When Deva ended her dimensional jump, the force of the impact was unusually big and Arima was sent flying toward a certain planet. He couldn't stop the fall for some reason and crashed on the surface of the small planet.
Layla and Karma fell after him and Arima's eyes widened. The two girls both landed on his belly and reopened some of his closing injuries.
"Hey!" He shouted and they both apologized immediately.
"{What is this place? It's kinda hot,}" Night remarked while Arima was holding his abdomen. The black dragon grunted and looked up to see the sun illuminating them with a strong light.
Arima squinted his eyes. "There's no planet between here and the sun. This must be Mercury. The lack of atmosphere is another proof," he said and stood up. "At least we're on the correct solar system," he uttered.
"What happened? It's surprising that Deva would make a mistake," Layla asked as she looked at Deva.
"That'd be my fault," Arima said. "I died in this world before so my soul has been crossed out. I had to force my way through. Fortunately, thanks to my Resonance with Night, it went way better than it should have," he explained and sighed. "Well, there's also the fact that the magic circuits are still immature around here," he added and spotted a few flashes of light coming from his left.
He smirked and flapped his wings. He slowly ascended and went toward the slightly more hidden face of Mercury. He halted there and looked around. There were at least ten spacecraft pointing their lights and weapons at him. Layla and Karma soon followed him and exclaimed in surprise when they saw that.
The humans inside those ships were very confused but also extremely panicked.
"Send those images to Aurorae and ask them to deploy vessels with Eion artillery! Now!" One of the captains shouted to his subordinates. He stared at the smirking dragon through the glass and shuddered.
"What is happening these days?" He muttered with a sunken expression. "Monsters appearing everywhere on Earth and Mars, children awakening with supernatural abilities… and now a damn dragon falling on Mercury!" He already had a headache.
"Huh?" A member of the crew raised his voice when he saw something on the monitor. He closed in and gazed at the screen's corner before gaping. "Sir! Look at this!" He shouted after recovering his senses.
The captain came over to him with a tired face and looked at the screen. His eyes widened as he admired two stunning women standing on the dragon's shoulders.
"What… how can there be such beautiful women in this world…" He muttered and his crew scowled at him. "I mean," he coughed "How can they survive there?" He restated with a solemn tone. "Mercury is facing the sun, the temperature should be around 500 kelvins."
"523 K actually," someone corrected him and the captain glared at him then rubbed the corner of his eyes.
"Let's try to communicate with him. He didn't attack us in any way until now. Maybe he has some way of communicating," the captain ordered and everyone nodded.
As they were about to send an optic message, a voice went through the walls of their ships and entered their ears. "You all… have you forgotten me?"
Everyone quivered when they heard this. The first reason was that a dragon had just spoken their language. The second reason was that his voice spread in the void and went through their hull.
The last reason only concerned certain people; the oldest soldiers such as the commander of the fleet. His face revealed unconditional fear, respect, and obvious incredulity. It was the same for the other seniors on the other ships.
The voice they had just heard echoed several times in their heads. It was one that they both feared and adulated when they were younger. Although it was rougher than what they remembered, his manner and the words he had said were enough to convince them.
Arima's smile widened and they stepped back. 'Arimane Blade!' They shouted inwardly.
"Type this on your console: XK85OPL8: B.A.N," Arima instructed and everyone clearly heard his words. And, strangely, they couldn't take it out of their heads. Even if they had only heard that code once, they perfectly remembered as if they had studied it for hours.
"Do it! Quick!" All the captains rushed their crew to input that combination. When they did so, every screen on the ship displayed the letters B, A, and N. Everyone stood up to look at it. The three letters were arranged vertically on the screen.
Beside each letter, new characters appeared. The first letter, B, formed 'Blade Arimane' with the others. At this point already, everyone felt light-headed. The second one, A, formed 'Agein Haze'. Once again, everyone held their breath. Haze was well known as the second leader of Aurorae, the 'Empire' that Arimane Blade had built.
The last one was 'Nivus Jin', the current leader. The captains fell back on their seats. The screen then showed a huge text to finally arrive at this:
Administrative code accepted. Bypass every command. Diffusion of the signal. Voice control engaged. Welcome back, Arimane Blade. ||
***
Back on Earth, an old man was working on a small computer, which was powerful enough to connect all servers of the city, when a message suddenly appeared on his screen. The moment he saw B.A.N, his pupils dilated. He instantly looked up at the source.
