Lance's Role

by Thrudgelmir2333

A 'shonen' fic that sequels Next Dimension and Lost Canvas. In 1960, the Pope of Athena receives three prophecies from an old enemy that irremediably set the course of his reign over Sanctuary's tragic history and almost two decades later a Saint of Pegasus finds himself put through the unfolding of a new age of violence caused by the Pope's actions. Please enjoy and review.

31. 2A: The First Trial

Notable OCs: Pegasus Lance's Saint Generation, Civil War Saint Generation, World War Saint Generation, Daemon Lucifer's Specters, Maiden Elisa, Priam's Black Saints, Cyrulian Refugees

Notable Original Concepts: Mount Olympus Training Ground, Sanctuary Court, Teos Cloth, Athenian Empire mythology, Isle of Gardens, Stardust Prison, Hades' Dark Princes, Desert Beyond, Sanctuary Town Layout & Buildings

Recurring/Cameo OCs of Jenny DeVic: Mrs. Schafurwatt, Cyrus

Recurring/Cameo Concepts of Jenny DeVic: Great Bodyguard Legend, Golden Line Heritage, Sanctuary Orphanages, Andromeda Island's Geography & Tests, Sanctuary Nobility, 88 Knights Festival

Author Notes:

-Updated the OC & Original Concept listings above

-Special 'big thank you' note to Niello and Rihannon for pre-reading some parts of this chapter and offering suggestions;

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Please enjoy and review (^_^

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Sanctuary has historically faced times of great dissent. In the 11th century, the boiling point was such that Sanctuary's actions split the world apart in war, exterminated realms, subjugated the rest and enacted 'world conquest' without any of the 'real world' noticing. In 1004, Europe was ruled from Athens and no one even knew it. There's a reason the King of Asgard is vassal to the Pope despite their religion and Poseidon's claims on their land. There's even a reason why said land is no longer called 'Midgard'.

It's been the traditional role and merit of the Popes to maintain security and harmony even when Athena is present. These are their greatest contributions. When Sanctuary's version of the Magna Carta was signed at the end of the Second Civil War, the power redistributed to the aristocrats of the Aestrea Court did not change this. The nobles rely on their alliance with Sanctuary's religion to justify their divine privilege to luxuries, after all. Still, it's not a coincidence that the Greeks of Byzantium began to fall when the Greeks of Sanctuary turned on one another. What happens here affects the rest of the world.

Still, the cycles of eruption, fortunately, have become longer and longer, hinting that everlasting stability may be on the horizon. We may never see a Third Civil War, if Athena wills it. I still worry over Shion, though. In all likelihood, he will be my successor, and the fact that my tenure did not see a moment of great internal strife other than Suikyo's attack and Odysseus' apparent betrayal might imply that the next moment of great schism between the Gold Saints will be a burden for him to bear.

Manigoldo says he's weak and won't have the mindset to inspire others into loyalty. I hope my protégé is being short-sighted, as usual. We're no longer living in days where people put their interests above the common good, are we? I'm sure brave Gold Saints will always be available to take the charge.

-Pope Sage, ruler of Sanctuary between the 16th and 18th centuries.

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Meanwhile

Rodario Village

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Near the central crossroad was where the fountain the 'Greatest Generation' laid. Overlooking the villagers living in the gateway between the outside world and the world of Saints and Sanctuary was the stone gaze of ten great golden warriors from one thousand years earlier. There was a street corner meeting house made from grey stone brick that was carried down from the mountains. Topped by a narrow roof with a thick chimney it contrasted not only with the typically wooden buildings of the agricultural town, but also with the Mediterranean style that dominated the few stone households around.

The wooden plaque hanging just outside the door read "Circe's Grove" and featured a small carving of a bearded pig in an ancient sailor attire, holding up a beer jug. It was a historical place, dating back to when Northern Europeans were first allowed to become Saints, hence its difference in aesthetics, and was legendary for a number of reasons. Firstly it was a well-known Silver Saint gathering place, who often refused to dine with their lesser Bronze Saint and foot soldier peers. Secondly, said popularity with the Saints led to the owner removing tiles from the floor around the tables and counter so as to create recessions where Cloth Boxes could be placed and act as seats. This prevented them from sliding off or opening up while the Saints caroused and had their meetings.

And, thirdly, this trick was so amazingly well received that when the Golden Zodiac was rebuilt after the attacks of Hypnos and Thanatos in the 16th century war several of the Temples mimicked the slots, particularly Taurus whose guardians often complained about the lack of adequately sized chairs. In modern times, it was still as frequented by the military as ever, though Saints for the most part made a point to let the foot soldiers know they were not welcome.

Inside, paintings, wall heads and figurines of zodiac constellation figures donated by grateful customers decorated the walls and electric lamps illuminated the divisions. By the larger room with the unlit fireplace, a quartet of Silver Saints already sat down on their boxes in a large round table, joined by honey mead or, in the Amazon's case, a straw-dipped beer for her mask.

Nearby, a grey-scaled TV, the best thing they could convince the 'luxury police' in Sanctuary to let Circe's Grove have for the clients, aired a soccer game for the Greater Greece Cup featuring the Athens club, Olympiacos FC. Things like electronics and outside entertainment weren't usually permitted in Sanctuary culture, devout and austere as it was, but soccer matches had somehow managed to push through even the traditionalism of this place. The compromise was that the TV didn't show colors like the most recent models for fear of abusing the Goddess' love too much.

Thank the goddess herself, though, the ball was also black and white, so it was easier to make it out in the transmission.

With a freshly removed cast, Lyra Orpheé extended his hand to let Dr. Iaso's thumbs massage the bones. The retired Ophiuchus Saint grumbled skeptically but nodded his head. "Everything seems mended. I guess they were using their head when they took off your cast. You've recovered well." assessed the medic. "Give your fingers a break on the notes, though, just to be sure."

The young musician smiled obediently. "I'll do my best, doctor, thank you." Orpheé tucked his instrument happily. "I haven't managed to pay the bill yet, though…. With the hand injured I couldn't get the extra drachmas."

The brown-haired, poorly-shaven doctor shrugged his shoulders. "Forget it."

Sitting right by them, Cynthia was impressed. "You're awfully charitable to Orpheé, Iaso."

There was a click of the tongue and an eye roll.. "... His music helped me sleep this month... in a good way." Iaso somberly explained, immediately enlightening the Amazon. "I value that way more than his drachmas."

Orpheé eyed the TV. "I didn't think I'd ever see one of these in Sanctuary. People at Delphi told me you guys get the news from pigeons. Is that a soccer match?"

"Yes, ah, ah." Cynthia chuckled. "It's one of the reasons the 'Grove' is so trendy nowadays."

The spectacle wasn't amusing everyone, though. "You STUPID S.O.B., just pass the ball, already! He's right there!" the former Ophiuchus Saint growled, holding a mead glass in his hand. "AAAGH! Do I have to fix their eyesight, too?! I swear to Athena, Kostas is gonna drive that club to the ground!"

Herakles Aguilon chugged down his third mead like water, happily tapping it down and wiping his face, and couldn't give less of a crap about the game. "Ah, so warm. I missed this place."

The very young Lyra Saint put his juice box next to the giant's glass mug and compared sizes. "I think you just drank my head's weight in alcohol, Saint Aguilon."

With an annoyed grunt, the muscular, tanned-skinned brown-haired man of green eyes and white coat sitting by Orpheé gestured the giant to lower the enthusiasm. "Yeah, take it easy, big guy, or you'll get your liver shot again."

The red-faced old man grunted a muffled complaint. "I'm just fine, you weaklings… just getting started." he blurted out unconvincingly. "I feel like singing…"

An unconvinced Iaso narrowed his eyes. "Sure, Papa Smurf, I drink way more than I should and I look like a monk compared to your tray. Stop giving me reasons to cut you open…For Athena's sake, everybody in the army thinks they're freaking Hercules when it comes to booze till they come crying to the clinic worried about alcohol poisoning." He pointed out. He sat on the Ophiuchus Cloth Box that did not even use anymore while carefully sipping his own drink as if aware of some poison in it that the others weren't.

The Herakles Saint gasped. "Nonsense, it's mead, so it's good for you!" Aguilon argued before offering Orpheé a sip. "Here, kid, your hand's still hurting, right? Mead's a real sorrow-dealer. Show him what it's lik-"

"Aguilon, NO! He's too young!" Cynthia shouted, taking the mug away from the bewildered musician. She felt her wind taken from her sail when Iaso eyed her as if to remind her that some ceremonies in Training Grounds involved wine-drinking.

"Um, thank you, Saint Aguilon, but my hand is fine, Mister Aiolos took good care of me." Orpheé guaranteed, referring to the injury the surprisingly strong boy Albiore gave him when interrogating him about being Silver. "Weren't you paying attention? Saint Iaso just looked-"

"Doctor Iaso." the Ophiuchus stressed, annoyed. "I haven't been a Saint in years. Besides it only took a second." he then readdressed the Herakles Saint. "What the hell have you been doing anyway, Sasquatch? The Coliseum turns into a pandemonium when the Pope bleeds on Saint Capricorn from his stomach and you're nowhere to be seen."

Aguilon discreetly glanced at Cynthia, whose masked face just stared motionlessly at the table, unwilling to get involved in this topic again. Meeting Cetus, Shinta's trauma, and Guardnia's death was probably still fresh in her mind.

"I uncovered a lead on the Aquila Cloth." Aguilon half-lied. While it wasn't the reason he took off from Sanctuary, it was because he went after Priam's group with the Gold Saints that he spotted the Silver armor being worn by the Cyrulian that Kirin fought. "So I took a leave."

Knowing the giant's history with the eagle armor, Iaso shrugged self-consciously and chugged his mead. "Right… hope you get it back, I suppose."

The Amazon's eyes searched the room for eavesdroppers. "Have you guys been getting the feeling we've been watched ever since that day?"

"No, not really." Aguilon said, shrugging huge shoulders. "... then again I do have a guard unit for myself."

The musician raised his hand. "Y-yeah, I feel like people have been following me," confessed Orpheé, tugging his legs around his box. "Someone was real quick to turn the corner the other day."

"Maybe I am, too. But don't give a shit if they are…" Iaso melancholically mumbled, nose sunk in the glass to forget his issues. "I'm not that important, after all. Don't really have time to worry about it, either. Not since I've been paying visits to the Temples."

Everyone turned to him. "What for, Doctor?" asked the Lyra child, who's never been at the Golden Zodiac.

"The politicians keep wanting me to check on the Pope's health after the supposed attack. I've been getting visits at the clinic of people in nice clothes making questions." he revealed, tensing his muscles and squinting at the table in bridled fury. "If they don't stop, I think I might have to request a stretcher to keep in my office for them." he then saw Olympiakos fail another shot on TV. "OH, YOU STUPID-... Ughhh…"

Cynthia and Orphée back their chairs a bit from the stressed doctor. The Amazon drew her own conclusions. "So it is fine to talk about it in the open."

Iaso sighed to forget about the game and shrugged his shoulders. "Everyone in Rodario and Sanctuary Town can see me walking up the Temples. There's no point in pretending I'm not treating someone important up there. So long as I don't tell anyone who, of course…" his skeptic eyes darted left and right. "Besides… half the population saw the Pope's Temple get struck by a giant 'screw-you' lightning bolt and are we to expect there were nobody injured? The Zodiac has some bullshit secrecy sometimes..."

"How many are coming yet?" asked Orpheé, wanting to shift the topic to something less sentimental. "I'm yet to meet most Saints, so I'm kinda nervous..."

"Not many, most of the gang just tells Nam to shove it." Aguilon's pointed out.

"Yeah, I wish they wouldn't do that. Nam is overbearing but he's trying to help us do our jobs." Cynthia defended, being his childhood friend. "Even the Bronze Saints don't respect him."

"Are you really surprised?" Iaso clicked his tongue, finishing his mead. "That's cause he doesn't man up for himself, for once! Then he comes whining to us that no one ever seems to follow protocol." He then saw the two new Silver Saints walk inside the Grove. "Speak of the devil… make some room for these two."

Packing down the Sagitta Cloth Box, the blonde, meek Silver Saint smiled melancholically. "Hi… good to see so many have come," Nam lamented.

"Hey, everyone! What's up?!" a young female voice yelled, startling Iaso and Cynthia. The person walked up to them along with Sagitta Nam and set her Crane Cloth Box down to join the table. "Great to see you guys, it's been, like, forever."

The retired Ophiuchus Saint irked and slid his box seat away. The Cassiopeia Saint just widened her eyes and tilted her head to signify curiosity. "Oh, Yushira, you're back?"

"I was closing the MMC and she showed up to settle accounts on her last task." Nam explained. "I wasn't going to let her get away."

Also known as Crane 'Copycat' Yushira, aged seventeen, carrying the Crane Silver Cloth box and sporting black fighting gloves and a red open-front sleeveless jacket over a black training attire with yellow stripes. The Crane Silver Saint was a young girl with a mask hiding her face with decorations consisted of blue blazing lines around the eyes. The silver greaves of curvilinear, leg-wrapping plates were worn with her casual clothes, instead of being stored at the box. A pair of short jewel-encrusted bracelets complimented her fighting gloves and a small ring of silver from her Cloth helped tie her black hair into the thin tail that Crane Saints usually sported to honor their armor.

The Libra-born Amazon was known to her friends to follow famously strong Saints like Aguilon around in the hopes of getting important assignments and copying their moves, something a lot of Saints took offense to, but also for neglecting the traditional side of her duties to both the Amazons and Sanctuary, foregoing the communal rites of her female peers and the ceremonies of her home in favor of stimulating and career-advancing adventure outside of Greece as an Undercover fighter, as opposed to an Assault one.

The kids therefore liked her a whole lot more, so she started off by fist-bumping Orpheé and take a seat by him. "Looking good, kiddo! The last time I saw you, the cast was still on."

The pale-blue haired boy smiled happily. "Eh, eh, thanks, Saint Yushira. I've been practicing again, too. String Nocturne still only makes people who don't like music mad, though… I keep missing the G."

"Yushira…" Cynthia mentally called.

A shiver ran up the black-haired teenager's spine. "Y-yeah?"

