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.

92. 3A: Reunion At Shamballa

Notable OCs: Pegasus Lance's Saint Generation, Civil War Saint Generation, WWII Saint Generation, Hades' Dark Princes, the False Specters, Maidens of Athena, 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 has been betaread by Zebullon_Wallace ;

-I tried very hard to shorten this chapter, but for reasons out of my control, it swelled to 32k. I'm really sorry.

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1960,

Southern Germany

Heinstein Castle Forests

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"A-AMBUSH!" the soldiers of Hades cried.

"It's the ZODIAC KNIGHTS!" another pointed out, seeing the point of orange light leaping out of the pine treetops.

"LIONET BOMBER!" The figure in red and orange armor crashed through the center of their regiment with a dive kick.

The impact cracked the road they were marching through, blasting the soldiers apart from each other and tearing their skeleton armor with flames made of pure light. The large column of dozens of Skeletons panicked and scurried, bracing their weapons, but some of them burned or melted in their hands. The path caved in with the attack's force and the figure walked out of the flames.

"Who are you?!" the Skeleton captain screamed, lunging at it with his scythe.

His weapon swung down to cut the stranger in half, but the youth's armored forearm parried it by it's pole before he closed in and unleashed a torrent of supersonic blows that cratered the black armor and sent the captain flying back.

The tall teenager of brown curls, goggles around their neck and orange knightly armor eyed the rest of them warningly as their leader collapsed. "I am Lionet Priam, wielder of the Ruby Cloth Stone! This is your one chance, soldiers of Hades! Return to the Underworld and your lives will be spared!"

Even scattered and in disarray, the Skeletons only roared in response. "DIE, PROFLIGATE!"

"FOR THE EMPEROR!" the others cried, lifting their combat scythes and swords.

"SERAPHIC FLASH!" someone else shouted.

A shower of light petals then came over them all, blinding the entire field. A massive body of light swerved into the battlefield from the opposite flank of Priam, catching them unaware. It tore through them with a series of supersonic slashes and shockwaves that ripped their armors to shreds and cut their flesh, sending the Skeletons flying, screaming and crashing down. With a final swerve of his lightcrafted sword, the arriving figure wrecked the ribbed armor of the enemy lieutenant and launched him over the air, sending the man crashing through trees and down the road slopes.

Priam saw all the enemies collapsing around them. They didn't even have a chance to flee. "DAMN IT, Ace'! What did I ask you?!"

The Corvus Silver Saint, or Paladin as they were called among the Knights, raised himself and took off his beaked headpiece, revealing his dark green hair and the red triangles drawn under the eyes.

"I gave them a chance to surrender!" Priam protested, "That's not how we agreed to do things."

His comrade eyed him like Priam just said the most ridiculous thing ever. "They didn't look to me like they wanted to surrender. If I didn't attack right away, they'd get organized and overwhelm you, Priam. Unless you were about to unlock the 7th sense-"

"D-DAMN YOU, Knights!" the enemy captain squirmed, crawling away. He got up and began running. "I'll let the Prince know this, and he'll eviscerate you all!"

"Prince?" Priam wondered. Weren't they ruled by Judges?

Azrael saw him distracted "PRIAM!" and gave chase with a sword clad in light. "I'll GET HIM!"

"WAIT, ACE, DON'T!" He begged, but the Corvus Saint was already going for the kill.

The next decision he made was done in mere seconds. The Bronze Knight exhaled and concentrated his thoughts. As his cosmos burned, small pieces of his armor not critical to his protection began turning into light, then gathering in hand in the form of a composite bow and a long, finned arrow.

Lifting his goggles up, Priam saw the Skeleton running with his back to them and Azrael about to pounce on him, likely with an attack that would give him a very painful death. The helmet around the captain's head was too tough, not to mention a risky target.

Priam's breathing relaxed and he released the arrow, letting it fly like a sniper bullet. Shockingly, it hit the hard boulder ahead of the fleeing man and the ridiculously fine-tuned force and shaping of the projectile made it ricochet back into the soft spot between the left ribs of the Skeleton's cuirass, perforating right through the lung and then hitting the heart!

Corvus Azrael braked his own dash, seeing his target shot down.

Priam sighed in relief. He did it!

Ace turned to him, looking at first like he wanted to punch Priam's head into his chest for doing this.

The Lionet caught up with Ace, dispelling his bow back into the Lionet Cloth. If they had to kill these people, the least Priam could do was spare the poor man a painful death by his overzealous friend's sword. "I'm sorry, Ace"

He exhaled, then studied the blow Priam inflicted. "...Well, I have to admit, that was an impressive shot."

The spectacle of it wasn't a choice from Priam. If the Ruby Knight wanted to neutralize the immortal enemy, he needed to hit the heart and instantly shut down the Skeleton Soldier's bodily functions. The only way to do it, though, would be to hit through the weakpoints of his cuirass from the front. A ricochet shot was the only way to do it before Azrael tore the poor bastard to pieces.

"Priam, I know you don't like the messy parts, but you're wasting your time being this considerate, you know?" Ace asked him, resting his sword over his shoulder guard. "The soldiers of Hades are immortal. If we don't do a thorough enough job of dispatching them, they'll just get back up later. And someone innocent will pay the price."

Priam knelt to feel the Skeleton's pulse. It was gone, and so was the man's cosmos. "Ace, he's dead."

Azrael scoffed, resting sword over shoulder. "Are you serious? Check again. He has to be alive."

"He's dead, Ace." Priam assured, turning the body over to show the paling, stiffening corpse. In any case, Priam wasn't going to kick the poor Skeleton to prove his point. That was disrespectful.

The Corvus Paladin tensed. This wasn't the first time they've seen this with these new generations of Skeleton Soldiers.

"It's so bizarre. I've always been taught that everyone in Hades' army, down to the lowest Skeleton Soldier, was immortal." Ace recalled. "Saint Roland used to say you'd have to hit the brain and shut down their nervous system just to make them stop moving."

The Lionet Saint ripped the arrow off the Skeleton's chest. "This seems to work fine. Maybe they are fake Specters?"

The Corvus paladin scoffed bemusedly. "I have no idea how that would even work. So the Emperor of the Underworld now does temp job contracts? Somehow I doubt it."

The Lionet Knight frowned worriedly as he made the arrow dismantle into light fragments that returned to fill his Cloth. "Well, in any case-" Looking down, he saw a medallion in Azrael's hand that didn't belong to him. "ACE!"

Seemingly realizing he had it for the first time, Azrael gasped and nearly crushed the thing in frustration. "Goddamn it! Again?! This blasted Cloth!"

The lionet gawked. He noticed the hammer and chisel in the medallion. "That belongs to Knight Caelum, right? Where the heck did you get that? He must be looking everywhere for it!"

Azrael rubbed his eyes, mortified. "Ugh, I think I saw it back at camp. I didn't even realize I took it. I owe him a big apology now."

"Um, maybe you should double-check your pockets?" Priam suggested.

Azrael widened eyes at this, alarmed. He reached into his pockets and started taking out things, realizing he had coins, rings and even a black disk key for some kind of underworld chest. "Fuck me!"

Priam realized his friend must have pilfered every Skeleton Soldier they killed in the past week. "It's rare to hear you cursing. You're still getting used to Corvus' influence, uh?"

"It's humiliating! You don't even realize you do it." Azrael described, making Corvus dismantle and return into his Obsidian Cloth Stone with a flash of light. "There's Cloths that brainwash their owners into murdering their students, and mine turns me into a filthy thief! Every shiny thing in my way just lands in my hands somehow! I swear, I can't get the Gold Cloth soon enough…"

Resting his bow, Priam observed him skeptically. He knew Ace' loved collecting Zodiac Knight artifacts. "I thought Sir Roland had said the Corvus Cloth only magnified your existing greed? Did Azrael…?"

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The two then went back to their foxhole, from which they were ambushing Specter parties. It was a dug-out hole into the earthy slopes of the hill disguised with a mantle of Autumn leaves. Inside they had some rations, a pair of sleeping bags, a drain pipe, and some meds. A small gap in the earthen wall allowed them to peer out whenever they sensed the burning of Cosmos nearby, giving them a field of view over a major route leading out of the Heinstein family's grounds.

Their mission was a standard border watch for Zodiac Knights, where they'd sit out in a critical exit of the Heinstein Fields and wait for dumb Specters to pop their heads up. The re-awakening of Pandora as Hades' liaison was predicted by the Pope to be coming soon and Specter activity in the area was, indeed, increasing. They were then to keep a watch on the Heinstein family and determine how many Specters were working the area and, perhaps, if there was even a chance to save the girl and her family from corruption.

There was a lot of emphasis on the Specter part, though. Not many believed, especially among the Knights, there was much you could do to prevent a 'Pandora'.

Priam hated this sort of duty, because you weren't just expected to watch, but also to terminate. Even if they were Skeleton Soldiers, or even the occasional Specter, it didn't sit right with him to hurt a life. It never did, even in the harshest moments of his Sainthood. Perhaps it was his eastern upbringing that made him think differently from the rest of the Junkyard Gang, or maybe his experiences surviving misery together with everyone else without hurting anyone made Priam feel there was always hope for even the most radical souls.

After tallying up their numbers, Azrael looked out the gap with his binoculars. From there, he could see the Heinstein mansion past the forest. He saw the 'Pandora' candidate in her mansion yard, petting her dog.

"Everything seems quiet for now." he said. "The devil girl is just playing with her Dalmatian."

"Little does she know a pack of spooky skeletons was stalking in the woods, right?" Priam tried to joke. While Ace rarely laughed at his poor attempts of humor, the Paladin always did smile a bit. "Well, we kept her family protected for another day, that's what matters."

"It's admirable work, but pointless if you ask me." Azrael argued. No wonder they usually had the oathsworn take care of this. "Nothing is going to save whoever becomes Pandora from 'awakening'. It's only because of Lady Athena's kindness that we don't kill her."

"ACE!" Priam immediately shouted

The Corvus Saint shrugged. "What? You know it's true. Billions of lives are riding on Holy Wars with her 'brother'. Even a pacifist like you must know her death would be a good thing."

The Lionet Saint sat quietly, knowing it was no use arguing. This sort of conversation had occurred before. While Priam was soft-minded, Azrael, on the other hand, always took killing with stride. Along with Kai', Akassius, Menelaus, and Kirin, he had always been of the half of the Gang that didn't mind mugging, stealing and murdering to feed their little group, before Sanctuary took them in. He even seemed to see it as points towards doing his personal service to Athena. It was a moral conflict Priam had become used to struggling with over the years, because he rarely had good ways to prove them wrong about what needed to be done to survive. In some aspects, Priam found himself feeling guilty, since he knew he relied on Azrael to get the nastier parts of their work done, which wasn't fair, either.

However, this was also the sort of the balance act that made the two Gold Saint aspirants work well together; Ace' was diligent to levels that annoyed most of their friends and thought nothing of hunting down enemies for justice, but that ruthlessness was leveled out by Priam's patience and consideration for others, which stopped Azrael from any excesses or rash mistakes. Priam, on the other hand, tended to hesitate and overthink his missions, so Ace's decisiveness helped the two make snap decisions in the line of duty.

Sir Roland had always said that, despite the fact they weren't the closest in their particular generation of new Saints, it seemed like the two made perfect Knight partners. He would say 'Azrael was the Prometheus of quick action to Priam's Epimetheus of pondered action'. Priam always thought that it was a nice way to put it, while Ace said it made it sound like he was the fool of the two for birthing humanity.

The Obsidian Paladin continued. "I know what you're thinking, Priam, but there's a reason the Lost Canvas Saints left the box with Hypnos and Thanatos with her family; they knew Hades was going to get all three anyway once the seals began to weaken, so we might as well keep the whole group of genociders all in one place, under watch."

What a grim outlook on things, but Azrael was always the realist. "I know, but then what are we even doing here, if that's the case? Why not just leave them be so they can enjoy their lives normally?"

Azrael chuckled. "Isn't it obvious? To hunt Specters. They're not dumb enough to send a Judge our way, to make today really matter, but one less pair of bone boots in the Earth is always good for humanity to be a bit safer, wouldn't you say?"

Priam hummed weakly. He never liked hurting people no matter what, but if it made people safe? That was a dilemma he wasn't sure how to solve. "Well, even if we can't save her, I hope that young girl gets to have a life for a little while. I got to talk with her a few times. You'd be shocked at how gentle and smart she is."

"She might be Pandora's mother, Priam, if not Pandora herself." Azrael sternly reminded him. "Don't think I won't report you to the Castellan for making friends with her."

The scary part was, Priam wasn't sure if Ace was joking. "Come on, Ace, it's not like she has a pitchfork and smells of Sulphur. Why don't' you come down and talk to her, to-"

"Don't even joke about such a thing." The Obsidian Paladin cut. He saw Priam give him his 'appeal to your better side' stare. Azrael folded arms. "When did you ever talk with her anyway? You didn't say anything stupid, did you? They're not supposed to know that a secret society of knights protects their family."

Priam gulped and looked away.

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He was trying to sneak into the box's shrine and had alerted the dog accidentally.

The purple eyes of the strikingly beautiful, slender, raven-haired young woman in the dark Victorian dress stared at him fixedly, holding her barking Dalmatian by the leash tightly. Her strands were curvy and long, reaching down to her arms, a black snake-shaped ring belonging to her dynasty constricted her finger and her feet stepped the grass with a pair of low-heeled, trimmed shoes of soft laces.

She stared so curiously, like he was a lost puppy and not someone who just broke into her yard. It was a stark contrast to the loud, angry racket her large Dalmatian barked. Priam sweated, wondering if she was pondering to let the dog loose on him.

"So, you were here to fix the lock on my family's box shrine?" she asked again.

The Knight nodded, wearing his fixer disguise. "Y-yes, ma'am."

Her brow raised suspiciously. "They didn't say you were coming."

Oh boy, what was he going to say? Priam felt his head grow hot.

She hummed and turned away, observing him. "And the other day, when I saw you with your friend, you two were hunting? On my parents' property?"

He nodded frantically, wondering when he and Azrael had been seen. "T-That's right. I'm sorry, we didn't realize. The forests around this place are so big, so the trees disorient you, and… um…."

Her face slumped boredly like he just told the most obvious lie. "Is that the best you can do? You know, normally trespassers around here get shot."

What was with her soft tone in her questioning? Was she trying to help him? "We, um, lost our way." he tried. "We were chasing a deer that ran into these forests…"

She narrowed her eyes fiercely, making him lose the blood on his face. Priam was a trained warrior, but this was a Heinstein. She could be Pandora herself! What if she had some of her frightening powers of darkness? At the very least, he could count on being in huge trouble with the Knights for getting caught.

He held his head, feeling he was going to faint. Even if he did escape now, the Order could have him stripped of his Cloth! "A-And, w-well,… it was injured so we had to kill it right away so,… so it wouldn't suffer." And then gulped harshly.

The young woman looked him up and down. "Well, did you?"

He blinked. "Did what?"

"Kill the deer." she patiently repeated, holding the dog back tighter.

Priam saw how transfixed her eyes seemed. What was going on? He tried to draw on an earlier memory of hunting, which he had plenty of. "We cornered it by a river bank. It had lost a lot of blood and was too weak to keep running."

The woman paused, seemingly in suspense. "Was it in pain?"

Priam's eyes softened. It wasn't a pleasant memory, his first hunt. "Yes. You could tell by its breathing. My friend handed me his knife and told me to take care of it. He said it was my mistake, because I had missed its heart. I knelt next to it and petted its head. I don't know why."

'Pandora', if she was her anyway, pulled her Dalmatian close and rested hand on its head to soothe it. "And then?"

Priam relived the memory and his hand gestured the way he carved his knife into its heart. "And then I… fixed my mistake. I sat there with it for a bit. It was still so awful. I saw the panic leave its eyes, like it was its life. I saw its breathing disappear, the bleeding slowing down…."

The woman rested her hand over chest as he described it, feeling her chest beat with the story.

Priam nodded somberly. "And then it ended.. I've never missed a shot to the heart since."

The young woman breathed in deeply, like she experienced the story herself. She stood up firmly and dragged her dog away. "Would you like some tea?"

The tension in the Saint broke. "T… Tea?" Was this a way out? He should pursue it! "YES, of course!"

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"You just had tea?" Azrael interrogated, folding arms.

Priam nodded as confidently as he could. "Y-yes. She was… she was really nice to me. And then she showed me around…"

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The door to her bedroom burst open and the two passionately kissed their way in. Priam lifted her up by her thighs and gently pressed her against her bedroom wall, kissing her neck, jaw and ear. The raven-haired girl held firm and guided his hand down under her skirt to undress her silky garments while she unhooked his belt. She gripped his curls tightly and sighed pleasurably as he kissed her chests and inserted himself into her.

The glass cage right by them shook with the force of their first sexual movements, startling the pet rattlesnake inside.

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"You were INSIDE the damn mansion?!" his comrade roared.

"Y… yeah." Priam sunk his face into hands, feeling it grow hot. "She invited me in and, well, she showed me she had a pet snake, and I… I didn't want to be rude. That would just raise suspicion. Right?"

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Their rhythmic, loud moans filled the room as they took to her bed. Priam laid back and the woman's hands pushed down on his muscled chest as she rocked her thighs over his, letting their ecstasy build up!

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"What in Athena's sacred name, Priam?!" Azrael shouted, raising hands like he could choke him. "How often have you been having tea and cookies with that devil?!"

The younger Saint sweated. "Um…"

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The hot shower water drizzled them as his hands pinned hers against the tiled wall and they kissed. She took his hand into her ample left chest and Priam gently aimed himself into her. He heard her moan sweetly as he pushed deep into her cervix. The heat of their bodies together under the running water was almost unbearable.

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Priam's face was as red as a beet "We h-had tea a few times that day…"

Azrael gawked. "What do you mean?! How do you have tea multiple times the same day?!"

The Lionet panicked and corrected himself "I-I mean we had tea and did other things, like taking a walk, getting to know each other, petting her dog-"

Azrael folded arms in bewilderment. "Oh, so you've just been buddying up, uh?! Tell me, Priam, you think perchance Hades will spare your life if you're on first-name basis with his sister?!"

Priam looked away. Actually, he wouldn't even get to say that.

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They lay in her bed together, nestled. Priam felt her head and hair rested against his chest and breathed out, thinking himself in heaven. Her perfume was of sweet fruits and her raven strands felt like a sheet of silk. beautifully with his toned body. Her fingers danced down his perfectly tuned abdomen and sent jolts down him like unseen pecks.

Suddenly, she turned up, dumbfounded. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't get your name?"

The Lionet looked away. "I, um,-" Priam really shouldn't say. Between him possibly being in bed with Pandora herself and his Zodiac Knight codes, he was possibly in the biggest ethical conundrum of his life. He couldn't believe it, but he had to take a page from Paris' book of womanizing. "Is it that important to know? Why can't we just, you know,…"

Seeing him hesitate secretively, she smiled "You're right." and kissed his neck. This was way more fun, after all. "Names are stupid, anyway."

Priam widened eyes. What an unbelievable woman. So confident! Was he falling in love at first sight? This was bad. This was absolutely terrible. What should he do?

Tracing her fingers up his chest, she held the ruby pendant he held around his neck. "How about this? I noticed you never took it off."

Another panic filled him. Priam gently squeezed her fingers still. "Well, that's something very important to me."

Her brow raised, feeling only more intrigued. This guy had more secrets than she thought, didn't he? "What, are you in the Grand Lodge or something?"

