Notable OCs up until now that I own: Pegasus Lance; Andromeda Shinta; Heracles Aguilon's Silver Saint Generation; Taurus Daniel's Gold Saint Generation;
Notable Original concept (until now): Sanctuary Town; Pegasus Temple;
Recurrent/Cameo OCs belonging to Jenny DeVic: Cassiopeia Cassandra; Behemoth Torak (Toruk); Mrs. Schafurwatt
Recurrent/Cameo concepts belonging to Jenny DeVic: 88 Knights Festival; Golden Line Heritage; The Great Bodyguard legend; The Sanctuary-sponsored orphanages; Andromeda Island's geography
Author notes:
Old readers: You've most likely been notified of the revamp via the Story Alert function of the site, meaning that you only received a notification that I've posted a new chapter, this one. This is due to the posting method that I chose in order to allow me to re-post the chapters without deleting the story altogether. Please check the first chapter to find out what is going on and read the revamped LR from the start.
Please enjoy and review.
{======================|0|======================}
"His Cloth used to be Pegasus; that is true, Seiya, but he got it in a slightly different manner than you did and he surrendered it to Sanctuary's possession when he finally stopped using it for good. I remember him saying that he doesn't miss it anymore, but I can see in his eyes that that's bullshit. After all, you never forget your first Cloth, no matter how much you progress past it."
-20th century's Taurus Aldebaran, to Pegasus Seiya
{======================|0|======================}
Shion waved his hands over the Cancer Gold Cloth. "Pegasus Lance has been a Bronze Saint for two years already. Two years ago, four years after being abandoned in Mount Olympus to die, he returned to Sanctuary against all odds after only half the time limit had expired. The underachieving trainee survived all the perils of the mountain and fulfilled the Path of the Bronze Cloth without the help of his would be Master, Kastiel." He then turned to the three younger Gold Saints. "As said before, you two had special promotion conditions so you are not fully aware of what this entails, do you?"
Saga and Aiolos shook their heads. "I'm aware that the different ranks of Cloths have different requirements, but I do not know the details, your Holiness." said Aiolos.
"Oh, I do! I do!" Mu shouted, raising his hand into the air. He has worked with broken Cloths for a while so he had insight his two seniors did not. His Master gave him permission to explain. "In order for you to be able to wear a cloth, you have to be under the protection of its constellation. Everybody's born under a zodiacal constellation, but at any instance of your life, you may also be under the protection of a Bronze and Silver one. You just can't have two of the same level, such as being protected by Pegasus AND Bear. This is why Saints can suffer promotions and demotions in level of the Cloth."
Shion clapped his hands. "Correct, very good, Mu!" He praised, giving Mu just cause for a sheepish smile. "While, sometimes, you are also born under the protection of a Bronze or Silver Constellation, most people are only born with the zodiacal one."
Aiolos widened his eyes. "Oh, is that so? That's interesting. But why are some people born with Bronze and Silver while most are not?"
Taurus Daniel explained this one. "The cause of that may vary greatly, Aiolos. Most philosophers agree that you can inherit the protection from family ties or, and take this with a grain of salt, from your previous reincarnation. For example, you could be born under the protection of Pegasus because your father was the Saint of it or because," Daniel then cleared his throat, as he was a bit skeptic of his next few words "well, because you were the Saint of it in a previous life."
Shion smiled inside his mask. Reincarnation was a subject of heavy debate in Sanctuary. Many historians and members of the Golden Zodiac, especially of the Virgo temple, argued ferociously over whether or not reincarnation among humans and the tendency of the two lives being very similar was real. As his eyes locked on Saga and Aiolos, who Hecate had predicted to be the returned Aspros and Sisyphus, Shion could only believe it to be real.
Taurus Daniel continued. "Like the Pope said before, a seer was sent to Saint Lance's orphanage to see if he was born under a Bronze or Silver Constellation through their special spiritual techniques and rituals. It has also been proven that psychological tests can give you a hint to what your constellation is, so some Masters figure out what is the best Path of The Cloth for their students just by getting to know them really well." He then placed his hand on his chest. "For example, when I was a kid, many decades ago, I was told to be under the protection of the Bear Constellation so I took its path, but later on, I managed to become the Whale Silver Saint, too, even though I didn't have its protection. Do you know how?"
Saga figured it out immediately. "Other constellations outside of the zodiac take you under their wing when you complete their Paths if you weren't born under it?"
Taurus nodded. "Exactly, however, constellations have a life of their own. They have opinions and standards regarding your personality and desires. You must live up to those standards or the Cloth may decide to abandon you." Saga felt alarmed all of a sudden with this. Did the Gemini Cloth also expect something from him? Taurus Daniel saw the worried look in his eyes and chuckled. "Ha, ha, ha! Don't worry, Saga! I'm sure the three of you will have no problem keeping your Cloths happy."
Saga seemed to relax, but Aiolos folded his arms when a question filled his mind. "Doesn't this mean that you can switch your Bronze and Silver constellation for a new set?"
Aquarius Malta nodded. "Unless under special circumstances, Bronze Cloths usually require you to have a six years' worth of training and the completion of the tests they set out for you in the respective Training Ground. Silver Cloths usually only require three. If you are willing to take those years of training all over again under the guidance of the new constellation you want to follow, then yes, you may."