"You've been spending an awful lot of time away from Aretias," the Cassiopeia pointed out, referring to the secluded settlement hidden in the forests surrounding Star Hill where the masked female Saints, active and retired, resided in. "You're not a kid anymore, you can't dodge chores and church with our sisters by going on missions all the time with the men."

"W-well… The missions are arguable harder and more dangerous than chores, Sister Cynthia, so I r-really don't think…" Crane Yushira gulped, however, feeling the adult's squint somehow transmitted between the two layers of porcelain on their faces make her thoughts stutter. She sighed. "A-alright, I'll pass by home."

"Where have you been working at this time, Saint Yushira?" Orpheé excitedly asked, not having the adult-to-teenager grievances the other Silvers had to Crane's antics. "You've been missing a lot of stuff here at Sanctuary."

"I've been kicking butt, of course, eh eh." She dumped the papers with Nam's stamp on the table, which featured a red stamp of success. "Another undercover mission done, not that it's a surprise. It was SO easy. I disguised myself as one of their carriers and eventually they asked me deliver stuff to their slave trafficking depot in Bangkok, right? I was waiting for an opportunity like this for months!"

"Oh, pipe down with it," the giant Herakles Saint dissed. "The 'undercover' missions are easy. It's the 'assault' missions that show what kind of warrior you are." He then flexed his arm muscle with a proud grunt. "Real fighters don't waste time infiltrating with a geisha costume, they walk through the front door."

Yushira tilted her head, signifying either sarcasm or curiosity. "Real fighters also get hostages harmed and kill important informants… especially when they don't get the intel Undercovers provide to the MMC. But I guess it's fine since we can't expect a big old man to look nice in a bra and dress." The Cassiopeia Saint let out a chuckle and the giant's face went red, hiding behind his mug of alcohol again.

"Wait, how long have you been at that one?" asked Cynthia, suddenly picking up this inconsistency. Yushira would usually go on and on about her exploits that most people had grown tone-deaf by then, but Cynthia wasn't easily caught off guard. "I thought you were in Tibet last week."

She chuckled. "I was. Hey, I gotta multitask missions if I wanna become a star in Sanctuary. If you just circle around Asia for them with Mach 5 you can work on a whole bunch at once," she explained as if it was no big deal. "For example, Nam has told me along the way here that the Cancer Gold Saint has called for undercovers to do work in California for a bit, something about weapons smuggling and Black Saints. As soon as I get my pay from my Thailand job, I'm going there, easy peasy."

Forgetting for a moment that she just got Yushira's word that she would spend more time in Aretias, Cassiopeia Cynthia widened her eyes, seeing something in her Amazon sister's words that the men didn't. "Isn't that leaving you with no time for yourself?"

The Crane Saint hesitated, lowering her mask face a bit and fiddling her fingers on her long black hair tail, an Amazon gesture that often denounced the looking away of eyes behind the mask. "I am… doing fine. Really." she assured. The tone didn't convince Cynthia at all "I just wish I had a decent partner. No one at Aretias wants to work with me."

Doctor Iaso scoffed. "Oh, what a shame 'I'm so lonely cause I work so hard'. Maybe if you weren't so neurotic. How about you finish a task for once before starting three new others?" he mercilessly lambasted, turning both Amazons against him with their scary mask glares. "Oh, like I'm afraid of you two…"

"I haven't authorized that yet, Yushira." Nam sternly reminded, trying to be authoritative. "It's an order form the Cancer House, yeah, but you'd be surprised how many strings Aretias can pull with the Pope when it comes to making sure the Amazons aren't being overworked."

"Why is that, Mr. Nam?" interrupted Orpheé, bored with the politics but intrigued by the topic of the female Saints' customs, which were rarely openly talked about.

"Cause for lack of better diagnostic, the Amazons are crazy from wearing a porcelain face all day." Iaso bit, deserving a kick under the table from Cynthia. "OW!"

"You better stick to the game, buddy." advised Aguilon.

"No, I need everybody to pay attention!" Nam's raspy scream demanded, barely impressing anyone. "Tomorrow there will be an audience at Astraea's Court! VIPs from all around the world will come, including from the Seven Alliances. You know what this means?"

While Orpheé just blinked, every other silver rolled their eyes, sighed, put down their mugs or huffed into their arms.

"Shoot, bodyguard duty?" asked Crane Yushira.

"Bodyguard duty." confirmed Herakles Aguilon.

"I feel like it's all we're good for nowadays." complained Iaso. " It's not like we got lives to save or anything, right?"

Orpheé just mumbled to himself. "Does this mean that man Cetus will come again?"

"This is just as important, why can't I get you guys to see that?" wondered Sagitta Nam, rubbing his eyes. The waiter came by with his favorite drink, a watered-down beer he would often ask for, the timing of delivery always oddly coinciding with when the staff saw him ready to pull his own hair. "Thanks… Anyway, it's the first obligatory periodic audience with the new Gold Saints. These will happen for the next two or three years or so, until the court is satisfied with their performance. This means that the Silver and Bronze Saints need to be prim and proper too."

"I am not a Silver Saint, I'm a doctor, for Apollo's sake!" Iaso imposed, narrowing eyes and inflating chest proudly. "It's a far more noble occupation! Doesn't the word retirement mean anything to the army?!"

"But you guard a Silver Cloth, doc." reminded Aguilon, chuckling. "That's good enough to get you on the list."

"Only cause no one has got the guts, intelligence and the spirit to get Ophiuchus!" he explained, banging his shoe heel on the metal box he sat on. "Not gonna let some roided up thug or angry Amazon with nail implants get the only medically-oriented Cloth just cause there's no one else. Until a proper candidate comes along, this stays with me!" he then whistled at the waiter and showed off his empty mug. "Another one!"

"Then you won't mind being here, I'm sure. It's just like with territory claims." explained Nam. "The Pegasus Saint was assigned Death Queen Island as his preferred jurisdiction, and just cause he's got nothing to do with that place anymore, it doesn't mean I won't call him directly when there's trouble there. Same with you and your claimed Cloth."

While the fact that someone like Lance apparently staked a claim on such a place shocked her, the Cassiopeia Saint also realized something else about why Sagitta might have called them from this.

"Hold on, Nam… this wouldn't have anything to do with how things been lately in Sanctuary, right?" she asked . "The aristocrats, and especially the Alliances, have their own protections. King Thorkell has Folker's viking armies at his beck and call, for crying out loud, and most Sanctuary families have their own services or even a Silver-Rank in their family, if not the occasional Gold."

"Yeah, everyone's been going nuts with the whole attack thing." pointed out Aguilon.

Yushira nearly choked on her juice, holding up her mask so it wouldn't fall out with the shock. "*cough* WAIT, the w-whole what?"

"If Guardnia's funeral was anything to judge us by…" reminded Cynthia, somberly folding arms.

"It has nothing to do with any of that!" assured Nam.

"Oh stop with the bullshit, please." Iaso asked, sincerely exasperated. He waved his mug around as if to address the whole bar. "Everyone here is thinking one thing; about how embarrassing it is that we, Silver Saints and otherwise, are being told the most secure place on Earth didn't have lightning rods! It makes me want to close myself in my house from just thinking about it. I get it that you can't talk directly about what's going on, but pretending that half the city isn't on the edge of their seats about what the big next headline is gonna be? It's gotta be a whole new level of insulting!"

Looking around the table, it seemed like the Silver Saints agreed with Iaso's uncompromising honesty for once, keeping quiet to their own and fiddling with their drinks, with only Aguilon keeping the merry drinking as if he's seen this happen too many times in his lifetime to care. Things hadn't felt so tense since the Civil War ended and Akassius announced Priam's supposed death, which now turned out to be either a huge mistake or a total lie.

The Sagitta Saint understood it wasn't easy for the Order to endure the Zodiac's endless condescending notes, but what was he supposed to do? "We'll do our duty tomorrow, as always." he started. He could feel Iaso's eyes rolling, but continued. "The Silver Saints at this table will be welcoming the members of court tomorrow, and every other occasion too."

"Mr. Nam, how important is tomorrow's audience?" Orpheé asked, feeling the tension in the room. Half of it had to do that he knew the identity of the Cancer Saint, who would apparently lead the audience, from what happened with Cetus at the Festival. "How will it affect us?"

"Aguilon, you got intimate knowledge we don't, right?" Cynthia confronted, making the Herakles Saint look away. It was an uncomfortable secret now busted wide open with Taurus' Daniel's face reveal that the Herakles Saint had long-time friends in the Temples. "What do you think will happen tomorrow?"

His large, armored fingers tapped the mug glass apprehensively, looking left and right at all the faces currently on him. "I think they'll do fine. The rich rags got no real reason to question the new Golds." he lied, knowing many that would be at Aestrea actually wondered why children were being given preference over long-training adult nobles.

"Are you for real?" questioned Iaso, skeptic.

"What's wrong with what Aguilon said?" asked Cynthia.

His green, tired eyes looked at the group as if they were crazy. "Haven't you all noticed? All the leaving Gold Saints had direct successors. Three got out, three got in. This doesn't happen unless someone is being worked up to the position prior, and at the Festival we find out that Malta, the librarian everyone hated, was the Aquarius Saint for almost twenty years! And then after he leaves, that kid he adopted, Camus, is made the new curator. Even though he's not much older than little Orpheé here."

Nam blinked. "Iaso, you're not suggesting that-"

"I'm not suggesting anything, cause I got no proof and don't really care." assured the medic, though his eternally cynic and ticked tones suggested otherwise. "But one thing's for sure; the new Aquarius' identity is secret to no one. You gotta wonder if there wasn't some bigshot vying for the job, like the Solos who always seem to plan their jetset wedding nights nine months before February or March, and now feel their toes stepped on cause some random French kid took the job." he pointed his mug at the painting of the Fire Clock on the wall. "How much you wanna bet otherwise? Not much, I'd imagine."

While the Silver Saints seemed half-convinced, the Herakles wouldn't say anything more.

"Is this… bad?" asked Orpheé, genuinely concerned.

Cynthia sighed. "It's… worrying, cause it means there might really be a power upset tomorrow. And when the Gold Saint Order is inconvenienced like this, everyone else pays the price. Hopefully the Cancer Saint can represent them well."

Something about Saint Cassiopeia's tone made Orpheé sweat. "How so?"

"It's simple, really. If they think the new Aquarius is too young, they might think you're too young, too, Orpheé, and they might take away your Cloth, little guy." Aguilon elaborated. "And with it… anything Sanctuary has ever given you for being part of the army."

The musician gasped, tucking his juice box. "W-what?!" His precious harp, his friends like Sorrento, the money grants for studying at Delphi and the little room he had to stay in at the school suddenly rushed through his mind. The Cloth itself didn't concern him the least, but without it… "NO, they can't do that!"

"It's not like that!" Sagitta Nam interjected, seeing Orpheé's stunned face and wanting to keep order in the division above all. "The Cloth picks the Saint too, they can't question your conquest of it that easily. Don't worry, Saint Lyra. No one's gonna put you on the street again."

Orpheé's face remained pale, picturing the Pegasus Saint arguing in front of a bunch of people like the ones he saw at Duke Akassius' mansion that they had no right to throw his training and studies away like this. All of his hard work seemed put at stake, all of a sudden. Something told him that the teenager that threatened to punch Cetus wasn't the type to be diplomatic.

Crane Yushira saw the lack of blood in his cheeks and took him by the hand. "Come on, Orpheé, let me get you some ice cream. The adults obviously got this covered." she invited, practically dragging him off and making her hair tail swipe the hair like a crane wing. "Nice job, gang! Maybe next time you can pop his balloon with a needle, too." She then walked off Circe's Grove with the kid to the late summer night, leaving them to their debates.

The group immediately felt bad, especially Cassiopeia. "Sometimes I really hate this place…" She then noticed that Yushira left her bill for them to pay.

Knowing what was like to have to fight to have his dream career, Doctor Iaso agreed for once. "Yeah, but you gotta wonder what is worse, having cosmos and living in a place like this, where you'll fight a war for some absent Goddess and be scrutinized by out-of-touch barons, or being with Hades and basically have your soul stolen." He drank the last of his mead and bashed it loudly on the table, upset. "Ahh… Or, you know, be a Black Saint and get dragged to a world of violence, crime and persecution by real Saints."

While he was also affected, Nam appealed. "Come on, guys, we have much to cover for tomorrow."

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Chapter 31

Second Arc

Episode 2

The First Trial

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Germany, Hades' Earthly Castle

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Under the eternally cloudy sky of the fortress, the castle's high gothic keep, housed many divisions along with the spiral staircase to the Underworld. In a night of peaceful watch over their territory, the soldiers of Hades kept quiet, standing vigilant at the walls, gatehouse and ceiled turrets. It was oddly quiet, not because of the demands by Balrog Rune, but because the garrison knew Pandora was at the keep.

In the solar's dining room, sitting at the wooden, long table in one of the fancy chairs and hearing the grandfather clock ticking away, the raven-haired, pale young woman drank her leaf tea in complete serenity, paying no attention to the shadows that danced and crept across the divisions of her fortified home. Her thoughts were on the affairs of her brother, the Emperor, and how they endlessly prepared for the future, inevitable war with Sanctuary.

After the loss of the Griffin Judge, Urial, the efforts had suffered a big setback. Many of the New Specters looked up to him and took an even greater morale loss with his demise. The arrival of Minos to fill the part almost immediately, however, not to mention the Dark Prince's work to keep discipline in the forces intact, set things back on track. Truly, with her in charge, the Underworld was more impeccable than ever. Even the fall of someone as high up as a Judge had not stopped their progress.

Putting down her tea cup, Pandora walking up to the curtained window of her tower from where she could see the bailey. Down there, several Skeleton Soldier patrols moved back and forth, but more importantly she could see the New Specters working under Aiacos, the new Garuda Judge.

"Aiacos?" she called, mentally. "Has the Nasu Specter returned from scouting?"

From the bailey, the young dark-haired youth nodded. "Yes, reported to the Prince directly, milady." he confirmed.

"And as usual… no information reported to me." She concluded with herself, cutting communications with the Judge. Still in her memory lied the strange conversation she caught Lucifer having with Behemoth Torak and Nasu Erika when they reported the attack Sanctuary suffered. "I am the sister of Hades… yet the army keeps me in the dark. To this day someone is yet to explain to me why the Golden Zodiac was rocked by a lightning bolt, and the New Specters continue to act in total disregard to me… I'll have none of it!"