The young man grimaced anxiously. "Or something, yes."

"Ah, I don't believe you. You're not 'that' stuffy." She studied the gem in his grip and saw the shadow of what looked like a lionet prancing in it. "How feminist of you. It looks good, though. It feels… warm."

The Bronze Saint should change the subject away from his Cloth Stone. At the same time, a great concern filled him, knowing the presence of Hades' men had been increasing in the area. "Listen, have you ever seen strange men walking around your parents' property recently?"

The raven-haired woman glanced up coyly."You mean, other than 'you'?"

"I'm serious. There's some dangerous people out there." He insisted, pulling her up to him to look at her in her burgundy irises. "If something happens, you can call me 'Priam'. My friends will know who it is."

Her brow raised. Between the pendant and the codename, she liked the mystery a lot, but the Trojan war aesthetic was a bit too nerdy. She also hoped he wasn't getting all needy just because of one rocking afternoon. "Oh, a history fan?"

He shifted eyes anxiously. "Like I said, I'm in sort of a secret club."

She laughed. "How cute. I like it, though." Her hands climbed down his chest. While she wasn't sure what he meant by dangerous guys being around, it was kind of cute seeing such an unsure-looking guy all protective of her. "It makes you seem so… kingly."

Priam saw her retreat into the sheets, wondering what she was up to. A jolt hit him and his body tensed as her lips gently closed around him, making his mind go blank.

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Priam stared out in horror, imagining what Hades would do if he knew what his (potential) sister had been doing with a Zodiac Knight.

Azrael snapped fingers to alert him. "Hey, wake up! What are you daydreaming about, her cookie trays?!"

He collected himself. "Nothing! Ace'! Look, how many times do you think I had to come up with excuses to go into their house lately, just to check the box is still closed?" Priam challenged, making Azrael snort in realization. "As far as they know, I'm just… Priam, the nice forest ranger."

Azrael stood up. "YOU GAVE HER YOUR SAINT NAME?!"

"Y-yes. What if she needs help?! She could let us know if Specters approach her!" Priam argued. He sweated in the light of Azrael's harsh, skeptical glare. "Besides, s-she told me the name of her Dalmatian. It was only fair…"

Azrael slapped him over the head. "Who cares about her stupid fucking dog! Knighted or not, your Saint name is sacred, Priam! As far as the cosmos goes, it's as important as your birth one! What if she IS Pandora, 'awakens' and puts P-R-I-A-M down in the Book of the Dead?!"

The Bronze Saint's face paled. "Oh my god, could that happen?! Am I going to die?!" He shook head. "No, she'd never do that! We shared tea! That's a sacred bond!"

Azrael groaned. Priam was a kind, honorable Saint, but his pacifist tendencies left him the most naïve of all Zodiac Knights. "You'll regret those words pretty soon, Priam, when she's commanding attacks against the surface."

Tucking his bow anxiously, Priam tried not to think about the nice Heinstein girl flipping on him.

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Priam stopped by the gate on his way out. His head was aflush with panicked thoughts. What had he done? He just… just 'spent the day' with someone who might be Hades' sister! Was this a sin to Athena? Was he cursed? Had he been tricked into some devilish Underworld web? Had he dishonored the memory of the Zodiac Knights? Would Hades put him in some kind of special Prison?

One thing was certain; Azrael would be rightfully pissed that Priam went missing from his patrol all day. And that was worse than everything else, in a way.

He turned to her, who had accompanied him out. "It's getting late, I should go. My friends must be worried."

She chuckled amusedly, seeing how scurry he looked. "What are you so nervous about? It's just a little dark. Aren't you a brave handyman slash forest ranger?"

He scratched his brown curls. "It's just… my buddy. I've been gone for hours. He must be worried about me."

The raven-haired woman stood aside thoughtfully. She guessed he meant that green-haired one. Now that she thought about it, he also had a shiny pendant, didn't he?

"I saw your friend a couple of times, yes.." She eyed her lover warningly. "He looks to me like he had a big broom shoved up his ass during Sunday School. Do me a kindness and don't ever bring him around, okay?"

The Bronze Saint sweated at how sharp she was. This was aggressive, but not a terribly inapt way to describe Ace', Priam had to admit. He wondered if, as possibly Pandora, she had a burgeoning 7th sense. "He's a good guy, I swear! You'd love to get to know him. He's just, um, really focused on our job."

She sized him up again. "How does a sweet guy like you hang out with a man like him, anyway?"

"We've been friends since we were kids. He's also my superior now and…" he tugged his collar. Priam hated how he always disappointed the others in the Junkyard Gang. "It was irresponsible of me to not report anything all day. He probably thinks I've gotten hurt."

"Mm," She looked up at the moon rising over the mansion roof. "I don't know. Should I let you go? I'd love to hear some more of your stories again."

The Lionet Knight gulped. Did she mean stories of things dying, like the deer? Or was she talking about that other stuff they did? Repeatedly? All over her house?

Priam glanced away and saw at a distance a car approaching. "Is that your family?"

She tilted her head to see over his broad shoulder. Her face soured like old milk. "Ugh, It's my dear sister and brother-in-law. I suppose it's better if they don't see you. They already think I'm Lillith incarnate. Imagine that they discover what we did in their nice new big couch."

Priam widened eyes. "Sister? Her husband? Oh, so you…"

Her hands put up and her purple eyes rolled. "You caught me. I'm not really the Heinsteins' favorite princess, I'm Miss Lets-Not-Speak-Of-Her-Quite-As-Much. Sure, our dad kept a Luger from his political days hidden in his desk, but I switched my sister's boring Bible for Alister Crowley's 'Moonchild', so suddenly I'm the devil of the family."

The Zodiac Knight contained a gigantic sigh of relief. So, if she wasn't the one on the way to making a family for the Heinstein line, then perhaps she wasn't the one meant to become Pandora?

Her arms folded at his dumb grin. "What are you so happy about?"

He beamed nervously. "N-Nothing! I'm just… glad I met someone so nice today. I hope we can get to know each other better."

The raven-haired woman stared at him in consideration. He was a pretty sweet guy, wasn't he? Her gut instinct about what his type was hadn't been wrong. And was also the most unselfish lover she's had yet, which was saying a lot from someone so inexperienced. That thing he did where it seemed like he even had an 'aura' for a brief moment from how good it made her feel, reallytook her by surprise.

Plus, he seemed cool with her real style, rather than that stuffy Victorian shit her family nagged her to wear. Her smirk curved mischievously. Maybe fucking him for a while longer before returning to Munich would be fun.

She closed the gate behind him and winked. "Stop by again, then, okay? That lock on that shrine might need fixing again."

Priam nodded, feeling his chest beat tightly.

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Priam shook head. No, there was no way someone so sweet could be cruel. This whole Pandora thing had to be a mistake.

He turned to his friend. "Hey, Ace?"

The Paladin grumbled. "What is it?"

The Bronze Knight gulped, bracing himself for letting the cat out of the bag "Putting that girl aside, um,... have you ever been in love?"

The green-haired Obsidian fidgeted uncomfortably, gave him a hard stare, then sighed. "Is that what she's convinced you of? That you're in love?"

"No, no, I was just wondering… what if I was?" Priam felt like Ace's stared pinned him physically against the foxhole's wall at this. "Would it be that bad?"

"She's at best an innocent citizen and at worst a vessel of Pandora, Priam. So yes, it's bad." Ace laid out. "And besides, Knights should try to marry their own first, not look over the fence. You know how things have been lately with our numbers. This would be like Mariners marrying Muvians."

"So if Helen happened to like you back, you would say no?" Priam challenged. At the very least, it got Ace's unquestioned attention. "She's training in Shamballa, and the knights say that the Rozan Gods aren't to be worshi-"

"That's different, Priam!" he immediately cut. Ace's eyes shifted, as if to look for a reason why in the room. "Helen is….is…"

"Is what?" Priam asked. Everyone in the group knew Ace had feelings for Helen that went way back before Sanctuary, except Helen herself. He just hadn't acted on them yet. "When you think about it, she's not that different from-"

"YES, she is! Helen is in OUR group! The junkyard group!" Ace cut again, standing up. "And THAT bond comes before anything else, even the Knights!"

Priam rose chin. "So it wouldn't be that bad for you, because Helen has been there with us from before all of this, all of Sanctuary and the Saints?"

Ace squinted, seeing Priam's angle. "Yes, that's right, Priam. Call me a hypocrite if you like, but just remember that it's the same reason I won't tell you on the Castellans for befriending that girl!"

What an answer to give. It was times like these that Priam realized how complex things had become for all of them. On one hand Priam could see the Knights were incredibly important to Ace, on the other he seemed willing to toss it all away if it meant protecting the Junkyard Gang. In a strange way it was like watching one of those science fiction novel robots having a conflict of primary doctrines.

A part of Priam wondered what Ace's reaction would be if he heard what Priam had really been doing with the raven-haired girl. Another wondered how many people in Sanctuary were trapped in situations like this, falling in love with people they couldn't be with because of the Holy Wars, or Myth Age rivalries or nonsense like that.

Priam imagined that, if the time came, he would have the courage to pursue his happiness regardless of those barriers. More so, he imagined his friends, even Ace, would support him on it. It was a happy image. It just wasn't one he was sure was real, in those difficult days preceding a Holy War.

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

Present Day

Shamballa,

Human Cemetery

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

The rain drizzled gently over the plateau, blessing its dry grounds and wetting the streets of the city of Shamballa. Yuzuriha cursed her timing; she finally made time to visit the mausoleum, and it had to be in the one day in an otherwise scorching hot season of the Phoenix that broke into rain. Accompanied by an Immortal Guard contingent, one of which opened an umbrella over her head so she could keep holding her bouquet of purple daisies, her march drew the eyes of the inhabitants as she made her way to an enclosed section of the citadel to its western sections.

Everyone knew where she was going and eyed her with solemn sympathy and silent good wishes, especially the older Muvians that had seen her make this walk for over fifteen decades.

Across town from the Turtle School there was a large park littered with marble gravestones handcrafted by Muvian artisans. It was enclosed by an iron fence and it had a strikingly contrasting style to that of the rest of the city, possessing many Christian symbols and building styles as opposed to eastern ones. The gate was engraved with a symbol of Athena's staff with an inscription under it.

"SHORT MAY THEIR LIVES BE,

YET SO MUCH LOVE

THEY STILL GIVE US"

This was the human cemetery, where non-Muvians who resided in the citadel, typically people from Sanctuary, were buried. Muvians preferred to cremate their corpses, a tradition dating back to the last days of the Continent of Mu, when the cult of the Phoenix was at its height. In fact, many of them believed the western practice was an offense to Genbu, their current preferred deity. This wasn't because there was anything unnatural about putting bodies to the ground, quite the contrary, but the whole coffin barrier humans liked around themselves came across a bit tacky and self-serving to Yuzuriha's people. All it did was waste good wood reinforcing the arrogance that there was some kind of barrier separating the humans from their place in nature, even after death.

As she nodded at the graves of lost friends, Yuzuriha made her way directly to a large mausoleum in the older quarter of the cemetery. It was about the size of a small chapel, with a Korean style roof of interlaced tile sections and an engraved emblem of a unicorn's profile over the main door.

She stood outside and read the inscription below the emblem:

"Here lies Yato, Saint of Unicorn,

Hero of the Lost Canvas and friend to all Muvians."

November 3rd, 1737 - August 13th, 1824

Her eyes fixed on the dates. That very day marked one hundred and fifty years since Yato drew his last breath. The Bronze Saint, who accepted being stripped of his Cosmos by Sasha at the end of the war, got to live unhindered by the burnouts that so many retired Saints experienced after their careers. While so many veterans only looked forward to reaching their fortieth or even fiftieth birthday before experiencing rapid decays of their vital strength, barely two decades of peace and normality after a youth of Sainthood, Yato got to pass away at the ripe old age of eighty-seven.

Of those seventy-two years of normality, all of them had been spent by her side, in that city, rebuilding what Hades had destroyed. Now over twice as many years have passed since he left.

"You idiot." Her coarse, harsh voice spoke, as if he was still there for her to lambast him for his infantile spats with Tenma. She rested the bouquet on the mausoleum's steps and cleaned her eyes. "Seventy-two was still not enough…Not by a long shot."

Over the years, many had warned her that this would be her fate if her heart chose a human to love; to watch them wither and die, then spend decades feeling the pain of their absence. When she was young, in fact, she perhaps believed so herself, as well that they were little more than pets fighting for the scraps of the world left behind by the enlightened Muvians.

Pick Shion instead, they said; a fellow straw-hair of good standing in Sanctuary and a common past of Sainthood. He could give her children in these times of dwindling Muvian numbers. He could protect her while she was pregnant until she was back in her fighting shape and then watch over her children while she earned their living. He also certainly wouldn't grow old, reduced to a shadow of his former self, while Yuzuriha still was at the prime of her life at one hundred and fifty.

Perhaps that was all true. What was also true, though, is that no one thought, in true honesty, that Shion had become the Pope. Not right away. From an outside perspective on the war, even in Shamballa, any one of the twelve Gold Saints that fought Alone could have been one who survived alongside Libra Dohko and took the mantle of Arles III. It wasn't until much later, when it became clear that the Pope was living a healthy life past a hundred years of age, that it became common knowledge that Arles III was a Muvian and, logically, the former Aries Gold Saint.

Which was to say that it was all still just a bunch of frowning on inter-species romance from her so-enlightened-fellow-Muvians. Hell, it became quite hard to not see the people criticizing the proximity between her and Yato as just a bunch of nosey elders worried about the descendancy of the Muvians' undead civilization. In those early days after the war ended, Yuzuriha had lost count of the looks she and Yato got when together in Shamballa. Hadn't Yuzuriha done plenty, even back then? She fought a whole Holy War to preserve life on Earth, now she had to get knocked up, too? Did people really have nothing better to do than worry about how she wouldn't provide Mu any children?

Her old lips smirked, remembering the cute way Yato looked when flustered. "We did have our fun trying it out, though, didn't we? Even though you were such a klutz…"

A guard approached her carefully. "High Elder, we just got a note from Sanctuary. Unfortunately, his Holiness won't be able to come this year either."

She tensed like coiled steel at this. "I see, thank you." The guard rejoined his brethren and Yuzuriha fumed to herself. "That old goat! He promised last year and the year before! What in damnations is he doing, signing papers about which Gold Ring to give land to, next?!"

"Oh, oh, oh, somehow I knew I felt a terrible presence in Shamballa! How are you doing, fellow Rozan Master, Yuzuriha of the Genbu school?"

Yuzuriha's eyes turned and she saw her guards giving way and bowing deeply to a tiny old man in green gi, rice hat, and cherry cane that joined her.

She irked. So, Shion couldn't show up, but this guy could?! "Dohko…Don't you have a seal to guard?"

"Now, Shamballa is just a hop from Mount Rozan, isn't it?" he pointed out, sitting next to her on a bench.

"Right, of course, a hop fifteen hundred miles long?" she pointed out, squinting skeptically.

The Libra Gold Saint took off his hat at the mausoleum in acknowledgment for Yato. "I can stop by for five minutes and pay respect to a brother-in-arms without worrying Hades' Specters will come flooding out, can't I? It's been one hundred and fifty years, after all. Yato was the last of our generation that didn't get blessed with a long life. In a way, his death was the closing of a book for me… almost as much as it was for you. The last human comrade of our time, gone."

The High Elder's tense mood softened at this. Sometimes she forgot that, underneath his jovial provocations, Dohko was still a wise, sensitive person. As a Muvian, too, she had forgotten how painful it must have been in those days for Dohko to have to finally say goodbye to the generation of his short-lived race. There was also the fact of how close Yuzuriha's husband was to Tenma, Dohko's murdered student. In a way, Dohko's pain over Yato's death must have approached her own in intensity.

After a personal moment of silence, Dohko put his hat back on. "May Athena watch over his soul. Well, with that being said; I also came to hear of some agitation in your area, regarding a certain mountain…"

Yuzuriha stiffened. She supposed it was only a matter of time. She glanced discreetly at the tremor watch her scientists gave her. It looked still.

"Kailash is sacred to Rozan teachings, almost as much as Mount Rozan itself." Dohko pointed out. "Yet I hear from Arlia's villagers that they've been recently barred from traveling there on their annual pilgrimage. Something about the High Elder of Shamballa locking the site down due to tremor activity-"

"The site has been unsafe, there have been avalanches there all year, even after the snow receded, so I'm quarantining it." she cut, then changed subjects. "Why don't you be upfront and say why you're really here? Shion sent you to cover for him like a coward, didn't he?!"

Dohko's tiny eyes widened like plates. "Me? Standing between Shion and suffering a woman's wrath? Now I question if you DO know me, yo-oh-oh! Please, I'd pay for tickets to it!"

The High Elder growled to herself. "I don't have woman's wrath! I just wish… he wasn't such a liar! He can teleport, for Athena's sake! I don't buy these excuses that he can't find a minute to walk down that mountain's steps and visit his friends! I swear, sometimes…"

Dohko tipped hat up to look at her. "Sometimes? Yes?"

Her head slumped, and her hot anger sizzled into cold melancholy. "Sometimes I think that after the war Shion has locked the world outside his fancy halls, like he used to do with all his problems when we were young." She confessed, thinking back to their days together under Master Hakurei. "Back when Shion and I studied at Jamir, he'd just get into these moods where he would go into his study and not leave for weeks, just reading book after book, working on armor after armor… and there would be nothing out there for him for weeks on end. But this time, it feels like he's decided to do it for years, instead."

Dohko scratched his beard pensively. "I've been told that lately he keeps quite an active schedule with his Gold Saints, especially the new ones he's been recruiting recently. I have to find it all out through intermediaries, though; he won't tell his best friend a thing about it, even with sake on the table."

Yuzuriha tensed. This was yet another big problem that both of them were having with Shion as of late, but a far more delicate one, too.

"He's convinced himself that Saga and the others are his old friends reborn, Dohko." Yuzuriha hissed, shaking head in lament. "It's his special project now; to raise these kids to become the generation of Gold Saints that his could not. Can you believe that?! I never thought Muvian senility was still a thing, but apparently there it is, making my oldest living friend see our dead friends faces in children!"

"I'll withhold judgment until I see one of these young men myself."

"If that's the case, stick around, because he asked me to take one up to the Sun Temple when he lied about how he'd show up today!" she revealed, getting his attention. "Shion just picked him up in India and insists he's Asmita reborn! He's completely losing his mind!"

Dohko glanced at the huge tower at the center of the city. "Mm, Asmita, uh? Personally, I'd prefer he recruited some cute ladies as Gold Saints." Dohko confessed, laughing perversely. "I would even volunteer to train them, hi-hi-hi!"

She frowned in disgust. "You… are you an old tiger or an old pig?!"

The old man shook head unashamedly. "Ah, right, I'm the pig, and you thought Yato was attractive because of his hard working nature and confidence, correct?"

She widened eyes, appalled.

The old man squinted. "I'm not questioning your feelings for him, I know you loved him very much. But really, Yuzuriha, every Saint in Sanctuary and their dead mother knew those feelings started off quite differently in nature." Dohko laughed, tapping his cane. "Oh, I remember the looks you'd give him around Sanctuary! I've never seen a lady so anxious to teach a naïve young man like Yato the ropes! And other such toys."

The High Elder turned completely red, her fingers clenching like she could strangle him. "You…dirty old man! How dare you?!" she took the bouquet she brought and slapped the back of his skull with. She pointed at the mausoleum. "That's my husband there you're talking about! Have some respect!"

