tongue, past and more diplomatic lives in his head reminding him of where he was and why. A muscle ticked in his jaw before Aren took a breath and scoured once more around the area. "I always make it a point to know what happens to those acolytes that I knew best... and you shouldn't be alone, Dario. You were never alone." His voice was calm now, but there was something no longer anything casual about Aren. "Your name was Lief and you had a sister... Freydis. Where is she?"

[darioteixeira]

"I have." Hunter and teacher, he'd argue that with The Eye he'd done more to protect humanity than the majority of the druids in this city had done in this lifetime. Lief and Freydis fell on deaf ears, a pair of names that sounded far too archaic to be relevant. That was the case with all of these druids though, no two were any different from any other. "Neither of those names mean anything to me." Dario had never had a sister, just a father, a man that meant the world to him.

[bemybaebaebae]

Chris Hemsworth

[destinedgray]

The smile was familiar, warmer than what Aren saw as they looked at one another - such lack of recognition on Dario's end. Leif had always been good with young people and even better with his sister. The archdruid looked around now, trying to scout out the sight of a flash of golden, braided hair and fierce eyes that he'd known from Freydis. The bonds of love and family were strong, especially among druids, one need only look to the many siblings that had continuously found each other in other lifetimes to see and to suspect that it would happened again.

"I didn't tell you before, Dario, but I know you." Aren looked back at the chimera once he couldn't find his sister. He hoped she was just elsewhere for the time being. And he desperately hoped that she had escaped The Eye completely. "Has anyone ever taught you druid customs or druid history in this lifetime? Has The Eye ever given you the opportunity to care about where you've come from? I don't see many druids here." At least apart from the Pyramid's.

[darioteixeira]

The past was a burden, and memories had teeth. Time spent reminiscing over hurt was time wasted, particularly when there was so much ahead of them still. The now was what mattered, and the generations that would follow. Rome was to become a battleground and in the coming weeks they would need to both train and to evacuate. The Eye to invent a convincing story, a gas leak or an explosion, the witches to perpetuate it into the minds of the vulnerable so that they would get to safety. Because nobody else did, Dario's organization always prioritised the lives of humans. The senate said that any supernatural death was a waste and a crime, but they said nothing for the true people of Rome.

"Customs." Dario laughed at this, he'd studied enough to understand his enemy's practices, to know their offensive and archaic traditions long enough to learn their schedules of observation. "Dancing in the dirt and emulating a false God, please. I know who you are, archdruid." A blessing that had come from somewhere, roots in history that were so long ago that it hardly mattered anymore. There was a connection between them that was absent in the presence of the other archdruids, Dario wasn't a fool, he understood what that meant. "I had nightmares of them when I was a child, those and so much more." Endless violence and death, in time they stopped completely. What a benevolent deity Oztalun must have been to have his followers curse the lives of mortals foolish enough to hope for a blessing. Minds that would break so readily that it was a gift for them to be born without any memories of the past at all. "There used to be more of us here, as you can see, that is no longer the case."

[corvinxs]

"He saves those for creatures easily replaced, or those truly special." Of which, the rodent had been the former and all those that would contend in becoming the latter would do so with their lives. Perhaps the creature before him would become one among them; forced to heed his own command and all that came with it. A toothy grin began to form, the nonchalance at which the stranger prodded could be commended, but with time, it would rain hell on him, tenfold. "At least, those lucky enough to be of any use. Which, I suppose you're already quite accustomed to, no?"

As far as parents went, those of his life as a drow were utterly disappointing. A failure upon the very being of their species. The horrific execution of his former house a point of conjecture, as he was absorbed into the royal family and all he'd done since proved that he was not built of the same foolish mistakes his family had once been. "Undoubtedly so. Although, I suppose handlers is more appropriate for you." He spoke, careless of how the answer might fall. As it stood, he'd noted that the other didn't attempt to refute his own assumptions and as he moved closer, so too did the tendrils of his magic flare in the shadowed mist that now sought to lash itself around Dario's ankles. "Will they call you back with a phone call or a whistle?"

Each wisp sought the unknown, anything at all that might give Amadeus further insight to what the creature before him was. The curiosity within him a flickering of a previous life that didn't leave him in the underdark, the desire to know all - to understand all. Mere feet separated them now, the consensus of personal space not something that Deo had or would consider as the same tendrils worked their way across the stranger's throat, up over his jawline. "You'd look wonderful in the tombs, locked away behind bars." He murmured, as if he were looking upon one of his own creatures. The jagged edge of his most devious smile pulling at the corner of his mouth, "--- Flayed alive."

