Notable OCs: Pegasus Lance's Saint Generation, Civil War Saint Generation, World War Saint Generation, Daemon Lucifer's Specters, Maiden Elisa, Priam's Black Saints, Cyrulian Refugees
Notable Original Concepts: Mount Olympus Training Ground, Sanctuary Court, Teos Cloth, Athenian Empire mythology, Isle of Gardens; Stardust Prison, Hades' Dark Princes; Desert Beyond
Recurring/Cameo OCs of Jenny DeVic: Mrs. Schafurwatt, Cyrus
Recurring/Cameo Concepts of Jenny DeVic: Great Bodyguard Legend, Golden Line Heritage, Sanctuary Orphanages, Andromeda Island's Geography & Tests, Sanctuary Nobility, 88 Knights Festival
Author Notes:
-Updated the OC & Original Concept listings above
-LR has now officially surpassed the half a million words milestone, yay (~˘▾˘)~ 500,000!
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Please enjoy and review (^_^
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"When I was a kid, my dad back in Norway used to tell me that 'Death' was a small thing to fear next to humiliation. I always just figured it was the years of landowners who lost their fortunes, guns and food to the Nazis talking. There is no way a man simply raised on Ersatz could feel so humbled as to predict what would happen to his son. The thought of his words of cynicism now come to me, though, for some reason. Humiliation. Valuelessness. To not have a future. To be 'false'. So apt.
When I was 'called' by Hades in my slumber, I thought I had been reborn. His figure was like a guardian angel bringing me to the next world in the middle of a nightmare. Since he did bring me to the Underworld, I wonder if there really ever was a difference between this and passing away. Does my family think that? Or have their memories of me simply disappeared?
In their place, I met extraordinarily powerful people and learned I could become more extraordinary than them, should I train my 'Cosmos', and so I did. Taking the name 'Urial', I lived my duties to their grim ends, tearing apart the flesh from the dead, watching them writhe in pain as my Skeletons impaled them upon metal poles, their blood wetting the burnt ground. I felt my mind raped every time I gazed past the red markings on the walls, Hades' spells and hypnotisms given form. It was like they watched me. By the end of my first year my position as the first Judge of this new generation was unquestionable. I was 'Gryphon' Urial.
But was I, though? From the moment I arrived at the Caina Circle for the first time, I did not for the death of me imagine the hopelessness I would see. I don't talk of the dead, of course, but of the Specters. My fellow men die for our God, elated, but also fall to pits of despair just as the light in their eyes vanishes.
I never understood why. Now I do. I try to find a light at the end of the tunnel or flicker one myself, since the Celestial Star of Nobility shines not for me. But I see I am a one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind, if not for that lonely, bat-winged ancient figure who talks to Hades himself. He sees more than all in the Underworld put together. The Star of Pride protects him, indeed.
So maybe if the Celestial Star of Nobility never accepts me, I can at least prove to myself it should. And I swear, on my life, on my soul, on my family, on my name and everything else I have lost to become a Judge that, even should my life expire in doing so and hope vanish from my eyes, I will follow Pride's bleak light to a new future and bring all I can enlighten with me."
-Thoughts of Gryphon Urial, temporary Judge of the Underworld and lord of the Hall of Judgement, expressing his newfound devotion to Daemon Lucifer after his enlightenment on the Specter condition.
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Thanatos' eyes widened as much as they could with this sudden realization! Anger then exploded from inside and filled his blood-shot eyes as his hand thrust in Daemon Lucifer's direction and a massive, invisible force slammed his back against the stone wall, pinning the Specter! Lucifer's whole body shook from the brutal amount of strength that he pushed against him, that caused his whole skeleton to vibrate.
"YOU MORTAL SON OF A WHORE!" screamed Thanatos, his voice altered into something doubled on itself, like a supernatural monster, and his hand exerting more and more invisible force. Memories he had forgotten during his time in Pandora's Box returned to him more and more, of when he first began mentoring the silver-haired human and saw him look at Eurydice for the first time. "IT WAS YOU! I'LL MAKE YOUR FILTHY GUTS COME OUT YOUR MOUTH AND MAP THE COSMOS WITH THEM!"
Everyone, excluding Hades, acted in shock at the outburst, the mortals in particular gasping in horror at the sight of the god's cosmos raging wildly around him, turning his face into a silver-eyed shadow. The curtains and the candle flames waved uncontrollably, the entire room rumbled and the screaming Lucifer's body was mercilessly grinded against the thick wall, crushed against it by the strength of a god.
Alerted by the sudden chaos, Rhadamanthys and Gryphon Urial walked inside the room with haste.
"Lord HADES, what is going on?!" the young boy asked, but was rendered shut at the sight of Thanatos floating into the air and thrusting another pile of strength on the Daemon, further crushing him with monstrous power. The fear and awe became obvious in his blue eyes. "T-This cosmos… is this the power of a god?!"
Urial took a step forward but Hypnos eyed him, silently advising him not to interfere. Daemon Lucifer vainly tried to struggle against the invisible press and breathed out for air, unable to catch it. His Surplice shook like a tense suspension bridge, the Damascus metal in it ringing and creaking as if thousands of cracks were about to appear.
He couldn't even move his face from the wall. Was he about to die? He shut his eyes in steel resolve before the unstoppable power threatening to break him, his cosmos burned like a black and purple aura of waving energy around his body and his muscles began to fight back against the weight. "L-Lord Thanatos...I don't know what you're talking about!"
The God's anger just increased even more "YOU DISGUSTING WORM! HOW DARE YOU LIE TO ME? I KNOW IT WAS YOU! WHO ELSE COULD HAVE CONCOCTED THIS CHARADE?!" Thanatos roared, and Pandora, Rhadamanthys and Urial felt the heat in their heads disappear at the continued horror show of the god's increasingly unhinged and unnatural voice. "EVER SINCE YOU WERE A WELP I SAW YOUR CURSED EYES ON HER, LUSTING! I PUNISHED YOU BACK THEN, AND I'LL ANNIHILATE YOU NOW, PRINCE OR NO PRINCE, WAR OR NO WAR! NOW TELL ME WHERE SHE IS, YOU PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A WARRIOR!"
And the Daemon Specter screamed even more in pain as his struggling arms and legs were pushed back further by the force, now seemingly about to be turned into jelly in a Surplice can.
But the Prince refused to give in, gritting his teeth and pushing his resilience to the limit. "I d-don't! Know! W-what you're talking about! L-let GO OF ME, T-THANATOS!"
"ONLY AFTER I SQUEEZE WHAT I WANT TO KNOW OFF YOUR CARCASS!" Thanatos' assured, his palm turning up and his fingers tensing to exert even greater telekinetic force, before he bashed the Daemon against the ground to his own feet to put the Prince down to his level, "and you WILL tell me or share the same special place as traitors like Michael reside in!"
Coughing and trembling all over, Lucifer gathered just enough oxygen to let the god's words sink in and his own face twist in anger.
"M-me? The same as Michael?!... Don't you dare!" In a moment of rare open defiance to an actual god, the human's red eyes looked up threateningly, even though even his own incredible cosmos was a mere speck in comparison to Thanatos'. "I ha-ave served the Underworld for five hundred years, which is nothing to you, but is five times the everything that is to my race, my species! I stood behind, a proud warrior, and fought at Sanctuary after you got yourself shoved in a box by a pair of disgruntled Cancer Saints!" he added, only making the God widen his eyes further in affront. Half blinded by revolt, the Specter only took this as a cue to let out what he felt even more. "And I paid f-for all my mistakes by repairing all the damage you should have prevented! I even killed the blasted Godslayer! I can die, unlike you, and I've accomplished more in two weeks of war than you have in an eternity of service to the Emperor!"
Menacing purple cosmos began waving around Thanatos' body, the heat of his anger reaching critical points.
But the proud Specter wouldn't just take this public punishment without biting back a bit more. "You can kill me off, like you do with all your other problems, but don't accuse me of knowing what your spouse thinks! I care as much about Eurydice being here as you do, and I only found out she's gone now, just like you!" Again, another technical truth, as he washed his hands off the operation as soon as he entrusted the Nymph to his protegé, Cerah, barely able to rely on Nasu Erika to keep himself informed. It surprised him as much as everyone else that Hades knew so much about it.
And the terrible force from before returned with thrice the strength, instantly smashing Lucifer against the wall.He gasped desperately for air, feeling the metal squish his extremities and tightening around his throat. His chest tried to inflate with air but was met with a contrasting force of the tightening plates. He felt like an invisible hand held him by the neck and blood began dripping around his body and wetting the Surplice parts from various tears in his flesh. Finally he howled in pain as much as his respiration allowed him and his consciousness waved back and forth from barely being able to see and total darkness.
The God of Death was unconvinced, though, and a large sphere of purple cosmos sprouted out of his hand, illuminating the entire room with spectres of deathly miasma and hanging menacingly between the two, ready to fire. Lucifer braced himself, fists tightened. Maybe this wasn't the end he planned, but getting the Nymph out of the Underworld was worth an untimely end to his ambitions.
"Goodbye, Lucifer! It's been a good half millenium!" Thanatos roared, aiming his hand. "TERRIBLE PROVIDENCE!"
A divine grip suddenly clasped itself around Thanatos's wrist and Terrible Providence dissipated into tiny burning sickles. Thanatos turned his maddened look at Hypnos, whose lethargic energy had somehow reduced the violence in the god of death's cosmos.
"That's enough, Thanatos!" Hypnos demanded, showing a rare, authoritarian side of him. Lucifer's tortured body fell to the floor and Gryphon Urial rushed to his side. "Are you out of your mind? What the hell do you think you're doing? Whether Lucifer is of fault or not, now that Michael's gone, we need him alive now more than EVER!"
"Let go of me!" Thanatos demanded, ready to drop his anger on his twin. "I've waited inside a box for two centuries to see my bride and serve Lord Hades again! I can stand another two centuries to train a new Prince!"
"I would listen to your brother if I were you. I want to win this war now!" Hades finally interfered, standing up from his chair. The eyes of the room turned to him and Pandora moved away from the staircase, suddenly terrified. "And if I see mortal blood splattered on my throne room's walls because of this spat, I will get very, very upset."
Suddenly, with this simple, single word, Thanatos's entire wrath transformed into terror. He felt sweat running down his face. "L-L-Lord Hades!..." stuttered Thanatos. "You have to understand that-"
"Do you understand how long and costly it was to get this palace repaired, Thanatos?" He asked, the calm tone making his wrath somehow even more terrifying "What proof do you have that Lucifer had anything to do with the escape of your Nymph?"
"He…" Thanatos hesitated, gulping. "The gift he gave Pandora!...Eurydice was hiding inside of it, using the Asphodels to mask their presence! I'm sure of it!"
"That can't be!" Gryphon Urial, of all people, defended. "We showed you that chest to inspect yourself. There was nothing wrong with it."
"SILENCE, you husk!" demanded the death god, instantly reducing Urial's bravery to that of a rat. "Lord Hades, don't listen to them! The mortal rats are LYING! Lucifer made sure that the chest wasn't thoroughly inspected until it was left alone in Pandora's Castle!"
The Specter looked up as much as his fallen body could, fearful to how Hades was absorbing all this. How much did he know? And why was he not ratting him out to Thanatos?
And as if to address it, the puppet then looked at the broken Daemon through the curtain, somehow making it feel like it was straight in the eyes. "I just love it when you forget about how much I am the Master of this world. You didn't think you could smuggle Eurydice out without me knowing, did you? My eyes may not reach the Desert Beyond, but I can notice a few extra living souls in my home sneaking around training sessions."
The strongest Specter's red eyes widened. "N-no…!"
Hades smiled as he saw the silver-haired warrior squirm in horror. "That was so naive of you, Lucifer. But don't worry, I gave Eurydice a little parting gift." he teased, leaving out the fact that the Cyrulian girl had fought off the blunt of his curse. "She won't leave us without remembering the touch of my power."
A roar of wrath was contained inside his heart, right before Lucifer's very soul went cold like a burnt coal, the fear of what monstrosity Hades could have committed against the two fugitives making his imagination run wild right before the lack of avenue to help them settled in. He began to lose consciousness for good. No, he had to contact Nasu Erika!
"N-no, L-lord Lucifer, stay awake!" Urial pleaded. His face was still white from the spectacle of wrath the Death God presented them with. He looked over to his subordinates. "Guen, take him out of here, now!"
The tall Minotaurus Specter took a bit to react, also stunned, but he shook it off and picked the muscular prince up to his shoulder. "Incredible. I've never even seen someone causing as much damage as Lord Lucifer, and now this god so effortlessly crushed him." He carried off the leader of all Specters worriedly. "And there's TWO of them. I hope to the Gods that our plans for Andromeda Island work out or even Lord Lucifer won't be able to save us."
Silence followed, in which Hades closed His eyes and shook his head in exasperation, walking back and forth a little as if pondering on the matter. He then seemingly decided, having opened his eyes and returning his gaze to Thanatos.
"Hypnos, I want you to organize a search party to retrieve the Nymph before her body is permanently sullied by mortal impurity. Eurydice is an ancient Nymph. If she falls in Sanctuary hands, there's no telling what secrets she may pass on."
The golden haired god nodded obediently. "Yes, my Lord, of course. Don't worry, brother, I will find her. My powers are more suitable to capture someone alive, anyway."
Thanatos could barely calm himself, knowing that he should search her personally, damn the consequences. "Please do, Hypnos, and punish every disgusting traitor that was associated to this plot. I'm sure there was more to this." Thanatos then could swear he saw Lord Hades hide a smirk on his puppet face, but shrugged off the suspicion. "Lord Hades, I insist that Daemon Lucifer be punished somehow! Even if I can't prove his guilt, he questioned my person."
The girl instantly answered, standing up from her stone seat and bowing at her little brother "Yes, my brother, my King! What can I do for you?"
"Accompany Lucifer's recuperation and remind him throughout it that defiance will not be tolerated, even from a prestiged servant. Once he's back on his feet, Daemon Lucifer's duties shall include being your Dark Knight."
Pandora had been instructed well enough by then to know what this meant. Usually the Sister of Hades was accompanied by a chosen Specter to be her main bodyguard and errand boy, a task traditionally given to a Celestial Star of her preference. While this would be an uplifting task to the typical Celestial Star, to a Dark Prince in command of the forces she calculated it was something beneath their duties. Lord Hades probably wished the man to be humiliated further for his affront to Thanatos.
"Yes, of course. And is there anything else I can do for you, dear brother?" she asked, anxious to know how more useful she could be.
Hades looked around the rest of the mortals. "Take everyone else out the castle, I wish to be at peace with my two liaisons to discuss plans for the future."
Gryphon Urial, Alraune Lemon and Basilisk Maia took this as their cue to leave and half-heartedly banged their fists on chest. "Thank you for the honors, Lord Hades."
While they left, Rhadamanthys took it a step further and made sure to visibly bow his head in reverence. "Lord Hades, I will depart, but as the newest Specter I just wish to assure you that I will be your next greatest servant."
For some reason the God took an interest to this. "Oh, is that so, Rhadamanthys?"
The unibrowed boy glared in determination at the concealed shadow of the puppet. "Absolutely! I will obtain the Wyvern Surplice and the protection of the Celestial Star of Fury. Soon you'll need no Dark Prince to command your armies and bring you victory." His fist then raised and tightened. "And the goddess Athena will be dragged here by the hair to grovel at your feet!"
The puppet feigned an emotioned head lowering from behind the curtain. "I am touched… and anxious to see you prove yourself."
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Chapter 29
Side Story 1
Arrival of the Gods – Part 3 of 3
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Later
Eighth Prison Entrance
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The three elite Specters placed Lucifer down, resting him against the staircase. They still reeled from the torture show the Death God presented them with. Alraune Lemon was especially displeased, but the other two more loyal members merely wandered what their next move should be.
"How could today get even worse?" Minotaurus Guen remarked, folding arms in preoccupation. "It was bad enough with one God that we barely get to see calling the shots around here, but these two? The silver-haired one seems completely insane."
Basilisk moved the two away from the barely conscious Pride Star. "Don't let the Prince hear you say that or he'll think you're talking about him and give you something worse to worry about." He tried to appear resolute, raising his chin, being the informal leader of the three. "What happened up there isn't our business. We'll just plan our attack on Andromeda Island. If we succeed, it should be enough to get them off our backs for a while, to show we are useful."
But Alraune Lemon walked away. "Seriously, you're just gonna brush that off? Ugh, you two are incorrigible, count me out!"
Maia grabbed his shoulder. "HEY, where do you think you're going?!" The three stood off to one another, tense like the trio had never been, and Maia's fist burned with poisonous wind cosmos. "I've had enough of your complaining and arrogance, Lemon. We're sticking together to the Prince's plan!"
The plant-like Specter ignored his threat. "I'm going away from you death wishers! Unlike you, I don't really give a damn about proving myself to some star in the sky. Only an idiot would stick around this bat bastard's shadow while three separate gods look into his affair,." he argued, putting his two comrades at odds. "But I guess you won't listen to me again, will you?"
The large Minotaurus Specter frowned menacingly. "Who would listen to insubordination?"
Alraune rolled his eyes. "Wow, you two are gonna burn way before you notice what's going on, won't you? I've had enough..." he walked away a bit in exasperation and tossed his hand aside in sync with one of his long armor petioles. "You didn't happen to notice that kid Rhadamanthys talking up to everyone on his way here, either, did you?"
"What does it matter? He's just a brat!" pointed out Minotaur Guen.
Lemon coughed out a chuckle. "Oh, oh, but he's not. He's acting 'that way' to us, just like Lucifer and Charon. Well I'm not gonna stand around and be disrespected by these snobs. I am a warrior, a conqueror!" he bragged, inflating his armored chest to the two with a breath.
The much bigger Minotaurus Specter stepped forward, shadowing his ballooned pride. "And what's your big idea, then, Lemon? Going off on your own against them? Ah, I'd pay to see you end up like Bennu. You can't do anything by yourself!"
"That's right!" Reinforced Basilisk, "and another Ismara and Arcadia is the last thing we need right now, especially with Thanatos and Hypnos returned!" It was his turn to approach Lemon menacingly. "So shut the hell up, get in line and come plan the attack on Andromeda with us…. Unless you want a fistful of Annihilation Flap!"
There was a tense moment between the Specters. Things had not been easy for the Specters for a while. They had never been a breeze under the rule of an apathetic, lethargic Hades and a slave-driving Lucifer, but over the past few months, with more and more Specters growing unsatisfied, it's been from bad to worse. From doing nothing but act as construction site guards, to a lack of victories (or actual war for that matter), the few prospects for betterment, Yakos' rebellion, Lucifer's dismissal of it and the untimely end of the two rebelling Specters, none of the warriors had reason to be jolly about being part of Hades' Army.
To some of them, like the Basilisk trio or Gryphon Urial himself, it had been years since they joined the army of salvation and it didn't seem like there had been much ground covered. For a force that was rolled into the Underworld to fill in an almost complete void left by the historical Lost Canvas War, the New Specters were seeing very little difference in their mission after all this time compared to the state they encountered in the Underworld when Hades first awoke each and every one of them in their current paralyzed status, acting defensively to everything Sanctuary did and feeling on their backs the whip of the Dark Prince to work harder.
The schism, therefore, was growing among the warriors between those still loyal to Lucifer and Hades out of faith, like Basilisk Maia and Gryphon Urial, and those who couldn't compromise their dissatisfaction, like Alraune Lemon. Bennu Yakos and Shaman Kairos had belonged to the latter faction, but their particular lack of charisma amongst the forces had only gathered a fraction of the unrestful soldiers to his side and a majority of the disgruntled sect still remained in the Underworld.
And what Maia feared was that Lemon planned to repeat Yakos' scheme on a grander and more effective scale. His purple aura burned, thickening the air. "I've seen you talk around, whisper things to the men, Lemon, and I've had enough of that. The next time you get caught spreading propaganda like that, I'm eliminating you."
The tentacles of the plant armor whipped around menacingly, also burning with energy. "Not before I clip those wings and cut off your head… but I won't have to do anything, cause if you keep following these people you'll get yourself killed way before I do," concluded Lemon, smirking. "And you must be underestimating the number of Specters unhappy with Lucifer too. Bennu wasn't the only one with half a mind to punch his face, and when that whole scandal in the throne room gets out everyone will know he was a part of some plot to make Hades unhappy with us, as if he didn't treat us like garbage as it is!"
The two Specters gritted teeth, hesitant in how to respond. While still doubtlessly loyal to the Prince, they were struggling to find a counter to Lemon's point.
Alraune continued. "You should take a look around the Underworld more often. Everyone can see he's Hades little squeal, walking around calling himself the Celestial Star of Pride! What the heck does that mean? Ah, Daemon is just as bad as Hades and those two twins, it's as plain as the night sky." His smirk expanded with the look on their faces. "So if you ask me, watching him get thrown around the room like that doesn't make me shed a tear."
Guen's hand was swallowed by the image of an axe. "I'M GOING TO CUT OFF YOUR HEAD AND SMASH IT, YOU EVIL SNAK-"
"NO, DON'T! "Maia held back Guen's axe arm. "Just get the hell out of here, Lemon! I don't want to see your face around Giudecca ever again!"
"With pleasure. I'm sick of you two lap dogs anyway." The tentacle-armed warrior departed, leaving a fuming Minotaur to be calmed by Maia.
"Let go of me, Maia!" the huge Specter struggled, but unable to free himself from the surprisingly powerful Basilisk. "I've had enough of his arrogance! We'll get Gorgon's squad to help us with Andromeda Island, just let me kill that weasel!"
Sweating bullets at feeling as if the ground beneath him was sinking, the multi-horned, winged Specter didn't let go until he felt Guen's body heat dropping. "Now's not the time for further dissent. Lord Lucifer gave us a new chance by convincing Hades not to punish the army for Bennu's betrayal and we won't get another. If he got mad at Thanatos for almost sullying blood in his room... just have patience."
The giant bull-helmeted warrior roared in frustration and banged his fist on the staircase. "Fine!... I hope that this mission to capture Priam's student works out. Our Specters had enough bad news this week." He saw from the corner of his eye the awakening of the Dark Prince. "Lord Lucifer, let me help you!"