The old man grumbled and picked his hat back on. "Ugh, why the indignance? My memory must be better than yours, cause I remember me and you at the Rodario tavern calling him your 'horny little unico-"

The Elder ignited with dark green cosmos that made the air blow with great force suddenly. "Pick your next words very carefully, Dohko!"

Dohko shifted eyes and fidgeted defensively. "…I meant to say, your 'loving husband-to-be'."

Yuzuriha took a deep breath to calm herself down. Sometimes Dohko made her want to summon a whole hurricane that'd blow the old man away straight back to Rozan. "My point is, Shion's obsessions worry me. Yes, right now he's just investing way too much energy into his little projects, but before we know it, he'll stop seeing his friends, start making strange decisions, researching weird things…"

"So, he's been doing his job as the Pope!" Dohko pointed out. "What's the worst that could happen?"

"The worst is that he might turn into Lord Sage, who thought of nothing but his plans of revenge!" she pointed out. Yuzuriha cleared her throat. "Do not misunderstand me; I respected Sage very much, especially since he was my Master's brother! But… but Sage also let Aspros' sickness fester under him. And those two Princes of Hades to attack us without warning, just because he thought he could use them to get to Hypnos and Thanatos! Sage blinded himself to a lot of Sanctuary's problems. Problems that put my life and especially that of Tenma in danger!"

Dohko's face staggered in a pained expression.

Yuzuriha bit her tongue. How could she? "I… I'm sorry, Dohko. I didn't mean to bring Tenma up. You just… rile me up sometimes. Please forgive me."

"Shion isn't Sage, Yuzuriha." Dohko shifted, his voice tense. "He doesn't have death gods to seek revenge on."

"No," Yuzuriha acknowledged. "But he has Priam's ghost."

"Alright, alright, that's enough!" Dohko demanded, waving hand. "You're making me regret coming here to visit at all."

She folded arms, just happy she made him forget about Kailash. "No one asked you, you old pig!" She then sighed and changed subject. "Did you at least hear he gave the Delphinus Cloth to a Mariner?"

"I've heard rumblings, yes." Dohko admitted, pacing around. For once, he seemed more nervous than she was. In this sense, Dohko was still a true Gold Saint, fearful of any pact made with traditional enemies of the Zodiac despite his famed wisdom and tolerance of others. "I don't know what he's thinking, but…"

"I do." she affirmed. "It's his way to make the mariners feel indebted to him. I keep close correspondence with Arthur Solo. You wouldn't believe the mess his daughter being made into a Saintia caused in the Households. You'd think Poseidon himself got shackled into Cape Sounion by this one gesture."

Dohko looked sour as an old grape at even considering this. However, given the gravity of this sign, he seemed to open up a bit to her point of view. "Tsk, when did Shion become such a shrewd politician? I remember when we joked the worst thing we could do in Sanctuary was being Popes. Manipulating, bribing, offering placations, making these chess maneuvers …"

She slumped hands, eyes saddening. "I'm sorry, Dohko. This is just how he is now."

Dohko put his hat back on. "Like I said earlier, he's just doing his mission to Athena. We all have our place in Sanctuary…"

Yuzuriha stood aback, hand in hip, stunned. "You poor old jester. You can't admit it, can you? Human men really are the opposite of ours, just bottling it all in. If you and Shion were in opposite places and you were the one turning away your friends, I don't think he'd hesitate for a second to come help you."

The old master paused. He looked back at her, then Yato's mausoleum, looking grumpy. "I'm sorry Shion hasn't turned up this year either, Yuzuriha. Please try to forgive him. None of us, even Rozan Masters like ourselves, can really understand what it's like to be in his chair, up that mountain."

Her hands clenched, remembering her last conversation with him. "He sure acted happy when Atlae graduated on our call."

"My Master Haisaku acted the same." Dohko reminded her. He exhaled tiredly. "She'd give me her lessons, then take off in some archeology expedition, and I wouldn't see her until well after I thought she had gotten herself killed. And then when I'd see her again, she'd act all happy, like it was nothing…"

The Elder's eyes softened. "Yes, Dohko, but she also gave her life for you. (*) No matter what, you know Saint Haisaku loved you."

(*) Chapter 66

The purple dwarf paused, tense. He looked up at her, huffing resignedly. "She did, didn't she?"

Their captain looked at the sky and rushed in. "High Elder, your guests have arrived."

The elderly duo looked up to the south. Emerging like a giant over the top of the himalayan peaks, an enormous ship of large sails, big fabric fins on its hull flanks, a dragon head bow and enormous fiery thrusters arrived in Shamballa. It sailed over the clouds into their valley like its massive weight wasn't even present in their world, uninhibited by its Orichalcum Drive from wind currents, clouds or inertia. Its shadow darkened the entire graveyard for a moment as it passed above their heads, showing off a belly dotted with gun ports and its expansive flank fins. Voices outside the cemetery of awe and surprise were heard in the streets and the guards at the walls were spotting rushing to their battlements.

Dohko hummed, watching the Sea Dragon lower its flying unto Lake Showan'u, located just outside the citadel. "You have been making friends."

She backed off from him. "That's right. Some of us are working to change the world for the better, to bury the past for real, not just sitting their butts on a rock."

"I have an important job, High Elder. That rock isn't going to warm on its own." Dohko mocked, heading out. "Maybe next time I visit, I'll have someone to teach your 'Atlae' a lesson in good martial arts, who knows?"

She held back to herself, gritting teeth. "As if! You've rejected everyone who asked you to train them, including that poor Saint from Akassius' group! What kind of Master of Rozan doesn't pass on his teachings? Are you just going to sit in front of that waterfall until the day you croak and Hades is set loose?"

A guard approached her carefully. "Ma'am Elder? The Vice-Admiral has hailed us, requesting an audience. One Marianne Solo."

"Send her in." Yuzuriha would love to meet the source of Atlae's inspiration.

"One more thing, Elder." The guard tugged collar nervously. "She also wishes to introduce you to Josef Gerasimov, who's also here."

Yuzuriha blinked. Dohko, too, had to turn head.

"… Gerasimov?! Of the Artic Ocean?!" she asked. Weren't they sworn enemies of the Solos?

"Yes, ma'am. They have, um…" the guard looked at his comrades as if to confirm this next bit. "… emerged their particular ship in Lake Showan'u."

The High Elder was agape. "What do you mean, emerged?"

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

Shamballa Outskirts

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

Atlae rushed up the plateau hill and roused his friends. "Come on, guys, we're practically there! Come see the city!"

Krishna helped Maiden Daese climb up another rock, seemingly unburdened by his backpacks' weight after finally adjusting to the altitude. "Just a minute, Atlae. Geez, that boy…"

"You're gonna get the captain to pass out again, dummy!" Caça yelled from far behind, trying to catch up.

Daese took Krishna's hand to climb up the last ledge. "Thank you, captain." And stood up to behold, in awe, the capital of the Muvians. "….W-Whow!"

At the side of a large lake in that plateau top, the circular citadel was now before them, with its streets in grid, its roofs with blue tiles and its main plaza centered by the tall Sun Temple. From their particular spot, they could see above the gray walls of blue roof tiles surrounding it into its streets that thousands of Muvians moved back and forth, enjoying the Summer Festival and putting up decorations. The border watch sentry just outside the main gate diligently checked incoming visitors from many Muvian villages throughout Tibet, Nepal, Kashmir, and Altishahr, this last one being the southern region of Xinjiang where most of the province's Muvian settlements were located.

"There you see the main gate, where everyone has to go through to enter the city! It has a cool drawing of a giant on it that you'll love!" Atlae's finger then pointed northwards, to the large body of water that supplied the city. "And that's lake Showan'u, where…um..!"

Atlae stood agape, seeing the two enormous vessels parked on the large lake.

Krishna joined him and saw the large sails on the finned battleship. "The Sea Dragon. Marianne is here."

"And what the hell is that thing next to it?!" Caça gawked, pointing at the black, round construction in the water. "It's even bigger than the Sea Dragon!"

Daese widened her green eyes, recognizing the architecture of the Kraken from weapons she had seen during the Battle of Bluegrad. "That's… Bluegrad weapon tech! On a submarine? But it's huge! And we're up in the Himalayas! How did it get up here?!"

The group saw Atlae rush down the slopes to the lake. Krishna followed. "Hey, wait up, Atlae!"

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

Entering the lake shore, Atlae searched back and forth through the camps of Mariners that now packed the place. "Mari'! Are you here?! MARI!"

The sailor-uniformed mariners gawked and stood in his way. "HEY! This is a restricted area!"

They held him back with their hands. "You have no permission to approach the LPS Sea Dragon! Back off!"

The Muvian eyed them frantically. He tried to think for once. "I'm sorry. I… I just want to see the Vice-Admiral, please!"

"The Vice-Admiral isn't here." A voice from the ship confirmed. The Mariners around Atlae entered salute and a pink-eyed young man of curly cyan hair came walking out the boarding bridge. He wore a white uniform of the same level of decoration as Baian and carried what first looked like a baton, but Atlae then realized had holes in it like a flute. He had it held on one end the rest tucked under the arm. "She's already headed for the city to meet the High Elder, Atlae."

The Muvian widened eyes, recognizing him. He beamed. "You're… Sorrento! Sorrento V…" he paused, holding chin pensively. This one had a strange last name, didn't he? "V…Veypract?"

The XO rolled eyes and tried to smile. He was used to this from the Greeks, too. "It's Weyprecht. Long time no see, Atlae."

The Muvian grimaced in guilt. "You remember my name! Wow…even though it's been so long since the Delphi school and we only met once. I now feel kind of bad I screwed up yours."

The XO shrugged. "You're quite memorable, being the only Muvian in that school at the time." He looked over and saw the rest of the gang coming in. He smirked, spotting another familiar face. "Why, hello there, second-place. Another face I could never forget."

Caça gritted teeth before his archnemesis from their conservatorium days. "Just my luck…First Baian in Sanctuary and now mermaid-boy?!"

"It's siren-boy, thank you very much." Sorrento amicably deflected. He wasn't there to feed into fights, he just couldn't resist that first jab at Caça's infamously short-fused ego. "Vice-Admiral Marianne officialized me as her second-in-command on the Sea Dragon after my last concert tour. From what I understand, I have all of you to thank for it."

Atlae scratched head. "You do?"

Sorrento waved at the amazing battleship behind him. "Of course; Rear Admiral Baian was putting up quite the competition for it, and then suddenly after the VADM's Triumph she announced me as her pick for XO. It's quite the honor."

"Speaking of that asshole, why is it that everytime I run into this ship, I find a weasel like you sniffing up her skirt?!" Caça pointed out. "Who's dick you sucked off to get into my idol's radiant space?!"

The Weyprecht heir only smirked at the crassness. "I assure you, Caça; I earned my position here, and not through such underhanded means. As the top of the '73 class, it's only natural I'd be a close second choice to Baian and, unlike him, I don't rely on my parents' clout to get where I am. Besides… I think the VADM enjoys my music."

Atlae perked up. "She… she does?"

Krishna noticed his reaction. "Poor kid. You got so much competition for her. You're lucky Marianne seems like a good girlfriend."

Sorrento laid out his flute, which he kept by his baton. "Yes, it's my main passion, other than the Navy. She says I remind her of someone she cares about deeply, who's also learning the flute."

The mood shifted in Atlae. "Oh! Umm…" He then flushed. "She really said that?"

Sorrento eyed Atlae's neck, where his Xu flute laid. He smiled and lied a bit. "I do my best to meet her standards, but she says her friend's music warms her heart in a way mine cannot. I suppose I have much to learn to be as good as him."

Krishna and Daese awed, impressed by Sorrento's kindness, while Atlae beamed silently, wishing he could thank Sorrento without admitting he was Marianne's secret date.

Caça, by contrast, inflated his chest like a balloon fish. "AH! That's because your music sucks! I bet you put my muse to sleep with all your fruity high notes, don't you?! And to think you beat me to this boat!" he sneered unpleasantly at Sorrento. "I knew you just impressed those old conservatory hags with your dumb Mozart garbage. Admit it! I was always the superior artist in Néa Delphi!"

Sorrento groaned. He was on a mission, but now Caça was starting to get provocative. "Yes, of course, that must have been it. You were always the unappreciated genius, Caça. It certainly wasn't your terrible attitude to discipline in cla-"

Krishna stepped between them before an argument broke out. "Excuse me, XO, I don't mean to interrupt, but… what is all of this? Why are you here? And what is that giant… squid ship in the lake there?"

The Weyprecht hummed. "Uh, I suppose you all do need to catch up a bit, correct? I'm afraid I can't leave my post for long, but you can find the VADM at the Sun Temple. You should also meet captain Josef."

Krishna widened eyes. "Josef?! As in… Josef Gerasimov?! Grandson of Patrician Nikolai?!"

Even Atlae recognized the surname. "That's that family Mari and her parents always worried about."

"I know how you feel, but it's not quite as bad as it sounds." Sorrento signaled his men to guard the ship and led them out. "I'll accompany you to the gate and catch you all up. It all started in Mozambique, where we chased the remnants of Wolffe's crew…"

The group headed off. Krishna, however, saw Maiden Daisy lingering behind, staring at the submarine. "Maiden?"

Daese squinted, noticing all the fine technological details. "Adaptable hexagonal plating that doubles as barrier projectors, an enormous size, the monstrous design… this battleship screams Doctor Gabriel Lantis. What do the Mariners think they're doing, making deals with Bluegrad and their insane scientist? Priam has to know about this." She turned to join them. "Excuse me, captain, I was just admiring that ship. Shall we go?"

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

Chapter 92

Third Arc

Episode 20

Reunion at Shamballa

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

Sun Temple

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

At the floors housing the High Elder's office, Libra Dohko climbed on top of a particularly tall table tombstone and shielded eyes with hands, spotting over the walls the enormous mass of water being moved by a colossal submarine with squid tails emerging. "Yo-oh-oh! What a toy! Did one of your Muvians make that submarine?"

"Certainly not! We don't make such ridiculous weapons anymore!" She turned to the guards. "Give Marianne Solo permission for whatever she requires, but only allow her officers inside the walls. I don't want any friction whatsoever between our citizens and her lower crew, especially with the Summer Festival in the works."

"Understood, Elder." They nodded, before departing.

Dohko took notice of the event. "The Summer Festival? Is that why so many lamps are being hung outside? Interesting. You won't make weapons anymore, but you still honor Suzaku, the Phoenix."

Yuzuriha tensed again. "Why are you still here?! And get off that table, it was hand carved by my Master! It's older than the two of us put together!"

"Fine, fine." The old dwarf jumped down. "Just given the occasion and that we've mentioned Master Haisaku, I thought we'd talk about the recent incident at Death Queen Island. It has Sanctuary in a stir. Shouldn't Shamballa be a bit more hesitant to show her constellation their respects this year?"

Yuzuriha bit finger, then tapped a newspaper from Sanctuary Town she had saved from the month before. "I've heard from Sanctuary about that incident, yes. It was hard not to." Then put hands in hips defensively. "But that's exactly why we're doing it now, in August, rather than at the start of the season. What am I supposed to do, tell my people they're not allowed to celebrate one of their favorite events of the year?"

Dohko combed his long whiskers. "No, no, but it is a bit… tactless? Considering the Goddess said festival is about just finished trying to revive her cult and burn the world to the ground. Again."

The Elder rubbed eyes. It seemed at least once in a generation, Suzaku, or the Queen as she was known by her cultists, tried something like this. It usually ended with simply a new Master being chosen, but this timed it seemed a whole new masked avatar had been created called Guilty.

"Did anyone get hurt?" she dared to ask.

"Now that is a silly question; of course people have gotten hurt, Yuzuriha." Dohko confirmed, tapping cane disappointedly like a teacher would tap a board. "One day, as Rozan Masters… we will need to do something about that place."

Yuzuriha showed her teeth. "Everyone always thinks that, somehow, we Muvians are responsible for Death Queen Island, don't they? It's been five thousand years since the Age of Myth and still we are blamed for it. Have we come to live in the mountains so we'd continue to pay the price for our ancestors sins? Was losing our homeland not enough?! Even the mariners are seeing past that now, so why can't the Saints?!"

Dohko laughed "Ah, and there we get to the other matter; the Mariners. Why don't you tell me all about this new friendship you have with them?"

*knock knock*

The door opened and a guard politely showed her head. "Madam, it's the Vice-Admiral."

Yuzuriha sighed, holding head. "I apologize, send her in." she glanced venomously at Dohko. "Not one word from you, understood?!."

Dohko headed for the door. "Worry not, I am bored by these commerce treaty businesses. I'll just head back to my very important job of sitting on a rock."

Yuzuriha sighed in relief. She could almost thank him for the kindness of not making a spectacle out of her important meeting with Solo's daughter..

Marianne Solo was allowed in by the guard, presenting herself to the High Elder. She snapped to attention and saluted. "Vice-Admiral Marianne Solo, at your service."

Yuzuriha nodded, "Welcome to Shamballa, Vice Admiral." and studied her for the first time.

Arthur's daughter was every bit as impressive as Atlae always made her seem through words; dressed head to toe in pristine Mariner military clothes of white and blue, decorated with medals on her chest, armored in hands, arms, leggings, and shoulders with plates of the Dolphin Cloth and facing the scowling leader of the Muvians without a bit of nervousness or uncertainty in her voice. Her cerulean blue hair, decorated with strands of her mother's Bluegrad pale-blue, was tied in a military knot under the Dolphin Cloth's fin-eared metal headband, while her pale blue eyes had nigh-imperceptible contact lenses. Being part of the Mariner military, the Saintia silk skirt had been elongated down to her knee armor pads, rather than just mid-thighs, while a short white cravat Yuzuriha had seen Arthur also wear at events covered her center chest.

"Welcome to Shamballa, Vice-Admiral." Yuzuriha greeted. She glanced at Dohko. "I'm sorry I was unable to meet you at the gate. I had,,… important visits."

"Not at all." Marianne saw the old, short man of frighteningly purple skin passing her by, whose tiny fingers waved hello. Marianne had no idea the Elder was so attentive to her citizens, but this person didn't seem to have Muvian dots. "Hello, sir."

"Hi, hi, pleasure to meet you! My trip here is already worth it for meeting such a princess!" He tipped his farming hat at the beautiful Mariner girl. He walked away to leave the room. "I'll just leave you two to your business, then."

Marianne chuckled as the door closed, "What a nice old curmudgeon." but she could swear she saw the Elder briefly growl at what he said, though, so she changed subject. "Elder, I am here in the capacity of representing all seven Households."

"I'm aware. You're here to sign the renewal of our treaty of friendship, correct?" Yuzuriha then reached down to search for the paper.

As she did, Marianne's eyes discretely looked around the office in fascination, seeing all the artifacts, books and items on the wall and desk. So, this was the personal space of Atlae's Master? It looked so interesting. Everywhere she looked there were objects of wisdom, old presents of friends and even a figurine of the Crane Cloth, which Elder Yuzuriha was famous for having once used.

"I assume you have the households' approval in more than just your word, correct?" Yuzuriha sternly asked, as she pulled the contract back. "I must make clear that the people of Mu need the assurance of all the mariners, not just Arthur's, that this path we are on will continue? Or will a disgruntled Household suddenly pull their support as the people of Mu need Mariners to keep their word the most?"