But all things considered, what was she to do? Clearly it seemed like she lacked the loyalty of the Specters who arrived before her, who labored endlessly on the Prisons. Something had to be done, but what? She mused with herself that, perhaps, she should gather some understanding of her brother's world by herself, rather than under the guidance of her Dark Knight.

The clock ticked to nine o'clock in the night. It was time to head back. As if having inspired her, the solution popped in her head. "Valentine?"

One of the many shadows swirled around and regurgitated a large, creepily-armored body with round blackwings and sharp grey claws. Its hand and knee rested on the ground and its pale-haired head manifested from the darkness to stay lowered before the Sister of Hades.

Harpy Valentine, Celestial Star of Wailing was at her service. "Yes, Lady Pandora?"

"I am bored. I wish you to accompany me back to Giudecca." she lied. The real reason she called him, though, was because she wanted to check something important, and Valentine was young enough a Specter to still retain some of his normal life's individuality. Perhaps she could make something of this.

"Of course, your highness, but, if I dare ask -" he requested, making his green eyes look up. "What of your appointed knight, Daemon Lucifer? My duties call me somewhere-"

The woman brushed her hair with her hand dismissively. "I want you to accompany me." She ordered, stern, making the youth gulp in fear of being zapped.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Underworld, Cain Circle, Second Prison

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Walking by the Halls of Judgement, Pandora was faithfully followed by Valentine, who occasionally perched himself on rocktops to maintain a respectful distance and vigilance while staying close enough to answer whatever the Sister of Hades requested. Much like the Dark Prince himself, Valentine considered escorting the woman to be a practical waste of time, but unlike Lucifer he saw it also as an honor and fascination. The gracefulness of the gothic woman was something to behold, as she walked as a un-Surpliced human amongst the dead and the horrors as if a Specter herself, unaffected by the wailings, unfettered by the atmospheres of suffering and sadness, untouched by the sight of distant souls falling down on hell and carrying a strange shine in her daltonic eyes whenever speaking of the idea of being of use to her brother.

Valentine's memories as a Specter were still resurfacing, unused he was to his recently obtained role, but perhaps if he continued to be of use to Hades' Sister, who moved as if the underworld was her home, further memories would unlock.

Pandora suddenly stopped at a ledge from where she could overlook the Acheron River they just crossed. All she could see was the grey shades of the water and the rocks, failing to see passion in any of it despite her devotion. "I know my brother is testing me. This is the trial I must face. Yet, I feel I do not control what's around me." Her hand then stretched out, standing out the snake ring she contacted her servants through. "What good is this if he has the Judges and the Prince direct the armies? Is my only contribution to be a maid, a spokesperson, a Pope to my brother's glorious vision? Every day I tend to his host puppet, and I couldn't be happier…. Or could I?"

The Celestial Star of Wailing noticed the change in mood in the woman, watching her pensively behold Lord Hades' realm. "Is something wrong, Lady Pandora?" he asked. The Sister of the Emperor was an unapproachable person, usually focused entirely in her role. To see her so visibly bothered concerned him. "Did you call me specifically for a reason?"

Apparently she seemed willing to share. "Yes, Valentine, you are a recent return to our forces, so I feel like I can trust you to be my confident." she confessed, surprising the warrior whose avian eyes widened. "His memories haven't returned fully as a Specter, so perhaps I can instill a unique sense of loyalty in this one." she reasoned with herself.

"How so, milady?"

Pandora's hand waved at the bleak horizon. "The twin gods call me the Emperor's most honored on Earth, yet there are places I am not allowed to go. The 7th Prison, housing the gate of Tartarus, I can understand to be dangerous…" her purple eyes then focused on the distant sight of the mountain ranges that formed the borders of the scab that Hades' realm was in that dimension. "But a desert? A wilderness beyond the mountains? I am told by some, like the Prince, that even my brother fears that place, that it is beyond his power. What could possibly be there that is so uncontrollable?"

Harpy Valentine gasped, knowing the lady to be referring to the feared 'Desert Beyond'. Even his few returning memories seem to carry an instinct of fear about the location. "I have heard the Judges have, over time, tempered their powers there. Wyvern Rhadamanthys has been seen venturing to its edges recently… but if even Lord Hades fears it…"

She turned to him, eyes narrowing determinedly. "I wish to understand that place better, Valentine, clandestinely, of course. Perhaps with some knowledge of it I can serve my brother in a way beyond what I'm expected of."

A bead of sweat formed on Valentine's temple. Nothing about this sounded like a good idea. "I know of a few paths leading to the outskirts of our realm. Since the Desert surrounds us, I would imagine it matters not to you which one. Perhaps a venture can be arranged, but… would you not be content asking the Prince about it?"

"Am I to depend on the Specters for everything?!" she suddenly bit, perhaps ignoring the irony in how she was involving Valentine in her detour. "I just want to see this place, behold it. Get to know what my brother fears. A journey to increase my knowledge of the Underworld."

The winged Specter nodded excitedly to the best of his acting ability.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Following up a road hidden amongst the sharp rocks of the natural bridges leading out of Cain's Circle, Harpy Valentine did his best to support Pandora's pilgrimage to the Desert Beyond, clearing out obstacles in the path with cosmos blasts and making sure not a rock she could trip on stood in the way. As they made their way away from Hades' Road, the long path that ran through all the Prisons that mirrored Sanctuary's Hercules road, and slowly made their way towards the sharply peaked, black mountains surrounding the realms of Hades, the atmosphere seem to shift in nature, growing less and less illuminated by the 108 stars and with a colder and colder air, even though they were supposedly heading towards a desert. Was it because they were also distancing themselves from the heat of the 5th Prison's cauldrons?

Pandora covered her mouth disgustedly, seeing fumes in the air and bits of long-decayed bodies, like arms, legs and heads, propped out of the ground, like flowers reaching for a sun that no longer existed. Winds picked up by Valentine's wings washed the stench away, allowing her to stand around the place. Thoughts of doubts already plagued her about this, and she wasn't even outside the premises yet. Still, the thought of knowing more about her brother's limitations encouraged her.

The ground began rising as the foot of the mountain ranges approached them. Valentine looked up at the Wailing Star in the sky. "I feel like something that used to protect me, like an embrace, is leaving me. We are approaching the edges of Lord Hades' domain."

Summoning her trident with a purple spark from her ring and using it as a support cane, Pandora relentlessly walked up the slopes, seeing the lower path between the mountains that Valentine was leading her to. Already a strange air seemed to come from it. Not dead and damp like that of the Circles, or even frosty like Cocytus, but a soul-chilling current crossing from the valley, like a whisper in the dark carried in the wind. Her eyes widened, feeling like a monster awaited her on the other side of the line.

Still, with a hesitant guide, she made her way. The dark, basalt path began slowly fragmenting into pebble, then the first grains of sand began to appear. The rise in elevation flattened and the mountains that used to be in the horizon now flanked her from both sides. Suddenly, fear came over her and she looked back, seeing the now far away sight of the ceilings of the various halls, prisons and torture chambers of the Underworld now settling in her mind how out of reach the comfort and safety were. The shadows that gently danced in the buildings, as if somehow tamed within the reach of her brother, were now replaced by rapid sweeps of darkness that the corner of her eyes could swear to have seen amongst the jagged rocks.

Valentine saw her distressed. "Lady?"

"I-I'm fine…!" she assured, resuming her pace. A small curse regarding her heels was muttered.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Meanwhile

Third Prison

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

With a burst of winds from the flap of the Wyvern's wings, Judge Rhadamanthys charged at his teacher with raised fists. As if possessed by the dragon itself, his roar reached an inhuman screech and his fist rushed with the overlapping image of a clawed arm wing. The Daemon's cosmos erupted as well as he swept to the right, dodging the blow. His body leaped back over and over, sliding left and right with the grace of his black cape to evade the successive lunges of the Norse drake, each dodged blow still tearing apart the environment with the powerful forces launched by them, devastating the Prison.

Rhadamanthys stepped back in frustration, pausing, the clouds of dust from collapsing rocks engulfing them, and then, shouting, launched his attack in a wider arc.

A steel grasp rushed and caught his wrist before twisting Rhadamanthys' arm around, and Lucifer's foot struck his ankle, stunning it and kneeling the powerful young Judge with a low yelp. The tall, silver-haired man's red eyes squinted down at the angry, shaking youth. "You really do have no respect, don't you? How many times will I have to tell you not to do that?! Real power isn't about screaming and throwing your fists, you simpleton! Focus!"

Amidst the destruction all around them, the failure to even scratch his foe made Rhadamanthys feel ridiculed. The Judge growled furiously. "L-let go of me!"

But the Prince's knee instead exploded on the Judge's face so hard that he was tossed up against a rock and floored, blood gushing down his face. Lucifer's hand pointed at him and began whirring with bright, blue electrical cosmos, threatening to fire a cosmos blast to finish Wyvern off, but the Judge then swept out his wings and unleashed a massive sonic wave with his cosmos' burst, dispelling the charge and pushing back Lucifer.

The air above the rolling rocks field soared with the screeching blonde Specter's lightspeed flight and he loudly crashed with his opponent with a thunderous knee blow blocked by a purple-armored forearm. Rhadamanthys roared and swung at Lucifer's face only for the head to bob and make him miss! He flailed forward and a hand to grabbed his leg and Rhadamanthys gasped as he was suddenly span around by his opponent and tossed at the ground, crashing through high rocky obstacles and eventually the floor, breaking through the boulders.

Coughing and growling in mad rage, the Celestial Star of Fury raised his arms and made his dark purple aura explode, erupting the battlefield. His golden eyes locked on the target in the air, his aura surged down around himself and Rhadamanthys' clenched fist raised to show off winds of energy shaped like screaming wyrms gather around it, forming a sphere of sparking power around the Wyvern Surplice's gauntlet.

The Celestial Star of Pride landed on a high rock pillar and raised his hand. "By the lust of Zeus! Think before you fire that, Rhadamanthys!" he warned, dark electrical energy already silently gathering in his own fingers. "You keep forcing your opponent's hands with your brutality and you'll be trashed yourself before you even understand their strength."

Sick of Lucifer's judgements, the young Judge roared like a lion and thrust his hand. "SILENCE! GREATEST CAUTION!" the attack fired off like an explosion of screaming energy pulsating with accelerated soundwaves, taking the shape of a winged snake beam reaching out its claws to the target.

"Why am I even bothering?!" Within fractions of a second, Lucifer's red eyes burned with energy and his fist was immediately engulfed in a torso-sized sphere of dark purple, searing energy. Rocks in the environment were immediately thrown into the air by a gravitational pulse released by the charge. Layers and layers of cosmos burned like a black sun and the vague silhouette of a human skull was visible in the ball's core. "DARK REVENGE BLAST!" He shouted, throwing the huge ball of power, causing the image of the battlefield to distort as if the attacks curved around to head to another.

They collided frontally, releasing a flash of white light and a deafening thunder sound, and the air began screaming with grinding energy of Rhadamanthys' beam trying to push back the huge sphere of electrical cosmos that twitched and twisted as if about to explode. Sparks of static electricity tortured the atmosphere and rays of light illuminated the prison, making the wailing dead around the fight suffer.

The Wyvern Specter roared and tensed his muscles, maintaining his attack with ever greater effort, while Lucifer merely folded arms and awaited the inevitable result. No matter how much more power Rhadamanthys put into Greatest Caution, it seemed to be unable to push back the blast. In fact, the young blonde Specter started feeling his heels grinding back.

The nonchalant Dark Prince observed his efforts and the answer to the question he asked himself seemed a bit clearer. "His power is almost as great as his former self in the Canvas War, but he's blinded by his ambition to be the best amongst us Specters. Rhadamanthys, are you really happy just being Hades' greatest lapdog? You'll be such a ferocious servant… and would be an even more ferocious actor in this world if you just got over yourself... " He then took off into the air and blitzed around the foe, landing right behind Rhadamanthys. "But beams are just a dumb thing to use against me."

The Wyvern barely had time to react. "What?!"

A sudden, thunderous charge sound with sparks was heard and cosmos was felt forming another gravity-twisting dark moon of destruction. "DARK REVENGE BLAST!" Lucifer's hand created a second sphere of blazing electrical darkness and smashed it against Wyvern's body.

Rhadamanthys screamed and was swallowed by an explosion of purple cosmos that shattered his huge wings before his cancelled Caution let the original attack through, also striking him from the front. Daemon Lucifer stepped back and watched the massive fireworks of the two Dark Revenge Blasts blasting on top of each other, completely annihilating the Wyvern Surplice and nearly killing Rhadamanthys, who screamed almost inhumanly with the ferocious attacks delivered upon him in a firework's display of purple energy.

The spectacle of devastation dissipated with a rumbling collapse of the ground to reveal a smoking, tumbling Rhadamanthys with wide-shocked eyes, his Surplice reduce to almost just a couple of broken pieces attached to him, feeling his heartbeat barely pulsing. He fell to his hands and knees, overwhelmed by the damage and coughing out blood.

Only his pure rage allowed him to stay conscious. "Y-you… one day I'll g-get you…" he growled incoherently between teeth, trying to stand back up but feeling his muscles unresponsive. "T-that attack… won't work on me forever!"

Lucifer scoffed. "Well, aren't we on a high horse? Yes, it will work, Rhadamanthys. It's not up to you. I make it my business for it to work!" he asserted, merciless. This was a partial truth, as he has seen Wyvern's resistance grow exponentially over time. "Maybe you should observe how I do it, considering we're preparing you to fight an army that claims to be immune to repeated attacks."

With the sparring now dying down and his anger subsiding, Rhadamanthys regained his discernment and took in his surroundings, having forgotten the hills and rock-rolling dead all around them. The world felt completely off balance to the Wyvern, whose eyes whirled as he tried to stand up. No attack would put him to his knees before anyone but the Emperor, ever, much less those of the Prince. But as much as it irritated him that his efforts could not close the gap between them, he had to recognize there was a degree of truth to Lucifer's rants in that if he continued to refuse to take in the man's lessons, he wouldn't get anywhere.

Perhaps this was the reason behind the Emperor's decision to have him trained under the Prince, so that the Fury Star would understand that power alone wouldn't be enough to succeed. He dusted off the loose Damascus-metal parts from his body and looked up at the Pride Star.

