A/N- Yeah I know it has been almost three months. When you want to get something done, you gotta do it yourself. Nuff said.

Despite his multiple wounds, Slash sat up against a hard pile of sand. Before him was the Hellfire Titan and Blue the Machine Titan. Solin was not anywhere to be found unless he simply out of Slash's view. Until he gained some more strength back and Jonny returned their distress call, Slash and Kiichiro had to stay put. "I might as well watch what's about to go down."

The Hellfire Titan bared his fangs at Blue who simply smiled in response. "Now Arkham, there is no need to be upset. Aren't you glad to see your old buddy?"

"Buddy? Buddy?! You have a lot of nerve Blue, especially after you backstabbed me!" Arkham said, using telepathy to speak

"Backstabber? Me? What I did wasn't backstabbing, it was simply looking out for number one."

"No more of your lies! Alana let's go!"

"Flaron!"

Arkham opened his mouth as a blast of flame shot out. Blue stood there as the flames covered his body, the flames subsided and he stood tall. "Really? You know me well enough to know something like that won't work!"

"You're right, that won't work so well just have to take it up a notch! Gigano Flaron!" Alana chanted as the Crimson spell book in her hands glowed brightly

Arkham opened his mouth as a much larger blast of flame spewed from his mouth, even from observing it at a distance, Slash knew that it was on the level of a typical Dioga spell even though it was classified as a Gigano. "Their strength is amazing, their Gigano spells are on the same level as an average mamodo's Dioga class spell. This is unreal."

"Machishield!"

Blue opened his left hand as it glowed green and formed an energy hexagon and stretched it to about seven high and wide. Although strong, the flames could not penetrate the shield. When the flames dissipated, Blue canceled out his shield. "The moon is out, there is very little light. So what are you waiting for?"

"You will pay for your impudence!" Arkham shouted

"Gargoruk!"

Arkham's teeth and fangs extended and sparkled like diamonds, his claws also expanded and sparkled. He ran forward and pounced onto Blue, a tornado of claws and vicious fangs seemed to overwhelm the mechanized boy. Slash could not see exactly what was going on at the moment, but he knew better than to think Blue was mauled by Arkham. It couldn't possibly be over just yet. Elisabeth, Blue's partner looked on as the hellish canine continued clawing and ripping at Blue's body. Having seen enough, she finally decided to open the peach spell book. "Gigano Machira!" The top segment of Blue's fingers opened up as long silver wires extended from his fingers and wrapped around Arkham's body. Arkham cut through the wires with its claws and bit through the other wires with his teeth. There was no way Blue was going to electrocute him.

"I've seen that spell far too many times to fall for it. Our battle has gone on long enough. Alana!"

"Alright Arkham, we'll end with this! Hador!"

Arkham howled at the moon as thirteen Roman pillars emerged from the sand. Each pillar was lit by a burning torch, casting various shadows throughout the area. Blue sat up and continued looking at the Hellfire Titan, who at this point seemed to have taken full control of the battle. Watching nearby, Slash was in awe of their massive power. Blue did not react to the massive pillars but appeared to be satisfied when they were finally erected. "Now the combination, Darko Flaron!" The flames in Arkham's body were suddenly extinguished and his body, save for his glowing red eyes became pitch black.

"What exactly are these mamodo…they're monsters. If I'm considered an Elite, then they are short of being gods."

Slash's thought process was interrupted as he heard a helicopter above him, the rope ladder dropped as he grabbed ahold of it and it pulled him and Kiichiro upwards. "About damn time..." As he was going up, Slash could not help but notice that the Titans and their book owners did not even acknowledge the helicopter, as if it was insignificant to them. Slash's ego was destroyed as it was, so this did not hurt as much. After they were pulled inside, a machine in a nearby corner was activated as a liquid filled the chamber. Slash looked over and saw Ignoramus with a very serious look on his face, fixated on the large screen featuring Arkham and Blue going at it. Strangely enough, Slash had to admit he never saw this side of Ignoramus before, almost as if he was a different person. Slash motioned to Kiichiro as Jonny looked over the child. "She's not hurt at all, just exhausted. You're a different story."