Marianne gulped. What a shift of tone. Was this a test of how serious Marianne was as the voice of her people? She did not expect this encounter to be easy, but the firmness of the Elder's stare and voice gave an edge to her words Marianne felt quite intimidated by. "My word today is that of all the Mariners, High Elder. I wouldn't have wasted your time, if not. If it reassures you, though, captain Gerasimov is ready at the Kraken to lend credence to my words."

Yuzuriha widened eyes. "Gerasimov?!"

Marianne nodded and kept her voice steady. "Correct. You know what my father's relationship with them used to be. Despite that, Josef has come to show his authority among the Mariners is still solid, even after these last few years of working with your people. Hopefully that is enough proof of the Mariners' unity in this matter. If you'd like, can I have him over and give his signature as well?"

The Elder squinted and scoffed, glancing outside the window. "... So that monstrosity at the lake is theirs. I imagined as much. There's also no need to make Captain Josef climb all these stairs. If half the things Atlae has said about you are true, I'm sure the Households all trust you very much."

The girl smiled, touched. The Elder looked so stern, but it seemed she was actually quite kind. She also figured as much Atlae spent his three years in Shamballa gushing about her, but it was still nice to see it for herself.

Yuzuriha handed her the feather pen. "To three more years of friendship, miss Solo."

She nodded determinedly, took the pen and flashed her eyes through the terms. Seeing no changes of report compared to their previous arrangement, Marianne signed the paper without hesitation.

She rested the feather pen and sighed, almost relieved. "It's done."

Yuzuriha stored the contract and smirked, seeing the young girl's tension release. "Did you expect fireworks?"

Marianne chuckled. "I guess I must have. We're making history, are we not?"

"Not quite yet." Yuzuriha pointed out, joining Marianne out of her study. "You may have the word of all Mariners, miss Solo, but the Elders of the Muvians have their own democracy. The treaty won't be ratified on our end until I gather the signature of all the community leaders of our people."

The young girl widened eyes. This was not what she was led to understand. Father had told her Yuzuriha's signature was as good as everyone else's.

The High Elder saw the concern in her and smiled. "Don't worry. I'm quite optimistic about them turning their approval in. Shamballa has changed a lot these past few years thanks to the new commerce."

Marianne sighed in relief. "Oh, good." With how intense the Elder seemed, every sign of resistance in the conversation came off as quite serious, so for a second she thought the agreement in danger after all. "I wish you wouldn't startle me like that, Elder. My father worked extremely hard these past few years to make sure nothing went wrong between us."

Yuzuriha guided her out. "I understand. Also, just between the two of us?" and she smirked discreetly at her. "Those old coots in the council wouldn't dare to say 'no' to me."

The Vice-Admiral let out a laugh of amazement. Was that the case? What a cool lady! If only Marianne commanded half the respect in her men Yuzuriha just implied, she'd be the happiest Vice-Admiral in Mariner history.

Yuzuriha looked at her wrist carrying the seismic reading watch her scientists gave her. It still said Mount Kailash was calm. "The only way things could fall short now is if some kind of catastrophe cast mutual suspicion between our people again within the next few days it will take for our council to gather." If it stayed that for a few more months they should all be in the clear. "Arthur also told me Azrael of all people tried to accuse us of making his bodyguard go missing. Why do I feel like this all can't be a coincidence? But what business would he have hurting friendship between Muvians and Mariners? Is he that petty? Perhaps I should contact the Kailash site when I'm done with this girl, just to be safe."

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

Shamballa Streets

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

"Welcome to Shamballa, everyone!" Atlae greeted, waving hands at the busy square streets filled with men and women of dotted foreheads. "This is the town where I trained!"

His three companions followed him in awe, sensing the delicious smells of food, breathing the fresh air of the lake canals going through the town and aweing at the toys, crafts, and electronics being sold in the laboratory shops. Lanterns celebrating the Phoenix, goddess of the south and summer, were hanged in the corners of roofs and lampposts, while the far off Sun Temple and its many floors were dressed with orange and yellow curtains shaped like plumes that waved with the wind, giving the impression of many phoenix tails waving.

Hands of shopkeepers waved at them. "Hello, Atlae!"

"Welcome back, Atlae!"

"Hello, everyone!" Atlae happily responded.

"Back to Shamballa, Atlae?" Another selling mog-mogs, a Tibetan dumpling, greeted them. He took a plate. "Here, it's for you."

"Thank you so much!" Atlae celebrated. "Guys, you should try this!"

Caça was the first to reach in. "Don't mind me-"

Krishna held Caça's wrist and reached for his own wallet. "Hold on, you two, we should pay first."

"No need." The shopkeeper assured. "Atlae used to clean the street here of snow for free while he trained."

"Last summer, he took my car off the canal after my daughter drove into it." Another in the next store added.

"Yeah, and he used to help me load my store." A music shop owner having tea nearby also mentioned. "These pianos aren't light, I'll tell you that much. I still owe him for that, actually."

Daese awed at all the gratitude the Muvian accrued. "Atlae, you used to help all these people?"

But the teenager shook head in embarrassment. "It's not that big a deal. They were all tasks that gave good strength training and Master always encouraged me to make friends in Shamballa. In my last year I pretty much took over the whole snow shoveling business."

The group all took different mog-mogs sunk in achar sauce to their mouths and delighted themselves in the tasty mixture of herbs on the cooked dough. Caça in particular was in awe, taking three more off the plate in a single snap of a pair of chopsticks handed to him by Atlae, dunking them in sauce and shoving them straight into his mouth. "What the hell?! Why are these so good?!"

Krishna cringed in embarrassment. "Don't mind Caça. This is delicious, I hope all Muvian food is just as good. We mariners all think we taught the world how to eat."

Daese smiled at him with a knowing look. "There's some truth to that, captain."

Krishna noticed it and scratched head, flushed that she really liked his cooking. "Ah, well… I'm glad you think so."

While he gobbled up his mog-mogs, Caça looked over and saw a porcelain store selling something he recognized. "Hey, wait a minute. What the hell is this?!"

The group followed him. "What's wrong?"

"Welcome to my store, good sir." The shopkeeper welcomed, giving him the broadest smile. His hand waved through his goods. "Would you like a vase? Or tea set? Or could I interest you in something of Muvian glass?"

"Whatever, pal! Where did you get this?!" Caça pointed at a set of wall tiles painted with careful blue and yellow patterns.

Atlae couldn't find anything wrong with it. "Caça, what is it? It's just porcelain-"

"No, it's not! These are azulejos!" Caça protested. All three of them exchanged confused looks. It made Caça fume. "You… Are you so ignorant?! Azulejos are my household's other art!"

Atlae awed. "Oh, you mean like your singing and sow-that?"

The already pale mariner nearly lost all blood in his face. "You ignorant…Not sow-that! Saudade! And these 'azulejos' are Mariner blue tiles! Some arrangements are worth hundreds of thousands of Drachmas!"

Krishna 'oh'ed, finally recognizing them as he took one to hand. "Ah, yeah, I've seen them in the walls of corridors of the richer households. When you assemble them together, they form a sort of wall painting."

"That's so cool!" Atlae praised. "So you can make puzzle pieces, like when my Master would have me solve those really hard sliding pad riddles in her training levels? That's incredible, Caça."

Caça pointed threateningly at the shopkeeper. "I oughta have you sued, buddy! These are my family's trademark! Where the hell did you get these?!"

The shopkeeper seemed immune to the aggression, offering the explanation with a gentle smile. "Why, we bought them off the Mariners, of course." The shopkeeper merely pulled up some more sets, some showing pieces of a dragon while others just former quarters of a curvy patterns that would go on a wall repeatedly. "Mariner goods have become very popular in Shamballa, sir, especially over the past few months. It used to be very difficult to get these, but the High Elder has made great efforts to befriend the households and so it's become much easier to acquire these. We make a neat profit, too!"

Krishna rubbed chin pensively as he studied the rest of the store. "I never thought I'd see Mariner goods all the way here. This is incredible. I guess things really have changed. What do you think, miss Dae-" He turned over and realized the Maiden was gone. "Uh? Where did miss Daisy go?"

Atlae shrugged. "She was here a second ago. Maybe a store caught her interest, too?"

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

"Welcome to my store!" the Muvian man greeted. "Would you like that issue of 'Knights of the Zodiac', ma'am? I noticed you seemed very interested in it."

Daese's daze snapped and she felt flushed. She had been staring at the strange magazine in the stand for a while. It showed an artwork of what she thought to be a big historical figure of the Knights battling the Wyvern Specter, but covered in Muvian bubblegum advertisement.

"Um… I…" she looked at the cover of the comic book in the store stand again and her heart sunk, seeing a version of Saint Cyrul in inaccurate armor dueling a very muscled-looking Wyvern Rhadamanthys in some kind of stormy background. "How much?"

The shopkeeper offered her a price, which she accepted, and he took the comic out for her. "This series is very popular with young men. Is it a present for a friend, ma'am? I can have it wrapped."

"No, no need.." Daese admitted, feeling utterly embarrassed that she had to admit buying something for little children. "Maybe I can give it to Cerah, later, if Lucian lets me see her…"

The shopkeeper's mouth made an o in fascination. "Really? I've heard humans switch up a lot of things compared to us, Ma'am. If you don't mind me asking, are comic books popular with human girls like yourself, instead?"

She smiled nervously and took the issue "With some of us, yes. Thank you." Daese then departed and tried to find a seat to take a more careful look.

Sitting at a bench by the shop district, her eyes flickered through it.

Knights of the Zodiac, issue #1

It's the Myth Age and the Holy War known as the Zodiac War has begun. The evil Wyvern Rhadamanthys, former King of Crete and Judge of Hades, has enacted his devious plan to fire a Muvian Satellite Space Beam over Sanctuary.

The opening page then showed Rhadamanthys, whose unibrow was drawn as wide as his muscles were made big, cackle maniacally about how those pesky Gold Saints of the Zodiac League couldn't stop him now and daring Saint Leo to try.

Already, Daese felt utterly confused. "What? This is completely ridiculous! Satellites? Zodiac League?! That's not how that war went! The Zodiac War was a conflict when the Order was formed. Saint Cyrul was a former warrior of Hades turned to Athena! Hades had a plan to make the moon crash into the Earth, not a space laser! It was an extremely important war for Sanctuary because that's how Capricorn Saints got Excalibur and the Order was first born!"

To stop his machinations, Athena's mightiest Gold Saints assembled to form… the Zodiac League! In this special new comic book series, the League forges an alliance with Saint Cyrul, his mighty Excalibur and his ferocious Zodiac Knights! The villainous Rhadamanthys now has a match to his powerful Greatest Caution beams! Can this unprecedented friendship stop the evil Judge and return the Satellite to the Muvians? Or will this new Order of Saints falter in their mission to stop Hades' evil minions?!

(Included in this issue, The Ultimate Arachne Saint and Professor M's X-Muvians team up to take on… Mars, the Martian Muvian Hunter?! Stay Tuned!)

The flesh-and-blood Zodiac Knight read through the pages. She had to gasp, seeing the honorable Saint Cyrul, patron of the Zodiac Knights, depicted as a brooding dark knight struggling with teenage emotions, alcoholism, Muvian drugs, and even going through a storyline where he breaks up with the 'Lady of the Lake' to have a forbidden passion for Pandora, who for some reason was dressed with fake cat ears. They also gave him an English butler and a cave where he kept all his weapons and armors. England didn't even exist at the time!

It was heartbreaking. Daese slumped tragically, incapable of believing so much wrongness could be injected into such an important story of her people.

Her hands shook, wanting to rip the comic to shreds. How could they have destroyed their first Castellan so much, reduced him to this…embarrassing portrayal? Her people had only been gone for little less than a decade, and already their legacy was being twisted into cheap entertainment for teenagers.

A couple of Muvian boys dressed in lab coats, likely from the alchemy schools in Shamballa, passed by and saw what she was reading. "Oooh, look, that's issue #1!"

His friend practically jumped. "Lady, you're so lucky! I thought that issue was no longer out. How early did you wake up to get today's morning publications?"

Daese sighed. She looked at the excited boys, thought about it for a bit, and then handed them the comic. "Here, enjoy."

They couldn't believe their starry eyes as they touched the comic. "Really?! Thank you, lady! You're the best!"

Daese waved goodbye with a smile, but dropped her spirits as soon as they vanished around the street corner. They shouldn't thank her, after all; Daese just couldn't bear to teach her little sister about her people through such horrible junk. But at least the pages filled with cool action and power suits would make those two Muvian boys happy.

However, what did it mean for the memory of her people? Was everyone going to remember the Zodiac Knights like this? Through the imagination of Shamballa comic book illustrators that had no idea what they were talking about and probably didn't care to get it right so long as it sold fuzzy-pop bubblegum? Knight Roland's song of departure burned in her blood again, the blood of her oathsworn parents, reminding her of her duty to carry on the memory of the Order. Was it all going to be pointless? Even if one day she did kill Azrael? Were the thousands of years of service to Athena against Hades going to be spoken of as nothing but an archaic inconvenience to Sanctuary that they scrubbed off as soon as they could?

"Why the long face, Sister?"

Daese looked up and gasped, seeing the bandaged face on the tall, brown-curled man with the sweet smile. "Pri…I…" she covered her mouth and looked around to see if someone recognized him. "What are you doing here?!"

He shrugged and showed off his black Athenian priest robe going down to his knees. "I've come to welcome our religious mission, of course. And check on how you're doing?" He glanced at the Chrysaor crew, who continued to check the stores. "Can you get away from your group?"

Daese frowned sadly and looked over. "Give me a minute, I'll see what I can do."

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

"Oh, so you have to go now?" Atlae asked, somber.

She nodded. "I've met Father here already. I'm afraid this is where we part ways. I'm sorry, everyone."

Caça shrugged uncaringly. "Oh well, such is life. See you never." He grabbed Atlae and tried to drag him off. "Come on, dummy, show me where the Muvian bars are."

But the strong Muvian held still. "It's just so sudden, I was hoping I could show you around first, maybe even introduce Mari' to you?"

While she enjoyed Atlae's company, Daese would really rather not expose herself too much to a Mariner Vice-Admiral who might be a bit more familiar with Sanctuary's 'Wanted' list. "I'm sorry, Atlae. I'll miss you all very much. Perhaps someday we'll see each other again."

"Wait, miss Daisy." Krishna called, gently taking her hand. He withdrew it when he saw her face flush. "Um, you were serious about that, correct? We'll see each other again before we leave, correct?"

Caça and Atlae exchanged a puzzled look as they saw the Maiden's face turn red and look away.

Daese shook head briskly to dispel her thoughts. "Y-yes, of course. I'd love to." She frowned briefly, knowing she was about to tell a lie. After checking on Azrael, after all, she would have to go back to Priam's group. "Right after I speak with the head of my mission, captain…"

Sensing something strange in the Maiden's voice, Krishna hesitated, but eventually nodded. "Yes, right, that's what you came here for, after all. I'll… just follow my crew around town, then. But I promise, I will come to say goodbye at least once after we're done."

Daisy spared Caça and Atlae a departing bow, then met Krishna's eyes. She felt the pull to stay a bit longer with him in her chest. Breathing in, she reminded herself of her duty, smiled and nodded firmly. "Thank you for everything, captain! Hopefully Athena will have us meet again."

Then the trio watched the maiden rush off to the crowd, towards the robed man with the hood. They saw him greet her and guide her away. It wasn't until Daisy was completely out of sight that Krishna turned to his crew, looking like someone just sank his school ship.

Atlae frowned. He looked so sad, just like when he talked about miss Rebecca's death. "I'll miss maiden Daisy, too, captain."

Caça scoffed bemusedly. "Not as much as the captain, Atlae, I assure you."

The Chola tensed, his hands clenching in frustration. Why did he have the feeling the Maiden was trying to cut him off gently? Just as things seemed to be going well with someone, they severed so quickly again? He wondered if he ever made Rebecca feel this way, whenever he missed one of her hints that she'd like to get to know him better.

The captain sighed deeply. Krishna took both of them by the shoulders and accompanied them off, chuckling. "Come on, show us the Sun Temple, Atlae. I'd like to see the site up close, maybe check if your foot left a dent on the bell."

Atlae frowned. Even he could tell the laughter was fake. "Okay, captain."

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

Sun Temple

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

"Arthur has told me in privacy that you've decided to couple yourself with Atlae." Yuzuriha revealed to Marianne, as they went down another flight of stairs.

Marianne staggered. "What?! H-How…?!" Then grumbled and sighed. "I'm sorry for the reaction, High Elder. I just can't believe it; all these demands of secrecy and my father just… tells you about it?"

"Don't be too harsh on Arthur, he did the correct thing by sharing it with me. I am Atlae's Master, after all." Yuzuriha reminded the girl, her tone harsh. "I know Mariners have different tutelage traditions, but Muvians stick plenty close to that of Sanctuary's, where Masters may as well be parents of the students themselves. My Master used to monitor who I dated all the time."

Marianne widened eyes. "Really?"

Yuzuriha groaned, shaking head. "Oh yes. And no one was ever good enough for Master Altar Hakurei. Except his other student Shion, of course. You'd think he was trying to pair me up with him so his cooling influence would make it so that I wouldn't run off and go back to beating up the town boys, or venturing into Pandora's Castle at night."

Marianne was learning so much about Atlae's teacher. So on top of a cool lady with a successful political life, she used to have all sorts of adventures as a young girl? No wonder she became a respected martial arts Master. Heck, no wonder she commanded Atlae's respect, who cared about nothing but fighting and eating.

"I was always told many things about you, Elder, one more impressive than the last." she admitted. "Part of me was always curious to finally meet you."

"I can imagine from whom. I'm honored, Vice-Admiral," Yuzuriha admitted, guiding her across another hall. She sighed. "It also doesn't shock me that my student has feelings for you, I suppose, given you were all he ever talked about at school. I remember being young, and having passions in Sanctuary, too. Young love isn't strange to me."

The mariner girl had to turn at this. Adventures and battling Specters was one thing, and Elder Yuzuriha seemed like she was ultimately a kind person, but it was so tough to imagine this stern-looking woman having her heart melt for anyone.

Somehow, Yuzuriha sensed this in her. "What? You don't think I've always looked like a mummy with a stick the size of this tower up her ass, do you? I was quite a looker when I operated as the Crane Silver Saint, even with my mask! Plenty of men spoke of me the same way Atlae did of you, Muvian and otherwise!"

The vice-admiral staggered. "Not at all, High Elder!" She smiled, then. "Did… Atlae really talk about me that much?"

The Elder groaned. "Other than food and martial arts, you were pretty much all he ever seemed passionate about. Marianne this, Marianne that… And then there was the time he put two of my students through a wall because they badmouthed you."

She flushed at this. The idea of guys yapping about her always upset Marianne, but knowing Atlae and how genuine he was about everything, somehow it felt different. She also always wondered what exactly those two Turtle School students said about her that got Atlae to go nuts, something she had never seen him do. It was hard to picture someone who could tolerate close proximity to Caça Cabral for six months to lose his mind with anyone.

Yuzuriha grimaced, sensing her thoughts. "Don't bother asking. Those two were my students just as Atlae is, so it's my obligation to protect them. They deserved what they got, trust me."

The curiosity was now enough to kill Marianne. "Poseidon save me, was it THAT bad?"

"But don't think your flattery will let you off the hook of the topic at hand." Yuzuriha confronted. "Tell me, how far do you intend to take your affair with Atlae?"

"It's not an affair! It's…" but Marianne then gulped, seeing the older woman's glare.

