In the Coliseum, there was simply a crystal prison, Hariel, Whiteblaze, and Saban. Everyone else talked amongst themselves, wondering what had become of Ryo. Suddenly, a small crack appeared in the crystal. Slowly it got bigger and bigger, then completely shattered, revealing Ryo, but in an armor unlike anything ever seen before. It looked like Inferno, but was completely translucent. It sparkled in the light like crystal.
"Crystónin will light our darkest hour." Ryo stated.
Saban fired another optic blast at Ryo, but he raised his hand and caught it. The energy crackled with power in his hand.
"Pardon me, but this yours?" Ryo asked, releasing the energy back at Saban.
Ryo reached on his back and unsheathed a new sword.
"Try this on for size." Ryo said.
A silhouette of Sage appeared in place of Ryo, and he shouted, "Thunder...Bolt...Cut!"
An energy bolt flew at Saban, knocking him backwards. Ryo placed his sword in front of him, and it split into six. Sekhmet's shadow appeared instead of Ryo, and Ryo nailed Saban with a Snake Fang Strike. He next tried his own ability, but it failed to power up. He succeeded in pulling off an Iron Rock Crusher, which sent Saban flying again.
"I grow bored. Armor Montage!" Ryo shouted.
He did an Iron Rock Crusher, which he powered up with an Arrow Shockwave. He added a Super Wave Smasher, not to mention a Thunder Bolt Cut. He followed it up with a Quake With Fear, Black Lightning Slash, Snake Fang Strike, and a Web of Deception. All these attacks slammed into Saban, destroying him instantly. The Warlords and Ronins began cheering.
"Yes! We're saved!" Kento shouted.
Talpa appeared.
"Anubis, you imbecile! You had better get that armor off of Ryo, or you won't last too long." he shouted.
"Why do we need to? Ryo's more powerful than ever." he said.
Talpa shoved the scroll in Anubis' face.
Anubis read the last line.
"Oh my word. Ronins, Warlords, come with me!" Anubis said.
They approached Ryo, who was admiring his new armor.
"Ryo, you beat Saban. Now return the crystals." Anubis asked nicely.
Ryo laughed.
"Why would I want to give this back? I am more powerful than I ever was! Nothing can stop me now, not even you!" Ryo bellowed.
"Ryo, listen to us!" Sai said.
"Don't make us have to hurt you man." Roin said.
Ryo stood there, but did not budge.
"You leave us no choice. Iron...Rock...Crusher!" Kento shouted, twirling the staff above his head. He pointed it to the ground, but nothing happened.
"What?" Kento said.
"I'll get him." Sekhmet said.
He began to place his swords in front of him, but they fell on his feet. He began jumping up in down in pain. Ryo made him dance by discharging energy bolts from his own armor.
"Wow, my old armor never did that before." he said.
Hariel charged him, but Ryo disappeared in a flash of light.
"What?" he said.
Ryo appeared behind him.
"Black Lightning Slash!" Ryo shouted.
Hariel flew through the air, knocking over Kale.
"Wave of Destruction!" Saranbo shouted.
Ryo caught it and threw it at the others.
"You fools have no chance against me!" he laughed.
"Star Sword Scream!" Kayura shouted.
The bolts bounced off of Ryo's armor, nailing everyone else.
"I've had enough. I'll be back though."
Ryo teleported away.
"Oh no! The Ronins and Warlords have lost their powers." Mia said.
"Tell us something we don't know." Kento said.
Suddenly, they were on a tropical island!
"Huh?" Roin said.
The island faded and they were back where they started.
"We haven't lost all our power. I can still do my illusions." Dais said.
Sekhmet tried his six arm trick, and it worked. Kale sucked up the light and messed with the weather, and those powers worked.
"It appears you still have your minor abilities." Anubis observed.
"Yeah, then that means we're powerless." Roin said.
Kayura took them back to Talpa's palace. There, they began to ponder the events that had just occurred.
"It is odd, that while Ryo can use your sure-kills, your armors remain." Kayura observed.
"That means that Ryo of the Wildfire...or should I say Crystónin...drained your armor's powers." Talpa said.
"Maybe, when you gave them the crystals, all their armor drew power from them rather than their emotions." Kayura thought.