"You bastard, you were holding out on how strong they really were." Slash spat, giving Jonny a death glare.

"As I recall, I clearly told you that they were strong and that you'd be lucky to survive. Did I not?"

Slash did not have a response. Jonny did in fact have a point. His thinking was abruptly interrupted as he coughed up some more blood. "See that machine over there? We need to get you in it. It's bad enough that you're half-dead." Before Slash could argue, his vision went blurry and faded out. "Ignoramus, put him in the machine." Jonny ordered. Ignoramus did not immediately move, he was still focused on the screen overlooking the battle between the Machine Titan and Hellfire Titan respectively. "Get your ass in gear and move him into the machine!" Jonny shouted

Ignoramus finally rose up and lifted up Slash's body, laying the teenaged mamodo into the machine, after putting the breathing mask over his face, Ignoramus shut and locked the chamber and pressed a few buttons. Without a word, he returned to his seat. The chamber filled to the top with a dark purple liquid as Slash's massive internal wounds slowly but surely began healing.

Meanwhile on the battlefield, Arkham was still fighting on seemingly equal terms with Blue. The Machine Titan however, did not seem to put much effort into his attacks as opposed to Arkham going all out. "Don't you mock me you bastard! Stop playing around!" Arkham snarled as he backed into one of the shadows being casted from one of the flaming pillars. Blue ran forward and slammed his fist into the ground shaking it a bit. "That punch did absolutely nothing! Get serious!"

Blue ran into the shadows and landed punch after punch on Arkham's body. He leapt on the hellhound's back and wrapped his strong arms around his neck. Blue squeezed his arms as his biceps and forearms constricted the muscles in Arkham's neck past capacity. The sounds of Arkham's gagging and clawing to get free was music to the ears of Blue. With one final squeeze, a disturbing crunch rattled off and Blue dropped Arkham's lifeless body into the sand like a paper weight. As Blue walked away, Arkham's body dissipated and reformed, his red eyes gleamed in the darkness and the sand around him smoked and became charred. "Have you forgotten that when any of my pillar spells are casted, the Shadows make me invulnerable? I demand you to stop messing around yet you continue to mock me."

Just as Arkham finished speaking, the surrounding pillars crumbled and dissipated, destroying Arkham's spell. "Do you honestly think you stand a chance against me?" Blue asked as he spoke in a surprisingly soft voice

"You punched the ground earlier to destroy my pillars as a joke…this desert will be your grave!"

"Wokerga!"

Arkham sat on his haunches as he released an ear-shattering howl, black seismic rings were emitted from his mouth as everything began shaking. Blue crossed his arms as the force from the powerful howl began pushing him back. When the howling stopped, Blue looked up to see Arkham's body re-ignite with flames. "Arkham, we need to take this to the next level. This has been dragged on long enough. Once we take down Blue, our focus can be on that little organization of his." Alana said, flipping a page in her glowing spell book.

"Gigano Hador!"

Thirteen new pillars rose from the ground, looking very reminiscent to the previous Hador but this time black flames were ignited as the pillars burned brightly. Arkham unleashed a stream of black flames from his mouth, showing off his new increase in power to Blue. The flames on his body shifted to black and this dog meant business. In a flash, Arkham disappeared and reappeared in front of Blue at point blank range. Arkham unleashed a black flamethrower from his mouth equivalent to the size of his Gigano Flaron spell and mercilessly covered Blue in flames. When the flames subsided, Arkham saw that a small wall of glass formed in front of Blue, most of his body was trapped, the only part of him not surrounded by glass was head, shoulders and right arm. He inferred that Blue tossed up a lot of sand when Arkham blew fire from his mouth. "This battle ends now Blue. I have you trapped and will take pleasure in burning your book."

