Notable OCs: Pegasus Lance's Bronze Saint Generation; Heracles Aguilon Silver Saint Generation; Gemini Akassius' Gold Saint Generation; Daemon Lucifer; Maiden Elisa
Notable Original Concepts: Training Ground; Sanctuary forts, outposts, villages and institutions; Sanctuary Court; Teos & Athenian Empire mythology; Isle of Gardens
Recurring/Cameo Ocs of Jenny DeVic: Mrs. Schafurwatt
Recurring/Cameo Concepts of Jenny DeVic: Great Bodyguard Legend; Golden Line Heritage; Sanctuary Orphanages; Andromeda Island's Geography & Tests; Sanctuary Nobility
Author Notes: I'd like offer special thanks to Redemmo for a lookover made on the story. I'll be able to initiate a thorough clean up of early plot mistakes thanks to his help.
Please enjoy and review.
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Pyrenees Mountains, Spain
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In the inner mountain passes of the Pyrenees that cut through the rocky, snow-tipped peaks, grass still grew in the harsh, sloped ground littered with boulders and topped by clear blue skies. The cold air was strong and fresh, revitalizing his lungs as he meditated in preparation to his attack. His training ground was located in one of the many scars that slashed a path through the otherwise impassable mountain barrier between France and Spain. The only entrances to it were fiercely guarded from curious intruders and hikers by Sanctuary staff while zooming satellite images often only saw blurred mists and clouds amongst the rocks despite the sky being so clean.
It was also one of the many concealed habitat of Symplegades, a strange mythological rock formation that seemed to slowly move on its own, restoring shapes and forms despite crumbling and shattering by nature's hands or man's. The trainee often attempted to observe their glacial regeneration after his practice sessions. He would leave fields of cut up stone in his path during the day and, during the night; some would mysteriously roll around, touch and unite, birthing larger rocks as if never separated to begin with. It was a curious miracle that some philosophers in Sanctuary attributed to magnetic science, reasoning that Symplegades possessed inner ores that attracted and mended with each other to form boulders.
Regardless of the explanation behind it, Symplegades were often used at the Training Grounds because they allowed for better and more discrete training. Saints and trainees were free to go all out and practice more devastating moves without calling the attention of countries with the pure devastation left behind if their targets could restore themselves.
Under the tutorship of the legendary Saint Capricorn Kirin, who had during the Civil War slayed Pisces Aeneas as well as many other rebels with his Excalibur, Shura was one such trainee who made extensive use of the useful rocks to further his studies, as he was about to do just then. After a final deep breath, he stood up from his meditation without opening his eyes. Concentrating his thoughts and feelings into imagining his right wrist as the handle of a powerful edge, his hands slowly danced around the air so delicately that onlookers would swear to see watermarks of them left behind by the movements. Shaping the outline of the Capricorn constellation star by star, they then relaxed to allow the golden aura to flare around the youth.
Shura opened his rapine eyes, slid his foot forward, tightened his stretched fingers into a sword semblance and raised his arm. "Cut my foe to pieces! Sacred Sword: EXCALIBUR!" His arm descended as if performing a downward slash and a massive wave of light erupted from the motion, instantly wrecking through the ground in a resounding blast.
The explosive sound of the fake Excalibur's light resounded throughout the mountain pass as the attack tore through grass and rock, its bright heat burning the air and blinding the squire swordsman. Though crude, the cascading destruction still assumed an escalating precision past the initial outburst phase, the power concentrating into a thinner and thinner wave as it travelled and ceasing to blast through things to instead rip them in half until finally delivering a passable slice to a far off target Shura had aimed for.
The attack reached the edge of a crevice and flew off, leaving behind a trail of blackened, terrifying destruction through a field of mythological stone that was already reforming pebble by pebble. Any person who gazed upon this long crater of blasted stone would feel horrified and in awe at the power stored in the young teenager's arm.
Shura however frowned, for all he saw was crudeness and lack of experience.
Mu disagreed completely. "WOW! That was amazing! You could have cut right through the mountain. That was very impressive, Shura!" Mu congratulated with his eyes wide open in awe. Energetic as always, he rushed to his friend's side and asked for more. "Do it again! Ooh, aim horizontally for that mountain tip over there."
Though usually as no-nonsense as Camus, the ten years-old had a soft spot for the enthusiasm of the younger members of his generation. His arm, however, was killing him from just that practice blow. "I would, Mu, but that would be a disrespectful use of Excalibur. It's a sacred blade passed down by my temple since the time of the Aezrel War. It would be shameful to use it for showing off. That is not the way of a knight."
Mu's cheeks inflated. "Aw, come on, I have a perfectly good motive for it. I want to see if the cut section jumps and falls perfectly back into place. It's important you do this, Shura, for science!"
Shura seemed unconvinced. "Mu, I cannot disrespect even a fake sword like my own like that. Why should I be worthy of my Master's sword if I can't even respect a practice Excalibur?" Mu's cheeks puffed up like balloons, but Shura remained stout. "Soon, my Master will leave behind his post at the Tenth Temple and I must be ready to inherit not just his position, but one of the most sacred blessings in Sanctuary. I have trained hard as a swordsman to master the use of a blade, but that is not enough; my soul must be as clean as the sheath of the holy sword."
"Yeah, yeah…" Mu grabbed a practice sword by Shura's cabin and played with it. "I guessed as much. Aldebaran said you'd be no fun. I just thought you'd prove him wrong and be cool. I'll give you a discount at my workshop. Maybe you'd like to buy something nice… like a new practice sword or axe?"
Shura took it from his hands before the Lemurian broke it. "It's fine. The Capricorn Temple has more weapons in it than it should probable be safe to hold. Have you come to watch my final preparations? I wasn't expecting you guys to visit me at all before I departed for Sanctuary."
The energetic child held hands behind head and shook it. "No, Master told me to check on you so I teleported here. He wants to make sure everyone's ready to assume post in time for the older ones' retirement. Almost everybody is back at Sanctuary already. Camus has arrived from Bluegrad and even though I didn't get a chance to see him I'm pretty sure Lance has passed by already and gone to fetch Aphrodite."
"Teleportation? That's convenient. Could you take me back with you like that?" He sighed as Mu shrugged shoulders. "Ugh, yeah I thought that would be too easy. It's fine. I don't mind making the trip back. I wanted to practice my technique a little more, but if the Pope wants me there I guess I'll make my way already."
Mu accompanied Shura back to his cabin and watched him gather his things. "By yourself? You're really pragmatic, aren't you? I bet you're not even gonna use light speed."
Shura chuckled as he stored his supplies. "I'll skip the sea parts with it and make the rest of the way on foot. I'm not crazy." He then thought of something else. "Maybe I'll take the chance and check on Aphrodite as well."
Mu laughed. "Yeah, it takes no less than two Gold Saints to go fetch another one! Why is everyone so preoccupied about the new Pisces Saint? Saga had this weird talk to me about him too before I left and now you want to join Lance in escorting him?"
This seemed to get Shura's attention. "He mentioned Aphrodite to you as well? Uh, Saga is talking to everyone. I'm worried about Aphrodite's candidacy, too, but I wonder if something else is on his mind…" commented Shura as they made their way out of the door and into the rocky wild yonder of the Pyrenees. He took a deep breath of mountain air as it would be a while before he got a chance to come back to his training ground and turned once more to Mu. "I just wanted to take the chance to quench my curiosity because the Isle of Gardens is between here and Sanctuary. I've heard a few things about and it and our new comrade Pisces."
Having spent the last few weeks hearing nothing but weird rumors about the arriving Gold Saint, Shura's words piqued the young alchemist curiosity even more. "Okay, so what is everyone hiding from me? I can tell Master is lying when he says nothing is wrong, you know?" He rushed ahead of Shura to confront him. "Aiolos doesn't tell me and neither does Aiolia. What did Aphrodite do? It can't be worse than Milo's recent attempt to poison the entire kindergarten with food dye."
Shura chuckled. "Yeah, I heard about that and I'm all the way here in Spain. As for Aphrodite… well, there's not much to tell you, Mu. We wouldn't hide from you the possibility that the one Gold Saint who's gonna watch all our backs from the last temple was dangerous or anything. I doubt His Holiness would even let him be a Saint in that case."
Mu mused. "Mm, Master is smart. He really wouldn't do something like that…" He touched his chin and rolled eyes up. "Then again he did recruit Lance who beat his Master almost to death." Shura groaned all of a sudden, causing Mu to blink. "Is something wrong?"
"Nothing, I just… think you might have a better point than I realized. It's true that his Holiness has been making a few questionable decisions lately, but he knows best, I'd imagine."
Mu widened his eyes. "You don't like Lance?" he questioned, hand in hip. "You know, I could take that for an insult because I voted for him to get promoted. You think my judgment's bad as well?"
Shura looked away and folded his arms. "Hardly, I don't even know the guy; I'm sure he had an amazing reason to betray everything Sanctuary stands for as righteous and honorable and attacked the man who taught him of cosmos."
Even the ditzy Lemurian could see the sarcasm in Shura's tongue, strange as it was in the young squire's otherwise respectful speech, and decided to mimic it. "Wow, Capricorn and Cancer really are good matches, huh? Do you think it was a bad idea for him to be the one to fetch Aphrodite?"
"On the contrary, I'd say it's probably the safest measure considering it's Aphrodite we're talking about."
"What? How so?"
"It has to do with what you've been curious all along, Mu; Aphrodite has a bad reputation." He held his chin as he recalled the stories. "Nothing you wouldn't get out of the typical outcast Sanctuary orphan, but the open throat story is kind of a bad sign of things to come. It doesn't help that his Cloth has a history of breeding sanguinary Saints and that his predecessor was a Civil War traitor."
"How concerned are you? Are we in trouble with him or something? I don't want to think a friend of ours might be a bad guy."
The Capricorn trainee relaxed by a boulder they passed by and thought the subjects over. His level of concern was a good question. Master Kirin had raised him well, having even little difficulty instilling in the enthusiastic squire notions of honor, chivalry and knightly values thanks to Shura's liking of Don Quixote stories, and the people that would join in one day in protecting the Golden Zodiac had been on his mind for a few years since he began his training.
Fortunately his generation had a lot of good eggs; not only were most of the younger ones harmless, talented kids he would be proud to fight for one day but he couldn't help but admit he admired Saga and especially Aiolos. Though he was much more discreet about it than Aiolia, the taciturn Shura who admired the stalwartness and kindness of Saints above all was probably the Sagittarius's Saint second biggest fan, as Aiolos did little more with his day other than be a walking example of everything Shura wanted to one day represent. The Greek Sagittarius did not just act as a great example to the others, but the sheer volunteer work he did both as a Saint and an incognito civilian to the communities of Sanctuary at the hospitals, refugee tents and orphanages were kind of shy next to the Sunday School stories he had heard of Christian Saints, but was still far beyond what most other Saints, including himself, had done to uphold the good name of Sanctuary's Saints.
It was the bad eggs that worried him; in all admittance Lance was not so bad when one had the lack of sense to overlook the fact he bit the hands that fed him. Shura actually kind of respected the new Cancer Saint's record as a warrior, which was filled with impressive assault missions and even a successful, albeit highly notorious and controversial, incursion to none other than Death Queen Island. He had never even seen the guy but Shura imagined the Cancer Saint was the kind of fighter he would have a few personal grievances with but enjoy sparring and comparing fighting notes.
Aphrodite, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter in the sense he had no reason to believe the soon-to-be Pisces Saint would be any better than his predecessor. "You actually know the Cloths better than I do, Mu. Do you know what the Pisces armor is like?"
Mu thought hard about all the cloths he ever had a chance to repair. "Hmm, I don't think I do. I know the Cloth was at Sanctuary a few years ago, but Master told me he sent it back to the Isle of Gardens after personally repairing it. He wouldn't tell me much about it. Truth be told, this is the first time I'm hearing about Pisces being violent Saints." He contained a gasp. "You don't think Aphrodite is a bad guy because of his Cloth, do you?"