"Y-your attack has nothing to it… a simple large orb combining your darkness and electricity elements into an unstable, gravity-twisting blast." Rhadamanthys enumerated, proving he has been paying attention. "My G-Greatest Caution will soon be able to destroy it!"

"Really? But you haven't even seen half of what I can do with it." Lucifer thought to himself, smirking. "How observing. Tell me, Rhadamanthys, do you think that little feat compares to half of what a Saint can do to you?"

It was easy to conclude what Lucifer was talking about, so Rhadamanthys took a rock from the ground. "What good is a worm being able to see through my second moves… if my first annihilates them?" he asked, sudden crushing the object in his hand with a purple light flash. "I know what you're trying, Prince. You're seeing the dawn of a new era in the Emperor's army, so you wish to break me before it ushers."

The Celestial Star of Pride could practically feel his own eyes try to roll against his will.

Rhadamanthys continued. "You have spent the interwar period doing nothing but repairing this place… redeeming yourself for your failures," he criticized, his fanged smirked returning. "The Emperor says you are my Prince… the Prince of Specters! How laughable. As if any human can claim to be His Left Hand. You're but a man who has grown obsolete. It's time for the Judges to take the fate of the Underworld back into our hands, and crush that decadent cunt Athena once and for all!"

The Prince rubbed his eyes. "The amount of ignorance in all of this physically hurts me." Lucifer folded his arms condescendingly, decided to forgive this and pretended to entertain Wyvern's little speech. "I am impressed that you are not discouraged by another defeat, not to mention the clear difference in power level still between us," admitted Lucifer. The compliment barely registered with the ferociously ambitious Specter. His red eyes narrowed and the Specter addressed the Judge's other capital sin. "But the lack of humility in you three is part of why Hades has failed to defeat Athena for centuries, and will continue to fail… if things are left in the hands of the Judges instead of the Prince for yet another war."

This affront made Rhadamanthys' eyes open wide and stand back up straight in a flash, regardless of the pain. "What did you say? Humility?! Says the Celestial Star of Pride?! H-how dare you?!" he demanded to know. "Me, the cause of the Emperor's failures?!"

Lucifer was unabated. "I also meant Minos and Aiacos, but if you prefer to narrow it down to yourself and that thick lizard skull, then I'll dare to say whatever I wish, Rhadamanthys. I…. am your liege." argued the Pride Star, further sending the Specter back to the brink of unbridled rage. He even turned his back on the Judge to show how unconcerned he was, looking on to the Third Prison's landscape. "And I am the only one who has served the Emperor fruitfully, hm, hm, hm..."

Feeling manipulated, the unibrowed youth tried to shrug off Lucifer's words. "What do you know about me, you relic?!"

Again, the teenager's apparent refusal to acknowledge how the person in front of him has witnessed a couple of Holy Wars made the Left Hand of Hades lose his patience. "More than I've bargained for. All of your memories have yet to return, but in the past you failed to serve Hades because of your arrogance. You let Aquarius Degél and Scorpio Kardia sink our plans to coerce Poseidon, and then you couldn't even kill a weak Leo Gold Saint without his highness' blood pumping through your very heart, because you thought the Gold Saints were no threat to you. In the war before that, you didn't even do anything because Hypnos and Thanatos thought they could do a better job attacking Sanctuary by themselves. You may look at the New Specters for being weaklings… but your past is filled with your sin of incompetence on the battlefield."

At that particular point, Rhadamanthys felt so insulted that he swore he could feel his fingers draw blood on his palms. "You speak of the mistakes of my past lives? And what have you accomplished?"

Lucifer's red eyes narrowed fiercely. "I lived through the war. Both the Saints and Alone failed to end me." he argued, even omitting the fact he killed Rasgado and the Godslayer, to boot. "And you died protecting Pandora from a power-drunk painter. How did that serve the war for the Emperor, you gloryhound lapdog?"

The English teenager gasped, the revelation chilling him. "P… Pandora? What are you saying?! Why would I protect that useless woman?!" he questioned, finding the notion ridiculous.

Lucifer chuckled and walked away. "You were much wiser than this in your final moments, Rhadamanthys… You certainly surpassed my discernment. It shocked me so much, it almost drove me insane," the Prince confessed, further bewildering Wyvern. "The thought of you…. seeing the truth when I still could not…." the Prince's fist clenched like steel, grinding the muscles loudly.

The Star of Fury gritted his teeth, sick of the cryptic nonsense. "Enough with the trickery! What truth?! Why are you telling me this?!"

The fist relaxed and Lucifer's mood improved. "Perhaps if you remembered that moment, you'd be able to surpass me on the battlefield, too… or better yet take my side." Lucifer explained, his tone frank. "I do not hate you, Rhadamanthys, or at least I wouldn't make a big statement about it, since I respect powerful warriors… and you are a tenacious kind. So I will give you a gift."

Suspicion immediately filled the heart of the beaten warrior. Nothing about all of their training had been pleasant for either of them. He was constantly frustrated about how there was this established Specter above him that was so many leagues ahead that his power was borderline incomprehensible, and Lucifer showed every training session through his humiliating tactics and speeches that for some odd historical reason he had grievances with him stemming from previous Wars that it seemed that the obligation of teaching him candidate unpleasant.

Now he offered him a gift? What absolute garbage.

But perhaps this was a field where he could defeat Lucifer on, in words. "What gift could I need from you? You're nothing but a stepping stone in my path to become Hades' greatest warrior." he declared. "A fraud who clings to the past! I am the future of this army."

Lucifer's finger suddenly pointed at his face. "That, right there, Rhadamanthys…. My gift is to enlighten you a bit. I will tell you who is your greatest enemy."

"My greatest… enemy?" the Wyvern gasped. "Stop saying nonsense, and tell me what you mean!"

The monstrously powerful Prince lowered his hand. "The greatest lessons you'll ever learn in life will not come from me, or Hades, or anyone on your side. They will come from your enemies," he revealed. The memories of the long centuries flashed through Lucifer's mind. "War upon war… you may not recall it at this point, but certainly you realized it in the back of your head at the end of the last one, how utterly misguided our efforts have become. How we lie to ourselves…. did something about what Regulus did to you change your spirit, Rhadamanthys?"

A fanged mouth tried to retort, but hesitated. Rhadamanthys grabbed his own aching head, eyes trembling. The name sounded so familiar and a pain in his chest surfaced, like an old scar. He tried to speak, but felt like a lightning bolt was coursing through his veins, triggering lost realizations.

Seeing a grain of doubt afflict the youth before him, Lucifer capitalised on it. "I saw you stand back up from the most horrible of injuries, half of your body missing, with the only desire to free Hades from Alone's grasp. But you could have easily allowed things to have gone on, correct? At least until Athena died."

The Fury Star recollected none of this. The silver-haired, red-eyed man was talking about a war that, even if he had lived through, was still completely outside Rhadamanthys recollections. Still, the words rang like a familiar song in his head, making him grab it and wince in ache. It felt like even though nothing of what the Pride Star was saying made sense, Rhadamanthys' mind somehow kept up, touching upon painful memories whose puzzle pieces he could not yet put together.

The shadowy fingers of the Wyvern Surplice's cosmos seemed stimulated by this conversation, probing his mind for said pieces, slowly finding matching results. For the first time since they met, Rhadamanthys was transfixed by what Lucifer had to say. "That… what did I do? Tell me!"

"Something drew you to that moment… or someone. Didn't she?" Lucifer argued, meaning Pandora who had gone to confront Alone. There was a strange hint of rising anger to his tone hidden behind a sad smile. Lucifer's semblance of darkness seemed to enlarge like a terror until then hidden from sight. "For that, I utterly despise you, Rhadamanthys. You robbed me of something, you crushed my pride that day like I never thought you would. But I take comfort in seeing that the lesson you learned then did not stick. Here we are again, two hundred years later… and you're still spouting that blind loyalist junk of a tirade, mh, mh, mh."

The tired warrior tried to stay adamant before the confusing mess the Prince was saying. His chuckle seemed to summon weird, distant voices in his past of someone who was once in Rhadamanthys' arms, begging him to do something about… someone called Alone? He shook his head, trying to dispel these confusing thoughts.

After all, his fanatic side also burned strong. "Hades is the master that I have longed to serve. Of course I am loyal to him." he defended, standing tall.

An evil smirk filled the Pride Star's lips. "The Emperor is not impressed by loyal servants, you fool. He is impressed by those who are useful to him," he mocked, tapping his own head to allude to cunningness. "And so far you have proven yourself just as big a failure as everyone else in this army, so why do you pretend he's the light you follow? You have a simple choice, Rhadamanthys; forget about your stupid obsession to become his confidant and listen to me, or forever be a failure of a Judge in the eyes of the Emperor," he laid out, making the Judge's rapine eyes widen. "I will only give you this option once. Think carefully about it."

But the Judge wiped the air with his hand. "I don't need to think about it!" he announced, looking the Prince straight in the eye. "I am Rhadamanthys…. One of the chosen to be a Judge! And I will decide the fate of the wretched sinful my master despises. Whatever path you want to offer me, Prince, is completely meaningless to me."

There was a sudden lowering of temperature and Lucifer's ruby eyes narrowed very dangerously, disappointed. "Think very carefully about it, Rhadamanthys." he simply repeated. "On this choice lies your future, your pride. Don't make me think you haven't changed from what happened with Alone… cause if you haven't..."

Though he felt a slight intimidation from the man's low voice, the Wyvern stood defiant. "Then what?"

His head approached his. "Then I will never entrust her to you!..." the Prince threatened, somehow transmitting terror into the warrior despite the nonsense of his words. "Take your time with your answer." Lucifer's eyes suddenly turned towards the far-off the mountains that outlined Hades' realm, his 7th sense tingling. "Intruders in one of the routes to the Desert? Impossible…Has Priam decided to pay a visit?"

Wyvern saw him lose focus and walk off. "Where do you think you're going?!"

Lucifer fluttered away his black Cloth cape, preparing for a lightspeed leap. He would have to be discrete about this since maybe it could be something of private interest. "We will continue your training later, I have business to attend."

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Sanctuary Town

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

The Courthouse of Aestrea was situated by the shadow of Fourth Street, or Fourth Acropoli as it was historically known, the commercial district of Sanctuary. Much like the library curated by Camus, it's architecture was a tribute to the classics, glorifying the marble pillars, arcs, balconies, staircases and symmetries of the marble buildings of Ancient Greece. The Silver Saints that responded to Sagitta Nam's call stood outside the huge wooden doors at the top of the impeccable staircase and stoically watched the crowd that gathered with curiosity at the bottom of the steps. Said staircase was split down the middle by a marble rail ending in a single large statue of Aestrea, the goddess of innocence and purity, holding up high in her hand the scales of Libra.

The reason this particular figure was idolised in Sanctuary's house of justice was due to her role as the impersonation of the Gold Cloth of Virgo and for being a mythical ally of Athena as well as her relatively close family relation with Nike. There was also a good commotion about the idea of symbolizing the court with the idea of innocence. It was a popular notion and the merchants seemed to like it, especially since it made them think they could rely on the court to cover disputes in their favor. In truth, the 'house of innocence' put out more guilty people than exonerated ones and the mob sure enjoyed seeing their least favorite celebrities, vagrants and magnates walk out the building with a tense look on their faces. Captured Black Saints were particularly entertaining, since they didn't understand Sanctuary's laws most of the time and acted with characteristic and amusing revolt at their sentences, trashing against cosmos-sapping stardust chuckles while marching their way to the Stardust Prison.

That day was no different and everyone in Sanctuary had seen the parade of VIPs walking through the capital and up the staircase, coming from all corners of the world and especially Greece. This was usually the sign that the Gold Saint order, the most gossiped about division in the army, was about to get grilled. It was unrealistic to expect anything to be known about what went on inside just from staring at the buildings' large walls, but it sure was fun to imagine and make up stories.

"I mean, who could blame them? Those good-for-nothing Golds are just a bunch of privileged kids brought up by their rich parents into their position, after all, or at least that's what I've heard from the guard."

"What a joke. They had perfectly good war heroes in charge and now they were gone and someone left daycare in charge."

"Sanctuary really is going down the tubes!"

"What would Athena say?"

Inside the building itself, in the trial room, several semi-circular sets of seats escalated up the room around the main Judge desk, like an amphitheater. It used to be that the Gold Saint of Libra would preside trials from said desk, but in the 14th Century something called the Second Civil War was fought over the idea that maybe the Golden Zodiac shouldn't be allowed to put their people in positions of so-called 'mediation' with their social rivals. There were long-obsolete myths about weapons capable of reading right from wrong, and perhaps this should be avoided lest things fall down to what caused the First Civil War again, the brutal Athenian Empire.

In Libra's place, a neutral party picked a judge representative from established legalists, in this case the aged, powder-wigged, glasses-totting Lemurian gentleman known as Meropis, who had served Sanctuary for literally over a century and hailed from Shamballa, the hidden capital of Mu's people in southern Tibet, close to the Himalayan border. Lemurians were popular in Sanctuary as chosen mediators for anything and anyone; they were familiar enough to Athena's people, very intelligent, interested in nerdy work and completely unattached to human political affiliations, seeing themselves as a wiser fallen race.

Their obsessive (and tragic) interest in technology and spiritualism also made them difficult to bribe or corrupt. There weren't many Sanctuary dwellers who could offer Lemurians something to be interested in, unless the local warehouse had a new kind of engine or the solution to a challenging philosophical dilemma. This was especially true when they still had legends of past glory and wealth to look back on as the reason their continent sunk in the first place. Their service to Sanctuary obeyed the principle of common survival and sovereignty, as Lemurians understood pretty well that regardless of their personal opinions on which race was better, Hades threatened to destroy a common treasure to life on Earth, knowledge itself, and this alone made Athena their greatest ally.

There was also the recurring, self-conscious myth that Lemurian legalists enjoyed watching dumb humans pretend they could act civil in a house of law.