Capricorn Kirin, however, then explained something important. "But Aiolos, that would be the same as betraying your constellation, wouldn't it? It's an extremely dishonorable thing to do. It would be like swearing allegiance to a new Master just because you didn't like the old one. The old Master would consider you a traitor and the new one would distrust you."
"Kirin is right. The Path of the Cloth is a sacred journey that will test your principles and determination as a Saint. Turning your back on it for another one of the same level is one of the worst things you could do as a Saint in the eyes of the Cloths."
"So was Lance judged to be under the Pegasus Cloth's protection?" asked Aiolos.
"We don't know what the seer concluded. Jason's Exile's rules, however, stipulate that you are sent to an empty Training Ground of difficulty level B or lower and Mount Olympus was the only one available at the time" reminded the Pope.
"But your Holiness, if Saint Lance has been placed under the protection of the Pegasus Constellation, since he has obtained the respective armor, doesn't it mean that the Pegasus Cloth deemed him to be a worthy Saint?"
Shion had his reservations about this. During the past Holy War with Hades, that demonic God who finally brought down Tenma had done it so brutally that the Pegasus Cloth had been traumatized by the experience and lost all of its godly power. Shion still remembered repairing the shattered Pegasus God Cloth into its base form and realizing that the wild, ambitious spirit of the Pegasus Cloth had turned into a weak, fragile steed too afraid of opposing its would-be Masters.
"Unfortunately, Aiolos, due to the damage it sustained during the last Holy War," the Pope said "the Pegasus Cloth has been deemed unfit to judge trainees properly. Because of that, I returned it to the Pegasus Temple and asked a certain spirit to act as its guardian. That spirit has been judging the trainees in Mount Olympus ever since."
"So you're saying that Lance's promotion to bronze is no immediate guarantee of his character?" asked Saga.
Shion nodded. "I'm afraid so. Only Athena, Lance and the Pegasus Cloth themselves know what actually happened inside that temple two years ago and what Pegasus' guardian concluded about trainee Lance. Moreover, there's also the fact that Lance trained without a Master to instill morals and discipline in him."
"As a result of this experience, Lance has become a lone wolf." added Taurus Daniel. "Until he was assigned to work with Saint Shinta, he took his missions alone and had no friends among the Saints. Many antagonized him for his encounter with Kastiel after he obtained the Pegasus Cloth, too, and for the violence he was a part of within Sanctuary against his own peers."
Aquarius Malta nodded. "Gold Saints are not loners. They are comrades fighting under the name of Athena. The reason fighting among them is prohibited is not limited to the destruction they can cause to themselves and others. Even if we accept him as a lone wolf, someone like that who disrespects the value of unity cannot and should not be treated as one of us."
Capricorn Kirin then concluded. "Our generation of Gold Saints fought valiantly against many threats before the three of you were even born, and we have a firm belief that we only survived because we stayed united, not apart. You can ask any half-decent captain, and they'll tell you that rogue elements in any military unit are a liability. Do not overlook Lance's attitude."
The three older Gold Saints then kept quiet for a while with these words and Shion seemed to grow a bit somber too. The three younger Gold Saints kept staring at them for a while, wondering what they were thinking about.
{======================|0|======================}
Chapter 2
First Arc
Episode 2
Pegasus
{======================|0|======================}
Two years before, early January of 1974 in Mount Olympus
{======================|0|======================}
Inside the cabin he had spent four years of his life, trainee Lance put on his red shirt, tied the bandages around his forearms and hands and listened to the wind blowing strongly on the outside, spreading the snow and the cold. Lance's red eyes turned to the broken mirror on his wall. Standing almost six feet tall and with a completely different muscle size, he no longer recognized the kid Kastiel abandoned in the cold eyed, hardened teenager that stared back at him.
He spent about a minute looking at his front door, gathering his courage to go outside and face his challenge. Thinking about the four years he had spent there, running away from the animals, particularly the wolves, the cold and even the occasional bandit or Black Saint trying to harass Sanctuary by taking over the place, his eyes narrowed, for he realized he had had enough of it.
He opened the door and faced the snowy field and setting sun.
Normally, he wouldn't think of going outside at such an hour, especially during the winter, due to his cryophobia. Years in that cold mountain had been absolute torture to him as he was forced to endure cold nights and cruel snowstorms in an attempt to survive. As he rushed through the rocky ground as fast as he could, he tried not to think about the snow he was stepping in. However, the harsher parts of the winter would come that month and Lance didn't want to be around once more to face it.
After a while of sprinting at superhuman speed and leaping around obstacles and rocks, he reached the highest spot of the Training Ground. Mount Olympus was actually divided into Steps of a staircase. What normal people saw as Mount Olympus, the three kilometer high Mountain amongst eleven other rocky peaks, was but the first 'Step' to it. The 'staircase', however, was said to have another one thousand 'steps' invisible to the normal eye, each one only accessible through secret passage on the highest peak of the last step. It was probably accurate to say that the real Mount Olympus consisted of a thousand secret mountains stacked on top of the first step.
