Pandora looks a little concerned as Icarus is about to face off against Ichiko, the warrior dog. "Guuuuuys? Do you REALLY need to do this?" She asks a little concerned before Ichiko rushes forward, sword between his teeth.

"I am a good dog! I WILL protect the humans!" He growls swinging his blade at Icarus with a full body spin, Icarus leaning out of the way just in time.

"Woah!" Icarus steps back a few paces. "He's fast. I guess dogs are quick," Icarus flaps his wing a little, rolling back his shoulders as Ichiko rushes in again. "Bring it then, pup," Icarus punches at the air, his charred wing shooting forward as well like an extension of his arm, stabbing at Ichiko, who jumps over the strike with a surprisingly high leap, twisting his head to come down with a strong cleave, Icarus throwing up his arm to block, his wing following suit, the sword clashing with the metal wing-bone, and Ichiko slides off, leaping off Icarus to land behind him. But Icarus is swiftly in the air, leaping backwards, flapping his wing for extra speed landing a solid kick on Ichiko before he can land sending the dog tumbling into the ground. Icarus lands rather gracefully and hears growling from all around. "Hey! It's a fight! I'm allowed to hit my opponent!" He tries and rubs the back of his head. "It did not feel great though. Are you okay?" he calls out to Ichiko who stands up and shakes the dirt off.

"Arf!" He barks, his tail happily waggling. "You're so nice, showing concern for me! I'm fine! Thanks thanks thanks, winged human!" He picks his sword back up. He gets into a rather low stance. DOG-SWORD STYLE: TAIL CHASE! He springs forward at an impressive speed, spinning around himself midair like he's chasing his own tail, the sword in his mouth forming a deadly tornado of sorts, Icarus leaping into the air to avoid it, but Ichiko simply takes his own leap mid-spin to chase him, striking at him with his sword, being blocked by the metallic wing skeleton again, the two breaking contact and landing away from each other before running in again. Icarus tries swatting Ichiko out of the way with his wing, but Ichiko ducks under it with his whole body, followed by an impressively executed backflip, having swifted his sword-grip to be straight on making the backflip double as a slash for Icarus' chest, Icarus falling back to avoid it, Ichiko gracefully landing and switching his sword to his normal grip and Icarus looks a little shocked.

"You're… good?" Icarus says and Ichiko suddenly leaps forward, Icarus' eyes widening that he'd attack him while he's down. However hearing the clang of Ichiko dropping his sword he instead feels the giant ball of fluff landing on top of him, and his coarse tongue licking his face. "H-hey! OI! Aaaaaargh!" He laughs a little as Ichiko's tail waggles like crazy.

"Thank youuuuuu! I am a good boy! I knew you'd see!" He barks at Icarus getting off of him to run around in circles, Icarus shaking his head looking a bit shocked. "I did it everyone!" Ichiko calls out the other dogs howling in applause.

Pandora walks up to Icarus. "Are you okay Icarus?"

Suddenly Icarus spins and angrily points at Pandora. "I didn't lose alright!?" He declares and Pandora jumps a bit.

"Huh? Well it wasn't really about winning or losing was it?"

Icarus pulls his hood up and blushes a bit as he puts his wing over his mouth. "G-guess not…"

Pandora grins a little and nudges him. "Embarrassed are we?"

"Yeah what about it?" Pandora laughs and Icarus feels a little better hearing her laugh. "Haven't seen you this happy… ever. Was it fun to watch me fight a dog?"

Pandora smiles and squats down to pet Ichiko who happily sits almost puffing his chest out proudly for a few seconds, before rolling onto his back for belly-rubs. "Not that in particular but I just love being here,"

Sakai walks up and also pets Ichiko a little. "Pandora I must say… your choice for Ichiko to fight shocked me a lot. But I am sure you know something I do not,"

Pandora smiles. "I do! But… it's still a bit of a gamble. Think you can handle it boy?" She asks and Ichiko rolls onto his feet and barks.

"YES! I will help the humans with my all!" He smiles and his tail waggles, Pandora smiling and scratching him behind the ears.

