One…

Two…

Iron on the tongue.

One…

Two…

What comes after two?

Five?...

Six?...

Solids in the mouth – it’s called teeth.

NO!

One…

Two…

Bits of clarity – he knew he existed somewhere.

One…

Two…

THREE!

Xavier felt the passing of time more clearly – as an Eternal, he could always feel time passing…

Decades…

Seconds…

Centuries…

Minutes…

The Eternal could feel it all but whether or not it left an impression was tied to the moments that made up the time.

And the seconds… the three seconds that likely took longer than three seconds to count were leaving an undeniable impression on Xavier.

The Eternal’s mind jumped from one count to another, one incoherent mumble to another nonsensical word.

It wasn’t until the twelfth, countable, second that Xavier managed to feel and twitch his eyelids – not long after, two golden eyes opened to the world once more.

Still, The Eternal was still blind to everything.

He could see but he was still blind to everything… it was blindness born out of disbelief and inability to reconcile reality with expectations.

Golden blood flooded down the side of Xavier’s face.

It confused him – there was no way for his golden blood to taste of iron.

It was scientifically impossible and that meant, the blood leaking from The Eternal’s lips wasn’t his own.

Surprising? Nothing could be surprising to someone still caught in the midst of the first surprise.

More blood flowed…

It was as if a tap had been turned and the knob broke away in the same instant, leaving only a mess of flowing water that could not be stopped.

Still, despite bleeding enough blood to fill small bottles every second, taking harsh breaths that seemed to deliver only empty promises to his lungs, and possessing a mind that was still counting from one to twelve, Xavier was focused on everything else besides himself.

Destruction…

A landscape seemingly kissed by a meteor…

Crying…

Tears falling onto rubble beneath which buried civilians…

Pain…

Arm and legs crushed, yet people still crawled to get away…

Desolation and sadness…

In the distance, Xavier could see two towers leaning dangerously against each other – even buildings could support each other, yet there was no one to support those in despair before The Eternal.

Something in the back of The Eternal’s mind told him that the smoking, crumbling wasteland was the bustling city of Los Angelis prior.

Or at least, a part of it.

‘But before what?’ Xavier warred with his mind for answers.

Golden blood dripped down The Eternal’s chin – it finally brought his attention to the wound on his head.

Xavier raised his hand to feel for the wound, expecting to touch the side of his head but even after bringing his hand a couple of inches forward, all he found was emptiness.

His breathing hitched - blood spurted into his palm.

Xavier felt the world spin more than his mind was already spinning and it took a couple of seconds for The Eternal to realize that he was literally rousing the gravitons to spin him in the air.

It was instinctual… and made him lose more blood.

He collapsed to the ground with a thud that inflicted no pain.

There was knowing you were wounded and then there was trying to feel for a section of your head, only to find out that it wasn’t there.

Xavier panicked, his breathing growing rougher than it already was - the gravitons around The Eternal would pulse steadily as if a heartbeat.

He touched his head once…

He touched his head twice…

And it wasn’t until the third touch that Xavier could ascertain the size of the wound.

The wound was sizable but shallow.

“Wha—”

“What?”

Xavier slurred his words and though he knew exactly what he wanted to say, he was uncertain… maybe even unsure of how to say it.

‘This is beyond a concussion…’ His mind reasoned.

It was his first coherent thought since awakening… the wound was no doubt healing.

Xavier tried to focus – he knew that panicking would solve nothing and it was only his luck that he was too disoriented to give true thought to anything in particular.

“What happened?” The Eternal slurred – this time, he found the words more readily available.

Mind cleared…

Bleeding lessened…

The physique of an Eternal was mending itself.

Still, there was a question lingering – a question that Xavier could consider even with damage to his skull and brain.

‘What could have caused such damage to an Eternal?’

The Reincarnator was not arrogant but nothing short of a thermonuclear bombardment should have been able to injure an Eternal so lethally.

