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.

84. 3A: Meet Atlae

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; Genbu Atlae; Patrician Mariners, Shamballa Muvians;

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; Kido Mount; Pact of Seven; DQI Geography; Shamballa;

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

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Author Notes:

-This chapter was Betaread by EpicElly. Congrats on your new home!

-Additionally, warning about the long wordcount, 29000 words. Take a break if you can along the way;

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Please enjoy and review ^_^

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1966,

Central Asia

Third Civil War (Last Year of Conflict),

Battle of Almaty

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In the army of the Sea Patricians, the faction of Poseidon worshippers allied to Sanctuary, there was a famous cavalry regiment known as "the Sons of Arion". Named after the horse sired by Poseidon and Demeter, the battalion was made of the wealthiest sons and patricians, those who were both the most faithful to Poseidon's creed and could afford to breed the strongest, most intelligent horses, equipping them and themselves in their famous ornamented blue armor. These faux-Scales of blue lined with gold that characterized the riders appeared spikey, with pointy shoulder and elbow plates, belts with symbols of the seven pillars and helmets that were adorned with large ear covers shaped like sharpened fins or gills. Large knight lances that spanned the length of their horses and plated with stardust at their tips were carried for combat. Their whirlwind-shaped lining along their length was silvery stardust that transmitted cosmos, turning them into deceptively devastating weapons, but backswords were also kept by the belt as off-hand weaponry.

The steeds themselves were covered in similar blue and gold metal, which contained unique stardust filaments fitted between the plates so that the rider's Cosmos could be carried down to the horses, thus sharing with them their owners' supernatural strength and speed. This gave the charging power of a hooved beast an unprecedented force, as a horse rider in deep sync with their horse could deliver a lot more damage while retaining the advantage of fighting on horseback, using the same amount of cosmos. Between the added weight, the heightened position, and the ability to outmaneuver foot soldiers, their power was truly impressive.

The cavalry charge of the Sons of Arion, known as the Tidal Charge, was often compared to a destructive tsunami, as the combined auras of cosmos coursing out of the lances created the visual effect of a great mass of overwhelming blue, which flooded towards you to devastate everything in its path. It was therefore no surprise that the Sons of Arion were one of the most feared forces Sanctuary could levy against its enemies (except, of course, when Poseidon was the enemy), and the trampling power of their Tidal Charges was said to be able to break the ranks of even the immortal hordes of Hades.

This was something that the Peltasts of Priam were unfortunately discovering for themselves that day.

Laid out between the two opposing battlelines about to clash with eachother, they were petering the forces of Sanctuary with their javelins when one of them called out "Watch OUT! Cavalry!"

"A NEPTUNO!" the nearly two hundred riders shouted in Latin, aiming down their large, couched lances in unison. Cosmos burning in their bodies coursed through the weapons out the lance's tips, veiling back towards the riders so as to form a massive, combined shroud of blue, manifesting their combined superhuman strength as a ground-tearing wall of water cosmos.

Both shielded from the missiles by the veil and empowered by it, the Sons of Arion broke through the loose mass of enemy light infantry like a punch through paper, impervious to the javelins and arrows. Many Peltasts were sent flying by the impact, killed instantly. Others who stood ground were trampled underfoot, suffering an even worse fate. The lucky ones further away from the wedge's front were merely blown away by the sheer shockwave that this massive spearhead of cosmos tore through the battlefield, while the furthest off simply lost their nerve and broke out in panic, fleeing the field.

The ground itself was trailed through by the horses' hooves. With their riders burning and sharing Cosmos on such high levels, the beasts were made as if they were Saints themselves, their feet splitting the ground just as a running Bronze Saint would. Reaching the opposite flank of the battlefield, the Sons of Arion left behind a path of devastated enemies and rose spears to the skies, shouting triumph, their blue armors stained with blood.

"Sound the horn to Akassius!" their captain shouted.

The lieutenant obeyed, using an instrument shaped like a Tampa drill seashell to blow the loud signal over the battle's cacophony.

The Saints of Akassius blew their trumpets back, confirming the advance. "Forth, Phalanxes! FORTH! The path to the enemy is clear!"

At this signal, the massive line of hoplites moved forward, crossing the field cleared of Peltasts. The Sons of Arion rode away as planned, leaving the rest of the fighting to Sanctuary's foot soldiers. The rider group amassed over a small slope in the step to survey the status of the battle.

Captain Arthur Solo, heir to the Solo Patricians and leader of the battalion, rode ahead of his knights, briefly lifting his visor. He was a tall man in his thirties of light, greenish-blue hair and nascent beard in his thirties. His armor was distinct from his men by having a slightly greener tint, giving it an oceanic look, and his blue eyes and shrewd brows gave him a look of intensity, but temperament.

As he beheld the unthinkable, though, his sereneness was shattered by a grimace. "Poseidon save us…"

For all the fear the Sons of Arion inspired in Athena's enemies, even they took awe at the destruction of the war they witnessed as the two enemy Phalanx lines collided. In the vast Soviet steppe ahead of them, two firewalls of cosmos advancing into eachother raged like tall infernos, heating the battlefield like an oven, and then flared up even higher as the Sarissa spears and hoplon shields hit each other and the first collision ocurred. Shouts of rage and killing and metal hitting metal were heard and thousands of spears stabbed back and forth at supersonic speeds, cracking metal and blowing holes through flesh. Hoplites fell and were trampled by advancing enemies stepping over them, while the recoil of every impact shook from their bodies into the floor through their feet, shaking the ground.

A 'push of pike', as it had once been called in the era of the Swiss Landsknecht, only magnified by the reality bending prowess of Bronze-Rank cosmos users; the interlocking of shields and spears, instead of creating a mess of stabbing and pushing, took things to a whole new destructive level by concentrating pockets of shared superhuman strength into two great colliding battlelines called 'Fire Fronts'.

There were no more harmless blows. No more grazes or mere cuts. Everything was lethal and disfiguring. A javelin cutting your eye would instead destroy your skull. A sword half-caved into your shoulder guard would instead blast you down and rip half your body off. Even a mere shield bash from a desperate enemy could send you flying back or crush you against your fellow men if your defensive cosmos was down. Simple stabbings of a spear tip into an enemy's flesh became supersonic blows of Sarissas that exploded vulnerable victims into blood-bursting splats. Instinctive pushes of shield against a foe's became ground-quaking clashes that could break every bone in your body, should your guard be down or your angle be off. And if you fell, if you passed out to exhaustion or if you tripped over a corpse, you would be trampled into a pulp by feet burning with Cosmos advancing over you, often those of your friends.

To be a hoplite in the middle phalanx was to have nowhere to escape from hell, except through the enemy in front of you. You either kept rank and perfect cosmic cohesion with your brothers and stabbed a path forwards, or you died a horrible death and got delivered to your family in a closed casket. There was no mercy to be had, no consideration for the ground your feet were caving, even though the man in front of you had been your ally just a few years before. Sometimes, he had been your training ground mate. You just kept your shield up, your fellow hoplite's flank protected, your cosmos burning, your ears attentive to orders and your spear in action. There was nothing else to consider.

But the worst of it, at least to observers, was the air itself; all these cosmoses shared around, forming evened auras of energy, tainted the skies with a polluting rainbow of radiation, like a sickly nuclear aurora. It twisted the clouds and heated the wind, creating a storming atmosphere that glowed like the aftershock of an atomic detonation. Even as the number of bodies burning these flames lowered bit by bit, the glow refused to recede, as most of the power was provided by a small number of Gold-Ranks relaying their power to their men.

Even the Sons' 7th senses buzzed in their brains like overloaded receivers, unable to understand the radiation of Cosmos around them. It was just a myriad of all the combatants' personal energies blown up all over the steppe, projecting countless souls into the canvas of the world. It felt like a cataclysm was at hand, but one that was unsurprising as Akassius and his cohorts made it a standard practice the advance the force of Gold Saints via frontlines of hundreds, if not thousands of hoplites.

The era of a small group of Gold Saints deciding entire wars in a series of duels was over. Thanks to Akassius and Priam, this was the era of the Fire Front, where thousands of men being given the strength of Gods would change the shape of the very ground they stood on, like infernos moving through the dry steppes.

Eventually, a puncture was finally pushed through Priam's battleline by Akassius' phalanxes, breaking the cohesion of the enemy flame line. Now the Black Saints had two weaker fronts instead of a single strong one. Separated by Akassius' advancing wedge through the middle, the enemy's shared strength was broken in two, allowing the Saints to storm through them and the killing to accelerate. However, this also allowed the Sons of Arion to see the state of the battlefield they advanced from.

The ground left behind by the fire front was blackened, cracked and cratered by the clashes of cosmos between the forces of Sanctuary and Priam. It was like the aftermath of a great forest fire. Fissures had been torn open in the ground when the fiercest attacks collided with each other. The skies themselves were a spectacle of destruction, with an uneven expanse of thundering clouds raging and tearing with the forces unleashed by Aquarius Malta and Sagittarius Priam.

Paced cries of "Minerva Victrix" and 'E-ny-a-lios' were heard from the Saints, a standard marching cry that Akassius had drilled into the men as they advanced their inexorable phalanxes, crushing the split enemies. Sanctuary's flame line, however, overcame the enemy's, breaking its ranks. The Sons of Arion saw the Saints order their elite Silver Shields through the gaps, swarming Priam's hoplites. A great butchering then began, magnified by the force of swords and shields hitting each other with earth shattering strength.

The battle was as good as won. Priam's men were routed and fleeing further into Siberia, lessening their numbers by the day. The traitor's only hope had been to defeat Akassius' stronger phalanx with his skirmishers and cavalry, but the Sons of Arion made short work of both.

"Aha, the Black Saints overplayed their hand, my lord." A rider nearby, who went by the name of Ithaca, spoke. His armor was splashed with the blood of various Black Saints burst into gibs by his spear charge. "The Sagittarius traitor must have thought the Saints marching through such a vast plain field gave him the advantage over the Pope's slower forces, but they didn't account for us."

"Another brilliant move by Akassius, it seems." Arthur confessed. "The latest in a long series of brilliant moves, in fact. I fear what kind of power Saint Gemini is accruing in Sanctuary with these triumphs. Priam may have sought to break Sanctuary's power, but giving his old friend so many victories may, in fact, solidify it further."

"Well, there can't be such a thing as winning too much, can it, Lord Arthur?" the rider asked.

The Solo heir turned to him tensely. "Remember, Ithaca, at the end of the day, we, too, can easily become Sanctuary's enemies. All that needs to happen is for us to outlive our usefulness. Or for our God's sleep to stir." His lips tensed. "Or be implicated with Priam, like the Zodiac Knights were."

A scout came riding in. "Lord Arthur! Urgent news!" he pointed east. "We have been told to ride southeast, to the border!"

Arthur's brow rose. "Southeast?! But Priam is fleeing to the northeast, towards Bluegrad! What for?"

"It's the Muvian colonies, sir!" the rider spoke. "The battle has triggered destruction in their direction. They say countless villages are burning from fire and debris raining on them as far as a thousand miles! He begs us to rescue the Muvians."

A rider named Nerites, positioned aside Ithaca, scoffed. "Who cares about the dotted freaks? Let them run to Shamballa! We are Mariners, not firefighters!"

Arthur looked out to the battle field and saw Akassius' forces, including the Immortal Guard leased by High Elder Yuzuriha, give pursuit to Priam's officers.

"Akassius must be overstretched." he concluded. "There are few mountains around us, so the quakes and battle pollution are spreading wide in these vast fields. Akassius can't pursue Priam and protect the bystanders simultaneously.…"

"Captain Arthur, with all due respect, that is Sanctuary's problem!" Nerites contested. "They're the ones interested in reigning us all in together with those bastards! We don't have to help our enemies, Pact or not-"

"It's a personal request from our ally, so we are riding southeast! That's the end of it!" Arthur decided, shutting down the conversation before he had to confront his men's racism. Immediately, the Sons of Arion straightened up and turned horses, moving out at the speed of sound. "To the plateau! A NEPTUNO!"

"A NEPTUNO!" they shouted back in Latin.

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Despite Arthur Solo's best hopes, the Muvian colony countryside in the Soviet border with China had become a devastated, blackened expanse. Great fires spread by meteorological confluences created from the battle's great clashes of cosmos, and perhaps even some Saint attacks missing their enemies and firing off to the horizon, had apparently created an authentic cataclysm in the region. Enormous craters littered the slopes giving rise to the Tibetan Plateau and the Sons of Arion rode across countless blackened hovels only to find they were too late to save the inhabitants.

Village after village, kilometer after kilometer, they found nothing but burned homes, streets buried by rock slides and runaway cattle. Reaching yet another destroyed village of humble stone brick hovels, Arthur Solo decided to stop and dismount. He needed to feel he was doing something other than riding around, even if he had to get on his knees and pray to Olympus.

The lieutenant rode around, surveying. "It's another straw-hair village, Captain." he said, referring to the northern caste of Muvians known for their blonder hair and isolated villages. "They must have been unable to call for help, so far away from Shamballa. No wonder Akassius sent us here."

Arthur widened his eyes, finding a burning tree that had crashed onto a Muvian couple, crushing them. Its roots looked blasted, like a great thunderbolt had severed its trunk, but Arthur knew it was more likely a run-off cosmos blast had done this. Worst of all, he discovered a child, no older than eight, beneath the trunk as well. The parents must have tried to save him and all three were killed.

It rattled his heart. He imagined himself and his wife shielding Marianne from such a thing, only for her to die fruitlessly as well, while the people supposed to protect them were not only absent, but at fault. "Gods forgive us. What is this war doing to us?!"

As their leader beheld the destruction in grief, the other riders spread out and searched. Just like every other town so far, though, there was not a living soul.

"The survivors must have abandoned the area, Captain." one rider argued. "In any case, it doesn't seem like we'll find any stragglers of Priam in these villages either."

"So much death." Ithaca lamented, noticing the dead family as well. "The battle happened so far away from here. Miles and miles and miles away. I can't believe things have gotten out of control like this."

"We've never fought battles like this." Arthur explained. "Never before has the Cosmos been weaponized on such a grand scale, shared through lines of thousands of hoplites. We are lucky the floor beneath our feet didn't open all the way to the Underworld under the pressure. Akassius' vision for the war is changing everything about the way Holy Wars will be fought in the future. I believe, men… we will yet see much more destruction and death like this in our lives."

The Sons of Arion shared somber looks, believing this as well. "Shall we return, Lord Arthur? We're still in time to make Priam pay for this."

The captain nodded, though he was unsure whose fault this truly was. "Yes, sound the horn and ping Akassius. We will rendezvous with him at Almat-"

A faint breath was heard and they turned, seeing the bloodied child beneath the tree gasp out!

"He's alive!" Ithaca shouted.

"It can't be! That tree is easily over three tons! It should have flattened him!" the other said.

"(AHH! P-pappa! M-Momma! What happened?!)" the child cried in its foreign tongue, unable to move. It coughed, feeling the weight of the tree. "(G-Gah, I can't… m-move!)"

Arthur rushed in and held the massive trunk Burning his cosmos, lifting it straight up and hurling it with enough force to land far away from the child, letting him cough out and breathe in. The Patrician gasped, seeing that, indeed, the child's chest had been impacted by the heavy trunk, but the child was somehow not crushed.

He embraced the small boy and pulled him out. "Poseidon's creed! It's a miracle."

The eight-year-old wept and wailed. "(W-What happened?! W-Where am I?! W-Who are you?!)"

"It's okay, son, you're alive!" Arthur said, pulling his own cape around the boy. He didn't understand the boy's language, but recognized it as one spoken among Tibetans of Shamballa. He saw the brutalized corpses of the two dead adults and pointed at his men. "Cover the parents. NOW!"

While the men took their capes to cover the two corpses, the lieutenant approached Arthur. "Sir, we must go. We can leave the child with the Immortal Guard."

The boy wept. "(W-where are you taking me?! Where are my parents?!)" He looked around in panic, breathing hard. "(My town! It's all b-burned!)"

Arthur hesitated. He may not understand the words, but he understood the feeling in them clearly "Is it as simple as that? We leave the victims with their peers and walk off from the destruction we cause?"

The eight-year-old clung to him, crying. "(W-Why did this happen?! T-Tell me!)"

The Solo heir frowned, feeling his heart shatter, and held the child close. All his life, Arthur had been raised to heed by Poseidon's creed, even if in service to Athena. To be fair in his dealings, fair to his enemies and fair to his horses. It was his God's vision to seek a world clean of sin, where all would be as bountiful yet unforgiving as the sea, even on dry land. A perfect, just balance for everyone.

However, even though their Tidal Charges were unlikely to have been the blow that spread the destruction of this boy's village, Arthur felt he was part of the same catastrophe. He also knew there would be little justice for this boy's tragedy. No one would take responsibility for what happened in Sanctuary, and no one would claim the boy as their own in Shamballa. There was no one to help pick the pieces of his boy's life back together.

He lowered the child to the ground. "Do you speak Greek?"

The boy just stared, confused and sniffing.

He pointed at himself. "Arthur. Solo." And then pointed at him. "You?"

The Muvian boy calmed his breath and gulped. "Atlae."

"Just Atlae?" Arthur wondered, raising a brow.

"He's Muvian, sir, he has no last name." Nerites spoke. "Their culture is completely the opposite of ours, with no respect for bloodlines."

"Mm, that makes him available to get a last name, then?" Arthur pondered. He picked up the boy and took him away from his parents' bodies. "How would you like to meet my horse, Atlae? Horse."

