check. your turn

[Ukko]

Tension rose as the two remaining warriors were pit out against each other. It would be a re run of the last encounter; they would circle strafe the other, waiting for the opponent to slip up and make a mistake. But that event would never occur. The battle would never commence. They could spend days circling the same area and nothing would happen. The same outcome had been happening for thousands of years, so much so that the enjoyment was drained out of it, bit by bit, and the image of victory was wiped from the slate. It wasn't even considered a possibility anymore.

With a yawn, the god eyed the arena once more. Always the same equilibrium of black and white, each in their own little field on the ground, forming paths for the competitors to lash out against the opposing side. Perhaps revisiting the spectrum of the ranbow would be in order. Something more elegant, like blue and gold; or maybe wine and cream. Even pink seemed more appealing to the eye than this. For two million years, black and white invaded his vision, and if he had to look at it for another two million than a change of colour was going to be a nessicity.

Ukko, pickied up his king and pushed him in the adjacent square. And once again, the game had to end with a draw. Ukko had lost count how amny games they'd played. He guessed about six million or so, and so for the six million and first time, the battle ended with a stalemate. Ukko seemed glad that it was over. At least he could now do something different. Something hopefully not equally as boring as a draw.

[Avatea]

Avatea's brow knitted with focus as she watched her brother's hand slowly draw forward and nudge his king into the next square. Then the tension seemed to blow out of both of them and an uncomfortable pause seized the table. There had to be another move, another strategy to break. But no. Nothing. She exhaled an audible groan and leaned back in her straight-back seat, throwing her arms up and lacing long, slender fingers behind her neck. Another stalemate, as usual. Draw, tie, match -- that's all Ukko and Avatea ever ended in. After countless years of playing and replaying, hashing and rehashing, strategizing and forsaking strategy because maybe if things were unplanned, the tide would turn. Nothing ever broke the stalemate.

"We really must do something about these drab colors," she remarked with evident fatigue. She flicked a black pawn and it fell to its side, shifting to a shade of navy blue as it fell. A wash of color seemed to spill from its wake and dyed the rest of her pieces the same hue. "This whole palace is black and white, black and white. We may not be the most interesting of gods, but this monotony gives us an ill appearance." Avatea arched a perfect eyebrow and smirked. "Plus, it washes out your face." She leaned forward then and rest her elbows on bare knees, the fabric of her dress riding up with her movement. "How exhausting," she muttered.

Standing abruptly, Avatea braced her palms against the chess table to support her aching knees from hours of sitting, and at her touch, each of the pieces jumped back to their original positions. More than likely, they'd be back at the game by morning. "Nice try, brother," she offered dryly, and there was no heart in her sportsmanship by this point. After thousands of years, even this, their obsession grew too familiar, and it already claimed all of her soul. She didn't have any more energy left to put in it.

[Ukko]

Ukko didn't reply at first. His hands were intwined, froming a horizontal line ontop of his mouth. The endless years of stalement began forming questions. Questions that he spent years considering, but never managed to form a sensible answer from the mess. "You know..." he muttered, seperating his hands and spreading them to the side. "Assuming that this happens..." He tapped the chess board with his hand and all the pieces spread out to allow the two kings room to engage in the combat. They both crawled forward, meating at the centre of the arena as always. This time, however, one of the pieced had the upper hand and managed to strike the other, and for once gaining victory. "What's stopping this from happening?" With another tap, the other piece arose from it's bleak grave and managed to obtain revenge on it's sworn enemy. The two pieced then proceeded to topple each other which was technically a stalemate in itself.

"I just don't get it." he muttered, pushing his chair backwards as he arose, grasping both ends of the table and leaning towards the board. "If one wins, the other loses, yes. But the loser can still win, right? Won't that just add yet another complication? There's no victory. None. This is all pointless. Pointless... Pointless!" With one hand he hurled the board off the table, which slammed into the wall and crumbled to pieces. Pawns, knights and all cluttered the floor, black mixing with white and vice versa.

"I should be able to grab this planet between two of my fingers and crush it! I should be up there! We should be up there! But no, we were too naughty for those imbesciles, weren't we? Forgot Andraste, Ares and her sister Eros. Forget Perun. Forget all the trouble Thor caused. It's Ukko and Avatea that have to be chained to this scrap of dust for eternity!" With a mightly slam, the table snapped in half, and a bolt of lightning accompanied the act as Ukko's anger began brewing a deadly storm.