Lance's Training Ground was simply the second step of the mountain and Sanctuary's control was said to only stretch itself to the third or fourth one. All the other ones above belonged to the Gods, each with increasingly difficult conditions, so much that it was said not even Gold Saints could make it past the fiftieth or so.
Lance halted his march. At the highest spot of the second Step, an upwards rocky road circulated the peak until reaching the top, where the secret passage to the Third step would be. But Lance didn't need to go any further for along the path, dug into the mountain's side, was the Pegasus Temple's entrance.
Even with the setting sun blasting its light on it, it looked dark, decayed and foreboding. The marble of its pillars, ramp and entablature was darkened by time and filled with cracks and dead vines. The entablature itself featured Ancient Greek style images of Greek warriors battling each other for a box in the middle with a horse head biting on a handle on its front face. Below that image, an inscription was engraved in Ancient Greek.
"'Would you die for your dreams as I have done?'" Lance read to himself. "'If your will is strong and your path is clear to you, tread upon this Temple without fear. If not, then may the unforgiving Plain of Aleion claim your miserable life…what the hell? Who wrote that?"
Lance's red eyes stared at the inscription. However, they then picked up the light of the sun setting itself. Conditions in the second Step were much harsher than in the first one. At night, the negative temperatures reached critical levels. Lance groaned and rushed inside the temple to take over.
Once inside, however, he felt his foot stepping on something stony that caved inside the ground under his weight. Lance widened his eyes as he heard the sound of stone mechanisms working within the walls of the temples. "SHIT! A trap!" he cursed, turning around, but too late as the stardust reinforced door of rock slid down the entrance, crashed with the floor and locked him inside the Temple. The room was enveloped in darkness as the only source of light had been blocked before Lance could find a torch. Lance's fists blindly banged on the stone block that trapped him in. "NO!" he shouted. Lance took a deep breath to calm himself down. "What am I going to do now? I can't see anything in this dark."
All of a sudden, two flames around him lit up; illuminating the corridor he was in. Lance's eyes widened as he watched more pairs of torches lit up one by one along the corridor's length. The trainee sighed in relief. For a moment, he thought he had doomed himself by coming to that temple. His eyes analyzed the stone door that locked him in. It had a cubic slot where a Cloth box could probably fit inside. Maybe all he needed was the Pegasus Cloth Box as the stardust-reinforced stone would certainly absorb the strength of his cosmos punches.
His fist tightened in anger and he cursed Kastiel, the man who abandoned him. He had only told him that the Temple would have a challenge, but he gave no details. He didn't even hint towards the possibility of him not being able to leave the Temple without the Cloth. As Lance walked along the corridor towards the innards of the Temple he vowed to obtain the Pegasus Cloth whatever the cost, even if it maimed him or worse.
The corridor led him to a large, long room supported by two lines of pillars along the walls. More torches lit up, also fully illuminating this room. The walls were dark and dusty and the air was quite humid and cold. Lance's body trembled involuntary with the low temperature and he hugged himself as he walked along the walls. He then realized that there were pictures engraved on the stone walls between the pillars.
The first couple of pictures were nothing really interesting. The depicted mostly the myth of Pegasus, such as its birth from Medusa's blood, Perseus riding it towards Andromeda Island and Bellerophon taming it and using it to try to climb all the Steps of Olympus.
However, the pictures started depicting Saints of Pegasus and Lance found himself intrigued by them. The first ones showed battles with Specters and Mariners, but eventually, he started running into larger engravings of a man wearing celestial armor fighting what looked like a depiction of Hades.
Lance stepped close to the last picture, the one at the end of the room. "A dead end?" he asked himself before analyzing the image. It showed three figures. One was the man in Celestial armor in the right unleashing what looked like meteors from his fist. Another was a man on the left wearing a set of armor he did not recognize, though it covered him fully like a Gold Cloth and featured a right forearm shaped like a Chinese dragon, while Athena, the third figure, watched over the fight from above.
Lance then sensed a concentrated cosmos behind the walls. He widened his eyes and his heart started beating faster as he recalled having sensed the same coming from Cloth Boxes. Realizing that the Pegasus Cloth Box was standing behind the picture, he stepped back and charged his white cosmos.
"Yes! This is it!" he excitedly proclaimed. He then charged forward and punched the wall. Upon impact, however, there was a burst of light and Lance screamed as he was shocked and projected backwards. The trainee fell backwards on the stone floor, rolling around several times before stopping himself. He coughed and picked himself back up. "W-what?! What happened?"
"Do you wish to obtain the Pegasus Cloth?" someone suddenly asked. Lance watched as the image of the three figures split right in the middle, opened up and moved out of the way, revealing a platform standing over an abyss with a cubic metal box being illuminated from above.
Lance stood up straight and locked eyes with the far away object, his mouth becoming agape. There it was, right in front of him, making his heart beat faster than ever and a warm feeling fill his guts, the Cloth he had dreamed for four years to obtain. "The…the Pegasus Cloth, I… YES! Yes, I want to!" he then shouted, though not sure of what was going on. "Who are you? Where are you speaking from?"
A strange, silver colored cloud started emerging in front of him from the abyss the Pegasus platform stood over. It moved around until it formed a vaguely humanoid shape with two eyes of bright white light. "Leave. You are not meant to obtain it."