The boy laughed as he was presented the man's armored cow-thing. He had never seen one like this before. Perhaps the word 'horse' meant he could touch it?

Altae tapped the horse's head so hard that it left an indent on the metal head cover. "Horse!"

Arthur staggered, seeing the horse neigh in pain and back off, rattled.

The other riders pulled out their backswords. "HEY! What are you doing?!"

Atlae screamed, seeing the weapons.

Arthur laid out hand. "HOLD your swords! Are you insane?! He didn't mean it, he's just a child!" He saw the marking on his poor steed's armor and held Atlae's hand firmly. "Neptune's trident, that metal has stardust lining on it. You're strong, aren't you, Atlae?"

The boy covered mouth sheepishly, relieved he wasn't in trouble. He also knew this word. "Strong!"

Arthur laughed. The boy was likely talented with the cosmos, which would explain how a tree couldn't crush him. "Well, you should see my daughter. Marianne would put you in check in two seconds. Would you like to meet her?"

The boy just smiled and nodded. He didn't understand any of this Greek human's words, but he sounded very nice and as if he was suggesting to leave the village. Maybe he could take Atlae to his parents and figure out what happened?

"Sir, you're not really taking that little dotted imp back with you?" his lieutenant questioned. "No disrespect, but… I'm not sure if your father will be happy."

Arthur climbed onto the saddle, keeping Atlae in front. "Frankly, lieutenant, I'm more worried about my wife. Besides, it's unlikely they'll let a pack of Mariners like ourselves inside Shamballa right now anyway. They might even think we kidnapped this child. I'll just watch over Atlae for a little while until Sanctuary straightens things out with the Muvians… right, Atlae?"

Atlae nodded. "Horse!"

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Chapter 84

Third Arc

Episode 13

Meet Atlae

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Three years later (1970),

Greece, Néa Delphi

School of Delphi

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It was another sunny day in Greece. The school bell rang and the children ran outside after another long class of Homeric Greek. A soccer ball was kicked onto the grass field and the children ran right after it, forming teams and kicking it around.

Rushing down as well, Atlae headed for one of the captains. "Hey, Caça, Caça! Can I play, too?!"

The red-haired boy from the Cabral Household sneered. "Atlae, last time we let you into the team you kicked the ball so hard it exploded! I had to get my parents to buy me a whole new one."

The blonde Muvian scratched his head. "Oh. I'm sorry. But you told me to kick it good, so I did."

"Kicking it good means getting it past the goalie into the net, not blowing it up!" Caça sneered. "Don't you know how to control your strength a little bit?! AND you ratted me out to the other team! Why the heck should I take you back?!"

Atlae frowned. Caça was still mad that Atlae had called him out for using Cosmos to speed around when no one was watching. "But you were cheating. The rules say no one uses cosmos for play."

Caça rolled eyes and threw his arms up. "Nobody cares, you little freak! Only you do! We're here to win!"

Atlae scratched his hair, confused. "I don't understand…"

"Here's a simple way, then!" Caça pointed at the adversaries in Baian's team. "They are supposed to lose and we are supposed to win! Get that?! If ya wanna help me out so much, join them and sabotage their cheating!"

Atlae pouted and walked off. He took Caça's suggestion and headed for the popular, curly-haired boy from Canada. "Baian, Caça won't take me in. Can I join your team? I really wanna play."

The pretty boy from the Vancouver Household hummed, displeased, and shifted eyes. He exchanged glances with his teammates, who shook their heads at him to refuse Atlae. Baian couldn't blame them. He wanted nothing but distance between himself and this little weirdo.

In fact, he wished Marianne wouldn't bring this dotted kid to school anymore. "Um, no, Atlae. You're not… team material? You throw our balance a bit off."

Atlae beamed. What a simple problem. "Alright, then. How do I become team material? I can score more, if you want?"

The other kids laughed. Baian just cringed. "My team is very exclusive, Atlae. You have to apply first. Go put your name on that chalkboard over there and we, um… we'll call you. Yeah."

Smiling excitedly, Atlae ran off to the board kept by the locker room access and wrote his name in Greek as best as he could. He noticed he was the only one who seems to have bothered to apply, but hey, that just meant Baian would let him in that much sooner.

A trio of older children on the soccer stands watched this happen. One of them was Marianne Solo, the only daughter of Patrician Arthur. Dressed in the school's girl uniform, her hair was curled and blue like short waves, like her mother's, and her eyes green like her father's.

The other was her close friend Adriana, the eldest daughter of the Ghisi household, and the third was Patrick Solo, cousin of Marianne and currently the only male member of her family's youngest generation.

Marianne had a book in her lap about navigation and the stars. Her pencil took copious notes on the pages and underlined important instructions on knots, star reading and the art of sailing, as well as the names of important explorers and sailors of history and their contributions. There was an important essay coming up that would let her score extra points for her application to the Sanctuary Navy and she had found just the right angle with which to impress the teachers with these topics.

"Mari', are you really spending your break studying those things?" Patrick asked her. "That's undignified of you, cousin. At least pick a better class for you, like sew-"

"Don't even finish that sentence, Patrick." she instantly interrupted, not taking her eyes off the book. Marianne had no patience for her cousin's comments. "Not everyone has a slot in the navy with their name on it since birth. I'm getting that scholarship come hell or high water."

"Why not just pay for it?" Patrick questioned, hand in hip. "Uncle Arthur has more than enough money. The Navy school even gives discounts to Mariner families."

Marianne gasped. "Discount? You call 25% a discount?!"

Patrick rose a brow. "Yes?"

She huffed determinedly. "I can get it up to 100 by earning a scholarship! It will be a cold day in hell before I let them swindle me out of that deal. Besides, if I don't earn it, everyone will just think my dad put me in the school. I'll never be respected in the force."

Adriana held her hand in chin. "Didn't you score top of the class in PE last year, too? You know, I think if you keep this up you might actually steal that slot from Patrick. I have a good feeling for people's abilities, Mari'."

Marianne quirked a brief smirk. "Aw, that's sweet of you, AG, thanks." She then winced, realizing where AG probably got it from. "Let's face it though, your good feeling is probably just the social stringing lessons your mom gave you."

"I like to think I can use my powers for something other than exploiting desperate people, like my parents do." Adriana mused. "Like encouraging a friend! Aaand if I get a good contact in the navy through my best friend when we're all grown up, what's the harm?"

Marianne chuckled. "There's the manipulative psycho I love."

The laughter of children as Atlae signed his name in chalked attracted their attention.

"Is that your tenant, cousin?" Patrick Solo asked Marianne, laughing. "Ah, why is he signing up for locker room duty?"

"He's not my tenant, Patrick! Also, he doesn't understand Greek very well yet." Marianne defended. She had to sigh exasperatedly, though. "Even though he's been studying for three years."

Adriana smirked, finding the sweet naiveté in him adorable. "He's cute, Mari'. I wish my parents would get me one."

"AG, he's not my pet, either." Adriana's interest didn't surprise Marianne, either; her friend had such a soft spot for the lost puppy type. "Atlae's a war refugee. He shouldn't be treated like some kind of souvenir. It's very sad that my father had to take him in."

"Well, it's getting a bit difficult to know what you want us to call him, Mari'." Adriana pointed out, looking skeptic. "You don't want us to see him as a tenant or a pet Muvian, but you also don't want us to call him your brother."

The girl grumbled. "Well, because he's not. He's just spending some time with us for now until he learns Greek and we get him a home with his people."

"Some time? Ah, it's been three years since the war, Mari'.". Patrick called out. He saw the boy misspell his name as 'Atelai' on the board and gave Marianne a skeptic look. "He's also not exactly a polyglot, is he? And here I thought Muvians were supposed to be smart. When is uncle getting rid of him for real; when the boy is old enough to claim inheritance from the Solos?"

Marianne turned with outrage. "Patrick, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard! Atlae isn't some selfish boring preppie looking to score a trustfund, unlike you!"

The boy staggered, indignant. "Well, I never! And that fund is my right, anyways! It's not my fault you won't claim it!"

Adriana laughed, seeing a pattern in her best friend. "Ooh, Mari', you know what category is left to file Atlae in, then, don't you? Are you perhaps still thinking about that card he gave you on your birthday?"

The blue-haired girl's face reddened. "No, I'm not!" Though she did keep it. "Atlae didn't mean what you think he did, anyway. He doesn't understand the importance of keeping the space between the words 'girl' and 'friend', yet."

Adriana tilted head coyly. "But you wish he did, I assume?"

She squinted. "I wish you'd shut up, AG."

There was a shout in the soccer field as Caça slid a foot in to trip Io, making him fall and hurt himself. "O-Ow, forget it! I don't wanna play against this guy!"

"Ah, crybaby! Go bitch to your mom about it!" Caça took the ball and charged away to attack.

Seeing Io leave the field, Atlae smiled and rushed in. "Baian, Baian, can I join in now?"

The tall boy irked, feeling distracted from the play. "Atlae, not now!"

"But you're playing with one less player! It's my turn." Atlae cried. "Come on! I signed up like you said and everyt-"

Losing patience, Baian pushed him off the field lines, making Atlae fall in the dirt. "Stop getting in my way, we're trying to win!" And he ran off to intercept Caça. "Everyone, flank Caça, don't let him in the goalie area!"

By the stands, Patrick laughed at the sight of Atlae in the mud. "Amazing, it's like he's got walls of brick around his brain. How many Muvians does it take to put a lightbulb over that one's head?"

Shaking her head, Marianne came down from the seats and dragged Atlae up off the mud. "Atlae, why are you insisting?! Don't you see they don't want you to join in?!"

Atlae frowned sadly. "Oh, hey, Marianne." He looked away. "I don't understand… Baian told me I could join. I put my name up like he said!"

She fumed. "Atlae, why did you just believe him?! That board is for us to take turns cleaning the lockers! He just doesn't want you to embarrass him and his friends by taking over all the goals! Are you stupid or something?"

Atlae wept quietly. Lord Arthur was right; Marianne was so scary when she was angry, even after all this time living together. "I just wanted to play with them…I'm really strong and fast, I could win the game for them, like they want! I don't understand why they won't let me!"

The blue-haired girl folded her arms, annoyed. She dragged him off by the arm. "Come on, don't let them see you cry." Marianne reached into her pocket to take out her Best Friends Forever cloth that Adriana had weaved for her birthday and wiped his tears off. "You're a becoming a grown boy, Atlae. You need to start acting like one. Those guys are gonna just keep running circles around you unless you wise up! It doesn't matter if you can kick harder or run faster if you don't know how to play ball with those guys. You have to learn how to cheat better. You know, show some grit."

Atlae shook his head determinedly, grumbling pleasantly. Why did he have to act in nasty ways just to fit in when he was perfectly skilled playing in an honest way? "Marianne, that just means cheating like they do! I hate that."

Hearing this blasphemous phrase, Adriana folded her arms. "Uh, he's really not at home here, is he?"

The blonde boy turned to her. Adriana had always been nice to him, maybe she could advise him. "Is it that bad a thing, miss Ghisi? What should I do?"

The strawberry-blonde girl hummed. "Well, making Baian play second fiddle in a team named after him or ratting out Caça aren't the most useful ways to network in these circles, no."

Atlae pouted, folding arms. As Ithaca would say, this was a whole load of horse poop. "I don't care! Cheating's bad! Everyone should just play normal! Isn't that what Poseidon's creed says? That we should always deal honestly and fairly!"

Marianne groaned. It was like Atlae took everything literally. "Gods, how do I explain this to you? Look, Atlae, Poseidon's creed is more about…. Guidelines? You're supposed to be honest in your dealings, yes, but…. Um…." She saw the kids playing and came up with a solution. "Listen, Atlae, it's like in soccer; you're not supposed to commit fowls, but if you don't take a chance at it every now and then either, no one is going to respect you. Sports are also about socializing, so long as you don't take it overboard like Caça does. If you speed around with cosmos a bit for half a second when no one's looking, it's no big deal, you know? It builds up the fun."

The straw-hair Muvian frowned, confused. "I guess, but… isn't getting really good at doing it right more important? You always say that, too. I always admired that in you…"

Marianne palmed her face, feeling her inspiring attitude coming back to haunt her. "That would be so touching if it wasn't such a headache right now."

Adriana giggled. What an interesting boy. "No sense of play in this one, is there? Or perhaps there's too much of it, instead. How uptight."

Patrick Solo shook head derisively and chided in. "Adriana, it's that he's just a dotted freak. They are all like this, obsessed with the craft of things." It made Marianne turn with an angry gasp and Atlae widen eyes. "Uncle Arthur brought him here so he wouldn't starve in the steppes. He doesn't know any bett-"

"Patrick, shut up!" Marianne hissed at him, showing her small fist. "If you call Atlae that one more time I'll punch your teeth in! I'm serious!"

The older boy squinted skeptically. "Cousin, what's the difference between what I said and you asking him if he's stupid? Let's face it, there's nothing about him that needs help, he's just always gonna be diff-"

*WHACK*

Impacted, Patrick screamed and fell on the floor. The boy held his mouth, feeling his teeth cracked. "O-OW! W-Why didj you ju that?!"

"You're lucky Atlae wouldn't do it himself, Patrick! Your whole stupid head would be gone!" Marianne said, rubbing her reddened knuckle.

Patrick cried and ran off. "I'm telling uncle Arfur!"

Adriana shook head, watching that weasel Patrick run to the infirmary. "Wow, Marianne…Don't you feel bad? Now Patrick's teeth are going to look even worse."

"Marianne, why did you do that?!" Atlae asked, worried. Marianne was scary but he had never actually seen her punch someone. At worst she would nogg his head when he did something that made her worry. "All he did was call me what everyone else does."

"Well, he shouldn't! Patrick doesn't understand what that name means!" Marianne cried, her eyes reddening. Did no one but her pay attention in history class? "Atlae, you can't let people treat you like this! You have to defend yourself. You're crazy strong, I've seen you push rocks off the training areas with barely any cosmos, so why do you let others push you around?!"

The Muvian boy winced. "Because…because Lord Arthur always told me I should mind my strength. That beating weak people up proves nothing about me, just that I'm a bully. I don't want to be a bully." He cleaned his tears. "I wanna be fair and make Lord Arthur proud of me."

Marianne's eyes softened. "Oh, Atlae… you little idiot. Dad already loves you. I do guess he's right, though, but…"

Adriana laughed. Her talent scout abilities then sparked. "Hey, Mari', it sounds like your adopted Muvian pet-slash-tenant-slash-boy-space-friend could just use a martial arts class of some sort. That should teach him to make good use of his strength. I would suggest we bring him to fencing class to teach him some concentration, but he'd probably think we're building palisades, no?"

"Martial arts, uh?" Marianne held her chin in thought. She could really envision Atlae breaking some bricks with his head. "Maybe that could work. What do you say, Atlae?"

The blonde Muvian beamed. "Martial arts? I'd LOVE that! I could learn to beat people up all day!"

"Beat people up?" Adriana rose a brow. "No, Atlae, it's-"

"Forget it, AG, he knows what martial arts means." Marianne explained. "One of my dad's knights from the war joked about it once and Atlae's been calling martial arts 'beating people up' ever since."

Atlae grinned. "Yeah, Ithaca taught me all about beating people up! So, what class could I learn?"

Before they could decide, the bell rang again, triggering a collective groan from the entire class. The children began heading back inside at the teacher's calls.

Feeling pressed to part ways with Atlae for the afternoon, Marianne frowned. "AG has a good instinct for where to put everyone in their place. She might be right about this." Marianne sighed and patted the Muvian's head. "Don't worry, Atlae, just sit tight in class and get through today. I'll talk with dad about what to do. I'll also ask mom to cook you your favorite tonight."

The boy beamed. "Those tiny grilled beef slices with bean rice?"

Marianne nodded. "And that tomato paste you love. I'll even let you put a full pack this time."

Atlae threw arms up, excited. "Can I get a fourth serving again, too?!"

She grumbled, feeling her cheapness pushing her to refuse. "Sure, you can have half of mine. Mom's gonna try to shove it on me, but I need to eat less solids for the upcoming sailing practice anyway. It's just more efficient use of expensive beef."

"Mm, I thought Muvians were mostly vegetarians?" Adriana asked, holding her chin. She had seen the boy eat multiple servings at the canteen so the specific part about his big stomach didn't shock her. "Is that a straw-hair difference as well?"

Atlae flexed arms. "No, I just love meat! It makes me super strong! Like a bull!" Atlae ran to the school's inner parking. "Here, let me show you! I can even lift my teacher's car-"

"ATLAE, NO!" Marianne shouted.

{======================|A3|======================}

That night,

Solo Household

{======================|A3|======================}

Sitting at his private study, Arthur Solo, the newly ascended Patrician of the Solo Household, beheld the blue flame of cosmos burning in the large dish on his desk. "It's an honor to be speaking with you, High Elder Yuzuriha. I am Arthur Solo, new he-"

"Likewise, Arthur. Don't worry, I remember your name. This Muvian mind is still sharp." The female figure assured, triggering a smirk in him. "I suppose the Pact of Seven will have to get used to seeing you on this line instead of your father, considering his… condition. How is Julian, by the way?"

Arthur frowned gravely. "Unfortunately, he's more and more absent-minded. He barely recognized Marianne this morning. Your mind may be sharp, High Elder, but I fear his will go entirely dull soon."

"I am sorry, Arthur." The High Elder wished. "Is it a Cosmos sickness?"

"A neurological one, yes." Arthur confirmed. He sighed, fearing one day the same would happen to him. "The Water element… puts a special strain on your mind."