Having entered in communion with the Capricorn armor several times and personally seen how much it could shape a young trainee's personality, Shura had no choice but to nod. "All signs point towards it. I'm not afraid to confront a fellow Gold Saint if I believe he might be dangerous, but it is of course best to be safe than sorry and make sure new candidates aren't dangerous to begin with. We don't want a Civil War on our hands just like our Masters had."
The Lemurian alchemist had a few reservations about this. "We're a pretty friendly bunch, Shura; I don't think there's cause to think we're all going to be at war with each other someday."
"Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of your optimism, Mu. I'd like to think the same way but Master Kirin has trained me to maintain a careful attitude. We don't know what goes on in other people's heads no matter how nice they are or how close they live by. The only way to make sure people can trust you is to uphold your code of honor no matter the cost." His hand rested on his sheathed sword as he continued. "Tell the Pope I'm on my way back and that I'll just stop by the Isle of Gardens for a quick check up. I'll have to take a boat to get past its currents and defenses but I think I won't take long despite that."
Mu playfully saluted. "Okeydokey, just make sure not to be late… or pick a fight with Aphrodite. Master always keeps saying he wants us to get along. Bye!"
Shura waved his hand as the Aries Saint burst into a sudden flash of light that teleported away to Sanctuary. "I'll make an effort." He turned away and made his way through the mountain pass, slowly picking up speed so he would then light speed his way to the nearest port.
As he gathered cosmos and pace for it, his thoughts returned to his next destination. The Island of Gardens was not a particularly dangerous place and it was often even used as a shelter for Sanctuary citizens during the Holy Wars because of its magical defenses. It was the inhabitants of the Temple in it that were the problem. The bloodthirsty past of the religious complex that centered the island had bred many strong Pisces Saints but also left them detached, vicious and independent despite the passionate and loving nature of the love goddess they represented. The evil, poisonous roses they often employed in combat and cared for in their temples were also always a cause for concern. He wondered how much he should worry about what awaited him in the island.
Hopefully the matter was settled by the time he got there and he would waste his time taking the boat there only for the Cancer Saint to tell him to piss off his mission.
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Chapter 20
First Arc
Episode 14
Ghouls n'Roses – Part 3 of 4
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The hand wrapped in blood red cosmos rushed at the speed of light right at his throat, going for the kill. Mephisto screamed.
He stepped back, his immature cosmos bursting, and a sudden light swerve to the right caused the blow to only graze his neck and him to crash against the floor. He grabbed the hurt spot, feeling blood wet his fingertips and looking with a paled panting at the attacker with newfound horror.
Aphrodite blinked, stunned. "What, you dodged?!"
Mephisto crawled back. "BACK OFF, LEAVE ME ALONE!" he screamed, his light speed reserves severely depleted just by that one burst he executed.
Aphrodite's eyes refocused and he set up his finisher. "Fine! It's the hard way then!" A surge of red cosmos waved upwards around him and a setup step was made before a second leap for the kill. "DIE!"
"STOP IT!" Lance rushed in also at light speed and caught Aphrodite's hand by the wrist, the ferocity of the blow and block causing a small shockwave to batter the entire garden.
The eyes of the youth widened once more. He felt his struggling hand failing to flee the grip and looked up to see a tall teenager of eyes red like the Demon Roses with a golden Cloth Box burning a white-colored cosmos. "Let go!" Aphrodite struggled, but the Saint was much stronger. "Darn it!"
"That was close…Geez." Lance turned to Mephisto. "Are you okay?"
Deathmask gulped and gagged, his terrified eyes staring right at a struggling hand with fingers wrapped in red like a pale ruby dagger. "I…I… H-holy Christ, I almost died!" He stood back up as Lance pushed Aphrodite away and Maiden Elisa arrived on the scene. "What the hell did you just try to do, kill me?"
Aphrodite scoffed as he massaged his hurt wrist. "No, you had something on your neck and I was trying to get it."
"Oh, Aphrodite, what have you done?" Elisa practically gasped, rushing to his side. "These people are our guests. Saint Cancer has come here from Sanctuary to see you. Mephisto was just tagging along. Please tell me you thought he was an intruder."
"He ruined my arrangements!" screamed the cyan-haired youth, pointing angrily at Mephisto and the flowers. "Look at them! They're wrecked! I spent months putting these together; why shouldn't I rip his stupid throat out?!"
"You tried to kill me because of some stupid flowers?!" Mephisto then irked at the murderous glare Aphrodite returned this remark. "I-I mean, I'm SORRY. I didn't realize they were so fucking important!"
"Of course you didn't; you're just like everyone else!" He turned to the Maiden. "Elisa, I don't want to talk to these people. Get them out of here! I'm going to my quarters; make sure to let me know when these brutes are gone so I can get back to my work without them walking around dirtying everything."
"Alright, that's enough!" Lance stepped in, taking charge of the situation. "You're not going anywhere, Aphrodite, especially not after what just happened. And you, Mephisto, I told you not to cause any fucking trouble! What the hell is the matter with you; can't you go anywhere without pissing off every soul in a twenty mile radius?!"
"How is this my fault?! How could have I known I'd get killed on the spot for trying to hid- I mean for messing around in the garden?! It's not my fault!" protested Deathmask.
"Please, I think we all need to take a deep breath, don't you agree?" pleaded Maiden Elisa, her voice far calmer than anyone else in the garden. She held Aphrodite's shoulder protectively. "I… deeply apologize, Saint Lance. If not Aphrodite, then rest assured that at least I know the extent of the gravity of what just happened. It's my fault. I should have managed the situation better and allowed you to keep young Mephisto by your side."
Faced with a far more reasonable speaker, Lance had no choice but to let Elisa have her way in that mess and also lowered his tone.
"I assume that this is what you were talking about earlier. I'm glad you tried to warn me about it but I didn't realize Mephisto's life would be endangered just from walking around alone in the temple."
The embarrassment in her face was clear, but she stood by her protégé.
He saw that the Pisces candidate still spared Mephisto the occasional poisonous glare, as if to remind him of a death promise. He had to admit he was startled by the whole situation. There was a good chance that if he hadn't gotten there in time Mephisto would be dead on the spot from that second attack. "That was a dangerous thing for you to do, Aphrodite. You're lucky Mephisto dodged your blow or I'd have to take more drastic measures than the Pope instructed me to."
The child devoted his full attention to the Cancer Saint. "Excuse me, who are you again and why should I care?"
Raising his chin imposingly, lance introduced himself. "My name is Lance and I'll be one of your future Gold Saint comrades."
"Well then, Saint Lance, are you saying I should be worried about what some old priest in Greece thinks of what I do?"
"I'm not saying that, but you just almost killed an innocent person. Mephisto's an idiot but he's done nothing that would warrant violence. Do you think that the Pope will forgive you for acting like that just because you're a Gold Saint candidate?"
There was a folding of arms from the child, who seemed to contain a laugh at the Gold Saint's warning. "Oh please, isn't that what he expects of me anyway?"
"Excuse me?"
Aphrodite shrugged. "Look, I'd really like you to stop playing that offended game; personally I don't think I did anything wrong or that you truly believe the Pope would punish me for it." He then glanced at the Maiden. "Isn't that right, Elisa? That's what you've always said about the Pope."
The shocked turn of glance towards her by the Gold Saint and the reveal made the Maiden stagger. "What?! I mean, I… I haven't been saying anything bad about His Holiness, Saint Lance, I assure you! As a Maiden of the Pisces Temple I am sworn to fealty towards him and all Saints! I merely taught Aphrodite about the tasks he'd have to do as a Pisces Saint and those may have sound badly… I swear, I-"
"It's fine, I don't care. I'm not here to defend his honor, just do his dirty work." assured Lance with a dismissive hand wave before readdressing the Pisces kid. "You really think that way, Aphrodite?"
"Of course." reaffirmed the child, who then gave Mephisto the creepiest smirk. "I'll take another shot at that loser's throat if you want me to prove it so badly. We'll see then if 'His Holiness' really cares about some dead street kid when there's a Gold Saint spot on the line."
The embarrassed gasps of the Maiden and the horrified screams of Mephisto filled the room but Lance ignored them. Truth be told there was some fundament to Aphrodite's claim; Shion couldn't care less if some unknown kid got whacked if it somehow secured Aphrodite's promotion. It would be tragic, but ultimately meaningless to his role as the head of Sanctuary. With the Gold Saints' retiring, Shion needed a fully active Golden Zodiac as soon as possible.
Elisa, however, had a few things to say. "That's enough, Aphrodite, you've gone too far! I know you don't want anything to do with Sanctuary, but…" Unsure how to reason with the child, she instead held him close and turned her pleading brown eyes to the Gold Saint. "Saint Cancer, I'd like to reaffirm my request for more time. Aphrodite isn't ready for the Pisces Cloth. In all honesty, I'd like him to stay here on the island indefinitely; it's the safest place for him to be and for others to tolerate him. Is there nothing you can tell His Holiness that would make him change his mind?"
Staring at the protective stance she took by the youth and considering all he had witnessed and heard out of Aphrodite's mouth, Lance couldn't help but sigh and rattle his brain a little more trying to figure out what could he possibly do. Unfortunately, there wasn't a lot of margin for maneuver. The Pope was clear; he wanted Aphrodite on Sanctuary as expediently as possible. He wouldn't send a full-fledged Gold Saint to secure the transportation if there was no urgency in the matter.
How bad could it be anyway? Maybe he was overestimating Shion's empathy, but the Lemurian was no monster. The hidden segments of the mission Shion had entrusted him with, however, complicated the matter immensely. His red eyes moved up and down between the two in front of them, trying to help him think of the best work out. "Do you have the Pisces Gold Cloth with you?"
Elisa nodded. "It's guarded in the temple, securely locked by a blood seal."
"That's interesting; does that have anything to do with the Goddess' Blood you mentioned earlier?"
Aphrodite's eyes perked at her and Mephisto raised a brow. Elisa, in turn, just darkened her expression. "Yes… though it is indelicate to bring that up in this temple."
"I'm sure it is. What is the Cloth like? What kind of personality does it have? Has it been in contact with Aphrodite regularly?"
Maiden Elisa remained calm, but Lance could tell by her slightly raised chin he was intruding. "Saint Cancer, I'm afraid I can't discuss that with you. As the caretaker of this temple, it's my duty to uphold the sacredness of the objects within, especially the Cloth. Surely you understand; you wouldn't like to discuss the attitude of the Cancer Cloth with your fellow men, would you?"
"You seemed fine explaining Demon Roses in your office earlier." confronted Lance.
"That's an unfair comparison. I think you'd agree that is necessary considering how predatory they are. You could fall into their-"
"Miss Elisa, you are asking me to stick my neck out to the one guy authorized to order the execution of anyone in Sanctuary's vicinity for anything even remotely similar to insubordination and incompetence without explaining me how best to do it. I understand that you are trying to protect Aphrodite without compromising this temple's secrecy, but surely you realize that that is the truly unfair thing about all of this. I've got nothing to do with this whole thing other than being the one randomly picked to ensure Aphrodite gets to Sanctuary."
Elisa gulped, cornered by the angered Saint. "What are you trying to sa-"
"I'm saying to quit the BULLSHIT!" Lance shouted. "The student you've been responsible over for the past what, six years, has just tried to kill my protégé!"
All eyes in the room turned to Elisa, who glanced away in a cold sweat. Mephisto forgot all about his neck scratch and stared the two adults, wondering if he had missed something that was causing Lance to go nuts all of a sudden. "What's the problem? Can't you just tell us about it?"
Surprisingly, it was Aphrodite that jumped into the Maiden's defense. "I don't need you to protect me, Elisa. If this guy doesn't understand he's not supposed to know anything about my Cloth, there's no helping it. It's not worth exposing that kind of thing to him just to convince him I shouldn't be a Saint."