"That's the spirit! Good boy!" She smiles to Sakai. "Well Sakai… it's been lovely. Can me and Icarus just… hang out for a while?"

Sakai laughs. "Of course. Any friend of the dogs is a friend of ours. Stay as long as you'd like."

The two Greek figures begin strolling through the forest, which is essentially a giant dog-park it seems. Icarus puts his hands in his hoodie-pockets. "So… Ichiko? I'm not saying he's weak… he took me by surprise a few times but… fighting a god?" He asks and Pandora nods.

"I believe in Ichiko! His willpower will carry him further than any other dog! And he's also half wolf! So he's stronger than most as well!" Pandora says excitedly and Icarus sighs.

"I guess I can agree that he's one of the strongest dogs in the world. But… why not pick another human?"

Pandora grins happily. "You'll see! I'm sure of it! Ichiko has what it takes!"

Icarus sighs. "I guess there's nothing I can say to change your mind anyway," He looks at the sky. Picking a dog? So stupid! There's no way Ichiko can defeat a god! Is this her way of sabotaging Ragnarok for the gods!? "So why're we still here? Shouldn't we keep going?"

Pandora picks up a stick and weakly throws it, several dogs chasing after it. "Well I know who I want the rest to fight already from talking to the ones we already talked to. I have a plan now!" She says as the dogs bring back the stick.

"That's… good to hear. So you want to… relax?"

Pandora and Icarus approach another opening, this one with a pond and clear sky. "Yeah," She sits down and Icarus follows suit. "I'm still worried you know?" She hugs her knees a bit. "It's scary. To have this much pressure put on me. And every time someone… loses… it's my fault. So I need to just… think about something else sometimes."

Icarus looks over the pond as well. "Well there's no way someone can win EVERY fight. Even Brunhilde who had a fully laid plan going into this, only won seven out of thirteen fights. If that makes you feel better."

Pandora rests her chin on her knees, looking into the water. "It doesn't. I'm still sending good people to their deaths," Tears slowly begin forming in her eyes. "It's awful… I'm awful."

Icarus sighs and lays back gently nudging Pandora onto her back with his wing as well. "Well… then you have a lot in common with the rest of humanity if you think that. Cause they also think you're awful."

"That's… not very nice to say, Icarus,"

"You also want humanity to survive more than anything. You think humans are amazing. You trust humans. Humans all think that stuff too. You have a dream. Humans are built on dreams. So as far as I can see…" He pauses a bit. "You're pretty human…" He thinks a bit to himself. She's human huh? That can't be right…

Pandora laughs a little, pulling Icarus' wing over herself like a blanket. "Thank you Icarus. I… I'm really grateful to you, you know? You're the first person who trusted me. When I was starting this journey I thought I'd have to do it all alone but you showed up, and when Ivar burst in you were even ready to protect me. Thank you," She smiles over at him Icarus blushing a bit, but he can't cover his face with his wing this time.

"You're welcome," The two lie in silence for a bit before they simply chat about nothing whatsoever, a few of the dogs around having taken up spots around them to nap while they look up at the night sky.

-Near Babel-

"Zzzzzzzzz… Zzzzzzzz…"

"Awaken, Houdini," Benkei says stoically as Babel is coming over the horizon in the distance, the two of them flying in a divine express. Houdini is lying with his hat over his face, snoring rather loudly.

He jolts awake and stretches. "Perfect timing. I was JUST done with that dream-storyline. I was-"

Benkei glares down at him. "Dreams are but mindless fiction. There is little interest in talking about them. The only dreams a man should concern themselves with are their aspirations."

Houdini sighs and waves his hand. "Fine fiiiiine. Hey driver? How long until we're there?" He asks and the driver gulps, sitting with Benkei's massive naginata at his throat.

"Not much longer. You're not going to get away with this, you know? Thoth will tear you to shreds!"

Houdini smiles happily. "Lucky you then. We won't be a bother much longer."

"What are we after at Babel? You have been most uninformative. Benkei does not appreciate this."