Blue did not say anything to his adversary. The hellhound mamodo walked past Blue and opened his mouth preparing to scorch Elisabeth along with Blue's peach spell book. Elisabeth however, did not try to run away from Arkham, nor did she try to fight him. She simply stood there motionless. "A regular blast of flames should—"

Arkham was cut off by a loud shriek, quickly turning around, he saw that only shards of glass remained where Blue once stood. The scream sounding like Alana's voice lead Arkham to fearing the worse. "He must have gotten to Alana!"

Arkham dashed through the sand as he frantically ran in Alana's direction. He then saw Blue standing over Alana's body as bloody glass shards were littered on the ground. Blue reached for the crimson book in Alana's hands but Arkham jumped and sank his canines into Blue's neck. Using his strong jaws, he tossed Blue a few feet and stood in front of his human partner. Tending to Alana, he looked over her fallen body. Numerous small jagged shards were poking out of her body. Blood stained her short provocative dress. Arkham remembered her saying something about Gothic lolitas or something. Shards cut her black and white leggings into ribbons, the shreds of once white leggings with black stripes now appeared to be an ugly maroon or brownish color. Her creamy skin contrasted with her black hair and the moment was a solemn one. Arkham had his dog moments and he licked Alana's face a few times as she slowly opened her large blue eyes and looked at him. "I ain't dead yet." She said weakly as Arkham slowly nudged her to her feet. More blood began staining Alana's dress as it began dripping down at an even faster pace. She held the spell book open as she nodded at Arkham.

"How touching. I thought I killed the human when I shattered the glass with my fist. Poor puppy, you shouldn't let your hatred towards me get the best of you. It only makes this easier." Blue said in a very condescending tone

"I'm gonna kill you." Arkham snarled as he unleashed another intense blast of black flame.

Alana felt the life force within her fading away but she wasn't about fall over yet. "I have to stand strong and finish this battle. I also must find Lolo, I came to the Sahara to find him after looking through all of the mercenary jobs on the Black Market. I thought he would be here...but no, I ran into Blue and that murderous bitch."

"Arkham, use everything you got with this! Dioga Hador!"

The flaming pillars burned more intensely than before as each flame connected to each other forming a flaming black circle. Each torch then shot another stream of flame to the middle forming what appeared to be a flaming puddle. With his strong legs, Arkham jumped into circle of flames and to Blue's delight, emerged as a massive Cerberus appeared. Arkham's Cerberus form was even more terrifying than his regular form. The massive three-headed dogged had three pairs of gleaming blood red eyes, crisp white flames formed a "collar" around their thick necks. Arkham snarled at Blue as row after row of razor sharp fangs crowned his mouth. The Cerberus was easily thirty feet tall and weighed more than six or seven school buses. After stepping out in his monstrous form, Arkham roared and shook the desert to its core.

"Even though you're a Titan and your strength is formidable, I have far surpassed you Arkham. Even your current form is no match for me." Blue said, unfazed by the Cerberus before him.

All three of Arkham's heads blew a stream of white flames. On impulse, Elisabeth flipped a few pages in the spell book. "Ganzu Machira!"

Small cannon barrels formed on the soles of Blue's boots as he rocketed himself into the sky, dodging the flames. Arkham's heads continued firing more blasts of white flames at Blue but the Machine Titan maneuvered through all of them. From a birds-eye view, Blue aw Alana on her knees with her hand clutching her stomach in an effort to stop the rapid bleeding. "Arkham focused way too much on me by letting it get the best of him and in turn, he left the little wench open for me to attack. F he would have played his moves out correctly and actually had a strategy, then maybe just maybe he would have stood a chance. It is quite unfortunate that things had to end like this."

Blue hovered back down to the ground and stood before Arkham who was thrashing about and the other two heads were snapping at each other, not even paying attention to Blue. "Just as I thought, the side effect to this form is that Arkham can't speak or think properly since his animal instinct is in full control and the fact that his heads are fighting for dominance, causing proper thoughts to get distorted. I figure that he would need to master controlling the spell in order for to be executed properly. One would think he would use such a spell with more caution."