[darioteixeira]

"And which of yours do you consider truly special?" Mindless beasts that came to the Beastmaster's beck and call, a whistle or a shout it didn't matter. Dario's loyalty hadn't been inspired by anything so simple, at least that's what he believed, practically raised in a kennel and conditioned from birth, the gorgon had never had much of a choice in the matter. This Beastmaster's blatant disrespect washed over him with little effect, he didn't expect or care for the other's respect because its lack flowed mutually between them. Discontent prevalent at every turn.

The Eye had become something different from what it had been when he was born within. They deviated now from the pursuit of supernatural creatures and no fought next to them, truthfully, Dario resented it. When this war was over he would look forward to putting them down, with more prejudice than he ever had before. It was not because he was cruel by nature but that his nurture precipitated this need, the need to kill the very thing that he'd been born. Druids and all supernaturals alike.

Serpents hissed from places unseen, "Is that right?" Words that glinted with an edge, it would have been an easy task at this distance, to pull a knife or to pull a gun but Dario let his tongue carry the weight of this burden. Blue eyes blinked serpentine and yellow, an impenetrable scaled hide slipped over the skin where Amadeus' shadows grazed - subconsciously responsive to the touch of the drow's magic. An arm that had torn through more druids than Dario cared to remember lifted towards the other, a claw sharpened to a razor's threat tilted the other's chin. Many traits combined into one, but the appetite of the snake lingered most of all, broiling beneath the surface as he considered the other to be akin to something of a meal long before a master. "Your bars couldn't hold me, and you couldn't break me."

[corvinxs]

"I'm nothing if not supportive of my friends and their endeavors." Hand to heart, Deo mused as the wry smirk upon his lips grew. Supportive, In the way that he could never turn a blind eye to one of his own seeking knowledge that might otherwise carve destruction within its wake. The premise of ash and blood is enough to make the beastmaster salivate. Undoubtedly, he wasn't wrong. So much of what Deo was came from the goddess of spiders - no species existed without the gift of power and life from above, the swift murder of Oztalun wrought havoc among the druids, had this one felt it too?

"What happened to you? That you should suffer with such a closed mind?" He could feel the darkness ripple from the other, unable to determine where exactly he came from offered Amadeus a challenge that his mind could not simply overlook. "Clearly, what you were given was not enough," obsidian hues flicker over the other and he knows that whatever it is that the other has sought to mold himself into, is not within the laws of magic. All of which he has spent millennia studying - for Amadeus would never give all he had over to Lloth's power; his weaponry would always lie within his mind, with the creatures that would heed his call. "You took it, didn't you?" It doesn't surprise him - there are not many that would choose to stand before a drow with such little regard for one's own self-preservation. "Mommy and daddy didn't love you enough?"

"No," he admitted, despite feeling the thick onset of his pride rise to his throat, leaving only enough room for his depth of curiosity. "With everything happening," and clearly, something was happening. The influx of creatures into the city wasn't something easily missed, "you're on ... security duty? perhaps your handler is just as in the dark as I am when it comes to your capabilities." though, perhaps the fact that the other had yet to strike, meant that he wasn't at all in the dark about what a drow could do.

[darioteixeira]

"Close-minded?" That was funny, particularly coming from a drow: a zealot with a fixation on piety and a pecking order that this man hardly fit into. "Maybe it's the worms in the brain," Dario pointed out, "sure that's a good place to start: nasty, creepy crawly things. Takes the fun out of it, do you all get one or does this friend of yours reserve it for his," he gestured vaguely towards where the rat had been previously. "other friends." More derogatory than he'd initially intended it landed with the typical pithy candor that befitted the gorgon.

While Dario had been sizing up the drow, it seemed the other had been doing the same for him. An accurate assessment, the chimera was what he was not by choice but because he'd been bred for it. Trained for it. The praise of his would-be father was all that had mattered to him, that and alongside the creatures like this one that were a threat came as a near-solitary endeavour. It was true, Dario was not like the hunters within, and his power was greater than the druids that called Rome home. A monster through and through, he could accept being demonized if it meant he got to hunt demons like this drow that stood on Eye property.

"A dog walker and a security guard then, we must both be making our parents proud." Derisive despite the lightness to his tone, the downplay of their roles blatant and clear: Amadeus sparked some truth though, while Dario's loyalty remained with The Eye the man that had successfully leashed him was long gone. He'd killed those that he had grown up with, devoured their souls and drank their power: gladly and willingly. Working alongside the senate though and the druids he'd been programmed to hate was difficult for the gorgon to abide.