Nearby, sided by his loyal protegé Torak of Behemoth, Gryphon Urial observed Lucifer brush off the aid of the dark-armored grunts even though his smashed up Surplice was covered in dry blood. The Gryphon wondered still what the heck had happened between the Prince and the Death God, but he had a feeling Behemoth Torak's testimony held the key to it.
"Are you sure, Torak?" he asked.
The tall, dark haired youth nodded firmly. "I saw her with my own eyes, she talked to me. Lucif-"
"Lord Lucifer." Urial interrupted, eyes narrowing.
"Yes, Lord Lucifer…" Torak, however, had to hesitate in paying his respects, given the conspiracy at hand. "He has aided the Nymph Eurydice, and she's currently escaping with the help of a Cyrulian-descendent girl. I think he may have been training this person for a while, since she acted in appeal as if we had spent time together."
Urial's hand rubbed his eyes as his mind rushed through the years. It would honestly not have been hard for this to be true. There were thousands of Skeleton Soldiers, most of which barely warranted the attention of the higher ups. It would have been easy for the Prince to maintain one by his side in training, even if years on end, perhaps in some remote spot of the Underworld that few of the new Specters knew about.
But the situation now was very dangerous to them, especially if Thanatos left the throne room with a warm head. "And you didn't stop them why?"
Torak's face sweated. "...They had… a very convincing argument, Lord Urial. The Nymph, Eurydice, said…" his eyes drifted away somberly and his head shook shamefully "... that she was just like us, living in fear of the Gods in an empty existence, and that she just wanted to get away. Combined with the fact that it seemed very clear Lord Lucifer was behind this… something bigger than me seemed afoot."
The Judge gave out a clearly disheartened look, but buckled himself up when he saw how much this bothered his protegé. "Bigger than you? Uh, and we all know it's not something easy to find, right?" the Judge sadly joked, referring to the rhino-armored youth's impressive seven feet height, surpassed only by Minotaurus.
But the young man was unmoved. "I don't think this is the time for jokes, sir. If Thanatos finds out what happened, he'll do much worse to us than what happened in the throne room, looking to his recent behaviour, of course."
The Judge's head began calculating the hypothesis and he turned to Maia, the powerful Basilisk Specter. "Take the Prince out of here, he needs to recuperate."
Maia bowed his multi-horned helmet. "Yes, Lord Urial-"
"Not so fast!" Pandora interfered, walking past the Specters who fearfully skipped away, still remembering what she tried to do to Sphinx Neferti. "Show me the Prince, you gossiping grunts! I want to speak with him."
Minotaurus Guen gagged a bit. "Lady Pandora, he's very hurt-"
"Did I ask your opinion?!" she immediately snapped, fearlessly glaring the huge bull-man Specter right in the eyes. The jewelry on her neck and on her trident both shined, letting out brief red sparks. "I swear, if I am questioned one more time by you servants I will blast off one of your heads and let the dead feed on what's left!"
The Specters scuttered around, either getting out of her way or helping the very wounded and barely conscious Daemon Specter up on his feet, with Minotaur and Basilisk holding up by the arms.
As the sister of Hades approached him, trident in hand, the Gryphon Judge and the Behemoth Specter both couldn't help but watch and grit their teeth in anger. They did not know what to expect of Hades' favorite liaison when they first heard she was returning, but a disrespectful and seemingly useless woman with way too much power in her toy spear was not it, especially after all their years of hard work training.
The Dark Prince, however, was protective of her, for whatever reason, and the few answers he's given Urial about it weren't very inspiring. It all felt like an unnecessary but dangerous headache everyone would rather be rid off. With the power of Hades protecting her and Lord Lucifer's infatuation, it seemed unlikely things would change, though.
She watched the Celestial Star of Pride raising up his head with difficulty to try to show some dignity. "I want to know as of now, from your words, if Lord Thanatos was correct. Did you act behind Lord Hades' back?!"
His head still spun. He could barely see anything in front of him but a silhouette of Pandora, the shadows of his servants and a spinning Underworld. Any other person's body would have broken under what Thanatos put him through. The presence of Pandora, however, energised him just enough to shove off the aiding Specters and stand on his own.
And make a stand he did. "I did not." Lucifer declared. "L-Lord Thanatos and I have personal disgreavances stemming from our common past with Eurydice. He w-would blame me if her throat got sore f-from singing."
Pandora seemed skeptic, narrowing her glare. The Specters around also seemed unsure. The spectacle had been too shocking and Lucifer's speech was obviously evasive.
"What do we do, sir?" asked Torak, looking down at his shorter superior. "Pandora is clearly unhinged, but Lord Lucifer could be conspiring against us. Worst of all, he doesn't even seem to listen to us when it comes to her!"
The Judge stared intently at the Prince. "Lord Lucifer, just lie!" he tried to convince through mental messaging. "Whatever is going on, this woman is not worth the personal dilemma, we need to concentrate on our objectives! The lives of the Specters hang on it! I swear, I will help you solve this-"
But a simple red glare from the Prince made him bite his tongue, silently promising him that one more word against the raven-haired one would be his end. "L-Lady Pandora, I-I am a servant of the Underworld. If Lord Hades himself k-knew well enough to tell Lord Thanatos what happened, how is it that he has not blamed me for it?"
A fine point to all who witnessed what happened. Lord Hades had indeed ratted the situation out, yet not accused Lucifer of anything. It would be oddly inconsistent of the God to show such omniscience over the Underworld to be able to tell the Nymph was gone but not enough to determine who helped her escape.
Even Pandora seemed hesitant now, pointing away her trident and her face. "You have been with my brother for half a millenium. If any Specter would know ways to go around him, it would be you!" she argued. "Why should I believe you wouldn't be able to deceive him?"
But Lucifer had the right card in his hand already. "A-and if there's any Specter he would know from head to toe, it would be me." And after what happened in the throne room, Lucifer had no doubts about this. "U-unless Lord Hades is purposely toying with Lord Thanatos, I do not see why he would not point out the culprits."
Again, hesitation from the liaison. Truth be told, this argument worried Lucifer himself immensely. Clearly Hades had a greater knowledge over what Lucifer had been doing than the Prince thought. Even diligently hiding Cerah through careful disguises, the use of out-of-reach training spots like the Desert Beyond and placing Eurydice under the concealment of Asphodels wasn't enough to trick the master of the Underworld. The question still rang in Lucifer's mind about how much exactly Hades knew, but one thing was easy for him to deduce.
Hades was toying around with Thanatos.
It came with a long experience the knowledge that Hades did not have the best interest of anyone around him, even Pandora or the twin gods', in mind. In the Lost Canvas War, when the twin gods first were sealed up, Hades, even after ridding himself of Alone, refused to authorize Lucifer and Michael to attempt to steal Hakurei's box and free the twins. He even completely looked over resurrecting the Specters that Alone off-ed at the Lost Canvas sky fortress itself.
These would have been simple gestures, but out of cruelty or apathy the Underworld God refused to carry them out. While Pandora saw the light regarding Hades' intentions just before her end in the previous war, this reincarnation of her seemed once again oblivious to Olympian manipulation tendencies. Pandora even failed to noticed that the root cause of the conflict was that a Nymph, supposedly a loyal bride of the gods, had chosen to leave Elysium. This alone should hint that Olympians did not behave very fairly to others and that the ones loyal to Hades, like Thanatos in this case, were no exception.
Daemon Lucifer even imagined that Hades was having a good laugh at the expense of one of his most loyal servants as they spoke. The situation was probably absolutely delicious to the God, especially after the twin gods got themselves captured so embarrassingly in the last conflict. Lucifer would join Hades, if the implications of the God being so on top of the situation didn't terrify him.
And this reminded him of what Hades whispered to him in the throne room.
That was naive of you, Lucifer. But don't worry, I gave Eurydice a little parting gift.
Lucifer's face went pale. He had to speak with Nasu Erika, his spy, as soon as possible to find out what horrible thing Hades has done. He was having a hard time focusing a mental message with his brain still feeling the effects from earlier.
"...You better understand that I am not going to have servants talk back to me like you did to protect that Specter excuse of a Sphinx from now on… but I'm not blind to the bravery of what you did, either," continued Pandora, breaking his train of thought. "Also, you've indeed shown that you place honor above convenience… Alright, Prince, my eye will be on you, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt."
A collective sigh of relief was heard. Urial himself felt embarrassed. "He appealed to her fanaticism. Thank goodness, he had a plan after all." It seemed often that everytime the Judge wondered if the Prince was not in control of things, Lucifer proved him wrong.
"I guess that annoying claim has its benefits." Torak commented to him, though still vexed by how they felt so forced to pander Pandora.
Now that things seemed straightened out somewhat in her mind, Pandora seemed to notice for the first time the Pride Star was a bloody mess, and a hint of disconcertion was seen in her otherwise passive face. "Well, I don't want you to bleed out here, but you should know that as punishment for your suspicious behaviour and for lashing out at Lord Thanatos, my brother has made you my Dark Knight. You'll be working even more closely to me now."
The Dark Prince blinked. The Specters just looked confusedly at one another.
Meanwhile, the God of Sleep Hypnos stepped outside the Palace, still pondering the cunning of Lord Hades' new plan for worldwide slaughter. Now that Lord Hades explained to him everything in private, Hypnos saw things in a whole different perspective. It made sense that after centuries of defeat and the important revelations obtained during the Lost Canvas War, a shift in strategy was necessary to ensure an absolute victory was reached. He just wished it wouldn't come at the cost of putting the needs of the two Twin Gods aside for now.
And now, being enlightened by his Lord, Hypnos realized that he had much to do. He had to make preparations for the next Holy War which, if everything went as planned, was sure to be on their favor, and it seemed like he had to deliver the Silver Star Pendants by himself, rather than have Pandora do it. The success of their checkmate depended on him not relying on anyone else, especially fallible human agents.
"Still, it bothers me how Lord Hades seems so unwilling to calm my brother. Does he not want the two of us operating at peak efficiency? Maybe the Emperor wants to punish us for falling so easily to Hakurei and Sage's traps, but this whole affair of Eurydice is a distraction to Thanatos, and needs to be settled as soon as possible. I always warned him he put too much emotional investment into that one Nymph, even though he had a plethora to enjoy himself with. Now he's an uncontrollable wreck just because she has decided to vanish." Hypnos thought about Lucifer's words of defense and smirked bemusedly. "Could the Prince be telling the truth? Ha ha, no, not for a second, this is a revenge on his teacher that would be too sweet for him not to have a hand on."
Speaking of the Prince of Darkness, Hypnos saw him surrounded by his Specters and Pandora in some sort of heated conversation. Wanting to finally put a personal hand into reaffirming the Twins' authority in the Underworld, as this was still their day, the God of Sleep approached them.
"...Being your Dark Knight means that I'll have to follow you around." the Daemon Specter argued. "It is a role of great honor among the Specters, but I don't understand the point of the extra title, I'm already your direct subordinate, not to mention I have orders from Lord Hades to train Rhadamanthys."
Pandora wasn't happy with the bothered tone in his voice. "I think it's the least you could do to prove your honor after Lord Thanatos' grave accusations, so make time for it. I'll have a lot for you to do."
This wasn't good, the New Specters thought, as despite the problems they had with Lucifer, they needed him available to direct their efforts. Torak already curled his fist in frustration, predicting another lapdog reaction from the Prince to the horrid woman.
But the prince surprised him and shook his head. "Forgive me, Milady, it's just that for lack of better way to out it... I seriously have more important things to do."
Urial elbowed Torak's stomach so the less composed warrior wouldn't snicker at the look on Pandora's indignant face.
"I'm going to give you a chance to rephrase that, Prince," she sternly demanded.
"I also have obligations to your brother, Lady Pandora." Lucifer calmly explained, making an effort to be diplomatic. "Important functions a Dark Prince needs to realise to give his post a purpose. I cannot set them aside for-"
"And what functions are those?" the black-dressed woman demanded to know, pointing her weapon at the Prince again. "I think you've been putting off explaining to me why exactly are you placed above the Judges. Well, you said you'd do so after I met my brother, so I'll just cash in on your word and ask for the explanation now."
Crimson eyes widened in the quincentenary Prince, who was unsure whether to feel furious at being shown the 'unreasonable bitch' side of Pandora that used to make him want to punch her when he was sixteen.
The raven haired girl smiled in satisfaction. She had gotten the feeling the silver-haired man was getting a bit too close and casual for her taste along their way to Giudecca for a mere Specter. She must set things straight for everyone in the army that her authority and determination to oversee them would not be put in question. The last thing she needed was Specters who thought they could hide behind a veteran from her.
"Already getting what you want, Pandora?" Hypnos suddenly intervened, causing a collective step back and gasp from the Specters. "You are getting accustomed to your position fast. Good, your brother is counting on you."
She bowed her head, the tone in her voice completely morphing into a low respectful whisper. "Yes, Lord Hypnos."
The God of Sleep joined hands behind back pensively. "I will speak with Lord Hades about your situation, Lucifer, I'm sure my brother will calm down eventually as well. I'm afraid though -" he mentioned, looking over the Specters, especially the Gryphon Judge " - that things are not looking good for you. The whole army may suffer for this."
"W-what?" Torak gasped out, blue eyes widening.
"What do you mean, Lord Hypnos?" Lucifer asked to know, finding his words strange.
The golden haired twin looked over them melancholically "Well, I'm afraid my brother Thanatos will just not relax until a sense of calm about this new army is achieved. You have to understand we were accustomed to other faces. Eurydice's escape has upset him immensely and I'm afraid now he suspects everyone in the Underworld," he coughed to his hand worryingly. "He might do something radical if she isn't found soon…"
Immediately there were whispers and further gestures of fear from the warriors. Maia and Guen's faces darkened even further under their helmets. Behemoth Torak broke a cold sweat and gulped. Only Gryphon tried to maintain composed before the impending divine punishment.
"This can't be! It's my fault!... I should have dragged those two back!" Torak blamed himself, looking down in utter shame.
"There was no way you could have predicted this," Urial insisted, facing the God and trying to uncurtain what Hypnos was trying to do.
"I ignored the natural call of duty! Now everyone's in danger!" the Behemoth argued, his face going pale. "This is more devastating than anything Yakos could have done."
But Daemon Lucifer saw the men panicking and took charge of the conversation despite his injured state. "If Lord Thanatos wants to exact vengeance, he can do so on me. I'm the commander. I'm the one in charge of discipline and loyalty!"
"And I'm afraid that's where I will stop you, Lucifer, for you see, I'm more concerned with the totality of your functions, not a singular one." asserted the Sleep God, honoring the high-ranked Specter by allowing him to look the deity in the eyes. "My Dark Prince, Michael, is gone. You are all that's left. Time has proven over and over the Judges were not enough to beat Sanctuary but, if what the Emperor has told me is true, you slayed the Godslayer. This means that not only is the Dark Prince strategy viable, but you have gone above and beyond your duties last war."
Pandora's interest was piqued. "I was just about to ask about that. Hopefully now I can get an explanation."
The Prince was at an impasse, shifting his focus from the God to the liaison over and over. "Fine, I can speak for myself." he cleared his throat.
The Specters also listened in, rarely being enlightened in anything to do with the higher ups of their realm.
{======================\(/\)/======================}
The Prince of Darkness is an extraordinary rank conceived by the Emperor during the 15th century Holy War. Faced with difficulties defeating the Gold Saints and, more importantly, the GodSlayer in many wars with Athena across the current age, Hades sacrificed a very powerful soul to devise a new Celestial Star, one shining brighter than all the others, to head over the Three Judges. This new Specter, the 109th Specter, was to be Lord Hades' counter to the advantage Sanctuary had over our army.
The 109th Specter was blessed with a great destiny, to be the Arm of Hades in his war against the Saints, but he was also to bear the greatest of the Surplice curses. The person who obtained this rank would be the Dark Prince of Hades and hold Three Functions, one for each of the great flaws that had successively been the bane to the Emperor's plans.
The Third Function, the Function of Command, was to be the commander of Hades' army, the Specters. Presiding over the Three Judges, yet subordinate to the Sister, he or she would be the strategist, the tactician and the executioner of battles, as well as be responsible for the general overseeing of the army. This addressed the Flaw that Hades recognised within his forces that under the Three Judge system they held many vulnerabilities, lacking a central command, something Athena exploited countless times.
The Second Function, the Function to Slay, was to act as the strategic weapon against that of Sanctuary, namely the God Slayer and the Gold Saints. Purposely trained in the art of battling and defeating each and every Temple guardian in a given duel, the Prince was to become the undeniable top threat of any battle between our army and Sanctuary's. This function was first fulfilled in the Lost Canvas War, where I had the pleasure to kill a number of the Gold Saints, like Taurus Rasgado, and eventually the God Slayer himself.
Unforeseen circumstances conspired for there to be ultimately two existing Dark Princes, the Daemon Specter raised by Thanatos and the Dark Angel Michael raised by Hypnos, raising the total number of Specters to one hundred and ten, so we formed the Left and Right Arm of Hades. Moreover, due to the tardiness of our upbringing, we would not get a chance to participate in the 15th to 16th century Holy War. Together with you, Pandora, above us and the Three Judges below, we formed a powerful pyramid of authority over the army that reacted flexibly and with lethal response to Sanctuary's every move during the Lost Canvas conflict.
The tragic defeat of the Lost Canvas War, however, annihilated our army, including Dark Angel Michael, leaving virtually no one but me and the Emperor. I am therefore the surviving Prince and been carrying out our duties for the both of us since the 1700s.
{======================\(/\)/======================}
Lucifer caught a breath. "This is why I can't afford to neglect my tasks. The Third Function robs me of most of my time, and the Second Function requires me to constantly be improving myself and observing the Gold Saints. When wartime comes, I need to be ready to fulfill all my tasks as a Dark Prince, especially now that I have become singular."
"You didn't mention your First Function." Pandora pointed out, curious. "No secrets, Lucifer, or I will have your head on my brother's table."
Lucifer hesitated. The feeling of Hades' hand on his throat, like when he showed Cerah the extent of his control over the Specters, returned.
But the Sleep God had different plans. "No need to bore Pandora with it. A succinct explanation as it is, Lucifer, but you will have to find extra time indeed." Hypnos refuted. "The Emperor has given direct orders; you are to fulfill your tasks as Dark Prince, prepare Rhadamanthys AND guide Pandora in the Underworld."
Lucifer stepped forward to protest, infuriated. "But Thanatos is wrong, I am not at fault for what happened-" There was a wave of Hypnos hand and a sudden drowsiness came over him, killing his anger. Darkness began creeping around the corner of his eyes again. "H-Hypnos, y-you…"
"You seem overstressed, Lucifer. Take a rest to recover your injuries and I'm sure you'll see the Emperor's command is sensible. We are now here, so the Underworld is in good hands." he ended this phrase with a smug. "I will make sure to clear up the situation."
Lucifer's hand suddenly rested against the Minotaurus Specter. "D-damn it, this is Hypnos' power… Hades wants me occupied with everything! What's he after?!" He saw Pandora conversing with the God, but could barely hear what they were saying. "The b-bastard!… If he knew about Eurydice, then he must know about…"
"Take the Prince to his quarters."
Not used to taking orders from the man but feeling the terrible intensity of his cosmos in just his voice, the Specters immediately reacted and carried off Lucifer, whose lingering thoughts were silenced under the spell of Eternal Drowsiness.
{======================\(/\)/======================}
The scene finally cleared up with only Rhadamanthys, Urial, Torak and Pandora herself staying behind with Hypnos. The two New Specters couldn't get the image of Hypnos' power driving the Pride Star to sleep out of their heads. The tantrum thrown by Thanatos inside the palace had been terrifying enough, but it seemed like the far subtler twin could be just as scary. It was hard to believe Sanctuary was still in one piece when gods like these lorded over the Underworld.
The blonde, unibrowed teenager walked by and saw the paleness in their faces. "Preoccupied? Don't be. You won't have your jobs for long."
Torak lost his temper. "Alright, you weasel, if you have something to say-"
Rhadamanthys only smirked smugly, watching Urial push back Torak with a casual hand gesture. "I do have something say. I've been watching you the whole day and I can tell this now with confidence; none of you will live to see the Holy War," he claimed, disdainfully looking over the two. "Your cosmos levels are pathetic, and your lack of pride as warriors shows off like a bad odor. I don't like that Dark Prince very much, but I hate cowards and weaklings even more. I can tell you're not made of the same fiber as he is."
The Behemoth stood tall, raising his chin proudly, accentuating the height and muscle size difference between the two. "Are you sure? Cause all I see in front of me is some two-bit undisciplined British brat with as much facial hair as a baby's bottom. If I'm not gonna see the Holy War, you won't see the outside of a Skeleton Soldier armor," he then poked Rhadamanthys' chest provocatively. "So what kind of fiber is this that some newly-donned kid in the Underworld thinks he has in common with a warrior like the Prince?!"
And then Rhadamanthys responded so surely it made the rhino-armored Specter's blood boil. "Destiny. And strength. And not only am I not gonna get the chance to even look at one of those lowly grunt armors, I'll have your friends' Judge rank by the time my Surplice is ready for me."
Torak lost his calm, roared and grabbed the teen's collar, evoking the image of a charging rhino, but Rhadamanthys' cosmos exploded into a dark purple flare, seemingly sprouting out wyvern wings as he grabbed Torak's wrist and then twisted it down until the much larger man was screaming and dropping to his knee submissively.
The younger warrior pressed his fingers' strength further around the blue wrist guard causing it to creak and compress. The background image of a large wyvern pressing down a rhino to the ground with its clawed paw burned around them, further engraving the humiliation.
Rhadamanthys took no pity. "Who do you think you are? If either you or your friends touch me again, I will wipe the floor with your blood," the uni-browed teen threatened.
"L-let go of me!" Torak struggled, wincing. "AGH, the second I get free, I'm gonna stomp you f-flat!"