Lance staggered. "What? What are you talking about?"
The fog started materializing itself. An image of a man started forming in front of the trainee, which then colored itself and seemed to become solid. He was a young adult with blonde, ear-length curly hair and deep blue eyes with a stern look on them. He wore sandals, protective pads on the knees down and a chiton, or ancient Greek clothing consisting of a sewn garment held on the shoulder and tied on the waist. He also wore leather protections around his forearms. "I am Bellerophon, the guardian of this Cloth. Two hundred years ago, the Pope came to me with a request to protect the Pegasus Cloth and through my astral projection, I have done so ever since."
Lance took a couple of second to process this. Standing before him was the spiritual representation of a mythical hero of Greece? Was this the challenge? "I can't leave this place! Not without that Cloth! What do you want with me? Why can't I have it?" he demanded to know.
Bellerophon folded his arms and looked down on the trainee. He knew the teen's story very well. He had watched him from the moment Saint Kerberos abandoned him. "The Path of the Cloth usually takes six years; you are brave to seek Pegasus' test in just four. What makes you think you deserve it so much and so soon, trainee Lance?" he asked, shocking the teen by knowing his name. "Why should I let you pass?"
Lance narrowed his eyes. Was his character being tested or something? "I have spent four miserable years in this mountain because of it. I have almost died more times than I could count. I've overcome all odds by unlocking my cosmos just for this moment." He recalled. A thin aura of white light started forming around him as he burned his cosmos. "There's no fucking way I'll leave this mountain without it, not after all I've been put through. Get out of my way, you ghost. You're not going to be the one who'll stop me from achieving my objective."
Bellerophon suddenly laughed out loud. "Objective, you say? Do you think you can take the Pegasus Cloth by force just for those reasons?" Bellerophon started emanating a silvery aura of cosmos. Lance didn't answer. "So you're pulling the strong, silent type act, huh? Not something I've seen other Saints of Pegasus do before. And those eyes filled with hatred for being abandoned here on this mountain to die…yes, you're definitely not meant to be protected by Pegasus."
Lance leaped forward with a fist full of cosmos. "Get out of my way!"
Bellerophon unfolded his arms. "I can see that you will not relent no matter what I say. Very well, just for you, I'll unleash a millionth of my power through this projection!" He then also charged forward and cocked his fist.
Both trainee and hero let out a battle cry and let their fists crash against each other, unleashing a powerful vibration and thunderous sound that made the room shake. Lance's teeth gritted in effort as he held his own against the projection, realizing that the 'ghost' was more powerful than he thought. Lance pulled back his fist only to then caught Bellephoron's. The spirit tried to punch him with his other one but it was also caught by Lance's other hand, initiating a power hold between the two.
Lance's muscles tensed and he felt his hands being crushed by the hero's fingers, but held his own. Bellerophon smiled. "Good, you got strength." Bellerophon then let go of Lance's hands and rushed his leg forward in a side kick. Lance leaned forward to dodge below it before striking the hero's back with an elbow blow. There was a swift hand swipe that made Lance step back and be placed on the defensive when several other punched followed.
Lance focused his cosmos in his forearms and watched carefully as Bellerophon's fists rushed back and forth. The spirit didn't seem to be fighting seriously. This scared the trainee because he was having a hard time finding an opening, but didn't let himself show it to his foe. He kept his defense up for a while until he detected a punch that was cocked a bit further back by his foe for a heavier blow. Seeing his opening, Lance rushed at him and dodge it with a sidestep while striking the spirit's leg with his foot. Bellerophon widened his eyes and stumbled forward, but Lance's spinning back hand blow struck his stomach to stop his descent. Lance positioned himself carefully, roared loudly and finished his combo with a powerful sidekick that crashed with the spirit's face so hard Bellerophon's body was lifted into the air and floored face first.
Lance panted and stepped back several times. He got lucky and was able to time his blows well; otherwise, the larger foe would have broken his combo. As expected, he watched the astral projection get back on its feet without much effort.
"Good, you got skill, too." complimented the spirit. "But that's not enough, Lance. That just means you'd be a strong warrior. Black Saints are strong, too, you know? Your Master must have told you about them."
Lance stopped panting and narrowed his eyes fiercely. "...I have no master!" he snarled.
Bellerophon took note of the hatred in Lance's voice. He must stop this trainee from becoming a Saint. "He took you under his wing, didn't he? You wouldn't have gotten this strong if it wasn't-"
"Saint Kerberos Kastiel taught me the basics of fighting and surviving and then left me here to die. I forged my strength by my own hand, not his!"
"I see. So you hate Kastiel-"
"STOP TALKING ABOUT HIM!" Lance shouted as he crossed the distance between them and struck Bellerophon's blocking wrists with a powerful punch.
The hero brushed off the blow and caught Lance by the throat, paralyzing him with the strength of his grip. Lance's eyes shut tightly with the pain. He grabbed the hero's wrists and punched them repeatedly to try to loosen the grip.
Bellerophon watched him squirm. "Your heart is filled with rage and hatred. You have no desire to be a Saint! You're nothing like Tenma, who wished to save his loved ones. You just want the power of the Pegasus Cloth for yourself! Even if you were to get past me…even if, by some miracle, the Pegasus Cloth would decide to take you under its protection…you would just lead it astray."