"Aphrodite, they need to understand why you're not ready for that." reasoned Elisa. "He's right, I can't expect him to do me this huge favor out of the blue and leave him in the dark. I'm basically asking him to directly disobey his superior, something I'd never want you doing to me."
It was Aphrodite's turn to get angry. "Ready? Who said anything about ready? I'm not leaving, period. It's got nothing to do with how prepared I am to take up the Cloth." he then walked up to the Saint. "You can be assured, Saint Lance, that I am more than capable as a Gold Saint, but why should I uphold some stupid cause I got no stake in, though? Why should I protect people I care nothing about?"
For once, young Deathmask found himself sympathizing with Aphrodite. "Ha, She's got a point there, Lance. I wouldn't want to do something like that, either, and neither would you."
There was a groan from the Cancer Saint.
"Be the protector of the people and expected to hold up all kinds of ridiculous honor codes? No way!" continued the cyan-haired youth "I'd rather you turn back and tell the Pope to leave me alone in my garden. Let him send more Saints after me. I'll send them all back without their lives if I have to!"
The violent assurance silenced the room, causing even Maiden Elisa to sink her expression. Lance could easily tell she had been trying to hide that side of his, but considering the matter at hand it was not something she'd be able to keep under wraps. "Will you really take that kind of stance?"
"Try me!"
Lance backed off, cleaning his hands off the matter. "Fine." he admitted before turning to Elisa. "Do you have an area for sparring?"
Awakened from her depressed trance, she blinked twice before answering. "Y-yes, there is one in the rear divisions of the temple, why?"
"Let's have a little test match. If Aphrodite really is so sure he can keep the world out, I might as well see what that strength is all about."
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The sparring ground of the Temple of Pisces was indeed located in one of the rear divisions of the temple and was an open, square, roofless location that mirrored the garden they had just been in in size and architecture. The tiny stone brick fences and walls that divided the layout, however, lacked any decoration or plants, possessing instead training objects like range targets on wooden frames and medium sized boulders here and there for cosmos training.
The Cancer Saint stared at these objects, reminded of the place in Mount Olympus where he used to train his own punches. "Why would they have all these targets laid out? Did the Pisces Saints have some sort of long range technique?" he thought. Everything pointed towards them using the Demon Roses to poison the enemy.
As the other three entered the place he came across a particular practice dummy made of clay and with a target centered right where the heart would be. Once again he found oddities, in this case noticing the lack of target in the head and the slight left tilt of the target towards the heart rather than the general center of the torso. Whatever technique Aphrodite practiced, he had clearly an amazing accuracy; despite the distance line being set at least at 500 feet, the punctures in this dummy were almost all perfect, there being barely any tiny hole outside the central red of the aim demarcation.
He touched the punctures, trying to figure what was used for ammo. "Not a bullet, that's for certain, and certainly not a concentrated cosmos blast because there's no burn marks. Something sharp and thin…like a rose thorn, maybe?"
"Oh, great, they're here too!" complained Deathmask, pointing at the eight golem guards spread by pairs through the cardinal entrances to the square, all of which already seemed to be eyeing him because of his hidden loot. "Lance, can you get rid of these guys? They're making me feel uncomfortable like hell."
Lance ignored Deathmask and headed for the square with Aphrodite and Elisa. "I'd like to see how strong Aphrodite is. Can you arrange some sort of demonstration, Maiden?"
"Of course, that would be simple." The brunette woman waved her hand at the guards, which seemed to forget Mephisto for a moment and all of a sudden march towards the center white-tiled square where Aphrodite was already taking position.
"Wait, you can control them?" asked Deathmask. "How do you do that?"
"The golem guards have preset instructions to safeguard the island and act around the Temple. They'll give their hypothetical lives for it. As the Maiden I've merely been given a certain… influence over them for certain tasks."
Lance imagined all the sparring Aphrodite must have done with the guards. "Isn't that wasteful? What if they get destroyed?! I know they're armored but they don't look strong enough to withstand a rock-breaking punch."
Maiden Elisa smirked. "I think you'll find that is hardly a concern, Saint Lance." She then turned to her student. "Aphrodite, are you ready? Remember, this is only a demonstration."
"It's a waste of time, that's what it is." corrected the child. "Saint Lance can just sense my cosmos with the 7th sense. He doesn't need me to demonstrate anything."
"Your power is not the point." mentioned Lance.
Though he groaned in frustration Aphrodite still wondered what was the Cancer Saint after and what did he just mean with those words. He focused on the guards, which were already carefully surrounding him with their tower shields raised and their spears pointing straight at them.
Lance took the opportunity to analyze the guards' movements; he had no idea who was responsible for their intelligence, whether the sculptor Chrysalis or a Lemurian alchemist like Mu or Shion, but the dolls were obviously aware of strategic factors and learned from past fights. He concluded this based merely on their disposition; the surrounding of Aphrodite with their large shields and pointy weapons limited the child's freedom of movement and awareness of all their positions and movements, something vital to fight someone of dangerously superior speed. They knew Aphrodite was fast and dangerous and were trying to set up the fight in their favor.
Otherwise it would have been very easy for them to form a phalanx and attempt to steamroll the kid. The sheer weight and size of their bodies and equipment would make the spear wall nigh-unstoppable for anyone not strong enough to shatter his way straight through rock or blitz their flanks. He grabbed his intrigued chin, wondering if the stone golem of soldiers possibly made better guards than the actual foot soldiers of Athena.
Lance found himself laughing.
"What's so funny?" asked Deathmask.
"Ha, ha…I just… kind of wish I had a squad of these guys." confessed the Saint. "The morning I left for Syracuse the foot soldiers that were supposed to go with me basically punched me in the face for my troubles. I wouldn't have to deal with that bullshit if I had stone soldiers under me at the Temple."
Deathmask imagined his daily training life in Greece surrounded by the golems. "…Please tell me you're not serious!"
"Why the heck not? They're tough, vigilant, organized, follow simple commands and keep the small fry out of your way."
"They almost skewered me… under your watch!"
Lance folded his arms. "You're still okay, right? Besides, you kept provoking them like crazy."
"Argh, you just deserve the biggest fuck you in the world, Lance! Why don't ya just throw me at their spears?"
"I might if you don't shut up and watch!" He noticed Mephisto's confusion. "You've never actually seen a top tier of Sanctuary fight, have you? You should pay attention to what Aphrodite does."
While the Cancer trainee tried to shift his attention span to the fight to see what was so goddamn fascinating, the Pisces Saint watched the encircling soldiers carefully shift around him, looking for an opportunity to attack.
"Are we going to get this over with, or what? I have better things to do." complained Aphrodite.
Unbridled by any sense of self-preservation and mechanized by artificial pseudo-thoughts, the golems stepped in unison and pulled their weapons for the oncoming execution. There was a sudden charge from all directions and the eight spears clashed on the child. Mephisto staggered and Lance widened his eyes at the sudden fatality.
A sudden blow from above wrapped in red cosmos struck one of the golems right in the head, smashing it into a burst of shattered rock and blood-like liquid. The two visitors blinked with the speed of the attack and mess of reddened stone and watched the beheaded guard fall to his knees before an unfazed Aphrodite, who had simply dodged the earlier attack with a high speed jump.
The Golem guards instantly backed off, many of them dropping their spears and pulling out their falcatas for close range fighting.
The shocked Mephisto watched the remaining guards leap into action and attack the youth with multiple spear jabs of different angles and velocity, only for all to fail to hit Aphrodite who simply danced around the attacks nonchalantly, while the remaining ones tried to fight off the blitzing blurs of light blue with their swords. The cyan-haired boy allowed himself to be targeted more and more furiously, letting the guards take bigger risks in their attacks and lose organization. He knew that if he attacked right away they'd just hide being their stardust shields and make him waste his energy.
He lured one of the guards away from the formation with a longer back leap, waited for him to attack with a step-in thrust, slid right between his shield and spear and struck the armored chest with such speed and force a hole was blown straight through the doll, once again splattering the floor with the strange blood and stone. Structurally compromised, the golem trembled as if exhausted and fell to his knees, allowing Aphrodite to deliver an elbow spin blow at a much easier height difference that ripped the head right of its neck to the floor.
The two Cancers watched the remaining six soldiers hesitate in their strategy, their organization all screwed by the youth's blitzing blows and feints, but still reassuming the careful and slow encirclement they tried before. Aphrodite gave them no such chance this time, using the newfound distance to charge straight ahead and leap at their heads' height, delivering two powerful kicks that blasted two faces to smithereens before landing amidst the remaining ones. The ensuing confusion of repositioning and counterattacking stood no chance against Aphrodite's speedy assassination blows, which smashed stone with concentrated red cosmos that barely wasted any energy ounce or second, taking out each of the four guards one-by-one amidst their failed attempts to set up defenses, raise shields, stab their target or regain their coordination.
The very last one still had a chance to raise his stardust-reinforced tower shield at the kid, but Aphrodite finished in grand with a stepped straight punch that ripped the anti-cosmic defense in two and left the guard vulnerable to a having his field invaded by the smaller foe and being struck by a multitude of blows that climbed up his body, stunning him, and culminating in a side kick that allowed him to share the decapitated fate of its equals.
The flabbergasted Deathmask stood there watching the girl surrounded by collapsing guards that almost skewered him earlier, losing movement in their bodies and wetting the floor further in red. "H-he…h-he…he killed them all! Holy-…I couldn't even keep up!" He turned to Lance, who also seemed surprised. "What the hell was that?!"
The inexperienced Gold Saint but far more habituated fighter Lance was rubbed his chin and thought over what he just saw. "That was light speed…as someone with a degree of mastery over it uses it, anyway. You could do the same with some training but right now you can only use it for escape bursts, right?"
Mephisto gulped, wondering then more than ever how he actually survived Aphrodite's attack with just a reflex. "…This is nuts. I could never do something like did. He was pulling super punches all over the place."
Aphrodite smiled, sure to have impressed. "Easy. Can I go, now? I have a mess to fix in the garden."
Although Mephisto gulped in terror with his sense of danger about Aphrodite infinitely higher than before, Lance's earlier surprise subsided. In fact, he turned attention from the youth and walked over to one of the fallen guards and analyzed it, wetting his fingers with it and determining its nature. "It's… mercury?"
"Correct." confirmed Elisa, approaching the Saint. "Mercury is one of the most used elements in alchemy as well as one of the tria prima. It forms a fluid-based bridge between certain alchemical compounds that allow it to carry electrical signals between different body emulation compounds."
"Ah, so it's not blood, but nerves."
The Maiden widened her eyes. "Yes, I suppose you could analogize it that way. Are you familiar with the topic?"
Cancer shook his head. "Not at all; I don't know the first thing about chemistry, much less alchemy of all things, so I just made an assumption based on a few things the Aries Saint has showed me in his workshop. He loves showing off his creations. I assume this is the type where he added red dye for a touch of realism. I hope you don't mind the loss of these golems. I assume they're not easy to replace."
The earlier knowing smirk returned to her face. "Why don't you take a look at the corpses, then?
Lance's red eyes followed the direction of her pointing finger to the gaping wounds and shattered necks and widened at the sight of the crumbled stone and clay suddenly trembling. "What the..!?"
Mephisto rushed over to the phenomenon and dropped his jaw as some of the smaller rocks started to roll over bit by bit, picking up new life and movement and making strides towards the wounds. He could not be more freaked out. "The pebbles and clay are alive? What is it with these things?!"
"Elisa, what's going on?!"
"Calm down, they're Symplegades, or Cynaean Rocks." she revealed with a settling hand motion. "I'm sure you've heard of them in the Argonaut Myth, they're part of a mysterious rock formation in the Bosphorus Strait that used to periodically close the passage to the Black Sea in the Age of Myth. Alchemists used them to grant reformative properties to their tools and creations."