"I know our people do not have the strongest ties together, but your father has spent his life serving Sanctuary and the Mariners. It's not easy to reign those two together. He was a dedicated man, even if a bit… traditional."

He tapped his desk tensely. Arthur was trying not to show it, but father's condition also meant he would not live to recognize a grandson, should Arthur have one. He wished his father had considered Marianne more than enough to feel fulfilled as a patriarch, but patrilineal bloodlines carried too much weight among Mariners. It wasn't that Arthur and his wife didn't wish to try again, but Marianne's birth was so difficult to her mother. A great terror filled Arthur's heart at the idea of what could happen should she give birth again.

He tried to keep his thoughts occupied from these worries. "Well, you must have seen your fair share of us in your long life, High Elder Yuzuriha, so I'll consider that a profound compliment to him."

"I assume you will accept the nomination as Head of Houses, Arthur?"

"I will." Arthur confirmed, though he felt like he could say he 'had' to. None of the other Mariner families seemed interested in having their Patrician be the target of everyone's problems. "The Seven Patrician Houses have unanimously voted me in, so I hope taking my seat among the Seven of the Pact will be equally without friction."

"Given your deeds in the Priam War, that could very well happen, but I cannot vouch for Menelaus." Yuzuriha warned. She was pretty sure the only thing that pleased Menelaus was having more warmongers in their little club. "That one respects warriors, yes, but not the olive-branch type."

"Yes. Speaking of olive branches, Elder…" Arthur cleared throat. He glanced at the picture of a smiling Atlae hugged by Marianne framed on his desk. "As you know…during the war I've taken under my wing one of your own."

There was a hum. "Yes, a Muvian from the northern colonies. I remember that, too. It rose a stir in Shamballa... I do commend you for the kindness you've shown Atlae all these years."

Arthur rose a brow. "Oh, your Muvian mind IS sharp."

"In his case, Atlae just has a name similar to an old friend of mine, that's all." Yuzuriha humbly explained.

"I ask if you've given thought to his situation as well, then, High Elder?" Arthur asked. "I don't think I have to explain he does not feel at home here, despite my best efforts. He should also be given a chance to experience his peoples' culture while he still has a chance, even if he chooses to stay in Greece later in life. Spending some of his teenage years in Shamballa could do wonders for his horizons."

"I am afraid I have bad news, Arthur. Even with your money, I cannot find him an accepting laboratory here."

Arthur cursed between teeth. After all he's offered, Atlae is still getting a no? "Why not? I am willing to pay tuitions for him!"

"It's not a matter of what funds you promise me, Arthur; the boy is just as deserving of a Muvian home as any Shamballa child, even if you were as poor as him, and with our dwindling populations, taking in new Muvians is hardly a problem in and of itself, but…we are looking to educate him as well, not just shelter him, and our clan schools will not accept newcomers off the drop of a hat, especially one that spent three years with the Mariners. Pardon me, Arthur, but this child seems to score pretty lowly in the sciences."

The Sea Patrician's temper receded and he grumbled embarrassedly. This was something he was going to have a hard time contesting.

"Perhaps if he showed interest for the crafts, like alchemy, smithing, psychic arts or quantum physics, but from what I understand he, um,… pursues more PHYSICAL interests." The Elder added. "That would at least help me convince the alchemists here is more alike us than they think."

This was another problem he hadn't expected at first. It still jarred Arthur's pre-conceived notions a bit that in Muvian society it was the women who did the physical fighting, while male Muvians mostly only found spots as Saints through psychic abilities.

However, these concerns had to be defeated. Arthur felt responsible for Atlae's situation, after all; when he took Atlae to Greece, he just wished to live by his creed to Poseidon and give justice to a victim of the Priam War, but the Mariner communities, even after three years, had proven more intolerant of him than he expected. Atlae had no real friends yet other than Marianne and was falling behind in school. And now Marianne came pleading to him to find a long-term solution for Atlae, just as he was asking her why she had punched her cousin's teeth in.

Arthur had grown to quite like the boy, despite his antics and father's resistance. Perhaps some of it was Arthur's internal desire to have a male child, but he also took genuine happiness in seeing him play with Marianne and make him and his wife feel their cooking was loved. Arthur still remembered how happy he felt when Atlae gave him his Father's Day gift last year; a new armor polish kit Atlae bought with his saved allowance, which couldn't have come cheap given how expensive orichalcum cleansing was.

Arthur simply could not give up, but now that he was turning to the Muvians for options, he was being confronted with having tainted the way his brethren would perceive him by having been sheltered by a Mariner? He really thought the famously wise Muvians would be superior to this kind of attitude.

"High Elder, I understand the difficulties -" he argued, as calmly as he could "- but I implore you. I would consider it a personal gesture of friendship if you could help me rebuild his life. Atlae is a kind boy. I have taught him to be honest in his dealings and never hurt the weak and to always strive to be his best self, just like in Poseidon's creed. Perhaps if we worked together on this one thing, greater gestures of friendship could be made between our people in the future."

There was a pause in which the blue flame flickered silently.

Arthur slumped nervously. "I understand this is a bold proposition given our peoples' histories, but I am quite serious."

"I hope you are, Arthur, because I'm too old to take kindly to deceit. Two hundred and forty years too old, in fact!" Yuzuriha warned, her rasped voice tense.

He staggered. With a relatively young thirty-seven years, the blue-haired Patrician felt quite overshadowed in wisdom. Moreover, for being in a pact of terrifying killers such as Cetus and Menelaus, Elder Yuzuriha could be quite terrifying on her own. He supposed she would have to be, to survive this long.

"The history of Mu is filled with false promises, slander and false starts of friendship from Poseidon's households. Atlae means 'something' to you, but that does not mean he does to the other six Houses. Do you really think you can challenge over 2,000 years of hatred between us with just a project of kindness towards this child?"

The Patrician was completely disarmed by this completely justified concern, but he stood his ground. "I…um, I want to believe so, yes."

Her silhouette in the flame rose chin. "Good, because I would like so too. What do you have in mind?"

Arthur breathed deeply.

And made his offer. "I am prepared to offer Shamballa a favorable deal in their trade with Sanctuary, including labor arrangements. I know that even three years after the war, you can't keep up with the reconstruction demands. There are many clans in Shamballa still recovering from supplying the war effort." He pulled out a document signed by all seven sea houses. "As you can see, I have it all lined up. It just needs your signature."

Through the flame call, Yuzuriha read the terms. She hummed, tempted. It was hard for her to deny many clans would be happy with these.

Seeing her interested, Arthur rolled it up. "Sanctuary needs Muvian expertise, and the Muvians need Sanctuary's generosity, which I can bring to you. I have a loyal retainer named Ithaca who can be sent to arrange these exchanges in my name. That generosity must include Atlae's future, however, High Elder. What do you offer him?"

The High Elder scoffed, impressed. "You really are Julian's son. And here I thought you were just a big joust-head born in the right family." She rubbed her chin, forming a thought. "Likewise, I am not JUST the High Elder of Muvians, Arthur, I am also the current Master of the Turtle School of Mount Rozan's martial arts."

Arthur had heard of the Dragon School of Libra Dohko, but not this. "The Turtle School?"

She nodded. "It's a branch of the Mount Rozan arts that worships Genbu, the Turtle of the North, rather than Seiryu, the Dragon of the East. More importantly, it focuses on controlling your strength and emotional balance. From what I understand, this would be especially beneficial to Atlae."

Arthur sweated, remembering the time Atlae lifted the Cholas' boat when they visited Sri Lanka. "Yes, that would be perfect for him, but...why didn't you mention it earlier? I would have accepted it right away."

"The school primarily serves the fighting clans of Mu. This is to say, of course, our women."

Arthur gulped, wondering if the Muvians were just as reverse-sexist as they were reverse-gender-role. "Will that present a problem?"

"Not to me… so long as he can keep up with everyone else." Yuzuriha challenged. "But I warn you; it is NOT easy. Earning the blue belt of the Turtle Path is a very contested position and we test our students regularly and thoroughly."

Arthur rose a brow. Blue belt? Don't martial art schools go all the way to black?

The Elder continued "I have pupils right now that would have beaten ME in my youth and I will NOT tell them to hold back on a boy. Do you think he's up to the task?"

Arthur looked at the picture in his desk showing Atlae lift his poor horse up with Marianne on it. "He's certainly strong, but…I will speak with him. Thank you, High Elder."

"Good luck, Arthur. And welcome to the Pact."

{======================|A3|======================}

Sitting in her bed, Marianne tossed her books onto her study desk after a couple of long hours finishing extra homework. She was so exhausted.

*knock-knock-knock*

She groaned and opened her window "Atlae, just use the stairs. Grampa is too senile to force you to stay downstairs anymore. And you're wearing out the glass!"

The blonde boy swung in from the tree branch like an acrobat, landing into her room. "Sorry, I just find this way more fun nowadays." He looked around and saw her stashed books. "Are you done with your punishment?"

She sighed annoyedly. "Not yet. I have to stay in my room for the night. Dad was pretty angry. It's no big deal, though. If I study in my room I can economize on electricity with the street lighting. Besides,- " Marianne smirked and reached for her desk, letting a huge spider that was on it the whole time climb into her hand. "-AG gave me one of her creepy friends for me to chat through with her."

Atlae swooned, amazed by its size. The spider as almost as big as her hand. "Wow! That's a huge bug!"

"Arachnid, Atlae." she patiently corrected. "I swear, the things her family teach her. Her spiders have some kind of web network across the whole town. It's kind of creepy, but this way I can also save up on phone calls."

"Good evening, Atlae" the spider 'spoke' before it scurried away.

"Good night, spider!" He laughed. "You're so cool, Marianne. Most girls I know run screaming when I show them ara… arachnoids?."

"Arachnid." Marianne patiently corrected, letting the spider out the window. If mom discovered she was keeping one of AG's familiars around the house, she'd kill her. "Most girls also don't like it when you burp at the table, even IF you love their food, but you do it anyway, don't you? Listen, Atlae, you shouldn't be here. Dad will be upset if he finds you're helping me cheat his punishment."

The boy sat at her bed. "I wanted to talk. You seemed upset today."

She groaned, shifting eyes away.

Atlae sweated. What was she hiding from him? Strong as he was, he feared making Marianne pissed by asking. He could risk joining her cousin at the dentist.

"Is it about what Patrick said today? Or something I did?" he tentatively asked. "You always seem so angry nowadays, I can't tell."

The blue-haired girl shook head. "Atlae, if what mom tells me is true, I'm going to be plenty angry at everything for the next thirty or so years, especially with the money I'll be spending in hygiene. But yes, you did annoy me a bit. And yes, what Patrick said didn't help."

Atlae scratched head. "He called me a 'dotted freak'. What does it mean?" he asked. He had been called 'dotted freak' plenty of times and didn't like it, but Mari' reacted to it like it was so much worse than he ever thought. "Is there something wrong with me having dots?"

Marianne sighed. "No, Atlae, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. It's just a bad name that ignorant people trying to act superior throw out."

The boy scratched head. "I don't understand. Why would they do that?"

The blue-haired girl paused to think. How could she explain this? Especially when Atlae had flunk history class and didn't seem to understand the concept of xenophobia, or any word with that number of syllables?

She gave it her best shot, making it as simple as possible. "Well, listen… a long, long, long time ago, before grampa was born, before his grampa was born, before that great-great-grandfather's grandfather's was born… you and I had ancestors that lived in two different islands. My island had Greeks of blue hair, like me and mom and dad, and yours had Muvians of all types, like you."

Atlae focused attention. "I've heard this from your dad before, yeah. I came from Mu and you guys from Atlantis, right?"

She nodded. "Right, but… our islands were always at war with each other, even though we were both already very rich and advanced."

"What?" Atlae gasped. "At war? Why?"

She shrugged. This was the xenophobia part that Atlae was frankly better off without. "We just did. People don't always treat different people nice, Atlae. And sometimes when two really strong countries exist, they can't help but be enemies. Things were fine for a while, though, because even though our islands were so different, there was a balance."

Atlae tried to keep up, but this stuff sounded complicated, but the balance part made sense. "Okay…"

"Well, Atlae, one day things went too far. The balance got tipped." Marianne added. "My people's god sunk your island and then… Sanctuary sank mine. Ever since then, my people and yours have both came to live under Sanctuary, since there was nowhere else to go. However, my people integrated pretty well, because, well… even though Sanctuary sunk us, we were humans and Greek, sort of, so the Saints didn't mind us being around. But your people, well, they tried the same, but…"

Atlae's face sunk as it dawned on him. He looked at Marianne's mirror and saw the dots over his brows. He touched them self-consciously. He never thought too much about them until now.

Marianne frowned empathetically. "Your ancestors were kept out, because you were different. They were 'dee effs'. Some even thought you were evil." She left out the part of how many Muvians starved to death before a home was found in the Himalayas. "Do you understand now?"

He shook his head and got up sharply. "No, I don't! You said this all happened a really long time ago, right? And we're both in kind of the same situation?" He turned to her, his head growing hot. "I can't make stuff move with my mind or… or be good at alchemy, so why would they think that I…? I've even lived with you guys all this time! I don't get it."

The girl just slumped shoulders sadly. "This is why I don't like when people call you that name. Patrick does it because uncle and aunt do it like it's normal, so he does it as well. He and the others don't understand what it means, not for real. They even think it's more polite than just calling you stupid."

Atlae felt tears in his eyes as he realized the truth. So all this time, he was in the middle of people who thought these things of him?

The realization in him was as clear as it was heartbreaking to Marianne. "I'm sorry, Atlae."

"Is that why grampa Julian always tried to hit me with his cane whenever he saw me? And why he told your mom to put Band-Aids on my forehead? I thought…" He looked away, ashamed, and whispered the rest. "I thought I had done something to make him angry like when I tried to lift the piano."

Marianne winced; it would be a good thing if Grampa Julian treated Atlae badly because he flipped the car again or something, but it was actually just casual ignorance, which was a thousand times worse. It wasn't until dad got into a big fight with him that grampa laid off Atlae, and even then they had to come to an agreement that the 'dotted freak would stay off the upper floors of his house, same as the dogs'.

She never forgave him for acting like this, especially when Atlae had a hard time understanding why and didn't even understand his yelling in Greek. It was the reason Atlae developed the habit of climbing the tree to her room so they could hang out. Dad always told her to not tell Atlae the truth so he wouldn't feel different, but what Patrick did at school was too much. Eventually Atlae was going to ask what it meant and it was better if he heard it from her.

Meanwhile, Atlae could only sniff pathetically. He felt so confused. It never even crossed his mind to treat anyone differently, so the fact people around him would act this way felt like a brick trying to fit inside his skull.

Marianne felt a ping from Dad. She felt her heart beat, wondering if he found a solution for Atlae. "Atlae, Dad is calling you. You should go to his study and see what he wants. And for Poseidon's sake, don't go through the window. Mom can see your prints in the glass."

Atlae nodded, cleaned his tears and headed out the door. He didn't want to make Lord Arthur upset by being late. "Okay… Marianne?"

"Yeah?"

He scratched his hair. "Do you hate me because of… our islands, too?"

She shook head exasperatedly and laid out hand. "Come here."

He approached tentatively. What was she going to do?

Marianne took his hand and tapped his face with hers. "Turn away! I can't do this if you're looking at me. It makes it weird."

A bit confused, he followed the instruction, looking at the window instead. "Oka-"

He suddenly felt her lips kiss his cheek.

The eleven-year-old froze. "Oh! Mari'!" He touched the warm mark on his face and turned to see Marianne laugh like he just dropped his pants. "You just…!"

"Does it look like I hate you?" she asked, hands in hips "Don't be stupid, Atlae. How could I? You're my best boy-space-friend. Plus, you're easy on the water bill."

The blonde Muvian perked up nervously. Marianne didn't even mention how expensive he was on the food one. "Thank you."

{======================|A3|======================}

A week later,

Western Tibetan Plateau

{======================|A3|======================}

Ithaca, the new lieutenant of the Sons of Arion and servant of the Solos, rode up the steep mountain path with the blonde Muvian boy on the saddle with him, escorted by the Immortal Guard. Winter coats were packed for the weather, including fur-lined hoods and covers for the horse, but even so the biting winds of the Himalayas surprised them.

Eventually, the rising road leveled out as it reached the top of the Shamballa plateau, revealing the magnificent city in the horizon.

"Welcome to Shamballa." Their guide presented, riding up an overlooking slope.

Atlae swooned; in this secretive Himalayan plateau, far up above from even the cities of Tibet like Lhasa, stood a massive, circular urbanization surrounded by snow-white walls of black tile-roofed barbicans. Inside, neatly organized streets lined with many green trees were sectioned by cardinal direction quarters. Each had many taller buildings that served as dedicated workshops and dojos for several different Muvian clans, one of them being the Turtle School, which was topped by a big snake-turtle chimera statue on its roof.

These all paled in comparison, however, to the central construction of Shamballa; the four quarters surrounded an imposing nine-floored temple with a massive golden bell.

"The mountains here are SO BIG! Way bigger than back in Greece!" Atlae pointed out. He looked up "Ithaca, are you sure the Gods don't live here instead?"

The knight cringed. "Well, maybe some gods live here, Atlae, but not ours. I know that big building from Sanctuary tourism cards, though; it's the Sun Temple?" Ithaca asked the guard. He smiled charmingly at the guide. "Could I pay a visit after dropping off Atlae?"

"No, you cannot." the masked guide cut.

Ithaca frowned. "Oh, that's too bad. I wonder what's with the tourism cards, then?"