Lance's eyes opened up. "T-Tenma?" He looked down on the hero. "Whatever, just shut up and let go of me!"
Instead, Bellerophon pinned Lance harshly against the floor by the throat, still applying pressure to it. "Hmph! Black Saints are traitors. They are scum who turn their back on Athena and use their power and armors for their selfish purposes. Their strength and their skill used to kill rather than protect… take revenge rather than forgive... and one day you would most likely end up a Black Saint. The hatred you have for Kastiel and for the rest of the world ends today." Bellerophon raised is other hand. "You have led a miserable life, trainee Lance. The whole world abandoned you and you don't understand why. But don't worry, the end will be quick. I shall apply 'Athena's Mercy' on you, an execution technique created by Sanctuary, and you shall die a quick, painless death, forgotten inside this cold mountain forever." Bellerophon's hand then descended on the Saint to apply the famous execution move.
"NO!" he shouted. His feet burned with white cosmos and struck the hero's chest as hard as he could. Bellerophon screamed, releasing his grip on Lance, and his hand struck the ground instead as Lance rolled away from him.
The trainee didn't give the hero a chance to recover. He leaped towards the taller warrior and struck his face head on with a knee blow that stunned Bellerophon. The hero's cosmos burned to help him pull himself together, but he then felt several punches strike his stomach before a kick sent him crash through a pillar and against a wall.
Bellerophon coughed out blood and tried to get up, feeling his limbs complain with pain. He looked up to Lance and widened his eyes, "his cosmos!"
Lance spread his feet a bit and waved his hands around as he focused loudly and made his white cosmos aura burn around his body, trying to shape the Pegasus Constellation with his hand movements. "Time to finish this!" he shouted as he stopped his hand movements and took his stance. He dragged his left foot forward and aimed his left hand at the hero while his other hand tightened next to his waist. His white aura burned up and filled both his legs and closed fist, encompassing the later in a concentrated orb of transparent energy "TAKE THIS!" he shouted as he suddenly dashed forward at superhuman speed. "PEGASUS…"
Bellerophon widened his eyes at the amount of cosmos and the speed Lance was using. "I'll stop you!" his arms then rushed forward to try to catch the trainee.
The enormous acceleration of Lance's movement, however, caused his body to shoot forward like a bullet past Bellerophon' hands. "…CHARGE FIST!"
The warrior's eyes opened wide and he screamed as an enormous, concentrated impact struck his chest to hard his whole body got pushed back against the wall by the trainee, crashing with rock and making him vomit blood. The thunderous sound of his back crashing through the mountain's interior resonated throughout the temple and his upper body fell forward on top of Lance's shoulder.
Lance panted, feeling the adult tremble on top of him in pain. He retracted his fist from the spot where he hit his foe, leaving being the bloody imprint of his knuckles. He stumbled back several times and watched as Bellerophon's trembling body dropped to its knees and hands. The Charge Fist was his signature move and it was relatively simple. He merely powered his legs with cosmos to charge straight ahead at his target with an enormous acceleration and hit him with a fist encompassed in a large amount of concentrated cosmos.
The large acceleration and the concentrated shape of the cosmos in his hand caused his punch to strike like a large bullet on his foe, usually being enough to bring down an opponent several times Bellerophon's size. "I'm… getting the Pegasus Cloth. You can't stop me…"
Bellerophon grabbed his stomach in pain. "T-that cosmos… Y-you're very powerful!" he then gasped and coughed out more blood. His body, however, started shining with renewed energy all of a sudden. Lance's eyes opened up in terror as Bellerophon picked himself back up with new strength, his energy suddenly doubling. The warrior looked up at Lance and wiped the blood off his lips with his fist. "You caught me completely by surprise with that move. Very well, I shall now use not one, not two, but three millionths of my power!"
Lance stared at him in shock. "…W-what?!" Bellerophon smirked and charged his aura. Lance suddenly found himself in a shaking temple as his foe's silver aura triple in thickness and size.
"That attack wasn't bad, Lance… But it is just power; brute force that you've applied cosmos into." The hero said his voice with a hint of anger. "It's going to take more than that if you want the Pegasus Cloth! I've been watching over it for a long time and I know how it thinks. What makes you think you can ride the winged horse so easily?"
Lance felt the temple's shaking stop. He sweated nervously but tried to look strong. "You rode it!" Lance argued. "It can't be that hard to convince him to let me take it." Bellerophon ignored Lance and tightened his fists while closing his eyes for a bit. Lance saw his energy increasing once more. "I have to stop him from charging his energy before he attacks again" he thought. He took another stance and attacked first. "Pegasus… Charge Fist!" His body once more shot forward and he delivered a powerful straight punch to Bellerophon's chest that exploded in light upon impact.
The light faded away and Lance's red eyes widened in horror. His punch seemingly had no effect at all on his foe as he still had his eyes closed and his energy kept on rising. Bellerophon opened his eyes. "This ends now. Pegasus… Meteor Fist!" he shouted.