The two visitors watched in wonder the small pieces of stone rolling over the ground until attaching themselves to the cracks, fissures and scratches on the fallen golems, the larger rock litter eventually also started shuffling, taking longer to regain movement but also slowly dragging, turning, rolling and rejoining before attaching themselves to the shattered necks, heads and torsos of the dolls.
"That's amazing." Lance confessed. "I've never seen anything like it. So they just self-restore."
"Correct. They won't regain movement right away, but in a few minutes they should be reacting to commands once more… provided Aphrodite didn't damage them too much." She analyzed the extent of the damage. Aphrodite obviously fought in a way that would take them out for a while. "Tomorrow they should be ready for more."
Lance walked over the fallen guards to the fight square. "He could have done that a lot faster with full power light speed. I can't even begin to imagine how deadly he would be with Demon Roses, not that they would work on these things." He took out his Cloth Box and put it aside before cracking his white-wrapped knuckles. "I don't think you went all out, so how about an actual spar with a Gold Saint, Aphrodite?"
Though Elisa seemed to want to say something about this she contained herself when Aphrodite took the lead. "Fine, you stopped my earlier blow against that idiot over there. I might as well see what you're all about."
Mephisto watched Lance enter the square and assume a fighting pose. "W-wait, hold on, you're gonna fight him?!"
"Yeah, it's just a spar. It will be fine."
Deathmask saw Aphrodite smile most maliciously and gather his deadly red cosmos. "I don't think he thinks of it that way."
Raising his hands and bending his fingers in the Dragon style fashion, Lance didn't seem too worried.
Elisa, however, wasn't so excited. She opened her mouth and looked and forth at Lance and Aphrodite, as if unsure how to react, but stepped in to protest. "Hold on, Saint Lance, this is not what we agreed! I don't want Aphrodite facing off against an adult Gold S-"
"You said you wanted me to find out what kind of person he was, right?" asked the Cancer Saint, who then focused defensive cosmos to stress his insistence. "This seems like a good way to me. I'm a warrior before I am a Saint, Maiden Elisa. I'm sure that sounds completely barbaric to someone like you, but I know what I'm doing. If Aphrodite is as dangerous as you say, I'm the one who's got to be worried."
While his teacher reluctantly backed off from the argument, Aphrodite squinted in suspicion, wondering if there really was something to this fight. The Cancer Saint seemed too relaxed for someone who just saw him wipe out eight guards, even if he was a Gold Saint. "Wait, Elisa is right, what's your angle? I said I don't mind the fight, but-"
"Nothing, I just want to get to know you better. You're going to attack or what?"
"Fine!" There was a sudden blitz before everyone even finished registering these words and a straight razor blow was directed at Lance's head.
His red eyes widened and he let the blow trespass his area before swerving his body for a dodge and swiping the small body away from him with a backhand blow. Aphrodite easily followed as he landed with a high kick easily stopped by a cross block. A rocketry of blows assaulted Lance from the left but his practiced dragon style guards fluently covered the approach areas of the blows while foot-working away from the kid.
The renewed distance was enough to make Aphrodite's combo suddenly miss, followed by a blocked punch, a dodged kick and a lightning fast elbow that only swiped air. The Pisces candidate backed off for a second, blinking confusingly at the sudden difficulty he felt, but rapidly resumed his furious offensive of machine-gunned killing blows.
At first he managed to hold back the multiple attacks, but all of a sudden there was a foot slide that hit his ankle, making him stumble towards a leaping Aphrodite who spin-kicked his guard out of the way before rushing in with a scarlet-powered punch right at his face. Lance had enough sense of self to bob his head in that instant, but a sharp grazing slashed his cheek lie a razor blade and he stumbled past the kid, having barely dodged a lethal blow.
The kid smiled, obviously happy with how much he just scared the Gold Saint who now nervously wiped his bloody cheek after what could have been a lethal mistake.
"Still anxious to spar me, or do I have to actually kill you? I could slice the other one for good measure if you want!" he threatened as he jumped back into the action.
Lance grunted, feeling the pressure of the youth's blows test his reflexes to the limit. Doing his best to adjust his blocks and dodges to Aphrodite's consecutive shifting of attack styles; he realized he may have gone in too confident. The kid's speed combined perfectly with the lightness and shortness of his body, with Aphrodite boosting the neck-breaking speed of his physical combos with the fact that it was hard to tell at what height he was attacking at any given instant.
He had been taken by surprise before because Aphrodite forced the fight into his own terms, making Lance stumble and become vulnerable to a quick rising attack. It was clear the Pisces student was used to fighting much taller people and, more importantly, going straight for the kill. There was actually such focus to the energy of Aphrodite's attacks that even with all his damage reduction techniques Lance was feeling the impact of every little blow reverberate through his body.
Focusing too much on defense could get him killed against this foe.
Aphrodite was also barely giving him enough space to breathe. Lance knew all these combos, which used only just enough power to force him to guard, were merely a suppressive effort; what the kid was really looking for was the unforeseen angle for a pinpoint fast swipe at his vitals. Like a true killer he was watching his prey for the first mistake while spending as little energy as possible. Lance imagined that if they weren't in a spar Aphrodite would be the type of Saint to just swoop in and kill before you even realized he was in the room.
Lance shifted strategy, suddenly blocking with a raised knee to not let Aphrodite pull him down to his size and swoop in with a scythe punch that forced the kid to leap back and pause the assault. They allowed the violence to settle down, causing wind bursts from the blow exchanges to stop battering the room and onlookers.
Being experienced in matters of cosmos and dueling thanks to being raised with Pisces Aeneas, Maiden Elisa used this pause to analyze the state of the fighters. Saint Lance seemed alarmed by Aphrodite's speed and methods so hopefully this would help her convince him to let Aphrodite stay a little while longer.
Would Aphrodite go too far, though, and cause something tragic? "Saint Lance, I think that's enough. You've had your spar."
Aphrodite laughed. "It's fine, Elisa, he's too proud to admit defeat. That's what's gonna kill him, not me." To his surprise, the Cancer Saint chuckled all of a sudden. "…Do you really think you should be laughing?"
"…You don't think you've won just because you got first blood on me, do you, Aphrodite?"
The Pisces' smirk turned to a displeased frown. "Oh, is this where you pull out your trump card? Please spare me the arrogant theatrics; I can't stand losing time with someone who doesn't see defeat."
Lance relaxed, standing up straight from his guarded pose for the first time. He was learning more from this little spar than all the speeches Elisa had tried to swindle him with. "Clearly, you can't, but that's alright. You're not a warrior, after all, but a killer, a far better one than what Mephisto was pretending to be back in Syracuse."
Feeling rather unpleasantly compared, Deathmask protested. "I would have killed you if I had actual bombs!"
"No you wouldn't; you'd have threaten me with them, run off, scavenge them back once I went back to Greece and then hide somewhere else. You had far more expendable traps, so you wouldn't have wasted something so useful and risky on a single pursuer unless I backed you into a corner."
"W-well, I…oh fuck you, Lance! Get yourself killed for all I care!"
Sick of the arguing, Aphrodite tensed his fingers and recharged his cosmos. Lance returned him his attention and went on the defensive.
Just then he managed to block yet another flurry of fist stabs before his counter kick was easily leaped over by the kid who managed to score a few kicks in mid-air before landing behind Lance.
Aphrodite smiled cheek to cheek and went in with a red star of a fist for the kill of the fool who let him go around his back.
There was a sudden whirl in front of him and the Gold Saint easily swiped away the blow before white cosmos flared up around Lance. Stunned with the parrying's force and the failure of the sure-hit kill, Aphrodite gasped when the sudden sound of a dragon's roar was heard and the massively empowered uppercut went for his chest.
His eyes closed in reflex, but felt a burst of harmless cosmos batter him like a wind blast. He opened them to see the punch stopped an inch from his heart. Sweat ran down his temples. That could have easily been it.
Lance, however, backed off and reassumed the defensive pose.
Mephisto blinked. "What was that? Wait, you could have just scored a great hit right there! What are you doing, Lance?! Finish him off!"
Everyone in the room ignored Deathmask and focused on the spar, where Aphrodite also seemed to be struggling a bit to figure out what just happened. He scowled venomously, feeling humiliated. The idiot was right; Aphrodite underestimated the Cancer Saint and could have been knocked out.
"You want to keep going or what?" asked Lance. "I'm kind of curious to see what else you can do." His eyes then glanced briefly at the practice targets. "He hasn't used whatever attack allows him to do that kind of damage. I wonder what he's hiding."
There was a sudden blitz that put Lance immediately on guard upon feeling several killing blows strike several spots around his tight guard. He sensed Aphrodite landing behind him once again and adjusted his position only to be put once again on the defensive by another combo of rapid kicks and punches. Lance carefully back stepped, gaining distance with each block which itself changed form and the used muscle to keep his stamina and defensive fluidness up. He didn't want to smirk so as to not mock the kid, but it was becoming increasingly clear the adult Gold Saint was figuring out exactly how to fight off Aphrodite's style.
It was also increasingly clear how frustrated Aphrodite was becoming with his failures to create an opening, how taken back Mephisto was at what was happening in front of him and how preoccupied Elisa seemed with the fight. Lance and Aphrodite were too busy to notice, but Deathmask clearly saw through the Maiden's worried scowl that she wasn't enjoying the situation.
Was she worried about Aphrodite? Mephisto couldn't imagine anyone caring about such a creepy kid, so she was probably wondering if the Gold Saint was gonna end up getting killed by the cyan-haired psycho.
Sweating furious bullets and nearing the limit of his patience, Aphrodite growled and dashed forward for a final combo that would definitely break the bastard's impossible defenses. His whole game was put upside down, however, when Lance suddenly stopped hiding from him and caught his widely swung kick in mid-air. Aphrodite gasped and got thrown into the ground. He still tried to put up a fight, but Lance's fist came hammering down on his head for the kill before he could even raise his arms.
Once again Aphrodite found himself screaming out at a kill that did not went through with its intent, stopping an inch from his face and releasing the invested cosmos in shockwaves of wind that battered the whole room. The Saint backed off and helped the kid up.
Aphrodite blinked, feeling like he was being messed with.
"AW, COME ON!" screamed Deathmask at Lance instead.
"Don't be a baby, Mephisto, you didn't actually think I would hurt him, did you?!"
"He tried to kill me! I thought you were gonna teach him a lesson."
"Guess you're just gonna have to fight your own damn battles!" berated Lance as he helped Aphrodite up. "Are you okay? I was serious when I said I wouldn't hurt you."
Suddenly threatened out of his wits, Aphrodite slapped his hand away. "I'm fine! What are you doing?! We were sparring! I would kill you if I got the chance!"
"Aphrodite, it's fine, there's no need to assume the worst." Elisa intervened before stepped between the two. "Saint Lance, I hope you've come to terms with whatever doubt you had about Aphrodite's character with this, because I will not authorize further fighting. I think you've seen for yourself by now that my pupil… doesn't like wasting time with petty practice."
The Maiden's interference seemed enough to calm the kid down, who looked away still with a lot on his mind but seemingly not intent to keep questioning Lance. The Cancer Saint wondered what kind of influence she actually had or still had on him after all the years spent together. It was obvious the child really was somehow amoral, but to what extent? Could he be truly called sadistic or monstrous?
He remembered Mayor Charis' strange wordings when asked about the Temple's youth and even Mephisto had noticed the village representative seemed eager for Aphrodite to be gone. Had there been… incidents?
"Alright, fine, I'll lay off of him for now. I think we all got what we wanted by now. Maiden Elisa, I… apologize if I seemed to threaten your student somehow. Could I have a few hours to think about your request? I'll take the chance to look around the place and I'll ponder on the issue in the meantime."