One thing the judge never got used to was how the collective of entitled togas with masks walking in every session seemed entitled to make a racket with their 'quiet whisper' talk as they walked inside the courtroom and took their seats. Back home his people knew that anything worth gossiping about could be done outside the court. At least the five Gold Saints to his right were quiet, or maybe they were just nervous since the people sitting down were feudal warlords with nothing better to do than judge a bunch of kids for doing their job. It was a strange thing to be scared of, but Meropis had served Athena since 1908 and he was yet to even figure out why he was required to wear this wig when he didn't have syphilis.

He sighed and looked at the kids. "Are you ready?"

The older, more insecure-looking one wearing the Cancer Cloth nodded, eyeing the audience. "Yeah, I suppose."

The Pisces Gold Saint watched the chatting masked people take their seats with a disturbed frown. "They look like creeps with those things."

"It's a tradition of free expression, Aphrodite; historically nobles wished to protect their identity when expressing opinions against Gold Saints who might… send people after them," explained Camus, more enlightened on the topic. "It was also a way to answer in equal foot, since it used to be the Gold Saints wouldn't divulge their identity to the 'Golden Ring' families, either. Obviously it doesn't make their figures and clothes unrecognizable now, but much like the Amazon mask suppresses their gender in law, these theater masks, along with cloaks and other things, were used to symbolically suppress their identity before the Golden Zodiac."

The Saints were stunned at the elaborate explanation. "I wish I had kept you around helping me manage Sanctuary, too." admitted Saga.

The Cancer Gold Saint fidgeted nervously."…I kind of needed legal advice just to make sure I'm on the right track and someone is here to stop me from blasting someone." Lance also admitted. He reacted so badly to cold attacks that the Aquarius presence alone tempered his speech. "I'm not good at either of these."

"Lance, you still haven't told me your plan." Aiolos protested. "Aiolia's upbringing is on the line, I wish you'd just-"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it, your brother! It's all under control!" assured Lance unconvincingly.

The teal-haired boy sighed. "I felt bad about yesterday… I figured I'd lend a hand since this stuff isn't too hard." Camus felt the audience finally quieting down and looked over the seats for his teacher. "Master Malta hasn't come," he noticed, frowning slightly.

"What's with these chairs way up in the front?" Aphrodite asked, pointing at the special desk to the room's right by the Papal Guard bailiff where seven seats stood guarded by a long wooden desk. They stood out not only for their segregated position, but also the comfortable stuffing and individual, elaborate pattern weave. "They look extravagant and customized."

It was easy to see what Aphrodite meant; all the chairs' back rest looked like authentic flags of whoever was supposed to sit on them; one followed drawings akin to a Tibetan carpet with Lemurian dots hanging above, the other showed chain-like links along the seat's curves, and the third had the emblem of a viking helmet staring down with sword and axe crossed below. Surprisingly, the middle chair not only seemed of high legs, as if the intended user was of short stature, but featured a roman laurel crown, complete with 'SPQR' written below, as if typically seated by an emperor of old. The fourth showed off a sun above a pyramid of flat top like the Chichen Itza, so more likely Mesoamerican than Egyptian and the sixth chair showed seven pearl-like spheres surrounding a dolphin crossing with a trident.

Lastly, the space reserved for a seventh chair was there, at the end of the row, but for some reason it was missing.

"They're for the Seven Allies of Sanctuary, little boy." Judge Meropis kindly explained, casually ignoring the look he got from the deadly trainee he just patronized. "In every session they have special privilege to be present, in their own wing and make their own questioning separately from the audience and prosecution."

Sagittarius Aiolos blinked. "Um, okay, but why is the last one missing?"

Meropis blinked and gasped, as if he only noticed it for the first time. "Oh by the love of Athen- would the bailiff please place the proper seat? It's been over a decade!" he ordered, and the bailiff embarrassedly rushed to the back room to fetch and place a chair that showed a winged, crowned sword pointing downwards. The Saints initially thought it was somehow referring to Hades' sword, but on closer inspection the light-blue-weaving seemed more similar to tapestry in the Capricorn Temple about Excalibur, somehow,

"And conveniently none of them seemed interested in coming." Saga commented, folding his arms in suspicion, but also a bit relieved they wouldn't have to deal with those strangely influential people. "Hopefully this will make things easier to get through."

"Neither has Kirin or that guy Akassius…" added Aiolos, his eagle eyes quickly looking over the dozens of faces. But it didn't take a telescope to spot the first familiar face. He pointed at a seat way at the back where an obviously disguised friend made his way. "Ha, ha, look, Daniel has come. Thank god, a friend."

Everyone saw the huge, blonde man with a bovine mask barely covering his large face apologizing and stepping over his peers to take a seat by the end of the very last row. After a lot of scuffle and ruffle, he finally managed to rest in a way that didn't make himself too uncomfortable about how his head could almost reach the ceiling thanks to the height of the last row. He gave the kids a huge thumbs-up and a smile, silently wishing them good luck.

This made Lance also try to search for someone familiar, like the young woman Adriana, but with no apparent order to the masked seating it was difficult to search among nearly the fifty people present. Unfortunately, no one of her frame and demeanor seemed to stand out.

Aphrodite folded arms, skeptical about the former Taurus' presence. "Who cares? He's one vote amongst at least fifty."

Lance felt the other two asking him with their eyes why he brought the gardener. "Aphrodite wanted to get to know the court. Something about proving me wrong about Sanctuary. Since it was right by Saga's schedule, I figured it would be fine."

"And apparently I was right. Look at all these people," the Pisces Saint argued, referring to the fat slobs he saw amongst the audience. "You can't seriously tell me it's from shining examples like these that you build a moral code."

And as if to accentuate Aphrodite's point, Lance saw none other than Gigas, the small-statured, dark-blue haired man with the ornamented cane he met at Akassius' estate, walk up to them. "Why, greetings, Saint Pisces, Aquarius, Sagittarius, Cancer…" he politely greeted, bowing his head. "You too, Judge Meropis."

The Lemurian legalist noticed the lack of formality in the greeting as compared to the kids, but he was used to this man's frankly comedic racism after countless court sessions dating back before even the Third Civil War.

"Greetings, Counselor Gigas. You're here to say you'll be hosting the court, correct?" Meropis boredly asked.

"As always, your honor. If… the present parties don't mind terribly." he proudly declared, tapping his cane on the wooden floor.

"Please don't mark the ground," the dot-browed judge requested, scribbling down stuff so he wouldn't have to stare at the corrupt liaison. "We'll keep this session neat and tidy, no delays or postponements. Have your questioning prepared and, for Aestrea's sake, no melodrama. If this court is treated like a radio show again I will have your party fined for contempt."

Gigas smirked. "Of course, your highness, my… patrons would never do such a thing." Pretending that the Lemurian didn't give him the death stare just then, Gigas then walked past the Gold Saints and whispered, "you three should have taken up my offer, mh, mh." before walking back to the podium.

Camus blinked. "What was he talking about?"

Aiolos, Lance and Saga all sweated. "Nothing that matters, but at Akassius' manor he tried to get us under his wing." the Gemini Saint assured. "He'll get what's coming later…"

"Okay, so what's the strategy?" asked Aiolos.

"Well, there's two things we want out of this situation," numbered Saga, raising fingers. "Secure our position as a respectable generation and their support in letting us decide the formalization of the kids into Saints at our own timing."

Camus saw the confused look on Aphrodite's face. "In plain Greek we want to look like we're doing our job and allow Aiolia to choose when to pursue the Cloth, if at all."

"Preferably not." reminded Aiolos, eyes steeling at the notion.

"Oh, and that's another reason I brought Aphrodite…" explained Lance, eyeing the mentioned boy. "I plan to use his case as an argument in your favor since Camus explained to me that it is possible…" the conversation he had with Ghisi then came to mind. "And from what I've been told, these guys might know more about the attack on the Pope than they let on."

Seeing everyone's mood tense, especially the younger Aphrodite and Camus who kept skimming their eyes on the crowd, Aiolos clapped his hands to snap them out. "Alright, all we have to do is show we're running a tight ship and we'll be fine, everyone. It's just a periodic report…. It's gonna be a breeze."

"The court is in session," announced Meropis, whose glasses then looked down at his papers. "The first matter will be the formalization of Saint Pisces Aphrodite' canonization. Gold Saints, please present your case."

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Meanwhile,

Underworld

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

After what felt like an hour of pacing through the mountainous path, a tired, exasperated Pandora panted her way down the beginning of a slope in the rocks, feeling the crossing nearing its end. Valentine took her hand and gently guided her down. The strange lack of strength in the wind and the lack of sand in it from the supposed desert that awaited her was worrying, still taking shape of an ever stronger chill akin to a corpse's song.

The clawed hand of the Specter rested on a large rock by a cliff's edge and he presented the sight beyond. "This is it, milady… The 'Desert Beyond'."

Pandora's eyes widened, seeing the landscape beyond the mountain's premise. As far as her eyes could see from her high position, cold, empty dunes of pale sand stretched out like a dead sea to the far, far greater distance that she could see in the Underworld, or of Germany from the top tower of her earthly castle. Rising up and down, yet having no wind and no blazing sun, the almost white sand of the 'Desert Beyond' simply existed under the faint Hundred and Eight Stars as an empty canvas, a place of primordial expanse, a curtain on the floor that never ended and yet reminded her of the ghosts that plagued her nightmares as a child.

The air was damp, if present at all. The phantasmagorical look of the expanse made it seem like a sea of salt where unknown predators could suddenly grab her. Yet, here and there, she could spot objects in the dunes, at first mistaken by strange boulder formations but on closer inspection looking like ruins preserved in the void. The mummified presence of architecture intrigued her, breaking the atmosphere of despair for a brief second, but the incredible stillness and blandness to it all brought her right back down to the abyss, which asked her for how long these strange remains had been there.

The sister of Hades was used to, or even in love with, the deathly, gothic sensations of the Underworld, where the knowledge that nihilism and death surrounded everyone filled her with joy, but this… was different. It wasn't morbid, nor nostalgic, nor melancholic nor did it denied hope. Instead, she felt like meaning in itself was inconsequential, like an un-started work of God, a place of forgetfulness.

There was no comfort taken in the sight of the infinite lack of activity in the below sand ocean. There was no knowledge taken from the feeling of crushing smallness the vast emptiness filled her with, unlike what the addicting melancholy and sadness that Giudecca's halls inspired in her. There was no happiness stemming from the certainty that the wretched, sinful humans were being punished below her feet by burning caskets and the teeth of their peers, but rather a strange terror that dark, alien hands could suddenly sprout out from below the sands and grab her. And the extreme temperatures of either Cocytus or the cauldrons that formed the punishments of the prisons were here replaced by an unfeeling air, a mild purgatory of sensations that made her senses feel like they drowned just from being there.

Beads of sweat filled her face. Her brother could not protect her in a place like the one she was beholding.

The Harpy Specter shared similar thoughts. "Even my Surplice shakes in this place… and our feet haven't even graced the actual sands yet." he looked at his hand, where black energy burned "I can't even feel the heat of my burning cosmos, as if I'm somehow outside the universe, disconnected from the Gods themselves."

"V-Valentine… I do not wish to be in this place anymore!" she called, her voice trembling and her eyes unable to move. The more she stared at the chasm she sensed, the more it felt like her whole soul was being swallowed by the void felt in the grains. "Take me back. N-NOW!"

A sudden, shuffling sound was heard behind them. Specter and liaison turned to the path they came in through, searching for the source. Footsteps on gravel rock, pebble and sand were sensed from around the path's corner, hidden by the jagged boulders. Valentine went on guard, raising cosmos-immersed battle claws and riling up his round wings. Their eyes widened at the sight of a tall, stumbling shadow of a man moving unto them on the ground. It stopped, arms waving, and its head rose a bit.

A deep, echoing howl of suffering was let out, making Pandora gasp and Valentine feel a shiver he hadn't felt since he first unlocked his cosmos. Whatever was walking up to them behind the corner reached its voice out to the dark skies and wailed out the last of its cry with an ending gargle, as if weakened from it. Stepping onward, the shadow's arm reached out and the source's hand grabbed the side of the hiding boulder, showing off darkened, metal encased fingers with yellow, sharp nails elongated by receding dead skin.

Pandora gasped, despite her exposure to the Underworld, there was something about it that made her stomach turn. Valentine put himself between them. Pieces of armor were still strapped to the man, like a dead soldier of Sanctuary, that fell off the body with a clang on the ground to reveal ripped up cloth covering the torso and legs. It was at least different from the decayed, tortured bodies they'd see in the Underworld. None of the muscles had receded into slim threads of meat under the skin, instead still forming a quite robust body, but the hands, feet and face seemed eaten up. The eyes were gone, devoured by something, leaving blackened sockets with marks of blood tears, and the mouth was agape in a hungry oh, as if letting out a mute howl. Blood-encrusted wounds drenched in sand, a strange shiny dust and tiny wriggling worms festered in the darkened, yet not rotten flesh. The ugliness transcend the physic, and Pandora's immature sense of cosmos could feel flickering images of the man warping back and forth around his body's supposedly empty husk, transmitting screams of war, pain and disaster from his life.

"What in the name of… Pandora, stay back!" Valentine warned, forming a ball of cosmos in his hand that let out screeches of energy akin to a bird's cry. "TAKE THIS!" He thrust his palm at the speed of light a blast of purple energy fired off it, instantly striking the enemy right on the chest but shattering into a blinding firework of cosmos that wrecked the ground around it and cratered the mountain's slopes all over, but failing to do little more than stumble the creature back a bit. "W-what?! That should have turned you into particles!"

The undead fell to his back, the chest's fabrics still sizzling but the body itself was simply marked by a scorch. His neck snapped back, his hand reached out to them, his empty eye sockets seemed to widen and he howled deeply into the air, this time succeeding in letting out a sound from its dead lungs akin to a gargled, raspy screech. The sheer inhumanity in it paralyzed the two, appealing to their most terrified instincts.

Pandora screamed and panicked. "V-VALENTINE, do something!"

The Specter's claws immersed in cosmos and he leapt at the creature. "SHUT UP, you scum!"

"DARK SPEAR BARRAGE!"

Valentine gasped and halted himself just in the nick of time to avoid being skewered by a crashing shower of bright, sizzling, purple spears of dark cosmos striking and impaling the undead from the sky, one pole of energy going down straight the mouth and silencing it before the rest ripped off the arms, legs and parts of the torso with precisely aimed throws, turning the undead into pin-cushioned meat. Electrical cosmos sparked all over the many javelins until, with a glowing shine, they finally exploded, utterly destroying the ghoul in a shower of cosmos.