Bellerophon's aura suddenly burst into energy, namely meteors of light that struck the screaming trainee, battering all over his body and flooring him. Lance winced in pain on the floor and tried to open his eyes, but only saw a blur. "W-what? What was that?" He tried to get up, but started to cough out blood before he even got on his knee. "He didn't even move his fists; he just released his energy… I couldn't even analyze the technique."
A foot suddenly stepped next to him. "Pegasus Meteor Fist." Lance didn't even have time to react. He just saw light fill his vision and countless punches struck his body once more. The screaming Saint crashed against the floor once more. Bellerophon calmly walked towards him. "Pegasus Meteor FIST!" The floor Lance was lying on suddenly exploded into energy that shot him against the ceiling. Lance crashed against it before his body fell down. Before he even hit the floor, Bellerophon cocked back his punch. "I won't let you become a Saint. PEGASUS METEOR FIST!"
Before Lance even hit the ground, he got run over by the fourth barrage of punches of light that sent him spinning through the air, bruising his body all over. Limp like a corpse, he crashed on the floor and slide through it until reaching the edge of the abyss that the Pegasus platform stood over. His hand hanged over the massive hole. Lance's exhausted eyes opened up a bit and saw only darkness at the bottom before they closed again.
Bellerophon saw Lance seemingly lose consciousness. "I'm impressed. Just three barrages of the meteor fists should have been enough to kill you, but you survived four. But now, all it takes is a little push to send you over the edge. Good bye!" His aura flared up. "Wait, what?!" Bellephoron widened his eyes in shock. He saw Lance's body tremble in pain as it tried to move. "You can still move?!"
Lance felt his world shaking and his body screaming in pain in countless spots. He felt like every bone in his body was broken He tried to breathe deeply, but it hurt. His red eyes offered his foe a menacing glare that frightened Bellerophon. He stepped away from the abyss and faced him. "I-I'm not giving up!" he muttered.
Bellerophon's jaw dropped. "Impressive. I have to say, I just keep underestimating your energy." His eyes then spot light flashing around the Pegasus Cloth Box. "Pegasus, are you reacting to his effort?"
Lance tried to burn his cosmos. It eased his pain and helped him stand up with a little more dignity, but he was having a hard time concentrating. Bellerophon was striking so hard and so fast with his meteor fist that Lance couldn't even analyze it right.
"Why are you getting back up again?" asked Bellerophon. "Why don't you just give up?"
Lance grabbed his right arm, which was in particularly harsh pain. He thought about the four years he spent in that mountain and felt his eyes well up. "Because if I don't take that Cloth with me, this would have all have been for nothing!"
Bellerophon wasn't convinced. "Lance, you don't understand, do you? Your path is filled with resentment and bitterness. I'm sure that the first thing you'd do with that cloth would be using it to exact some sort of revenge. You'd live your life with violence and with violence thrown back at you as an answer by the world." He preached. He then looked once more at the Box behind Lance. "But Pegasus is different from you. Though he was born from violence, he wishes nothing like that. He'll only bow to the will of someone whose heart is as light as his feathers and whose ambition is clear and just. But your heart is heavy with anger and confusion. If you doubt me, then ask yourself this; what do you really want with it? Where do you want his wings to take you?"
Lance's eyes tried to stare at the warrior, but he saw several of him so he couldn't really focus. "I w-was dragged into Sanctuary by a S-Silver Saint I never even saw again. Athena, your Holy Wars and your ideals of justice and love; I don't care about any of it." He confessed. "I d-don't know what I want to do with my life, but I swear that no matter what, for all the shit you people put me through, I'm taking that Cloth and getting the fuck away from Sanctuary!"
Bellerophon shook his head in exasperation. "You're hopeless." He berated. The hero felt worried about Pegasus' flashing and decided to finish the trainee. "This time, you'll fall over the abyss for good. Pegasus Meteor FIST!" His aura once more exploded into countless meteors of light without his body even moving an inch.
Lance's red eyes saw the meteors rushing against him. He could barely move so an elaborate dodge wasn't an option and it was equally insane to attempt to block all those powerful punches in the state he was. He tightened his fists in determination. There was no way he'd give up.
His hand rushed forward. "Pegasus Charge FIST!" he attempted to shout. His closed hand crashed with the barrage of light in a desperate attempt to run through it, but something then rushed over his shoulder and crashed with the attack. An explosion of light followed and Lance's senses were taken out by the shock. His body fell forward, unconscious.
Bellerophon lowered the intensity of his cosmos and watched as the Cloth Box floated above the unconscious trainee. He groaned. The Cloth Box rested on the ground next to Lance. "Stop it, Bellephoron, you've done enough!"
The hero groaned. What was the steed doing now? "Pegasus, why do you choose to protect this trainee?!" he demanded to know. His hand swept to the side. "He doesn't deserve to wear you. He'll lead himself to the path of Black Sainthood and drag you with him unless you abandon him. Do you wish that for yourself?!" he confronted. "As your Saint, he's destined only to bring destruction to Sanctuary when you're meant for such higher things! You know that!"
Pegasus' voice hesitated. "Yes, I do, but-"
"Have you forgotten Tenma? Have you forgotten everything he sacrificed himself for?" Bellerophon interrupted him. "Have you forgotten that you are destined to stop Hades with his help?!"