He then found the images of the giant dragon. He started laughing. "I'd recognize that smirk of yours anywhere. Seriously… it's already quite something that you're back under the world's eyes but… as a mythological creature of all things?" He laughed even louder until a nurse came in to check on him.
"I'm okay," the man waved his hand. "Notify the garage; I want a capsule to be prepared within five minutes."
"Yes, Sir." The nurse bowed and quickly exited the room. Jin gazed at his screen and observed the dragon. He snickered then pressed on the button on his chair after ordering everyone to remain on standby. The chair lighted up with a blue light and he quickly went to the garage of the building.
***
"B.A.N, bring these ships back to the mother base," Arima ordered and the administrative program recognized his voice. It immediately took control of all the ships, even those who had not typed the code earlier, and forced them to go back to the MB.
All of those crafts were Eion propelled and arrived extremely fast to their base on Mars. They all landed together with Arima. Everyone inside instantly rushed out while the dragon watched them from above.
Only the higher graded, the ones who had met Arima once before, saw him on TV or even at a meeting, saluted the huge beast and greeted the two women who had already jumped off from his shoulder. As for Deva, she was left behind on Mercury because she had already fallen asleep. She seemed to like the heat of the sun.
Mars had become a planet for military storage. Thus, Arima was completely surrounded by Eion weapons at the moment. But he wasn't scared because, not only it wouldn't do anything to him, the program, and AI, B.A.N was a hidden countermeasure for the leaders of Aurorae. B.A.N would prevent any weapon connected to the network to fire against one of the registered leaders.
Arima sighed and sat down with great care. He didn't want to use too much power and destroy the base accidentally.
"{What are we waiting for?}" Night asked.
"Jin," Arima answered shortly and Layla was the only one who recognized the name. "He's a friend. I just checked. He's now at the top of Aurorae, the organization I built. He should be here soon."
"But why do we need to wait for him here? Can't we just go see him?" Karma was next. She asked quite earnestly but she was still looking around at the base curiously.
"I don't really want to barge into the city while I'm still a dragon. I'm quite confident in controlling my strength. But in this body, even with my highest level of restraint, I could still destroy a district by just walking," Arima shrugged.
"That's tough," Layla commented and Arima nodded. "I can go fetch him for you if you want," she added and Arima's eyes widened.
"True. You know who he is. Go ahead."
Layla smiled and nodded. "I'll be right back," she declared and disappeared. The soldiers in the base tensed when they saw her vanish like that. Then, they almost fainted when they saw her reappear with Jin in a wheelchair.
The latter was gawking at Layla. It happened so fast he still couldn't believe it. He was inside a spatial capsule to go meet Arima on Mars when a heaven-shattering beauty abruptly greeted him out of nowhere and said she would take him to Arima.
She didn't even wait for an answer and brought him with her immediately. "What…?" Jin shook his head to clear it up then spotted Karma. He was captivated again for a little while but then redirected his gaze upward.
When he was finally able to see Arima's face, his neck was already hurting. He was silent for a moment. "…seriously?" He garbled and the dragon stopped himself from laughing. He could have brought some damage to this place if he had.
"Yeah," he replied calmly and Jin sighed.
"Where were you these last few years?"
"Few years? Was it that long?" Arima tilted his head and Jin nodded. "Well, maybe there was little shift in time. Basically, I went to another world, got into a little skirmish between Heaven and Hell, and ended up as what you're seeing right now. But it should only be temporary. I don't want to stay as a dragon forever," he answered in one breath and Jin stared at him with deadpan eyes.
"It's so unbelievable I can't even retort," Jin sighed. "Letting the fact that you are accompanied by two beauties aside, which annoys me a lot since because of you I was single for my whole life, do you know anything about the strange creatures appearing on Earth and Mars?"
Arima ignored the rant in the middle and smiled. "Yeah, I'm partly responsible for their creation," he answered and Jin's mind bugged. "Well, let's say that I couldn't stop it in time."
Jin groaned and rubbed his temples. "I'm old you know. I get headaches pretty quickly," he grumbled. "Just to be sure, how strong are you right now?"
"I'm strong enough to destroy the entire solar system if I wanna," Arima responded bluntly and Jin just laughed at it.
"I didn't expect less from you," he smiled. "Anyway, I'm thankful that you chose to stay here rather than provoke even more panic down there. I'm sure you came here for a reason, right? What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to bring me the biggest 'Eion System' you have."
"The biggest 'System'?" Jin pondered. "Do you mean the two biggest poles we have?"
"Yes," Arima nodded.