The young woman's mood seemed to brighten up almost instantly. "I… Yes, of course! Take all the time you need. You're free to stay at the temple in the meantime… not that I have the authority to actually refuse a Gold Saint…Saint Lance, I just ask you to take in consideration my feelings on the matter. It sounds selfish, I know, but-"
"-but you've known him for years, yeah, I get it."
She nodded humbly and clasped hands. "Thank you, Saint Lance."
"This doesn't mean I've decided in your favor already."
"No, but I'm sure you'll make the right choice."
{======================|0|======================}
Hours Later…
{======================|0|======================}
The afternoon had been spent entirely on the temple after the fighting demonstration in the sparring square, with Aphrodite going with Elisa somewhere while Lance took his time looking around the temple while keeping the kid he brought with him under watch. He was half convinced there was something to Mephisto's story about how he was just messing around in the garden when Aphrodite attacked him, but no proof of anything. He felt bad for instantly assuming the worst about the dark-blue haired disciple, but Mephisto gave him little reason to think otherwise.
On second look the temple's layout wasn't as extensive as he previously thought. Asides from the circulation corridors and the garden and sparring squares, the innards were comprised of but a few rooms, a library, Elisa's office and basic daily life divisions like a small kitchen and a quaint dining room. Most of the works of art he had seen were placed around the corridors and seemed there as merely a part of the Pisces' House legacy and myth rather than simple ostentation because the rest of the temple was actually kind of austere, as expected of what was technically a Training Ground.
This actually made him wonder where exactly the Pisces Cloth was. During the spar with Aphrodite he had made up his mind about trying to get to it to see if he could determine anything more about the kids' training, but had not found it anywhere so far. It was possible it wasn't even stored in the temple itself at all. Karkinos had not been a great help in this matter.
"You want to know what the Cloth of the Love Goddess is like, what I think of it?" it just asked back, indignant and referring to the constellation by its origin in the Goddess Aphrodite and her son Eros. "Are you audacious or just ignorant of your own place? Do you also want me to tell you how the flowers glow brighter in Elysium in Lady Hera's garden and how the blades of Hephaestus are forged so wonderfully? Perhaps I should just speak of other sacred things, like the birthplace of the Nymphs and the gates to Olympus. Why don't you just obey the Pope's orders so you can focus what is really important; your role at the Cancer Temple and Deathmask's training?"
"Don't fucking call him that! That is not his name yet!"
"It's the name he's chosen for himself as a Saint. I'll address him as such, just like I call you Lance instead of Re-"
"Enough! I'm not gonna get any help from you, I get that already!"
Angry silence between Saint and Cloth followed for the rest of the day, which the Saint attempted to forget about by observing the temple further. The Pisces Cloth, according to Elisa, had that weird blood seal to it so chances were he wouldn't be able to approach it anyway.
The gardens, of course, were magnificent in comparison to everything else about the complex. The central one inside the temple was contained and organized, probably meant for practice of gardening and the Demon Roses, but the fields of petals beyond the walls were authentic field of multicolored lush. He stayed clear from them. He had not seen any actual Demon Roses so far and so he wouldn't be able to identify them in the midst of the normal ones. Being poisoned, smothered and consumed wasn't something he was anxious to slick his curiosity about.
He ran into Mephisto by the Temple's entrance, staring off into the distance while passing time with floating will-o-wisps. It wasn't strange to see these many ghosts around the place since it was a Training Ground as well as an important and deadly one. There was a big chance part of the dead souls they had seen so far were not of trainees and masters, but passing civilians victimized by the roses and even enemies, like Specters, Mariners or Black Saints trying to loot the Temple or steal the Pisces Cloth.
The kid seemed bored and upset. Lance felt bad about being mean to him but the Italian youth kept asking about some sort of retribution on Aphrodite. Normally Lance would sympathize since Deathmask was almost killed for what could be nothing worse than his usual mischief, but the agenda he was personally forming on the Pisces kid put aside that kind of thought.
He thought of something. Maybe he would show him a new trick to break the ice. "Want to see something cool?" he asked as he sat by him.
Mephisto reluctantly gave him attention. "You're going to stick your fist up one way and make it exit the other?"
"You're still mad, huh? Geez… Mephisto, look, there was no way I was gonna hit Aphrodite. Sure, what he did was wrong, but I get the feeling he wouldn't have tried to murder you just because you look funny and have a potty mouth."
Mephisto exploded. "See, that's what I'm mad about! Why the fuck are you handling this so casually?! The guy's a total psycho and you were all 'hey let's have a fun little spar, surely everything in the world is gonna be alright'! What, you think you have the situation under control or something?!"
To his surprise, Lance didn't raise his volume, instead looked away and rubbed his palms in contemplation. "Under control? Not really, I actually think there's a few lingering issues about all of this that really warrant some degree of interpretation independent of the Pope's orders. Elisa had a point to her request all along; Aphrodite is not the typical trainee ready and set to take up the Cloth."
"So what's so freaking okay about all of this?"
"I just don't think there's anything about him to be kept 'under control'."
The dark-blue-haired kid raised his brow and dropped jaw, staggered. "…HUH?!"
The Cancer Saint recalled all the experiences he had with Karkinos and the story Master Dohko had told him about how the previous Cancer Saint had been responsible for a massacre likely due to the Cloth's influence. "When Elisa started telling me about Aphrodite I began to worry about the influence the Pisces Cloth had on him. Elisa herself had not told me much about it, probably duty-bound to the Temple's rules, but she and Saga, the Gemini Saint, had also mentioned to me Aphrodite kept to himself and was…aggressive prior to ever even getting on this island. Point is he's not the kind of kid you'd say that he just wants to be left alone. There is obviously a detachment and amorality about him that make him dangerous."
Deathmask followed the complicated explanation as best as he could. "I suppose, but If he was dangerous back then already that means you should be extra careful now, right?"
"Do I?"
"I… Yeah, you do!"
"I wonder about that, Mephisto, because it doesn't seem like Aphrodite is that much different nowadays from the person I imagined from those stories, even after years in this Temple. Has the Cloth or even Elisa herself been influencing him at all, then?"
Not having an immediate answer for this, Deathmask decided to entertain Lance's insane logic for once and thought over his question. "I… suppose not? He seemed to know about it, though…Then again Maiden Elisa probably taught him about its attitude."
Lance rubbed his chin. "I agree. You know, I get the feeling Aphrodite hasn't even been in contact with the armor yet. He's just too…relaxed talking about it. Did you hear his speech about how it supposedly has the same issues he does? Sounded like Casual Friday to him."
Screaming in frustration and dispelling the wisps he was messing around, Mephisto practically screamed his demand. "GOD, stop messing around with me and talk straight! So he doesn't care about the armor, big deal!"
"He should, though."
"Why?! It's not like he's got competition or that he really wants to be a Saint. At least in that I sympathize with him; the cloth is just a peace of stupid metal that will get you dead in the frontline of some war you don't care about. Why is it so freaking important?"
"Because there's a good chance the Pisces Cloth connects to a goddess."
This was enough to return Mephisto to his earlier stunned expression. "A…goddess? Like, you know, a Greek God like Zeus? ….What makes you say that?"
"The Pisces Myth and the Dragon Cloth do. If you go by what Greek Mythology says, Pisces represents Aphrodite and her son Eros, the Cupid." He then spoke of his time in Rozan. "While I was training in China there was this Bronze Cloth there about the Dragon Constellation. While I never interacted with the Bronze Cloth, later on I found out that the 'dragon' it represented was real and living close by, physically separate from the Dragon Cloth yet still emblemized by it. It's not far-fetched to assume then, that there might be other Cloths that act as links to a certain living God, rather than just a constellation."
Mephisto thought this over. "I see… What about Cancer? Does it connect to a god as well?"
The Cancer Saint rubbed his chin, intrigued. "That's an interesting question. Greek Myth says Karkinos is basically a failed creation of Hera to assassinate Hercules. He's her servant for all intents and purposes…Got anything to yap about that, Karkinos?" The Cloth, however, didn't seem interested in entertaining Lance's discussion. "Figures… you're on my back all the time but never have anything to say about that kind of thing."
Trying to wrap his head around the whole idea, Mephisto ran into a few questions about it. "So wait, what does that mean? If there are certain Cloths that connect to a God, does that make them stronger somehow? Or more dangerous?"
A deep breath signaled Lance's deep thinking on this matter. "…My Master Dohko told me the Path of the Gold Cloth begins after you get it. Right now Aphrodite is just preparing himself physically and emotionally for a lifetime of testing that only starts after he gets the armor. The question is not whether they're stronger because of it, which I don't think they are based on what I've been told of the Dragon Bronze Cloth by Master, but more whether they have a bigger impact on who you are than others…"
The kid was allowed to let this sink in by the Gold Saint. The tense silence that followed was accentuated by the sudden sweating in Deathmask's face and the slow drift of his eyes towards the horizon. "A… god…Wow."
Recalling his experiences with Seiryu in Mount Rozan, Lance perfectly understood what was going on in Deathmask's head. This was the first time he was being confronted with this idea, which was so technically fundamental to everything Sanctuary and Saints were about but also something most people in it just sort of forgot to think about. The sensation of shock and retrospective was something he experienced himself when first having to come face-to-face with the dragon god in that dark lake. It was something his psyche still tried to look over.
Mephisto looked at his own hands, probably thinking about all the magic he performed over the years and how that related to the idea of Greek gods being real, around and affecting people's lives. "So what does this all mean? Why does Sanctuary have a Gold Cloth about the Goddess Aphrodite? Isn't Sanctuary all about Athena?"
"That's something Elisa could probably explain to us, if she wasn't so concerned about keeping everything on this temple a secret." commented Lance. "I'm not even exactly sure what the deal with the Dragon Cloth and Seiryu is to begin with. All I know is that Sanctuary owns them and our little friend Aphrodite isn't particularly concerned about what the Pisces Cloth thinks."
"I don't know… A god… that's kind of heavy. Doesn't sound like the kind of stuff you just ignore."
Lance folded his arms. "Which brings me to my point; while Karkinos might not be a God, I've been severely warned about the risks of his Path. Moreover, I faced the dragon god Seiryu and got a firsthand perspective on how dangerous he is. Elisa thinks that Aphrodite might grow even more dangerous than he is under the influence of Pisces, so it's safe to assume Pisces's got a risk Path as well." The young, red eyed warrior then sighed, reflecting on his own path. "But from what I've seen of him and, more importantly, what I've seen of myself before and after getting Karkinos, I can't bring myself to believe his situation is truly hopeless. The more I think about this, the more I feel like I can help him… and that is driving me fucking crazy."
Mephisto realized something important. "Wait, you've faced a God before, too?"
Lance wondered if he was allowed to answer this honestly. He had a duty of respect towards Master Dohko's teachings after all, one he had grown to want to uphold despite his usually rebellious nature. "More like a spirit of Nature…one which could crush you with its mind rather than take the time to eat you."
"Cool!"
"Not cool, I almost died."
"Awesome!"
Lance groaned.
"So what, you don't think Aphrodite's actually dangerous?"
"It's not that." stressed Lance. "I just don't think he goes out of his way to be so. He's only as violent as the world pushes him to be... and I kind of relate to that. You saw it for yourself; he was willing to cut your throat because you messed his arrangements but chances are he wouldn't even acknowledge that you were there if you just stuck to being an idiot drooling around the temple."
It was Mephisto's turn to groan. "You know, that doesn't exactly make him a nice guy…or make up for trying to kill me because of a stupid flower."
"You're not exactly a Saint yourself-"
"Thank god!"
"-yet I'm still taking you to the Cancer Temple. Look, Mephisto, I don't actually have a choice in the matter; Aphrodite is coming to Sanctuary and that's it, Pope's orders. You're gonna have to live with him and at least eight other nosy kids vying for the Gold armors…well, not exactly vying as opposed to being arbitrarily chosen for them-"
"Didn't you mention you were an unpopular promotion, too?"