The sharp canines in Rhadamanthys' mouth showed off, his golden eyes sharpening into slits. "Now that's a nice pale look on your face, but you shouldn't be afraid, cause you haven't seen anything yet!" A foreign hand grabbed his shoulder. As soon as he looked over, though, a heavy-gauntleted fist exploded right on his face, tossing him down the staircase and into the floor. Rhadamanthys' head rang and the Wyvern's fury left his face. "W-what?!" he then saw red drip from his nose down to the ground and gritted his teeth angrily.
Urial's fingers tensed and shook, the man himself glaring down the future Specter. The punch had hurt him back more than expected. There was really no doubt about it; this kid would one day become an undisputedly powerful warrior.
For now, though, Gryphon would not tolerate his insults to the New Specters. "Look at that, it's your blood on the floor after all. If you touch my men ever again, I will cord you to a broomstick and wipe the Palace itself with your face!"
But Rhadamanthys stood right back up like he took a love tap, not even bothering to wipe his clearly broken nostrils, his pride more hurt than his nose. "F-fine, enjoy your little victory for now. Pretty soon real Specters will come to replace you and your lot! And I'll show the Saints true horrors." He then saw Hypnos approach the group and treaded off, not feeling like disrespecting one of the Emperor's aides with further scuffling.
Torak shook terribly as he stood up, not believing how he still felt the steel grip in his wrist. He grabbed it. "I… can't believe… How is that one so strong?!... I made a fool of myself, I apologise."
"We'll speak later." Urial dismissed, instead bowing respectfully to the Sleep God. "Lord Hypnos, do you have further wishes?"
The blonde god's hands joined once again behind his back, seemingly a personal tick of the white-robed man. "A bit of peace in his majesty's realm would be wonderful for now. Your name… Gryphon Urial, is it?"
The blonde man smiled. "Yes, my lord, your memory serves you well."
"I have a task for you, Urial. I want you to find my brother's bride." Hypnos bluntly declared, face straight as a pencil, "and I want the Prince to know nothing about it."
The Judge blinked in surprise. "I don't wish to question you, but..."
"Then don't." Already guessing at his hesitations, the God of Sleep casually refuted them. "The Underworld is beset by problems and I don't wish my brother's distractions to be one of them. There's also the matter of suppressing Eurydice who may become a potential informant to Sanctuary. As you can see, we cannot simply let go of what happened to her."
Urial nodded his head. "Yes, yes, I understand, it's just… why me? Why not tell the Prince about it? It would be a chance for him to definitely prove he's innocent."
Hypnos smiled comfortingly, something he somehow managed to achieve despite the creeping unnatural sensation that his cosmos and gentle flowing of his garment inspired in the two Specters. "But you want to prove the new Specters' worth, too, do you not?"
Both Gryphon and Behemoth thought back to Hypnos' earlier words, where he implied that if Thanatos' wrath remained unquenched, the Specters could suffer for it. Torak in particular began lowering his head in further shame, with the day not content with him being embarrassed by Rhadamanthys' power but also putting salt on the wound that was having allowed the two women to pass.
"If my brother discovers that Lucifer had any involvement in recovering Eurydice, he'll rightfully assume he went to the effort of eliminating evidence and testimony against him," argued the Sleep God. "In order to prove the Prince's innocence and your valor, you must recover my brother's bride so she can confess how she escaped to the outside and who let her through without interference from Daemon. This so we can eliminate whoever is responsible, of course."
Torak's face went even paler. Did this mean… his head would be on the line? Was he going to die because he allowed some scheme concocted by the Pride Star to walk out the castle door? He looked down at his superior, Gryphon, who kept a respectful straight face at the God but occasionally glanced back in preoccupation, already guessing what his underling was thinking.
But Urial had some further concerns. "Lord Hypnos, with all due respect… we have no clue where she may have gone. I mean, it's obvious she's making her way to Sanctuary lands, but with the most obvious frontier outposts eliminated by our Bennu comrade recently, we don't know which safeground she is attempting to contact first."
But the God of Sleep smiled further, aware of the curse that the Emperor placed on her after their private conversations. "I have a feeling she hasn't made it far. Moreover -" Hypnos then reached for inside his large, white sleeve and pulled out a small black pocket box. "Here. Take it."
Urial took and opened it, revealing a red spinning needle over an intricately carved wind rose. "A… compass?" he tried settling it, but it wouldn't point to Giudecca, the magnetic guidance point for the Underworld. Instead it kept spinning over and over like it was confused as to what to search for.
"It's for your search party. I have placed a Tarot curse on it to look for souls with great purity. In other words, souls which are like that of a God. Since I'm guessing the celestial population of the surface to be rather low, you can use it to find the Nymph."
They eyed the God suspiciously, wondering why he had such a thing hanging around and why was he entrusting it with them.
"You're wasting your time staring at me. I would say you have until the count of Thanatos getting back from Elysium from his rest to track her down." Hypnos reminded them, annoyed.
"What if she gets too close to a Sanctuary outpost?" the Judge asked. "Some time has passed by now, it might be impossible to close in on her before their damn scouts spot a strange woman walking in the woods coming from the castle."
Hypnos just smiled. "Well, that would be inconvenient, wouldn't it? I'm sure my brother will work out the frustration on you two." He walked past the two like they were nothing. "And I'll keep you awake the whole time."
Torak gulped. Urial just grasped the compass box tightly and stored it.
"Lord Urial, I-"
"Not a word." the blonde Judge interrupted. "Just call Cyclops to the bailey and get me my squad!"
{======================\(/\)/======================}
Later on
Hades Earthly Castle
{======================\(/\)/======================}
Activity had exploded in the fortress of Hades at the Earth's surface, with soldiers scurrying around with weaponry, boxes, armor pieces and search party equipment. Urial marched determinedly through the brick corridors of the castle, retightening the last few pieces of his complex full-body Gryphon Surplice in preparation for combat, trying to ignore the protests of the tall Behemoth warrior trying to keep up with him.
"I don't understand! Why won't you let me come along?!" Torak yelled. "My neck is on the line too!"
"Your skills aren't needed. You're a combat agent. For that, I'm more than enough!" explained Gryphon, who then approached the broad shouldered man in red, multi-horned armor putting on his boots. "Are you ready, Servo?"
The New Specter stood up and adjusted the lense on the single, metal golden eye on his helmet's forehead plate, which blinked once all on its own as if alive. His fists collided rousingly. "Oh yes, sir, ready to kill!"
Urial hesitated just enough to give him an exasperated look. He patted the man's arm harshly. "Get the men outside now! We have no time to waste."
"YES, SIR!" he gleefully accepted, rushing off to get the scrubs in order.
Torak found this unacceptable. "You're taking that guy?! He's gonna get Thanatos' bride killed!" it then dawned on him. "But then again… you want her dead, don't you?"
Urial just kept walking. "Servo's particular powers will be useful, since I'm assuming this compass will only tell me the Nymph's general direction."
Behemoth rushed in front of him with his much taller steps and spread out his arms. "NO, this is my fault! Don't you understand that it's crushing me that we could all pay the price for my mistake?! Just let me help-"
There was a simple hand swipe and strings pressed around Torak's neck menacingly, silencing him. "I just made it clear to you and Servo that we have no time to waste, so open your damn ears!" He approached the Behemoth tensely. "If you think the only problem hanging above our heads are those two Gods and the scuffle they seem to have with Pride Star, then you need to take a good look around you."
Sweating nervously for never having seen his mentor like this, Torak obeyed and indeed saw subtle signs of nervousness in Skeleton Soldiers moving around in the bailey, where many of them discussed something anxiously or yelled out commands with a stutter in their voices.
"These men have been waiting for a sign of heavenly validation since they joined the Underworld. Today was supposed to be that day!" Urial continued. "Instead, we just got the word that Bennu's entire squadron was squashed. Instead, they saw Peloponesia's commander dump their bodies down the chasm! They saw those two Gods ignore all that and walk through the Underworld like a pair of aliens and they have no idea if they'll live to see the end of this mission or if Hades even really gives a damn about them! Morale is weak enough as it is without you not keeping your eye on the ball! So shut the hell up about your guilt complex or I'll hang you down the bridge by your hands like a marionette, where you can really feel what it's like for your feet to be held to the fire!"
Coincidentally the chasms of the castle erupted another torrent of green flame miasma that characterised the location. The dark armored warrior hanged his head in shame, having rarely incurred the noble Judge's wrath.
And so his dismay was inconsolable."... I don't understand. Why did you accept this mission?" he asked. "I've been trying to tell you about those two fugitives all day, but you kept acting like I had to shove it under the rug until the whole thing exploded on everyone's faces in Giudecca. I know circumstances changed, but you… obviously are conspiring with that man, that Prince!" he pointed his finger at the gate they came through from the Underworld. "So what, now you switched loyalty to these two Gods?!"
Urial lost his patience, grabbed the subordinate by the collar and bashed him against the wall with an ease as frightening as Torak was tall. His teeth gritted in rage. "I'm only going to remind you of this once, Torak! My loyalty… is to the Specters! And I am sure as hell gonna do everything in my power for our betterment, whether that means taking orders from Lucifer or for someone higher than him that just got here! Even if I think they're unfair!"
"W-why?!" Torak demanded to know. "These men don't respect you! Those Gods don't respect you! You don't owe that gallantry to anyone here! Those three couldn't even be bothered to remember your name and if Bennu had any consideration for the sacrifices you make he wouldn't have blasted his way out of the Underworld like he did! Why not just tell those damn Gods that this is all obviously Lucifer's fault?!"
The Judge glared almost murderously. "Well, if you think Bennu is proof that the Specters don't care about what I do, then I guess that means you don't have to feel so guilty, right?" Urial argued, his tone calming into disappointment. He let go of the Behemoth. "You can keep acting that way, though. It's not your obligation to be the bigger man here. But the Gryphon Specter is the Celestial Star of Nobility! And there's nothing noble about letting hopeless men who trust you to decide their fate to die like cannon fodder."
Torak stared back in bewilderment. "Celestial Star? I…can't believe you're putting things to those terms. And how is covering for Lucifer's schemes helping us?" he exhaled in defeat. "But sure, you're the Judge…I'm not going to presume on the plans of my superiors. Question is, after you find her, will you bring her back? Will you really kill her?" Torak asked, shamefully shaking his head at the ground. "I thought we were doing this for hopeless people who wanted salvation. I don't see how the woman is different from that..."
This froze something inside Urial, like seeing a monster in the mirror. Unfortunately for the Nymph Eurydice, his loyalty to Lucifer only went as far as it didn't put the Specters on the line like this. It wasn't anything personal. Urial couldn't care less if some ditsy-brained Nymph got caught by Sanctuary outside the net.
But the Judge had a ace in the hole to get the Specters off the problem's spotlight and it required some cruelty. "First of all, Torak, I think you need to decide whether it's more important to protect someone who seems to be in circumstances similar to our own or do what's best for the Specters before you pull me aside to question my motives."
"I know, but I-"
"Secondly, your perception needs work. Obviously you didn't pay attention to everything that occurred in that room or to Lucifer's words for that matter. I thought he made it pretty clear to you when he was defending himself to that nasty woman." he commented, getting the warrior's attention. "The Emperor revealed what's going on, but he didn't accuse the Prince. Do you realise what this means? The God wants the drama of the mess, but not a solution."
Behemoth sank his face into his sweaty palms, feeling like odd forces were weaving webs all around him. "Why would he want that? Doesn't he want order in the Underworld?"
"Maybe he isn't any different from Zeus, who according to myth goes around seducing the wives of kings who offend his name." Urial suggested. "Or maybe he just wanted to spare his servant the pain of finding out for himself. In either case, he isn't really interested in someone being caught for this. The suggestion seems to be that I could snap the Nymph's neck and he wouldn't bother to inform Thanatos about the real culprit. And now-" he then showed off the open compass, whose needle spun and spun until it slowed down to a direction, pointing southeast. "- we got something we didn't before from one of the two Gods he's screwing around with."
Torak's eyes widened. "A way to find a pure soul…"
Gryphon stored it back. "I have no idea what the Olympians are scheming, but the best we can do is take whatever falls off the table and scheme back as best as we can. I'll keep the Gods happy for now and try to find that woman, there's no avenue around that. But I'll also collect so much information about where Hades' next vessel might be that Lucifer will forget all about how I took a part in ruining his friend's escape. By the time I'm back, the Specters will have a ace in the hole to guarantee our salvation, or I'll be damned forever!"
{======================\(/\)/======================}
The Lord of Sleep walked inside the Prince's quarters, where he could see the Specter just returning to consciousness. He approached the bedridden man. "You got yourself into quite a pickle just to get Eurydice out of here."
"What?" Lucifer asked, widening his eyes "You knew?"
"If you think I can't tell when the Emperor is stringing my brother along, then maybe there's a bigger reason why you never beat my Dark Prince in a fight, like naiveté." Hypnos lashed, knowing one of the worst scars in Lucifer's pride was his unquenched rivalry with Dark Angel Micheal, but he gave an honestly amused smile. "A chest of asphodels and a bunch of pretty speeches?" he laughed like someone embarrassed to have not thought of it first. "I mean the ways you find to deceive us all without outright lying leave me speechless. Sometimes I wonder who's the better illusionist between us two."
Lucifer's red eyes narrowed ferociously. "W-why am I still alive then?!"
"I thought I made that clear in the throne room. We need you to fight the war. That's more important than my brother's harem. And since I know you always had a soft spot for Eurydice, I'm willing to believe that's the only thing you were going around our backs about." Hypnos approached his face creepily, as if to whisper. "Of course that if you're planning something else along the way, I'll be the first to make sure you take a deep, deep rest and never wake up again. Are we clear?"
Daemon Lucifer's expression didn't even falter. "Crystal clear, Lord Hypnos, although there's no reason for you to worry about anything. How could I question you?"
The God of Sleep stood back and held back a rushed answer. He waved his index finger at Lucifer as if noticing how he almost fell to the same prank twice. "That's, ah ah, that right there. Lying with the truth. Frankly brilliant. I almost want to drag you before the Emperor to see if you'll tell him the same thing." He stopped on his way out the door as if this reminded him of something important. "Oh, with all this fuss I almost forgot. I need to ask; you haven't lost your 'Yours Ever' in the war, right?"
Lucifer pulled out the inscribed silver star usually kept underneath his shirt and armor. "Hasn't left my neck."
"More excellent news. Take good care of it. You're going to need it for the war and maybe if you do a good job, my brother will forget all about this. I'll see you at dinner with the Emperor." The God then left the room, carefully closing the door to let the commander rest.
Now in solitaire, Lucifer's head lowered pensively. He tried to mental message his spy, the Nasu Specter, only for the ping to be bounced back at him. As he thought, he was in quarantine. Whether by Hypnos or Hades it didn't matter. His eyes darted at his stash of journals, now aware that his Emperor had recovered a much greater omniscience than initially thought. It would probably do him more heartache than good, but it was time to light a match and say goodbye to his lifelong records.
{======================\(/\)/======================}
Meanwhile,
Sanctuary Town, Ophiuchus Hospital
{======================\(/\)/======================}
In the aftermath of the Bennu Specter incident there were little to no survivors on Sanctuary's side of victims with the exception of the Saints who stopped the attack and the girl Alexis from the village of Arcadia. This did not mean, however, that when admitted to the main hospital in Sanctuary, the Pegasus Saint wouldn't find himself inside a big mess of overcrowded corridors and overworked doctors, interns, nurses and volunteers.
The main population of patients was not the typical one. Sanctuary's factual population was limited, meaning senior citizen wings or even maternity services were always uncharacteristically small for a relatively large health building. What the Ophiuchus Hospital actually dedicated itself to were paramedic and urgency practices, as it was expected that people in service of the army and students in Training Islands would roll in every day due to practice, drilling and test injuries. Punching rocks and jumping over canyons all day tended to increase the demand for disinfectant, morphine, bandages, wheelchairs and physiotherapy rather dramatically. All injured would also have to be carted off directly to Sanctuary to help prevent normal societies from noticing the odd amount of seemingly suicidal fighters training in wildernesses all over the world, further adding to the count.
With approximately over five hundred trainees preparing for various cloths or soldier posts any given day, it was no wonder it was far easier to find younger people in the wings and morgue than elderly. And this wasn't including any displaced population from a natural or cosmos-related disaster that Sanctuary decided to extend its kindness to.
"Dr. Iaso to the trauma center." the PA called.
Aiolos sighed in relief, knowing reinforcements were on the way for his particularly difficult patient. "Saint Pegasus, would you please understand that we cannot release you? Combat with Skeleton Soldiers follows a particular exam protocol due to their tendency to use poison in their weapons. You have to stay."
"The hell I do!" Lance protested. Usually he wouldn't be so dumb as to ignore medical interns' judgement, even if this particular intern looked younger than Lance himself, but he had a huge problem in his hands. "I got an asshole commander trying to prosecute me! The longer I stay here the harder it will be for me to defend myself from Ionia's insane accusation! He wants to pin on me the fault of what happened at Arcadia! You have to release me NOW!"
The young brown haired Gold Rank looked at the amount of numbing antivenom IVed into Lance's arm and wasn't sure if he hadn't mixed the dosage again or was dealing with an actual wild horse. The Bronze Saint sported injuries head to toe, including burns, bruises, slashes, cuts and, more worryingly, a set of scratches that could very well be from Skeleton Soldier crossbow bolts razing the skin when dodged, a weapon that even Bronze Saints feared due to infamous lethality of their toxins straight from hell. Yet the youth refused to stay still in his bench, struggling against the leather braces and apparently worried that a Fort Commander recently assigned to the Peloponnesian fortress had filed an investigation on him.
Maybe Aiolos should take a note of recommending a therapist to this patient, or at least stress treatment.
"Lance, please listen to Mr. Aiolos," pleaded Shinta, also sporting a bandaged arm, some patched up scalds on his arms and a set of burns characteristic of overusing cosmos or, in his case, having fought off a Corona Blast with a Nebula Stream burst. "I've asked Saint Sagitta Nam to look into it. He promised that-"
"NAM?! That guy couldn't stand up to a bully to save his life, much less the team of 'investigators' on our case! Besides, he doesn't trust my word either!" the red-eyed Saint argued. "I swear if I have to write another goddamn report on what happened at Arcadia to another brown-nosing gumshoe I will throw this bench at him! Also, Shinta, don't call this kid a mister, he's younger than even you!"
The green-haired Bronze Saint's face went red. "I'm sorry, he's usually more cooperative."
The volunteer medic had his doubts. "I'm… sure of it. Also, if you don't mind me asking..., you two just came off a low priority mission. How did you end up like this?" he pointed his pen at the staircase just off the room. "People in the morgue have also been getting calls all day, so something obviously happened."
Shinta's eyes glanced sadly at the window. "We ran into a tragedy and eventually a big battle. No one thought it could have happened. The fort of Ismara and the village next to it were… burned down." his eyes teared up thinking of Alexis. "There were… dozens dead, maybe a couple of hundred."
Aiolos' jaw dropped. "Um, I'm sorry… I had no idea." his fist clenched in frustration, knowing his secret powers could have helped. "Is this what Saga messaged me about a sudden emergency? I knew it wasn't like him to skip training. I need to talk to the Pope about this. It can't be that I have to be resigned to only help after the fact."
"Now, now, what's this racket about?" asked a new voice. The person saw Aiolos shaken up and patted his shoulder aggressively. "Liven up, newbie, I don't want your mind off the matter again."
Aiolos looked up at his senior elatedly. "Dr. Iaso, I was just trying to explain that we can't release the patient. He isn't very cooperative, though."
Dr. Iaso pushed the kid aside. The multi-talented head of the pharmacological, rehabilitation and trauma wings was a lab-coated man of short, wavy brown hair, slight five-o'clock shadow, white pants, leather-shoes, a set of reinforced gloves armoring the back of the hands and a belt inscribed with a cobra head on its buckle. He exuded a no-bullshit policy on his hardened face and a stethoscope hanged around his neck so he wouldn't have to constantly verbally remind patients that he was the specialist in charge, not them.
Adding to the first impression was the look of buffness and experience about the medic built over years of experience as the Ophiuchus Silver Saint, something that allowed him to develop his talents in medicine at a very young age and confront the usually brashful warriors of Athena. As it turned out, supersonic warriors had the bad habit of disrespecting doctor prescriptions when they looked like they couldn't bend steel with their hands. The Saint career had also allowed him to jump straight to that particular hospital, and Aiolos would tell anyone that the eccentric man was rarely seen outside the Hospital in Sanctuary Town unless he was assisting some disaster area.
The twenty-eight year old doctor gave a smug smirk when he saw who the patient was. "WELL, well, well! Let's take a look, shall we?" he took the chart right out of Aiolos' hands and looked it over with fake interest.
"These two Saints were admitted here recently after what happened in the Ismara border, doctor." Aiolos tried to explained. "I wouldn't have paged you, but-"
"Uh-uh! Fascinating, say no more, Aiolos. It seems we have the typical case of testosteroni dumbus. Not many people have heard about it. It's a rare condition that typically affects over aggressive Saints with a need to prove themselves to others."
Aiolos' eyes rolled. Lance just stared like someone called his mom a whore.
Iaso pretended otherwise. "Yes, I know. They tend be overly enthusiastic about their assignments, run straight into danger and develop acute symptoms of ass-kicked-ness," he took out a pen and scribbled the prescription. "I recommend…. 50mg of sense, 25mg of self-awareness and a spoonful of 'growing the fuck up already'. " he then crumbled up the paper and tossed it at Lance's face with a big smile. "It's a popular prescription. A bit expensive, but I've found it works on almost anyone."
Shinta had to cover his mouth to hide a laugh at the expense of Lance's red face of anger.
Aiolos sweatdropped. "Doctor, I'm not sure if-"
"Do you have a problem with me?!" Lance asked. "I was out there trying to help! Not act like I'm a goddamn macho!"
Iaso wasn't the least bit intimidated by his tone. "Not really, Saint Pegasus, and trust me, I have learned of what happened to those poor soldiers and villagers, but I do have to say, oh-oh, that it's a refreshing sight to see you get sent to a hospital instead of the usual group of foot soldier jocks you beat to an inch of their lives for calling you a big booboo baby who beat up his teacher that I then have to give intensive care," he explained, his tone as condescending as possible. "I'm afraid we have to let you go, though. You see, the resident mechanic is on his day off, so the hospital isn't staffed to handle emotional trainwrecks."