Even a trained military woman like Marianne had trouble meeting it head on. Suddenly, she felt like a fish having a staring contest with a hungry crane. Mari' looked around to make sure no one was listening, but in those floors she only saw Muvian monks completely focused on their meditation. She bet they could scream about her feelings for Atlae at the top of their lungs and they wouldn't listen.

The Elder saw her nervous silence. "Don't go quiet, go ahead and tell me what it's all about. What do you see in him, Marianne Solo?"

The truth was always a good place to start, and so Marianne tentatively did. "I really, really care about Atlae. I like him so much I could jump in happiness that we're together. For a long time, I buried all of it because I thought… I just saw him as a close friend. But being pushed into these alliances with other Mariners only made me realize that there was something more to it."

Yuzuriha halted and eyed her, making Marianne feel a chill. "So is that it? He's your change of pace from your life with the Mariners?"

The Mariner gulped, feeling threatened all of a sudden. Was this how pressured Atlae felt, when they faced her dad? "Elder, that is not it at all! I-"

"You make it sound like it is." Yuzuriha pinned. She irked, feeling Dohko's disgusting words about her own starting feelings for her dead husband echo in her head, making her feel like a giant hypocrite. Still, she pressed on. "Listen very closely, miss Solo. That boy; he does not know deceit or having dishonest feelings. I have no doubt in my mind he genuinely loves you. So, by Athena and Genbu, I will not tolerate the girl he has admired his entire life to be the one to show him such heart-shattering things about love. If your feelings for him are in any way immature or dishonest, I advise you to pick your Mariner husband sooner rather than later, miss Solo, because you will sooner get the Crane's kick in your ass than the chance to stab my student in the heart…. Understood?"

The eldest daughter of the Solos had to stand there, stupefied at the sudden confrontation. Not just because it was just a reversal of the previously friendly mood between them, but also because it sounded so much like a father warning a potential son-in-law, rather than the mother and daughter-in-law equivalent. Atlae had always told her that in Muvian society, gender roles were switched. Did the mothers, or rather Masters, of Shamballa then adopt these aggressively protective roles towards their sons?

Marianne, however, kept her calm. "My feelings for your student are not…adolescent, High Elder. I want to be with him. Atlae is the one person in the world I know I can trust everything to. He's the only one I know I don't have to pretend to be anything to, who cares about me for who I am!"

"How do you know that? You're barely an adult." Yuzuriha tested her yet again, hand resting in hip skeptically.

While the wording of it enraged her, Mari' turned away, refusing to admit any weakness in her feelings. "Because… because he was willing to let me do it! He was willing to walk away, pick a man among the Mariners and wish for my happiness! I KNOW now he cares more about me than anyone else in the world! So I just thought that, for a little while, we could be together. Because I love him, too!"

Marianne's head then sunk shamefully, having nothing more to say about her pathetic situation.

All the while, she felt Yuzuriha's stare pierced her at this. Marianne could feel her survey her very soul, making the Mariner's spine tingle in fear. It was unbelievable the pressure this woman could exert with a look alone. It was like some kind of Muvian telekinesis pounded Mari's chest invisibly, every second, just through the sharp squint of the former Crane Saint. What was it like for Atlae to train under her for three years? No wonder the ditzy Muvian boy had become such a disciplined man after all this time the two of them spent apart. Even Caça would have become a great spiritual warrior under this level of harshness.

Yuzuriha rolled eyes at the mushiness she was about to spout. "Perhaps… you are telling the truth. Perhaps you do love him."

Marianne perked up. Had she pierced the Elder's skepticism?

Yet, the Elder pressed in. "However, just because he is incapable of lying, miss Solo, it doesn't mean Atlae is incapable of hiding his thoughts." Yuzuriha lifted a finger warningly. "And I assure you, Muvian men can be just as envious as human ones. Don't think his heart won't be ripped to shreds the second he watches you walk down the aisle, in a pretty white dress, with your arm wrapped around some Mariner family prince's one day."

Marianne's hands clenched and her body shook. She understood all of this intuitively. She knew this situation was terrible on Atlae, and that he was making a tremendous sacrifice as well in accepting her obligations to her family. She tried to think of ways things would be okay in the end, but suddenly thought of Ithaca and her mother. Was their fate going to be hers and Atlae's? Was Marianne going to have the guy she loved hang around her husband's house, sneaking away with him to sheds and closed-off rooms in the night, while her children slept? Or worse, would she deny herself that love, just so she wouldn't follow her mother's footsteps, and then risk watching whatever husband she picked fool around in Sanctuary? What man among the Mariners respected her enough not to do that in a loveless marriage?

"I…I don't want to hurt Atlae." Marianne muttered. She covered her face, picturing that dreadful day she'd have to pick a husband. "I couldn't stand to hurt him. I just… don't know what to do about… about my people!" Then looked away, ashamed.

Yuzuriha groaned self-consciously, seeing the damage she was causing. Even at this age, she kept forgetting human women, even strong ones, tended to be a bit more sensitive than Muvian ones like herself. And this was a teenager in a terrible position, too, being put in the command of a massive ship among terribly misogynistic crewmen who probably fought her every command.

She held Marianne's shoulder comfortingly. "Okay, alright, darling, I'm sorry. Just… Just remember; hurt Atlae, and I will kick you in the face. Focus on that, okay?"

Marianne nodded. "Y-Yes, ma'am!"

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

Sun Temple,

Ground Floor

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

Patiently standing with his entourage of guards at the bottom of the spiritual tower, Josef Gerasimov, prince of the Artic Ocean family, turned to see a trio of unfamiliar, but expected faces. "Ah, you must be the crew of the Chrysaor. Josef Gerasimov, at your service."

Atlae tensed unwillingly. Before him stood a rather impressive young man that in some ways reminded him of Marianne herself, only at the height of her Triumph. Josef was tall, his posture was perfect, his pale-blue gaze was proud and intense like that of an unflinching warrior and his Cosmos was like an glacial plate impeccably crafted into a sharp silhouette of a monstrous stingray with many tails in the stars.

Was this the guy that's been hanging with Marianne? He looked like a real charmer. In fact, he looked exactly like the kind of guy even a smart girl like Marianne could fall for with but a wink of his eye and some words. Suddenly, Atlae felt threatened in a way not even fighters like Mia and Jeanna, or an enemy like the Papillon Specter, had ever managed to.

Krishna shook his hand tentatively, knowing he was face-to-face with what was likely the most dangerous member of their generation of Mariners. "It's an honor to meet you, captain. This is my crew."

The Russian prince nodded at Caça. "The 5th heir of the Cabrals, correct? First in worthiness, I assume?"

Caça pretended to laugh. "D-Damn straight." And shivered. "A Gerasimov just praised me!"

Then Josef turned to Atlae. "And… our unofficial ambassador to Shamballa." Josef smiled a bit tensely and offered to shake Atlae's hand. "It's a pleasure. I've heard many things about you."

Even at this insignificant moment, where Atlae's strength usually made him feel the most in comfort, the contact between their palms revealed a strength the Muvian felt surprised by. Not only did the Mariner match Atlae in strength of squeeze, but surpassed it even, taking the martial artist rather by surprise with the tough pull of hand.

"It's… yes, a pleasure to meet you." He tried to admit, rubbing his sore fingers.

After a flash of a rather satisfied smirk, Josef said. "The Vice-Admiral will be down soon, I'm sure. She will be happy to see you all."

"Her XO explained what you were doing here." Krishna added. "I'm surprised to see a Gerasimov backing a Solo's political effort, I must say."

"The world is changing, captain Krishna, and so must the Mariners. We cannot stem the turn of the currents, after all." Josef argued. His cold look surveyed them again. "You all three are proof of that, taking in a Muvian as a sailing student. What I'm doing is paltry compared to that."

While Krishna and Caça looked impressed. Atlae, on the other hand, grumbled and looked away.. The guy wasn't just handsome and strong, but insightful, too. He was like a version of Baian that Marianne might actually like! This was terrible!

"H-hey, how much for a position in that ship of yours?" Caça half-joked, trying to hide how terrified he was of being in front of a Gerasimov heir. "I-I wouldn't mind serving under a captain if I got to crush someone with giant ship tentacles."

Josef laughed reservedly, turning face away. "How to say this… the Kraken has very specific enlisting standards. Usually, we only admit those connected to the family."

Atlae nodded, stunned at how many crew members he saw at the lake. "Wow, you must have a lot of cousins, then."

Josef burst out laughing, much to everyone's surprise. The green-haired man recovered his breath and shook head. "Pardon me, that was just a very good joke!"

Caça grimaced, pretending he agreed. "It was an 'okay' joke. Are you sure you're good in the head?!"

Atlae looked around confusedly. "I'm serious!. I saw how many people were at the lake!" While Josef laughed harder, the Cabral heir slapped him over the head. "OW!"

"(Atlae, those are all Gerasimov Mafia members! They're not his cousins, they're his goons!)" Caça whispered. "(It's like Sir Ithaca who serves Lord Arthur, except they'll KILL you if you don't pay your rent! Geez, when are you gonna learn about the damn world?! Do you want us sleeping with the sharks?!)"

The Muvian fighter rubbed head and asked out loud. "W-What's a Mafia?"

"Oh my god!" Caça almost screamed, covering his mouth.

Josef wiped a tear. "It's alright, I wouldn't dream of hurting Vice Admiral Solo's best friend. Also, I'm not too ingrained in my grandfather's… activities. All my crewmen are handpicked by me, not him."

Krishna hummed, squinting in suspicion. The Households had been burned by this sort of statement from a Gerasimov in the past. "A bold position to take, one going against thousands of years of Gerasimov tradition. You must be quite the visionary, captain. Or very brave."

"Have you seen the Kraken, captain Krishna? It's easy to be brave from it." Josef joked. It made Atlae awe like some sort of serious badass statement, instead of laughing, which was a bit endearing to Josef. It reminded him a bit of Isaac. He saw Marianne coming down the stairs with the Muvian High Elder and decided it was time to wrap things up. "But I understand. My family's reputation is difficult to escape. Perhaps we'll come to see eye to eye anyway? Well, until Poseidon converge us again, crew of the Chrysaor."

Atlae waved goodbye. "It was nice meeting you." He turned to his friends. "W-wow, I was a bit worried at first, but he seems alright, right?"

Krishna nodded, though he seemed tensed. "Yes, Atlae…So far."

"Atlae, you idiot! Never mention the mob in front of a mob guy!" Caça taught, wishing Marianne wasn't coming down the stairs so he could slap Atlae again. He then put a rose in teeth and turned to meet his diva. "My muse, Marian-"

Seeing the Chrysaor crew, the heiress of the Solos beamed "ATLAE!" and rushed to them, right past Caça.

The blonde Muvian turned. "Mari'!" he took her into arms, spinning in place, and laughed happily, but resisted the urge to kiss her publicly. "It's so good to see you-"

As he rested her, though, he felt Marianne's lips smack sweetly into his and smile.

He staggered, confused. Atlae loved that it happened, but he thought they had arranged something else. "Mari, aren't you worri -"

"No one else is here and your Master knows, so it's fine." she reminded him, looking around. "Right?"

Yuzuriha rolled eyes. "Go ahead." She then saw Atlae completely distracted by the sight of his sweetheart. "AHEM!"

Atlae snapped into attention, seeing his Yuzuriha's stern stare, and bowed. "Master! It's an honor to see you again! I've done all my physical and mental exercises and kept my practice with the Cosmos and Chi up to date!"

The mariner girl watched as Yuzuriha approached Atlae and studied him up and down, like a drill instructor. The boy was stiff as a statue, staring dead ahead and keeping even his breath perfectly rhythmed. Marianne stared in admiration at the disciplined reaction from Atlae just from his Master's presence. Elder Yuzuriha really had a firm grip on him, didn't she? It was kind of amazing, given her boyfriend's scattered brain.

Yuzuriha inspected Atlae closer, particularly his gi. She adjusted his collar and touched his dots, measuring his Cosmos. She felt a suspicious lack of feedback dating about a week. "You missed your 30th weekly exercise this year, didn't you?!"

"Y-yes, master. I'm sorry, Master, it was Captain Krishna's birthday recently!" Atlae begged, trying not to panic. "It was rude to refuse his offer to take the day off. He offered cake he brought from Karachi! I'll make sure to train twice as hard in my next week's routine!"

She squinted, looking irritated. "Twice?!"

"Three times! Three times as hard!" Atlae assured, gulping. "I'll lift a rock the size of a truck with just my cosmos, no Chi! I swear! And do a thousand squats!"

"Four times, two thousand squats, make the rock no less than twelve tons, and include your balance exercises on it, too!" the master mercilessly asserted. "You can fetch the tightrope from the School while you're here. And tomorrow you're ringing the Bell of Genbu to commemorate the Summer Festival for your people, understood?"

Atlae answered without hesitation, bowing. "Yes, master! I'll do more than my best! No one will ever ring the bell as perfectly as I will!"

The Master folded her arms exasperatedly. "Well, of course. It's not like anyone else can do it, is it, Atlae?"

Marianne awed, admiring Yuzuriha more and more. "W-whow! How does she do that?" How many times had she lost Atlae's attention when trying to get him to focus? "I'm… I'm kind of jealous!"

Krishna, too, grimaced. "No wonder I'm no good at teaching Atlae the 7th sense; I'm no match to his teacher's skills. If I could get him and Caça to focus like that, I bet I'd afford that second cargo ship in a snap."

Yuzuriha put hands in hip and sighed. "A Specter of Hades wouldn't miss a 30th lightspeed blow on you, Atlae, I promise you that. Very well… you can relax."

Immediately, the teenage warrior de-tensed, breathing out. All the mariners awed at how the lax Muvian transformed into a disciplined warrior worthy of Buckingham palace at the sight of the Elder, especially Caça.

Atlae flushed, smiling happily. "I missed you, Mari'!"

She beamed and hugged his neck tightly, kissing him. "I missed you, too!"

Caça turned away. "Blegh! It's like having to read the 'Sasha Diaries' again!"

"You just wish it was you in his place." Krishna reminded him.

"Atlae, what are you doing here?" Mari' asked. She was elated to see him, but hadn't expected to run into her boyfriend so soon. "I thought I'd have to call you up to let you know I was in Shamballa."

Atlae nodded, happy to finally have a chance to mention it to her. "We were asked to bring a certain person up to Karachi, but since she was going to Shamballa anyway, she needed a guide. Captain and Caça ended up following me, I guess."

"It was hard to miss your battleship, miss Solo." Krishna mentioned, making her flush.

The Vice-Admiral nodded, but made a mental note to ask about who said person was. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was going to be here so soon. I didn't expect to meet Josef and I wanted it to be a surprise."

The Muvian boy frowned ever so briefly. "Yeah, we met him just now. He seems nice." He hoped, though, this wasn't another 'Baian' situation. "Did he… accompany your crew up here?"

Marianne smirked coyly. "You're going to love his ship, Atlae. It drilled its way to the lake using an adaptable barrier, can you believe that?"

Atlae's eyes went starry, forgetting all about Josef. "Wait, seriously? That crazy-cool one with the tentacle tails?! It can go underground?"

She nodded with a sly laugh. Marianne knew he'd love it. "Yup, that's right. I asked him if you could tour the ship later and he said yes."

Atlae threw hands in the air and hugged his girlfriend. "Mari', THANK YOU! I love you so much!"

The group went quiet. Marianne staggered visibly and Yuzuriha widened eyes like plates.

The Muvian saw it and frowned. "What? What is it?"

His Master groaned. "Atlae, what have I told you about controlling your emotions?!" She pulled his ear almost down to the floor, making him wince. "You don't tell human women things like that so recklessly! Make your punishment three thousand squats instead!"

Marianne shook head. "T-That's okay. It's just Atlae being excited, after all. I know what he really meant." It was a bit sudden a declaration and a bit too loud, but it was innocent and she did feel her heart skip a bit when he said the L word.

"I-I'm sorry, Mari'. I'll watch my mouth." The Muvian promised, rubbing his earlobe. He thought for a second Master was going to rip it off.

She sighed, wishing they were in a situation where he could say it again, loud and clear. "I'll forgive you, on one condition."

Atlae huffed, ready for everything. "What is it, Mari'?"

The Vice-Admiral smirked excitedly. "I want a date."

…

Caça scowled harder than even he thought possible. "Does some around here have a noose I can borrow?! Seriously, I'll take one of those bell ring chains!"

Meanwhile, Atlae staggered. "A date? Mari'… I thought that we-"

Marianne shook head. "Nothing special, Atlae, I'd just like to see this city with you, and maybe you can introduce me to some of the people you'd write about. This might be our only chance for a while to be together. Don't you want to seize it?" She shifted eyes. "If anyone asks, you're just giving me a tour through the town."

He nodded firmly, finally understanding. "YES, of course! Um… Master?"

Yuzuriha scoffed. "What are you looking at me like that for? Of course you have permission."

Marianne couldn't blame Atlae for checking. It was hard to guess the Elder's thoughts, sometimes, with this stern grandma atmosphere she had.

Atlae practically jumped. "YES!" Being with Marianne all day did sound even better than seeing the ship up close. They might even get a chance to kiss again. Still, his eyes glanced longingly outside, wondering what magic hid inside that amazing octopus whale machine…

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

Shamballa Streets

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

"Priam, what are you doing here?!" Daese asked as they sat together at a café. The Zodiac Knight wished she could scream. "I nearly had a heart attack when you came up to me! What if someone recognized you?!"

The man merely pointed at his bandaged, burned face. "Daese, I beg of you, don't make me point it out."

The Aquila Knight fumed. "Don't… hide behind your wounds! What about your cosmos?! What if one of your old friends was around? Like Az-"

He gently covered her mouth and gestured her to relax. "Daese, not so loud. Now who's being indiscrete?"

The blonde young woman flushed embarrassedly. She did lose her cool a bit.

"Here I am Father Kyosuke." Priam added, smirking like he thought it was the cleverest of aliases.

It just made Daese slump her face. "Really? Kyosuke? Priam, come on…" but tried to relax. "At least pick another name other than your birth one?"

The man once hunted around the world for having warred with Sanctuary shook head. "No one knows that it was Sagittarius Priam's birth name, other than my wife and my closest former friends. And Japanese Christians are not that uncommon in Sanctuary's missions to Asia." He adjusted his black vestment's gib. "I'm just a simple Sanctuary-Catholic, spreading the good word of God and Athena in a land friendly to the Saints."

The female knight held her head. Historically, Sanctuary more often than not recruited people throughout the Mediterranean and in Latin America, leading to Catholic culture overtaking Orthodox Christians in Sanctuary among its Saints. Because Catholicism was so heavy on its practitioners' culture, many of them never really let go of their old ways even after making vows to Athena and Olympus. These were known as 'Sanctuary Catholics' and they even had churches in Sanctuary Town to practice their old worship.

A lot of Sanctuary people found them odd because of the obvious contradiction in their faiths. Not only was Christianity and Hellenism, after all, not the most compatible pair of religions in the world, but there was also the millennia-old history of violence between them dating back to the Roman Empire, that most people didn't even think about anymore from how old it was. In the modern day, however, since a full third of the planet was Christian, and almost half of it Abrahamic, Sanctuary and its folk had to find ways to live with the presence of the faith in their midst, especially if they were going to continue to rely on recruiting children to unlock the Cosmos from outside.

This, without mentioning the whole 'two Popes' thing.

Daese had to confess it wasn't the worst of disguises for Priam, as these people were conceded a minimum degree of spiritual autonomy, and him having a conversation with a 'Maiden of Athena' like she was disguised as in the open street wouldn't be seen as abnormal even in Shamballa.