"-but the point is that we got to find a solution for Aphrodite, who I'd rather not behave like a bullied murderer when he takes up the role of our most important line of defense." Lance threw his hands up and made up his mind. "What did you think of the spar?"
The annoyed teen puffed his cheeks boorishly. "…He was strong, I guess."
Lance laughed all of a sudden. "HA, HA, HA; you don't want to admit a girl actually impressed you with her fighting skills! I actually wish I could say I didn't know what that feels like."
"It's not that, it's… nothing! There was nothing to it, just a stupid spar you spent pulling your punches the whole time."
"That's where you're wrong. I wasn't holding back at all."
Mephisto turned to him, surprised. "What? What are you talking about; you were on the defensive the whole time! You only scored those two good hits and you didn't even commit to them."
"I told you, Mephisto, Dragon Style is an almost completely defensive martial art." recalled Lance, who showed off his dragon paw finger bending. "You think I can punch anyone without breaking my fingers like this? The Dragon pose is meant for defensive flexibility, not Bruce Lee bad guy beating sprees."
Mephisto groaned. "See, this is what I mean; you gotta attack, not cower like a little turtle! What a boring martial art."
"…It worked pretty well against the guy who was gonna kill you."
Remembering how frustrated Aphrodite looked trying to punch and kick past Lance's guard, Mephisto begrudgingly agreed… though he did not admit it out loud. "What was even the point of all that?"
"That's my concern. You didn't answer my question honestly, what did you think of the spar? First time you saw superfast fighting, right?"
Finally realizing where Lance was trying to get at, the adopted street runt scratched his head, thinking about how it really was his first glimpse of what awaited him should he be pushed against the wall by the Pope and become a Saint. It was actually kind of a scary sight; while he never lost track of either fighter despite Aphrodite's blitzing maneuvers, Mephisto could barely follow the direction of the punches and kicks themselves, which seemed to shot out of their owners' bodies like rock shattering air bursts that barely lasted a second.
It was especially terrifying when Aphrodite started throwing out those infuriated red cosmos combos and Mephisto wondered if he stood a chance at even blocking the very first of those blows. How advanced was that kind of fighting?
Feeling for the first time truly worried about the Saint Path scenario for him, Mephisto gulped. Sweated bullets and wondered if he was better off back at Syracuse. He tucked his legs in. "What I think about the fight?…I think I really don't wanna become a Saint…"
Memories of his early years in Mount Olympus and even at the Heart of Sasha preparatory orphanage came flooding back. Lance sighed and patted Deathmask's shoulder comfortingly. "Yeah, I know how you feel."
{======================|0|======================}
Night eventually fell at the Pisces Temple, drowning the colorful fields of petals in cold breezes of darkness, making them no less beautiful and even bringing out the deadliness of some of them through the moonlight. Cancer Lance was making preparations to depart for the village Chrysanthos, where he and Mephisto would spend the night, but he still needed to get a protective charm from Elisa so the trip wouldn't take another six hours through a distance loop.
The day spent at the Temple had been filled with exploration and reflection. Lance had stayed clear of the rooms where Aphrodite probably would be and made sure Deathmask did not tread into them either, should the cyan-haired child still harbors thoughts of punishment for his damaged garden. Karkinos had provided no further hints to Pisces' nature, probably figuring Lance had deduced more than enough from his few words, even if doubts still plagued him.
His new apprentice's confession still rang inside his mind, not because Deathmask still did not want to become a Saint, but because Lance remembered very well harboring similar thoughts when he was young. Maybe Cancers really thought alike, who knew, but the idea of being a Saint was never something he identified himself with.
"A warrior before a Saint… I wasn't lying to Aphrodite and Elisa when I said that. I never wanted to be the knight in shining armor that many of Athena's warriors pretend to be." he thought to himself as he walked around the halls towards the exit. "I wonder if that's the way Aphrodite feels too about all this. He doesn't seem eager to 'protect and serve'. I can't blame him; quite on the contrary, not just because he's just a kid, but also because I don't think anyone should be pulled like that. This whole demand of the Pope to bringing him back to the Zodiac stinks to high heaven." His mind then returned to the side notes in his mission's papers. "Unfortunately… the two of us might not have a choice in the matter."
It was in the midst of all this musing that he widened his eyes at the sight of none other than Aphrodite himself, who seemed to relax by a wall of the corridor after a day of fixing his plant arrangements, arms folded like he was awaiting something.
The kid's sharp eyes raised up at him with the same cynical and 'bothered by you' look as always. "Are you leaving?" he asked, to which Lance nodded. "Good, make sure to take that idiot with you and drop dead together somewhere."
Paying no mind to Aphrodite's rudeness, the Cancer Saint decided to instead make an example of patience and understanding. It wasn't hard when he honestly sympathized with the kid's frustration with others. "I'll be back tomorrow to talk with your caretaker. She still has a lot of… issues to settle with me about you. I won't bring back Mephisto, don't worry."
Aphrodite snorted indignantly. "Wasn't his name Deathmask? Well, it's not me who should be worried, but him. If he steps inside this temple again, he's dead!" He then staggered and widened his eyes when he saw Lance's ruby-colored squint and cosmos burning.
The Cancer Saint didn't reach for his cloth nor tighten his fists. He didn't even move, just rousing his energy for the kid's 7th sense to feel and giving Aphrodite the most threatening glare he could. "Aphrodite, I've been patient so far… but… if you even so much as touch Mephisto… I will rip your fucking head off with my bare hands!"
A shaken up silence from Aphrodite followed Lance's warning. The youth couldn't imagine the tiger tail that he was stepping on with his many threats. He disguised his surprise, however, and stood up straight to face the Gold Saint. "Is that so?" Aphrodite then took the ensuing quietness as a yes. "Well, I'm glad to see you have some backbone. I thought you were another naïve Saint kidding himself about justice, especially after that sparring session."
This reminded Lance of Shinta. "There's a difference between being naïve and just being a nice guy."
This sent Aphrodite into a fit of laughter. "Oh, you see yourself as the good guy in all of this? Poor little Pisces trainee, training so hard to become a puppet soldier for the Pope, so maybe I'll melt his heart with empty promises of glory and warm fuzzy feelings." The child then narrowed his eyes angrily. "At the risk of sounding like a brutish little idiot, I'll have to ask you to tell the Holy Father to go eat something nasty."
The Cancer Saint, unlike most people Aphrodite had exposed this side of his over the years, didn't seem particularly shocked. Angry as he was at Aphrodite's continuous threatening of Mephisto, he didn't seem at all bothered by his insulting of the High Father.
"Ugh, sometimes I actually wish I could do that." Lance confessed. "He's got Gold Saints much scarier than me protecting his honor, though. If I don't do what he says, Capricorn Kirin definitely will. Trust me, that guy won't be nearly as comprehensive as me. You think you had trouble against my fighting style? Wait until you face a guy I've been told of wiping out enemy cities on a regular basis during the war."
"Oh, I know about the war." Aphrodite clarified, turning his face away spitefully. "I know very well about the zealousness of the men in Sanctuary. The stories about my predecessor paint a clear picture. What was his name, Aeneas, correct?"
The shift of subject surprised Lance, who wondered if he was on to something and humored the topic. "Yes, from what your tutor told me."
Aphrodite walked around with arms folded in ironic contemplation. "It's a fitting codename for him; well in tune with the Pisces Saints' traditions and matching his fate. The 'Iliad' says the hero Aeneas sided with the Trojans and fled the city with the refugees to become their next rightful king. I believe my predecessor did something similar, picking the rebels over his countrymen and siding with them until well after everything burned."
Not exactly being savvy about the third Civil War, Lance had little to contribute to the monologue.
Aphrodite rambled on, then. "I don't know why he did it, but I imagine it was for reasons similar to his mythological namesake, too. Pisces Aeneas didn't like Sanctuary and the Pope and sided with which he thought to be the just side of war."
"That's… interesting, I guess. Did your teacher tell you all this?"
The youth stopped and faced the Saint once more. "Elisa doesn't say much about him, even though they were raised together. She told me he died in Bluegrad, battling that Capricorn Kirin you spoke of, and they couldn't even find his body after what Capricorn did to him. Sometimes I wondered what could possibly have earned him such a fate for merely siding with the ones he believed in, but now I understand why."
"Why then?"
"Isn't it obvious?" asked the youth, waving at the paintings of mythical scenes of Sanctuary's history that could be seen hanging here and there in the temple's walls. "There is no particular why; Aeneas picked the losing side, the weaker side, lost the war and suffered the consequences. It's as simple as that. He wasn't as powerful as the other Gold Saints and was destroyed because of it. It's the fate of anyone who stands in Sanctuary's way."
The Cancer Gold Saints exhaled deeply, rubbing his chin and thinking over Aphrodite's words. He didn't exactly have a counter argument, or the willingness to debate this at that. It would be a cold day in the hell before anyone caught him defending Sanctuary or the Pope with words rather than reluctant actions. His first instinct was to tell Aphrodite to just suck it up, but he wasn't about to adopt Mephisto for the sake of not acting like Kastiel only for the next day go back on that word with Aphrodite.
It was kind of scary how empathic he was feeling with these two kids, especially considering that upon meeting them he considered both of them dangerous little psychos he would want no time wasted on. Lance wondered if any other Saint that Shion could have sent in his place would bat an eye so much at these two as he was.
"Is that why you don't want to join Sanctuary?" asked Lance. "Because you think it's evil? That's a poor reason considering how little you think of others."
Aphrodite snorted. "Oh, please! I wasn't born under Sagittarius, so don't treat me like some idealistic idiot. If anything, all that so-called evil would just make Sanctuary more like me, right?" compared the young kid, strangely wise about the cruelty of people and of the world. "I just don't see any advantage for me to become its Gold Saint only to uphold some honor code neither me nor it believe in. I can kill all I want just fine without having to pretend it's for Athena."
More and more, the Saint found himself in tune with the amoral child in front of him. He knew, most of the time anyway, to be no evil killer. Was Aphrodite truly one, then? Unlike Mephisto, Aphrodite didn't sound like a bragging kid when talking about death and seemed to have that special knowledge and coldness in his eyes and voice of someone who truly held no qualms in taking someone's life. "No one is asking you to be faithful to her. I know I am not."
This seemed to pique Aphrodite's sense. "Oh, really? Can you guarantee me, then, I will not be asked to cry out her name in battle? I know I am quite good, but I can't stand the idea of being some dog for justice. Can you assure me, like I am sure you've assured that other idiot you brought with you, that I can come to Sanctuary and choose not to be a Saint?"
A weight on Lance's conscience regarding the promises he had made to Mephisto began to press again on his heart, so the Saint couldn't bring himself to lie. "No, not really…"
Aphrodite stepped back, satisfied. "Uh, of course you can't…but it's fine. The world asks for justice every day and justice is often dealt out with power, not kind words. It's an ugly world out there, and I want nothing to do with it. I'm sure you have little argument against that." stressed the Pisces candidate. He smirked, feeling the moral superiority come to him the more the Gold Saint in front of him seemed to lack anything to bark back. "You said it yourself, did you not, that you were a warrior before a Saint?" he said mockingly. "Are you going to keep defending Sanctuary despite knowing its dogmas and its justice are just cheap excuses for power and war?"
Lance suddenly burst out laughing. "HA, HA, HA! Defend Sanctuary?! Absolutely not! Screw that place! I wouldn't guard the Pope's ass if it was about to get bitten." he denied. Aphrodite staggered, surprised at the turn of talk, but the Gold Saint went on. "You think I really care you come with me with a smile on your face or that you believe that Sanctuary is truly the Good-Guys HQ? Aphrodite, just six month ago I was up and ready to give the Pope the finger and leave the place for good. I hate to admit it, but the only reason I stayed was because I accepted a Gold Cloth bribe…"
Taken aback by the sheer dismissal of duty to the Pope in front of him, Aphrodite demanded explanations. "Then why are you even here?! Can't you see I want nothing to do with such a hypocritical place? Why can't you just leave me here in my garden where no one will bother me?! I already told you I'm not going. You should go back to Athens, and make it snappy, unless you want to end up dead, too!"