Aiolos couldn't help but feel his senior was being overly harsh. "Again, Doctor Iaso, I have to ask if this is really the best way to-"
Iaso waved his hand at Aiolos to settle him. "Now, jokes aside-" the medic restarted, his muscular arms folding and his smile turned upside down into a serious voice tone "- I would love to spend more of my day-off taking care of you but, you see, I have these couple of thousands of earthquake refugees in Zhaotong, China, already ruining one of my precious 'me time' hours, so hopefully if you could cooperate with my intern I could go on with, well, dedicating myself to others and not get paged every five seconds to wrestle you down for an IV replacement," he laid out, making Lance's anger subside into quiet shame. "But you wouldn't be so immature, would you, big shot?"
To Shinta's great amazement, the usually uncontrollable teenager glared at the unflinching medic for a good while but ultimately relaxed his arm and let the young intern work on the intravenous line for another six hours of antipoison rounds. He had never managed to get the Pegasus to be reasonable like this.
"I'm still pretty sure you are all chasing the wind with this!" Lance complained. Just thinking about the time he would have to wait though made him mad. Every second he wasted letting the doctors make sure he wasn't drugged or something during the fight was another that Ionia did disfiguring what really happened in Austria."I was the one fighting, I would be pretty sure of it myself if I got poisoned."
"Lance, you vomited three times on our way back to Greece," reminded Shinta. "Also, the doctors know better, just listen to them or I'll chain you down!"
His friend barely registered the off character boldness, revolted as he himself was."I've survived on a freezing mountain for four years with just a pack of emergency meds, I know what I'm-" He then reached for a nearby bucket when his light lunch suddenly came back up the throat and urled loudly. "...A-ah… g-god damn it!"
The venomous half-smile of when an annoying patient got what was coming to him appeared on Iaso's face. "And your brain has survived the experience, I assume?" The medic took a look at Andromeda's chart. "You seem to have recovered. What the heck are you still doing here?"
"Oh, um, I just wanted to keep my friend company. He took the blunt of the fight." explained Shinta.
Iaso tossed his chart on the table dismissively. "Fine, I don't care, I don't have time to keep track of visiting hours. Just keep the bed free for other patients. Also, next time, if your mission partner has symptoms of poisoning, don't let him superspeed his way back by himself or he will spend another day vomiting again." He then turned to his original patient and patted his back. "There we go, Seabiscuit, now take your meds and listen to Aiolos or I'll be back to shove them down your big horse throat." he then saw red drops balloon in the edges of Lance's sharper cuts, the Saint's eyes roll up and the monitoring machines beginning to beep like crazy. "Aiolos, get the anti-hemorrhagic. The toxin is fighting back."
"Excuse me," Aiolos pushed back Shinta and helped Iaso without hesitation to stabilise the Pegasus, applying a transparent gel to the wounds suddenly seething out blood and lay him back to a more comfortable position where Iaso could work on him.
The medic pulled up his garb sleeves, held up Lance's arm, touched one of the wounds and began burning his cosmos. Shinta then witnessed what was one of the most used applications of cosmos in medicine, the Golden Touch. Seemingly just pressing his fingers around the area as a golden line of aura filled them, Doctor Iaso was actually stimulating the natural healing capacity of the body through the explosive energy of Cosmos, something that could be done by anyone with an understanding of the superpower and how the body naturally healed. It was said that some surgeries could be entirely done through this.
It was one thing to watch a teacher do it, like Guardnia, and a trained healer like Iaso. The difference in concentration alone was palpable, like comparing a toddler to Michaelangelo, with Iaso and Aiolos keeping complete silence and locking their eyes on their respective wounds until the job was done, a warm radiation being let down with every applied wave. The Andromeda Saint watched in admiration the former Ophiuchus Saint and the young intern work around the patient without a word, both already knowing exactly what to do with the situation, and was reminded why before he ever learned of Sanctuary he wanted to become a doctor when he grew up. It appealed right to his instincts of helping others and being outside combat.
Aiolos' finger flicked the IV bag as if to test the antivenom fluidity. "Everything seems fine here, could be anaphylactic shock?"
"With his personality it wouldn't shock me." Iaso watched the beeps go calmer once the bleedings stopped and Lance's eyes closed. "Keep him monitored. You -" he pointed at Shinta. "Come with me."
The green-haired Saint followed the medic out the room, letting Aiolos work in peace. "Is there something wrong?"
"I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume there's no next of kin?"
Shinta's face paled. "What?! What's going on? Is Lance in danger?"
Iaso shook his head and hands. "No, not at all, but he is going to suffer for the next few days under treatment. I only asked cause I was hoping that, for once, my Saint patient wouldn't be another parentless soldier and it would be easy to get a compatible blood or organ donor registered." He put hands in his large garb pockets with a sigh. "Believe me, Saints need them more often than you'd think, and in Sanctuary it's not an easy thing to come by unless you're from an established family."
Shinta let out a sigh of relief and looked through the room's window, seeing the intern Aiolos doing all sorts of medical monitoring tasks he couldn't identify. "Thank goodness. I can't really indicate anyone like that, but at least it's good to know none of us suffered lasting damage from the battle."
The medic observed Andromeda attentively. "You do seem in far better shape than him. I was ranting when I called out on rushing ahead but, that's usually what Pegasus Saints do, anyway. Our particular constellations don't tend to go along." he commented with a slight chuckle "Can you name anything that happened differently in your mission?"
Andromeda tried hard to remember every detail, even though recalling the burning village and the many corpses at Fort Ismara made him gulp. "He went and fought ahead, cause we agreed I'd be the one calling for reinforcements. When we finally rejoined, he had just recovered from a perceived defeat." His eyes then widened. "Oh, that's right! And he unlocked his element, fire! I almost forgot."
"That could contribute to the exhaustion and the vulnerable immune system, but still…" Iaso approached the observing glass. His teeth gritted. "He wouldn't be in this shape if it weren't for fighting Skeletons, I guarantee you that."
"It's my fault." confessed the green-haired boy. "If I knew they'd be so dangerous, I would never have accepted Lance's plan. Then again if I had not, I'd probably not have gotten Saint Cynthia to help us in time."
As if putting aside his doctor side for a moment, Iaso eyed Shinta in warning. "So you can see for yourself that it's foolish to think about how you made a bad decision like that, right? You can only work with the present. Goddess knows I've seen far stupider decisions roll people inside this Hospital. Besides-" he looked at Aiolos "I have to confess I should give Aiolos a bit more credit. When he paged me I thought he was having trouble with dumb intern volunteer stuff again, but these wounds are indeed more serious than they look in the surface. It might be worth it for me to stick around for a while."
Shinta noticed a recurring theme in Doctor Iaso's words. "You seem to have a hard spot for Skeleton Soldiers. Why?"
Iaso scratched his unshaven chin. "You mean other than the philosophical schism that is me being in medicine and them worshipping death? Specters are dangerous fanatics to Hades, but Skeleton Soldiers, being the grunts that they are, deal with the dead and death directly, like pigs in the mud. They literally do the opposite of everything I dedicate my studies and training to. With Holy War just twenty years away, the frequency of their attacks is only going to increase and I just get the feeling I'm going to learn to hate them more and more."
For once, there was empathy in the generally pacifist Saint for his interlocutor's animosity to another group of people. Usually he'd just hear Saints like Lance, Guardnia or Nam saying that fighting people was their life, their duty or their current task, basically something to get it over with. It never seemed to fit inside his head to these three that Shinta's basic objection was that fighting was being used as the first alternative rather than the last.
Hearing it from this man, however, gave it a different outlook. As someone who just wanted to help others, Shinta imagined it would probably not be easy to know that someone out there in the world not only pursued the end of life, but venerated its results, seeing it as an act of worship to be accomplished through the most brutal means possible. Lance had told him that Alexis' dad had been cut down rather gruesomely and all he did to deserve it was stand between a Skeleton and his own family. This had been the first time Shinta had fought Specters and Skeleton Soldiers and Bennu Yakos has made it pretty clear to Shinta that they did not share the same moral set.
In fact, Yakos accused Shinta to be with the bad guys. Bewilderment was a mild word to describe how Shinta felt about this.
"Doctor, can I ask you something?" he pleaded. "Are you taking in new interns?"
The man looked him up and down as if to gauge him. "Personally I don't have time to take care of one more whiny intern, but I don't see why other doctors shouldn't pick up some of the slack. So yeah, but do you have what it takes?"
Shinta gulped. "I don't have medical training, no."
"That's not what I mean." Iaso bobbed his head in Aiolos' direction. "See that kid? He's twelve. Hardly old enough to have a medical license. I became Ophiuchus only slightly older. What Aiolos does have is many, many, many, many nights stuck inside this place not giving a crap about himself. I've honest-to-Goddess never seen him doing anything that didn't have to do with taking care of his brother and the people of this Hospital."
He had a feeling where the conversation was going, but asked anyway. "Is that really a no, then?"
Iaso frowned. "If you have to ask, yeah. But it's really more like a 'maybe when you have time to do anything else other than missions and training'. Then yeah, it becomes a 'yes'." he explained, completely unaware that Aiolos was a Gold Saint on the side. "People don't tend to get sick in schedule, you know? And you'll be taking valuable time from someone to teach you the ropes. If you got the humanitarian bug in your belly, pursue other avenues first, like a teacher or an undercover Saint. People don't respect undercovers, especially assault Saints like your friend, but hell, I just ran into Saint Crane Yushira in China and she made some amazing work busting up pedophilia rings that I couldn't do with a medcoat for the life of me."
Shinta nodded, pensive. This was a pretty similar speech to some he got from Master Guardnia in his last year in Andromeda Island. It did seem like life was pretty hectic for Doctor Iaso and Aiolos, so maybe training to become a teacher was really better than a doctor, who knew?
"In the meantime, try to not get your friend into more fights with Specters and Skeletons. They're dangerous even without trying to be." commented Iaso. "Or else I'll prepare a bigger demeaning rant for him for when you two are back with a poisoned crossbow bolt stuck in your buttcheeks."
{======================\(/\)/======================}
Later that night
Peloponnesian Borderlands
{======================\(/\)/======================}
It was getting dark.
Cerah rushed through the trees and foliage, carrying the Nymph on her back and burning as little cosmos as possible. The soft ground left behind light prints of her greaved feet under the weight of the two of them, but this trail couldn't have been what was denouncing their presence. They were flashing through dense woods, for Goddess' sake. She began rushing up the forested slope, trying to put terrain behind her.
"Cerah, we need to stop! If you run any faster…" the older woman warned.
The teenager's foot broke like a car on the leaves and dirt, stopping them by a darker, more concealed spot in between the bushes and branches. She panted, frustrated. "...Eurydice, I can't!..."
But the nymph had more sense. "Burn your cosmos any hotter, and they will lock on to us and stop fooling around," she pointed out, objective. "And their gold ranks will be on us in a literal flash."
All the poor girl could hear, however, was Lucifer's words that made her vow to protect this person. Her immature sense of cosmos felt a dark wave catching up to them from the long-abandoned castle's direction. The Specters were close.
Cerah carefully lowered the nymph to her feet. Her fist hammered a tree. "No, I don't understand, I did everything right! We covered so much ground! It feels like we haven't left the same forest all day!"
The blind escortee thought back on what happened. "It's not your fault… if we had fooled Hades completely then I would be able to see right now." She touched one of the trees. "The border between Hades' lands on Earth are just as dangerous as the castle itself, or otherwise it would be far too easy to invade. We've been looping through a dimensional path that is delaying us, but we ARE making progress. These are common in Sanctuary too."
Cerah had never seen one, though. "But what does it mean? Have we been trapped?"
Eurydice shook her head. "No, we just have to persevere. Panicking is what gets invaders stuck inside these things. We have to keep moving towards the Sanctuary forts…"
"Yes, but for how long?" asked Cerah, feeling that her cosmos reserves were being chipped away all day. "I'd blaze straight through but now they are closing in! UGH, what squad is this, anyway? Every Skeleton I've seen in the underworld for four years has never been this persistent about their task!"
While the teenage girl only expressed this as frustration, the Nymph took it as a hint of something that could be their grave. Her face turned in the direction of the chasers and using her more developed 7th sense to find them in the darkness, looked for the leaders. "Someone powerful must be among them, but they are masking their composition. I don't think Lucifer is with them. I'd be able to tell him apart… these men won't have mercy."
The straightforward tone in Eurydice's conclusion broke Cerah's heart. "No, there must be something we… that I can do!" She looked up a particularly tall tree branch and in a flash, climbed up the trunk, jumped over the holds and stepped on it, raising her head high and resting hand against the branches.
From there, the tree tops filling the valley were easily covered. Narrowing her eyes in determination, they then flashed a brighter green light, a telltale sign of her "Emission Lenses." Immediately the image of the treetops flicked away like a camera mode and the girl saw overlapped on it the bright, hot reflection of her own cosmos reflecting back the origin of the enemy, providing much more detailed information.
Her head counted as quickly as possible. "Forty-one… Forty-three… Ugh, maybe fifty! All Skeletons, this won't be easy. Their armor is black so it takes light and radiation in, making them hard to make out even for me."
Eurydice grabbed any nearby objects, trying to keep herself guided and finding the source of Cerah's voice. "Something must be happening in Giudecca. Lucifer wouldn't allow this to happen. I thought Hades would toy with Thanatos at first, but these men weren't sent after us on their own accord. Hypnos must be behind this," she calculated to herself. "Cerah, if you can, try to look for higher power levels. How many Gold Ranks?"
Cerah's senses looked over the mass of approaching enemies hidden amongst the trees, bypassing regular masking, illusions and protections with her 'Lenses'. Immediately her eyes were drawn to the rear ranks of the crawling force, where a small group of larger shadows absorbed the infrared light emitted from her eyes.
"I think I see-" All of a sudden one of the shadows looked straight in her direction and a huge, bright yellow flash burst from its forehead, making her scream and gasp at the projected sight of a large, burning, single yellow eye that gazed right back at her. Cerah fell off the branch and landed hard on her back, heart beating and panting. "W-WHAT?! What was that?! I… Someone among them has an ocular power. I think he saw me back!"
Eurydice's face paled. "It sounds like Cyclops… Persephone be blessed, I think they are really serious about this." This time even the Nymph was perplexed. She paced around in a fit. "This doesn't make sense… I never imagined they'd go so far just for me! Lucifer and I… we were sure that even if Thanatos found out, the other Gods wouldn't care! I'm just a runaway bride, why wouldn't they leave me alone?!"
Cerah sensed the mass focusing, as if alerted by Cyclops about them. "Miss Eurydice, I need to get you out of here NOW! Come on, if we hurry-"
But the blind woman was suddenly too nervous. "Why, why, why? I just want to get out of that place!" she scurred around aimlessly, her hands flinging to find objects to guide herself. "W-what did I ever do to them?! Why does he want me back?! He has dozens like me up in Elysium! Are they so egotistical, so UTTERLY DECADENT, that they wouldn't part with one pretty face?!"
The Cyrulian refugee's mouth dropped as she jumped out of the tree. "Miss Eurydice, I know that this looks bad, but I need you not to panic!" Her eyes looked around. "We need… umm… we need to hide you, I'll stop them!"
"No, they'll find us, they brought Cyclops!" the Nymph argued. Her hand reached blindly for the girl and grabbed her arm. "Look, you need to run, they just want me! If they get you, they'll torture and kill you and Lucifer! You need to go to Sanctuary and leave me to-"
Cerah's hand slapped the woman straight across the face! She then covered her own mouth, shocked by her own resort. "I-I'm sorry, so sorry, I'll never do this again!"
Eurydice touched the red cheek, feeling ashamed for giving up so soon.
"But… I'm not getting to Sanctuary without you! I made a promise… to someone I owe too much to." Cerah vowed. "And I may not have much from my heritage, but I do have C-Cyrulian honor." her voice gagged a bit with this word as if she wasn't used to evoking the name of her people.
The red retreated from the woman's face and Eurydice straightened herself. "Right… I believe in you, Cerah. But what do we do?"
Looking around with a panic of her own, the girl dragged the Nymph to a nearby spot and, working as fast as she could, improvised a cover by ripping up heavily-leaved branches and foliage, anything she could use to hide a body.
"I'm not a tactician, but… Lucifer taught me a few things. They know we are here, as far as we can tell. We need to separate, make them think they saw just me instead of the both of us. This way they won't search this place too hard."
Harmless as a civilian, Eurydice understood why they had to keep her concealed, but had her doubts. "Wait, but how do you plan to do that?"
After making sure the Nymph was hidden from sight, she stepped back a bit to analyse the cover and revealed her plan. Sweat ran down her face and her small fist closed. "I'm… g-going to fight them!" she declared, trying to sound not scared. "They're moving straight towards us, so I can ambush them! If I just take out the grunts-"
"What?! You'll get killed!"
"No, I won't!" Cerah told the Nymph, and herself. Memories of four years of grueling preparation flashed through her eyes. "I trained for this moment. I've fought for it. I can't just be a beaten up ex-sparring partner to Lucifer for the rest of my life. These past four years, I've become a warrior, not just a frightened girl looking for her sister… I think."
The look on Eurydice's face wasn't convinced at all and Cerah couldn't blame her. "Cerah, do you know what you're doing?" Eurydice appealed. "These aren't sparring dummies, they are Skeletons. They are killers, death worshippers. Putting an end to your life is a mild description of what they could do to you."
She took out the black gem chained around her neck, which shined strangely in response to its owner's new resolve. "I have a plan; I'll first sneak into them with my Lightcraft Skeleton disguise and then reveal the Corvus Cloth when it gets serious! So they'll think I'm a Saint. They'll think they've been tailing a Sanctuary scout this whole time… when I'm done, they'll fight me away from here, away from you. I'll move back around, make sure not to leave clues for their scouts this time, call you and we can get the heck out of here together!"
The Nymph stood quiet, half-hopeful that Cerah had more to her plan. When it seemed more than likely that this was it, her heart sank in realisation that there really wasn't much else that they could do. Cerah said earlier there were about fifty grunts, at least. There were also a Cyclops Specter, plus possibly a superior. Judging by her energy reserves, it was extremely unlikely Cerah could pull this off.
Her darkened, cursed eyes closed in sympathy. "You said you were Cyrulian by birth… if anything I can see that in your courage. You're a brave girl," she admitted. "You'd probably make a good Saintia, if not an Amazon. I didn't know much about your people other that they were Sanctuary's attack dogs against Specters, but if you have a tenth of that inside you…"
The teenage girl gulped and put the black feather of the Dark Angel Surplice in the Nymph's hand for safekeeping. "Just in case. There's no reason to assume that's the reason I'm doing this. I just believe in doing the right thing… over perhaps the smart thing," she self-consciously admitted.
The Nymph smiled. "If that's not being brave, what is? Don't die."
Cerah stepped back, touched. Before she could regret her own crazy plan, however, the Cyrulean rushed off to meet the enemy.
{======================\(/\)/======================}
Dashing across the forested valley with just her natural energy to avoid being located again, Cerah arrived at a narrower part of the terrain where a rather large group like the one she was about to face would have to move through to get to where Eurydice was at. She darted her eyes around, scanning what was going to be the battlefield; there were just enough trees to cover the night sky between the branches but not to the point of impeding a lone fighter from wreaking havoc between the ranks of a large enemy group. Touching the ground, she felt the vibration of far off metal boots working their way towards her. They knew enough to go in her general direction, but not what was about to happen to their vanguard.
Fear began creeping inside her core when the reality of the danger became obvious. All she could draw to calm herself was her training.
Lucifer's hand tossed the darkness of his own cosmos around her, casting the illusion of a group of Sanctuary soldiers armed with spears and shields rising like zombies from the sand. They outnumbered her ten to one. "You have been found out. There's no escape. Now, fight for your life!"
Cerah had had to go through at least seven attempts back then to defeat just one foot soldier. The grunts of the armies of the Gods were just as dangerous as their lower armor tier warriors, like Bronze Saints and Terrestrial Stars, if not more for their numbers and drive to prove themselves. They would come out at her with tactics and formations that impeded movement and pushed her into a spot where they could skewer her. Skeletons employed spears, swords, scythes and crossbows, but the tactics had no reason to differ when speed was the most important aspect of the battle.
A flock of crows flew off from a tree next to her, crying out for the fight to start!
She took out the dark gem, which let out a flash of bright light, challenging the far off vanguard. "Come out, Corvus Cloth!" And the crystal burst into specks of light like broken glass. A circle of energy surrounded her feet and burst upwards, engulfing her in light cosmos. The specks of light flew around, encircling her body, and began stick to her limbs in parts, shaping pieces of light into metal alloy pieces. "Light Craft; Skeleton Armor!" she called out in the midst of it, and the fluid light plates screeched as they reshaped just before so
This was the most dangerous ability of her people; the power to use the cosmos element of Light to reshape armor and weapons belonging to them into new pieces, reshaping matter into controllable energy and then back into matter. Usually employed to repair their protections and weapons in the middle of combat at the expense of their energy, Cerah specialised her craft to reshape the Crow Cloth entrusted to her. In this case, the dark grey, edgy pieces of metal began rounding up into curve plates. The wing-shaped chestplate flattened and caved in into a ribcage shape. Violent-looking spikes sprouted out of the greaves and gauntlets. The winged crown of the helmet shrunk into small horns and a set of teeth of an upper jaw slid down to form forehead and temple guards, hiding the details of her face into the trademark shadowing of one of the Underworld grunts.
Cerah's fist punched through the head of an enemy in front of her, but a punishing Lighting Fang zapped her body, perfectly simulating the pain and shock of the illusion soldier slashing off her leg with a sword. "Your disguise was flawed, his friend saw your armor lacked carvings on the greaves and deduced you were infiltrating." Lucifer pretended. The darkness of the fallen enemies reshaped, reviving her targets for a new simulation. "Reshape the armor and try again. The real thing would see you dead."