The smoke screen swept the area, making the two cough, and Valentine looked up to see the shadow of an armored man being revealed through the dissipating clouds to be Daemon Lucifer himself, landed from his attack.

Sweeping his black cape, the Dark Prince's red eyes looked the scene over. "I should have known I felt two people moving here…" He then saw Pandora terrified behind Valentine and his heart sank. "Of course…thank the Gods I followed. I thought the lack of calls to escort you today were strange."

"L-lord Lucifer… I apologise." Valentine assured. "I was under orders, but I had it under control. I just don't understand what happened. I should have been able to pulverise that… thing."

The much better armored Specter got on his knee and picked a remaining piece of flesh, where the shiny dust was deeply packed into a graze. "It's called the Black Hole phenomenon."

The two widened their eyes. "That what?"

"These are dead users of cosmos… Cosmos is an exploding force of the universe, generated and developed by the person throughout their life in sync with the stars and constellations, and at the moment one nears death, it often burns the brightest." the Pride Star recalled. "This is why brave battlers have stood back up again and again in the most desperate of battles, inflicting tremendous injuries on their foes."

"W-what does that have to do with that thing getting up and resisting a Celestial Star attack?" Pandora demanded to know.

"When life ends… if you're not bound to the chains of Hades or walking into the Well of the Underworld, your soul will split from your corpse, removing the spiritual from the material, ending the link between the cosmos and your body. You will pass on, and be swallowed by the wheel of reincarnation. What do you think will happen to your body, which stays behind with the remains of all of that power?" the quincentenarian Specter questioned, eyeing Valentine in particular.

The Harpy Specter grabbed his chest self-consciously, feeling it tighten. When he was first awakened by Hades, he was told his Surplice carried the cosmos of his previous service, and that it would seep into him over time. Had this power been taken from him in his last moments, saving his corpse from whatever happened to the creature that attacked them?

Seeing no answer coming from the two, Daemon Lucifer gave it. "All that energy will contract onto your flesh and bones, like a star that imploded into a black hole, and acted upon it, transforming it into the only material we know of that interacts with cosmos at all."

This time Pandora was able to connect the dots. "... the dust of stars?" she questioned, alarmed.

Not particularly fond of the topic himself, the Prince of Hades nodded somberly. "You might just be powerful enough that the last of your burning cosmos completely turns you into dust…. But in most cases the Cosmos starts crystallizing bits of you into stardust, creating grains, then deposits, then layers that might as well be Cloth armor." he showed off the wounds in the flesh. "The added mass causes your skin to burst, scarring your corpse from the inside, and you might just fall under the influence of a necromancer or a chaotic place like this… turning you into a walking dead with natural resistance to the Cosmos."

Valentine's eyes widened. "Are you saying… it was absorbing the cosmos of my attack like one of those locks and chains used in Sanctuary?"

"Yes, in fact, once upon a time, Sanctuary's alchemists were threatened and imprisoned for long periods of time for grave robbing, looking for cheap stardust in their sanctified cemeteries of Saints. This must have been once a prisoner of one of the Circles who by some miracle got away." Lucifer analyzed, referring to the destroyed zombie. "In the Prisons, the body is carrying the person by decree of the Judges, so we don't usually witness this phenomenon as Specters with the tortured dead. In an isolated place like this, however, away from Hades' power, corpses will lose the soul to the reincarnation cycle and… well, stardust doesn't just come from meteors, after all." he taught. He then fiercely eyed the two. "But then again, why have you come here? I thought spies had infiltrated the Underworld."

Pandora dignitantly stepped forward, proudly holding up chin. "I decided on it! I wished to know my brother's-" she was instantly paralyzed when she saw the Celestial Pride Star's Cosmos emerge as a terrifying, mad aura, contrasting with his calm demeanor. She held her own. "What reason do I need to walk upon the realm of the Underworld?!"

"That isn't the Underworld," the silver-haired Prince began pointing his armored finger at the far off dunes. "That... is the most dangerous place to the servants of the Emperor, the primitive wilderness the Emperor has built his empire on, annexing order from chaos." he walked up to them and pointed his finger at the sandy horizon. "Your relationship with our God means nothing in there and in those sands beyond this mountain sleep things far older, far more monstrous and far more rebellious to Hades than some armored corpse of a Sanctuary soldier that got away from the Prisons." He saw her purple eyes turn to glass and look away, so he sighed. This wasn't the way to go. "Your brother is immortal, milady, but you are not, remember that."

The raven-haired woman gritted her teeth behind her stoic lips. Her immediate impulse told her to burn the cosmos of the snake ring and shock the defiance out of the Pride Star for making her feel her rightful expanses barred. The memory of how little the torture phased his ideals when she punished him for Sphinx Neferti's poor music, however, dampened the prospect's temptation.

She saw Valentine stare nervously at the two, perhaps wondering when the blame would be shifted on him. "The Wailing Star will continue to accompany me!" she asserted. "When I return to Giudecca, I will speak to my brother about your continued affronts, Lucifer. I would not tolerate the Judges themselves speaking back to me, and you are no exception." She then walked off the path Harpy had guided her through, fuming to herself.

The white-haired, green-eyed Celestial Wailing Star addressed the Prince. "Won't she take a long time walking back?... I would guide her again, but Lady Pandora seems furious. Lucifer, I was ordered to bring her here, otherwise I would have never…"

Closing his red eyes, the Prince's fist bashed a rock by him. "I would close the countless roads through the ranges to this place myself, but… the 'Desert' is too convenient of a place, away from Hades' sight. It was here I managed to train Héloise, after all." He then addressed Valentine. "I cannot continue to waste time being her Dark Knight….yet it doesn't seem like I can entrust her safety to anyone else."

The lower Celestial Star folded his arms. "You make it seem like your time is running short, Lord Lucifer. Have the New Specters been restless again?"

Lucifer's black cape flowed around his body as if with a life of its own. "Follow me, Valentine. We'll shadow Pandora for a bit and then see that for ourselves." The two Specters then took off to the starry skies with superhuman leaps, either with flapping Harpy wings or immersed in a bat-crying mantle of dark cosmos.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Antenora Circle, Third Prison

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

After making sure the Sister of Hades was safely back at the Hall of Judgement, the two sweeping shadows of Cosmos travelled up the Underworld, crossing the rivers, cliff ranges and Prisons through the air with jumps and glides of superspeed, unabated by the defences of the Underworld like a fish in dark water or a Saint moving through Sanctuary. Eventually, the two blobs of dark purple energy landed on a cliff top overlooking the site where the Symplegades boulders were carried up the slopes by the greedy dead.

The red eyed Prince waited for Harpy to reach his side and beheld the scene, watching the many disparate Specters and skeleton soldiers whip the dead into work. He called attention with his index finger to the New Golem Specter, who seemed to tussle in an argument with Basilisk Sylphid.

The Belgian, winged warrior was one of the very youngest currently in Hades' forces, aged only about six years old, yet he carried himself with not only the Surplice previously held by Maia, the specter who failed the attack on Andromeda Island, but also with authority to look down on New Troll and New Golem.

Basilisk folded his arms. "How pathetic, you call yourselves servants of Hades?" his high-pitched voice mocked. "Get the undead monsters under control and fix that mess!"

"Leave us to our jobs, we are not your slaves!" Golem shouted. "Torak is our sovereign lord in this Prison, not you, kid."

The young Sylphid disagreed. "I am the Celestial Star of Victory, you fool. I lord over all of you weakling Specters."

Lucifer and Valentine watched from afar as Golem and Troll continued to protest, only for a gust of wind to bash them against the rocks painfully, putting them back to work.

"There is discord in the army, despite my best efforts. It's not just Pandora who walks about in search of trouble," said Lucifer, startling Valentine out of the scene. "The revived Specters act in dissonance with the newcomers like Rhadamanthys and Sylphid, who belittle them. Discipline will be more and more difficult to maintain in the future, but we cannot simply rid ourselves of warriors who served Hades faithfully and repaired the Prisons from the Lost Canvas War."

While Valentine nurtured no love for anyone, he saw sense in this. "I agree, Prince Lucifer. What do we do?"

"I was hoping you could help me free my hands, Valentine," confessed Lucifer. He showed off the dark ring that Hades gave him to bind him as Pandora's knight. "Pandora seems to have some displaced trust in you, for some reason. Perhaps the spell of the harpies lures more than just men? While I have to constantly worry about her safety, I cannot go about fixing what's wrong with this army. I want you to keep obeying her calls and hopefully I'll build a case to pass this ring on to you."

The white-haired, clawed Specter widened his eyes. "Me… her Dark Knight?" Valentine contemplated the possibilities. He had just joined the army, and now just about one of the few special roles that could be handed to enhance a Celestial Star's service to the Emperor other than Balrog Rune's task as stand-in Judge or Acheron Charon's role as the boatman was being offered to him. "This… is a great privilege, Prince. If it will help serve the army, even better."

"Good," Lucifer purred, feeling the pieces fall into place. Hades hoped to hurdle him with Pandora, but the Pride Star would not allow him, an ironic punishment considering the feelings he had for her. With the Civil War Saints gone, he could not afford to let his plans be delayed any longer. "We will work together to shift her heart. The Emperor will see the wisdom in all of this, I'm sure."

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Four Hours Later

Sanctuary, Aestrea's Court

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Aphrodite exhaled in exhaustion amidst the rumbling of the audience. "My Goddess, this is a nightmare..."

Judge Meropis banged his gavel to silence the offended room. "Order! Counselor Gigas, begin your questioning!"

"Of course. All I ask, your honor -" the blue-bearded dwarf slyly pleaded, walking up to the Gold Saint's stand to give himself an excuse to tap the floor with his cane. "- is for the representative of these youths to explain to us, the people of Sanctuary, what they have been doing with the resources that are taxed from us. It's been two months since lord Kirin, Lord Malta and Lord Daniel decided to entrust their roles to them…and yet their presence has yet to make any impact compared to their predecessors during the same time frame. Black Saints remain rampant. Nothing has been done to further fortify Peloponnesia, which bravely defended Sanctuary's villagers from Specters a year ago despite the negligence of this Zodiac-"

Camus saw Lance's red eyes practically bulge with anger at this last accusation. "Don't. Remember to keep calm," he messaged. He also saw Saint Daniel still unmoved despite his name being mentioned. The retired Gold Saint had made no objection in their favor all day. While his hopes for this were as low as Aphrodite's, it was a bit disheartening.

Gigas continued, eyeing each of the new Gold Saints. "-and half of the division seems to be still in training. We do not want lazy Saints, your honor. We want warriors who will put a hundred and ten percent! We want warriors who are not only talented, but truly dedicated! If it's not much to ask...It was the tardiness of the new Gemini Saint that failed to save the people of Arcadia. It was an absence of protectors that failed to protect the Pope from that egregious terrorist attack. Yet Saint Cancer Lance requests of us to tolerate the postponing of the selection of the Leo Gold Saint. At what cost and favor?!" he accused, pointing staff at the guardians.

Far more patient than Lance, the Sagittarius Saint was able to stay composed on his own, even making sure not to antagonise the counselor in any way, but by Athena did he want to punch someone. He eyed his best friend, Saga, in search of advice, only getting a comforting nod.

In the stands, the masked Taurus Saint tried his best not to shake his head. "They're going rough on the kids right from the get-go. Reminds me of my first session… I hope they know how to proceed."

"We can tolerate a little leeway, your honor, it's been our traditional burden." the counselor added, closing eyes sadly. "Throughout every war, and every peace, we've paid our coin and our blood and we can look other ways… all we ask is for disrespectful requests to not be made."

"Your question, Counselor, I remember specifically asking you not to waste the court's time with dramatic speeches." Meropis demanded, his Lemurian patience growing thin.

"I ask, only what is necessary." Gigas finalised, ceding the turn.

The Aquarius Saint handed Lance the piece of paper showing the clause to use. "Article 26!"

And the older, red-eyed boy made his answer once Meropis pointed his gavel. "The Golden Zodiac will not respond to such questions." he voiced, immediately sending the audience into another frenzy of whispers. "Article 26 states clearly that the matters of the upbringing of the Gold Saints lie on the Pope himself, so it is not a democratically decided matter. The placement of Gold Saints, or any Saint for that matter, is not a choice of the people, it's a choice of the Cloths and of the Goddess, represented by Arles III."

The whispers anted up to a rumble of outrage, making Lance sweat, but Camus gave him a sincere 'nice work' thumbs up. Meropis would have none of it.

"Alright, silence in the courtroom." he ordered with a gentle telekinetic mantle, making the more agitated audience members tuck themselves. He then faced the Cancer Gold Saint. "Saint Lance, you must answer the Counselor more openly. Article 26 also demands a statement within the reasoning of secrecy of state, and you were asked for your wisdom in the matter. Not at any point did you show the Pope's approval of this request."

"Ugh, this shit is so complicated! Fuck these people!" Lance complained to himself, discretely switching papers with Camus. "With all due respect, the wisdom was not requested when the formalisation of Aphrodite's rise to Pisces Gold Saint, in spite of his interrupted training. This was the first thing we went through this session, I believe."

"Objection, your honor, the cases are completely unrelated!" demanded Gigas, furiously.

"It's the guarantee of safety, it has everything to do with Aiolia! The fact that they are inexperienced Saints was not equated in the first matter with Aphrodite, so why is it an issue now?!" Lance argued, narrowing his eyes at the Counsellor and confronting the room. "The wisdom in the matter is the balance in Sanctuary's secure Temples! Yes, it is unreasonable to arbitrarily request Aiolia's training to be prolonged, but not at the trade-off of the Pisces Saint getting sped up! We are doing our duty, and you can't argue otherwise!"

Meropis pondered the Saint's words as unbiased as possible and reached his conclusion. "Objection overruled, the Zodiac carries the argument forward."

The stands practically gasped and laughed condescendingly in unison and Gigas gestured his cane rather harshly for a split second. Aphrodite blinked. "Okay, I didn't understand that either."