Pegasus hesitated to answer. "No, of course not… I will never forget Tenma."
"Then why do you disrespect his sacrifice so much by replacing him with this… child?!" shouted the hero.
Once more, the Cloth Box took a pause before answering. "He's strong, isn't he? I'm sure he can become a great Saint." said Pegasus, referring to Lance. "Deep inside all his anger, I think I see a good light. I know he can change his path to something grander, something better. Lance had it unfair. All he needs is a good person to guide him."
Bellerophon sighed. "And who is that person, you?" he asked, but the Bronze Cloth did not answer. "From the moment you leave this temple, I will not be there to protect you, but if you mean your words, then I cannot stop you."
Inside its box, the Pegasus helmet raised a bit in surprise. "Bellerophon, are you accepting my choice?"
The hero folded his arms and stared at the unconscious trainee. He closed his eyes. "I sense something already watching over him, something filled with hatred bigger than his. If you take him under your protection, you'll be declaring war to that evil, too." he reminded Pegasus, but the Cloth didn't seem moved by this. "Fine, Pegasus, I accept your choice. From this moment forth, may your constellation watch over his fate." He then started fading away. His blue eyes looked down on the trainee. "Farewell, Saint Lance, and remember, one day, I will be proven right… and you'll once again feel the full wrath of an Olympian warrior!"
The Pegasus Cloth watched as the astral projection of Bellerophon completely disappeared in the darkness. Its box opened up, allowing the metallic horse statue to move freely. Its horse head helmet tapped its nose on Lance's body, which didn't react. Pegasus' white, light-elemental cosmos burned and illuminated the temple. Its shutting down mechanism would soon activate, sealing the temple until the next candidate came along. Lance would soon be locked inside that place for years.
It was time for its first act as Lance's new Cloth.
{======================|0|======================}
Several hours later, right outside the temple, Lance's body shook in cold. He started waking up from his deep sleep and realized he had his body pressed on top of cold pebbles and rocks. He slowly managed to get on his knees and rubbed his eyes. "What happened?" he asked himself.
Flashes of his fight with Bellerophon in his memory sent his body into full alert. He quickly stood up and got on his guard. However, it didn't take him long to lower it as he realized he was standing outside the temple. Lance relaxed, confused, and turned around to see, in shock that none other than the Pegasus Cloth Box was on the ground before him.
Lance froze completely before the object. What was going on? Why he was outside and why was the Pegasus Cloth before him? Had he won? Had his desperate attempt to attack the warrior miraculously paid off? Lance's trembling hand slowly grabbed the Cloth's handle, fearful that it would just fly off at his very touch.
But it didn't! Lance's fingers were able to grasp the handle that the Pegasus' head engraving was biting on and, rather than react violently or escaping, the Box instead started emanating a white aura of energy that started syncing with his. Lance gulped, took a deep breath and pulled it once and for all.
There was the sound of rattling metal as Lance pulled the chain. When it became tense, the Box opened up, dropping all its sides on the ground and revealing a shining metal statue of a white, winged horse with red outlines on its hind legs and chest parts.
One-by-one, the pieces started donning themselves to Lance's body, first the greaves, then the gauntlets, the shoulder, chest and hip protections and finally the helmet. It was done. He was a Saint of Bronze. He was Pegasus Lance! Lance felt his cosmos being amplified by the cloth and his mouth became agape in shock.
"A-am I dreaming? Is this a dream?!" He spent a few moments analyzing himself. The horse-head helmet looked a little silly and his chest was barely protected, but he liked the greaves and forearm protections very much. He punched the air a few times, testing his flexibility. "This is so great! I feel incredible." he thought, grinning. Lance laughed gleefully, barely containing his excitement. He felt like jumping in the air and shouting his head off as happy as he was!
But, as Lance's excitement calmed down, he started smirking devilishly. There was one person he would like to share all of this with and he couldn't wait to see the priceless look on that person's face as he walked inside Sanctuary with his Cloth of Bronze. In fact, he couldn't wait to see the look on that person's face when he punches him in front of everyone.
Lance's eyes then looked around and realized that the snow that had filled the ground seemed to have cleared away in a perfect circle around him. "Strange… did the Cloth do this?" he then looked at the Pegasus Temple, which was still seemed to be sealed up. "And did it get me out of it, too, or was it Bellerophon?"
Not counting on ever seeing the spirit again, Lance shrugged off these thoughts and headed off. Having formed plans to settle his matters with Sanctuary and leave it as soon as he was done, Lance, the Bronze Saint of Pegasus, smirked and walked off the Temple, never looking back to the placed that tortured him for four long years.
{======================|0|======================}
Present time, two years later (1976), in Sanctuary Town
{======================|0|======================}
Andromeda Shinta happily sucked on the straw until he felt the delicious orange soda Lance bought him go down his throat. He walked along Pegasus' side as they headed back to the Golden Zodiac to wait by the Aries Temple for news on the meeting. Shinta watched as Lance kept looking at the ground, hands in pockets, seemingly lost in thoughts.
Shinta smiled, wondering if Lance was thinking deeply about something in silence. He did that a lot. "Hey, Lance, what's wrong?" muttered Shinta, snapping his fingers. "Are you worried about the meeting?"
