Okay, so, it's good to see you guys again! Been like two months. How you guys been? Enjoying quarantine? Are you guys even quarantined where you live? I am. I digress.

Obviously, I want to reassure anyone that might be concerned about me. I'm fine, so is everyone I care about. Since I'm basically a shut in most of the time, this whole thing hasn't affected me all that much. The disappearance was more a lack of motivation on my part. So, apologies for that. I didn't mean to just up and vanish. But, I do hope to update frequently for the next little bit. Who knows, I'm bad at guaranteeing this type of thing.

Still, Enjoy!

Hades knew that neither girl were particularly proud that they'd been sent out there with the orders he'd given them, but that was, frankly, none of his concern. They'd do what he needed from them and nothing more. Hopefully they weren't terrible actors like he feared.

"Hades," Thanatos said from behind him. "The other Children have assembled. We're ready." Hades smiled at this.

"Well then," he said, "I suppose we need to prep for a jailbreak, don't we?"

Takara had to admit, watching Drake and Elise fight was something to behold. What she noticed right away was the synergy between them. She couldn't tell if it was trust or Drake's Sound Magic, but the two bounced off of each other time and time again, repelling and forcing Nemesis into a heavy retreat. When the woman attempted to escape down an alleyway, Drake blocked it off with a cloud of poison. When she tried to separate the two and force them into a one on one, they escaped her attacks and retreated together.

The weirdest part, though, was that the two never stopped insulting each other.

"Haven't you figured out a way to knock her out with poison, dumb ass?" Elise demanded.

"Just waiting for you to carry your weight in this battle, Nail Face," Drake shot back. "I know you're sensitive to people doing everything for you."

"Stop trying to escape the fact that I have to rely on you for this, Cyanide Breath," she replied, "just do your job already."

"Unless you want her to poison you with her Revenge Magic, shut your mouth and concentrate." Drake told her.

That really was the crux of the issue at the moment.

Takara had already figured out that if Nemesis wasn't capable of redirecting affects of magic to others as an act of revenge through her abilities, that this fight would already be over. Drake wasn't poisoning her because the woman would do the same to Elise. Elise was holding back with her attacks because if she didn't, Nemesis would absorb the power behind her swings and knock the wind out of either her or Drake.

In essence, she was a pain.

"Any ideas over there, Takara?" Drake called out to her, as she was standing a few feet from them. She grimaced at this, unsure.

"Not unless you're just going to forego Elise and I and paralyse her."

"I already said I was okay with it," Elise replied as they prepared for the next run.

"I need to get in her face to get her quickly," Drake told them, "so if you guys are really alright with it, get me closer."

It seemed that was the plan now.

Running behind them, Takara slammed her hands into the ground, causing a ripple of emeralds to erupt out of the ground and rush towards Nemesis. The woman's arms glowed red and she took the hit head on, the emeralds stabbing into her arms. The gems cracked and exploded outwards, sending shrapnel everywhere, but neither Dragon Slayer was effected. Drake used his Sound Magic to dodge them all, and Elise hardened her body to prevent it from happening. Once they got past Takara's gems Elise wrapped her arms around Nemesis and did her best to hold the woman in place as Drake got close to her face. Releasing a green gas from his mouth, Drake blew it into Nemesis face, making her cough and freeze up after a few seconds.

Surprisingly, though, no one else was paralysed. Takara didn't feel any different, and it seemed the other two were okay as well.

"Well, that was disappointing," Elise said as she regarded Nemesis like a bug on the wall. "You're not even going to try and fight back now?"

"Do I even have a reason too?" Nemesis asked, her mouth apparently operable. "If I was able to use the paralysis against him, I'd have tried. But I don't think poisoning someone who can eat it is going to do anything for me."

"She's right," Drake added, "Poison doesn't work on me, much less my own."

"So...We already won?" Takara asked. Nemesis laughed at this.

"I wouldn't say that," she said. "I wasn't the only one. Eris is fighting with your friends. And, hell, you're insane if you think I'm just going to tell you how to get into Tartarus. Hades would kill me if I did that."

"No one said we needed you to tell us," Elise said, Nemesis offering no response to this. "We'll get it out of you," she looked up at this, saying, "should we head over to Jason now?"

"No, we stick to the plan," Drake replied, "we trust the people looking after Jason and head back to the guild hall."

"We can just leave Nemesis with the others, right?" Takara asked curiously. "That would do it."

"Suppose it would, yeah," Drake answered, "why, are you worried about Jason?" Takara had to admit she kind of was. The boys background as an ex-member of the Children made her nervous about what Eris might try to do to him. Would she try and convert him? Maybe torture him with what he'd been apart of? She had no idea, but what she did know was that she wasn't going to be satisfied unless she went to help him.

"Let's just say I want to cover all our bases." Drake nodded as he hoisted Nemesis over his shoulder.

"We'll drop her off and make our way over there," he said, "that is if they don't beat us back of course."

"Are you really just going to use the same old parlour tricks as before, Jason?" Eris asked as he slid across the ground, his body doubles vanishing from her attacks. "What am I saying, of course you are. You've been in prison for a decade, you've had no way to practice."