Alana knew that trying to stop the bleeding at this point was futile, she felt her vision going dark and her body was numb. "I…" she choked on some blood she eventually coughed up and tried talking again. "I have to use the last spell, a Shin spell. It won't do much at this point but…I'm obliged to try and do something at least."

Alana flipped towards the end of the spell book. She looked down at the spell book as she placed her bloody hands on the page. "Who would have thought that it would end like this? I wanted to find Lolo and tell him the truth about everything…after running away for so long, I finally decided to be strong and I wanted him to see how strong I had become. I wanted to see Sara again and give her the life she deserves. There was too much I hadn't done yet but after everything I've been through these last eight years, I suppose I can say I'm not surprised that destiny presents me with such a cursed fate."

Streams of tears found its way onto her hands as the blood and tear stained book began to glow, she put all of her remaining heart energy into the book. "The ninth and final spell… Shin Flaron Tres Aliento!" After chanting the spell, Alana fell on her side into the sand.

Arkham's heads stop fighting with each other as they re-focused on Blue. The Middle head spat a stream of massive white flames, much bigger than any of the other flame attacks, the Left head opened its mouth and formed a blast of white lightning and the right head spat out magma. The three elemental attacks combined and formed a massive beam. "Elisabeth! The shield now!"

"MACHISHIELD!" Elisabeth shouted as the beam hit them and exploded, leveling the entire Sahara desert and inadvertently causing a sandstorm to ensue. When the sandstorm subsided, there were no mounds of sand or any sand for that matter, the massive beam destroyed the entire desert. Blue's shield spell had activate just as the massive beam hit them, saving his book and in turn taking minor damage. Arkham on the other hand, was back in his regular form, his flame extinguished and himself unconscious. Blue walked over the hellhound and checked his pulse. "He's still alive." Blue then walked over to Alana, who was lying face down in a pool of blood. "He touched her face and smiled. "Dead as a doorknob, she bled to death due to the glass I shot at her and to think that this all happened because of Arkham's hatred towards me, now to claim my prize." Blue picked up the crimson spell book and dragged Arkham's unconscious body near Alana's. After a few minutes, Arkham's red eyes shot open. Blue held up the Hellfire Titan's spell book and dropped it as blue flames covered the book. Arkham's eyes then looked at Alana's corpse. He had nothing to say, his hatred and obsession with defeating Blue cost him the battle and his partner's life. Arkham faded away and all that remained were ashes that once belonged to a spell book.

"I think she will do nicely for our vessel." Blue said, picking up Alana's corpse. Elisabeth pressed a few buttons as they waited for their helicopter to arrive at their location.

[Lolo's mansion, United States]

Solin sat by Lolo's bedside as he waited for him to recover. Solin returned to his regular form after Blue first attacked. The impact from the blast severely injured Lolo. Taking advantage of Arkham ambushing Blue and having a lot of his strength remaining, Solin carried Lolo through the desert to the nearest Oasis and was airlifted by calling one of Lolo's helicopters and getting back to his mansion. Lolo barely opened his eyes as he spoke to Solin in a very soft and weak voice. "Solin, I won't be fighting alongside you again anytime soon. I have someone I want you to find. She was an old flame of mine about eight years ago. Take the silver spell book with you because it won't be safe here if a mamodo team decides to show up. "

Solin nodded as he stood up and grabbed the spell book. Surprisingly enough, he only felt a faint energy from the book almost as if the power from within was severely reduced.

"You're a good fighter and will be able to look after yourself so you don't have to worry about your book getting burned even if you don't have me to cast spells."

Just as Solin began to leave the room to prepare for his journey, Lolo spoke once more.

"By the way, her name was Alana."

A/N- Oh damn! I wonder where I'm going with this… Lolo tells Solin to look for Alana but little do they know Alana died in battle. Solin has a long road ahead of him and why does his book feel so much weaker? Find all of this out in the next chapter! And yes, Ishimaru, Josh and the rest of the gang return in the next chapter! It's funny how my main character and his mamodo doesn't seem to appear much! R&R please!