"Your notifications on your progress had me concerned, Daese. I wanted to see for myself this group you infiltrated." Priam recalled how interesting they looked. "I thought you were exaggerating, but they did seem peculiar. I was also concerned in general, given this is your first job on this level."

Goddess Athena, he worried so much. She shook head. "I'm fine, Priam. Everything has been going smoothly. Geez, I really thought, after Ethiopia, that you were okay with how I was handling things."

He grimaced nervously. "I am. However…" he looked away, looking like was trying to think of a nice way to put it. "I still worry. Cetus is just Cetus. You don't have a personal history with him."

She slumped her shoulders, discovering the truth of his motives. "But I do with Azrael, don't I?"

He eyed her back tensely, confirming her fears. Daese imagined at this moment that the Black Saint was probably wondering how to strategize his conversation now. Far from being the manipulative type, Priam could only sit there stupidly, looking around at the Muvian capital like he couldn't think of what to say.

She stood up briskly. "You still think I can't manage it, don't you, Priam?" Daese turned away, her lips trembling. The memories of her last night on Serpent's Rock flashed in her head. "You of all people don't get to talk about what is over people's heads or not. You… you punched the P-O-P-E!"

Priam had to grimace and check if anyone heard her. "Um, y-yes, but that doesn't mean-"

"No one in the whole world knows better than I do… 'how dangerous' that murderer Azrael is!" Daese assured. She gritted teeth, feeling horrific memories flooding back. Memories of heads flying off shoulders and blood splashing millennial walls. "I saw with my own eyes that night what he's capable of. And that was just one turn of the moon of what he subjected my…, no, subjected his own people to! Of all the people in the world, I will not underestimate him!"

Priam's eyes narrowed. "Daese, I know what he did to you was absolutely horrible. But before you even met him, I had already shared battlefields with that man for years. I've seen him do much, much worse."

She shook. "I… I know, but…"

"This is not a man who will hold back when he sees you wearing the Aquila Cloth, quite the contrary." Priam warned, serious as a heart attack. "He will see you as a thief, someone who stole the armor from its heavenly mandated knights. And he will extend to you a cruelty that will make the Topaz Purge look merciful."

The blonde knight turned tensely at him. She saw his firm stare and couldn't believe Priam was capable of thinking so little of her ability to stay cool about this. "I am not a thief. I know I am young, but I'm a Zodiac Knight, just like he is!"

He stood up now as well to try to urge her not to lose her head. "Daes-"

She held out her Aquila Cloth Stone. "Do you see?! I have the armor to prove it! And he won't even see it because I know what I'm doing here!" she spoke in hushes.

Priam fidgeted in his chair uncomfortably, looking away. He looked like he was holding something back, but didn't want to say it to make her madder. She thought back to the gang, filled with people like Char and Amuro. Priam never hesitated to give any of them the most delicate tasks.

"Aquila trusts me; why don't you?" It just made Daese feel more frustrated, since she knew exactly what was on Priam's mind. She sat back down sadly. "Go ahead, you can say it;… you still think I made a mistake on Mount Olympus."

The Black Saint met her eyes. About a year back, Daese had been involved in a scouting assignment to that particular Training Ground in Greece, where the Pegasus Temple resided. It was one of her first missions and it had more to do with investigating Olympian activity than Sanctuary. In a lot of ways it was a mission similar to the one she was assigned with now.

However, an accident happened in the course of it, with the Zodiac Knight ending up stranded in the mountain's second step,… right where the Training Ground and the Temple were located.

And right when Sanctuary had a student in it for the first time since Saint Tenma of Japan.

It was a considerable amount of time before Priam and his friends could rescue the Aquila Paladin. During that, Daese was forced to survive in the mountain and had reportedly met and befriended the boy training in it. She discovered he was placed there under Jason's Exile, one of Sanctuary's most antiquated and harsh training methods. By Daese's own account, 'he was three years in with no clue how to unlock the Cosmos, much less the Temple traps'.

Naturally, Daese couldn't just sit there with him and then leave like it was nothing. If the harsh survivalism didn't kill the boy, the Temple's traps surely would.

Priam was yet to get a straight story out of her, but his understanding was that the Aquila taught the Pegasus candidate the Cosmos and the bare minimum of how to eventually beat the Cloth challenge, but had to escape the mountain when the guards in Olympus above them discovered someone other than a Sanctuary master and their student was present in the Training Ground. The incident had resulted in the boy being injured and suffering a partial loss of memory, likely triggered by an anti-trauma seal in his mind he already possessed prior to his training beginning, which conveniently helped cover Daese's involvement up.

"Daese," Priam assured. How could he say it in a way that didn't call her obsessive? "I never blamed you for what happened. I just worry that you feel the need to involve yourself more than you have to."

Her eyes teared. "All I did was help that boy, Priam. Like I wish I could help Cerah!"

The Black Saint recoiled. It was precisely Daese's endless need to morally compensate herself for leaving Cerah with Lucian that worried him.

She continued, holding chest. "He was going to die in that Training Ground without me. Isn't that what you've always criticized about Sanctuary? About the things they make Gardnia do to his students?" She cleaned her eyes and sniffed, thinking to the day she and Krishna's group crossed the outpost. "Did you know Red was the one involved in that Death Queen Island incident? He survived his training… only for Sanctuary to send him there."

The older man widened eyes. Now he understood what had her so upset. "I did not realize that. I'm sorry, Daese."

Her arms folded tightly against her chest, which she could feel drumming with anger. "They even… had it on the newspaper like it was gossip, those monsters! What if Cerah had been raised with these people?! I could just take my Cloth an-" Her head shook to dispel her nastier thoughts. "They had Azrael kill my people because we took your side… and yet they treat their own like this. And now that murderer is the only one of my own left! Sometimes I just don't know what place my sister and I have left in this world, Priam."

He gently held her hand. "I know how you feel."

Daese felt the burned marks in his fingers, wounds he took from his semi-legendary battle with Akassius. How could she speak to him like this? "I know. I'm sorry. But Priam, please trust me that I'm not going to do anything stupid with Azrael. I know I can't afford to. Not yet."

The 'not yet' worried him a bit, but Priam decided to just let it be for now.

He got up. "I believe you. To prove it, Daese, I'll leave Shamballa once we're done here. You'll be on your own, as you wish. I just wanted to see if you were okay." He grimaced again. "You have to admit, all these memos of hanging out with a trio of two Mariners and a Muvian have been odd, even for our kind of missions. For a second, I thought your communications were being intercepted and altered to me by Malta to lure us into a trap or something."

She cracked out a laugh, ceasing her tears, and nodded. "I see. I can believe that. Well, I'm glad to know you'd have come rescuing me under the guise of a catholic priest, then."

He held his vestment smugly. "I think it makes me look quite distinguished."

Daese saw the combination of his bandaged burns, flat hat, bible, crucifix, and black robe. "Priam, you look like the villain of a grindhouse film about a killer Texan priest."

He laughed, letting her have the win. He had a feeling, though, his wife would like it, if not just for the sacrilege element. "Before I go, just one more thing, Daese; this group you're hanging with?"

"Yes?"

He darted eyes, trying to think of a polite way to put this. "I'm glad you're making friends."

She turned red. "What is that supposed to mean?! You make it sound like I'm some kind of outcast!" She paced around, fuming. It was true she had spent most of her life hanging out only with those she absolutely trusted, which mostly meant Priam and his Black Saints. And they were wonderful people, but they also weren't her generational peers. "If you must know, I… I even…"

"Even what?"

The knight's face heated so much it turned crimson, thinking of the kiss she and Krishna shared. "I think… I think I might be interested in one of them. In that way."

She folded arms tightly and turned away from the older man.

The Sagittarius beamed. "Really? That's fantastic!" He tried to guess from memory which of the group it could be. He hated having such a mean thought, but something told Priam it couldn't possibly be the Cabral heir. He then gasped. "Wait, you haven't… you know? Because, take it from me, it's not safe at all if you're not using contraceptives?"

"PRIA-" she stopped herself from almost shouting his name when she noticed some heads in the street turned. "Father Kyosuke, no! We just kissed. A little. Just a bit! And I would know about having to use those!"

The older man scratched head. "I see."

She cleared throat. "It's just… he's smart, and pretty, and cultured and… very sensitive and spiritual, but in an interesting way, not a stuffy way." she smiled and her eyes starred as she listed these things. "And he's a good cook, you can't ignore a guy like that!" her eyes took many quick glances at Priam, but just saw him stare. "Go on, say what you're thinking!"

Why was she so upset? "Did you think I'd disapprove, Daese? I don't. I'm not your father and, besides, you and Cerah deserve to be happy, to live your lives."

The teenage girl teared up. "I'm… I-I'm a knight! Even among Saints, my life is devoted to Athena body and heart! You were a Knight yourself once! You know I shouldn't…"

Priam eyed her skeptically. "Shouldn't what? Kiss someone who prays to Poseidon? Daese, if that were true, my son shouldn't exist, because his mother makes a Mariner look like a Gold Saint, as far as Athena's approval goes. But he does exist. And it couldn't make me happier. So why shouldn't you pursue your happiness, too?"

Daese sighed. After her parents were gone, Priam was the closest thing she had to a father. Not only was he an older male figure in her life who mentored her, but Priam had a brief past as the Lionet Zodiac Knight himself, before he quit to become a regular Silver Saint. That always made Daese feel Priam was the real last Zodiac Knight instead of Azrael.

Unfortunately, he never seemed to embrace that role beyond leading her in missions for their gang, not knowingly anyway. Not that she'd enjoy him criticizing her about something stupid like kissing a guy, but a part of her still felt unsure about what the kiss meant and wished an older figure like Priam could advise her. Even if Krishna looked to be a serious guy, it was still her first kiss. Couldn't Priam show a bit more parental concern? Be more of a foster dad to her?

She reached in and hugged him. It seemed to surprise Priam, but he took her in and patted her back.

"Priam… I don't want my people to be gone." She wept. "I…I don't want Azrael to be all that's left of their memory. To be all Cerah has to know what our parents were, who we all were."

"That doesn't mean you should become a nun, Daese, and forbid yourself from having some normalcy in your life." Priam reminded her. He took a tissue and cleaned her face. "Take it from a man who has tossed his life away, Daese; when Cerah can finally be with you, you need to not be a fossil of the past. More than someone who teaches her what the knights were, your sister is going to need a family to teach her what a person is."

Daese sniffed and cleaned her tears. "Y-You're right."

Priam observed her for a bit, worried about her hesitant reaction. Sometimes he worried that more than inheriting the last will of the knights, Daese had also inherited the seeds of obsession that doomed them. Sitting around in a medieval castle all her life, endlessly sharpening weapons and just waiting for a Specter to pop up, was no destiny for a young girl to choose for herself, yet here Daese was, fantasizing about bringing all that back for herself and Cerah.

Hesitantly, he got up. "I need to go, Daese. I trust that you will fulfill your task successfully. Once you're done investigating Azrael's actions, report back to me. We will dock the Nikolai at Andromeda Island, like always."

Thrud: Arguably unnecessary bit, but contains a fun break from the Atlae stuff with a Shinta-Lance scene, plus a tie-in to that starting flashback. Still, it's 1.5k words, so maybe too long.

"Of course, Priam." The topic of the island popped something important to her. "How's your son doing, by the way? You went to Andromeda Island after we last talked, right?"

Priam turned away, his smile gaining an hint of sadness. "He's doing great. He's… lived through his training." His smile extended and Priam's bandaged fingers rubbed his eyes. "Gardnia did it; he made my boy a Saint of Athena! Despite that blasted island's tests, ha, ha!"

Daese's heart melted. She knew all Priam wanted was for his boy to be happy, even if they never got to meet. "Did you get to see him?"

"No, Gardnia told me to stay away from the island, but I saw him from afar when he docked in Mogadishu later." Priam nodded, sniffing. The picture of the kid's bright green hair and his new Cloth box on his back were burned into his mind like a graduation ceremony picture. "He's such a strong boy. Anyone who survives those tests would be. I asked a sailor that carries food for Guardnia to Andromeda Island and he says my son is the sweetest, kindest kid he's met, too! His mother must be so happy!"

Daese bit lip. "I'm still surprised Gardnia hasn't just told Sanctuary on you."

"He hates me, but he wouldn't do that." Priam assured her. He remembered how disgusted Gardnia was when he confronted him, at the crosses graveyard (*) "Under all that anger he has, I think Gardnia pities me."

(*) Chapter 23

She took her turn holding his shoulder comfortingly. "Don't worry, Priam… one day you and him will talk face-to-face. Just like me and Cerah. One day Sanctuary will be gone and we'll all be with our families again…"

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

Sanctuary Town

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

Sitting at a bench overlooking the dock, Saint Andromeda Shinta held his silver star pendant, sighing. He touched its shiny surface and its engraved letters. "It's almost September… I wonder if mom is okay. I should try to send her a present."

"What are you so mopey about?"

Shunta turned and beamed. "Saint Lance!"

Arriving from the MMC, the Pegasus Saint dropped his Cloth box down and sat. "I think I hate you calling me that almost as much as that 'ni-san' thing you tried when we met."

The Andromeda Saint was running out of options, but his upbringing made it feel so impolite to call his older mission partner by just his name. "Sorry. I was just thinking about my mom. Her birthday is soon, in September."

The Pegasus Saint looked utterly bored by it as he rummaged through his box, but still asked. "Oh, she's a Virgo like you?"

"Uh-uh. And my dad was a Sagittarius, or so she used to tell me!" he excitedly shared. "I never got to meet him, though. Mom says he had to go to a war long ago." Shinta's head slumped. "I think he's dead and she just won't say so."

The Bronze Saint simply combed through his possessions inside the box.

Shinta felt a bit selfish about it, but still complained. "Saint Lance, you don't even care, do you?!"

"No, I really don't." The red-eyed Saint admitted. He finally took out a series of cards. "Here, I got these from Nam. I managed to secure these assignments for the next week."

Taking them, Shinta awed at the dozen dangerous jobs in his hands. They were all labeled as highly risky for Bronze Saints. "T-There's… there's so many! And they're all red-striped."

Saint Lance mercilessly punched his arm, making him wince. "That's how I do things, got it? Just focus on how much they pay. If I'm gonna be stuck with you as my mission partner from now on, then I'm not dropping any of my ratings, no matter how fresh off the Andromeda Island oven you are! Missions are serious business!"

Shinta shook head determinedly. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound like I was complaining." he rubbed his pained arm. "I know the missions are very important and people need the help of Saints of Athena around the world, even if they're so tiring and we have to fight so many people in them."

"It's not just that! We need to earn our salaries, too!" Lance reminded him. "You may have a mom back wherever hole you came from, but I got a rent to pay at the barracks. I don't stay in this town for free!"

Shinta scratched head. "I thought the Pope financed Bronze Saint housing, Saint Lance?"

Lance tossed the cards back into his Cloth Box.. "Yeah, well, the Pope has decided saints who beat the shit out of their masters don't get those. So tough luck, kid, you're stuck helping me clear missions so I can pay my rent."

Shinta smiled. Doing all these missions was an extra good cause if it meant Saint Lance would get sleep under a roof and eat. "Saint Lance, if it helps you, then I'll do my very best in all of these! Do you want half my pay?"

Lance turned to him like Shinta just swung on the Fire Clock with his chains like Spiderman.

The Andromeda Cloth burned up. "Shinta, I absolutely forbid you from subsidizing this dishonorable peasant! How could you even suggest that, when you didn't even buy me that cute ribbon I really liked?!"

The Andromeda Saint tried to ignore his Cloth and shook head. "I'm serious, Saint Lance, I wouldn't mind at all, Saint Lance. You've been helping me so much in these missions and you even saved my life in our first job together-" But the Pegasus slapped him over the head! "OW!"

"Shinta, keep your stupid fucking money! Who the hell do you think I am?! A fucking extortionist gangster like half the rest of the Bronze Saints?!" Lance asked, folding arms and looking pissed as hell. "The next time you offer me your mission bonuses, I'm tossing you inside the cages at the Coliseum, got it?! And then we'll see how good your chains are against a pack of giant lions trying to eat you!"

The green-haired boy nodded. "I-I'm sorry."

"God, what the hell is wrong with you?!" Lance questioned, truly baffled. It had been the same when Shinta tried to spare that Black Saint, Ray. "Why do you always have to meddle in people's problems like that? If you want to help me, don't be such a fuck-up in our next mission, like that time when you almost got us caught by Black Saints cause you were looking at the pretty-fucking-birds, and we can get it done all the quicker and earn more for ourselves!"

The Princess in Shinta's armor whispered to him. "Besides, if you have money to hand out, you should be buying me gifts, not give it to thankless lesser Bronze Saints."

The young teenager pouted, but despite the hostility from both directions, Shinta had to admire the sense of pride and professionalism. He should one day aspire to be this way, so Master Gardnia would be proud of him as a dutiful Saint of Athena who invested his funds wisely.

Rubbing his fingers, Lance seemed to realize they looked green. He turned to Shinta and his emerald mane, which his hand had just smacked.

Shinta blinked. "What is it?" Lance reached in and pulled his hair. "O-Ow, stop!"

Finding more loose particles that looked emerald green in Shinta's strands, Lance gave him a bewildered look. "What the hell? Are you wearing dye?"

Shinta's head escaped his grip and he covered it with his Cloth helmet protectively. With all his difficult new missions and mom's birthday bearing on him, he must have forgotten to strengthen the color in the bathroom that week. "Y… yeah. You're not going to make fun of me over that too, are you?"

The Pegasus Saint stared at him, picturing Shinta without his green. "I guess not, I just didn't figure you for the vain type like those Gold Saint divas."

"It's not vanity. My mom always told me I should look this way." Shinta insisted, flushed in embarrassment. "She made me promise I'd keep it green for as long as possible, even during training. It made Master Gardnia kind of mad, but I keep all of my promises!"

Lance blinked, bewildered. What the hell did Shinta's mom care his hair was a certain color? Was she one of those satellite moms that controlled their children like pet chihuahuas? He also wondered how the hell did Shinta smuggle green hair dye to a training ground as isolated as that island for six freaking years and yet didn't know the first thing in how to stay stealthy during a mission.

Shinta fumed, a rare sight that made him look like a puffed blowfish. "Please don't look at me like that! It's for my mom, so I'm keeping it that way!"

The Pegasus rose a brow. The two had only known each other for a little bit, but Lance still had never seen his partner look this pissed before. He was really touchy about his mother, wasn't he? Now that he thought of it, Shinta didn't seem to answer a whole lot of questions about her, even though he mentioned her in passing so often.

At least he caught a glimpse of the real color. "I gotta say, I didn't figure you for that kind of golden brown."

"It's my dad's." Shinta beamed proudly. "I never met him, but mom says I have hair just like his, that I reminded her a lot of him. That's why I can tell she has an important reason to make me color it."

He dusted the green particles off his fingers. "That's disgustingly sweet of you to commit, Shinta. Whatever, fine, just keep it all under the helmet during missions and it will be okay by me." He did think it was a giant waste of money. "Maybe his mom makes him dye it so people wouldn't joke that he's a dumb blonde."

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

Shamballa,

Shop Streets

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

"Hi, blondie!" a pretty Muvian girl waved at their group as the Chrysaor crew toured the town

Atlae waved back and beamed. "Hi, it's so good to see you again!"

"Hi, Atlae! Welcome back!" another in a shop greeted, smiling like the sun.

Atlae laughed happily. "Anna! You look great! How are you?"