THUD

THUD

The rubble floating in Xavier’s vicinity fell to the ground as his chaotic heart calmed – even if he was currently injured beyond comprehension, he was seconds away from healing.

Knowing that he would survive, knowing the matters at hand were urgent, and most of all, knowing there was hope was enough to calm The Eternal down.

With the internal situation settled for the moment, Xavier's mind started to focus outside of himself, inspecting every inch of the environment.

His senses were bombarded with phantom information, current information, and plenty of Cosmic Energy feedback.

The smell of burnt pig’s flesh - automatically, his mind knew it was the smell of roasted human remains.

He had smelled it before… both Ikaris and Xavier.

There were sparse cries and yelling – a natural disaster had occurred but judging from the wound on his head, Xavier guessed there was nothing natural about the disaster.

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His mind became a puzzle trying to fit the pieces of information together.

Pieces were discarded, other deductions were joined together and a rapid, unpleasant picture was taking shape.

On a good day, Xavier’s mind was jumbled and wrecked with headaches, and on a bad day – as today – he found it hard to organize anything Ikaris-related.

There were questions to be answered.

Why was he here?

What had harmed him?

Was he alone?

As the questions swarmed his mind, bits and pieces of the truth started to swirl in Xavier’s head…

“Sam… Sam came with me, and –” He hesitated, thinking some more as more answers came. “There was Andy, Kaulder, and Mother Superion…”

The pieces fell into place.

The clearer the image became, the more the Eternal realized the severity of the situation.

“What the heck happened?”

Xavier stumbled to his feet, wiped the blood from his face, and channeled cosmic energy into his optical nerves so he could see further and with much more clarity.

Immediately, he wished he hadn’t done that.

Destruction, gore, and a blur of fighting that, though he couldn’t see it, Xavier knew the battle was awfully one-sided.

A monstrosity against familiar figures.

As if sensing his vision, the monstrosity paused and Xavier was immediately overwhelmed with the urge to run for his life, but such was the fear that even Ikaris’s instincts were unable to overcome it.

Frozen in place, Xavier now saw everything.

The monstrosity was an inhuman old man with eyes as dark as the abyss.

Andy’s head was in one of The Monstrosity’s hands while the other held Kaulder’s head.

There was a dark-skinned man held by fleshy, red tentacles floating in front of The Monstrosity – they were clashing but it was obvious who was winning.

Time slowed in Xavier’s perception but even then, it seemed as if the world had caught up with him… or at the very least, the monstrosity had.

BUDUP

BUDUP

Xavier felt his heartbeat accelerate.

But it was not being caused by him, it was being caused by the Monstrosity – using the guise of an Old Man – nearly a thousand meters away.

The Eternal locked eyes with The Monstrosity.

It was only then that Xavier realized the reason he felt so weak, the reason he was bleeding so badly – his blood had been flowing down his chin and across the destroyed land to The Monstrosity.

The creature was summoning his blood… and his blood was responding.

Xavier’s mind screamed danger – it was a dying scream.

And The Eternal quickly realized it was more than just his blood.

It was thick streams of blood stretching for miles, flying out of the body of anyone who bled… even a little nick would kill someone given enough time.

And where would blood not be on the battlefield of a devasted city?

‘RUN!’ The Eternal’s mind rang.

BOOOOOOOM

It was as if a new level had been unlocked, Cosmic Energy pulsed around Xavier’s body, shattering the ground beneath his feet.

The gravitons surged, pushing him up and away from the earth in a blur.

It all happened in an instant.

Xavier blurred and disappeared entirely…

At least, that was the plan.

A mere twenty feet from the ground, Xavier felt a hand wrapped around his throat and the world went still once more.

BOOOOOOOM

BUDUM

BOOOOOOOM

The loud booming of the constantly shattering sound barrier echoed around The Eternal and his captor, but The Monstrosity didn’t even flinch as the destructive forces slammed into his seemingly frail physique.

Gravitons were pushing with enough force to flatten a truck of steel but The Monstrosity seemed unbothered.

Xavier met eyes with The Old Man and there was some recognition in his eyes.