"You misunderstand, Mariner." The Guard clarified. "It's not a matter of permission to enter, but of ability."

Ithaca rose a brow. Ability? As in, he wasn't strong enough to enter the building?

Atlae looked up curiously. "Ithaca, what's in the Sun Temple?"

The rider laughed, forgetting Atlae was just as much a stranger here as he was. "Don't you know, Atlae? That is where the first Virgo Gold Saint reached enlightenment, near the end of the Age of Myth. There's also a big bell at the top made of solid gold! I would just have liked to check it out, since I came all this way. Perhaps I could reach enlightenment as well."

"Follow me close, Mariner." The Immortal Guard spoke riding ahead. "We are going to meet the High Elder. She's an important person beloved by us all. Many might frown to see a Mariner in her presence without an escort."

Ithaca gulped and rode down with him, bringing Atlae all the way to the big gates of Shamballa. It was a pair of massive red gates made of steel with one tiny easy access door in the corner. The Muvian craftmanship of the gate was impressive, showing off intricate patterns and engravings on the hardened metal with the detail of a hand-woven tapestry. In this case, it showed the scene of a giant man with wings holding a big rock in its hands above head, surrounded by praising Muvians.

Atlae stared in fascination. It looked like a pretty strong giant to hold up a rock as big as that. "Who is that guy? He looks amazing"

The Guard turned his masked face. "That guy, young man, is part of your people's legends; the mythical mechanism Talos, said to have once guarded the Muvian Kingdom in Crete, during the Age of Myth."

"Cool!" Atlae swooned. "Look at the awesome things my people make, Ithaca."

The mariner cringed. "It's a myth, Atlae, like the Godslayer. Besides, us Mariners make neat things, too. We made the Main Breadwinner and that thing holds up the oceans!" He had to admit to himself one thing. "Though I guess it can't move around a whole lot…"

The massive gates opened in as they arrived, creaking ominously, as if a big army was about to march out. Instead, Ithaca, Atlae and the guide were greeted by a small contingent of Muvian women surrounding a single, aged lady.

Ithaca brought Atlae down his horse and presented himself, saluting. "Salutations, high Elder. I am Ithaca, lieutenant of the Sons of Arion and servant of the Solo Household. I have come in lord Arthur's name to bring young Atlae to your care."

She nodded slowly and gazed down on the boy.

Atlae gulped, seeing her eyes lock on him; she had a tall slender frame, sandals, long grey hair tied with a crane-shaped hairpin, Muvian dots on a wrinkled face, and a white robe with red linings and feather drawings, all elements that combined with her piercing eyes made him feel like a small frog cornered by a tall crane. This was enhanced by the reverence of the Muvian women surrounding her, who kept their heads lowered towards her as if drawn into her presence.

He also noticed the looks people in the street were giving Ithaca; many Muvians were peeking tensely from their windows, shops and rooftops, keeping a silent distance as if they just watched an enemy enter their town. Atlae also noticed how few, if any, were straw-hairs like him; the dominant colors of hair seemed to be lilac or green, when not just aged grey.

The Elder spoke. "You're the Mariner sent to negotiate the trade contract, correct? Give my regards to Arthur, Ithaca of the Sons of Arion. You may go now."

Ithaca laughed, combing his hair charmingly. "So soon? I was hoping I could taste some of your food, High Elder? It was a long journey. Riding a horse up Tibet isn't easy."

"You may restock your horse at the stables, Son of Arion." she dictated, unimpressed. "After that, I'll assign a guard for you to meet the Elders of the villages you'll be trading with. I'm afraid that will be all."

Ithaca staggered with the harsh tone, but shrugged. "Very well." He patted Atlae's shoulder. "Good luck, Atlae. It looks like I have to go now."

Atlae panicked at being dumped so quickly. "Wait, can't you stay for a while? I just got here; I don't know anyone!"

The Mariner irked, seeing the Elder's stare intensify. "Sorry, I got a lot of work to do around these parts. I'm afraid I didn't come just to keep you company. Atlae. If I stick around I'll only cause you problems. Don't worry, you'll do fine. These are your people, after all." He climbed back on his worse and spurred it. "I'll tell Marianne you arrived safely! Ayah!"

Atlae reached out and blurted a loud, "WAIT!" but Ithaca left the city and the gates closed on him immediately.

As soon as the Mariner was gone, the town seemed to unfreeze; the Muvians previously watching the scene went back to work and talking, even with the High Elder standing right there. The guide that came with them returned to his duties like no danger was present anymore and the sounds of happy talking, smith tools clanking on armor and street cleaning resumed.

This left Atlae all alone with the mean-looking lady of grey hair. "U-um… my name is, um-" He tried to think of what to ask, but froze up.

"I know your name, Atlae. Arthur has told me all about you. I am High Elder Yuzuriha." The lady spoke. "As a student of the Turtle School, you will, however, call me Master. Welcome to Shamballa, capital of your people. Do you know why you're here?"

Atlae nodded, but his eyes were transfixed on her shiny hairpin. "Yes, I do. Um…"

"You look like you have a lot of questions. Just spit it out." Yuzuriha pressed. She didn't like having her time wasted.

He tentatively pointed at her hairpin. "Why do you have a bird on your head?"

Yuzuriha squinted.

She pressed on to the point. "I understand you would like to join the Turtle School of Mount Rozan martial arts?"

He stood up straight, trying to appear presentable and determined. "Yes! I mean, yes Master!"

"Then tell me, Atlae, why are you here, all the way in Shamballa? Were you not happy with your family? The Solos are quite affluent. You could have gotten a good education in Nea Delphi."

Why was he being asked all these questions? Atlae shook head. "I was very happy with my family, High Elder, but I wasn't doing well in school and… I wanted to came here because… because I want to do more. I want to learn about my people and see what I can become."

Yuzuriha hummed positively. Okay, so the boy had some self-curiosity. Now they were getting somewhere, but she still wanted to test him a bit more to see if he was worth the risk of teaching.

"You could become an alchemist like your Muvian brothers. Or a telepath." Yuzuriha challenged. "Arthur told me you're quite strong, but your muscles could be just as useful, if not more, with a hammer and prongs in your hands. Why not join an alchemy clan and learn to repair Cloths?"

Atlae grumbled. He looked at the various shops. "No, alchemy is boring! I don't like period tables."

"Periodic!" Yuzuriha asserted, shocked.

Atlae scratched his head. How important could this difference be? "I don't like mind magic either. I told you, I just wanna beat people up."

Yuzuriha squinted. "'Beat people up'? Is that what you think I teach?!"

Atlae staggered, feeling like a frightening crane was about to peck him. Marianne warned him not to call it this, but he forgot. "U-uh, I mean, beat people stronger than me up! I would never hurt vulnerable people! I want to become a great martial artist!"

While happy with this clarification, Yuzuriha still made one thing clear. "I do not teach hooligans or vandals or fighting enthusiasts! Those who learn the martial arts, especially of the Turtle School, are to be practitioners of skill, peace of mind and, most importantly, balance." She folded her hands into sleeves. "The road I have my students on is just as much of character as it is of muscle, if not more. Do you think, perhaps, I will teach you to win Coliseum games?"

The boy stepped up. "No, not at all! I mean, that would be fun, but I want to join for other reasons!"

"Such as?"

Atlae beamed, clenching fists determinedly and tried to find words. "Because I want to use this strength I have better. I love fighting and exercising, but I don't really want to hurt others. I want to learn to beat the very best up. Lord Arthur told me that your school is amazing, that Mount Rozan even trains Saints!"

Yuzuriha paused tensely. "I suppose that, in a way, this is the right spirit, even if he vocalizes it strangely."

"I don't really care about the Holy Wars, but… if I can become a great fighter, I think that would make me happy." Atlae concluded.

The Elder folded arms. She supposed she'd heard worst things. "Alright, that isn't the worst reason. And you do sound honest. However, before you even think of stepping inside my school, you're going to go through the testing of a lifetime! Only the children with the most potential for cosmos can apply, and eleven years old is already relatively late to unloc-"

The boy's green eyes widened and he jumped at her head, startling the Elder. She was about to throw him down when Atlae reached up, catching something above her head before rolling over and landing behind her.

Atlae laughed happily and rose the small cat above head. "KITTY!"

Yuzuriha gawked.

"Oh gods, High Elder, I'm so sorry!" a Muvian woman came rushing in from one of the nearby houses, taking the orange cat Atlae caught. "My cat thought he saw a bird in your hairp- I mean he fell down the roof chasing a bird, yes!"

The Elder touched her crane hairpin self-consciously.

Atlae handed it off to its panicked owner. "Here you go, Ma'am."

The woman hugged it tightly and patted Atlae's head, making him purr as much as the cat. "Thank you, little straw-hair!"

Watching the whole thing, Yuzuriha reevaluated her assumptions. She saw the distance Atlae wave goodbye at the cat and realized he timed that jump excellently to catch the feline softly and without hitting the Elder with his cartwheel. She hadn't even detected any strong emotional shift in him before his jump. Atlae just did it like the explosion of action and the gesture of care were second nature to him.

"Bye, cat!" Atlae turned, embarrassed. "I'm sorry, Elder, were you saying something? I have to take a test?"

The stoic woman shook head. "No, I was not. Call me Master, Atlae. Come on. I'll show you the Genbu School."

{======================|A3|======================}

Later,

Shamballa Outskirts

{======================|A3|======================}

After feeding his ride and riding a fair distance from the watch of Shamballa's towers, Ithaca slowed down and turned, making sure one final time he wasn't being followed by the Immortal Guards before finding a shaded spot by the plateau forests.

The blue-haired knight took out his Orichalcum binoculars; a pair of lenses made with the legendary flying metal used to forge Scales with which allowed it to detect valuable metals through a special shine capture. He flipped the small wheel on it, calibrating the lenses until the letters AU popped up, and surveyed the area, in particular the mountain tops leading out of Shamballa.

He smiled, finding the tempting yellow shine in one of the mountaintops. It was a big bell alike the one in Shamballa, only smaller. Unsaddling, he tied his horse to a rock and followed the pass by the mountaintop on foot so as to discreetly find his next hint.

After a solid hour of sneaking, Ithaca found the second golden-belled mountain top with his binoculars, further west. He realized it led to river-cut passes coming from Mount Kailash, a massive mountain of religious significance to many different people who resided further to the west, at the intersection of India, Nepal and Chinese Tibet.

He paused to think back to myth class. In the Hindu Epic Ramayana, it was said that Shiva, with his great big toe, pressed the Kailash Mountain so as to trap Ravana, King of the island of Lanka, into it. As a follower of Poseidon living in Sanctuary, Ithaca naturally did not believe such stories. As someone aware of the Muvian civilization living in western Tibet, he also knew it didn't mean there was nothing to it.

As arranged with the Elder, an Immortal Guard guide soon came to him. Ithaca quickly hid his binoculars.

On closer inspections, he could swear that it was the same one that guided him and Atlae to Shamballa, but couldn't be sure because of the mask. "Why, hello there. Are we starting?"

The guard nodded. "Yes. We will be first visiting the Elders around Shamballa, then work our way west."

West? Excellent, that was the direction the mountain top bells went. "That sounds great."

"The High Elder has instructed me to warn you I will always introduce you before you present Lord Arthur's dealings. Not everyone among our people is as friendly to Mariners as Lady Yuzuriha."

Ithaca nodded and followed. Still, a curiosity burrowed at him. "Say, could I ask something about one of your traditions?"

The stoic guard nodded. "What would you like to know?"

"If a Muvian lady sees your face, do you have to marry or kill them, too?"

The masked rider turned face. Ithaca couldn't tell if the Muvian was thinking or stunned by the question's rudeness.

"We are not barbarians, Greek. While we renounce our masculinity when we join the Immortal Guard, if a gentlewoman sees our face, we are given… a third option."

Ithaca rose a brow, intrigued. "Which is?"

The guard shifted uncomfortably. "It's shameful to speak of it openly, but in poetic terms… we give them our blades that best fill their scabbards."

"Oh!" Ithaca gestured a zip through lips and chuckled. "And here I thought you were all chaste monks. Say no more."

The Immortal Guard squinted weirdly beneath his mask. Humans were so strange. What was so unchaste about giving a clanswoman the best sword you've ever smithed?

{======================|A3|======================}

Shamballa,

Turtle School

{======================|A3|======================}

At the snow-packed capital of the Muvians in the Tibetan plateau, there was a humble building of stone brick and green tile roof. This was the dojo of the Turtle School, a martial arts temple for the fighting clans of the Muvians to learn the wisdom and martial arts of Genbu, the northern God.

One of its many rooms was a dojo hall with a sparring mattress, a shrine, scrolls with rules and ethos hanging on the walls and a big wall opening to the grassy garden. From there everyone could see the high rise of the far-off Sun Temple, especially the golden glint of its big bell.

Atlae stood diligently along with a class of twenty-nine other Muvians of different ages, all of them girls. He looked around, trying to find another boy, or even just a fellow straw-hair, but everyone was a Shamballa fighting clansgirl aspiring to earn a martial art belt in Elder Yuzuriha's school and none of them had yellow hair like his. He felt doubly singled out, if that was even possible.

"Welcome to another year at the School of Genbu, the northern god's branch of Mount Rozan's martial arts." Yuzuriha spoke. "At this school, you will learn the skills, both mental and physical, you need to be a new proud generation of guardians of Shamballa."

Atlae breathed in relief that Master didn't call attention to him. He was already feeling some pretty weird looks in his direction from everyone.

The Master continued, pointing at a scroll listing the schools tenents. "The four principles of Genbu are the following;"

Purity of Mind,

The season of Winter,

The Element of Earth

And balance.

"Those who can achieve a purple belt, and nothing short, will understand the value of their lessons and be admitted into the Shamballa defense force. Those who achieve a blue belt, if any of you, will be eligible to be recommended to a Cloth Training Ground."

There was a low, excited murmur at this. Atlae realized many of the girls were probably signed up under Master Yuzuriha for the chance to earn training at Sanctuary, where all the Saints lived, and not so much the defense force thing. He wondered if they knew that they'd probably have to wear masks in Sanctuary the same way the men in the Immortal Guard did.

"Finally, while the Turtle School no longer requires it, I must, for the sake of tradition, mention the school's grandest test; the ringing of the Genbu Shell.." Yuzuriha pointed at the far-off Sun Temple. "Atop Shamballa's greatest palace is the bell known as the Golden Shell of Genbu, beneath which the first Buddha reached enlightenment. The bell is made of 15 tons of stardust-reinforced solid gold and you have all heard it be rung when important people, like the Pope of Sanctuary, visit Shamballa. This is usually done by cosmos users operating the palace's machines."

"Fifteen tons of solid gold?" Atlae wondered. "Wow, Caça would drool like a faucet if he heard that! Some really strong guys must have lifted it all the way up there!"

"It is the school's tradition that those who make the bell ring 12 times with a single blow will flip the bell from Sun to Moon and earn the blessing of Genbu. This, by natural extension, would earn you the black belt."

Atlae's attention was perked again. He remembered Lord Arthur mentioning he didn't think there was one, from his conversation with Master "The black belt… so there is one! So, to get it I just have to ring the bell one day."

The Master surveyed the room. "Any questions?"

One girl, named Beatrice, raised hand. "Master, is there a bathroom?"

Yuzuriha rubbed her eyes in annoyance. "Left hall. Any real questions?!"

While the first rushed off, a second, named Rosanne, rose their hand. "Master, how do you ring the Genbu Bell without getting close to it? Isn't it blocked off from the top floor, so much you use ropes to ring it? Also isn't the Sun Temple's final floor, like, a billion feet high?"

"Good question." Yuzuriha simply answered, folding arms. "I suppose you'll have to jump."

…

The same girl rose her hand again.

"Yes?"

"Master, um, you didn't really answer my question"

"I think I have." Yuzuriha looked around and pointed to their newest candidate raising his hand. "Yes, Atlae?"

The boy beamed. "Master, master, if I ring that big bell before anyone else, can I take it to my friend? She would be really impressed!"

The girls laughed.

"No, Atlae, you may not! Class, dismissed!" Yuzuriha waited for the girls to disperse and then gestured for Atlae to follow her.

The boy gulped. Did he already say something bad? He rushed to the Master before he made her angrier.

"Atlae, I understand you are trying to show how pure your thoughts are and ingratiate yourself with your classmates with some humor," Yuzuriha assumed. It was tough enough a battle to get everyone to understand Atlae wasn't some kind of spy sent by Arthur. "-but we do not take lightly to suggestions of stealing a sacred Muvian artifact for your girlfriend, alright?"

Atlae shook head. Marianne made sure to write him the difference on paper before he left. "Oh, she kissed me but she's not my girlfriend. She's my girl-friend."

Yuzuriha blinked, feeling like her brain just skipped a beat. "Right. In any case, I've prepared something for you."

Atlae swooned when the Master pulled out a new cotton-white gi. "Oh, so cool! My own gi!" He started putting it on over his clothes and then noticed a set of Mandarin characters were written on a circle in his upper left chest side. "What does this say, Master?"

"In Mount Rozan tradition, it's something describing the owner's base virtues." Yuzuriha mystified.

Atlae snorted bravely, flexing his arms. "Is it Muscled Warrior, Master?"

The grey-haired woman chuckled. It actually said 'Hungry Gorilla' but why ruin the boy's excitement? "I'll tell you later. In any case, now that you've begun your first day, let's do a quick summary of the School's rules."

The blonde Muvian nodded. "Okay!"