"It is a possibility. But there is something I neglected to show you." Talpa said.
He revealed to them yet another scroll.
"It states that the armor Ryo now has, requires the Crystals of all nine armors in order to reach maximum capacity. He is unable to get Wildfire right now though. While you were fighting, I managed to summon it here. His armor now has removed all traces of the Wildfire armor."
The vacant armor hovered in the air, its crystal still attached to it.
"I have a plan. Saranbo, Saber Strike, you and I will go with Kayura, who will wear the Wildfire Armor. That may force Ryo out into the open, so that we can regain the crystals. Ronins and Warlords, come as soon as we knock the crystals off of Ryo." Hariel explained.
After Kayura donned Wildfire, the group went into battle. Ryo found them.
"Hello Kayura. I believe you have something that I need." he said.
"Come and get it." she taunted.
"Now!" Hariel commanded.
Saber Strike went airborne.
"Winged Angel of Death!"
"Wave of Destruction!"
"Rage of the Inferno!"
The blasts struck Ryo, but failed to damage him.
"We'll just have to do this manually." Hariel said.
The group charged Ryo, knocking off all the crystals.
"Yes! We did it!" Kayura exclaimed.
The Ronins and Warlords ran out, grabbing their crystals. But something was definitely wrong.
"I don't feel anything. Like the crystal's power's drained." Kento said.
The others reported the same. Ryo started cackling like Tarantulas.
"You are fools! I drained the crystals of all their power. It's all in my sub-armor now. The crystals are useless to you!"
"Let's get out of here!" Roin shouted.
Kayura transported them back to the palace.
"I can't believe it. We're powerless." Kento said.
"How are we going to fight Ryo, if we can't use our armor?" Roin asked.
Sai yawned. "We'll talk in the morning."
All the Ronins and Warlords went to sleep, but Saber Strike, Hariel, Saranbo, and Talpa stayed up to guard them.
..."Where am I?" Sage said.
He looked around. He appeared to be in a cave of some sort. He heard a voice say, "Darkest Prison sheds the light..."
"What is that supposed to mean?" he wondered. The voice repeated itself.
...Sage tossed and turned in his sleep...
Sai was at a water park, having the time of his life. Suddenly a voice said, "Swirling beneath a sea of salt..."
"What?" Sai said.
The voice repeated itself over and over...
"Oh this is the life." Kento said.
He was having a wonderful dream apparently. Bikini-clad babes were feeding him to his heart's content. Suddenly, he heard a voice say, "Buried within a throne of rock..."
"What?" he asked himself. Again, the voice kept repeating itself.
...Roin was reading a book when a voice interrupted him saying, "Floating amongst the eyes of ages, unmoored in the stream of the sky..."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Roin said. The voice repeated itself over and over.
Anubis was also having a nightmare. "Anger entombed within a hollow spire." a voice was saying.
"What?"
But the voice kept repeating itself.
Kale was also dreaming, but a voice kept saying in his head, "Secured where light has no dominion..."
Sekhmet was having a pretty nice dream about torturing Indiana Jones. But then a voice said, "Cloaked where Torrent fears to tread..."
"What is that supposed to mean?" he wondered. But the voice repeated itself over and over.
Dais was in a cave, full of webs and fog. A voice repeated over and over, "Silk and vapors disguise the powers of infinite phantasm, below Hardrock's jurisdiction."
"What?"
Smart and quick-thinking as he was, Dais could not decipher the message.
The next morning, the Ronins and Warlords woke up, their heads spinning from their dreams. Kayura, Mia, Yuli, Blackblaze, Saber Strike, Hariel, and Saranbo, and Talpa were about the only ones who got any sleep.
"You guys look terrible." Mia said, observing the conditions of the others.
"Be up half the night with a voice ringing through your head and see how you feel." Kento said, extremely grumpy.
"You heard a voice too? Mine kept saying that the darkest prison sheds the light." Sage said.
"Really. Well mine kept me up the whole night saying that something was entombed within a throne of rock." Kento said.
"You think that's bad, mine kept saying something about swirling..." Sai began to say.
"beneath a sea of salt." Mia said.