"Oh, is that a threat?" Lance spoke dripping in sarcasm.
Aphrodite spared him a glance dripping with venom. "…More like a friendly warning."
Factoring in what he heard about the Pisces Temple as a place of gardens just like the island they were standing on and the fact that Holy War was still two decades away, Lance seriously doubted Aphrodite was telling the whole truth. Something was not right about this kid and he wasn't going to let his stupid verbal attacks get in the way.
Before he could press on, though, Maiden Elisa showed up from around the corner, widening her caring brown eyes at the sight of her student once again clashing with the Gold Saint. "Oh, Saint Lance, I was just looking for you. Is… something going on here?"
Not wanting to cause trouble to Aphrodite, Lance shook his head. "We were just having a friendly conversation to get to know each other."
The Maiden walked over to them, the edges of her white religious overcoat floating just about the ground and disguising her steps. "I see. I hope you reached an understanding." A protective, delicate hand was put on Aphrodite's shoulder as she readdressed. "Saint Lance, I wanted to know if you've reached any sort of conclusion about my request."
Lance's red eyes noticed how quiet Aphrodite got all of a sudden. It seemed as if without Mephisto's mischief heating things up, Elisa really did have a degree of calming influence on the otherwise relentless discipline. Could it be that Aphrodite was truly better off in that Island?
He tried to think of what Master Dohko would do in this situation. All of a sudden, the answer became clear.
"Yes, I have, Maiden Elisa. Aphrodite is coming with me to Sanctuary to become the next Pisces Saint. I will take him under my wing and ensure his attitude does not become a problem."
Both Elisa and Aphrodite widened their eyes, but the Maiden was the first to respond. "What?! Saint Lance, you cannot… Don't you understand that it is important for Aphrodite to remain here? Nothing would please me more but to see him safe and calm, but…" She took a deep breath, realizing how suddenly stressed she felt and that she was talking back to a Gold Saint. "(Aphrodite, I need to speak with Saint Lance in private. Would you go to your room, please?)" she asked in Swedish.
While still taken aback by the sudden blunt decision of the Gold Saint, Aphrodite eventually nodded and headed off.
The two of them waited until the sounds of footsteps and a far off door closing were heard before resuming the conversation. The Maiden took the first step. "Saint Lance, I don't mean to question a superior, but you've clearly seen enough today to know that Aphrodite is not meant for the environment you want to bring him to. He is not prepared to uphold the ideals of a Saint. As you mentioned yourself earlier today, leaving your protégé alone in the temple was enough for Aphrodite to almost kill him."
Lance shook his head. "I told you, I will take care of things. I know perfectly well what I'm doing and I have no intention of putting my Gold Saint comrades, Mephisto or even Aphrodite himself in danger!"
"What are your intentions, then?!" the Maiden practically screamed. She realized she was raising her tone so she touched her throat, gesturing an apology so as to collect herself. "Will you watch over him twenty four hours a day all the way across eight Houses? Will you manage to do by yourself what I have not been able to for so many years and instill in him the morals of a…normal person? How do you plan to explain the Pope how you've made yourself responsible for him once something tragic happens?"
"It will be fine! I will not jeopardize-"
"You are just sixteen!" she reminded him. "You're not even a Master yet and you're already taking care of a youth prone to causing trouble! Aphrodite is not an orphan to make sure he doesn't talk to strangers; he's a deadly child who has killed fellow students because they looked at him the wrong way. He…" Elisa's eyes looked all over around, as if searching for another reason to fight back. "How do you even figure it's a good idea to bring him despite my warnings?! What made you take that kind of decision?!"
Lance sighed, stepping back to allow the infuriated Maiden enough breathing space. It had a lot to do with how much he felt like he understood Aphrodite's motives, but also about how he was given a chance by Dohko when he himself just wanted to tell Sanctuary to piss off. "I don't think he is as dangerous as you say he is. Given the right kind of guidance and code, I think I can make it safe for him to be around people. Elisa, you have my word, I will keep him safe!"
"Will you keep everyone around him safe from him?!" she demanded to know. "Will you somehow prevent him from one night filling the Pope's night chambers with Demon Roses after an unfair order or even make sure none of your Gold Saint comrades says the wrong thing in his presence, like mention his appearance as not masculine or his attitude as monstrous?"
"You're making a goddamn storm in a teacup! It's not impossible to teach him a better way. All I have to do is provide the example and-"
"Will you be safe from him, then?! What makes you think you hold any kind of influence over Aphrodite and, even if you do, even if you manage to somehow control his every move or provide an excellent example of containment, friendliness or honor, do you really think that's any kind of decent living with others?!" she confronted, an argument that finally seemed to catch Lance by surprise.
"…I…I mean…"
"Do you think that it is fair for him to live like that, constantly following some role model you're not even sure to become for reasons he doesn't even care about in particular? Saint Lance, Aphrodite is not… doesn't want to be normal! He doesn't want to follow that kind of standard. Goddess knows I'm the one who hates to admit it the most, but if I thought it was possible to…" Elisa hit her point of exhaustion from the outburst and finally lowered her tone. "You have good intentions, Saint Lance, but things aren't that simple."
"Maybe not…" Lance admitted, but he then narrowed his eyes in determination. "But I refuse to believe they are as hopeless as you're making them out to be."
"Why?"
"Because why would you goddamn bother, then, Elisa?" he asked. "You don't seem fucking frightened of him! He seems fine all around you. Are you special or something? I refuse to believe Aphrodite is incapable of living with other human beings when you've been doing nothing but prove that wrong ever since he got here!"
The Maiden's gaze grew somber. "…So that is your reasoning."
"Elisa, Aphrodite has been exposed to the wrong kind of thinking. Yes, he's a bit cruel and, yes, he lacks empathy, but that is not what has been triggering him. If he was truly as evil as people say he was he wouldn't be trying to defend himself to me just now."
"…So you think you can make him fit…"
"No, look, I'm not asking for him to hug every person he meets! I'm just asking him to give me a chance to do for him in the Golden Zodiac what you've been doing for him so far here! Maybe that way the two of us can keep the Pope happy without throwing your student at the dogs!" He saw the maiden practically cower before his wrath, her white hood concealing her saddened gaze. "Elisa, what the fuck are you not telling me about him?! What has you so goddamn scared about him becoming a Gold Saint?!"
At first the Maiden seemed reluctant to answer but, little-by-little, her eyes reappeared from the shadow of her pulled hood and curly hair and met the Saint's. Taking a deep breath, the woman eventually gave him a short smile of resignation.
"Alright, Saint Lance… I see that I will not convince you. You're determined to take Aphrodite to Sanctuary with the Pisces Cloth."
"Unless you provide me with better reasons for him to stay, yes."
"I understand…I'll have to then convince you why Aphrodite cannot be allowed to be with the others with the actual truth about his training." she admitted, nodding her head to herself like a sudden truth just hit her. "I was hoping I'd be able to keep the sigil, but I see I must be completely truthful with you. I hope you forgive me. This temple has… its own special darkness that should not be announced to the world."
Seeing things finally go his way but still sensing something strange, it was only a bit worriedly that Lance concurred. "Will you tell me what's going on, then?"
"Yes, but not here. The walls have ears. Is your student safe?"
Lance's 7th sense scoped the temple for the Mephisto and detected him at the entrance of it, probably wondering what the fuck was taking Lance so long to leave. "I got him under watch."
"Alright, then. Follow me if you will."
{======================|0|======================}
Meanwhile…
{======================|0|======================}
Stranded at the entrance of the temple with nothing but a pair of the only golem guards already fully restored to keep him company, Deathmask, future Saint of Cancer, tucked his arms in to keep warm and grew fowler by the second.
His fists reached for the sky. "ARGH! Where the hell is Lance?! It's getting fucking cold out here! Doesn't he know what time it is?! I wanna go to the inn so I don't have to spend the night in this stupid place that keeps trying to kill me!" he saw the golem guards stare at him. "Get a life, ya dolls! Seriously, though, what's taking him so long? I'll wait five more minutes and then I'm going!"
As he stared off at the dark road amongst the flower fields just outside the entrance arch, Deathmask saw little profit in his little fit. Without whatever item the hot maiden would give Lance to get them through the dimensional waves, it would take him either six hours or some serious light speed to get across the fields before day break.
The impatience, however, was killing him. After staring at the dangerous temple complex for a whole minute, contemplating the chances of running into the little girly psycho he wished would just die, he made up his mind and walked inside to give Lance the biggest rant of his life.
He marched furiously across the halls of stone brick, already preparing his speech. He would start by insulting his tardiness, then his ineptitude as a Gold Saint. He would then question his manhood and steal something from his pocket whenever Lance wouldn't be looking just for good measure.
He stopped, looking around his surroundings. In the midst of his furious rambling he lost track of where he was going. "Crap!" he practically screamed in rage at the halls darkened by the night.
Mephisto, however, would not be defeated. He had mastered the darkness during his life, not becomes its serf. His scavenger sense from his urban days in Syracuse sprung back into action and the kid moved his hands through the walls while carefully walking through the unknown divisions and turns.
All of a sudden, his hand sunk into a brick in the wall. There was a crumbling sound of dragging bricks, Mephisto yelped and almost fell over to it when the entire section of the wall moved back and slid into the ground.
"What the?!" he stepped away from the newfound entrance into the previously solid wall. He peeked into it, seeing only a staircase sinking into the darkness. "Wow, a secret passage! Where does this take?"
"…Why don't you walk through to find out?"
He turned around to face the person. "I'm not an idiot! These plac- AGHH! It's you again!" he screamed at the sight of Aphrodite.
Aphrodite walked towards him menacingly. "You shouldn't be here! Do you want to die?!"
"Look, I already said I was sorry! I was just walking around!"
There was a sudden set up step before Aphrodite's hand filled with cosmos and flew at Deathmask's face.
Deathmask screamed, but the shout was abruptly muffled and he was dragged into darkness.
{======================|0|======================}
The moon was seen high in the sky, offering the temple's graveyard a pale glint to accompany its haunted solemn look. It was located in the backyard of the temple complex, far away from visitors' eyes, and the Gold Saint of Cancer could see why as he was guided through the metal arch gate; black rose vines climbed all over the fences that enclosed the space and at that hour of the night a faint white mist much like the one in the Rozan valleys could be seen at knee level, obscuring the graves.
The tension could not be higher to the Cancer Saint, whose red eyes refused to let the maiden in front of him out of sight. All of this stank like a trap. He discreetly tucked in the gold armor plates he hid beneath his clothes as a precaution and followed her silently to whatever destination she thought to be safe from eavesdroppers.
"This is the temple's graveyard." She introduced, as if it wasn't already obvious. "It's in this dark garden where the Saints of Pisces have been buried over the centuries. Whether warriors, traitors, pacifists or heroes, they've all come to know this black flower field as their final resting place."
The Saint of Cancer looked around at the misted grave names with renewed interest. While he had seen tombs and mausoleums dedicated to many Saints in Sanctuary Town's graveyard, it was true he had never seen any Pisces Saints amongst them. He dedicated special attention to any potential sign of danger, but asides from the dark, thorny roses that took over the fences or placed, probably by Elisa, as buckets on the tombs there was nothing particularly dangerous or alarming in sight. Maybe the Maiden truly wanted to simply talk out of reach of Aphrodite or even Mephisto's ears.
"Are you fated to come here, too?" he asked.
"One day, yes, for it is the destiny of all servants of the Pisces constellation." She had a special take on this, however. "Personally, I think it's our sincere wish to do so, too; this island is the only place in the world where even death is filled with flowery beauty."