Guiding the boy through the halls, Yuzuriha listed. "Number 1, Atlae, you already know this one, but you will always address me as Master inside the School. Out in Shamballa's streets, however, you may address me as High Elder."

Tripping up behind her as he put his Gi on, Atlae nodded. "Yes, High Eld- I mean Master!"

"Number 2, you will follow the hygiene rules to the letter. That means the long list of things you haven't been doing so far, such as taking regular showers and keeping your shoes off when inside the School."

Atlae groaned. He was used to having Marianne defend his poor habits by saying it saved up on water, but he supposed that wouldn't work anymore. "Oh…. Okay. I mean, yes Master."

"Number 3, I realize you are habituated to human society, so I expect you to apply the same respect to the female members of the school you were expected to back at Néa Delphi. This means no peeping, no groping while sparring and no other types of puberty-driven behaviors, Atlae." Yuzuriha rolled eyes at herself, feeling silly. The only reason she was giving this warning was because Atlae was the first male student in a long while, so she felt she had to. "Well, I get the feeling you would never do that, anyway, would you, Atlae?"

The boy beamed and shook head. "No, never, Master! I have no pubic-driven behaviors, I swear. I just want to beat people up!"

Yuzuriha coughed into her hand, distressed. "Ah, well, we'll work on your vocabulary later."

"Any more rules, Master?" Atlae asked. He wasn't sure what pubic-driven behaviors were, but so far, other than the bathing thing, it all seemed pretty easy.

"Number 4, Arthur has told me you have… quite the appetite." It was, in fact, the reason behind his Gi's cognomen. "However, the Turtle School has strict dietary habits. You will only be given the same regular serving everyone else gets."

Atlae gawked. Those tiny servings of veggies he saw the girls eat? "What?! NO!" He dropped to the floor and bowed head in beg. "I'll die! Please, Master! At least a serving and half!"

She scoffed. "It's no use begging, young man. You're talking to a former Crane Saint!" In fact, Yuzuriha's 4th year in Jamir was one long diet of nothing but the nourishment of the Cosmos. She kept going, dragging Atlae through the corridor as he held to her ankle. "The Turtle School emphasizes balance above all. You will be at an emotional, spiritual, moral and dietary equilibrium at all times, understood?"

Atlae wept, feeling his world fall apart. Would he have to eat salad for six years, like an actual turtle? If he knew the Turtle School would be this way, he would have taken Ms. Solo's offer for weekly cookie shipments. Now he was pretty sure Master would inspect his mail.

Well, at least he would have fun learning martial arts. Atlae was pretty strong so that should make it pretty fun. PE was always his favorite class back at Delphi. That should make up for it, right?

{======================|A3|======================}

A week later,

Western Tibet

Mount Kailash Footing

{======================|A3|======================}

Seven days and nights had passed of Ithaca travelling through the plateau with his guide. During them, he met countless villages of Muvians dotting the cold passes and was doubly surprised at how, simultaneously, many still existed and many were down to just two families or abandoned entirely. It seemed that the hated enemies of the Mariners were really on their last legs, population wise.

This was especially frightening to Ithaca given the famous longevity in Muvians that so many humans, and Mariners in particular, envied. Apparently being able to live so long, often across entire Holy War cycles, did little to stave off the population decline of these colonies. As he got to know the clans a bit better, usually through his guide translating his questions from Greek to Bodic, Ithaca came to understand that Muvian society faced a lot more problems that they let on, from a growing fragmentation and dilution into local Tibetan groups to outright political splintering and clan infighting.

Perhaps, in these circumstances, it was not so odd for Lord Arthur to have encountered a boy as strange as Atlae, who seemed to escape some of the context expected of Shamballa Muvians, or for there to be a need for Ithaca to meet these lower Elders personally to negotiate Lord Arthur's contract, even after already having High Elder Yuzuriha's backing.

After getting the signature of the last Elder of the western colonies for Lord Arthur's contract, Ithaca was finally allowed some leeway to move around. After seeing the Immortal Guard resting, he took the chance to follow up on his investigation and sneak out.

"Where are you going?" The guide asked.

Ithaca staggered. Blasted mask; he could swear the man was distracted. "I was going for a walk. I'd like to see some of the mountain shrines around here."

The guide stared. "Mm, we're not too far from Talos' Cave, but I suppose he wouldn't know about that. Besides, he doesn't know the passes and the place is guarded." He saw the Mariner had tied his horse down. He guessed Ithaca couldn't cause too much trouble without it. "Alright, but make it quick. We have to get to Phosphophyllite next."

"Phospho…? Um, yes, of course." After seeing so many crazy village names, he guessed this was another one. He rushed off.

Contrary to what the guide thought, however, Ithaca could maneuver himself quite well even in these labyrinthic environments. As a Son of Arion, he understood how to fight even when charging through the midst of cosmos-misted battlefields and he was able to guide himself towards his destination quite well on foot. While the mountain passes seemed to curve in confusing ways, often tricking him into thinking left was right, he was aware of the golden bells the Muvians were keeping atop the mountains and used them as reference points to pick the right way.

After some time, Ithaca came across the area surrounding Mount Kailash, and kept himself to the shadows of the slopes. The round, dark mountain was alike a big snow-capped dome in the midst of rust green slopes, so it stood out quite well. He double-checked to make sure all the Muvian Bells led to this area and his binoculars found, indeed, a secretive shrine guarded by a pair of Immortal Guards led by a Muvian clanswoman. It was by the eastern face of the mountain and the golden shine of a big bell was visible to his orichalcum binoculars.

They seemed to be guarding a simple mountain side and there were no further golden bells in any of the mountain tops ahead. Ithaca switched the settings on his binoculars to search for Cosmos-based illusions and looked again.

He smiled, seeing a big veil of cosmos deposited over the mountain side in the exact shape of what could be a gaping cavern entrance behind the shrine. A secret opening. This had to be it.

{==========|A3|==========}

A week earlier

{==========|A3|==========}

"You'll get your second half if you produce some results, understood?" the small hooded man with the cane whispered, dumping the sack of drachmas in Ithaca's hand. "And by that, I mean not just the location, but evidence that it's what we're looking for."

Ithaca opened the sack and ran his fingers through the coins. It was easily two years' salary under Lord Solo, which didn't mean all that much, unfortunately, given the Solos' legendary frugalness. "Mm, yeah, okay. What if I get caught? Can I count on protection?"

"If you get caught, I don't even know you, Mariner dog. Toss everything you collect and fend for yourself. Why do you think I came here disguised?! To make friends?!"

Ithaca frowned. Who was this guy kidding? He could easily tell this briber was Gigas, the advocate of the Sanctuary aristocracy in court. Even if it wasn't for his famously diminutive stature, not many in Sanctuary carried themselves around with this combination of frontal arrogance, access to money and an owl-winged cane they didn't really need.

Pocketing the bag, Ithaca nodded. "Fine. So, what's the details?"

"Those Muvians are doing some kind of secret excavation at the end of those mountain bell trails of theirs, we're sure of it!" totally-not-Gigas sneered. "They've been closing off mountain areas and buying digging machines, bigger than they can make themselves, and our spies say they keep losing track of them along the bell path, but can't get closer. Your job is to find out what they're digging and where. They don't typically let Sanctuary envoys into Shamballa so easily, but now you got the perfect excuse, thanks to Arthur Solo's little exchange student transfer."

"Mm, so Atlae is your way in?" Ithaca felt bad for using the boy, but Lord Arthur really shouldn't be making dealings with the Muvians anyway, especially now that he was becoming Head of Houses. "But what exactly am I looking for? A hole in the ground? It's the Himalayas, for Poseidon's sake."

"That's your job to figure it out!" not-Gigas argued. "If they're keeping a Cloth or science project hidden from the Pope, it must be uncovered. It's for their own good!"

Ithaca gulped, remembering what Sanctuary did to the Zodiac Knights for 'not disclosing weaponry'. There was a serious chance a second Topaz Purge could happen, especially with how insane Sanctuary has been in its Black Saint persecutions, this time directed at the Muvians. Maybe Lord Arthur was right, and all it took for this hostility to be turned to the Mariners as well was for a vessel to Lord Poseidon to finally be sired.

Ithaca grimaced, but nodded. "Fine, if the Muvians got nothing to hide, then it should be okay."

{==========|A3|==========}

Present

{==========|A3|==========}

Having followed the golden bells, Ithaca now lucked on what he was looking for.

Observing the guards for about an hour from his hiding spot, Ithaca took copious notes in encrypted lettering. He noticed the guards patrolled the area regularly, cleaned the shrine and bell diligently, kept the candles lit and occasionally chatted, but never ever went inside the cavern itself. Even their falcons, which they used for quick surveys of the mountains, seemed to keep off the dark maw. One of them flew in from a dive into its owner's hand too close to the opening and seemed to panic, cawing loudly and swerving to the ground as if the proximity with the secret cave frightened the large bird.

This was enough for a start. Ithaca discretely traveled back to the village he split off from his guide. He needed to wait and return later when a shot at infiltrating the cave was created. Perhaps at night? In any case, sticking around would just raise the chances the Muvians would catch him.

As he was about to reach the village, he perked up, hearing a strange sound echoing in the horizon. Shielding his eyes from the high sun, he squinted, seeing a big cloud of dark fog emerge at the passes from the lower altitudes.

He widened eyes, distinguishing a familiar vroom-vroom. "Are those… motorbikes? In these parts?"

{======================|A3|======================}

Shamballa

{======================|A3|======================}

"Ayah!" the Muvian girl shouted, counter attacking with a palm strike to his chest with enough force toss Atlae off the mattress. "Ah, easy-peasy!"

A whistle was sounded, signaling the girl's win. Atlae rubbed his head and frowned, seeing another loss scratch being added to the chalkboard. He waited so long in line for his new turn on the attack half, too.

Yuzuriha shook head. "Atlae, balance yourself. You're trying too hard to attack." She pointed at the next adversary. "Jeanna, you're next on attack. Atlae, defend! And remember; keep calm, level your energy and study her movements."

The blonde Muvian rose, rubbing his pained chest. "Y-yes Master."

The adversary girl entered the match, replacing her friend, and tilted her head, annoyed. "Ugh, I hate this. I don't like hitting the boys. Why isn't this kid nerding around in one of the workshops?"

Exhaling, Atlae tried to heed Master's advice, readying less energy into his next assault and trying to keep his senses on his adversary's movements. He just wanted to get one win on his first day sparring, but everyone was so good. Maybe if he just tried to be patient in his movements, an opportunity would surge?

Atlae sweated, losing patience. When was Jeanna finally going to attack? On defense turns, he wasn't allowed to make the first move. It was starting to get a bit hard to keep focuse-

The girl finally made the first move, swiping Atlae's guard with a series of super fast strikes he could barely anticipate. Swinging fist in, he had his first counter blow elegantly blocked by a hand tap. His follow-up kick was dodged, his third swing hit the air she left behind in a bob and his cartwheel heel blow was blocked with a cross-guard. However, this time, Master's advice paid dividends as the slower pace he was taking allowed him to not get struck by the girl's counter jump kick, which hit his guarding arms and only pushed him back a bit,

"Hey, not bad." Jeanna spoke. She noticed how hard Atlae was focusing on her and pointed down. "You might want to tie your shoes, by the way."

Atlae looked. "Wha-"

"AYAH!" she shouted, kicking his chest hard and throwing him off the mattress. "Ah! I win!"

Atlae coughed and groaned. He then remembered they were barefoot. "H-HEY, that's cheating!"

"How is it cheating? You're the one who looked down." Jeanna pointed out. She tapped her head in a thinking manner. "You just think too slow. You don't keep track of all the balls in the air because you focus way too hard on one thing, instead of many. If you didn't, you'd remember we don't wear shoes inside, dummy."

Atlae reddened in embarrassment as the class of girls laughed at this.

"If this was a real fight that wouldn't matter!" Atlae tried to argue.

"If this was a real fight, you'd be keeping all your cosmos focused on one point like an idiot instead of shifting it around, and you'd get yourself killed. A real warrior is someone who can keep multiple focus points in mind at once. This is why you should be studying at the workshops, not training with us." Jeanna added, joining her friends. "Good riddance, too. Momma always taught me not to hit the boys. Maybe he'll catch a hint and drop out soon if this keeps up."

Atlae stared at his own hands. "I'm focusing too much? That's just the way the taught Cosmos at Sanctuary. Then I guess I should do the opposite here?" He growled. "Fine, then I want a rematch! Right now!"

Jeanna turned, scowling. "What?! Get real! You're off the mattress, I win!"

"Atlae!" Yuzuriha spoke, tapping the ruleboard.

The boy sighed and forced himself to count to five until his anger subsided. "… Yes, Master."

Yuzuriha saw the clock hit twelve. "Class dismissed. Time for lunch."

Atlae beamed, forgetting about what just happened. "Oh boy! Finally!"

Yuzuriha saw him speed off like hadn't eaten in a year. "Mm, Arthur was right. He does have an appetite."

{======================|A3|======================}

Later, at the lunch room, the Turtle school class watched in awe as the bowls of noodles and veggies piled up in the table, one after the other. Using the chopsticks at a speed rivaling that of a humming bird's wings, Atlae scarfed down the delicious soup of ingredients. It was mesmerizing to watch, like watching trash tossed into a compressor getting smooshed.

Atlae sighed out happily and extended his bowl. "More, please?"

The girls exchanged looks. "He wants more!"

"Does anyone else want to get rid of their servings?!" one called out.

"Have mine, I'm all balanced out!" a third one offered.

Atlae beamed. "Thank you!" and proceeded to devour her serving of noodles and mushrooms. "Mm, if only I had some meat!"

A fourth girl, amazed by this, laughed. "Holy shit, we finally have someone who can take all this mountain of food Master gives us."

"I know, right?! This balance philosophy was killing me! What's the point of having us eat human-size portions?! Especially if we're supposed to stay under 120 pounds?"

"I think the point is to make us burn it off? Some kind of weird up-and-down thing that evens itself out. I never quite understood it."

"Ugh, everything in this school is about balancing things out! Why can't we just eat normally?"

"How do humans take all this food inside their stomachs, anyway?! No wonder they can't survive in Tibet!" a fifth one agreed. "But this little boy thinks it's too little for him! Genbu bless him."

"It's like a Muvian garbage disposal…" another awed, watching the bowls pile up.

A girl watching the hall panicked. "Master's coming! Everyone, take your bowls back!"

The class scurried around, taking the empty bowls back into their own plates. "Atlae, pretend nothing happened, alright?!"

Wanting to keep good relations, Atlae nodded. "R-Right! But can I have some more later?"

"Keep your mouth shut and I'll give you my leftovers for the rest of the year!"

Elder Yuzuriha entered the lunch room just as everyone finished sitting down. Her sharp eyes surveyed it. She saw the many devoured servings by the disposal tray and her suspicions immediately rose.

Patrolling the room, she widened her eyes, finding a very satisfied-looking Atlae. "Well, well! Don't we look well-adjusted!"

Remembering Marianne's etiquette advice, Atlae tried to contain a happy burp. "Y-Yes, Master! The food here is great!"

Yuzuriha squinted, seeing Mia's allergy serving mixed in with Atlae's on his bowl. Hers had potato chunks instead of mushrooms.

She turned to the entire room. "In fact, over the last week since Atlae joined our school, all of you seem quite happy with the food."

"Of course." she took the bowl and span it, watching the soup swirl. "Your food is great…. Mia's food is great. Everyone's food is great. Correct?"

Atlae sweated. He looked around and saw all the girls' eyes on him. One threateningly gestured a finger slicing through her neck.

Yuzuriha folded arms inside her wide sleeves. "Tell me, Atlae, did you know you could cheat on diets?"

Atlae staggered. "U-um… no? It counts as cheating?"

Yuzuriha nodded. "That's right. People who take other people's servings, or give other people theirs, are considered to be cheating. Like a game. We're all supposed to be training to master Turtle School tenants and our weight is very important to be able to fight in a balanced way, so it's not honest to disobey your diet. You wouldn't want to participate in cheating, would you, Atlae?"

The blonde Muvian gulped, feeling the 6th sense messages flooding in from all around him.

"Open your mouth and I'll kill you!"

"Don't you dare say a word!"

"If I have to do the lift-up reps one more time I'll-"

"For Genbu's sake, just don't SAY anything!"

"Shut up, shut up, shut UP!"

Atlae froze up, stuck between two worlds. What should he do?! He didn't want the class to hate him, but he didn't want to lie to Master either! Worst of all, he hated the idea of sabotaging the training like this. He was just really, really hungry and didn't notice it was cheating at first.

Meanwhile, Yuzuriha snorted in contempt, feeling all the pings in the air. Even if she couldn't read them, the girls were bombarding the boy so badly that the Master could probably power a lamp with the resulting static. She didn't need Atlae to confess to know the truth. It was a tough position to be in, but Atlae was the one that accepted to join the school, so he needed to learn to find his place between maintaining a relationship with his classmates and obeying the school tenants.

She had no choice but to punish him, then. "Atlae, you're spending the afternoon eliminating all those extra calories in the hall. Since you've eaten twenty servings, you're working all that off with nineteen rocks. You know where the buckets are."

The boy slumped his head miserably and walked off.

After he left, the Master rose her chin. "Not a peep, uh? Impressive."

She then squinted at the girls. Not one looked like they wanted to admit what they did. In fact, some looked away rather shamelessly to avoid her gaze.

Yuzuriha's nose snorted. "Well, it seems we've all made a choice today, haven't we? Remember, girls; the Turtle School eventually forgives mistakes, but it never forgetscharacter."

The girls groaned quietly as the Master left.