"Are you going to keep trash talking me or just take me back?" He demanded angrily.

"I can do both, seeing as your friends are still incapacitated," she replied. She had him there. Ultear and Steph were both still going at each other to the side. He needed to remember what he knew about Eris; magic and how to counter it. Easier said than done given he was fighting for his life.

Splitting himself into three, Jason sent one to the right, himself done the middle, and the other to the left. They all went after Eris, who attacked him first, guessing it was him. Without missing a beat Jason body-swapped with the illusion to the right, which sent him to where the clone was. He hadn't done this in forever, so jumping between his doubles made his head spin.

Of course, Eris was ahead of him.

Countless colourful orbs spring from her hands and assaulted him and the other doubles, causing them to shimmer and disappear and him to fly backwards, winded.

"Ah, such a wonderful trick," Eris said, "you swap places with your doubles to make your opponent second guess your true location. When you were a kid you couldn't do that more than four time without getting sick. Had you had the time to perfect your craft instead of rotting in prison, maybe I would be in trouble."

Jason knew she was right. It was a cool trick, sure, but his stomach was already swirling and threatening to throw up his breakfast. God, he wanted nothing more than to let it, but he couldn't. He needed to bring Eris in and secure a way into Tartarus.

"Can I ask you a question, Eris?" He asked weakly as he got to his feet and his lungs decided to let him breathe again. "I know we fundamentally disagree in terms of how to deal with this, but-"

"Oh please don't give me another lecture, Jason," Eris asked, with an exaggerated look of pain on her face. "We disagree, can we lave it at that?"

"We can," he said, "but it's a question I need answered." Eris rolled her eyes.

"Fine, go ahead," she said. Grimacing as his stomach turned, Jason met her gaze.

"Do you really not give a damn about the people you're hurting?" He asked, "do you really just shrug and say it's what needs to be done? Has Hades corrupted you all that deeply?"

"When did I say that?" Eris asked. He noticed how offended she looked at this. "Do you really think I'm such a heartless bitch that I don't see what I'm doing to people? Of course I do. I know people are getting hurt. I can't imagine how much it must hurt to lose someone you care about the way Fairy Tail has. But it needs to be done. I've made peace with it, just the way Zeus did. I'll be the bad guy to save the world and everyone in it. Fairy Tail is not so important that their interests are more important than the rest of the world."

Jason wanted to refute her. He wanted to tell her she was full of shit and that she was making excuses for psychotic behaviour. But he couldn't. He couldn't because deep down he knew she wasn't crazy. None of the Children were. They had been led down this path their whole lives, and unlike him, they hadn't escaped it. Besides, could he really say this was a bad idea? What if they were right? What if it was true, and that it was the only way? If there was any human history left after this whole debacle, would they be written as the bad guys?

"I know we've already gone over this, Jason, but let me ask one more time for myself." Eris' eyes softened at this, and she hugged herself gently. "Do you have another way to save the world? Or are you just shouting your moral view into the wind hoping the Gods take pity on us?"

Just like before, he had no answer for her. This made her frown deeply.

"Than I'm truly sorry, Jason. I really, really am."

With this, the battle resumed. Eris launched more of her orbs at him, and Jason gritted his teeth and dodged the first volley. He split himself into nine this time, and then swapped himself to the far right of the spectrum. This made his stomach turn violently at this, but he held in his breakfast. Was a good a time as any to practice. Eris launched volley after volley, which forced him to continue to create duplicates of himself and jump between them. Each consecutive jump made him sicker and sicker, and he could feel his strength waning. It was still too much for him to handle. He needed a plan, or he was going to lose to her.

Taking a quick look backwards, Jason saw Steph and Ultear were still at each others throats. Conveniently enough, neither of them seemed to get in the way of their fight. He needed to snap them out of it. But how? What was the weakness to Eris' discord?

Quickly, he got an idea. It wasn't a fantastic idea, but it was all he had. Quickly creating another swarm of copies, Jason sent one backwards towards the girls. Once it reached them, he took a deep breath and swapped with it. Once he did, he commanded the other copies to rush Eris. Hopefully, she'd miss his attempt at fixing this in the swarm.

"Hey!" He called out, both girls looking over at him. They both looked positively livid. "You guys shouldn't be fighting...Your friends!"

"She started it!" They both shouted angrily.

"You two are being manipulated," he said weakly, his breath not coming back to him as quickly as he'd hoped it would. "Eris...Eris is putting you against one another. Steph, you're...you're more than powerful enough to forge your own path. Don't worry about being stuck in Damien's shadow. Ultear, you're strong, so much stronger than you think. Eris is just using your insecurities to pit you against one another. Do either of you really think the other would say this type of thing to you?"

As uncertain as he was about this solution, he watched them both intently. Ever so slightly, the darkness in their eyes abated. They looked around in confusion, both at him and each other.

"What just happened?" Ultear asked in confusion. "I don't remember."

"Neither do I," Steph said. "Jason? Where'd that woman go?"

As if on cue, an explosion sounded behind them. Weakly looking behind him, Jason saw Eris standing there glaring at him. All he could do was laugh.