This brought to Lance's mind Aphrodite's earlier talk about the world being an ugly place. "Does your student think so, too?"
As they stopped by an open tomb, Maiden Elisa looked at him rather shocked. "I… don't really ask him such morbid things."
Lance rubbed his head, flustered. "Of course you wouldn't. I think I'm starting to understand how the dwellers of your House think. You're not rejecting the world outside because it's evil or good, just or unfair. You just can't stand the ugliness in it."
The maiden clasped hands behind her back solemnly. "Is it such a terrible thing to stay clear of the violence and lies outside our walls? Sanctuary's world is filled with war. Even in times of peace, border villages like the ones in Ismara are constantly caught up in the violence between the Gods. In the meantime, the people of power argue over the pettiest things while forgetting to do their part. Jealousy and greed keep twisting the world when everything could just simply be at peace…"
Once again, Lance couldn't really blame this argument based on his own distastes with the world. "I suppose not, but that's the world as it always has been."
She nodded, approaching the Saint. "Of course it is, I accept that. It's you who can't accept that Aphrodite and I have chosen to keep away from all that."
The Gold Saint rubbed his eyes. He felt bad over doing all of this because Elisa was obviously trying to protect a dear student, but something was telling him that letting her have her way would just lead to the kid growing even further apart from the rest of the world. It didn't help that he actually agreed with a lot of what she was saying about the 'outside world', but he just didn't agree that keeping Aphrodite closed up in the island, especially with the Pope putting pressure to bringing him back to Greece, would just be something that would go A-Okay for everyone.
He had to convince her somehow, then, but not before he found out more about what was actually going on. He touched his head once again, feeling dizzy. "Elisa, is some other reason you think he can't approach others?"
Her brown eyes seemed to dart from him to the surroundings back to him and all over again, probably making sure no one was watching or simply wondering if she should tell the truth. After a good minute of reflection, she finally spoke. "It has to do with his training. Aphrodite would soon finish his preparation for the Pisces Cloth's Path, as you know, but that would also entail a consequence to him and everyone around him."
At last sensing some degree of honesty, Lance allowed her to continue. "Go on. Does this have to do with the 'Blood of the Goddess' you've been mentioning here and there?" She nodded in confirmation, so Lance inquired more. "What the hell is it? What does it have to do with Aphrodite?"
"It's one of the prerequisites for him to take up the Path. Aphrodite has to receive the blood into his veins and survive it so he can inherit the Goddess' poison. Soon, the miasma he'll be emitting will be too toxic for people to even approach him."
This revelation caused his eyes to widen. "Toxic?! Like the Demon Roses?! What are you talking about?!"
Her hand waved at the dead Pisces Saints and candidates. "All those raised in the temple receive the Goddess' Blood, also known as the poison that drenches the Demon Roses. It's what binds us to the Gold Cloth of Pisces. I have some of it myself." she explained, showing off the blue lines in her wrist. She saw Lance's red eyes dart at the countless black roses littering the dark graveyard. "You seem nervous, is something the matter?"
Lance rubbed his eyes once more. "N-nothing, I'm fine! You said… poison to his veins? That's… so fucking insane!"
"What Cloth Path is not?" she pointed out. Fully remembering the details of his own training for Pegasus and Karkinos, Lance had to admit there being some truth to her point. The maiden walked around him in contemplation. "Over the years, as it was required of me, I've performed the blood transfer ritual, like many teachers of Pisces before me, passing the poison in my veins to his. A simple touch of wounds, like a cut in our fingers, and a session can be held. Too high of a dose, of course, could instantly kill him and the lethal level can be rather miniscule."
"Ever since he was a kid?!"
She nodded. "I still remember when Aphrodite first reached this island; he was still only seven years old. Like I said, however, his natural compatibility with his zodiac was unnaturally high. His enormous talent allowed him to quickly surpass even me in most matters pertaining to the Pisces path. It does not change the fact, however, that upon finishing his training the mere proximity with a civilian could prove lethal."
Lance held his head, feeling dizzy. He tried to concentrate though and spoke of Aeneas. "Did your friend also obtain this poison?"
The mere mention of Aeneas caused her to smile. Delicately waving her hand at the open tomb, she nodded. "Correct, but Aeneas found a better way. He discovered how to hold the curse of the Goddess in for an even greater power output. It served him well as a Saint."
"A way? How, then?"
"Over the years many Pisces Saints have experimented in ways to counter the curse. Pisces Albafica of the Lost Canvas War, for example, concentrated it in his blood into coagulated darts he would release from his pores and launch at his opponents, which reduced the area of danger but didn't fix the problem. Aeneas provided a different method." She pointed at the black roses all around them. "It has to do with the same process that gives birth to the Piranha Roses. The black Royal Demon Roses, as you know, are safe to be around. That's because they're actually normal Demon Roses sapped of their poison, causing them to dry up and harden into black flowers."
Lance sighed. He was feeling nervous in that creepy graveyard but he sucked it up. There were no red buds in sight, after all. "W-what did he do then?"
"He bred many types of new roses which allowed him to make full use of the excess toxicity. Aeneas was a brilliant Saint who harnessed the poison of the goddess into an even greater power. His services to the House of Pisces were highly commended by the Pope… until the Civil War, of course."
Lance saw the maiden suddenly waver he gaze. "Were the two of you close?"
The Maiden raised her hand, causing a black Piranha Rose to suddenly emerge from within her sleeve and wrap around her palm painfully. She snapped it off and placed it by Aeneas' unmarked tombstone.
After a few seconds contemplating her own act, she stepped away from the hole. "I used to envy his talent… now I miss him deeply. He was to be buried here…however Capricorn said they never found his body… Sometimes I really wish he did, though, just so I could close this hole for good and forget all about Pisces Aeneas..."
The Gold Saint of Cancer trembled. His vision started to shake and his breathing wheezed.
She saw him grab his head and lean over. "Are you sure you're feeling alright, Saint Lance?"
All of a sudden Lance lost his strength and collapsed on his knees and hands. He felt the inside of his throat on fire. "You… W-what have you done to m-me?!"
"…You think I don't know the Pope sent you to kill me?"
His whole world seemed to collapse below his feet as Lance lost strength in his legs and the enormous threat finally emerged before him. He looked up and saw the brunette woman seemingly fine. "There's no red Demon Roses here! H-how are you doing t-this?!"
She calmly smiled and showed off the many black roses vining around the tombstones and fences. Lance stared at a fallen rose on the ground, half caked in fine black dust and the other revealing a scarlet color.
His eyes widened in horror as he fell to his hands, shaking and weakened.
"As you can see I redecorated the flowers in the graveyard recently. I always preferred black over red. I simply crumbled the dry piranha roses and dusted them on top of the demon roses until you couldn't tell the difference." She covered her mouth. "Oh, you probably didn't notice the red pollen in the dark…or maybe because of this ghastly mist. Or maybe when we were deep enough, every step we took, I delicately gave a little bump to each bush."
"Y-YOU B-BITCH! C-CHARGE FIST!" he screamed, launching at her from the ground with a light speed punch straight to the head.
The woman gracefully dodged with a simple sidestepping, allowing the Cancer Saint to collapse once again on the grassy floor, weaker than ever before. "Be careful, you'll make that poison shoot through your circulatory system faster if you move too much. Why don't you lie down?"
"D-damn you; y-you're not protecting Aphrodite, you're trying to k-kill him!" he practically screamed, feeling his muscles turn into butter and a buzz in his ears.
"Well, at first I wanted to do it discreetly." she confessed. "Big doses of poisonous blood over the years would have been enough. It happens all the time with Pisces candidates. The kid has shown tremendous adaptation to it, though. He's really talented, you know? I'd be so proud if I wasn't trying to cause a tragedy."
The Gold Saint would pay more attention but, as he struggled to get back up from the floor, his vision ceased to shake to instead shift back and forth from the dark cemetery into a field of stormy white snow. "I…W-what's happening to me? W-where a-am I?"
"You're going through the first phases. First the senses are robbed, remember, but not before a painful rollercoaster. You're probably deluded right now. What are you seeing?"
No longer bridled by his visions of Death Queen Island thanks to Seiryu's blessing, the Cancer Saint's mind instead shifted to older pains, another trauma he collected in his life that he lived in the deadly, constantly stormed peaks of Mount Olympus. As the buzzing in his ears increased and he lost sensation in his fingers and tongue, Lance found himself returned to the valley he hated so much.
And amidst the painful sensations the poison was causing him and the coldness of the snowstorm he was reliving, a gentle, forgotten voice of his past seemed to call him.
The Maiden saw Lance scream and bang his head on the ground, trying to shake off the delusion. "Aphrodite could have died in his sleep, and I would be breaking the sad news to His Holy Father… he got suspicious and sent you to speed things up. I tried to get you out of here. I tried to tell you to go away! You were stubborn, though, and unreasonable, so you left me no choice."
The Cancer Saint, however, could barely hear the treacherous Maiden, instead lost in his relived nightmare of Mount Olympus. He felt so cold, his hands and feet sinking deeper into the snow the storm piled up one him, and he could hear the howls of the terrifying wolves at the distance.
Worst of all, however, there was blood everywhere, tainting white with red, and the wounded armored blonde girl standing in front of him with the blood-soaked slash in her cuirass seemed to be the source of it.
And though blood dripped from her mouth and tears from her eyes, she gave him the prettiest smile in the world.
A scream of horror bellowed from Lance's mouth, his hands covering his face and his world suddenly returned to the Isle of Gardens, where from the graveyard's ground more and more red roses popped out and blossomed, revealing their haunting beauty under the moon while releasing the deadly poison that now suffocated him.
All his senses but his hearing then started to rapidly fade, his heart accelerated and his body went into a sudden shock, causing him to drop face first on the roses.
And then his whole body began screaming in pain.
Elisa saw the widened look in Lance's ruby eyes, translating a scream that was for some reason not coming out of his throat. "That's the second phase, the one of agony. Now that your senses are gone you'll have a hard time calling for help, and since we're in the Isle of Gardens, where dimensional barriers loop away visitors, strange currents keep the boats away and magical blessings of Hera and Aphrodite protect us from Hades' mental intrusion, you'll find it pretty much impossible to get help even with a mental message."
Thought the situation was truly desperate, the Cancer Saint's hand fought the crippling poison and pathetically tried to reach for her.
Elisa seemed alarmed all of a sudden. "Oh, that's right, you're a Cancer Saint. You can probably use your Cloth's powers to send me to the Underworld, right? Let's have none of that and instead go straight to the third phase." She rolled over the paralyzed Cancer Saint into the hole's edge so that he could stare at its darkness. Lance couldn't widen his eyes, but he would as he saw a bed of red roses awaiting him at the bottom. "This way the Pope won't find your body so fast and by the time your Gold Cloth yaps about what happened to you…well, let's just say I won't exactly be waiting for Shion."
There was a harsh kick to his side and the Cancer Saint rolled over into the hole, falling into the soft rose bed at the bottom. Immediately he felt the impish things react, blossoming fully and slowly wrap their torsos around his limbs to begin the consumption.
Using her cosmos, the Maiden dragged a heavy stone sledge and began covering the hole with it. The last thing Lance's arrested glance saw before darkness completely covered him was a wave of Elisa's hand as she closed the top of the hole.
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Chapter End
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Next Chapter: Ghouls n'Roses – Part 4 of 4
Description: A young Deathmask finds himself in the Pisces Temple's secret basement, where certain death awaits him unless he takes action.
Author's Note: Once again, the chapter progress and evolution was inhibited by pacing issues. In this case there were a lot of ideas I wanted to include, but I just couldn't fit them in the schedule. I had only gone over a third of them and the chapter was already half its current size.
I sincerely hope I never take this long writing a chapter ever again. This one was a true trial. Characterization alone was a big challenge in it, and kind of its whole point. I hope the amount of hard work isn't kidding me about its actual quality level.