{======================|A3|======================}

Hours went by with Atlae holding the buckets filled with rocks up as he stood on a tall stack of books. Thanks to his high strength, he was fortunately able to hoist up the immense weights on the wooden buckets in both arms, but the long hours were a test even for his prowess. His face was red, his body sweated and his fingers were skinned by the iron holds, while his arms felt like two pieces of dead wood about to fall off their sockets.

The whole time he had to do this in front of the strange shrine to the God Genbu in the hall, representing a turtle with a really long neck flanked by incense sticks and guarding a wooden panoply holder that, strangely enough, was missing its armor. It was a confusing sight and the wooden armor stand, with its naked arm beams, made it look like a mockery of what Atlae was posing himself. Still, he was supposed to keep his thoughts occupied praying to the Turtle god for balance in his thoughts. He didn't feel any more capable of keeping the buckets up whenever he finished a prayer, but perhaps he wasn't doing it right.

One thing was for sure; he was never accepting someone else's serving ever again.

As the sun went down in the mountains, the Master came by, returning from the afternoon classes. "Well, it's six pm. Have we learned our lesson, Atlae?"

Atlae nodded. "Y-Yes, Master!"

With a telekinetic pulse, Yuzuriha lifted the buckets off Atlae's arms and deposited them softly in the nearby garden. Atlae immediately collapsed in exhaustion, toppling the books beneath him.

The boy rose, rubbing his eyes. "I'm sorry, Master. I won't break Rule number 4 again." He then bowed at the shrine. "Thank you for the inspiration, Lord Genbu."

An embarrassingly loud growl was then heard from his stomach. Atlae's face reddened at Master's stunned look.

"Atlae, you ate everyone's food! How are you still hungry?" Yuzuriha had to ask.

The boy shrugged self-consciously. "I don't know, Master. I just really, really, really like to eat. Ms. Solo used to say she never had to worry about party leftover with me around and Marianne started a whole food budget in the house with my name on it."

"And yet you're not as round as a basketball." Yuzuriha noticed. In fact, Atlae's enormous strength seemed stunning. She laughed to herself, remembering Rasgado's student, Teneo, used to eat like this as well. Atlae was either a true faithful of his Taurus zodiac, or something else very interesting was going on. "I wonder what, though? Well, if twenty servings don't fill your stomach, then maybe sticking you to just one is rather cruel of me."

Atlae glanced at the corridors fearfully. "Master, are the girls angry at me?"

As a matter of fact, Yuzuriha believed they were. "It's not your fault, Atlae. You did the right thing."

The boy rubbed his poor fingers. "It doesn't feel like I have, Master."

She shook her head. The boy was bizarre, but was progressively surprising her with his good conscience.

"No, I promise you have. Not many would take the fall like you did, especially for classmates that take advantage of you like they do. You'll get used to the dynamics in this School and the culture of your people, though. You're coming from a completely different environment, even if you weren't a boy, so it's going to take some time for you to be accepted."

Atlae shily smiled. If Master said so, then perhaps it was just a matter of time. In any case, he promised Lord Arthur he would respect Master Yuzuriha and obey everything she said. Even if she came across as strict sometimes.

Still, he wanted to ask "Could I sleep in a boy's room, though, Master? I hate changing clothes next to them."

"Mm, that's right, you were raised by humans so you have some of their body shyness." While she totally understood this, Yuzuriha had to sigh. "Unfortunately, we don't have a boy's dormitory in the school, so you will have to keep sleeping with the female residents. Besides, giving you preferential treatment would just make your integration more difficult. If you want, I'll let you change between training Gi and clothes in the shrine for now, though."

Atlae sighed in relief. "That's good enough. Thank you very much, Master. Lord Julian used to hit me whenever I changed around Marianne or her mom."

Yuzuriha sweated, remembering how racist Arthur's father was. "Yes, Julian, that kind hearted man…."

Atlae turned to the shrine, "Master, is something missing from here?" he pointed at the stand he had to stare at for hours. "This is a thing to hold armor, right? I've seen it before in museums back in Greece, but this one's naked."

Yuzuriha nodded. "Correct, Atlae. This is where we used to keep the Genbu Hide, long ago."

The boy beamed "The Genbu Hide? You mean this temple has a Cloth? Do I get if I ring the bell?"

The High Elder hummed. "You're quite fixated on that, aren't you? I should look for a chance to teach you the risks of the test."

Atlae pressed face against the glass to search "Where did it go? Why isn't it here? Is it inside a Cloth Box somewhere?"

Seeing the marks he was leaving in the glass, Yuzuriha pulled him away from the glass with a displeased frown. "How do I explain to him that it's been made into a Surplice?" she just folded her arms in her sleeves. "It's being borrowed by someone. We'll get it back someday."

The Muvian beamed, accepting the answer immediately. "Oh, okay!"

"Trusting little monkey, aren't you?" Yuzuriha chuckled, amused by how easy he accepted that answer. "Come with me, Atlae. Show me what you think of this."

Following Master obediently, Atlae was shown to a different case where a group of Muvian Pictures of old students were at. Master pointed him to one in the back, by the candles. It had a person who was laughing and holding a very frowny blonde girl and a smiling boy closer by the shoulders.

He blinked. They looked like interesting people. "Are these former students?"

Yuzuriha took it and smiled nostalgically. "This, Atlae, is my old Master, Lord Hakurei of Altar. He was an alchemist from Jamir and friend of this School."

"Was he a strong guy, your Master?" Atlae asked, delighted.

Yuzuriha scoffed. "Strong? Atlae, Lord Hakurei even defeated a God."

The boy swooned. "WHOW! He beat up a God?! That's amazing!"

The master groaned with the undignified manner Atlae spoke of it "He didn't… beat him up." How could she explain to him the intricacies of a Pandora Box seal, though? "Ugh, nevermind; yes, Atlae, my teacher beat up a God."

"Which one, which one?!" Atlae questioned, buzzing with excitement. "Was it Ares? Or Zeus?! Ooh! I bet it was Hades! Marianne says we've all been fighting Hades for a really long time, so he must be a really tough guy!"

Yuzuriha folded arms and her lips curved up. "I think I'm starting to get a feeling for how you think." And then spoke. "Yes, Atlae, he beat up one of Hades' general Gods, a cruel man named Hypnos. Just imagine; if you train hard enough and master the tenets of the Turtle School, perhaps even you could become as strong as Lord Hakurei."

Atlae laughed. "At first I thought that was a portrait of you!"

Yuzuriha groaned. She did look a lot like Master Hakurei these days, with all her wrinkles and long grey hair. "Mm, no, it's not, but I am in the picture."

Atlae threw arms up excitedly "Holy cow! Really?!" He boxed the air a bit and kicked the air, laughing. "That's so cool. Master, I'm going to train so hard, I won't even stop to poop!" He scratched head. "Wait, you said you were in the picture?"

She gave it to him. "That's right. Try to find me again."

Atlae studied it closer and grumbled, finding the obvious solution. "Oh, duh, you're the girl?" Earning a nod, the boy then touched his own blonde hair. "Oh, you and your friend are… like me."

"That's right. Me and Shion were both from straw hair tribes." Yuzuriha smirked. That traitor Shion, however, eventually dyed his hair green to fit in with the normies better. "Don't you feel all special now?"

Atlae laughed happily, finding a connection to his new teacher. "You're more of a metal-hair now, though, Master." He then frowned self-consciously. "Why are there so few of me around in Shamballa? Where's your friend? Is he an alchemist?"

"No, Atlae. Shion just has, well, a very important job in Sanctuary these days. Muvians are often employed for judicial and artisans roles in Sanctuary, since humans value our impartiality and skill." The Master understated. In fact, Yuzuriha barely ever saw him anymore. "And the rest of the straw-hairs… that's a long, boring story."

Atlae sat. "I'd like to hear it!"

Yuzuriha frowned, remembering the tribal schisms and violence amongst Muvians after the continent of Mu sank, especially after the Mariners convinced Sanctuary to keep their doors closed to them. "No, Atlae, you wouldn't."

"Mm, Master seems upset, I should change subject." Atlae flexed his arms. "Was your friend strong like you?"

Yuzuriha had to contain a laugh. "Shion? Like me? Ah! No, that sheepy head never won against me without cosmos. Shion was a true Muvian geek. Our lives only crossed paths because I got kicked out of this school and Master Hakurei was the only one that'd take me after it."

Atlae frowned. "You were kicked out of here?! Were you mean as a student, too? Like Jeanna?"

Yuzuriha scoffed, putting hand in hip. The things Jeanna and Mia were up to were amateur stuff. Shion's toilet baptism alone put those two to shame.

"No, Atlae. I was worse. Quite unbalanced, if you could say. I'm not proud of it, but I spent my first year in Jamir making Shion cry on a daily basis."

Atlae couldn't picture such a thing, especially staring at the picture. Master Yuzuriha looked stern in it, yes, but her friend looked happy to be with her. "That can't be. You look like best friends!"

She sat with Atlae and pointed at the alchemist' sheepish smile. "You see, Atlae, Shion looks happy there, but that was in our final years, just before we both became Saints. He passed me by in battling by that point, hence my lovely scowl."

Atlae frowned, disappointed. "Oh… so I really am the first boy in this school?"

"Not the first-first, but the first in a long time, yes. And just because you're having a tough time at first it doesn't mean you won't pass others like he did, or that you won't make a comeback like me."

The boy scratched head. "Master, people keep saying I'm way too strong and eat too much, but I don't feel like I do anything special." He jumped off the seat and casually lifted one of the garden rocks over his head, covering himself with bugs. "I can do this really easy, but to me it's just normal. Why do you think that is?"

She had actually given this some thought, especially after Arthur described Atlae. "What if, much like those boys Shion has been recruiting that were born with the 7th sense already unlocked from birth, Atlae was also somehow born with a predisposition to the Sense of Chi? It would explain his massive strength and accelerated metabolic levels. I've never seen it happen before, but in this insane world, is anything really impossible?"

Dropping the rock and cleaning the bugs off his Gi, Atlae clenched fists, snorting determinedly. "Besides, I just like beating strong people up! It's what I love to do. Maybe I'm just really strong because I practice so much?"

"Atlae, don't call the honorable art of martial sparring 'beating people up', even if your intentions are pure. That makes it sound all wrong." Master ordered. "Besides, all your classmates spar even more often than you do. You could just have a unique metabol-."

*clang clang clang clang clang*

Atlae saw Master snap up at the sudden loud bell sounds. "What's going on?!"

Yuzuriha squinted. "Those are the city walls' bells…"

Attracted by the racket, the rest of the school's students came out. "Master, what's going on? Is there a fire?"

She shook head. "Nothing is going on, girls. Go to bed. The city has visitors."

Atlae beamed. "Cool! What are they here for?"

Yuzuriha squinted and departed. "I'm going to go to find out."

{======================|A3|======================}

Shamballa Outskirts

{======================|A3|======================}

The large, leather armored man in the motorbike revved his engine "WE'RE HERE TO BEAT YOUR ASSES UP, that's what!" He rose his huge fist. "Ain't that right, men?!"

"YEAH!" they all cheered. Many began riding circles in front of the gates, shooting guns and laughing.

Standing at the red-outlined barbicans of the white walls of Shamballa, the masked Immortal Guard lined up and aimed bows, nocking arrows tensely.

"What is that cacophony?!"

The Immortal Guard nodded in respect, banging his fist against his chest. "High Elder!"

The clansmen stopped ringing the bells. "It's Black Saints, High Elder."

She widened her eyes. "Priam is back?!"

"No, ma'am. We mean the, umm, classic definition. You know, the gonks with mechanical bikes."

Yuzuriha looked out the barbican and saw the many leather-clad men riding around in a circle, revving their engines. "That explains the fumes, yes."

Atlae leaped unto the barbican to look. "Cool, they have motorbikes?! We should get one for the school."

The Master gawked. "Atlae, what are you doing here?! I told you to go to bed!"

"Oh! I thought you were talking to the girls, so I followed you."

Yuzuriha sunk face into hands. "I really have to remember I have a boy in the school now."

The boy peeked over the barbican "Anyway, I figured I could help-"

Suddenly, a very loud rifle shot was fired from below, striking Atlae right in the forehead, blasting him back. A collective gasp of horror from the Muvians and amazement from the bikers was heard.

The Black Saint leader below cocked his Barret rifle, popping a huge cartridge out. "AH, AH, AH! Did you guys see that?! BAM!"

"Nice shot, boss!" his second-hand praised, taking the rifle for him. "Right in the head! I bet his brains are all over the floor up there."

The Black Saint leader blew the smoke off his rifle barrel and spoke in Greek. "Listen up, ya alien fannies. I am Rasputin the Immortal, leader of the Universal Khanate gang! You open those gates right now and give us all the golden buddha statues, supped up armor, stardust, fuel, food and powder our bikes can carry and we'll be on our way. But say no? And what do we do, MEN?"

"BURN THIS MOUNTAIN DOWN! WHOO!" the bikers cheered, riding around with banners ignited by cosmos, dragging their hostage through the rocky prairie and shooting guns at the air.

"We gon' fuck this place up!" another shouted while riding circles around, with visible cocaine residue coating his face.

The spectacle of swearing, cheering and shooting baffled the civilized Muvians.

"What a bunch of savages!" a clanswoman sneered. "What is wrong with these humans? They sound completely out of their minds!"

"Ow…" Atlae rubbed his forehead and took the big slug smashed into it. The metal bullet was still hot. "That hurt! Master, they hit me in the h-head!"

Yuzuriha took it and tossed it out. "Don't be a baby, Atlae, it's just a .50 caliber! This would barely kill a bear."

"I hope this doesn't leave a mark. I'd hate to get a third dot." Atlae pouted, feeling it born right in the center of his forehead. It felt so embarrassing. "Master, what is powder?"

"They must have met the poppy traders back west." one Immortal Guard said. They weren't too far away from the border with Afghanistan, where their own trade routes got the condiment. "Humans produce a powder out of it called cocaine and breathe it in."

The clanswoman by him rose her brow. "Why ground up opium? That's such a waste of good salad dressing."

"I think they have a reaction to it akin as sugar does to us."

There was a collective gasp of realization.

Atlae, by contrast, beamed. "Did you say sugar?!" He ruined one vacation trip after one ice cream and the Solos barred access to it ever since. He never understood why. It made him feel amazing. "Holy cow, I haven't had sugar in years! Can I have some, Master?! Please! I'll do anything! I'll beat up those bikers for you!"

"NO, Atlae!" Yuzuriha shook head, horrified. "Are they insane?! How much sug- I mean, cocaine did they take?"

One of the scouts looked and saw one of the Black Saints bikers snorting it off a female friend's lower back before unleashing a wild howl of excitement and firing his machine gun to the air, wasting all his bullets. It pretty much answered her question.

"Elder, they have a hostage!" another warned, pointing at the poor man being dragged around the ground by his chained feet. "I think it's the Mariner knight that came from Sanctuary! Do we fire?"

Atlae gasped. "Mariner?!" He climbed back up the barbican and gasped, taking a second look at the hostage. "That's Ithaca!"

Yuzuriha made the guards' lower their bows with a wave of hand. "Point those things down! Do you want to create an incident with the Mariners?! I'll handle thi-"

"I'LL SAVE YOU, ITHACA!" Atlae screamed, jumping right off the high wall.

The adults gawked.

Below, the Black Saint dragging a bloodied Ithaca through the ground walked up to the wall. "Alright, you dotted freaks, time to open u-"

"GET OFF MY FRIEND!" Atlae's feet crashed on the man's face, kicking him right off Ithaca with a scream.

The Black Saints roused, seeing their downed friend. "They're attacking us!"

Ithaca coughed and looked up. "A-Atlae?! What's are you doing here?!"

The boy dragged the armored man away from the Black Saints. "Stay here, Ithaca! I'll go beat them up!"

Ithaca gasped, seeing him charge at the bikers. "NO! You barely have any cosmos!"

"S-SHOOT HIM!" they screamed, opening fire from various directions.

Atlae jumped high, dodging the bullet with a cartwheel even as machine fire zipped around him. His small feet struck several Black Saint faces on descent, sending them flying off their bikes. With a loud revving, several of them drew weapons and chains and rode around him, trying to catch the boy, but Atlae punched one right off his bike, rose it over his head and tossed it at the rest, wrecking them!

"Holy shit, back off, he's got Star Magic!" one screamed, seeing the boy brim with a faint green aura.

"It's called Cosmic Power, you idiot!" Rasputin the Immortal roared, Loading a shotgun with his special silvery bullet he got from those Kido Corp traffickers, Rasputin snorted another line of coke off his finger for a special charge of 'Cosmic Power'. "Just use yours and get him! It's a freakin' kid!"

The remaining Black Saints collected themselves and burned their cosmos, surrounding Atlae. One Black Saint drew a net he used to catch Ithaca and rode towards Atlae with a war cry, but the boy roll kicked the spinning rubber wheel, sending the vehicle and its owner twirling through the air into a rock. Others got off their motorbikes and tried to hold him, burning cosmos, but Atlae stayed calm and dodged all of their chain swings, tire iron strikes and knuckle punches, progressively kicking and punching them off one by one.

With a martial shout, he then delivered a powerful spinning kick that knocked multiple ones off their bikes.

At the wall, Yuzuriha held her hip, impressed, noticing how well Atlae was decentralizing cosmos. "Uh, he's fighting much better than in the dojo. He learned from Jeanna's yelling pretty quickly."

"Not bad for a boy." a clanswoman by her commented. "High Elder, you're teaching your students the Cosmos faster and faster."