"Imagine that," he said, "your discord's weakness is positive reinforcement."

"The strongest magic always do have the simplest weaknesses," she responded angrily. "I can just do it to them again, you know. It's not that easy."

"What did she do?" Ultear asked. Before Jason could reply, he could hear Eris readying an attack. Luckily, Ultear was ahead of him, throwing up a massive wall of ice in between them. Using this moment, Jason gave both girls the rundown of Eris' abilities, making Steph hum.

"So she sows discord in her surroundings," she said, "she made Ul and I fight by making us really insecure?"

"That's the size of it," Jason replied. "It's extremely vague, I know, but so it is with Gods. Or, at least those pretending to be Gods."

"So we need to take her down quickly," Ultear surmised. "That'll be easy. Steph?" Nodding, Steph held out one arm in front of her, grabbing her wrist with the other hand. Eris' attacks were finally wearing down the shield, but Steph began crackling with electricity. Jason felt all of the hair on his body standing up on end as the walls defences got smaller and smaller, finally shattering completely. Just as they did, white marks glowed all over Ultear's body.

"Thunder Spear!" Steph shouted, lightning screaming forth from her arm in a pinpoint yet deadly attack. The speed wasn't anything Eris could hope to dodge, but it seemed she didn't need too. With a wave of her hand, the air around her bent strangely. When the attack reached her, it arced over her and continued racing on.

"Pretty easy to dodge hits when I can cause discord around me, making your perfectly aimed attack miss me," Eris said, "it's not going to be that easy, Fairy Ta-"

"Look behind you, you dumb broad," Steph said. Eris made a face and her eyes widened, turning around just in time to watch Steph's Thunder Spear enter the center of a white magic circle and disappear. Without waiting, the circle crackled and unleashed the spell backwards at Eris, this time it's speed was doubled.

There was no time to cause a disruption.

The spell struck Eris head on and caused her to scream as she was electrocuted, making Jason wince.

"No one ever suspects attacks to get redirected through time," Ultear said, her voice somehow above the crackling electricity.

"Cover your ears, by the way," Steph said. Jason did as he was told, just in time for the attack to wear off. As it did, he winced as a resounding boom echoed across the city, probably the region. Once the ringing in his ears wore off, he looked back at the girls incredulously.

"That was amazing," he said. "It took you nothing at all."

"Gets tiring having to fight people for a million years," Ultear replied, "It's better like this." Steph was murmuring something under her breath, but he couldn't tell what it was.

But something about the last few seconds was bothering him. He knew Eris was more powerful than him, but he'd expected more out of her than this. Was Takara okay? She had Drake and Elise protecting her right now, so he assumed so. Maybe he'd underestimated the Children. Maybe they weren't as strong as he thought they were.

"Alright you lot, you know the drill," Hades said to the eight men and women standing in front of him. "We've been over it enough times by now."

"Indeed," Thanatos said. "Act as thought we're putting up a fight, get defeated and slink away once the battle's finished."

"This is quite a plan," Hypnos, a bald man with his eyes closed said. "We are to allow Fairy Tail to defeat us?"

"You say that as if the group that'll storm in here has a chance of losing to you lot," Hades said. "If you don't follow this plan, let's be real, you'll die."

"Dying would be sad," Oizys, a smaller girl with her back hunched and silver hair covering her face, said quietly. She sounded near tears, perpetually. "I do not wish to lose anyone."

"Neither do I," Philotis, a taller, red-haired woman said. Her eyes were filled with such joy that she stuck out among her allies. "We are all such a close family, to lose anymore of us would be..."

"Yes yes, we've heard the spiel before," Geras, a hooded man said in a small voice. He sounded as though he'd blow away at a moments notice. "I swear I will die of old age before she finishes."

"Wouldn't that be nice," Momus, the shortest man with spiked brown hair said. His sharp eyes seemed to mock everyone he looked at. "Sadly, she might even take us after death."

"If we are destined to perform this task, Hades, then we shall fulfil it," Moros said. Taller than all the rest and quiet, Moros had greased-back black hair and dark eyes that seemed to go on forever.

"Aha, let us hope Fairy Tail doesn't see through our ruse," Deimos, the final man, said. He had luscious brown hair and a well-structured face, but his eyes radiated raw evil. "Otherwise we may spook them off!"

"Deimos, no one is scared of you," Philotis said, "you're such a sweetheart!"

"Philotis you sarcastic bitch! Do not mock me!" Deimos retorted angrily.

"She's right though, you softy!" Momus cackled, "As if you're capable of scaring anything!"

"Momus! I'll kill you!"

"Is idle threats all your capable of, you great oaf?!" Momus threw back.

"Enough," Hades called, silencing them. "No fighting, you all know the plan. By now, Nemesis and Eris will have been caught. Depending on how long they decide to hold out, we have a few days to prepare. Are you all ready?"

"Yes, Lord Hades!" All eight answered at once. Hades grinned.

"Let the Games Begin."

With every Child of Nyx having been shown, we arrive at a familiar number. Can you guys count them all? It's a number we've seen before...

I hope you all enjoyed, leave a review! Let's try and get five!

Chapter 361: Gateway to Hell