"Yeah. How did you know?" he asked.
"Your dreams must have been telling you to return to your hiding places. Roin, yours told you to float amongst the eyes of ages, unmoored in the stream of the sky, right?"
"Yeah."
"Talpa, is there any way you can send the Ronin Warriors back to their places of creation?" Mia asked.
"My powers have grown weak, but I believe the staff could." he said.
"Which reminds me. The staff is mine." Anubis said, changing the subject.
"You forget, I am of the Ancient's clan, so it is rightfully mine!" Kayura shouted.
The Ancient's spirit appeared to them.
"I have had enough of your bickering! I will end this conflict, right here and now."
The helmet from the Armor of Cruelty, and the Staff stood before them.
"The path you take from now on will be forever determined by the item you take." he explained.
"Kayura, I've been a fool," Anubis started to say.
"Told ya." Kento said. "Pay up."
Apparently a bet had been placed, and every other Warlord and warrior present paid Kento.
Anubis scowled at Kento for thinking that the affairs of another are none of their business, and continued. "...for keeping the staff for so long. You may have it."
"No Anubis. The suit looks better on you...you can have the staff." Kayura said.
"No, I belong as the Ogre. Besides, you know more of the powers it possesses than I do."
He stepped forward, and claimed the helmet.
"Anubis, for now and forever, you will be the Ogre. As for you Kayura, not only do you get my wicked cool threads,"
The others stared at the Ancient for his attempt to use the language of their time, then continued by saying, "you also will wear my Armor of Kaos."
"Armor of Kaos!" Anubis shouted in surprise.
"She gets the Armor of Kaos?" Kale said, also shocked that his leader had lost to a girl, for the second time.
"What's the Armor of Kaos?" Sekhmet asked.
As if in answer, the Ancient's armor appeared on Kayura. Sheaths appeared at her side to hold her Starlight Swords.
"When you wear the Armor, the Staff will become it. When you shed it, the Staff will return to your hands. But the powers may always be exercised."
"Thank you, Ancient One." Kayura said.
With that he vanished.
"Getting back to the subject, I also heard a strange voice in my sleep." Anubis said.
"What did it say?" Mia asked.
"Something about Anger entombed within a hollow spire." Anubis said.
"Mine spoke of being secured where light has no dominion." Kale said.
"Mine spoke of being where Torrent fears to tread." Sekhmet said.
"Mine spoke of silk and vapors disguising the power of infinite phantasm, and being below Hardrock's jurisdiction." Dais finished.
Kento, Sage, and Sai were not too happy about these messages.
"Below my jurisdiction?" Kento said, angry.
"Where I fear to tread?" Sai added.
"Where light has no dominion?" Sage added, really angry.
Before a royal rumble could break out, Mia was at her grandfather's computer.
"What are you doing Mia?" Yuli asked.
"I'm searching for places that their armors could be based on what the Warlords said." she replied.
Also on the screen was the poem. Under the lines that spoke of Torrent's place of creation, sure enough, the Warlord's lines were there too.
The computer stopped working.
"It's done it! Anubis, you should head to the mountains where Kento's Armor was, and you should be able to find the mountain where your armor supposed to be buried. Kale, follow Sage to his source, and go beyond. Sekhmet, head to the Taipan Swamp, and see what happens. Dais, go to the Gobi Desert."
"But it's the second largest desert in the world! How am I supposed to find one spot?" Dais asked.
"Because I'm going with you." Kayura said.
"Anubis, allow me to help you." Saber Strike offered.
"Kale, I will assist you." Saranbo said.
Sekhmet stood there, waiting for someone to volunteer.
"Hariel! You and me would make a great team." he said.
"I'm afraid I have other business to attend to." he replied.
"I will accompany you, Sekhmet of the Venom." a voice said.
A figure stepped in, brandishing a cat-o'-nine-tails.
"Sun Devil?" Talpa said, surprised.
"Yes. It is I. Come with me."
Before embarking, Kayura used the Ancient's powers to send the Ronins to their resting places, also sending Kale, Anubis, and their escorts to the vincity. Sekhmet, Sun Devil, and Kayura leaped aboard Mia's jeep, and drove off to find their sites.
To be Continued....