From the walls, Yuzuriha squinted, studying Atlae's aura. Her 7th sense detected burning, yes, but nothing on the level that should let Atlae overwhelm all these threats. Atlae wasn't even focusing properly. "That's not just cosmos. That's Chi as well. I was right! Atlae has the 0th Sense."

Atlae shouted, jumped and landed a jaw-shattering knee blow on a final Black Saint's face, sending him screaming into the ground.

The others saw the bodies collecting and panicked. "Holy shit, he's beating us up! We can't even catch him off guard! These Muvians are crazy!"

"Fuck this, man! Game over! Run!" Revving their engines, the remaining ones rode off, abandoning their leader.

"YOU COWARDS!" Rasputin roared. "Who cares if he's strong?! It's just a kid! UGH!"

Atlae panted. "D-Do you give up?! I'll beat you up, too!"

Rasputin the Immortal hissed and bit off a grenade's pin. "You sniveling little shit! Take this!" and he tossed it at the boy's feet.

Atlae screamed and burned cosmos, shielding himself from the explosive blast that then ensued. He coughed, surrounded by smoke, and looked up, seeing it clear up to the sight of Rasputin stepping over Ithaca and cocking his shotgun. "ITHACA!"

"I got my one stardust cartridge loaded. You make one move and I'll blow this blue faggot's head off!" Rasputin threatened. He turned to the Muvians watching from the walls. "You hear that, big shots?! Give me all your treasure now or it's goodbye-fishstick!"

"Let him go! That's cheating!" Atlae protested.

Rasputin laughed. "Ah! That's the point, you brat! What, do you think this is a game?!"

His eyes glanced between the pained Ithaca and the laughing Rasputin and didn't know what to do. He didn't think he could get the guy before the shotgun's bullet hit Ithaca's head.

The Mariner saw the situation he caused. "I'm sorry, little buddy… I dropped my guard."

Yuzuriha shook head lamentingly. "Do I have to do everything myself?" and turned to her aides. "Open the gates."

The watches gasped. "What?! Elder?"

Rasputin laughed. "Finally, some sense!"

"Just do it." Yuzuriha ordered. "And call my class. This will be… educational."

{======================|A3|======================}

Laughing triumphantly through the streets with Ithaca in his grip and a loaded stardust shotgun, Rasputin the Immortal was led by the High Elder herself to the big central building of Shamballa, the Sun Temple. Crowds of Muvians watched from their houses the strange spectacle, calling their friends to come watch, bow at the Elder's passing and generally taking the whole thing in stride.

Atlae followed, completely bewildered. Why would Master surrender entrance to the city so easily? And weren't the locals worried? He looked around and realized, to his surprise, that all the Muvian families watching the situation seemed entertained, instead of scared, poking at the funny man with the shotgun like a circus was coming into town.

Arriving at the Sun Temple's doorstep, Yuzuriha turned. "Great warrior, you have triumphed over Shamballa. As a reward, we will grant you our greatest treasure." Her hand waved up, presenting the massive bell of gold at the very high top of the building. "The great Bell of Genbu!"

Rasputin gasped and drooled. "Whoo-oh-oh! Is that a bell of GOLD?!"

Yuzuriha nodded. "That's right. Fifteen tons of solid, 24 carats, all yours for the taking."

"Fifteen TONS?!" He tossed Ithaca to the floor. "I can totally carry that with my Cosmic Power! I'll be rich for the rest of my life!"

She bowed respectfully. "All we ask is that you release this mariner and not harm us any longer."

The Black Saint squinted. There was no way he was going to trust these dotted weirdos. "What's the catch?!"

She shook head. "None at all, except…. we just don't have a door on the top floor to it. You'll have to jump from here to get to it, but with a good blow you can knock it off the top."

Rasputin squinted. He looked around and saw that none of the wall guards had even bothered to come as well, only the snot-noised boy who beat his men up, plus all the Muvian onlookers. He took a rock and tossed it up with cosmos to check for traps, but no alarms, traps or crazy Muvian laser canons fired. It just hit the bell, making it ring very weakly.

Mia and Jeanna joined in with the rest of the class. They saw Atlae. "Hey, little boy. You're here too?"

"Mia, Jeanna, they have Ithaca!" Atlae cried. "Master is gonna give them the Bell of Genbu to save him! We have to stop that guy!"

The two girls laughed.

Atlae groaned. "Why are you laughing? My friend is in danger!"

"Don't you know anything?" Mia asked. "Just sit and watch."

Rasputin groaned. "Alright, that should be an easy jump with cosmos. I'll take your bell. But back off from here! If you try anything, I'm landing on this mariner's head and stomping it flat!"

Yuzuriha gave him space. "We wouldn't dream of it, great warrior."

Rasputin laughed and charged cosmos into his feet, making the dust in the ground wave away with faint shockwaves. Aiming at the bell with his eyes, he took off, shooting through the air at supersonic speeds. Nearby trees waved with the force, startling birds and making Muvian hair flutter, and Rasputin laughed crossing floor height after floor height.

The bell came closer and closer. He readied cosmos into his hands to knock it off its supports as soon as he reached the top and…

….

Rasputin panicked, feeling himself fall down. He tried to hold on to something, but the smooth clean walls of the Sun Temple slipped him down. The Black Saint crashed on the floor as hard as a meteor from space, making dust go everywhere and quaking Shamballa.

A laugh was heard across the inhabitants and the students. Atlae only widened eyes.

Yuzuriha coughed. "Mm, I guess you can't jump that high, even with your mighty Cosmos, mighty Rasputin. Perhaps you should burn more?"

The Black Saint roared and jumped again with even greater force. Rocketing towards the bell, he burned more and more cosmos, even shielding himself from air resistance.

But once again, gravity suddenly overcame him just before reaching the top, sending him crashing back on the ground.

Yuzuriha scoffed.

The Black Saint rose back up, bleeding all over. "W-What's going on?! I've jumped over Mt. Fuji with my Cosmic Power! This tower is nothing compared to that!"

The Muvians watching the whole thing laughed to themselves yet some more.

Atlae too, was amazed. "Incredible, he can't reach the bell at all! The harder he tries, the harder he falls!"

"It's the floors, dummy." Mia said. "We're in the premises of the Sun Temple, where the great Buddha reached enlightenment. Here, each floor magnifies the weight of your unbalanced thoughts. The higher you go, the heavier you get."

"Forget about jumping at it from the outside, most people can't climb the stairs to the top floors unless they can empty their minds." Jeanna completed. "My dad worked on repairs in the Temple when he was young and says they had to get help from the monks to carry the paint to the top."

Atlae laughed. "Incredible! So that's why it's such a hard test to get the Genbu Cloth?"

"Pfft, hard? Atlae, it's not hard, it's impossible! No one has done it in like forever." Mia mocked. "Everyone just gets their blue belt and tries for some other Cloth, like Master Yuzuriha did."

"Besides, the weight isn't the only problem." Jeanna added, seeing the human Black Saint charge more Cosmos. "Just watch."

Roaring and panting, Rasputin burned cosmos to the max. "Y-You fucking Muvians! Quit laughin' at me! Y-You won't humiliate me! If I can't reach that bell, I'll shoot it off with my invincible Cosmic Power and make it come down!"

Yuzuriha's hair waved under the force of his burning aura. "I do not recommend that, great warrior. Also, it's just called Cosmos-"

"BURN, my COSMIC POWER!" Rasputin roared, reaching for the skies, manifesting an aura of sheer power. Forming a huge ball of energy in his hand, he let out a war cry and shot it up, aiming a powerful, blinding beam of cosmos at the bell.

It hit its golden surface, flaring light everywhere and pushing into it. The shiny surface made its energy reflect rainbows everywhere and the air sear with the force. Many Muvians clapped, delighted by the light spectacle provided by Rasputin.

Rasputin himself, however, gasped in disbelief. The powerful beam wasn't even shaking the bell. In fact, the cosmos eventually hit a critical point of compression and bounced off the metallic bell in one massive pop of light, blasting Rasputin with his own petard, forcefully smashing him against the ground. His body, exhausted of cosmos, limped.

Yuzuriha approached his fallen, bloody body. "As I was about to say, the bell isn't just valuable for its gold, but also the unique stardust lining on it. It's, in fact, alike the shell of the great Turtle God itself, and has the capacity to bounce your attack back at you."

Rasputin nodded, delirious from the coke and cosmos withdrawal. "Ah, ah, I s-see. That makesh shense."

She turned to her students, including Atlae. "Class, a truly impressible blow that follows all 4 principles of our school is required to ring the bell. It must have the offensive power to move the 15 tons in a single impact balanced with the defensiveness to protect your body from the reactive outer stardust shell, as well as the purity of mind to actually reach the height of the bell to begin with."

The students hummed in fake interest.

"She- I mean they who master the secret Mount Rozan technique; the Black Shell Kick, can strike the 'Shell of Genbu' that is the bell with a 'Shell of Genbu' of their own." Yuzuriha added, surveying them and stopping her eyes on Atlae specifically for a bit. "Should you do it, becoming a great champion of the Turtle Path is guaranteed."

The students exchanged looks of resignation and apathy. None of them pretended to have any idea how to master this technique. While the purity part could be achieved by following the philosophy of the school, there wasn't even any technique scroll at the school giving them the slightest hint of how exactly this special kick technique worked.

Atlae, by contrast beamed in excitement. So, there was a way!

Yuzuriha turned to Rasputin. "Do you wish to try again, great warrior?"

"N-no." Rasputin begged. "C-Can I leave? P-Please?"

"Aw, all petered out? Guards, arrest this man." Yuzuriha ordered. A squadron of Immortal Guards came in and dragged a moaning Rasputin out while the crowds of Shamballa clapped and cheered for their High Elder.

Meanwhile, as the crowd watched the Black Saint get carried off and took Ithaca to get medical care, Atlae clenched his hands, barely containing excitement. "That was so cool! So you can ring the bell if you learn the secret technique?"

Mia shrugged like it was a common fact. "Yeah, it's no different from the Dragon Path, where you have to reverse a waterfall. We watched Master give similar lectures in our first years, too."

Atlae blinked, confused. "Then, how come no one has done it in so long?"

She laughed. "Atlae, weren't you listening? It can't be done."

"Yeah, the technique isn't scrolled at the School. Even Master Yuzuriha didn't do it." Jeanna added. "It's just a myth move, like the Zodiac Clamation, or the Hawaiian King Wave or the Enraged Dragon Force. Ringing that big lump of gold is just an aspiration, something to help you keep focused on earning your belts. No one has reversed the Rozan waterfall in centuries, either."

Atlae grumbled. He didn't like this attitude one bit. "Well, I'm gonna do it anyway." He looked up and counted the floors. "It can't be that hard. It's only… nine floors and then a kick. I just have to figure out what kind of cosmos trick I need to use."

Mia twitched a brow. "Atlae, you can't even beat the first years in spars."

They didn't need to remind him of this so bitingly. "I know. I just think I can do it anyway."

There was a tense pause from the girls.

Mia scoffed. "You do? Why?"

Atlae staggered. They looked kind of upset. He numbered with his fingers "Well, I'm really strong, and master Yuzuriha just showed what happens when you do it the wrong way, so maybe…umm"

Jeanna laughed. "How did I guess that was going to be your reason?"

Mia shook head. "When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, Jeanna."

He saw them narrowing their eyes more and more and panicked. "I d-don't understand, what am I saying wrong to you two?"

The two Muvian girls shared an offended look. Mia's finger tapped him harshly. "What do you think you're saying, little boy? Just listen to yourself! You sound like you got it all figured out, like the only reason everyone else hasn't is because they haven't tried like you will!"

"Yeah, do you think you're better than everyone else in the School?! Or are you stupid?!"

Atlae gasped. While Marianna had asked him this question a few times, somehow from Jeanna's mouth it sounded a thousand times meaner. "N… No! I just think that if I train hard enough I can pull it off! Isn't that the whole point of attending the school? All I have to do is learn a single technique, right?"

Jeanna growled, irritated. "You don't get it, do you?"

Mia turned, scoffing. "Of course, he doesn't! He's a boy, Jeanna. He thinks of everything like a toy to be assembled or a gadget to be solved. Why wouldn't he think he can do this, too? Easy peasy, right?"

Atlae shook head, terrified. "T-That's not what I mean, I just-"

"Atlae, shut up. You don't understand anything." Mia interrupted. She didn't wanna listen to his arrogance any more. "You just don't want to listen to people cause you live in your own nerdy world! How many students do you think Master trains? Just you?!"

"I said, forget it Mia. He was raised with the Mariners! He has no respect for our people's knowledge. He just sees the Bell as a goalpost." Jeanna ended, accompanying her friend out.

Atlae stood there, shocked. He felt his eyes tear. "I don't understand! What did I say wrong?"

{======================|A3|======================}

Turtle School Infirmary

{======================|A3|======================}

Atlae winced, feeling the medic apply alcohol to his forehead wound. "Ow…that hurts."

"You took a fifty-caliber rifle bullet to the forehead, young man." The Muvian doctor, a man of lilac hair and round glasses, said, wrapping the young boy's forehead with a bandage. "If you hadn't been a student of the High Elder and burned your cosmos, you'd be dead."

Ithaca, sitting on the bed with bandages all over his bruises and his armor laid neatly aside, laughed. "Don't worry, doctor, that kid has survived worse. Atlae's made of pure steel!"

The doctor hummed. "Mm, now that I think of it, you are new to the school, right?"

Atlae nodded. "Uh-uh, a week old. Lord Solo says a whole tree once fell on me and I just got knocked out." Atlae saw the doctor widened his eyes. "I got better, though."

"Right… I should go speak with the Elder. You two rest."

Ithaca saw the medic leave and turned to Atlae. "You look like a real badass with that thing. It's like a martial arts bandana."

Atlae curved lips up. Finally someone wasn't being mean to him. "I'm glad you're okay, Ithaca."

"This?" the adult Mariner pointed at all the bruises he got from getting beaten up and dragged across hundreds of kilometers by a motorbike. "I'll be fine. I'm a war veteran. I've charged head first against Black Saint phalanxes and come out the other end alive. I do think my guide is probably getting worried about where I've gone. But you? You were a real hero today, Atlae. You beat all those Black Saints up. I bet your classmates think you're supercool now."

The boy frowned and slumped on his chair. The boy sniffed and looked away.

Ithaca blinked. "What's wrong?"

Atlae cried. "I think my classmates hate me, Ithaca." He wiped his eyes. He didn't want to look sad in front of Ithaca, but the more he thought about his last week, the worse he felt. "They trick me into things, they cheat in spars and they seem to think I don't belong here… They also get angry at everything I say. I don't know what to do, Ithaca. I want to stay, but… but I miss home. Caça and Baian were mean to me, but they never treated me like I should be with the girls, and at least I had Marianne and Lord Solo and…."

Ithaca got quiet. He knew all along that Lord Arthur raising this boy was a bad idea. Arthur should never have taken this boy out to Greece. It was just forcing a young boy to be further stuck between two different worlds at odd with each other. However, considering his shocking strength and strange interests, would he have fit into the Muvians even if he didn't have the Mariner stench on him?

It did make Ithaca stop and wonder if this was how Marianne felt. Lord Arthur's daughter was always butting her nose into the boy classes, like the sailing school, but unlike Atlae, she had the social awareness and human culture to know what hills to die on and what cards to fold at Neá Delphi. This not to mention the support of a whole family and a good dose of intelligence.

He rubbed the boy's straw hair to cheer him up. "Don't cry, Atlae. You're a man. Someday you're going to be a great martial artist, too. What would Lord Arthur think if he saw you cry when he worked so hard to get you here?"

The boy cleaned his face, feeling a bit better. "Thanks. You're right. Ithaca, what are you still doing around these parts anyway?"

The adult sighed. It was time to lie. "Like I said, I'm doing work for Lord Arthur. It's part of why we convinced the Muvians to teach you at this school." After what happened, he just felt like socking Gigas in the face. He wouldn't have gotten caught by the Black Saints if he wasn't snooping around for that greedy bastard. "I think I'll ask to be replaced after this, though."

Atlae sniffed and collected himself. "I'm gonna keep trying, then… I don't want Lord Solo to be disappointed in me, especially if he worked so hard to give me this chance."

"That's the right attitude." Ithaca confessed. "Listen, Atlae, don't let this bad first impression get to you. Things are always tough when you first move to new environments. Trust a Mariner's word; we have to move around the world all the time in search for work."

Atlae smirked. "I always wanted to see the world with you guys, too…" He remembered the maps and portraits of faraway lands Lord Arthur kept in his house. Sometimes he would stare for hours. "This place is beautiful too, but I'd like to see more. I bet there's tons of great fighters out there."

"How are you going to do that without a trade or education, though? And without some resilience to people that might not welcome you? Strength isn't enough." Ithaca reminded him. "Why don't you try talking to your friends again? Maybe apologize for whatever they think you've done wrong, even if you disagree? These are the people who will be with you in the next few years of your life we are talking about. Take it from a Mariner; planting the seeds of a good relationship is vital for long term happiness. It's easy to get upset, but it's much harder to be the reasonable man."

The boy nodded. "You're right. I'm gonna try."

{======================|A3|======================}

Searching for Jeanna and Mia all over the Temple, Atlae tried near the entry hall, where the Muvian parents came to pick up their kids after class.

He saw a couple of them congratulate their teenage daughter on earning her blue belt.

"Congratulations, honey! I'm so proud of you!" A very athletic Muvian woman said, kissing her face. She looked like she might have trained there in the past herself.