Houdini laughs loudly, slapping his knee. "Well where's the fun in spoiling the grand reveal!?" The chariot lands in front of Babel and Houdini leaps out rather gracefully. He tosses a metallic card at a parked chariot and it sticks into the dashboard. It looks a lot different to the one they arrived in. More Egyptian than Greek and it is not pulled by horses. "Big Benkei. I'll take point, alright? The less attention we attract the better after all,"

"..." Benkei squints his eyes as Houdini strolls up to Babel's front door. "The less attention? You will do no such thing."

Houdini suddenly SWINGS the doors open. "GREETINGS, BABEL! Can any of you point me to the reception. There are some things I want to check out of the library!" He declares as all work in Babel stops instantly, as the sphinx's all glare down at him.

"A human!?" A particularly bulky sphinx says floating down in front of him. "Such a little pipsqueak too. Get the FUCK out of Babel right this instant. Your human mind cannot possibly comprehend the value of even the simplest scripture in this place!"

Houdini drops to his knees suddenly, clasping his hands together as the sphinx raises a giant fist. "Oh no! Oh by the gods! PLEASE! Don't attack me!" He cries. "You will surely die if you do!"

"It is YOU who will die!" The sphinx hammers his gigantic fist down onto Houdini but finds it getting stopped by something.

"Right. I'll just be heading this way," Houdini says twirling his staff, walking along the edge of the bookshelves, running a hand along the books.

The Sphinx looks at what stopped his fist seeing Benkei standing there, the sphinx having struck him directly over his head, but he didn't even budge. "What the!?" He strikes Benkei again, but it does nothing to the bulky man.

"This is why you brought Benkei, Houdini? Such a trivial matter…" Benkei mutters as the sphinx really attempts his best to make Benkei move, but he just… doesn't.

"Well coming here WITHOUT a bodyguard seems a bit ill advised."

"What is this commotion?" A voice suddenly booms from above as a bookshelf comes floating down carrying who else but Thoth and Giza, who is hiding behind Thoth's leg. "... Houdini… who else would be foolish enough to break into Babel to steal information? I assume you high-jacked a divine chariot to even get here."

Houdini grasps at his heart. "Why I never. The accusations!"

Thoth looks over at Benkei who has practically tired the giant sphinx out without moving at all. "And I see you brought… that thing as well,"

Houdini blinks a few times. "Thing? A bit rude. Just because he's a bit simpler than you and I?"

"You know nothing it seems. What do you want?"

Houdini picks a book off the shelf labeled 'the invention of the steam engine', flipping through a few pages. "Oh you know… just looking for some information. Oooooh. Now this is interesting," He puts the book back.

"Something that would help you in your upcoming battle of Ragnarok no doubt. Leave. You will not be allowed to take ANYTHING from Babel! I will not allow it!" His arm glows up with hieroglyphs floating off of him.

Houdini puts the book back, purposely in the wrong spot and walks further along. "There's so much interesting stuff here though. Lookie here. The complete history of the Duat volume 6. Is this the one BEFORE or AFTER Ra takes over your precious home?" He opens it up. "Hmmm… after it seems. Oof. Over 30 volumes and he's already in charge in book 6? Talk about a pacing issue."

Thoth swings his arm, his book flying down, knocking the book out of Houdini's hands and pinning him to the wall, driving him up the wall to a higher shelf, a sphinx grabbing the book he just sent flying. "I don't think you quite understand what it is you're dealing with. Your attempts to rile me up are for naught. I will not be shaken simply from Ra's name being mentioned,"

Houdini grits his teeth feeling the book pressing harder and harder against his chest. "Well I figured that to be honest! So tell me Thoth. Just to be sure… you guys wouldn't happen to have a little book I've been thinking about… Where is…" He smirks. "The Necronomicon?" Thoth's eyes widen as he drops Houdini back onto the bookshelf, Benkei stepping up to him.

"HOW!? No human should know of that book's existence!"

Meanwhile back in his room, Cthulhu's head jerks up. "Hmm? The… Necronomicon…?"