And with a final recolor that added a strong purple shade to the grey plates, her transformation into a skeleton soldier was complete. Cerah's fists closed and opened, exercising her flexibility. Her green eyes narrowed in determination, wiping from her mind any thoughts of fear and hesitation. This was it. If there was a Gold Rank amongst the enemy, she was dead. If she failed to dodge a scythe slash or a crossbow bolt, she was dead. If she as much as lost her element of surprise before taking down enough enemies, she was dead. Her memory rushed through what she gathered from the enemy's make up, trying to think of a real plan.
First, she'd have to tackle the scout vanguard, the eyes and ears of the enemy. With their smaller numbers and more spread out positions, Cerah should be able to take down a few, if not all, crippling their reconnaissance. Then, depending on how the rest advanced on her, she'd have to battle the core group Skeletons, make sure their focus is completely on her, find an opening and get the Underworld out of there!
Fifty enemies to face, only one life to lose.
Her head sweated. "And I bet they're all heavier than me, too. Okay, Cerah, be brave!" her hand clasped in prayer, thinking of her sister. "It's time to show them what a lone student of Daemon Lucifer can do." she thought. She would prefer to have a scythe or sword at hand to complete the illusion, but her Light Craft wasn't nearly good enough for that, nor her cloth had enough mass. She would have to content herself with the confusing effect that her armor would cause. Her Emission Lense activated for a brief second for a new recount and detected the distance to the enemy. "Twelve in the front, divided in four groups of three to cover ground. It's time to eliminate them."
And with her light cosmos manifesting fake purple sparks of darkness as a self-rousing power cry, the 'Skeleton' dashed forward to give a start to the battle.
{======================\(/\)/======================}
The various scout groups of the Cyclops Servo's Skeleton Soldier regiment grimly crawled forward in the shadows, their faces hardened into a determined hunt mode. Their vanguard of experienced scouts move on ahead in a loose formation, wishing to detect the target as soon as possible. Organised in trios, they moved in vigilance of each other while looking out ahead for obstacles and enemies that could denounce the group as a whole, or maybe just potential victims to tribute to the Emperor.
Normally groups like them brought hounds to look for targets raised right around Cerberus with a taste for human flesh. The terrifying war dogs of Hades, however, had to stay behind in spite of the nature of their mission because Saints had learned to bring their own pups to detect the intense stench of pup fur whenever Skeleton Soldiers went on raids. They had been given special orders to not rouse enemy attention.
The Recon Trio A, composed of Leftmost, Center and Rightmost As according to Cyclops Servo's new system, was armed with a scythe and sword each for aggressive operations and moved through the westernmost area of the valley. Their task was to watch out for encroachments and, looking ahead, the three Skeletons detected the bottlenecking of the valley. One of them, Center A, gestured a slick of the throat in warning. "Pass of the signal. Tighten the groups closer."
One of them immediately sent out a ping to the rest of the groups that signified the terrain information he wished to pass on and, as a living organism, the general regiment began narrowing its lead and putting its men on guard in preparation to pass the bottleneck in organised and covered fashion. In these situations it was common for the terrain to displace carefully planned formations, especially when they tried to move undetected to Sanctuary forces, so the regiment had to communicate a lot to avoid dangerous tumbling.
And so, slick like a collective shadow, the stalking warriors squatted and crawled ahead, practically smelling the blood of their victims. Rightmost A's hand waved forward, silently moving through otherwise noisy obstacles like bushes and low branches. "This is a big operation just for a couple of women."
Center A would have none of it. "Tell that to Servo and he'll kick you down to carting corpses. There's a Judge giving us this mission, you should be honored." he then heard him yelp and fall down behind! "Hey, what happened?!"
The complainer stood back up and marched. "N-nothing, just slipped." his heightened voice explained, perhaps embarrassed.
Center A shifted attention back to his job, complaining to himself about having to handle new recruits.
Leftmost A also saw what happened and wished Servo had not adopted the new Roman system. Even if it was good to mix newbies with people who knew what they were doing, it caused embarrassing discoordinations like this. However, it was true that sometimes it was unavoidable, even among the more experienced groups.
For example, the separate vanguard groups would unwillingly run into each other while covering difficult ground, just as it was happening then as Leftmost A saw the rightmost comrade from Recon Trio B now walking almost side to side with him, slightly approaching him. "Trio B, watch your distance, your right flank is right on top of us." he pinged. "Move on ahead to wedge the vanguard through the bottleneck, or we'll get tangled up."
The rightmost B scout began increasing pace alongside with him obediently.
But a response that skipped his heart was then heard. "What are you talking about?! Can't you sense our cosmos? We are at least twenty meters away from your left flank!"
Leftmost A stopped, his eyes widening. He looked to his friends to the right but saw Center A on the ground! "W-WHAT?!" He rushed over and saw him bleeding from the throat side! Rightmost A was also collapsed far behind, right where he first slipped!
He pulled out his scythe, turned back around and called "RED ALER-" but 'Rightmost B' was suddenly right on top of him and elbowed his throat, silencing him with a flood of blood up to his mouth.
He stumbled around, stunned, but tried to fling his weapon forward in a vicious diagonal hack that was parried with an armored gauntlet that shoved it aside. A Lightcraft flash forged sharpened elbow guards, giving the real Skeleton Soldier a chance to draw his sword, but just as the muted warrior tried to swing it, the disguised enemy stepped over his defensive area, caught the blade with his palms, twisted it aside to break it with a loud snap and then viciously glazed the razor elbow past his neck, slicing his throat.
A muffled scream tried to fill the air and the Skeleton collapsed, helplessly and silently bleeding out on the floor. Cerah wiped the blood and sweat off her face and dashed to the next group.
{======================\(/\)/======================}
Recon Trio B, the swordsman of his group, stopped, alerted by their Rightmost element who touched his own ear as if wearing a communicator. He pinged Trio A repeatedly. "Shit, we're under attack, everyone go full alert!" His two friends drew out a scythe and a crossbow, which the owner quickly armed with a poisoned bolt. "Lord Servo, I lost contact with Trio A!"
The feeling of a huge, yellow eye was suddenly felt in the back of their necks, like an invisible lighthouse lit up. "Find the enemy and slaughter it! If I have to send in the center, I'll hang the nine of you useless recons myself!"
Not lacking in motivation, they contacted their friends. "Trio C, Trio D, let's wedge ahead at the pass! Do not let your guard down, someone just wiped out Trio A! FIND THEM!"
The scytheman among them brandished his weapon menacingly. "Let me at 'em, I'll rip them to pieces! Where are they?!"
"She's right there, you FOOLS!" Cyclops screamed.
The crossbowman saw a slim shadow drop over the scytheman from the trees and aimed! "NO, WATCH OUT BEHIND YOU!" But her arm immediately wrapped his neck, pulling him back, and an improvised Light-crafted wrist stake pierced the man's spine through the reinforced armor, instantly paralysing him and dropping his scythe and blood to the grass. The crossbowman roared and fired his bolt over the victim's shoulder, only for the body to be held like a shield to take it and tossed with effort at the shooter to keep him occupied.
The swordsman Skeleton attacked the lightweight enemy, taking out his broadsword and dagger, sending further warnings to other squads. "GET OVER HERE NOW, YOU IDIOTS, WE'RE BEING SLAUGHTERED!" He cross-parried the enemy's wrist stake, blocking her attack, and twisted over his body to try to land his reverse-grip dagger on her shoulder only for it to be dodged with a gasping head bob.
Cerah recovered her guard, stunned, and dispelled her forged wrist stake so as to dash forward with a kick and punch succession, but the Skeleton parried her blows by the dark metal covers of her limbs, bashed her stomach with the pommel of the blade and cut off the horn of her helmet with a slash that she dodged with a bob, sending sparks from her helmet fly off.
His dagger swung threateningly, backing her off, and he saw the smaller opponent step back in sudden fear. "Surprised?! I'm not going down so easily, you punk! Prepare to DIE!" the warrior of Hades then set up a devastating two-armed combo, reversing back the grip of his dagger and faking a stab so as to jam the wrist stake of his enemy, locking him in place for a downward sword slash to finish her off!
"LIGHTSTEP!"
But the blade sliced right through a burst of afterimages of the enemy dodging in many different directions, the accompanying sound of wings flapping making it seem like he tried to attack a flock of crows.
The swordsman sweated and crossed weapons defensively. "W-What the hell -"
"Lightstep!" someone shouted, and an image of the enemy re-appeared to attack him only to collapse under the dark sword's counter in another afterimage, the momentum making the Skeleton slip forward past a side-stepping Cerah and expose his defenses to a light-enforced counterpunch. "PRISMATIC SHOT!" The fist burst as a powerful beam of light striking the stomach like a point-blank gunshot, shattering his chestplate and instantly killing him with a pierced torso.
The crossbowman's cosmos burned as he cranked a new bolt in a panic, finally rid of his friend's corpse, and tried to aim only to see the leader of his group fall to the ground collapse with a major injury before what looked like a Skeleton Soldier herself. "W-what… you TRAITOR!" he pulled the lever, but the poisoned bolt flew right over a ground rolling enemy who struck him with an uplifting ground kick that tossed him to the air. Cerah jumped over him with a battle shout and hammered down an elbow strike to his helmeted head, finishing him off by instantly shattering the unprotected forehead before the two even landed.
The body landed with her and a clunk, silenced. The panting girl collected herself, recalculating her next move and seeing herself surrounded by three bloody corpses. Her muscles already ached, but she felt the rest of the Skeleton Soldiers regrouping and heading straight in her direction, as well as the dark cosmos of Cyclops' eye locked right on her through the trees. The element of surprise was gone. It was time for the real fight.
{======================\(/\)/======================}
Surrounded by subordinates and trees in a more northern part of the forest, Cyclops Servo roared in anger and tossed one of them off to the ground, his magical eye seeing the far off enemy speed away in the direction of his remaining scouts. "Those failures! Get ready to move! I want whoever that is crucified on Pandora's table!"
The warriors moved in unison, organising themselves into a tighter unit and preparing to move ahead and attack the enemy. Many of them gritted teeth and looked around nervously at their friends. A tenth of the regiment dead in less than a minute was a demoralizing way to start.
The yellow metal eye on Cyclops' otherwise red helmet shined menacingly as he moved his head slowly left to right, searching. "You Sanctuary rat! I'll find you!" He saw the burning cosmos of the six remaining scouts grouping together and his left gauntlet began shaking with a pale cosmos. "Do not separate, they're heading for you next! Pin them down so I can smash them, or I'll crush you as you try!"
Nearby him, Gryphon Urial adamantly observed the attack and took out his Tarot compass, opening it to see the needle shake around a bit only to once again point in the direction they had been following till then.
A satisfied smile filled his face. "Our target is close, Cyclops, do not lose the enemy's movements." After getting a nod of obedience from the larger warrior, the Judge rubbed his own chin. "This killer must be the escort Torak told me about. Good. Lucifer will have to forgive me for wiping her out, but soon the Nymph will be in my hand."
{======================\(/\)/======================}
The six armed scouts took out their scythes and spears to engage the shadow leaping through the trees towards them. "Get the bolts ready, engage!" one called out, leaping high to the sky with a straight slash.
Cerah countered with a body spin that landed her foot square in his face, loudly crashing him against the dirt ground and making him scream, but stardust-enforced metal attacked from all sides and she leaped over to dodge the swing of scythes and a loose crossbow bolt. The six enemies shouted and scurried around her, picking up their injured friend and striking with spear jabs that backed her off and attempted to puncture her blocking arm guards, which swiftly bashed off the blows that she couldn't dodge.
The short girl stepped back, concerned. It would never have been easy to get these guys by surprise, but still she had hoped. "D-damn it, I can't afford to lose time, I have to save my energy but also take out these guys NOW!" The ground and trees shook at the distance, indicating the main group was about to close in on them. Her green eyes glanced towards the east, where she planned to make her diversion maneuver through. "You guys b-better surrender, or I'll crush you like your friends!"
The forward spearman ignored the threat and attacked with a supersonic lunge, tearing through the air and cutting off a golden hair string loose out of the disguise helmet. He spun the pole over his neck to switch grip and tried to kick the foe and skewer her again only for Cerah's smaller body to dodge the first and move her body over the swing in the second, letting her smash his face in with a bright punch, bash his stomach straightly, causing him to stumble back and cough, and finally counter a screaming return with an overhead diagonal blow that she learned in counters to try to catch Lucifer's necklace, blasting the man's neck guard through the flesh and killing him.
She stepped back, trembling in contained shock. Behind the helmet's shade, her eyes were very wide in adrenaline and fear, having never ended so many real lives in a row or fought so many trying to kill her back. "I t-told YOU! Now, who's next?!" she taunted, measuring how close the main group was through the cosmos and ground vibrations.
The lightly armored scouts hesitated, seeing their fallen friend and how acrobatically he was ended. "W-who the heck is this gal?!" one asked, noticing the high pitched voice. "How did you get one of our armors?!"
Cerah only responded by calming her breathing, slide her foot forward and finish her pose by closing right fist forward and holding up the left hand at same height, the fingers tense like a bird paw. "I didn't! Lightcraft!"
Just as she did this, the Skeleton armor burst into countless feather-shaped specks of light flying around the girl, letting out her underclothes and blonde wavy hair. Controlled by Lightcraft, they landed back on her body, first forming the shapes of new greaves on her legs and feet, new gauntlets and guards on her hands, fingers and forearms, a cuirass over her young, small chest and stomach, a short collar guard encircling the neck, a pair of sharp triangle pads sprouting on the shoulders and a faint, wavy skirt raining down on her thighs only to her knees, topped by a metal belt..
Suddenly compacting, the specks shined even brighter before collapsing into a solid form. The general color scheme was black or dark grey. The forearm guards extended to sharp elbow edges and the greaves covered the knees with a round-encrusted plate. The breast cuirass took the shape of a short pair of carved wings where the core 'obsidian clothstone' rest itself. The skirt of pale white cloth gained black outlines and finally a last portion of light crawled up around her head to apparate into a headpiece, birthing a three-pointed tiara over a set of ear-covering small wings.
The scouts gripped their weapons tightly, preparing to fight as the whole armor finished its transformation, re-identifying the foe with a last storm flash of bursting light.
"Emperor help us, these Saints… They've infiltrated our own territory!" The lead Skeleton swung his scythe menacingly. "You're going to PAY, whore worshipper!"
Cerah narrowed her shining green eyes, letting the cosmos of her armor in its truest form fill her with confidence.
"That's right, I'm Corvus Cerah, Saint of Athena!" she lied. The energy in her hand began soaring as her eyes looked through their positions and protection. "I'll need five… no, ten times the potency!"
But one of them would not be fooled. "Don't listen to her, the Crow Silver Cloth isn't shaped like that! She must be some other spy!" He aimed his crossbow. "Tell us who you really are! Poseidon, Artemis, who is your boss?!"
"S-sorry, but you can figure that out in hell!" Her cosmos burned in a faint white light contrasting with the armor, and the Skeletons saw the intimidating background image of a huge crying black crow with wide open wings behind her and one paw overlapping her raised left hand. It began whirring with an encircling white energy, threatening to turn it into a meteor.
"DON'T LET HER ATTACK!" The Skeleton fired his bolt and the rest charged with raised spears and scythes to hack her to pieces.
The avian-armored girl charged back through their swings, shooting her fist. "PRISMATIC SHOT! TIMES TEN!" and her body blasted straight through the five of them in the form of a thick beam of golden light tearing through their attacks, armor and bodies and landing Cerah past them as if she had thrown a real punch.
The scouts screamed in unison, blood and metal flying off their wounds, and they each fell to the ground with a loud thud.
The warrior girl's foot broke the dash and she dropped to her fist, feeling her overburnt cosmos flowback and hit her reserves hard.
And a bombastic, tense sound of the impact snapped through the air, like the delayed cry of a far off thunderbolt, slapping off the tree branches and spreading burning embers of white and yellow cosmos all over the place, completing the finishing move. With a set of hurting lungs, she looked up in effort to feel the consequences of her overcharge drain her strength. "E-Eurydice… I have to protect… Eurydice!" she reminded herself over and over, motivating her to get back up. "I'll r-run to the east around them now! Even if I made this mess, these trees-"
Amidst the darkness of the woods, a far off hand covered in red plates tightened its fingers and popped out a bubble of burning cosmos with pale color and shaking texture. A massive foot stomped forward and the punch was thrown! "POLYPHEMUS KNUCKLE!" A tempest of shattering wings burst through the forest instantly eradicating rocks, uprooting pine trees and blasting the earth in a massive wind shockwave that blew out its size as it traveled across the valley.
Cerah barely had time to look in its direction before the foliage in front of her and then her body were tossed into the air by the torrent, sending her spiraling and screaming through the sky. Carried off through the wind along with an eruption of rock and wood, she crashed down through a direction way off her intended route, throwing her plan to move the enemy away from Eurydice's hiding spot to the garbage, out of her reach.
Her armor protected her light body through the fall, letting her land rolling on the ground with just a few coughs and grunts of pain and shock. She lifted her head and realized she was in full sight of the almost forty Skeleton Soldiers accompanying the Cyclops Specter.
His enormous body was able to point his finger at her over his crowd. "THERE IS THE ENEMY! Quick, Skeletons, move in and flank from either sides!" His goldeneye helmet shined again. "You're not getting away again, you rat!"
Feeling an alien warm cosmos spotlight her again, her very soul felt the chill of a human cornered by a giant in a cave as she got up in a pained rush, holding her side, amidst the shaking leafy ground littered with the fallen trees and boulders. An armored mass of spears and crossbows mounted itself and moved towards her, shouting out threatening battle cries as two groups of swordsmen went in each direction to encircle her.
"T-this isn't good!" she realised, darting her eyes left to right and feeling her paths cut off. "They want to cut off my mobility so I can't maneuver away!"
The shadowy illusions of Sanctuary soldiers pushed her back with the weight of their shields and pointed their spears towards her against the Desert Beyond's dune. They halted in victory and vanished into flying dark clouds that Lucifer collected back into his own aura.
"W-what am I supposed to do if they surround me like that?!" she frustratingly asked.
"It's a typical tactic of grunts against supersonic Saints and Specters," Lucifer explained, mercilessly. "Even as a Silver Rank, your power level won't differ from theirs all that much, so your talent and ability to outrun them is critical. If you can't find a way to prevent them from using their numeric superiority, you'll be turned into a pin cushion."
Cyclops confidently accompanied his men from the rear, yelling out commands. "Sort yourselves, spears in front, crossbows behind!"
The Cyrulian descendent stepped back several times in fear, almost tripping on a twig. Her whole body shook! "They're gonna close in… and cut me to pieces or worse!" she predicted. "And then Eurydice…"
The flanking wings of scythes and swords began closing in from the sides as the frontal phalanx slowly crossed the crater path, an oppressing yellow eye shining over them. The edges shined with the moonlight, stained with dry brown blood from tortured corpses, and the eyes shadowed under the skull helmets over anxious smiles and shambling march made them look inhuman. Dark, deathly cosmos began burning collectively in preparation for the coup de grace once the trapped girl was overcome with fear, enhancing the paralyzing atmosphere.
This was the specialty of the Skeletons, spreading the fear of grimsly death. Whole groups of enemies had historically lost their morale in the face of combat superiority felt on the soldiers of Hades, knowing the keepers of the Circles would have absolutely no quarter or prisoners; every dead would land in their eternal prison of the Underworld. Cerah's death would be less of a combat kill than it would be a sacrifice.
At times like these, braver men would lose their bladder control, already sensing how the bolts would pierce their flesh, how the scythes would open their guts, how the swords would cut off their heads and how the fists and kicks immersed in cosmos would beat their corpses into swollen pieces of meat.
"I want you to give your life for her."
Corvus Cerah stood up straight, her eyes wide in protective rage! This was no mere dame they were trying to kill! And her light cosmos would burn bright in the darkness if this was the last night she would live in this world!
The regiment of Skeleton Soldiers slowed down, hesitating before the sight of a desperate fighter igniting her aura into a flare of yellowish white light. Immediately their Damascus armors felt less safe, the soldiers aware that Light Cosmos was especially strong against the metal of the Underworld. Their spears shook in the formation and the flanking wings held their encirclement.
A ear-splitting caw was heard and the background image of a huge crow stepping over Cerah manifested her determination to protect Eurydice. The sight of it all caused the enemy to hesitate a little when they realized this was a stronger foe than they thought.
Cyclops's hand swoop the air. "Why are you stopping?! That bleeding heart just needs you to press your weight and skewer her like a pig!" he reminded them. "Attack right now, or I will flatten you all myself so hard you'll wish you had joined those useless scouts that fought her!"
The intimidated wing flankers sounded the charge. "A-alright! Swords and scythes, move in and CUT HER TO PIECES! FOR THE EMPEROR!"
The Crow warrioress dragged her left foot back and raised her right hand. "Prismatic Shot won't do, no matter the overcharge! They're too many and too spread out!" Her green eyes squinted and activated Emission Lenses. The aura burned, burned and burned till it suddenly flared up to twice her body size, illuminating the artificial clearing like daylight. "So I'll take you all down with a STORM!"
They rattled their weapons and followed their boast through, aiding the marching spearmen in encircling the Cyrulian at the same time the rear crossbowmen fired a hail of bolts.
Time slowed down, she made her setup backstep and then punched forward. Just as her arm completed its movement, though, the burning Light element cosmos took on the force of her punch and a short-lived, transparent lense was Lightcrafted right in front of where her fist reached its full length. "PRISMATIC STORM; TIMES ONE HUNDRED!" The beam of her punch fired off through the practically invisible concave lense, destroying it, but also splitting the attack into an authentic storm of blinding light rays that turned night into day and blasted all through the enemy column, striking all over their bodies with punch-packing blows that tore through their armor, burned their skin, broke their bones and generally engulfed them in a beating spectacle of light rays blasting all through them.
The air was filled with screams, shattering metal, and bodies being tossed around until the multiple hit technique's assault died down, letting the entire squad of utterly defeated foes crash on the floor, dead or unconscious before a flabbergasted Cyclops. Cerah panted even harder than before, feeling her right arm stinging all over.