Meanwhile, Caça and Marianne both pouted, sharing a rare simultaneous thought. "He sure met a lot of girls here, didn't he? Did they all hit on him?"

"I'm doing great, Atlae. I take care of my parents' bakery now." Anna then took a bag of bakery goodies from her shop and handed them over the counter. "Here, it's for you. I remember how much you love to eat. Do you like these?"

The martial artist opened it and smelled the delicious mix of baked bread rested inside an aromatic leaf. "I love these! Especially with butter. Thank you so much, Anna!"

The Muvian girl beamed happily. "No problem! It was great seeing you. Don't be a stranger, okay?"

Turning, Atlae saw Marianne and Caça having a rare moment of perfect emotional synchrony. It was in the shape of an annoyed looking scowl. "What's wrong?"

Marianne pulled him close and wrapped her arm tightly around his for all her competition to see. "Nothing! Nothing at all. Do you want to share some of that with me, Atlae?"

"Of course!" Atlae happily took a piece and offered it. He saw Marianne eat it while eyeing Anna, even as they turned the street corner. He wondered worriedly why Mari' seemed so tense. Maybe he should shake-up their date! "Um, maybe let's check out the city walls next? Tons of couples go up there for the sights."

"That sounds perfect, let's go! I bet it has a great view of the city!" Marianne beamed. "Do any of your old school friends work there?"

The Muvian shook head. "I don't think so, why?"

Caça, on the other hand, didn't hesitate to voice his concerns, holding him. "Bullshit, Atlae, how come you are so popular here?! All you did at the Chrysaor was bitch about how bad you had it at school with these girls!"

Atlae scratched head as he guided them out. "Well, in my later years I managed to make a couple of friends, and after I rung the Genbu Bell, everyone at Master's school thought I was really cool for a bit. Maybe everyone just misses me. I know I missed them." He looked away regretfully. "Well, except for Jeanna and Mia. Those two never liked me."

Marianne wondered if these were the two that Atlae reportedly put through a wall. Perhaps they were safe to leave Atlae with. "Maybe you can introduce us to them? Who knows, maybe we'll hit it off now?"

Atlae frowned, remembering the horrible things they said about Marianne. "I'd rather not try it, Mari'…They used to do and say some really nasty things."

The Mariner girl hummed. Atlas was really traumatized by it, wasn't he? He looked exactly like when Baian used to cut him off from soccer. She kissed his cheek to perk him up. "Aw… okay, Atlae."

Caça, by contrast, scowled "Ugh, I still can't watch them together without wanting to puke, captain."

Krishna, who observed the amount of Mariner goods now available in the Muvian shops with fascination, just shook his head. "They weren't kidding when they said Mariner stuff is now all the rage here. I think there's more Mariner glass on sale than the Muvian one now. " He looked through the flower arrangements. He recognized some as done in the style of the Weyprecht, like Sorrento, who were famous gardeners on top of being excellent musicians. "Would Miss Daisy like these? She didn't seem interested in flowers, but maybe they would look good in the church her mission is going to build here and-"

"Captain?! Are you listening?" Caça shouted.

The Sri Lankan groaned and turned "What is it?! You're still hung up about losing miss Solo to Atlae, Caça? Just let it go!"

The mariner folded arms poutingly. Why did the captain sound so pissed? "I have let it go! But just cause we're all the way in freaking Tibet, do they have to shove it in my face how happy they are all day?! I thought this affair of theirs was supposed to be a big secret!"

"Where else can they enjoy being together, in front of the mariner households? And besides, Atlae really appreciates you helping it feel normal for an afternoon, don't you see that?" "When are you going to treat him like a friend? After he saves your life again?"

"Who cares what he appreciates or not?!" Caça held chest. He looked around and checked all the lovely Muvian girls in the shops and the street. Not only did they look so different from the ones back home he was sick of, but so many were athletic, like amazon warriors. He never knew how hot a six-pack looked on a girl. He could kill Atlae for concealing this paradise for so long. "I look out for 'número um', okay? If he wants to be my friend, then maybe he should introduce me to all these hot friends he made at the damn turtle school."

Krishna just sighed and carried on. "Why don't you just be a gentleman and introduce yourself to one, then, Mr. Number One? Maybe you migh-"

Caça instantly scoffed. "Right, with this face?!" he confronted, pointing out his pale lizard mug, veiny skin and long canines with his fingers. "I'm not stupid. I know people think I look like Count Dracula! Unlike some pretty boys I have no illusions I need every help I can get! I know exactly why Atlae is so much luckier than I am; all the women love a dumb pile of muscles with pretty hair."

The captain sometimes couldn't believe how hopelessly toxic his view of the world was. "Your choice, Caça…"

The sailor squinted. "Sure, captain. You must feel pretty self-assured, too. Now that you scored with the hot nun, anyway."

Krishna widened eyes! "What did you say?!" He grabbed his collar, startling Caça. "Where in the abyss do you get off with that, Caça?!"

He didn't expect the peaceful captain to have such a reaction, but it did confirm his suspicions. "It's just… come on, captain! You're telling me nothing happened between you two the whole trip?!"

"I will not have you disrespect miss Daisy like that! Understood?!" Krishna hushed, freezing Caça to the core with his glare. "Not to mention that if you talk about your captain like that again, I will have you tied to the Chrysaor's tusks for the rest of the trip to Sri Lanka!"

Caça staggered. "I'm s-sorry, I'm sorry!"

Atlae and Marianne turned. "Guys? Is everything okay?"

Krishna released Caça and tidied the sailor's collar. "It's nothing, you two. Caça just… had his uniform unbuttoned."

The pale mariner nodded. "Y-Yeah."

"Um, okay." Atlae then hurriedly checked his own buttons. Even if he had his gi on and not his uniform, he still tightened its folds and whispered to Mari'. "(Mari', I look good, don't I? I don't want the captain mad at me, too.)"

She kissed him again and beamed. "(Don't worry, you look perfect. I like your new white gi.)" She still loved how focused it made him look. It was a different feeling from the type the mariner sailor and officer uniforms inspired, being less troop-stiff and more naturalist. She did, however, spare the other two arguing mariners a look. "Atlae mentioned they were with a Sanctuary maiden on their journey here, but I thought Sanctuary religious missions to Shamballa were canceled for the time being. Wasn't the Elder mad at them for criticizing Muvian rituals? What is a Sanctuary Maiden doing in Shamballa, then?"

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

Mount Kailash Site

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

The Immortal Guard picking up the call looked at the cavern in the mountain they guarded. It looked deep and dark, but the loud heartbeats had ceased and they no longer heard the breath of the creature awakening inside. To an enlightened Muvian such as himself, it should seem as simply a natural passway into a mountain's inwards, even if Talos was inside, but the Immortal Guard could still not feel anything but that it was the den of a monster.

Still, he reported its status with calm and professionalism. "Everything is calm, High Elder. Our instruments have been reading less tremors as well."

"Good. Keep on high alert for the rest of the day, though. Athena be with you all."

Another Guard, one of green-hair tucked inside his hood, came in. "Who was it?"

"It was the High Elder asking for an update." He looked around the site and saw how few men were around. "Where are the cyclops?"

"Arges went to patrol the north pass, Brontes is at the camp, and Steropes is helping the guys who got their jeep stuck in the east pass to home. They were driving up here with our dinners and the road collapsed under their wheels, if you can believe it." The Immortal Guard exhaled anxiously, looking around. He tossed the communicator at his friend. "Well, ask them to hurry back. You have Steropes' frequency, don't you?"

"I don't like how light our position is, I'll call Steropes to hurry back up." The first guard shook head. "I hate having to use the radios. Human tech is so unreliable."

"We have our orders. The Elder told us to keep mental chat to a minimum. There's no point keeping the giant inside the mountain a secret if anyone can intercept our conversations." He then tuned the frequency. "Cyclops 3? This is Turtle 1. When are you returning? Over."

Steropes' voice, however, came in with a loud, alarmed screech. "*shzzzz*- on high alert! I repeat…-*gush*-lert! The convoy was sabotaged! Over!"

The green-haired Immortal Guard blinked. "Cyclops 3, what's wrong? What's the status on our noodles? Over."

"*GUSH* -UIT JOKING AROUND! THIS WAS NO ACCIDENT! SOMEONE ATTACKED THIS TRUCK TO LURE US OUT! EVERYONE HERE IS K.I.A.! CONTACT CYCLOPS 1 AND 2 NO-"

The Guard saw a sudden flash of yellow light, felt a gust of wind and the communicator he held against his ear split in two. Pieces of electronics fell on the ground and the person responsible landed from their slash in front of them.

The guard inhaled and looked up, seeing the blood-soaked sword in the stranger's hand. Standing before him was a terrifyingly armored man with round goat horns on his helmet and a blue Mariner sword in hand. He saw his comrades falling to the ground. Then he fell to his knees, feeling his tendons cut and sensation then lost entirely in his legs.

All the attacks had happened in an instant, at lightspeed, before the radio even had time to burst to pieces from the first one.

Azrael approached him and held Ithaca's sword in a hanging stance. "Be happy, warrior of Shamballa. You've done your duty."

The Guard burned cosmos, summoning his white aura. He concentrated it inwardsly, igniting himself into a bomb powerful enough to destroy the entire valley and take this bastard out. "G-Go to h-hell! F-For the people of MU-"

With another lightspeed movement, Serpens Azrael swung the blue sword, slicing the Muvian to shreds with multiple slashes in a manner alike that of a Mariner warrior's attack pattern. The Immortal Guard's cosmos aura extinguished, his body fell apart to pieces and the ground pooled with his blood.

After confirming all the guards were dead, he then carved Ithaca's sword into the ground by them. "Everything is in place. Now I just need to bring the Mariner in."

The Bronze Knight executed another lightspeed movement, this time to bring in his prisoner. The head-caged Ithaca breathed in panic and dropped to his knees, with his wrists and ankles cuffed. He beheld the poor Muvians, cut apart by his own sword. Later, when the people of Shamballa investigated the mountain, there would be no doubt in their minds about who was responsible for this catastrophe about to happen. All of Lord Arthur's hard work would be destroyed and Ithaca's name would be dragged through the mud even more, smeared by the blood of innocent Muvians.

The former Aries Gold Saint took him by the shoulder. "Get up!" And dragged him inside the cave as Ithaca wailed powerlessly.

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

Shamballa Walls

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

The group awed as they climbed to the thick battlements of the circular, roof-covered brick barrier surrounding the city. Even in this place of battle, the brilliance of Muvians could be seen in the perfectly tiled battlements, pillars, steps and floor. Everything was perfectly cut, put in place and decorated, with even tiny bricks in the walls being engraved with labyrinthic patterns, elevating what could have been mere fortifications into a massive work of art in and of itself.

Marianne looked in at the city. She could see everything! "It's so tall here! I can see your teacher talking to someone all the way at the Sun Temple! These walls must be 30 yards tall, at least!"

"It's pretty cool, isn't it?" Atlae asked. He tentatively pointed west as the sky grew redder. "From here you can also watch the sun setting over the mountains better. See?"

The young Vice-Admiral smirked at him coyly. "Atlae, are you trying to be romantic with me?"

He flushed, scratching nose. "N-no, I just…Um…"

Marianne laughed. She leaned arms on the battlements and looked up at the Himalayas, watching the peaks touch the sun. It did look fantastic. "Thank you for showing me around, Atlae. Today was great."

The Muvian beheld her. Marianne was so pretty. In that light, her wavy cerulean air radiated brightly and the shiny metal of her Dolphinus Cloth reflected beautifully. Even her pale blue eyes stood out. He had never noticed how amazingly beautiful she could look. Best of it all was her cute smile when something entranced her, like thos sun-dyed mountains?. How many times had he missed it because he was too distracted or afraid to see her that way? Atlas needed to do everything he could to make sure this perfect person in his life was happy forever.

She combed her hair behind ear. "I hope that we can have more days like this before, um…"

Atlae frowned, but joined her. He knew exactly what she stopped herself from mentioning. "I've been thinking a lot about that, Marianne. Your betrothal?"

She gulped. "Yeah?"

His fingers fidgeted anxiously on his strong elbows and he looked away from her. "When it happens, when you finally need to pick a Mariner to wed, I…I hope you pick someone who cares about you. Don't pick someone like Baian, alright? Pick someone nice, like… like captain Krishna or even… that guy, Josef. He seemed nice. You deserve someone like him."

Her blue eyes saddened. She kissed his cheek tenderly. What a terrible thing to weigh on their hearts. She was so lucky Atlae's priority was her well-being, but that just made it all the harder, didn't it?

"Let's not think about that, okay? We won't have to for a little while. I don't want Josef. I want you."

Atlae smiled and tried to think of something different to talk about. He thought about the happiest memory he had of Shamballa's city walls. "You know, I once jumped off from these."

Somehow it didn't surprise Mari', but she feigned it. "Oh. What's the story behind that?"

He laughed excitedly. "It was that time I saved Ithaca! Master was so angry, but those motorbike guys were going to really hurt him otherwise."

It sounded like a fun story, but the mention of Ithaca made Marianne stiffen and sour, looking away. "I see…What happened?"

"They were beating him up, dragging him around, so I jumped all the way from here and kicked their butts!" He laughed proudly. "He was fine in the end. After that, Ithaca even helped me feel better about being here in Shamballa on my own. I wish I had friends my age like him back then. Some things would have gone more smoothly."

Her hands laced on the wall battlements tensely.

Atlae didn't notice her apprehension, though. "I didn't see him at all in Greece. I asked your dad a few times, but Lord Arthur kept changing the subject. Even your mom wouldn't say anything and she always loved him. What is Ithaca doing these days, Marianne? Surely, you must know? Is he on some kind of mission you guys can't divulge?"

The Solo heiress looked back, but Atlae's unaware look made her falter. Could she do it? Could she tell Atlae the truth?

Maybe she could start slowly. She took his hand. "Um, Atlae. There's something you need to know about… what Ithaca has been doing and where he's been."

Energy seemed to spike into Atlae. "Where? I'd love to see him again, Marianne!" But he couldn't not notice how tense his girlfriend was, especially from the way her fingers squeezed his. Atlae lost his smile. "What is it? Did he do something wrong?"

The girl froze, her core feeling cold.

Atlae blinked. He felt her fingers now shaking. Was his girlfriend okay?

Marianne tried to gather her courage, but memories of that terrible night, of seeing her mother moaning as Ithaca moved on top of her, fathering her little half-brother, seemed capable on their own of shutting her mind down like a terrible trauma. But how long could she keep hiding this from Atlae? Ithaca was an important figure in his life. He had the right to know.

Atlae had the right to know Ithaca, his favorite person in the whole world, was missing! Likely dead!

He narrowed eyes, "Marianne… you're starting to worry me." realizing she needed help putting her thoughts out, he tried to be the assertive one. "Tell me what's wrong, now."

Marianne resisted the temptation to cry. "A-Atlae, I-"

"Atlae?!"

The two turned. Arriving by their side from patrolling the walls was a young teenage girl in Muvian padded armor, bow and spear, alike the rest of the wall guards. Her hair was light pink and cut to neck-length, her Muvian dots showed beneath her beaked helmet and above her blue eyes and her arms and thighs were leanly toned, like an Amazon Saint.

Seeing his face, she repeated herself. "Atlae, that's you!" She laughed and took off her helmet. "It's me, Jeanna!"

Atlae stiffened, stepping back. Marianne recognized the name as one of the two bullies who used to harass Atlae and narrowed her eyes.

Jeanna saw how tense they looked and waved her free hand. "H-hey, don't worry, I'm not looking for a fight. I promise!" She laughed nervously. "I'm just really surprised to see you."

Tentatively, Atlae breathed out and reassessed the situation. "H-Hi, Jeanna… um… how are you?"

"I'm good! I've calmed down a lot lately since we last met, with this post and Master's help. The blue belt earned me a spot in the guard right away, so…" Jeanna kicked her shoulder up. "I think I'm less anxious these days, you know? Things are so much better." She then saw Marianne and widened eyes. "Hey, wait, Atlae, is this… that friend of yours?"

Atlae snapped out and nodded, presenting Marianne. "Y-yes, this is Ma-"

But Marianne stepped up, even standing in front of Atlae protectively. "Vice-Admiral Marianne Solo, at Shamballa's service." Her eyes tensed on Jeanna, searching for any kind of sign she'd harass her boyfriend. "You're a former classmate of Atlae, are you not? His master has told me about you."

Jeanna irked. "Oh boy, you must have heard some stories, then, right? But don't worry, that's all behind me.'' She then studied Marianne again, from how impeccably she was uniformed, to her confident visage to her beautiful Delphinus Bronze Cloth, and turned to Atlae. "W… Wow, Atlae. You were right. I had no business saying what I said."

Marianne blinked. This was the second or third time this was brought up. "Said what, exactly?"

Atlae shook head. Racists implications about the Mariners being slavers would just darken that day. "I-It's not important! Not at all!"

Jeanna laughed along with him. "He's right, it really isn't. Ah, just, you know, I used to tease him a lot because he said all these sweet things about you. It made me kind of mad at the time. Girls will be girls, right?"

Marianne blinked. Wasn't the saying 'boys will be boys'? Was this another switched thing among Muvians?

The guard shook her head. "But since I last met Atlae, I've cooled down a lot. I got away from Mia, who enabled me a lot, my parents got off my back once I got this job… I even got a really sweet boyfriend. So, you know, I'm not as angry anymore." She looked away, looking horrified. "I hope you forgive me, Atlae. For everything I did. I'm really ashamed."

The couple widened eyes at the show of humility. Atlae in particular, who remembered all the times Jeanna and her friend beat him up and humiliated him, felt in awe.

Looking them over, Jeanna realized something. "Hey, wait a second, are you two here on a date?" She beamed when she saw the two of them stagger. "By Genbu, you ARE, aren't you?! Atlae, you champ! I'm so happy for you!"

Marianne shook head. "P-Please, keep it down."

"We're doing this in secret. Don't tell anyone, please!" Atlae begged.

The pink-haired guard laughed in amazement. "My bad! Let me show the two of you around. I have access to the main gate forecastle, you know? There's some really romantic places up-top there! It's where I asked my boyfriend out the first time!"

The couple shared a hesitant look. Should they?

But Jeanne walked over them and pushed the two towards the main gate path. "Come on, I insist! Trust me, when you see the sights from it, you'll really leave Shamballa with this city in your hearts!"

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

Mount Kailash,

Innards

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

The passage into the excavation site inside Mount Kailash was dark and damp, yet Ithaca could hear through his head's cage the soft drumming of something massive inside. Each step Azrael took dragging him further in, the rhythmic vibration got stronger, louder, clearer. Ithaca had the distinct impression he was being walked to the vicinity of a colossal heartbeat, one whose pulses rattled him to his bones harder and harder.

Azrael burned cosmos in his hand, creating a torch ball. He held it up high and allowed it to shine like a sun above his head, making his greyish-brown Serpens Cloth's many segments and horns shine like stars and illuminating the large chamber they now entered.

He raised it at the humanoid structure ahead of them. "Behold, Ithaca of Delphi… the Cloth of Talos."

The castrated, emaciated Mariner sucked his breath. Ahead of him, in the dark, with its enormous and thick arms dug deep into the chamber's rocky walls, knelt a colossal aberration. The sight of it alone made every primal alarm in Ithaca's brain fire, like coming face to face with a monster from the depths of the ocean for the first time.