[Avatea]

Avatea was more than capable of reading her brother. After millions of years together, the wins were entangled together like Ouroborus eating his own tail. Thus, she dropped her cheerful, smirking facade at Ukko's first movement. The kings crept to the center of the board, dueling and pushing against one another into the white toppled. It rose again, of course, as phoenixes do, and exacted its retaliation against the black. Avatea sensed that she could make a deeply metaphorical and philosophical statement about this awful stalemate, but frankly, she was almost past caring. She wanted to win, she wanted to return to the Holy Sphere and leave her exile behind -- that was all that mattered to her. Her energy was ebbing.

She winced as Ukko seized the chess board and smashed it against the wall. Black and white shards clattered to the similarly tiled floor and though it would be a cinch to clean up the mess, that was not the point. Avatea laced her fingers together and pressed her thumbs against the edge of the table and slid them across the smooth finish. "I know, brother," she murmured tiredly but didn't jump in to stop his rant. It had been too many years, and though neither of them were renowned for their tempers, too much time spent locked in a pointless stalemate could falter even the most composed countenances. Ukko had to get it out, his anger, or it would continue to brew.

"Shh, Ukko," Avatea soothed him, and she stepped towards her twin with a surprisingly soft look. It seemed even the harsh, elegant goddess had her moments of compassion. "One day soon, this shall all be over, and we will show them. We will storm the entire Holy Sphere and reclaim our rightful places among them, and we will rightly punish them. Patience, o god of wisdom. Soon, the stalemate must break." A shiver chuckled down her spine and she glanced at the ceiling, to the thick, angry clouds that had gathered, rippling with static.

[Ukko]

"Yes..." he whispered, scowl turning to smirk, anger turning to homocidal thoughts. "We'll show them. We'll show them all. It was a mistake, sending us to this flake of dust. I'll make sure every single one of those beings shall be tortured for eternity. I'll make their spirits shatters, their bones break, their skin burn in the pits of Hades for as long as I will it so."

Heavy rain poured down on the town of Stratwater that night, and thunder cracked 'till dawn did. Powerful winds tore down a few signs and made a small little mess. After all, anger conjured a storm, but no need to waste such an ample opportunity. Make the lives of the citizens a tad bit more interesting. They had no reason to complain, after all. They did build a city in the middle of a playground. If a few properties ended up damaged, it was their fault.

"Enough about those heretics in the heavens, dear sister. It is time to meddle in human affairs. And, I believe, one human in particular." Ukko performed a circular movement with his hand, causing the table to pop up and nestle back in its original place. A holographic figure rose from the old oak, one of a young female, with an estimated age of twenty. Silky strands of gold trailed down her back, soft and tender face showing the troubles she carried on her back.

"She goes by the name of Samantha Lilith Monroe. I have foolishly ignored her as my mind has been occupied by plans and plots. Quite an interesting figure, I must admit. She hunts down and slays our toys, dear sister. All out of hatred and vengance. But the poor girl hides many a secret, all locked up in the Inn. How I love that little resort. It's like a playground in my playground. What do you propose we do with her? I'm sure you can conjure up something."

[Avatea]

Avatea found her calm countenance mimicking her brother's, smirk for smirk, though for thought. Yes. One day, she and Ukko would return to the Holy Sphere, and with them, they would bring a storm -- a vendetta. They would all suffer for their foolishness, and if she had her way, they would all bow before her and Ukko. The twins would reign supreme -- over "the Lord", over Zeus, over Brahmin, over every deity that inhabited the empyrean realm. It wouldn't be long. Maybe a few more decades, a century at most, until they were at full power and even had this forsaken planet to help them wage war. Their Monsters would serve as their army, Ukko and Avatea the generals, and then there would be nothing left of those egotistic deities but their cries for help.

Her gaze, dark as the midnight sky outside, was drawn to the wide window that offered a stormy vista. Ukko's tempest ravaged Stratwater, she could feel, and every few moments, a sick bolt of electricity stabbed the earth and illuminated their little playground. It was terribly beautiful and awe-inspiring, and Avatea was filled with the urge to grab the same lightning strikes and bend them into cities. Maybe tomorrow, if Ukko's storm still raged, she would meddle with the electricity and form some deviant creature.