The red pupils reminded him of someone but his mind was still too muddled to recall who it was.

The gravitons pulsed, another boom but The Eternal was still unable to extricate himself from the situation.

Besides, something told Xavier that he would not be able to outrun this foe.

BOOOM

He abandoned all thoughts of running as his fist blurred toward the face of The Old Man – Xavier was determined to fight for his life.

As the atmosphere heated from the unstable gravitons, blurring punches, and cosmic energy mix, the final pieces of the puzzle joined in Xavier’s mind.

And he remembered everything.

The Battle of Supernatural Creatures…

The shift to targeting the most dangerous enemy…

The explosion of a red beam into the skies…

The battle against the vessel of a God…

The consuming and blood rain of the descended God…

The betrayal of temporary allies…

The beam of destruction…

And now here they were…

۞۞۞

After leaving the pub, the group of five simply walked at their own leisure.

The tension was built with each step but the closer danger came, the calmer they became.

Xavier had the impression that Andy was the true calming factor in the group – her level of tiredness and tediousness could not be matched.

It brought everyone else a strange sort of comfort.

There was something approaching just beyond the periphery and they could all feel it – Sam felt it better than most given his ever-increasing sensitivity.

Swords slid from scabbards…

Labrys was unwrapped from cloth…

Mystical objects hummed with building energy…

Cosmic Energy circulated throughout The Eternal physique…

Fur sprouted from all over as Sam’s body started to grow…

Xavier felt the ground trembling with each step – it was almost as if something was shifting under his feet.

It took a couple of seconds for him to realize that he was unconsciously rousing the gravitons in his vicinity.

Even Andy and Kaulder with their hundreds of years of experience could feel the battle they were about to walk into was different from all the battles that came before it.

As the last building gave way to a clearing that spanned acres, everyone could detect something amiss – though it was the outskirts of a city, there shouldn’t be such a large plot of land undeveloped.

Kaulder led the group ahead regardless.

The group was expecting to walk into a strange area so this was merely confirmation that they were heading in the right direction.

Andy was the first to stop…

Everyone else noticed a couple of steps later.

“Noticed something?” Xavier questioned, tense as could be.

“The noise is strange,” Andy listened for a couple of seconds and confirmed. “Hear that cricket chirping?” She questioned.

Kaulder, Mother Superion, Xavier, and Sam nodded.

“We have passed it three times now,” Andy revealed. “Same pitch and same frequency…”

“Then we are moving in circles?” Xavier questioned, prepared to test the theory.

If they had been moving in circles, all he had to do was fly around for a bit to check if his senses picked something up.

When it came to flying, he possessed a natural instinct that couldn’t be fooled by anything, even magical mazes.

“We might be,” Kaulder confirmed the noise and voiced. “Is there a solution?”

“This is where I come in,” Mother Superion stepped ahead of the group.

The Warrior Nun breathed in and out a couple of times before a pulse of halo energy expanded from her body, and a shockwave traveled through the immediate area.

Instantly, it was as if something shattered.

A renewed sense of relief washed over everyone, and Xavier couldn’t help but raise a brow at the illusion that had captured him without notice.

If it was not for Andy, they would have been going for a while more before even possessing an inkling of anything being wrong.

The illusion faded and…

“Don’t move…” Kaulder ordered.

His command was for more than just his group.

As if the renewed relief was nothing but a lie, several things came into perspective all at once.

Now, Xavier could see more…

Everyone could see more…

Seeing more of the expansive land became a problem because The Eternal, The Witch Hunter, The Immortal, and the others quickly realized that they were not alone.

There were others…

Others were now free from the snares of the illusion – Mother Superion had done too good of a job.

Luckily, the target of the mission also lost the cloak of illusions shielding it from the outside world - an enormous Greek-styled temple unveiled itself in front of everyone’s eyes.

It was radiating a vibration that may as well have said Come here to die!

Xavier sighed – five warriors had become ten and that meant whatever was in the temple was scary enough to attract ten, powerful supernatural beings.