It was composed of black bones inside black metallic armor plates. Its face was a skull of elongated chin and sharp teeth looking down on them with two black voids and scenting them with a third one. It was encased in a disheveled dome, perhaps a sort of headpiece, with a tri-corned crown and a mohawk-like series of horns. It's back birthed two wings of leathery membranes, enormous yet useless like a pair of open shells. Its spinal cord elongated downwards, past its buttocks, into a long mass of a tail going deep into the cavern's depths, and its entire length was spiked, particularly between the wings. Its legs were two sets of greaves the size of houses with pointy knee guards and going into segmented faults of green scales.

All and all, it was like staring before a titanic armor of monstrous, half-reptilian shape with bones inside. Though it was skeletal in its inner frame, it towered over the two of them, like a large Temple of Sanctuary inside that mountain.

But the worst of it was the intense, burning lifebreath!

Ithaca felt no Cosmos from it. It didn't surprise him that so few were aware of Talos' presence inside the mountain because of this. However, Ithaca's newborn 0th sense, forged from his months of torment in Azrael's castle, sensed what seemed like a mass of solar light the size of a skyscraper, burning at his mind like having his face pressed against a heated metal plate. It felt like a being entirely composed of vital force, powered by a heart so inhumanly strong, it imitated the force of a Gold Saint's Cosmos. Perhaps that of several put together.

Ithaca stared in horror. How could such a thing exist? And it was a Cloth? As in a Cloth of Athena?!

And yet, as strong as it was and as intensely its core beated, in terms of motion it seemed… dead. Even though his 0th sense felt such an intense breath of life, there was no actual breath in the chest of this monstrosity. Ithaca and Azrael seemed to stand before a hanging creature lacking in purpose, direction, and muscle.

"Do not let its appearance raise your hopes, Ithaca of Delphi. This Cloth is very much alive." Azrael said, beholding it. "Forged with the powers of the four Gods of the Muvian Pantheon, this Cloth cannot be killed. In times of great crisis for Mu, a great warrior would ring the Bell of Genbu to awaken this Cloth, and don it to protect the kingdom of Crete from Mariners."

Ithaca widened eyes. "The Bell?!...Atlae did this?! He awakened this… this Cloth?!"

"This makes Talos one of the Four Legendary Cloths of the Myth Age." Azrael explained. "Just like Teos, the Cloth of Hope. But rather than inspire the aspirations of the weak, this Cloth… is a Cloth of Destruction! Meant for nothing but the elimination of your enemies."

"S-So it's nothing but a bomb with legs!" Ithaca accused, shaking as his strength neared its end. He looked at Azrael in his petty green eyes. "And you are but a terrorist with a Bronze Cloth!"

The Zodiac Knight eyed him like he was ungrateful. "Many would pray to have this kind of power I'm about to give you, Mariner."

Ithaca squinted, now immunized to the Knight's poisonous cynicism. "How generous of you! I only pray for the people of Mu, who are going to pay the price for your madness!"

Azrael's shoulders shook with laughter. "This really IS an era of reconciliation between your people, isn't it?!" Grabbing Ithaca, Azrael presented him forward to Talos, making his torch of Cosmos shine directly on the Mariner's face, illuminating the Muvian traits of his headcage's mask to the Cloth. "Goodbye, Ithaca of Delphi!"

The last thing Ithaca saw before his breath forcefully sucked into his lungs and everything went white was a strange light being born in the enormous skull's eyes!

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

Ithaca opened his eyes.

The murky mountain cavern was gone. Talos, the giant, or at least an enormous silhouette like it, shone in front of him like a mass of darkness. The black voids in its eyes were now blue stars, awake.

Its voice was thick and grave, booming directly in Ithaca's mind. "You are not a Son of Mu."

The tortured mariner shook head. "N-no…"

"Yet, I was able to feel the rage of the hurt in you. To connect with it." Talos spoke. Its shining eyes squinted in its silhouette "Somehow…here I am. With a servant of Poseidon. How is this possible?"

Ithaca touched his own face. He felt his skin in his fingers for the first time in months. The cage was gone. Looking down, he felt naked before a cold world. Was he in some kind of mental or Cosmos plane? All he saw around him was blue.

"The man who brought me here…" Ithaca tried to explain.

Talos's large hand laid out. "You mean this one?" and its palm showed an image of Azrael at the cave, holding a screaming Ithaca still as light connected him to the physical Talos.

"Y-YES!" Ithaca gasped, nodding frantically. "He made me look like a Muvian. He even made me unlock the 0th sense. I think… he tricked you into seeing me as one."

Talos seemed satisfied with the response, closing his hand along with the image and raising its chin. "Then he is a cunning soul, that one. Perhaps he seeks to use you as a test to understand how to control me. I sense a tremendous resentment in him, the type that in the right circumstances could connect with me as well. Should he master me, that Bronze Saint could cause great destruction. The entire world could be burned to the ground in a single man's reckless vendetta."

Ithaca widened eyes. Was this the personality of the Cloth of Destruction? One worried about what it could do?

Perhaps, then Ithaca still had hope to put a stop to this madness! "Can't you kill him, then?! Squash him now! Don't let him use you for his fucked-up evil!"

"Evil?" Talos challenged. "I am the Cloth of Destruction. Not Hope. My strength will be given to whoever can wear me." The figure laid out its hand and projected an image of the Myth era where it could be seen battling blue-armored enemies much smaller than itself. "The first thing I was worn to do was to kill Mariners like you. Now all that might get turned back at my creators by one. And I will think nothing of it."

Powerless, Ithaca collapsed. "I k-knew it… you're nothing but a weapon with legs and teeth!" He sunk face into hands. "T-There's nothing I can do, then! Everyone will die!"

Yet, Talos dispelled the projection and challenged this as well. "That is equally untrue. You do have an option, Mariner; make your contract with me."

Ithaca scowled at this, wishing he could laugh. "What great advice! So I put you on me, just like he wants me to. And then what?!"

"That part is up to you." Talos admitted. "You don't want to hurt others with me? Then fight for it. And if you can do that, even the top of Mount Olympus' wouldn't be out of your reach." Its silhouette seemed to fluctuate more aggressively, even approach him like it was about to swallow Ithaca like a great flame. "But I warn you, Mariner… wearing me will be a test of your strength like none you've faced before."

Ithaca stood there, in the ethereal world, his brain heating with the implications of his choice. Should he do it? Did he really even have an out? Or if he said 'no', would this Cloth just take him anyway and do what it wanted with Ithaca's mangled body? Unfortunately, Ithaca knew too little. In fact, he knew nothing of Talos. He just knew this was a weapon Azrael wanted him to wield, likely against the Muvians.

It spread out its arms "What will it be, Mariner?"

Ithaca turned away, gritting teeth with a terrifying option in mind. "You're… a weapon. A Cloth of Destruction. Which means… if I have a target to my rage I could direct you, at least!"

"Correct."

He stepped up, feeling the brightness inside his chest for the first time. "Then… then I'll focus on that Zodiac Knight bastard! And squash him to bits with all your might!" but just as Ithaca felt the light of hope, Talos chuckled, its laughter echoing in the ether. "W…What?! What's so hilarious?!"

Its shining eyes squinted. "I can already feel in your thoughts everything you experienced from him, Mariner. Yet for all his torture, that fallen Knight is not the one who caused you the most rage. Who is it, then?" The silhouette began blobbing, changing form into a different outline. "I can sense a wound in your heart… it's very deep, deeper than anything that Knight has done to you, and has a memory attached to it. A face! Perhaps you should focus on it, instead?"

A terror he dared not give words to suddenly crept up Ithaca, whose eyes enlarged. "(N-no… he couldn't be talking of…)"

And yet, Talos' silhouette formed her long hair. Her feminine, mature figure. Her ample chest. The outline of the clothes Lord Arthur gifted her for the ball. The clothes she had him rip off of her in one particularly passionate night.

Even her kind smile formed in Talos' face, replacing his jagged teeth, as the Cloth felt its new owner discover his true target. "There it is! Your thirst for Destruction!"

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

Shamballa

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

"And how are they doing?" the flame in Yuzuriha's fireplace spoke.

Yuzuriha rolled eyes and scoffed. "Ugh, abrasively in love, of course. But don't worry, Arthur, they're keeping it discreet. Besides, you should be more concerned about the presence of the Gerasimov grandson and his massive ship."

"I confess, that has me a bit worried, too." The shadowy figure in the burning sighed. "But I can't guess what Nikolai and his grandson are doing based on such limited information. As for Marianne…I don't mean to pressure my daughter and Atlae into secrecy like this, but… it is beyond my powers to change. At least for now."

Yuzuriha said nothing to this. In her opinion, most obnoxious Mariner traditions only still existed because of their own stubbornness. However, as a Muvian, she was not in a position to criticize other societies for wasting their potential because of-

The device in her wrist suddenly rang madly, cutting her thoughts! Yuzuriha gasped and saw the needle on her seismographic watch shake like a bamboo in a storm!

"Is something the matter?" Arthur asked.

"N-no! Arthur, I'll get back to you later! I'll keep an eye on Marianne and Atlae, I promise!" She then shut off the fireplace communication and took her other radio. "ARGES, BRONTES, STEROPES! What is the status on the Kailash site?!"

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

Mount Kailash,

Outside

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

The three elite immortal Guards dressed in red, blue, and yellow armors investigated the slaughtered camp. The whole valley vibrated below their feet, like one of the mountains was about to turn into a volcano.

Arges, the one dressed in red, knelt before a dead comrade. "The situation has rapidly escalated, High Elder. Our main camp has been attacked after a diversion drove Steropes away."

"What?!"

The other two elites shook with the Elder's voice.

Arges stayed professional. "The situation is serious, Elder, but we will contain it. We vow it by all Four Gods. However, we did discover something terrible already. Over."

Yuzuriha could scream, and she did. "What could make this situation possibly worse?!"

Arges took the weapon they found soaked in blood. "We discovered the weapon of whoever did this. High Elder. It's a Mariner sword."

"…Are you certain?! Are you absolutely one hundred percent sure?!"

He looked at the Sea Dragon button on it and its unique tone of amber. "It's emblemed with the Solo Household. In orichalcum."

Brontes shook head. "Blasted Mariners."

Steropes palmed his masked face. "This was all a giant trap."

The red-armored Immortal Guard elite continued on the communicator. "Don't worry, High Elder, whoever did this must still be at the excavation site. They won't accomplish anything; as you told us, only a Muvian can bond with the mechanism inside."

"ARREST WHOEVER DID THIS AND BRING THEM DIRECTLY TO ME, UNDERSTOOD?! NO ONE ELSE! AND EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTI-"

…

…..

…

It first came as light and shaking, the kind that made your mind go blank and your whole body lose all sensation. The kind that made you think the world had suddenly ended.

Arges gasped awake, feeling himself spinning in the air.

The High Elder's voice was gone and a deafeningly loud sonic-boom caught up with him, further blasting him, Brontes, and Steropes through tree branches and crashing boulders.

Their tossed bodies landed from the shockwave's force, rattling them. Little by little, sensation returned to the Guards. The blinding light receded and the deafening buzz began ringing in their ears and they finally understood that something had happened. Something in the mountain had blown them clear. Something truly horrible had happened.

Amidst a rain of rocks, the three elite Immortal Guards Arges, Brontes and Steropes, rose from the ground, surrounded by their coughing and screaming men. Their masks beheld, as vision returned to them, a sight that shook them to their very cores.

Before them lay Mount Kailash, but a defaced version of the rises they had been assigned to protect. Rather than a peaceful dome of rock so many pilgrims traveled to, the Guards saw what looked more like a colossal hole on the northeastern side, a massive tear going from the higher rocks to the feet of the protruding mountain, like a cesarean wound in Mother Nature itself ripped open from the inside.

And it burned. All of it!

As the rocks falling from the sky stopped, the ash, embers and cinders of the fires came to replace them. Consuming the entire mountain were unnatural flames of green and red. They rose higher than houses, higher than skyscrapers, higher than the Sun Temple itself, higher than even the surrounding peaks of the Himalayas. They ate at the ground and mountain side and covered the passage head to toe like the curtains of a great door welcoming destruction into the surface, the remnants of an explosion that probably would have leveled a small island entirely. Night was made into day by them, covering the skies with an aurora of sickly green and heating the air of the valley into a furnace, while the rumbling of the ground echoed more and more.

And then the howling began. Arges, Brontes, and Steropes shook and widened eyes, feeling it pierce their hearts with terror.

It came from within the burning hole, in the source of blood-red light that beat deep inside. The howl echoed deeply, like the bellowing of a colossal bronze bull, accompanied by an intensifying shaking in the entire valley. Then its pitch screeched high and the fires raged, like a great struggle happened invisibly within, all while the shaking of the ground grew worse and worse, rumbling to the point they dropped to their hands and knees. For a moment, it felt like the whole earth could split in two under their feet, such was the shaking.

Arges' eyes rose and, around the crimson source of beating light, he saw shadows gather like a twister in the enormous flames. The beating shape took them in and spread outwards, like rivers of molten metal flowing into veiny molds in every direction, forming an outline. At first it was just a silhouette, one only as tall as a small statue. Then, with every beat, it swelled and swelled, reaching its veins of molten metal further, taking the dimensions of a house, then a large building, then shooting upwards like a skyscraper, dwarfing the witnesses of this alchemical birth.

The metal began hardening, taking the physical shape of enormous bones. Then shoulders and a head formed, along with the shape of a body both thin and disjointed, gaining mass. Fires began whirl-winding into it and the howling grew clearer as a featureless head and closed jaw took shape. It sounded like it was in suffering, crying out for something or someone.

The skeletal figure stumbled heavily into the flames as it assumed weight. Long arms and legs began forming, but even as they grabbed it didn't look like it could move very well, like a child taking its first steps. Its hands reached out blindingly, trying to claw out of the burning., only to tumble again. All the while, ash and flames kept flowing into it, giving density to its shape and strength. More bones. More definition. More power.

Brontes stood up and stepped back, feeling a mass of Cosmos beginning to take shape that challenged his wildest conceptions. "It… can't be!"

Steropes rattled. They were beholding a power that had once challenged Zeus itself. "It is."

Two bright blue eyes opened in the figure's head, shining like lighthouses even inside the fires and focusing irises into slits. Its slender hands of bones grew thicker and slammed the ground, shaking it, to help itself rise. It did so with a tremendous, slow movement that felt like the growing of an enormous tidal wave of black bones, the erecting of a monument to destruction and fear that paralyzed the warriors beholding it. Its jaw began taking shape, separating into jagged teeth shapes, each the size of a tall man. Its ribs began curving inward correctly, locking the beating crimson core powering the creature inside a protective cage. Its shoulder bones solidified further, forming all the right curves and fixtures that locked its powerful arms into place, giving them solidity to fully push itself into a stand. Its coccyx and thighs straightened, giving it the power to put weight into a direction. Shades slithered into them, thickening the joints, allowing it to turn without collapsing, and the figure indeed slowly began to turn.

Turn towards them.

Its eyes fixed on them, brightening excitedly. They recognized something instinctive, perhaps a deep purpose within its possessed mind to destroy this scattered bunch of masked Muvians in whoever had entered the mountain and taken Talos into themselves. It tensed from head to toe and gawked out awkwardly, like it was trying to roar without lungs. It would have been pitiful, but then it stepped towards them through the fire, threateningly echoing its massive weight through the valley with such force they forgot to take a breath!

The Guards all had to look up, almost at the sky, to behold its excited face. "S-SHIT! FALL BACK! RUN!"

"IT'S AWAKE! THE COLOSSUS IS AWAKE!" another screamed. "CALL THE ELDER, SOUND THE ALARMS! TALOS HAS AWAKENED!"

The three elites, however, stood their ground. This battle was what they were here for. They would not run even if all of Olympus itself showed up to threaten their home.

The monster could not be bothered with those that ran, focusing on the trio instead. "Mu…" it thought in its forming brain, seeing their attires and masks while gathering strength to take another step. Its body felt so heavy. Every bit of it screamed in pain, especially as his nerves began to form. "Mu…vians…?"

The colossal figure finally moved its foot out of its birthing flames and burned into the earth its first footprint, like a piece of metal fresh out of the hot forge baptizing the valley. The second step did just the same, crossing a whole forest patch in a single drag and trailing fires that set ablaze half the valley.

"Mu…vians… must….DIE!" it thought, feeling thousands of years of war between two peoples boil in its forming body. Its powerful eyes saw the tiny trio assuming battle positions and its huge fingers tightened in anticipation, sharpening its tips into claws, and its jaw laid out hungrily for destruction, seeing the three of them charge their Cosmos. It, too, began shining with power, growing mass faster and faster. "MUST… DIE!"

It was clearly an incomplete monster, nothing but black bones, blue eyes and a heart, but slowly, with every beat of its giant core, it grew bits and pieces into itself. New veins formed. Bits of flesh grew like tumors around its appendages. It was already far too destructive,… but not unstoppable.

Arges, Brontes and Steropes shared a look of their masks, understanding without words what they had to do. Soon, Talos would be too strong, too complete. This was their only chance. The Colossus could not be allowed to leave the valley. The High Elder had given them explicit permission to do whatever was necessary to accomplish their task.

They joined up and assumed position, with Arges kneeling in the middle in front while Brontes and Steropes assumed half-turned spots in his flanks. All three joined hands together by the wrists, pointing palms at the monster, and their Cosmos burned. As masters of the 7th sense, they would need to concentrate every bit of its power into a single point ahead of them. The same point. The overlapping contact of the three points of explosion would create a chain reaction of escalating energy release that could not be stopped until everything in front of them was annihilated. It was not unlike a thermonuclear explosion, but using the universal power of the Cosmos, rather than mere uranium.

Such was the forbidden technique, the one that could put an end to said Cosmos if misused. Such was the lengths they would have to go… unless the destruction of the Age of Myth returned to curse the modern world.

Talos' eyes shut with the three stars of bright light it saw joining together into a blinding flash. The creature roared, stumbling back with a quaking step and covering its eyes.

May the Gods forgive them. "ATHENA EXCLAMATION!"

Then, everything turned into even more screamed mutely, feeling his colossal body split apart in a blaze of light!

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

Chapter End

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

Next Chapter: Chapter 93 – 3rd Arc – Episode 21: The March of Destruction - Part 1

Release Date: February 25th

Description: In Greece, Pope Arles III summons Capricorn 'Achilles' Kirin to his hall to announce the terrible technique, Athena Exclamation, has been fired in Central Gold Saint of Athena must investigate the cause and ascertain who committed such a grave sin. At the same time, Arthur Solo returns home after his conversation with Yuzuriha and finds Seraphina listless.

Meanwhile, in Shamballa, Yuzuriha tries to get the situation with Talos under control after Arges, Brontes and Steropes have been forced to fire Athena Exclamation on it. Is the threat subdued?

Finally, Jeanna shows Atlae and Marianne a really cool telescope.

Author's Comments:

I'm really sorry about the delay on this chapter. As I said before, December was a difficult month with my health and my writing schedule was really affected by it. Thankfully, throughout January I was able to catch up, finish this chapter and get the next one done as well, so hopefully we are back to the 'publishing every 25th of the month' timetable.

On etymology, initially I was going to explain the origin of the name of the Lake I introduced being next to Shamballa, but I lost my reference to it. Instead then, I'll talk about Arges, Brontes and Steropes, the three elite Immortal Guards who fire Athena Exclamation here at the end. The origin of their names is the cyclopes. According to the Theogony by Hesiod, these three are the cyclopean brothers who forge Zeus' thunderbolts.

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