Lance awakened from his trance, suddenly reminding himself of reality. He blinked his eyes twice, surprised. "Sorry...I was thinking about something." Lance excused himself.
Considering the most likely topics being talked about in the reunion, Shinta made his own conclusions. "Were you thinking about, you know, your Training Ground?" he saw Lance's red eyes lock intensely with his. Shinta whimpered and step back. "I-I'm sorry! I know you don't like talking about it or Kas- Oops!" Shinta covered his mouth.
Lance chuckled a bit. "...Relax, Shinta, I'm not going to get angry with you over that. Yeah, I was thinking about Mount Olympus and how the Gold Saints are probably discussing it."
Shinta sighed in relief. "Thank goodness. I'm sorry I mentioned it," he insisted on apologizing. Ever since they met, Mount Olympus and Saint Kastiel, both which Shinta had never been in contact with, had always been a big taboo around Lance. Talking about it too much would only get Lance really angry at you. Shinta understood that the two of them had completely different Masters and training experiences, so he respected Lance's desire to not talk about it, even if he sometimes accidentally mentioned it. To make things worse, there was Lance's cryophobia to consider, which only made Lance thinking about his snowy Training Ground even worse. "It must have been really terri-"
"Stop talking about it, already!" Lance instantly interrupted him.
Shinta instantly cowered from Lance's wrath. Maybe he really shouldn't have tried to make him say something about it. That was in the past and Lance wanted to forget about it. Shinta shouldn't have tried to make him bring it up. Right now, they were there to see if Lance would become a Saint of Silver.
It was then that it really hit him. Lance was actually moving up in rank. Sure, it was still being discussed, but Shinta was sure Lance would pass with flying colors. What was really worrying him was something else. "Lance?" mumbled Shinta.
"...Yes?"
"Do you think," Shinta hesitated " ...do you think I can become a Silver Rank just like you and my master?"
"Probably, if you train hard enough."
Shinta's eyes and smile both widened. "You really think so? Thank you, Lance! But..."
"What is it?"
"Now that you're going to become a Silver Saint, you're not going to...you're not going to stop hanging out with me and become all distant, are you?"
Lance opened his eyes, not because of what Shinta said, but because he spotted something. "Don't be stupid, Shinta!" His hand then halted Shinta by the chest. His eyes narrowed and he pointed at the trees of the woods west of the Golden Zodiac. "Hey, look, Shinta! Isn't that the Papal Guard?"
Shinta looked at the direction Lance was pointing and, indeed, he spotted a small foot soldier division silently marching among the trees. They carried halberds rather than spears and their shields had the Pope's winged mask drawn on them. "You mean the foot soldier division that guards the thirteenth temple? Yeah, I think so." He then saw Lance rush into the woods and stalk them. "Wait!" he asked, following him. "Where are you going?"
"Be quiet, Shinta!" Lance said through a mental message via 6th sense, a common communication technique among Sanctuary dwellers. "Look!"
Shinta stood right next to Lance among the trees and watched in shock as the captain of the division took a key and slid it through a small, inconspicuous crack on a rock. A boulder resting against the Golden Zodiac's mountain side of the forest moved away, revealing an entrance to the mountain's carved out cavern. Shinta's jaw dropped. "Lance, look! They're walking inside the mountain! What is that?"
Lance smirked, receiving confirmation of a rumor that has circulated in Sanctuary for ages. "It looks like we just found out a shortcut around the Aries Temple! Come on, Shinta, let's follow them!"
{======================|0|======================}
Chapter End
{======================|0|======================}
Next Chapter: Kastiel
Release Date: June 30th 2014
Description: The Cloth of Pegasus returns to Sanctuary after over 200 years of absence and after four years of training, Lance confronts his would be Master.
{======================|0|======================}
Author's Note: The original second chapter from the first version was approximately 5000 words long and was…uninspired. There really wasn't much to the Pegasus' Cloth test other than a fight that Lance, in both the first and second version, ended up winning. While the third version, this version, doesn't make it exactly into an Indiana Jones flick, I think I managed to give the Pegasus Temple a lot more depth when compared to its initial simplicity. The character of Bellerophon has also undergone a revamp. Various aspects of him have been changed as, in the first and second version, he was little more than a weak spirit tied to the Pegasus Temple and a rather poor fighter.
The reasons to these…limitations in the situation, the location and the obstacles in Lance's path are there because, quite simply, I never intended to go beyond said limitations. I never planned for there to be anything special or foreboding about Lance's conclusion to the Path of the Cloth. I never intended to give any further use to Bellerophon or ever return to the plot to Mount Olympus again. Things have changed, though. It's been three years and a lot of re-planning and changing of mind.
So, hopefully, Lance's obtaining of the Pegasus Cloth is far more entertaining in this version.
Finally, making Lance a Saint of Pegasus was originally a choice I made almost randomly. In the original script, it wasn't important which Bronze Cloth he got, but which Gold one and, for those who have read the second version, a certain special armor of folklore. In the meantime, with the publishing of Lost Canvas and my own growth as a writer, I suppose Lance being a Pegasus Saint protagonist took on a deeper meaning almost on its own.