But the Sagittarius Saint did. "Camus and Lance just trapped them…" In their eyes, what Lance was stating was that they had no place arguing against the Zodiac's right to decide their education, and, while confrontational, Aiolos could not help but think that maybe this was why Lance was ideal to represent them, precisely because of his more straightforward background. It was true that arguments were important, but people like Gigas didn't seem particularly interested in things like truth or the greater good. If the way he mentioned Arcadia was anything to go by, they also needed someone willing to weather the verbal violence on top of the reasoning.

With Camus carefully advising him every step and Aphrodite's situation, which Saga and Aiolos themselves had not even considered, being used to get favor on the legal battlefield, the legally ignorant Cancer Saint was somehow managing to fight back in a way he probably could not on his own.

There was just one thing that escaped Aiolos. "Why are they wrestling so hard with Lance over this matter, though? Pushing Aphrodite in… not letting me pull Aiolia out…seems contradictory."

Gemini Saga rested chin on fist, pensive and beholding the stands. "It's about power. They must have their own person they want to push into the Leo Temple, but the Pisces House is far more picky with its Saints, so it's probably not a role they want to fight us over. Even if you and your brother are Greek, you are not of noble blood. Postponing Aiolia's canonisation will cause the whole House to be in limbo for longer; reducing their opportunities to contest it while ceding the right to Lance will kill their possibility to do so in the first place." He chuckled. "In a way, you could say it's nothing personal against you two."

The bandana-wearing youth found himself biting his lip nervously and root for this unexpected chess move of his friends, however, he then saw several hands raise in the audience, making him feel a bit uneasy.

Gigas gestured to his representatives to relax and calmly retorted. "Your honor, several of my clients wish to express their concern on this very point. For you see, this is not just a matter of securing their right to nepotism -" he worded, immediately making the Saint look like the bad guy "- but also to pretend their performance has been acceptable or that it will remain acceptable for the foreseeable future."

The Cancer Saint held his groan indignantly. "I think you'll find the Zodiac is in order."

"The 'people of Sanctuary' respectfully disagree." Gigas answered, insisting in this oddly populist wording. He then began the second part of his assault. "We have just had to say goodbye to three of our most trustworthy Gold Saints. These were not ordinary warriors, but authentic war heroes. In Sanctuary's most recent dark age, they ensured against all odds the safety and prosperity of Athena's land."

Immediately the Cancer Saint deduced what he meant. "Are we not doing the same?"

Gigas chuckled menacingly. "With rampant Black Saints and Specters, do you have the pretense to say otherwise?"

"What the HELL are you talking about?!"

Camus once again saw the mood in the court shift back and Lance's face grow hotter. Saga also seemed uncomfortable, biting his lip angrily and looking away ever so slightly. "They would have brought this up even if you had stopped Ragnarok itselfin your first month, so don't let him get to you." he appealed. "Remember, the stats are on our side."

"Your honor, this new generation cannot be forgiven for an underwhelming performance based on their age alone," continued Gigas, addressing the Judge. "The fears of the people of Sanctuary are entirely understandable; the power level of the current Zodiac has dramatically decreased with the departure of Lords Kirin, Malta and Daniel. What moves have been made to ensure our enemies do not take this as a sign of weakness?"

With everything he knew about how Saints were recruited, Lance couldn't believe these words were coming out of the Counselor's mouth. "Is it even warranted?! The Gold Saints can't just push most candidates through the Cloth accepting systems, I'm sure all of you know that! Otherwise getting viable Andromeda and Phoenix Saints wouldn't be the hassle we all know it is!" Lance shouted as memories of his training his pupil and his time on Death Queen and Andromeda Island came to his mind. Besides, the foot soldier army has been bigger than ever since the Third Civil War!"

But the man chosen to represent the aristocrats preyed on this." Oh, are you saying that the foot soldier army is worthless?" The silence of the Cancer Saint was absolutely delicious. "Letters arrive every day from Commander Ionia, from Peloponesia, asking for reinforcements." The dwarf exaggerated, presenting merely a bundle of paper as proof. "Other important fortresses request something to be done as well… and just yesterday, a brave soldier of Greece passed away over a mere arm smuggling incident in the United States. Are these the signs of everything being under control? I think not, and I believe these new youths should have to prove they are going above and beyond the call."

With things put like this, Camus' words seemed irrelevant, and the pressure felt placed right back on the Gold Saints. Lance immediately felt the masked eyes judging the younger warriors, perhaps planning their disenfranchisement. It felt like he could've swatted a fly and they still would use it against him. He cursed Shion for the lack of advice and oversight he's been giving since the attack on him, perhaps thinking a mere visit to a mansion was enough to arm them against these snakes.

But tempered by the Aquarius' Saint advice, the Cancer Saint made his retort one step at a time. "First of all, you still have not accepted that we will be the ones to decide the timing of trainee Aiolia's canonisation," he punctured, not missing how the subject got entirely shifted. "Secondly, every 'fact' you've just brought up has been adequately responded to by the Zodiac, no matter how you wish to list them. Thirdly, it is completely unreasonable to expect the power gap not to exist when-"

"Is it, Saint Cancer?!" Gigas interrupted, empowered by an accompany jeering from the audience.

"It's a disgrace! You should be ashamed of saying such a thing!" one voice raised.

"We demand the Zodiac to be secure!" another spoke out.

The Lemurian Judge immediately banged gavel. "Order in the court! No interruptions of statements! I will have order in Aestrea's court!" he asserted, and upon seeing the room quiet down, he gestured Lance to proceed. "Saint Cancer?"

The red-eyed teenager gritted his teeth. "Like I was saying… with any passing of generation there will obviously be some difficulties, but these new Gold Saints have done nothing but fulfill their duty! You have no ground to question that!" he argued. "I'm getting sick of this guy!"

"No ground?" Gigas asked, eyes widened as if Lance had just said water wasn't wet. "The Specters of Hades could put that to the test any moment, and most of the current guardians aren't even of reputable bloodlines. We have no idea if they have the valour, the bravery of a true Gold Saint, other than the word of the Golden Zodiac. Are you prepared to back your claim, Saint Cancer?"

"YES!" Lance suddenly shouted, standing up, sick of the ridiculous conjecturing. The audience immediately took this as a threatening sign and restarted the loud whispering. "You must be the one to back the claim they have not! I have known the members of this generation you attack; I train with them! Three of them were raised by the older Gold Saints you so admire! Another is the personal student of the Pope! And I owe Saint Gemini Saga my life!" he recollected, making all of his comrades widen their eyes in complete surprise at the passionate outburst. "For the life of me I cannot see the basis of your so-called doubts. What seems to me is that your clients want to score cheap political points out of the political naiveté of children that didn't come from the bloodlines you liked!"

"Oh, oh, and we all know, Saint Cancer Lance, what you, of all people, know of the potential of questionable backgrounds, don't we?" the Counselor openly mocked, spreading giggles across the stands. "I suppose your example does carry some weight; brought to Sanctuary too old, sent to die in a second rate training ground, and now, after a career of questionable missions, a fully fledged Gold Saint willing to stand before the court. My word, you must know better than anyone how to lead these boys into the fray."

The fist of the Cancer Saint tightened like a metal grip as his temper was sent to the breaking point while watching Camus sweated, feeling his partner in legal matters lose his cool. He also saw Judge Meropis writing down notes and interpreted it as a sign of a character being 'put into consideration'. "Okay, Lance, don't let them bait you to their obvious trap."

"Forget it, Camus, the last time I saw him this mad he burned my 'mom' to death." Aphrodite suddenly claimed, shocking the three Golds even further. The cyan-haired boy's eyes practically glistened with the now visible bloodlust in his guardian's face.

"In fact, I would like to question not only the fortitude of the Golden Zodiac, but that of the Silver Saint order as well." added Gigas, widening the battlefield. "With the Cepheus Saint passed away, albeit with His Holiness' full honors in sacrament burial, we see the second most important division have their honor questioned. Are we to be expected to understand the flurry of weaker candidates that have entered recently? And what of the Bronze Saint division, with no significant feats for several years?" Gigas then brought out his last trump card by waving his hand at the empty seven seats to the room's right. "I mean, by the grace of Hermes, a new generation is in power, and none of our allies have had the curiosity to be present for their first hearing. Not only do we look weak on the inside, but to our foreign friends as well."

All that ran through Lance's mind, however, was how ridiculous an attack this was on the few Saints he respected. "Weak?! There hasn't been a significant fall back since these Gold Saints have been in power and we make us look weak?!"

"I'm not sure if you realise, Saint Cancer, but we have important causes to uphold, and equally important resources to protect," struck the dwarf, merciless. "The freedom of humanity, the veneration of Athena, the vital veins of stardust that allow us to be the unquestionable guardians of the Earth, the earthly gates to the Underworld… the list goes on. Every day, enemies conspire to seize these from us, and the people are afraid. The modern era is upon us; spies from America and Russia fill Europe more and more every day. Every day, Hades grows closer to the time of his awakening and your friends might just be the ones that will wait for him at the Temples. Are your comrades so naive they do not understand this?"

The more the golden-ring-wearing audience made it seem through this man like they equated themselves to the 'people of Sanctuary', the more infuriated Lance got. The expensive clothes they wore and the apparent refusal to show their faces made it seem hard to believe they would stand toe to toe with a shoemaker or a fisherman. The more they questioned if they understood the burden on them, the less restrained he became, especially after the hard work he's been watching Saga and Aiolos put into their roles in spite of Shion's lack of cooperation. At this point he could swear very little stopped him from punching Gigas. He looked at the kids and saw the anvil on their heads making them stare at him for answers.

Yet, he tried to restrain himself, took a deep breath and spoke. "If you really think that these Gold Saints are not good enough… then you will have to question my presence first, because half the votes I got for my own promotion came from them!" he recalled. Aiolos and Saga widened their eyes in alarm, seeing their senior put his neck through the guillotine hole.

Gigas smiled a bit. Lance wouldn't be easy to kill if a battle came about, but his student would be. Why he even knew a couple who would gladly line his pockets generously if their son were to guard the House of Cancer. "So true and not only that, you were the only gold saint involved in the other battles as well even if there were times you did it undercover as a bronze saint. It is almost like the moment you came to this place things haven't been… up to par?" He chuckled before his staff raised so as to point its head at him. "So would you be willing to stake yourself, your word and honor, for them?"

A fist loudly banged the wood of their podium, startling the Gold Saints. "YES, goddamnit! And I will be the first to go if whatever apocalypse you're implying does get too far into the temples!" he angrily announced, sending the room into an excited furor.

Bangs of a wooden hammer were once again heard, commanding peace back into the room. The Lemurian lowered his glasses and looked at Saint Lance very seriously. "Saint Cancer Lance, do you understand the seriousness of the proposal you're making?"

The Gemini, Pisces and Sagittarius Saints blinked confusedly, but Camus and Lance had discussed this possibility prior to the trial as a potential gamble. With a small gulp, the red-eyed warrior made his claim. "Yes, I wish to stake myself as the 'Patron Saint' of this generation."

Again, more furors of whispers. Saga grabbed Lance's shoulder angrily. "What do you think you're doing?!"

But the older Saint wasn't the least bit bothered by what he already imagined to be a feeling of upstaging in Saga. "I'm doing what's best for everyone." He knew the potential of this generation and the blindness of the nobles to dump them in favor of their choices. He knew the worst they could do was demote him since he was far too valuable and this would at least leave his friends alone. Plus he already was capable of fighting without a gold cloth. Plus Camus said it best: the greatest victory is when you make your opponent leave thinking they won.

And with just a small hesitation, the Judge scribbled down Saint Cancer's proposition. "I will file your declaration… I trust the Pope will not pose much of a protest, considering your seniority. Counselor Gigas, is this a satisfying placation to your party?"

Taken a bit by surprise, the dwarf gestured a request for a minute and debated with some of the front-row masks. After a lot of whispering and a couple of nods, he returned to the prosecution. "Yes, your Honor, barely."

"If the Golden Zodiac has nothing further to add, then I declare this session concluded, with the right to decide the canonisation timing of the Houses of Leo and Pisces maintained on the Zodiac's side," announced the Judge, favoring the Gold Saints. "We will continue the periodic meeting of the estates in January. May the audience go with Athena." This made the entire room resume their loud whispering and begin to get up to leave. Rubbing his tired eyes, the Lemurian then turned to the senior Gold Saint. "We will discuss this further outside, Saint Cancer."

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Amidst the crowds moving out of the trial, Meropis guided the Gold Saints to the large hall, addressing the main one by the exit reserved for himself. "Hopefully future sessions will not go as amateurishly, Saint Cancer," he started, condescending.

Cancer was not sure if he was talking about his behavior or that of the audience.

The Judge continued. "But while dealing with the court of the 'people of Sanctuary' has never been easy, to stake yourself as the Patron is to basically surrender your argument. I am not involved with any side, being the mediator and judge, but I hope you understand the complications you've just subjected all of us to."

Pisces Aphrodite pulled Lance's arm for his attention. "Okay, what the heck did you do? All those people seemed ready to take your head and then they just gave up."

Camus folded arms, annoyed that it had to come to this. "He presented himself as a guarantee," he explained. "Patron Saint is an old role typically assumed by one of the older members of each generation, when it used to be that the Golden Zodiac was more reserved, to ensure the honor of the younger members. Ophiuchus Odysseus from the 18th century comes to mind, though some people doubt he was ever a Gold Saint to begin with."

"Which is fine and all, but completely unnecessary," argued Saga. The look he gave Lance then seemed like one furious of being upstaged. "It placated the nobles but now if something wrong happens, they might ask for Lance's resignation from the Cancer House."

"You shouldn't have done that. We would have found a way," argued Aiolos, though his fist tightened with frustration at how little he was able to do. "I do thank you for helping with Aiolia, I'll remember that."

"Oh would you all calm down?" asked Lance, trying to hide how personally panicked he was about it. It seemed harder and harder to not be tied to this position Shion has roped him into. "You saw the way those bastards acted, they were never interested in a fair assessment. Saga said so himself; they probably want to replace some of us with their own people as soon as possible. Besides, the Judge here thinks it's fine, right?"