There were five new faces and to The Eternal’s surprise, he could recognize most of them.

“This has just become very troublesome,” A woman spoke.

Xavier instantly recognized the person in question as Lady Amelia from the Underworld Franchise.

She was younger than the movies, frozen at the prime of her life… her appearance reminded The Eternal of a younger Natalie Portman.

But that was not his major concern.

The Eternal had long since held suspicions about the world being an accumulation of most vampire movies, and now he had a vague confirmation.

Next to Lady Amelia was a black man…

Xavier had to brush through chaotic memories to recognize the dark-skinned, fine-jawed man... and when he did remember, The Eternal was instantly concerned.

Marcus Edge… a man with abilities gained from consuming the heart of supernatural creatures, and belonged to one of the newer series on Netflix at the time of Xavier’s death – The Bastard Son and The Devil Himself.

Marcus Edge was the spitting image of David Gyasi, just much taller and much more intimidating – Xavier did not recognize the man from The Netflix Show but from his stellar acting in Carnival Row.

A young man in his prime stood a couple of feet away from Marcus Edge, seemingly confrontational with the rest of the group.

Xavier had to imagine a few years on the person’s face to get a name – it was Edward Coventry from the series The Order.

A distance away from everyone else stood two vampires staring each other down, ready to battle at an unpermitted drop of sweat.

“Caligula!” The Man in red armor snarled.

Xavier’s eyes blurred between the two figures, trying to match a name to the faces, and thankfully, he received a name from the man’s shout.

Otherwise, he never would have guessed who the Old Man was – Caligula.

The name was familiar but only because it had briefly been said in Dracula Untold with links to another name – an infinitely more popular name… Julius Caesar.

The person opposite Caligula was none other than Vlad III Tepes – also from Dracula Untold and someone who had been manipulated into a life of immortality.

‘Another tragic origin story…’ The Eternal internally complained.

Finally, there was a familiar face standing in a formation with Vlad and Caligula, completing the triangle of birthing mayhem – it was Alcides.

With his memories now clear, Xavier could attach a name to the face that was known as Alcides – it was Philippe de Clermont from A Discovery of Witches.

Xavier and Philippe shared a moment where their eyes met, and without any words, The Eternal understood who was a threat and who was not.

But such information would do them no good.

Kaulder and Andy shifted their positions slightly and Xavier, Mother Superion, and Sam also shifted as if by clockwork.

That sent a message to everyone else – these five are a very lethal group.

It was the wrong message to send in such a tense scenario, but it couldn’t be helped.

Lady Amelia, Marcus Edge, and Edward Coventry shifted their positions to cover each other’s weaknesses.

Their shift was clumsy, telling Kaulder, Andy, and the others that their formation was a split-second decision after witnessing their cohesiveness.

It would be a chaotic battle.

But most concerning was the fact that Caligula, Vlad, and Philippe did not shift their positions at all.

That either meant they did not view the others as a threat or… a battle was inevitable.

Everyone could discern the animosity between Vlad and Caligula so there was no way a battle could be avoided – it was just a question against whom.

With a vague equilibrium achieved due to the shift in positions, it was now time for negotiations to commence.

Xavier wanted to speak but he knew he could not demand the same respect as Kaulder or Andy who both possessed atmospheres of authority and ancientness.

‘I hope the negotiations can end before Vlad attacks Caligula,’ Xavier mused.

The only reason the unreconcilable enemies had yet to create a blood bath was due to Caligula’s position – The Old Man was in a prime position to flee.

But he could not flee from everyone, especially not from Sam, Xavier, and the nearby Philippe.

Likewise, Vlad was uncaring of anyone besides Caligula but he was unwilling to watch The Old Man getaway for the third time in a century.

That led to a strange sort of balance.

But the moment everyone’s objectives were determined, the attack would begin.

It was then Lady Amelia opened her mouth…

“I want no part in what is to come,” She announced.

And negotiations began… futile as it was.