"Thanks, mom!" the girl beamed. "Master Yuzuriha kept it a surprise until after the new season ceremonies. She wanted to congratulate me personally."

Her father, a local laboratory alchemist adjusted his glasses, impressed. "Really? That's very kind of the High Elder. And what will you do now? Still want to try for the bell?"

"Nah, I'm done with that idea, dad." The girl confessed, scoffing. "You guys were right; it's just a myth. I mean, even that huge Black Saint fell right back down. I'm going to stop wasting my time, join the guard clan and maybe run for a Cloth. I haven't decided yet."

Atlae frowned. This girl seemed so sure of it. Were Mia and Jeanna right, after all?

The parents noticed his presence. "Hi, little boy. Are you lost?"

The blonde boy shook head and scurried away, mortified.

The mother hummed. "Uh, I haven't seen a straw hair in years."

"He's the new kid at the school, mom. The weird boy the Master adopted." The daughter explained.

The father, who worked at the labs, adjusted his glasses. "I thought I didn't recognize him. Bless the Elder's heart for her kindness, but why didn't she just send him to trade schools? I suppose the straw hair clans have always been odd…"

Meanwhile, with a head clouded in doubt, Atlae tried to focus on searching for his two classmates. Eventually he found them staring at the school's news bulletin, a place where interesting announcements from Shamballa and even Sanctuary were posted.

"Mia, Jeanna?" he called. "I wanted to apologize. I spoke rudely."

They turned to him and shared a surprised but vaguely disinterested look. "Uh, did Master tell you to do that?"

Atlae shook head. "No, a friend of mine convinced me. Please forgive me?"

"Ugh, whatever. Who cares?" Mia half-heartedly conceded turning back to the bulletin. "Do whatever Atlae, just don't act so arrogantly around the school anymore."

The boy struggled to stay calm. Even now, they kept calling him names.

He shook head to dispel his irritation and tried to change subject. "What are you looking at? Can I see?"

"Student from Andromeda Island wins Sisyphean Challenge. Named Trainee of The Year. Master, Cepheus Guardnia, is very proud."

Below it was a picture of a happy looking, but very bruised green-haired Japanese boy holding a laurel in his hand and being hoisted up by the Cepheus Saint. Cepheus, in turn, was a blonde, muscled Greek man who looked like he couldn't be happier to be showing his student off to the Sanctuary photographers.

Jeanna folded arms. "Ah, not bad, right? I've heard that this Coliseum challenge is almost as hard as getting a Cloth!"

"Oh. That kid must be really strong, then?" asked Atlae.

"I'm not surprised at all. He's pretty girlish looking." Mia commented. "He must fight way better with the Cosmos than any of the other Saint trainees."

"I think among humans, the boys are the warriors, Mia." Jeanna corrected.

"Uh! Are the girls the nerds, then?" Mia asked.

Jeanna shook her head. "I think they're seamstresses?"

"What a weird culture…" Mia turned to their resident boy, laughing. "Hey, Atlae, maybe you are human, instead? That would actually explain a lot about you."

The blonde Muvian rose his bangs to reveal his dots. "No, I'm pretty sure I'm Muvian." He then frowned. "Oh, I guess you can't see under these bandages, but I am! Plus, Marianne said often that if I were human, the kids at Delphi would treat me better."

The two Muvian girls exchanged a look, but neither recognized the name. "Who's Marianne?"

Atlae beamed, a rare thing for him to do next to these two. "She's Lord Solo's daughter! Marianne's my best friend!"

Jeanna laughed. "Your friend? From the sound of her dad's name, she seems like a Mariner to me."

Mia shook her head. "Atlae, that girl isn't your friend. She hates you."

The boy staggered. The idea alone made him feel cold. "Don't say that! You don't even know her!"

Mia put hand in hip cockily. "I don't have to know her, Atlae. I know my history."

"Mariners are all the same. They want to exterminate us, drown our families and take our men as slaves." Jeanna added. "I joined the school so my clan can protect Shamballa from people like them and the Specters. Unless they swear a vow to Athena, humans just want to kill us and steal our secrets, but Mariners are even wors-"

"That's a LIE!" Atlae snapped, startling the two of them. His fists clenched as he felt two years of Lord Solo's kindness being compared to these ugly words. "You two shut up! I don't ever wanna hear you say that about Marianne again! If you do… if you do, I'll hit you!"

While the boy's uproar startled them, they weren't the least bit intimidated. "Ah, what kind of threat is that? I guess you're not sorry at all for talking so arrogantly. Atlae, at least try beating us in the ring once before you talk so big" Jeanna warned, her voice tensing.

"Until then, you shut up." Mia added. "You were raised with those people, Atlae. They filled your brain with worms! You have no idea what they've put us through over the years. As far as I'm concerned, your human girlfriend is just another fish-haired genocid-"

*BAM!*

{======================|A3|======================}

Sitting in her office with the head of the Guards, Yuzuriha demanded answers. "I want an investigation on what happened. Who armed this Rasputin character and gave him intel on Muvian colonies to raid. These vandals didn't just pop out of nowhere!"

"Yes, Elder." The masked man nodded. "We may have some preliminary indications. We spoke with the Mariner, Ithaca. He claims Rasputin and his men mentioned multiple times a corporation with the letter K in its logo."

"So, some greedy businessman is financing raids on our villages?! Sanctuary will hear about this, mark my words!" Yuzuriha shouted, outraged, getting up. She rubbed her head. "Athena save us. I need to speak to Shion in person! I know he has his hands tied with the post-war reparations, but he can't have such a lax hand over everything, especially protecting his countrymen." There was a knock at the door. "Come in. Be quick!"

The door opened and a brown-belt student came in, panting. "MASTER, MASTER, I'm so sorry, but you have to come! It's an emergency! It's Atlae, h-he…"

"Oh gods, no." Yuzuriha sighed. When were the girls going to accept his presence already? "What did he do? Bring bugs into the shower room again?"

"N-no, Master, he punched Mia and Jeanna through the wall!"

Yuzuriha widened eyes. "What?!"

{======================|A3|======================}

Tapping her foot and squinting down on Atlae, Master Yuzuriha watched the boy sit quietly on her chair, struggling not to vocalize his tears.

"Atlae?"

"Y-Yes, Master?"

"Why are there two Muvian-shaped holes in my Temple's wall?" she calmly asked.

"I, um…" Atlae gulped and cowered. He never thought he'd meet a woman more frightening than Marianne.

"What did we discuss on our first day, Atlae? About your relationship with your classmates?"

"T-That I'd respect them exactly as Lord Arthur taught me back in Greece." He looked up. "M-Master, can I go home?"

Yuzuriha rubbed her eyes. Who thought things were going to be this volatile? It had only been a week and Atlae already gained a tense relationship with most of his class, got shot in the head by a Black Saint and sent two older girls to the infirmary. Now she had to write letters to their parents solving the situation and one to Arthur explaining why his adopted boy was having such an allergic reaction to his own people's spaces.

The worst part was, if everything Atlae said was true, and there was a strong chance of it given what Yuzuriha knew of Mia and Jeanna's behavior, he might have had good reason to lash out. She remembered her own young years and what got her kicked out of the Genbu School. Maybe for all their legacy of technology, Muvians weren't so much more advanced than the humans after all.

She breathed deeply. "Atlae, don't say ridiculous things. Just this afternoon you couldn't wait to go back to training."

"But Master, maybe this isn't the right place for me." Atlae muttered. He rubbed his injured arms from that morning's sparring. "I keep losing matches and… and the girls keep saying I shouldn't be here. Maybe they are right."

Yuzuriha scoffed. "Uh, Is that what it is?" She shook head. "Atlae, did you think it was going to be easy, perhaps? Why? Because you can lift a car without cosmos?"

The boy staggered. "U-uh, well…No, I just didn't think things would be so… hard, either."

"Hard in what sense, Atlae?" Master Yuzuriha challenged. "In the sense that everyone is treating you like an outsider? Is that why you came to Shamballa after all? Because you hoped we'd treat you better than the Mariners' sons at Delphi?"

The Muvian boy held his head, confused. "I… I d-don't know."

"I thought you wanted to learn to beat people up, as you call it."

"I-I do!" He felt like everything and everyone was against him, like there were knifes pointed at him from every wall. "I love fighting, b-but…"

"Atlae, let me ask you something important." Yuzuriha tried, lowering her tone. "Do you think you can ring the Bell of Genbu?"

Atlae shook head, not wanting to offend the Master after how much it seemed to offend his classmates "I don't. Not anymore. Everyone says it's impossible."

Yuzuriha sighed. "Is that so? I'm disappointed. I thought I saw something special in you this afternoon, but it seems you haven't learned anything after all."

He disappointed Master? Oh no! What should he have said? "B-but-… it's impossible, isn't it?"

The master let out her coarse, derisive laugh.

"Impossible, he says. Atlae, look around you. Look at yourself." She appealed. "You just put two older students through the wall. Just this morning you couldn't even touch them. And before that, you stood between Arthur's knight and a pack of murderous Black Saints. You really don't realise your own capabilities, do you?"

Atlae bit his tongue, ashamed. His head sunk.

"Atlae, martial arts, and Rozan martial arts in particular, are not about having a nice camping experience where you learn a kick or two, call it a day and then make friends with all the idiots around you paying tuition to earn their kicking belts. They are about virtue, ambition and a love for perfecting your abilities. They are about having a vision for yourself as a fighter. That's why it's a martial art, not a martial hobby. In a world as wonderful as this one, which has given us the gift of Cosmos, why would you think anything is impossible?"

The blonde Muvian wanted to believe in this very much, but every time he acted upon it, someone seemed to get mad. If it wasn't Marianne's grampa, it was Caça and Baian, or Patrick or his new classmates.

"But master, what if…what if everyone just keeps hating me for it?" he asked. "What if everyone keeps treating me like I'm weird?"

"Atlae, if you're ashamed of your passion for this because it offends others, that's when you should truly quit martial arts. At that point you're learning not for love of it, but for acceptance and admiration." She leaned back on her chair, scoffing. "And the Turtle School in particular has no patience for the vain... unless they pay tuition."

Atlae's lips curved a bit up at the joke. He wiped his eyes.

Master reached into her sleeve. "I have something for you, Atlae. Perhaps it will encourage you to believe in yourself a bit more."

Atlae took it. "A letter?"

"It arrived in the donkey caravans this morning with your name on it, even though we have a post office agreement with Sanctuary. Whoever sent it is quite cheap."

Atlae beamed. "Cheap?! It must be from Marianne, then!" He quickly tore it open. He never got one before.

Dear Atlae,

I hope you're doing well in your new school. Have your people been treating you well? I never got the chance to say I really hoped the Muvians would, since you always seemed to feel a bit sidelined by everyone here. I made sure to write this before the end of your first week in Tibet so you wouldn't forget we're rooting for you back at Delphi. Hopefully you're making friends and having a wonderful time.

I've been doing quite well, not that you'd remember to ask. I'm almost reaching the end of my curriculum at Delphi and pretty soon I'll have the marks I need to push my way into the sailing school. Dad always acts like he wished I was doing something else like knitting, but I could see him smiling when I earned my scholarship for the sailing school. I think he's proud of me. And he better be, I worked my butt off for this!

Things here have been pretty boring without you, though. There's no one scarfing down mom's food, or tipping over cars, or accidentally tossing the neighbors cat into a roof while playing with it or even just doing something silly like signing up for janitor duty thinking it's for soccer. To make it worse Patrick has been hovering all over me and AG recently. I think that creep thinks he can date one of us. Yuck. The worst part is that it wouldn't shock me if his parents were seriously considering pushing us together.

I already miss my best boy-underscore-friend. Dad says you're training at some all-girl school to become a martial artist and that it's going to be years before you pop back up in Greece, though. I feel bad for those girls. I've heard they are as strong as Amazons, but a dummy like you is going to wipe the floor with all of them, for sure. You better be sparring like a gentleman or I'll cave your head in, got it?

Sometimes I'm afraid you'll have so much fun there that you'll decide to just stick around and we'll just never see each other again. It's silly, right? You were never going to stay with us for very long at first, but then three years came and went and I started enjoying having you around. I know that's selfish, since grampa treated you so badly, but I hope you remember some of us were happy to have you around.

Oh, by the way, Grampa Julian is no longer living with us. Dad put him in a home after some kind of problem he caused while I was at school. I don't even want to ask what it was. So, if you come back to Néa Delphi you don't have to worry about him. You can even eat at our table like you always should have.

Anyway, I have to close this up. The mail service to Tibet is charging me by the word. Can you believe it?! It's extorsion! When I become navy admiral, I'm buying the post office and sending all my letters to you for free!

Hope to see you again someday. Hugs and kisses.

Marianne Solo

PS: Don't feel too terribly about my boredom, btw, Adriana has been keeping me slightly entertained. She's going through a goth phase right now and it's hilarious watching her come to school dressed like a Halloween lamp. I've attached a photo for you.

Atlae flipped the letter and saw Adriana looking very annoyed, dressed top to bottom in black, even dying her strawberry blonde hair black, with Mari' hugging her and laughing, pointing at her bad make-up.

Yuzuriha blinked, seeing him get red and rubbing eyes. "Atlae?"

"She wrote so much…even though they're charging by the word." Atlae realized, tearing up. "She even added a PS!"

"Well, it sounds like you have a good friend back home." Yuzuriha commented, folding arms. "I have no idea why you would care about being friends with the punks I'm offered to teach here."

With a big sniff, Atlae rose his reddened green eyes with a determined clench. He reread the paragraphs Marianne wrote about going to new schools and becoming an admiral. It couldn't be easy, given what Atlae has learned about the Mariners preferring boys, yet Marianne never seemed daunted by anything in life and always seemed to know exactly what she wanted, at reasonable prices. He really admired that will in her. Atlae, on the other hand, just stumbled through life like a dancing monkey, never knowing what to do with his abilities but show off. Now that he had people showing him he was just another loser and all his strength was just one element of what he needed, he was cowering like a frightened imp.

But what if, just like Marianne, he could be something more? What if he could focus on what he loved doing and find purpose in it, just like Marianne did and Master advised?

Yuzuriha saw the transformation in his look. "Mm, well? Have you decided on a course of action, Atlae?"

A lightbulb flared in his mind. "Yes, Master, I have! I'm going to keep beating people up!"

The Master staggered. "Atlae, don't call it that!"

But the boy snapped up triumphantly. "I'll beat everyone up, all the way to the strongest man in the world! I'll beat up the Gods themselves if I have to!" he celebrated, throwing arms up. "I'll become the BEST at beating people up that your school has ever seen, Master!"

{======================|A3|======================}

Chapter End

{======================|A3|======================}

Next Chapter: Chapter 85 – 3rd Arc – Episode 13: From Mountains to the Sea

Release Date: June 25th

Description: The hands of the clock turn forward to 1974. The Winter Festival has arrived in Shamballa, Atlae is once again happy and the students of the Turtle School parade to the Sun Temple to honor the great Turtle God, where the cosmos allows Atlae to finally do the impossible.

To celebrate, Atlae takes Lord Solo's offer to join the crew of the Chrysaor, a sailing school ship famous for its circumnavigational trips, and meets some familiar faces there.

Concerns in the darkness grow, though, as many Muvian Elders question Yuzuriha on the meaning of Atlae's feat.

Author's Comments:

So, things for a while in the story are going to be focused on Atlae. After the hardships of the last chapter, I realized I needed to take the chance that the 3rd Arc has completed 12 episodes and things were left at a cliffhanger to put things on pause for a while and figure out how to write Atlae a bit better.

Right now I have something between 4 to 5 chapters planned, including this one you just read, but don't worry, they're gonna be shorter than this one. Chapter 85 is already written and beta-read and it's only about 22k. Hopefully, by September, we'll tune back to the fight in Andromeda Island in present time, but for now we're gonna tell the story of who Atlae is and what's up with his crazy powers and why he is at Rhadamanthys' service.

To be honest, I pondered classifying all of this as a separate Side Story, alike Arrival of the Gods and Curse of Hatred, but this backstory is so important to understand what's going on in the present that if I put it aside on AO3's work system, I risk just confusing the readers there more.

Anyway, etymology time. There were a bunch of side characters introduced in this one, but I'll mostly mention Ithaca. If you've read your Odyssey, though, you already know what his name is based on; the island in Greece that Odysseus ruled over and returned to after a perilous journey accursed by Poseidon. Arthur and Marianne Solo do not have particularly meaningful names, because neither does Julian in the series. And yes, the Julian mentioned in this chapter is just that Julian's grandfather.

Just as a special bonus on this chapter, I will also mention the households that Caça and Baian are stated to come from; Cabral is a reference to Pedro Alvares Cabral, who sailed the South Atlantic and discovered Brazil, while Vancouver is both the name of the Canadian city and of the explorer who charted the North Pacific. My goal is to pick household names that combine meaning to both the nationality of the Mariner General and the pillar they guard over.

By the way, you also get bonus points, dear reader, if you know what "Enyalos" is and why I picked it as the Phalanx marching chant for Sanctuary's hoplites.

Anyway, be sure to leave a review or share the story if you enjoyed this chapter, or if you want to criticize it even. Like it on Twitter/Tumblr/Reddit and generally support this project if you enjoy it. You can find me in all those places under the Thrudgelmir2333 name.

Also, make sure to check out the Saint Seiya Reddit Discord server, where I'm currently one of the co-admins. Other writers like Jenny DeVic also can be found in it. You can hang out with the rest of the English-speaking SS community and we host several weekly events, like episode streams, live streams and games.

See ya \owo