Ukko re-initiated conversation after a few moments of cool silence. Their tension ebbed into the storm outside. "Huh," Avatea murmured her interest, and she crossed back to the table, leaning against it. Thick waves of hair fell into her face as she peered closely at the ghostly figure animated on the board. "Cute," she remarked with a toothy grin, and pointed canines glinted in the light of the thunder. Though humans were very far beneath her and she had no true feelings for them, it had been a long time since she joined her brother in love games. She straightened her spine once more and laughed like clinking glass. "This female should know better than to mess with us. Killing her would be too quick. We could make her into a Monster, brother, or... show her around the palace." One midnight eye closed in an amused wink. "We cannot let her go unpunished."

[Ukko]

"I have a proposal that I imagine you'll enjoy." The image of Samantha disappeared, and the table occupied the blueprint of a city, a bit far from Startwater but close enough for their powers to reach. "This Samantha had her entire family slaughtered before her eyes. As you can image she has problems socializing with her kind. So the only thing that could emotionally hurt her is a relation with another being. Now, she already houses an abandoned pyrotechnik, surprisingly, but that would be far too easy."

He closed in on this city, zooming in on a small hospital. Microscofic manifestations of humans ran around busily, tending to their sick and wounded with care. "It is here that a monster will born. Not now, mind you. I want you to conjure up a monster in the past. Given our current state of power, I estimate that the fabric of time will be stretchable by a maximum of seventeen years. That is enough for our needs. Now, I want you to make it so that this monster will be a perfect physical and emotional match for Samantha. She's bisexual, so go crazy. In this point in time, the two shall meet and after the inital incounter Samantha will invite this monster overnight for protection - I mixed up a little something special for this particular moment - and the creature will end up moving in. When the time is right we'll have an upper hand."

[Avatea]

There was nothing Avatea loved more than strategizing -- well, there was winning, too, but that was a whole different story. A certain hunger jumped into her eyes and hardened the contours of her face, abysmal stories writing underneath the surface of her skin. Her brow creased as she concentrated on the flickering blueprint, tracing the paths of humans with her eyes and resisting the urge to reach forward and flick down their pathetic buildings with a touch of her nail. They were silly creatures, those humans, but their knack for adapting and surviving awfully intrigued her. Perhaps one day she would be in a position to study these animals hands-on. "You know, what we really need are some servants," she muttered to herself, only half-listening to Ukko. How she loved to meddle with their lives.

"That's nothing," Avatea crooned. "Seventeen years? I can go farther back than that, but..." She shrugged her slim shoulders and smirked widely with her teeth. Ukko and here were masters of creation, artists of monsters, sculptors of whole other worlds and dimensions, and fabricators of time. It didn't even take a blink of her starry eyes to set the whole plan in motion: she pushed phantom phalanges into the rips of time and tugged them apart, working quickly, minutely, as she shaped another innocent life into the monsters that prowled Stratwater's roads.

Avatea was fond of shapeshifters, perhaps due to her own affinity for changing form, and she imbued her new creation with this ability. A female, her heritage spanning centuries back to the goddess's little pet project that she dropped in the middle of some abominable tundra village. This would be perfect. She opened her eyes, which had closed for a pair of rapid heartbeats, and pursed her lips. "All done, my brother," she chuckled. This was exciting. The celestial markings that spilled down her spine and legs shimmered for a moment, and the cold glow that she emanated brightened with the sudden output of raw power.

[Ukko]

The idea of having a little minion always seemed to be scrawled somewhere in Ukko's To-Do-List, but prioritizing led it down to one of the lowest spots on said list. However servants meant more people doing things for you and less things for one to do, hence boredom is sure to sprout like an ancient oak. Then again, it was a fun little possibility. Servants didn't necessarily mean small pathetic monkeys wearing sacks and bow ties. Minions could be powerful warriors. Or better yet, masquerading their facades so humans interpreted them as their own. Spies.

But as stated before, that was for another time. This Samantha person, she was breaking all his toys. And much like an infant, he disliked having his playthings taken away from him. But instead of throwing a tantrum as he had done previously, he would away all that she cherished as an act of revenge. Well, not revenge per se. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth no? Of course, a few teeth for a tooth sounded much more pleasant to the ear. After all, she had been breaking his toys for the past few years. Why not take away everything she had been creating for a period of time?

"Dear sister, I have a feeling that this young woman is going to wet our appetite for a few months now. The recollections I draw from her memories and... Mouth watering...."