Cyclops's jaw dropped with the sight of his entire unit annihilated in a literal flash. "Y-you… just took out my men?!...I... Prepare to be a meat PANCAKE!" the giant threatened, his terrifying dark aura flowing around the horns of his Surplice. "I'll have no mercy, and you will suffer none of the hells. I'll impale you on the towers of Pandora's castle as a sacrifice to HADES himself!"
Prismatic Shot and Prismatic Storm were at the basis of her fighting style. Being a Light Elemental, Cerah had the ability to translate the force of her punches into attacks of pure light and, being a LightCrafter like her ancestors, she could sprout a small concave lense right in front of her fist from the mass of her Cloth to decide how that beam would fire off through the simple law of refraction.
Her mere Mach 5 level speed, however, and the extraordinarily powerful sparring partner that was Lucifer had forced Cerah to push herself beyond her limits and realise the flaw of her Prismatic techniques; the force of her cosmos punch was all it could pass off to the rays, which would either split into many much weaker blows or cap her firepower into a single, limited focus attack. As a result, the Cyrulian girl had to learn to overcharge her technique with three, four, five, ten and eventually even one hundred the normal power output she should use at her level, something that permitted every ray of 'storm' to be as strong as a single punch and every focused 'Shot' to be a true game changer of an attack.
The Light element gave these quirks to non-lightspeed users, letting them tap into the 7th sense. The price, however, was more than steep.
Cerah practically fell on her own face, grabbing her stinging arm as she felt her reserves dip and her lungs demanding air. Her whole body burned on the inside and her aura flickered weakly. Having to take out forty warriors of rank comparable to her in a single blow forced her to multiply the burning of her cosmos by no less than one hundred times, allowing her to use one hundred rays of light at regular power but draining the reserves of even a superpowered warrior like a Saint at a much, much bigger pace. Just like Lucifer said, if she had tried doing this with a real lightspeed attack, her body would probably just become ash.
The ground shook with the heavy steps of Cyclops, whose moonlight shadow swallowed her. His helmet's eye burned in the darkness, though, making him seem all too much like a real one-eyed giant. His aura of earth and darkness then began adding to the effect, flowing like an actual mass around him as it encapsulated feelings of terror and the unknown.
He grabbed her by the head and lifted her trembling body up in the air. "Did you think you could give us the runaround? The 'Eye of Arges' sees the beating blood of humans he feasts on." he explained, as if he didn't consider himself one and pointing at the eye plate that had been stalking her this whole time. "I, Servo, will grant the emperor a worthy sacrifice, an impertinent Silver Saint woman with no mask that killed fifty of his men! Tell me, small girl, do you have to marry me now that you were unable to kill me?"
Not properly educated in Sanctuary's culture, Cerah had no response to this bizarre question, merely struggling against the grip of his huge fingers with her thin hands.
"Eh, eh, eh, it's fine, I don't really care about your opinion. I'll break your mind before you decide!" he then made it so that she would be forced to look straight at his helmet's eye. "DARK CRATER!"
The eye seemingly raised its brightness and let out a pulsating wave that drew Cerah's attention completely. Her eyes glazed and her fingers struggled to keep resisting. She felt her mind being swept away from her skull, leaving her behind, and be sucked down a circling drain into the growing and growing orb of yellow light hypnotizing her.
She was taken away with a scream and fell down into the yellow light, gone from the battlefield. The air battered her brutally and she fell and fell and fell, passing dark clouds, bursts of thunder and far off wails of screaming. The sea of floating water finally gave place to a huge furnace, an active volcano which through the mouth she fell.
But the volcano itself was just a gate to further horrors; with the control of the universe around her robbed, the Corvus found herself landing on a cavern's rocky floor, instead of a pool of lava, the sound of feasting all around her. She looked up with terror to see herself surrounded by one-eyed giants running around, wearing barbaric togas and picking up emaciated men her size and biting down on them, sinking teeth into guts and spines, swallowing legs and arms and crunching on bone and flesh as blood dripped from their mouths. Naked dead men in hell shouted and pleaded, trying to hide or escape, and the cyclops gargled and roared all around like wolves picking on lambs.
The young, tired girl got up and stumbled around. "N-no, this isn't REAL!" A huge hand bashed her to the side, flooring her on the rocks. Blood dripped from her down down her chin and she saw a single eye on a hungry face staring at her.
His hand reached out, bigger than her body!
Her eyes turned on the Emission lenses once again!
The image of the hell around her was then overlapped by that of Cyclops Servo still holding her up and preparing to bash her head into a rock!
Her arms crossed around the enemy's, her mouth letting out a scream of despair moving them, and her legs lift up to land both greaved feet right in Servo's face with all the strength she had, kicking him off with a muffled shout and curse that made him drop her to the ground.
Cerah rolled over right away, accelerated by panic, and burned her supersonic cosmos to blindly launch herself at his face, latching on to the brutish man. Servo stumbled around and tried to grab her, but her healthy left fist raised high in the air like a burning torch. "P-PRISMATIC SHOT; TIMES O-ONE HUNDRED!" It punched right through the golden eye as a full force light blast, shattering the metal, caving in the man's skull in a brutal spray of blood that covered his wide eyed face and burned his frontal lobe!
Cyclops Servo wailed like a blinded monster, grabbed her and tossed her to the ground so he could hold his gushing forehead. With the few thoughts he could muster, his fist closed in preparation for another Polyphemus Knuckle. "AAGHHH, You b-BITCH! GAH! I'LL wipe you OUT! You and THIS WHOLE F-FUUUCK-ING FOR-REST!"
Her shoulder guards were lightcrafted to shape blades with a blazing flash once more, edges that she engulfed in sharpening Light Cosmos that formed razors. Charging at the stumbling Specter, she rotated herself for momentum after leaping through the air and aiming at his exposed neck.
The implacable man saw her between the blood gushing down his eyes, even though his injured mind lost strength by the second, and he uppercut a vibrating fist "POLYPHEMUS KNUCK-" The woman's razored forearm swept at his trachea and all went red, the image of a crow striking its beak into a one-eyed giant's neck filling the night sky.
Cyclops's foot stumbled and he heard Cerah land behind him with a loud, pained scream.
"I… I got-t-" His mouth muttered until blood spilled out from his neck. His whole head then fell off to the ground from its stand, decapitated and his red armored body fell over it to make the rest of the world go black.
Silence returned to the battlefield, leaving Cerah alone on the floor amidst a multitude of corpses to revel in her terrible handiwork. Her aura burned on, still alive, but slowly flickered down like a dying flame on her body. Blood dripping from her wounds wet the ground but, worst of all, the drawbacks of her fighting style took their toll, making her limbs lay flat and her organs feel like they would evacuate through her mouth.
Had she really done it? Had she eliminated the entire enemy group, contrary to her best expectations? All that grueling training with Lucifer had really made her into a warrior. This was almost too good to be true.
Cerah's half-closed eyes looked up and saw a single, standing man equipped with the heavy Gryphon Surplice casually looking down at her. Her heart sank.
"Cosmic Marionation!"
A set of strings came out of nowhere and the broken Cerah yelped as she felt her ankle being wrapped up and lifting her. She struggled with her legs, as her shaking arms and fists could now do little more than hang loosely after what she subjected them too.
The purple-armoured, winged blonde Judge walked up to examine her, pushing down his stringed thumb to adjust her hanging body's height. "Fifty men…plus a Terrestrial rank. He sure trained you well, didn't he? No matter, once I bring you back, the Emperor will revive them for their services!"
Energized by desperation if nothing else, Cerah shouted and found the strength in her left arm to sweep the air sharply enough to slash the hanging strings from a distance, dropping her head first on the floor. Yelping and crawling away from the Judge, the Corvus's eyes search for something, anything she could toss at his eyes.
His taloned gauntlet picked her by the neck guard with an angry roar, though, and tossed her at the crater's slope. The Gryphon's finger tips thrust out new cords which punched her wrists and ankles through the black metal of the Corvus Cloth before wrapping themselves around them, sending her to a screaming fit of agony. He tensed them, making the air ring with a violin screech. Cerah felt her hands and feet grinding against her will, threatening to twist into an unnatural direction.
But then, to add the morale blow to her physical torment, she then saw him take out the Tarot Compass with his free hand and see its needle pointing away from her towards the direction she remembered leaving Eurydice in. Once again, her chest felt sunk. Now it was all too clear how they found them.
"You're not the Nymph." he concluded, adding to the compass' needle the assumption that a bride of the gods would not be wearing armor and killing an entire regiment of his own soldiers. "You're about to answer some questions, miss," he hissed.
Her exhausted mind collected enough memory to recognise the man as Urial, the Judge she had seen often in the underworld and was an inspiring figure to the others. Cerah knew well enough that this man was abnormally noble for a Specter based on how she would see him treating Behemoth Torak. This probably explained why he did not kill her as she fought for her life against his subordinate Cyclops, but she would be obviously kidding herself if she thought he wouldn't use the strings to get his way.
Still, her vow spoke higher than her fear again. "I w-won't help you find her, so b-back off!"
He growled angrily and pushed up the strings, causing them to tighten around her limbs, threatening to grotesquely snap off her limbs. The echoing cries of agony heard from this were chilling.
"I don't need you to tell me that!" he taunted, packing the Tarot Compass inside his armor. "What I want to know is who are you, where did Lord Lucifer get your sorry butt and how do you have a modified Silver Cloth with you!"
The fightress laid back her strung arms, defeated. This was it, wasn't it? Cerah could feel she was going to die. She could sense the strength and the unending depth of cosmos inside the gold-rank warrior and how determined he was to make justice for his men. It was disheartening to know that amidst the battle she fought so desperately to win there was this man hanging back in the shadows waiting to ruin her hopes.
Tears of frustration wetted her eyes. By the Goddess, what was she going to do?
"TELL ME WHAT I WANT TO KNOW!"
"N-NO! YOU'LL j-just send her b-back!" Cerah screamed, voice thickened by the grasp on her pipes. "S-she just wants to live! Live free from those g-gods! I m-made a v-vow to give my life for her!"
But this only twisted his face further into anger. "VOW?! What vow?! Like the one I made to your trainer to obey his every command, so he would show me the light?!" he demanded from her, infuriated. "You're no warrior, or… or a knight! You are nothing, just a spy Lucifer trained to push his intrigues around Hades! That Nymph, Eurydice, is the only hope for the Specters to prove themselves to the Emperor!"
But this only infuriated the young girl back, whose rage found within herself something to answer. "S-she's not your bargaining c-chip! You should be ashamed for doing this, for t-trying to ruin her life again!" she lambasted, shocking Urial with her defiance. "I k-know of you, Urial. I know the plight of your men, the new Specters. L-Lucifer has told me about it to explain why Hades w-wouldn't allow any of you to meet him in Giudecca. H-how could you?! How could you chase after her and me when you know y-yourself what it feels like to be a toy, an amusement piece of others?!"
The look of hatred he then flashed at her almost made Cerah regret her words. His Gryphon armor seemed huge from where Cerah laid and even too heavy. The thick wings and the long multi-plate shoulder caps made him look like a real dark bird of monstrous size, the talon carvings on the fists looking like they tensed hungrily as he manipulated the strings. Right then, he seemed like a vision of terror to her, something exacerbated by the determination he exuded to find the Nymph.
Struggling to wrestle herself free, she tightened her fists, curled her toes and resisted his torturing pull. She saw the angry hesitation him and tried to capitalise on it. No matter what, she had to resist! "Do you even know what kind of existence she lived up there? B-being the bedwarmer of a murderer, for h-hundreds of years? I was there with you when he arrived, at the First Prison. You saw just as well as I did the look on the m-maniac eyes of the person Eurydice is fleeing from! S-so just let her be, d-DAMN YOU!" Her cosmos then burst in desperation, shooting off sharp makeshift blades of light that cut off the strings and blinded the Gryphon.
Urial stumbled back, rubbing his hurt eyes. The Corvus did not hesitate, gathering the last pieces of her energy to form an attack that would at least push him off the crater. "Eurydice, forget my plan, run now!" she messaged.
"W-what?! Cerah, what are you doing?!"
She saw Urial recovering and detecting her mental pinging. If he had that compass with him there was no point to being discrete. "I'm going to hit him with everything I got! Just run as fast as you can, even if you can't see anything. Try to find the cosmos of Saints and get to safety NOW!"
The Specter manifested his dark aura, cutting off the messaging. "You shouldn't have done that…" his mouth frowned angrily. "Now you'll face the terrible power of one of the three Judges, a Celestial Star rank!"
"If I overcharge my attack as much as possible, my Light element should have a chance to hit him even if he can use the speed of light," she reasoned with herself. Her aura grew scalding hot as she measured the intensity hundreds of times past her natural limit, flowing down to her closed fist to form a blinding torchfire of yellowish blaze. She could feel the energy boiling her alive. "PRISMATIC SHOT!" she cried out, manifesting her constellation and dashing at the enemy. "TIMES THREE HUNDRED!"
The massive-looking Specter side-stepped, dodging the blow that fired off like a light rocket blasting through the trees, and struck her flinging body with his foot.
{======================\(/\)/======================}
Darkness.
The night sky spun all around...
Darkness again…
The moon was seen flying above, slower….
Faint darkness, and the feeling of fluids flushing up the throat…
Her consciousness returned just enough then. She couldn't feel the surface, but rather her body slowing the spiraling ascent until it floated high up in the air, the trees far below. She stared at the night sky, completely stunned. The sound of someone leaping far below was heard and a shadow rushed past her to the sky at the speed of light.
Gryphon Urial spread out his wings, flying above her. His large, purple gauntlet gathered the power of winds all around it. The cry of the half-eagle, half-lion monster was heard and the man flung towards her, striking her.
The core force of the blow struck like a running train, breaking her apart and shooting her limp, slim body right back down to the forest and blasting off a torrent of hurricane winds all over the valley. Corvus Cerah's body broke through trunks, violently bouncing off the ground and crossing an enormous distance throughout the dense forested night. She felt her bones break, her skin ripped off beneath the metal, her mind lose and regain awareness numerous times in just seconds and her insides deflating from the gold-class attack, teaching her a pain she would never again forget in her life.
All around her, segments of the forest broke and shattered from the attack's residual waves but sparing her no pain. After seemingly an eternity flinging through obstacles, she felt herself drag through dirt and then some sharp rocks for good measure till she harshly hit the valley slopes, coming to a full stop.
A sharp glide and the flap of heavy metal wings of a landing bird was heard. Gryphon Urial stood up and walked over to his prey, looking down at the bloody mess with no pride in himself. He saw her shaking and breathing, but unable to move or speak.
He was impressed. "I held back, but that attack would have still killed a group of Silvers. Lord Lucifer must have harsher punches than mine for you to have survived that with such a weak frame."
There was no response other than a very frail roll of her body. "A-am… I d-dead?" she practically begged herself, wanting the pain to stop.
Gryphon stepped away to go look for the Nymph. "You were brave to face me like that, so I'll let you die in peace." He then heard the metal shuffling of someone in armor trying to get up. "... What?"
"W-what am I d-doing?" she asked herself as she held her weight in her hands, seeing the blood drip like a wet ceiling to the floor. The whole world shook and her eyes stared insanely at the ground, completely glassed, but she dragged her leg up to stand. The pain was so much. "N-no, I w-want to lay down… I w-want to d-die…"
At this point Urial wondered if the girl was a real Saint. "You can't be serious…"
Moving like a toddler trying to learn how to walk, the broken, miserable fightress slowly but surely lift up her torso and stood on trembling limbs, barely able to breathe. Her head moved up. "W-why… why am I d-doing this?"
"You have the blood of Cyrul in you." the Crow told her, burning its energy to help her stand. "And you're not going to let yourself break your vow."
She was so much past her breaking point that Cerah didn't even question the fact she was hearing her armor speak. "B-but I'm not a knight… or P-Paladin like Daese. I don't want to be one, m-my people are gone. Their insanity r-ruined them!..I don't want to be like them." she defended, forgetting her promise to Lucifer. "I've never even got to know them, I just want to d-die… I just want to be with D-Daese…"
"Throw out your honor and your principles, girl, and she won't face you even in the afterlife," said Corvus, making her eyes widen. "Now raise your fists and fight!"
Gryphon stood amazed at the sight of the girl standing fully and burning through the power lent to her by her Silver Cloth, meeting his gaze with the slit eyes of a predator bird. A new light filled her body, still at the level of a Silver, but determined to fight either way.
He found himself smiling. "This will be a merciful victory, indeed." His cosmos burned, roused by the encounter. "Now allow me to send you off to a peaceful rest." She cried out a battle roar, ready to attack. As soon as she made up her mind, however, she gasped in pain and a black, sharp metal glove pierced her flesh from behind, robbing the light from her eyes and startling the Judge. "What?!"
The poison of the Nasu coursed through her veins, paralyzing Cerah and knocking her out. Nasu Erika, the spy of Daemon Lucifer, having emerged seemingly out of nowhere, pulled the gauntleted hand she stabbed the girl with out of her torso and kicked her off to the ground, letting her bleed out on the floor.
She wiped off her fingers, smudging the dirt, and observed the girl for signs of struggling. "Ugh, finally, she's standing down."
"Nasu?! What in the Gods' names are you doing here?!" Urial demanded to know.
She eyed him like he was a fool. "What do you think? I'm here on Lucifer's part. After he passed out I followed your group here to make sure you didn't screw up his-"
"You interfered in my duel!" he interrupted "I was going to end it in my own terms, how dare you?!"
She shrugged her shoulders, displeased. "...Not because I wanted, believe me, but the Cyrulian was annoying me, standing back up over and over. I hate when weaklings do that. Guess I don't share your affection for that kind of stuff. Also, I didn't appreciate your earlier remark to her about spying for Lucifer. Sounded rather inconsiderate." she hissed, referring to her own duties.
Urial calmed himself down, recalculating how Nasu Erika's presence changed circumstances. "I'm sorry… Did you know Lucifer was up to this?"
Seeing no reason to lie to a superior, Nasu Erika nodded. "Yeah, I did. I told you, I came here to make sure you didn't step all over it."
"You let fifty of my men die, then!..." Urial concluded with a growl.
She narrowed her eyes defensively. "So did you. And you could have brought Torak to solve this. Between your arrogance and my omission, which do you think was worse?" she bit, making him regret his words, but the woman sighed, used to her comrades acting dejectfuly to her. "Now if you excuse me, I'm going to drop off this one with the other to some Sanctuary patrol route."
Urial widened eyes and grabbed her arm. "What?! Absolutely not, I'm taking them with me to save the Specter's hono-"
She shoved her arm free. "Don't give me that, you fool! Do you have any idea what you've done?! You fell right into Hypnos' trap!" she revealed, stunning him silent. "The Specters would have been fine if you had let this be! I mean, do you really think it was a coincidence that Lucifer, the one person in Hell who knew anything about those two Gods, passed out right next to a God of Sleep before he could give you instructions about the Nymph?!"
The norse Specter blinked, reliving the events in his mind. "What, I…. What the hell are you saying, Nasu?! Hypnos wanted to give me a chance to save our honor, what does Lucifer have to do with-"
Hypnos wanted to isolate you from him, because Pride Star would have just told you to stay put and let him handle this!" She interrupted, the look on her face not believing how Urial just fell for this.
A cold shiver ran up Urial's throat, thinking back on the events. It was true that Hypnos had waved his hand rather strangely when Lucifer closed his eyes, but the Gryphon had dismissed it. Memories of previous difficulties suffered by the Specters with Hades himself returned to him, with Pride Star always assuring him that he would personally take care of it, personally calm the God down, even if he then distributed a punishment himself on the servants of Hades. It would not be strange to have faith that the Prince would find a way to get the Gods' attention off them again.
His expression darkened somberly, closing fists in frustration and trying to think if such a thing was possible.
"You lost faith in the Prince, Urial." Erika accused, for once not delighting in the misery of another human being. "You were arrogant! I bet you thought you could play the big hero part for us, right? If you had brains instead of heart, you'd have known that those three Gods are not to be trusted, that the only one that has looked out for us so far was Daemon Lucifer, not Hades!"
The man became distraught, realising the mess he had gotten them all into. But he could not just sit in the sidelines after what happened in Giudecca. He had to do something to find the Nymph or the two Gods would have punished the whole army for this!
But then… if the Gods were willing to punish them for a runaway Nymph, why didn't Hades do the same for Bennu Yakos' rebellion, a far worse sin? Why did the new Specters still draw breath if such a large group of them had broken out in open defiance, in heresy against Hades, without making them the object of the wrath of the gods? Was it not because Lucifer had walked up the Giudecca palace himself and told the God to make him the one to be punished?
He covered his mouth with his hand. By the Emperor, Nasu was right… he had betrayed the Prince's faith. Hypnos had tricked him! He fervently took out the Torat Compass, the one treasure he managed to acquire in that mess, and stared at it like the life of fifty men weighted in his hand.
"Of course… Hypnos even went as far as giving me such a powerful object, to make sure I went after the woman..." he concluded. "But… I don't understand, why? Why did he trick me like this?!"
Nasu grabbed his large collar angrily. "You're seriously not getting why?! They're evil, Judge Urial! Just like every other Olympian they've turned us against! They're bored Gods waiting hundreds of years for Holy War season and they enjoy fucking people over to pass the time!" she threw at him.
The massively armored Specter's jaw dropped and his arms laid flat, humiliated and hopeless.
{======================\(/\)/======================}
Eurydice dashed through the trees, her hands blindly searching for guidance. She had no idea why Cerah told her those things, but could only assume the Specters were tracking her in a way where it wouldn't matter if she was hidden, but what she could feel from the battlefield through the 7th sense disheartened her. Cerah's cosmos was practically gone, and a masked, dark energy had joined that of Urial, whose power she recognised from her Underworld days.
She felt her foot hit a sturdier twig and fell with a yelp. With tears coming up her eyes, she tried to rid herself of foliage wrapping her leg, seeing absolutely nothing but feeling like her eyes could burst into water. By the Goddess, how could things go so wrong? Let Cerah be okay… Goddess, let her be alive and let Eurydice find a way through that terrible darkness Hades cursed her with!
A tremor was felt on the ground with her hands.
Eurydice froze in place.
Another step, now closer and accompanied by faint metal stepping on grass. A foot?!