The aged man cleaned his glasses. "Saint Cancer, while I'm sure you want to see this matter settled as soon as possible, don't see my ruling in your favor as approval." Meropis interrupted, with no patience for youthful banter. "Bringing back old institutional ideas like being a patron saint is not exactly the best twist of law to show the current Zodiac upholds its obligations, quite on the contrary. It's only because it's technically still in Sanctuary's outdated book that I didn't deny your proclamation," the Lemurian then eyed the Aquarius Saint. "Hopefully next time you'll have someone by your side with real insight in Sanctuary law, and not simply a good reader of it. Give my regards to His Holiness, Saints of Gold. Despite my criticism, I still trust that Lord Arles III had good reasons to pick you all as Saints…"

Lance watched the man depart, greeting several nobles uninterestedly. "Can't tell if that was a compliment or not." He then saw Camus' look away shamefully. "Hey, don't worry, Camus, this is all my fault, you did your best."

"I can't believe you even remembered the vote." confessed Saga, a bit touched. "You really stuck your neck out for us, Patron Saint."

Lance shook his head. "Personally I don't give a shit about owning Karkinos or not, but my training with Roshi might hinge on it… look, just don't… fuck up, okay?" he then addressed Aphrodite. "You probably think I'm an emotional weakling, right?"

The Swedish boy shrugged shoulders. "You acted impressive, I guess. Just don't understand why do it for these guys. Aiolos frankly annoys me with how paranoid he gets about Aiolia's well-being and the others haven't really done that much for you."

The pair of red eyes glanced away. "I told you I'd be your good example, is all," he reminded, only barely surprising the cynical gardener. "I can't expect you to work on your bonds to the others if I don't either. I gave the Pope my word."

The last person they wanted to see then approached them. "Well, well, that was a good back-and-forth, was it not?" Gigas, the dwarf, asked, sporting the friendliest smile in the world. He offered his hand to the Cancer. "No hard feelings, I hope? I do have to defend the concerns of my clients, after all."

All five Gold Saints stared at him with shock, but the Cancer Saint eventually gathered enough discernment to accept the handshake. "Sure…"

"Ah, ah, excellent, and hey, maybe next time you'll accept some legal and court advice, Saint Cancer." Gigas venomously reminded. "I will be happy to mentor you any time."

Lance's hand let go of Gigas' to grasp Aphrodite's, where a rose had tried to vine its way up the boy's fingers. "Yes, of course… I'll consider it."

Gigas' happy face was borderline creepy. "Oh, praise Athena! Excuse me, then, Saints. I must meet with my clients."

Aphrodite watched him walk off to converse with all the fancy masks. "What a load of-" his attention was then robbed by the approaching giant who left the courtroom for last. "Oh, look, another friend."

Aiolos blinked and laughed. "Daniel… uh, I mean, Duke Daniel, it's so good to see you."

The gigantic man of long, white streaked, blonde hair pressed a finger against his own mask. "Shh, I'm not supposed to show my identity off." he joked, being so obviously large as to not be recognised as the former Taurus Gold Saint. "I can't stay, but wanted to tell you kids that I really loved watching you stand up to these flakes. Give Aldebaran a manly hug for me, will you?"

"Of course." Saga assured, smiling.

It seemed that the greetings from strangers were not over. "Excuse me, Saint Cancer?"

Lance blinked, not recognising the person. "Yeah?"

The tall, plumped aged man of adventurous attire of boots, coat, scarf and trousers took off his mask and put up his half-moon glasses. His index finger had a golden ring just like everyone else in the room. "Oh, oh! You do not know me, but I am Narcyz Ghisi, the patriarch of the fabled Ghisi household." he jollily bragged, offering a wrinkled, olive-skinned hand with a golden ring on its index finger. "My family deals with the training of servants."

The Cancer Saint widened his eyes and shook it. "Ghisi?! I… umm…" Was this Adriana's grandfather that she mentioned endlessly? "You're so... different from what I expected."

For some reason the man seemed confused. "Different?... I don't believe we've met before, though. You must have met my granddaughter, then. She usually handles the family's matters. Forgive me, my head… I don't concern myself with these tiresome gatherings. I attend them as little as possible. Business empire, you see. " he confessed, honestly strained and sighing. "An exception was made today out of simple curiosity. I wished to meet our new spry young Gold Saints and how they handled my peers."

There was a visible difference in decorum between Narcyz and his granddaughter, Lance noticed. The language of this man seemed far more relaxed and clumsy and his posture was flawed, making less effort to appear imposed or dignified. Something about this endeared him to the Cancer. "What did you think, Mr. Guisi?"

"Just between you young kids and me…" he mentioned to the Cancer, approaching his face to whisper. "You have my full support. The other households are concerned with land rights and feudal nonsense. To me… you are all great profit, mh mh!"

"Yeah, this guy is definitely related to her." Lance thought, folding arms

He then added something of interest. "I also spoke with some of them… they were very impressed by you staking yourself as Patron Saint, Lord Cancer. They thought it was a rather nostalgic move, since we haven't had one for a while. Lord Akassius always refused to be seen above his peers, but the people crave for leadership," Narcyz added, before making his way out. "So you younglings have gained some allies today, regardless of what our dear counselor might make it seem. Until next time, Lord Gold Saints."

Camus was elated. "Really? That's great." At first the thought this man would be furious not only with their performance, but with how he's been denying his family access to the library's records. "I guess today wasn't a complete waste."

"Yeah, I don't care." Aphrodite simply blurted. "Come on, Lance, I want to get back to my garden right now. You said you wanted to talk with the Pope after all of this anyway, so don't tell me you can't drop me off."

Gemini Saga had something to say to this. "You're going to report the session? If you do, remember to ask him how come we've been fending for ourselves for two months."

"I will." Lance guaranteed, also seeking his own answers.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Later on,

Pope's Throne room

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

The night had fallen by the time the Cancer made his way up the staircases. The whole day had gone by before they even realised, with the trial taking session all afternoon and the aftermath of leaving the kids at the Temples and making the final meets-and-greets keeping them busy even more. Aldebaran was especially happy to hear from his teacher, and Aiolos was more than glad to spend the rest of the day with his brother with more-or-less guarantee that he wouldn't be put in danger any time soon, but now the self-proclaimed Patron Saint of their generation had to face the music with their real overlord, Arles III.

It seemed that aides had already written whole reports of the trial and delivered them to Shion by the time Lance made his way, and now he stood stupid before the Lemurian man, awaiting him to finish reading the long parchment of exchanges made by the various figures, from Meropis to Gigas.

After a silent eternity, the Pope had something to say. "You know, Lance, there was really no need to go so far." he argued. "In Akassius' first session with the nobility almost twenty years ago, they made him feel so terrible about his first month on the job that he asked me to leave the Gemini Temple in shame. Now he's a well-referenced war hero."

With things put this way, Lance's actions truly felt ridiculous. "I think I felt they were attacking someone other than just myself."

Shion put away the reports, putting out the reading candle with a telekinetic breeze. His black mask looked up at him. "That's very protective of you. I suppose that is one of the reasons I first recommended you to become a Gold Saint. Your instinct to put yourself in harm's way for others has frankly always made me wonder how you doubt your worth as a Saint of Athena so much." he walked up to the Gold Saint. "And now you proved me right again… in a bit exaggerated form, but still."

The youth was a bit sick of his move being called out. "With all due respect, there was little choice left! Saga has been asking you for advice for months. We've had nothing but silence from your temples since the attack!" he complained, but then the darkness of the room made his shame creep up. "... I apologise, I… didn't mean to raise my tone."

The Pope was not totally insensitive to this, but right then he was not minimally inclined to share weakness with an underling. One of the burdens of being the Pope was to maintain the image of unobtainable wisdom so he could act with more legitimacy in Athena's place, and the attack of Priam left him very frail. Half wanting to properly recoup both physically and mentally, half wanting to see how the Gold Saints would handle themselves in their first period alone, Shion had decided to keep interaction to a minimum.

This unfortunately had consequences. Saga and Aiolos were forced to manage the Zodiac with little experience, and Lance became the go-to Gold Saint for matters the Silver Saints couldn't handle for two months. Now the trial pushed the senior into putting himself at stake for his comrades in an unexpected move. While Shion truly wished to keep them under his wing for a little longer, he also sought to have the generation foretold by Hecate build their bonds up as soon as possible and develop experience independently. Hopefully, and maybe even through Mu's vouching, Shion would be able to maintain this benign neglect's benefits more so than its risks.

His hands joined behind waist. "With you as the Patron Saint, your position will become in danger if even one of your peers commits a grave mistake. That was a show of faith, if anything… or perhaps you do not value the Cloth I have entrusted you with." Shion calculated, linking a major concern he had about the red-eyed youth.

"I wish to make a request…" Lance interposed. "... to return to Rozan and further my training."

Shion widened his eyes. First the Gold Saint put his job on the line, now he asked to be allowed to leave the kids to themselves? "Why is that?"

"You called me back so you could request Aphrodite's recruitment. That matter, and his canonisation, were settled today." argued Lance. "They would have finished earlier were it not for what happened at the Festival, and now I need to back-up this claim I have made that I vouch for the Gold Saints' success with real training. I also seek to ask my Master for advice on many things…"

Shion's hand massaged his chin, pondering the matter. It was true that the Cancer Saint's education has been interrupted for months on end. He could hardly be called more of a Gold Saint than Camus, Shura and Aldebaran, who were educated under their Civil War teachers from the start, despite his seniority. It would perhaps not be a bad to thing to allow.

"I do not think it is entirely wise… but you did give me a great service, Saint Cancer. The House of Pisces in particular is in your debt." admitted Shion.

"Wise?..." Lance thought to himself, frustrated, taking special care to hide his thoughts from the mind-reader in front of him. "Do you know what you're putting everyone through with your silence these days?"

"Very true, Saint Lance. Very well, I grant you your request." He then snapped his fingers and a bottle of wine was telekinetically brought to his hand. "And please carry this as a gift to Dohko from me. Usually I send him sake, but this is from Akassius' vineyard."

Lance took the bottle. He noticed with some surprise the cork had marks as if it had been pulled out already.

Shion saw the baffled look on his face. "It's really good, I promise."

The Cancer Gold Saint sweated. "Why do I get the feeling he's trying to get rid of it?" He bowed politely. "Thank you, your Holiness."

Before he could walk out, though, Shion had one last question. "One more thing… Speak honestly, Saint Cancer, are you all hopeful for your epoch?"

There was a lot of hesitation from Lance's part. No answer coming to mind sounded good or pleasant. Frankly he wished to get the hell out of Sanctuary for a while as soon as possible to recoup strength with Roshi and face the job's music once more.

"Everyone is very stressed, trying to keep the place in order, hunting down the info leak or finishing up their training." confessed the Gold. "I haven't been with any of the other divisions or even the foot soldiers, but I can't imagine them to be any less restful. I suppose that after Guardnia's betrayal and those rebels' attack on you, everyone thinks the powder keg might explode somewhere, somehow, anytime soon."

Shion's head shook. "Ridiculous, Holy War is still many years away, there's no indication anyone else will attack us soon, either."

"With all due respect, your Holiness -" Lance retorted, narrowing his eyes. "- I don't think you expected to be shot with an arrow in this room either. We didn't expect you to try to hide it from us, too."

A tense silence filled the room between the two for a minute. "You may go, Saint Lance," he ordered, suddenly brisk. His dotted eyes watched through the mask's lenses as the young Cancer bowed again and took off with his gift to Dohko, closing the throne room's door behind him. Shion sat on Athena's throne. All he could think about were Hecate's warnings. "The second prophecy is so close. My friends must be reunited after all these years as the new Gold Saints. I won't lose control now… I won't!..."

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Walking out of the throne room, Cancer Lance felt something inside his chest sink. A victory had been gained that day, sort of, but he couldn't shake the sensation that getting over the day of the trial only meant being forced to understand nothing about the difficulty of his place as the Cancer Gold Saint was gonna change over just a couple of words and legal actions.

Already he could hear Karkinos laugh at him in his mind, mocking his broken hopes. "So what bravery have your comrades inspired in you, Lance? Ha, ha, ha. A couple of frightened children that look at you to solve their problems…"

"Shut up!" he hissed, furiously walking past the Papal Guards guarding the hallways.

The laughter wasn't over, though. "Even the Pope doesn't seem to respect your calls. So go, Lance. Flee from your troubles. Leave me here with Mephisto if you want to, I'll thank you for it. Go to your dear teacher in Rozan, but remember… no matter how much you hide under Seiryu's shadow… your problems will never go away."

"I'm NOT AFRAID!" Lance suddenly shouted out, swapping his arm and knocking over a vase to the ground, breaking it into tiny pieces. The guards stared at him. One called for a servant to clean it up. "Shit… I'm s-sorry."

Karkinos felt its owner's heart beat faster, his hand go through his hair and his breath accelerate. "You will be… and I will wait for you at Presaepe, Lance… when your filthy mortal nightmares overcome you and you wish for death to swipe everything away."

The Gold Saint's back hit the wall, face sinking in palms, completely oblivious to the people around him.

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Chapter End

{======================/Ξ\.◊./Ξ\\======================}

Next Chapter: Second Arc – Revelations - Part 1 of 2

Author's Note: Cancer Lance travels to China after leaving things in order to seek further training and wisdom from Dohko.

The title of the chapter went a bit off mark compared to the content, but I guess it's a natural occurrence of the production stage. Ideas change, paths are opened, etc. This was largely a world-building chapter, in addition of being a set-up chapter. It may not seem like it, but it took less time to write this as the others, which is a hopeful sign. Many of these early Second Arc chapters have to be reconstructed from scratch, but I am already salvaging the first few scraps of content from version 2. Writing will then hopefully get faster.

Old readers will recognize a character from Version 2; Crane Yushira. They should probably already know what her deal is, but I decided to crank her out a bit earlier since I wanted to rework a few things character-wise and aesthetically wise.

In SS news, Saintia Sho has released its first anime adaptation trailer and to the sadness of many friends in the English SS community it looks a bit like… garbage, but hopefully we're being pessimistic. I'm sure it will have great moments since the spin off manga is easily my favorite so far.

Finally, make sure to check out Hitagi Gahara's SKD scanlations of Next Dimension, Saintia Sho and others. The writer of this fanfic is proofreader of Saint Seiya Next Dimension's English releases and they're your current top source for high quality scanlations in English. Also, if you're interested, contact me through PM and get an invitation to the new SKD Discord server, where you can get updates on Sho and ND directly, not to mention chat with me and many other english-speaking SS fans.