Her heart began beating fast. "W-Who's there?! STAY away!" she delicately cried in a panic, right before grabbing her stupid mouth! Too late, the ground shaking steps suddenly darted to her and Eurydice screamed when she felt enormous fingers grab and lift her up by the torse. "NO, LET GO OF ME, AGH!"
{======================\(/\)/======================}
Nasu walked to the passed out, dying Cyrulian girl. "She was supposed to make sure that the Nymph survived and that the Gods would think the Crow Saint had infiltrated us to save her," she explained to Gryphon. "Well, she accomplished half on both objectives. I'll have to tell Lucifer that you forced me to put her down, that we caught the nymph and that four years of preparation went to trash because you didn't trust him over Hypnos. Lucky me, huh?"
"I thought… I could save our honor… and that the Emperor would revive the fallen." confessed Urial, desperately.
She inspected the girl and saw pieces of the Corvus Cloth breaking off and vanishing into specks of light. "Amazing, it's returning as light back inside the gem. So these are Clothstones…" Eventually the cracks filled up the armor entirely and all the pieces broke apart into feathers of light which burned away to little fireflies that were sucked into the gem, leaving behind a perfectly innocent-looking civilian teenage girl wearing an average fabric shirt, a skirt and sandals one would see worn by young girls in places like Sanctuary. "Whow… I wish my Surplice did this."
He sunk his face in the gauntlet. "Why didn't Lucifer tell me anything?..."
Again, she eyed him idiotically. "You know information is a precious commodity in the Underworld, and so is mercy. If you were willing to go out this way to save the 'Specters' honor', how long would it be till you spilled out Daemon's schemes to save one of your underlings from punishment?" she argued, smiling slyly. "I knew cause I'm 'shady' like that, so I noticed he was taking trips to that wasteland outside the Underworld's edges… and because he trusts the egoism of bad people over the altruism of good ones, go figure."
"I need to make amends…" Judge affirmed. His fists punched the air and the ground burst right next to him, digging a huge hole. "Go back to the Underworld, Nasu, and tell Lucifer it's all my fault. I'll… get the Nymph back and bury the Cyrulian girl."
She squinted "I could dispose of her corpse easily, you know?" she remarked, and a bunch of flies coincidentally flew around her armor. The look he gave her translated to a very upset refusal. "Fine, but get on with it already before someone else finds that darn woman."
And then Nasu Erika vanished with a spin into the darkness of the forest, her already very faint cosmos signature completely disappearing. Urial was now left with the defeated girl, contemplating his mistakes.
He noticed her summer villager outfit, which got ripped all over by the harsness of the fight with the obsidian clothstone hanging around her blood-drenched neck. "It's funny… without your armor you look like a normal person from Sanctuary. Were you planning on entering Athena's land unnoticed?" he noticed, wondering if she had accounted for all the normal country people that would notice the pair of girls looking like they were walking out a Classicism fair. "I've never met Cyrulians, the so-called 'Knights of Athena', but your people must have been terrifying if you alone could do this much damage and take this much punishment."
Memories of his family then returned to him. Many times had he wondered what they would say if they saw him now, a Judge of the Underworld, they that knew not of Sanctuary, or Specters or these wars. What would they say right then, standing before a broken, bloody, unconscious normal looking girl? That he was doing the noble thing?
He looked up at the sky… wondering where the Celestial Star of Nobility was… only to find the constellations that protected Saints, his declared enemies. Physically and spiritually, the Star he was supposed to honor never seemed too far away as then.
"By the Gods!" someone loudly exclaimed, startling the Specter. "Who do I find, while walking around for fresh air with my men, just looking for some necks to twist, if not an authentic, bona fide Judge of the Underworld? Athena must be smiling on me today..."
Gryphon Urial turned one eighty to find himself standing before a man that could very well be thrice his height, putting Behemoth Torak to shame. Sporting grey, grizzled hair, a set of feline claw scars over his eye and armored with none other than the round, sturdy plates of the Heracles Silver Cloth, the strongest of the Silver Saints cackled like a child who found a toy and cracked his head-sized knuckles so loudly it made his muscles sound like cement.
But the Judge did not recognize him. "A Saint of Athena?... Who are you?!"
An eye brow was raised disappointedly. "You would think the fame would precede me... but I'll oblige. I am Heracles Aguilon, Saint of Athena, Captain of the Herculean Guard, Kicker of Asses, Nightmare of Specters!" the huge man bragged. "And you must be my retaliation prize."
Invisible cords began being discreetly woven around the battlefield and the Judge gritted teeth in revolt. "What is the meaning of this?! This is the territory of the Emperor, Hades!"
"METEOR FIST!" Countless blue blasts of cosmos appeared out of nowhere and blasted off the strings. Urial widened his eyes in shock and only had time to close his wings in front of him to block another set of meteors which blasted his Cloth's appendages, causing many round compressions to suddenly appear in them like smoking craters on purple metal and pushing off the heavily armored men away from the unconscious girl.
Urial opened his wings widely as the man stepped between Cerah and the Specter, stunned by his impetuousness.
"In case you're wondering, Judge, that was what I think about your 'territorial integrity,'" provoked Aguilon, sporting a dangerous smirk that told Urial this was no ordinary Saint. He looked down at Cerah, who looked like an ordinary civilian to him thanks to her clothstone. "Besides… it doesn't look from the looks of this girl like you're using this place for anything worthwhile." He got on his knee and touched her neck, verifying that she was alive, but in terrible shape.
The giant man lost his smile and wrapped his hand around the poor girl's back, upon which silver cosmos burned intensely, lighting the area and the Specter's face, and the hand-sized wound closed just enough to give the girl a bit more time.
"Time which I'll spend making things right for you, don't worry." The Silver quietly vowed. His Golden Touch was simply not that good at all, but was enough to stop the worst bleeding. Ripping out a piece of his training clothes' fabric from underneath his chest plate, he covered Cerah's much smaller body.
The Underworld Judge tensed. "Sorry, Silver Saint, but you're not getting out of here with that girl."
Aguilon breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness, she's gonna make it. I'll get you out of here, don't worry. I'll have to call Iaso, though, she looks awful… If Cynthia doesn't forgive me for this retaliation mission after this, she can frankly go cry me a river." With the certainty that everything would be alright now if he now just fulfilled his duty, the veteran Silver Saint confronted the Judge. "I'm the one who has to apologise, because I've already rescued one of the women you're hounding around here. Though, from the looks of this forest, they put up some resistance. What, did you blast through your own men to get to them?"
A bead of sweat formed under Urial's helmet. He assumed the Silver Saint was referring to the fifty dead Skeleton Soldiers and the decapitated Cyclops that the Cyrulian left in her path.
"Yes…I did. Maybe it will be enough to tell you that you shouldn't get in my way!" he lied, not wishing to give the Saints the impression that there was more to these two women than what meets the eye, not that he intended to let him live. But if the Silver Saint had already found Eurydice, then things were looking bad and he'd have to destroy this man.
Yellow aged teeth showed off. "Oh, I'm going to enjoy this fight." he gestured a 'come-at-me' hand taunt "...especially after what your friends did in Ismara and Arcadia."
Urial growled like a mad animal and posed himself for battle, burning his aura, realising what this was really about. This must be some sort of punitive attack from Peloponnesia for Bennu and Shaman's rampage. "I won't bother explaining to you how that is a separate matter, so I will just eliminate you, instead! Prepare to die, Saint of Athena!"
Aguilon smiled back, flexed his body and charged his cosmos, causing a blue aura to appear and challenge Urial's purple one. The constellation of Heracles manifested, showing off the bearded, lion-clothed man threatening the massive, terrifying Gryphon with a club.
The two men measured each other up, and Aguilon began slowly dragging his foot away to set up how he would move the fight away from the unconscious girl. "I have to say, I was going to storm your territory a bit more, but I think bringing back a Judge's head will be a fair trade for your attack on us."
"... You seem to be misunderstanding something, Silver."
Aguilon raised a confused brow. "What?"
Urial smiled and pointed his hand at him. It whirred loudly as dark cosmos began flaring up to form a blast. "I don't intend to entertain your little fantasy. I'm wiping you out now!"
Dark lightning blasted from Urial's palm in the form of a thick, dense beam of cosmos at the speed of light, coursing and screaming through the battlefield, and blasted the huge man into a cloud of smoke, shattering the ground and crumbling everything into a smokescreen. The attack was so casual and basic but that at the hands of a Judge was more than enough to deal with a simple Silver Saint.
However, to his shock, the smoke cloud was blown away by an interior force and Aguilon's hand was shown holding the whirring dark blast in its tracks, causing Urial to drop his jaw. The Silver Saint had easily caught the blast, showing off the power and light speed of a Gold Rank, and his feet had dug into the ground from the impact with such force that it made it seem the blast had destroyed him and his footing. The ten foot man's hand closed and crushed the orb of power, dissipating it into small sparks that crackled away. Urial lost his smile and realized that he underestimated Aguilon, who was busy chuckling at his effort.
Urial hummed in reflection. "I apologize. I thought you were a Silver-rank fighter. But I was wrong, wasn't I?"
"That's right, blonde boy," mocked the old Silver. "I'm actually a Gold-rank runner-up to the Taurus House. The only person above me in my constellation is the current Gold Saint. But by all means, keep wiping me out, ha ha ha!"
Feeling mocked, Urial crossed his arms and tensed his fingers, spreading out his wings in an arch. "You are definitely powerful... I expect a fair match." His aura then burned into a level that he had not shown Cerah, revealing his true terrifying power. "So I guess I'll use all of my destructive abilities to annihilate you, Silver Saint, and bury you along with that girl!"
"Ohh, a Specter that doesn't fuck corpses, huh?" mocked Aguilon, whose aura began turning a bright red. "You don't see that everyday. I hope you fight as neatly as you TALK!" His arms then crossed together, flexed, and concentrated the red energy into two enormous spheres of whirling cosmos that he fired off through his fists, "HERACLES - FISTS OF FURY!" He cried out, shaking the air itself with the traveling force of his blasts and signaling the start of the fight.
Urial's wings flapped, launching him up into the air to glide over the massive attacks which broke apart the ground he stood on and exploded into a massive eruption of energy, quaking the earth, taking down trees and fissuring the landscape. Just as he was about to descend and counter, however, the massive man super-sped into the air above him! Aguilon's whole body circled in a feat of limbness and crashed his massive foot on the Judge's back, sending him straight down. Urial broke the fall by stringing himself up on branches, but still snapped through them and landed harshly on his armored legs and hand hands.
The combo continued with Aguilon suddenly appeared right in front of Urial and missing an uppercut that forced the Judge on his feet, alarmed. A huge punch was blocked with a forearm and Urial struck the old giant's leg with a rolling kick that tripped the heavy man to his hand and landed a massive punch as hard as he could to his chin, stunning Aguilon.
Jumping back to avoid a recovering hand swipe, Urial grunted, frustrated with the man's impossible speed and recovery, and met Aguilon's charge head on with cosmos-powered punch that crashed with the giant's midfield, exploding the energy into a series of shockwaves. Not content with this contest of power, they shifted their moves and caught each other's hands in a direct power struggle, burning their auras inches away from each other's faces and clashing the power of the hero and the gryphon through their palms.
The Judge of the Underworld struggled immensely, showing off a force worthy of his rank, but the much bigger man had the advantage in base strength. His weight began pushing him back, causing Urial's greaves to drag backwards on the ground, intimidating him.
"This guy… first thing he does is countering my flight, then more than matches a Judge in physical power and moves around like he's a gorilla… If none of the conventional methods are working, I'll just eviscerate him with my cords and blow the carcass into the wind!"
Aguilon grinned confidently as his face sweated with the struggle. "What's the matter, JUDGE?! Not as easy as you thought?!"
Urial practically felt his huge segmented wings nearing a trunk. "It's rare I've faced someone as large as me. I have to stop thinking my size will phase him and change it up." Urial grunted and twisted his body, flapping the giant with the heavy metal wing with enough force to push him off the Judge out of the struggle. Shifting strategies, he jumped towards Aguilon and landed a direct knee blow right on his face, further hurting him back, and landed to hit a powerful punch on the stomach.
But the reinforced plates of Aguilon's lower abdomen completely absorbed the blow. Aguilon's swift right punched lunged only to be dodged by Uriah, but the giant then span around and bashed his spiky left gauntlet like a real mace on the Judge, sending him gasping against a rock, crashing through it.
Energy exploded upon impact, wiping out the environment that tried to crumble on top of the Judge, and the young warrior launched out like a beast on the giant. "DIE!"
Heracles' mace burned with cosmos. "KORNEPHOROS!" It countered the Judge's punch with another clash of power, imaging a mace being bit by a Gryph's beak, that exploded on the both of them. The two fighters were projected back, though while Aguilon landed on his back the Judge merely flipped his body in the air and used his wings to break his fall.
Gryphon reengaged with a rush of wind punches, but, again, the lion-helmeted warrior showed impressive recovery by meeting them with a shove of his maced forearm and a sidekick aimed at Urial's head.
The Gryphon bobbed out of the way, but got his eyed helmet knocked off, flooring it with a clunk. A streak of blood fell from his forehead, revealing just how close Aguilon was to breaking Urial's neck just then.
Aguilon took this as a small victory, stepping back from the hot zone and looking over his adversary's face, seeing the pale Scandinavian skin, the blue eyes and the rather young traits. "Eh, that could have been your head." he provoked. "So tell me, Judge, is this fight with a lowly Silver all you dreamt up to be?"
It fell on deaf ears. In fact the Judge seemed happy. "Absolutely!"
The grizzled veteran stared stupidly at him for a second but then looked down and widened his eyes when he saw the Judge's index finger snap back!
Something razored his cheek, drawing blood.
"Though I think -" Urial spoke, moving up his hands and showing off a purple ooze of an aura. "-that I should correct you -"
Aguilon gasped and stepped back, touching the blood on his face, but his leg suddenly felt as if it touched a spider's web. Another finger moved and the cord hissed, slicing the back of the warrior's calf! Several other cords then suddenly appeared all around Aguilon's body as if they been seeded throughout the whole fight, warning him that any sudden move would get him wrapped up.
Urial lowered and tensed his hands. "-because I shouldn't call this a fight, but rather a fun exercise." The strings let out a tense note, threatening to snap into a wrap around the giant at the slightest provocation. His eyes then narrowed. "Though after you knocked off my helmet, I should upgrade it to a frustration workout…"
The grey-haired hulk stood completely still, not daring to breathe too deep. "D-damn! I didn't realise Judges were so sensitive about their looks." he commented. "When I was first told you three would shove your heads up those metal buckets to the point we wouldn't see your eyes, I thought it was because you were all bald as a cueball..."
Urial started walking towards Aguilon "Not exactly, more like a matter of proper place. Whore-worshippers like you don't get to meet the gaze of the 'Three Who Judge Their Fates'. We just send you sinners down the Circles you're meant to," he bragged, feeling the fight was under complete control. "Since we're not at war, I won't send you to Cocytus, but in your case, I think I will send you to the First Valley, the pool of boiling blood, where you can burn for your anxiousness towards violence for all eternity with the rest of the thugs." He saw the man struggling not to laugh. "You think your end is… amusing?"
Aguilon cracked out a loud laughter. "The Boiling Blood Pool? HA, HA,HA,HA,HA! Yeah, I think it's hilarious! If that's the worst Hades can throw at me, I've got news for you, blonde boy…" he eyed Urial directly. "This human world you've thrown your back to has shown me far bigger horrors than that!"
As if to prove it, he then pressed his body against the strings, let out a huge roar and, gathered his unending bravery. He wrestled his arms straight on the razor sharp cords. Urial gasped. They cringed like pressed steel, unwilling to bend, and grinded through his skin, cutting inside flesh! Blood wettened the cords, removing their moonlight shine, but the huge man persisted to push against the array, closing his eyes and gritting teeth in pain as he fought to rid himself of them. The wires did not break, nor did they even fold, but the force of the man snapped them off their attach points one by one, forcing his way out of the trap and tossing the bunch of blood-soaked cords to the ground like metal bars.
The Judge stepped back in alarm, feeling the tension on his fingers ease, and watched the countless gashes now on the giant's unarmored skin parts let out poodles of red fluid. "You… those cords are nigh unbreakable, you're insane!"
Aguilon winced in pain, feeling his flesh torn all over, but inflated his chest, burned his cosmos and let out a rousing warshout "I AM HERACLES AGUILON, a WARRIOR and SAINT OF ATHENA!" His foot stomped the ground, shaking the whole forest, and his fists closed to resume the battle. His neck cracked, the silvery line of cosmos relaxed and a focused gaze locked itself on the Judge. "And you are a measly Judge, a self-righteous doomer of souls. I'd imagine a number of my old friends passed by your halls, so, trust me, Specter, I will enjoy beating the deaths of Ismaran soldiers and Arcadian villagers on you!"
This time, Urial was genuinely furious, if not by his cobweb being trashed, than by the challenge Heracles presented and the questioning of his virtue. "You think you can judge me, old man?" he asked. "You won't as much as defeat me! I have something to protect and it's not just my honor!" Urial's feet then suddenly dug themselves on the floor when his dark aura exploded, compressing the ground into a crater. "And your Saint friends… and the people of this earth are just sinners! Blind fools committing heresy and dooming themselves to hell, torturing the lives of humans with your wars! If I sent them to a Prison, I hope I can recall where they are so I can make you join them!"
Aguilon grunted. "A Specter feigning appreciation for life? That is just adorable… then what is it that you have to protect?"
Urial's aura tripled in size, causing the image of a Gryphon to appear above him. "A noble cause, the cleansing of this planet and the pride of the Specters! What about you, Saint? What do you protect? Your whore of a Goddess, the protective mother of decadence?! The gothic darkness of the Underworld will overrun the Earth and create a real Elysium! Towers will rise in place of your Temples and the corpses of your friends will litter their tops, showing the world what happens to human evil!" Suddenly, Gryphon's massive wings flapped and Urial jumped into the air, somehow gliding towards Aguilon despite the obvious weight of his armor!
Aguilon placed his arms in front of him for protection, but it was useless. Armored hands rushed past his defenses and grabbed his face with a monstrous force and lifted him above the ground only to slam the Saint back into it. A foot then tried to smash the floored Saint's back, but Aguilon rolled to the left, dodging the stomp. Aguilon tried to get up but a swirling body moved around his back and wrapped its arm over his neck, pushing the blade of the arm up his gasping throat.
Chocking the giant man down, Urial's enpowered arm squeezed mercilessly, feeling the gigantic body struggle for air. The Saint grabbed the Specter's wrist to move it away, but failed. Silver armored elbows started battering on Urial's chest plate but the Specter ignored them, seemingly not feeling any pain.
"Now go silent, giant warrior," whispered Urial, dotted with a beastly strength from his dark cosmos, as he tightened his grip on Aguilon's throat. The old man gasped in pain and asphyxiation. "This is all...for the survival of my people, the righteous heirs of Elysium! You're a strong fighter, Aguilon, but, unfortunately, you were in the wrong place at the wrong time…"
Heracles Aguilon failed to hear a single word the Specter said, as he was too focused on trying to survive. He kept on resisting, but his strength was starting to fail. His eyes started trying to close against his will and his lungs complained with the lack of air. The pressure on his throat...it was too painful!
"AAARGHHH!" Aguilon complained as his fist raised itself in the air. Urial widened his eyes as he felt an intense cosmos gathering from it as it flared up into a blue blaze! "H-Heracles...C-COMET FIST!" Light filled Urial's eyes, blinding him, when Aguilon's fist transformed into a small, blue, flaring sun which swung down and struck Urial's left forearm like a hammer, breaking metal and bone instantly!
The Judge roared horribly with pain as he dropped Aguilon to the floor. A small smoking crater marked the spot in his forearm protection that was hit by the Saint. "ARGH! Y-YOU old B-BASTARD! You broke my arm through my S-Surplice?!" The pain was incredible, the lingering blue cosmos burning on the grossly irradiated wound.
Aguilon coughed terribly as he felt air finally filling his lungs, but he wasted no time! He clumsily got up and attacked. "M-METEOR FIST!" The giant's fists filled Urial's Surplice with holes, punching through the thick chestplate segmentations to strike the abdomen before a final hit his face and the Specter was projected against a huge tree which somehow managed to resist the incredible impact. Urial fell down to the tree's roots and opened his eyes to see Aguilon charging his cosmos once more! He was going to finish him off! Urial had to do something!
Relentless, the right fist launched itself forward "Once MORE! METEOR FIST," and unleashed a net of blue meteors all aimed at Gryphon.
Urial stood up, left arm hanging due to being broken, and pointed the tip of his right hand fingers at Aguilon, "COSMIC MARIONATION!"
The Silver widened his eyes in shock when the meteors all scrambled into different directions with random movement patterns. Urial then waved his good hand at Aguilon and, to the Silver's added shock, all the blasts were directed at him. Aguilon was bombarded with his own attack, instantly flooring him.
Aguilon clumsily got up, feeling concentrated pain in every spot that was hit by his own Meteor Fist, the legendary invincible technique that had trashed countless enemies during the Civil War. "He...H-he controlled my meteors like puppets!"
Urial stood up, ignoring the massive pain he felt in his left arm, and once again pointed his fingertips at the Saint. Aguilon felt strings closing on every joint of his body and before he could do anything, the strings seemed to stretch, lifting him to the air and forcing his limbs to stretch as well.
"I never use this technique like this..." said Urial, "...because I think it's dishonorable and disgusting to torture an opponent like this! My predecessor would use it to inflict pain on the dead even before they were judged, but you give me no choice! I have to finish you off! Because you broke my arms, I think it's only fair I break one of yours!"
Urial clenched his ring finger, causing Aguilon's right arm joint to snap before the entire limb bent backwards!
Aguilon roared in pain! "AAHH! GODDAMN IT, IT HURTS!" he complained. "Gahhh! I broke your LEFT arm, you sick bastard! The least you could is break the left arm, as well! A-ARGH! How the hell I'm supposed t-"
"SHUT UP!" said Urial before his pinky clenched as well. All fingers of Aguilon's right hand then also bent backwards, twisting his hand into a horrible shape unintended by nature. Aguilon screamed louder with each finger. "Prepare yourself, Heracles Aguilon! Next up I shall cut off your head!"
Aguilon suddenly felt a string tighten around his neck! He gasped as he realized that, unless he did something, he was going to be a foot shorter. Urial's pinky finger started to close, and almost in sync so did Aguilon's throat start to tighten, his eyes closing with the pain. Aguilon forced them to open as much as he could and managed to look at his good, left arm.
Aguilon roared, charging his cosmos to the max as a blue aura erupted from him and twisted his body to the side so hard that the left arm bone dislocated and the limb slithered off the string hold. Urial staggered, caught off guard. "WHAT? NO!" and tried to catch the limb back in the strings but the giant just ripped off the rest with brute force again, stumbling off the hold to the ground.
Now with two injured arms, Aguilon, in a fit of physical prowess, flexed his chest muscles and pressed his body weight on his left side, popping the arm back into its socket. His head went dizzy with the pain and he put all of his cosmic power into that one limb.
"D-damn it, why won't you just die?!" Urial complained, recharging his energy to prepare his other move.
The Heracles didn't even entertain this stupid question. "Heh, heh, h-how about that? You fight an opponent a bit too difficult for you and you toss your honor outta window to use such a merciless technique!" he confronted, once again making the Specter doubt himself. "And you think you can judge the innocent? Y-ya need to work on those jokes, y-your Honor!"
"If you think you maiden f-fanatics can question-"
"F-Fanatics?! Us?" Heracles interrupted, honestly flabbergasted. "You worship the damn Reaper, son! Everything you serve is about punishing others with no self reflection on what you do. Saints of Athena fight to protect the Earth in spite of humankind's failings! All you've done was give up on that and pray for some God to burn it all away while you sit in your castle playing a violin! How is that any less than being a murderer?!"
The Judge paused. "... I… You fight to protect people that destroy each other and you're a fool for doing it!"
It didn't seem like the Specter would listen to reason. The injured giant raised chest, proud of his unbroken principles. "If Hades thinks I deserve to rot in his hell, then he can come to me himself. I will be the first to line up for punishment just so I can also be the first to sink this massive fist in his face!"
Wind began picking up around as Urial seemed more infuriated by Aguilon's differing opinion than impressed. His wings spread out its large feather-shaped segments and his aura incendiated.
"I don't have to listen to you! I'll just wipe out this entire valley and take you out along with it!" he claimed, sending the giant into alarm. Urial roared and tossed down his hands along with his wings. A line of speeding up currents encircled his body. "GIGANTIC FEATHER FLAP!"
It blasted out like a birthing hurricane, wiping away rubble, ground, fallen trees, standing trees and forcing Heracles to cross his arms in a block, taking the full force of the attack. The force struck his whole body like a real natural disaster, cracking his cuirass all over. Aguilon grunted in effort, feeling the currents trying to lift him off, but stomped the ground to anchor himself. In the midst of the struggle, however, Gryphon Urial glided toward him like an Underworld beast at him and punched his face, knocking him off the ground and allowed the currents to carry him off.
Heracles Aguilon screamed, spinning around the battlefield at the whims of the currents. Urial simply flew up above him, clasped his hands above his head and hammered them down on the giant, shattering the rest of his cuirass and shooting him straight at the ground, cratering the field.
His hand sweeped the air, causing the currents to shift trajectories to favor his flight. "You have no means left to defend yourself, Silver Saint! I can easily knock you around with my winds and leave you open for the kill!" Cords tainted with purple light wrapped around his fingers, prepared to be used as cutting strings. Urial roared and descended on his prey. "NOW TIME TO CUT OFF YOUR HEAD!"
But Aguilon's immensely heavy body got up and jumped straight back with a warcry, catching the Judge by surprise, and somehow managed to land a massive left punch against the currents on Urial as hard as he managed, flooring the Specter and causing the remaining winds to lose strength. As soon as Aguilon's feet touched the floor, he felt pain all over his right arm and grabbed it, not to mention the injured chest made him curl and wince.
Urial, maddened with rage, got up, his cosmos charged to the max! "Blasted Saint! I'll make you pay for this!" he threatened, making his black wings open up to reveal all of their magnificent beauty."If I can't cut or string you, I'll destroy you with another Gigantic Feather Flap!"
"Damn it! I'm fucking sick of this!" Aguilon thought. "I'll have to shoot him down with the meteors at this range!"
Wind started to flow all around Urial. The blonde Specter's dark aura erupted upwards, causing the eyes of a Gryphon to appear in them like a monstrous ghost bird. "Farewell, Silver Saint!" roared Urial, "GIGANTIC FEATHER FLAP!"
"HERACLES!" yelled Aguilon, launching himself forward. "METEOR FIST!"
Urial's wings flapped down, covering his body defensively and lashing out the tempest burst of wind. Aguilon transformed into a tunnel barrage of lightning-fast blue meteors, pushing the 7th sense to the limit and ramming the layers of feathered metal over and over through the blast with the accelerated lightspeed meteor shower of the strongest Silver Saint. Countless booms echoed against Urial's wings caving holes into dense metal. The Specter's feet dragged back with the force, before Aguilon reappeared behind Urial with his left fist stretched in the air, having delivered the last round.
The current of wings lashed around but... failed to destroy anything.
The Specter stumbled back, stunned. "W-what?" muttered Urial, suddenly feeling pain all over his body "W-what happened? I..I blocked the blows! My w-wings blocked the blows!"
Aguilon panted terribly as he turned around to face Urial's back.
Suddenly, countless large fist-shaped compressions sunk all over Urial's wings surface, cratering the armor. They cracked, connecting to one another, before a massive fissure opened up and the heavy, thick purple pieces popped out like popcorn, littering the ground. A second later, the two wings completely shattered into countless purple shrapnel that crashed on the dirt.
The rest of Urial's Surplice followed, revealing his casual clothes, a set of black jean pants, black shoes and dark-blue wool button shirt that formed a style of cold colors not atypical of Hades' army of nihilistic warriors. A silver-colored hand watch clinked on the ground, opening up to reveal an old picture of his parents, and a crucifix hanged around his neck, its links broken by the impacts of the final attack. His yellow hair flowed loose and his eyes turned to pale glass, overridden by pain and shock.
The Judge gasped and fell on his back, time resumed. The wind died down before blowing again into a more natural course, no longer manipulated by the Specter, signaling that the fight was over.
Breathing a triumphant sigh of relief, Aguilon held his injured arm and walked towards Urial. To his surprise, the Gryphon Surplice's shattered pieces suddenly turned into black dust and was blown away by the wind, a dark voice whispering as it vanished.
"I...I f-failed..." muttered Urial as the whites from his blue eyes burned red in regret. He tried to stay calm but the horror his loss meant to the others assailed him. "P-Pride Star forgive me… I have f-fallen…"
The Silver Saint had fought many wars, but thanks to the cycle particular to the conflict between Athena and Hades, he did not have much experience fighting Specters. Still, he imagined they would be more jubilant knowing their God would just resurrect them.
As such, Aguilon didn't understand a word the Specter was saying.
"H-how can I face you?..." Urial continued, speaking to an unknown. "Not only did I lose faith…I was beaten...by this Silver!...How?..."
"It sounds to me..." Aguilon answered, panting between words. "That you lost something important before our fight even began...I'd say that's why you lost!..."
"I...I don't understand..." Urial argued, desperate as blood started dripping from his wounds, his blue eyes looking up at the night sky "I...had someone...to protect!...The Specters… Torak...the cause...I had to protect these...W-why?"
But the giant took no pity, standing up tall to look down on the broken specter. "Maybe now you will understand the fear of death you and your men inspired in innocents. That you ever thought I was the bad guy here is beyond me, honestly... I'll take the women you were haunting back with me. I'm sure they'll have plenty of stories to tell me about why you lost your way, Judge."
The dying young man's hand reached out to the sky and closed, as if trying to grab one of the stars. He coughed out something in protest trying to speak. "The star… the N-Noble Star..."
Even if he had no direct experience, Aguilon was knowledgeable on enemy lore and instantly deduced what the Specter was referring to. The Celestial Star of Nobility was documented to be one of the three that protect Judges, and thus one of their most important astral bodies. Was the Judge now trying to recuperate strength through it or somehow enact some other ritual?
"In this sky, the Earth's sky, there are only the constellations which protect us Saints," explained Aguilon. "So I'm afraid you reach out to it in vain. Maybe its absence is why you lost."
The young man suddenly locked eyes with him, as if he had found a missing secret. "M-maybe... y-you're right… maybe I n-never earned its favor…" he mumbled out, almost disgusted, and began trying to get up! "And am I supposed to just accept that? Am I...No! A man can change his fate..."
Aguilon raised a tired brow, watching an unnatural strength return to his enemy.
Blood dripped from the Judge's lips as he pushed his back up a tree to straighten himself, not allowing the uncaring skies to be the last thing he would see. "...and the S-Specters… will be a-avenged! L-Lord Lucifer...I pray for your victory!...I k-know that...that you'll… you'll… aagh!..."
Whatever would have come out of his mouth was lost forever. Life left the Gyphon Judge for good and Aguilon was left staring at a person suddenly stiff and paling. Still half-bewildered, the Silver Saint grabbed the man's neck and sensed no pulse. He stood there for a good minute, staring in wonder at his enemy. Not knowing what to make of the Judge's last whispers, he simply closed the fallen man's eyelids respectfully. Maybe he would never find out what this strange raid was all about, but maybe he could get a few answers out of the two women he saved.
His eyes then lowered to the man's pocket to see an object inside that he promptly took out. Curious, he opened it, and saw to his amazement a spinning needle over a tarot design. "A compass? What in Ares' name…What the hell would he need this for?" The reason for his confusion was because most Saints would just use each other's signatures for positioning. He then saw the needle point southeast, where he originally dropped the girl off. "Now this is very interesting…"
{======================\(/\)/======================}
The next day
Peloponesia Fortress
{======================\(/\)/======================}
The iron palisades of the bailey cringed up loudly, letting the Heracles Saint through back with his men, returning from a second expedition to check the battle site. Sometime, during the night, the bodies of the fallen Skeletons and the Cyclops had their armors all stripped away by the same magic that made the Gryphon Surplice disappear, barring the Saints from collecting further evidence. The only thing he could do was go to the infirmary to check if either of the two women had woken up.
Making his way there, he met Cassiopeia Cynthia, whose folded blue-armored arms and masked stare made him worry. "Hi, Cynthia. How's the victims?"
The amazon checked inside the tent, where Eurydice wailed over an unconscious Cerah with Iaso, the former Ophiuchus Saint, now treating her.
"The woman woke up, but the teenager is in… dire shape. Iaso says he can treat her terrible wounds, but she might go into a coma anyway." She saw Aguilon's expression sadden. "You did everything you could do, big guy. You saved their lives. In fact, I should apologise, I treated you insensitively."
He waved his hand. "Water under the bridge."
She held her chin. "Also… wow, a Judge? Aguilon, I'm amazed…." she confessed. "Everyone in Sanctuary will be talking about your feat. Sometimes it's easy to forget you're not all talk."
His silver-colored eyebrow lifted. "You don't seem happy."
She moved her head up and down to accentuate her sigh through her mask. "It's because it's terrifying, too. What are Specters of that kind of rank doing so close to the edge of their lands?"
Having no answer, they walked inside, though Aguilon had to lower his head awkwardly to fit. "I was hoping those two could shed some light."
"By the way, Ionia says he's dropping the operation," she revealed, a hint of relief in her voice. "Bringing back a dead Judge seems to have more than made up against their attack on Ismara and Arcadia. I don't know if Hades will retaliate further, but at least on our side it seems the war dogs are satisfied. You might have stopped an escalation, old man."
"Eh, … that whole fight was iffy. Something tells me this ain't over, but we'll talk more later," he assured, getting to the Cerah's bed and addressing the blind woman. "I hope you don't mind, miss, but we all have a lot of questions."
Eurydice wiped the tears off her blackened eyes. "Y-yeah, of course…"
"Just don't harass my patient, or I'll inject you two with poison," threatened Iaso, a dick as usual.
"For starters…" began Cynthia, whose softer voice would make the panicked woman feel at home. "...just know we are not gonna harm you, but who are you and what were you doing in that forest?"
The beautiful blonde woman seemed unsure how to speak all of a sudden, making it obvious to the three Silvers that she was hiding something. Either that or she's never talked to Saints.
"W-we…" she managed to look at Cerah despite her blindness. "We are just villagers. We got taken to that a-awful castle and…" Eurydice hesitated again. What was she going to say to these people that she couldn't even see? As far she could tell, they could be holding weapons and giving her the mean look. How many were there even around her? The back and forth of cosmos was so confusing that she couldn't tell. "U-ummm…"
"She seems obviously traumatized," noted Cynthia. "What about her blindness?"
"It's likely a curse." Iaso flatly explained, getting their quizzical attention. "Trust me, her eyes are completely intact, but they're filled to the brim with a cosmos I've never seen before. This poor woman was robbed of her sight by someone with supernatural powers. I can't do anything to help her."
With new sympathy, Cynthia knelt next to the woman and tried to calm her down by holding her hands. The soft touch seemed to relax her. "Are you two with Sanctuary? One of our villagers?" she asked, to which the woman hesitantly nodded. Cynthia glanced over her shoulder. "Hey Alexis, come here!"
A red-haired foot soldier that was helping one of the doctors turned her head back and ran over. "Y-yes, Miss C-Cynthia?"
She still hadn't gotten over her own shock, apparently, but now that Ionia had put an armor on her body, the poor girl wouldn't see peace anytime soon. "Do you recognize these two?"
Alexis stared at the two attentively. The one asleep in the bed with all the gauze and IV kinda looked like some of the girls her age that died back in Arcadia, but the young recruit was absolutely sure she had never seen them. The older, blind woman, however, somehow stared at her with such intent.
"Please… I'll do anything!" Alexis suddenly heard inside her head, startling her. She realised that Eurydice was speaking directly to her mind and widened her green eyes in amazement. "We can't tell them why, but if we say we want to go to Sanctuary they'll never let us. You don't know us, but… have mercy."
Alexis suddenly felt a weight in her heart, exacerbated only by the sudden staring of three Silver Saints, including the mean doctor Iaso and the gigantic one she had never seen but terrified her with his scars and brutal look. She pondered what to do, pretending to look back and forth between the two women as if making sure of something.
"I…" she started, hesitating. Should she lie? Saint Cynthia had been nothing but a godmother to her, protecting her from that bastard Ionia.
Eurydice heard her falter. "I beg of you… My friend needs help urgently, we are trying to get away from the Specters." this last detail seemed to touch Alexis in particular, making her gulp. "We just want to be safe from them…"
Foot soldier recruit Alexis felt like she was making the biggest mistake of her life… but she, more than anyone, knew the terror of Hades' army. "... Y-yeah, I know them. They used to visit my place." she revealed, causing a miscellanea of reactions from surprise, to curiosity, to the masked Cynthia just staring at her suspiciously. "I don't know their names, but my parents did… it was a long time ago."
Iaso signed his name on the chart and threw it at the patients. "I guess that's that, I can sign them off as refugees. Hurray, more medicare to crave off the Chief."
"If that's the case, we'll be moving you into Sanctuary. You don't have to feel in danger anymore," assured Cynthia.
Eurydice cried and clumsily hug the Amazon in relief. "Oh, thank you, thank you, I'm so happy!" she assured. "But my friend…"
Iaso irked, shoving hands inside medcoat pockets and listening to the beeps. "Look, I'm afraid I'll have to keep an eye on her for a looong time. Those Specter sonsabitches did a number on her. I'll transfer the patient to Rodario, where you can visit Miss Cerah," he then touched the Cyrulian's skinned knuckles. It could be from some sort of struggle, but any Saint would first associate these to punching. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say she tried to fight them back. Must be the stress, plus the dozens of people I have scheduled for me today. Goddess, do I need a smoke..."
Being reminded of Cerah's valiant effort only served to drive the Nymph further into tears. She made sure to look in Alexis' direction as best as she could. "Thank you, I'll never forget what you did for us, I promise."
Alexis' heart melted and her shy face turned away.
With all the happiness being exchanged back and forth, Heracles Aguilon decided not to ruin it by bringing up the compass he found. He made sure to check it again discreetly and, Goddess-be-damned, the needle stopped right again pointing exactly in the older woman's direction. All his instincts told him to confront Eurydice about it, but the woman looked so utterly delicate and harmless, not to mention her afflicted blindness, that even his grizzly mind could not get past the cruelty of ending her relief by having every high ranking Saint interrogating her.
"Stinks to high heaven, doesn't it?" Iaso asked, noticing the look on the giant's face.
He exchanged a look with the brown-haired doctor that transmitted between them that they shared similar suspicions. Memorising the names of the two women, Aguilon made a mental note to keep an eye on the two, especially as they made their new life in Rodario.
{======================\(/\)/======================}
Meanwhile,
Underworld, Second Prison...
{======================\(/\)/======================}
"He's...dead?" asked Behemoth Torak, filling his throat dry and eyes swell up.
"Yes..." Lucifer muttered back, seemingly ashamed.
Nasu Erika eyed the confrontation nervously, trying to ignore Cerberus' barking in the background. Lucifer had decided to move the reunions to the Second Prison because the place was famous for being the only one Hades didn't eavesdrop on, on account of Cerberus' incessant gargling and howling. They stood amidst the Egyptian halls of one of the Prison's many interior mazes, where the greedy dead would be hunted down by the Anubis creatures, and Lucifer had called Torak to inform him of his mentor's demise.
"This cannot be easy for him, Urial meant the world to this guy," she assumed.
"Who...who did it?" Behemoth Torak demanded to know.
Lucifer squinted his red eyes. "What do you intend to do with the information?"
Torak lost his mind and punched the yellow ground as hard as he could, making the entire hall shake and disturb the wailing coyotes stalking the darkness. "I will D-DESTROY THE CULPRIT! AND EVERYONE OF HIS ZODIAC IN ALL OF BLASTED SANCTUARY!" Torak vowed, anger and tears mixed in his face. "Tell me! LORD Lucifer, I implore you, let me know!"
Lucifer stood undisturbed by the tantrum. "Nasu?"
"All I know is that it was the Heracles Saint," she revealed, getting Torak's angry eyes on her. "It was… a Silver Saint, so I assumed naturally Judge Urial had it under control."
"You were there?!... And you let him DIE?!" Torak roared, walking up to her.
"Nasu did her job!" Lucifer interrupted, threatening the Behemoth with a mere look that he would annihilate him at the slightest sign of misbehaviour. He then inhaled sadly and admitted the truth. "But I was the one gave her incomplete orders. Therefore, it's my fault!... This is an irreparable loss! Urial's death will change everything about my plans for war."
Torak rubbed his tearful eyes and walked away, wanting a few seconds to himself. "Lord Urial...is dead? Killed in action by a Saint of Athena?" Torak covered his mouth in horror. "L-lord Lucifer!..." he muttered "I will defeat him! Whomever did this, I WILL defeat him!" Torak enforced. He then walked towards Lucifer and knelt before him "Lord Lucifer! My master trusted you! He shared your ideals! Therefore...to honor him, I pledge my absolute obedience to you, the Celestial Star of PRIDE... in exchange for an opportunity to avenge Lord Urial!"
Lucifer hesitated. He was disappointed and even saddened with what happened to Urial, but there was a small part of him that thanked the heavens that he didn't manage to capture Eurydice. If Torak was willing to defeat the man who ruined his plan while, at the same time, become an extremely loyal servant, who was he to complain?
Even so, the fact that the strongest New Specter was defeated like this alarmed him.
"Alright, Behemoth Torak," answered Lucifer. "You shall have your chance! I will take you under my wing as a servant, but on one condition: I want you to tell me how Urial found Eurydice."
The two Specters enclosed around Torak, who revealed everything about how Hypnos entrusted Urial with a compass that detected souls of purity, and Daemon Lucifer nodded along, knowing, by the Gods, that his plans might have now gained a chance to advance significantly!
{======================\(/\)/======================}
Chapter End
{======================\(/\)/======================}
Next Chapter: Second (name to be revealed later) Arc – Dawn of a Generation
Description: Months after the events of the Eighty Eight Knights Festival and Priam's attack on the Pope, the many figures of Sanctuary continue to live their lives in service to Athena, and the Gold Saint of Cancer must continue to help the new generation in their first few months in power. Meanwhile, Andromeda Shinta is informed that Andromeda Island will have two new inhabitants and the leader of the Saintias is apparently upset with him.
Author's Note: And with this the 1st Side Story of LR ends and we can finally get on to move to the second arc of the story, which shall not be named as of yet to avoid certain spoilers. In both the original versions and in this current one, this is where the plot will depart from setting up LR's environment and characters and start telling a more progressive story, focused on unraveling the conflicts of the pre-Saori age.
This chapter ended up particularly inflated. This was because pretty much every scene planned for it took longer to describe and write than expected. In the future, I will attempt an effort to consolidate and improve my technique further and maybe my narrations won't push the scenes to the tens of thousands of words so often anymore.
The trade off is that I guess I managed to tie all loose ends of this Side Story here, now. Looking back, I also improved immensely the dynamics, dialogue, characterisation and etc, so maybe the word count was worth it. Hopefully, and the old readers will probably already guessing why I am afraid, the second arc won't prove such a 'fertile ground' for extensive corrections that lead to massive chapters.
I'm actually a bit unsure about the description and title of the next chapter, and this is because I haven't completely decided how I'm going to organize the revamp of early Arc 2. It's a bit of a mess in the original version and it contains a very important scene that will set off the whole Arc, so I need to plan things carefully and my summer job will rob me of time to do it.
Finally, make sure to check out Hitagi Gahara's SKD scanlations of Next Dimension, Saintia Sho and others. The writer of this fanfic is proofreader of Saint Seiya Next Dimension's English releases and they're your current top source for high quality scanlations in English. Also, if you're interested, contact me through PM and get an invitation to the new SKD Discord server, where you can get updates on Sho and ND directly, not to mention chat with me and many other english-speaking SS fans.
