The day was now Tuesday, July 19th, 2214. The morning air had a chill in it as the day slowly grew hotter, and the morning sun shone over the trees in the distance. Ares and Loki stood outside of the crater Naris made in Omnium Guild. Loki seems to have a very rugged looking metal prosthetic arm that seemed to be covered in endo flowing from himself. They waited quietly and patiently for Siran and his crew. "I expected more of you to come." Ares says in a disappointed tone. "Where are the rest?"
"They didn't come." Siran replies calmly. "There's no reason to involve more people in this than should be involved."
Ares sighs, then says "You've always made everything harder than it needed to be. Did you know that, Ishmael?"
"Good." Siran replies. "And I'm no longer Ishmael."
"Hmph..." Ares grunts as he gets ready for a fight. "I'm disappointed you didn't at least bring the kid. He could've still proven useful."
"What's the plan of attack?" Vivi asks quietly.
"Loki is their strongest." Siran says. "As well as I was only able to remove one of his arms last time when I tried sending him back to Valhalla."
"Send him back to Valhalla?" Alex asks. "They can just come back."
"Not without Ares, it seems." Zia adds. "Loki has been able to open portals himself before, but I think whatever device they used to open those portals, Loki doesn't have access to that now. He's been following Ares everywhere. I believe Ares is the only one who can open those portals now."
"But didn't Siran open a portal during that fight with Naris?" Alex asks. "And again when fighting Loki? He just said he tried to send him back."
"I think I can only open to a pocket dimension." Siran says. "I don't even know if it's in Valhalla. But its caused from breaking a distortion spell with reactive endo."
"You keep talking as if I'm not here..." Ares says unenthusiastically. "Portal? Siran? You mean that white void thing he created when he removed Foxhound's arm?" Siran and the others turn to face Ares who stands back up straight, sets his hands in his pockets and says "I guess before we end this, it would be fair if I fill some people in. For starters, Siran can't open a portal. That must be the theist gate they mentioned in those documents and in Siran's silly little book."
"Why should we trust anything you say?" Siran asks.
"Because, no matter how you look at it, today is the end." Ares replies. "What use would it be to lie to you now of all time? Besides, lying was never my thing. That was Dolos's thing. I like unraveling a little mystery myself. It goes hand and hand with my mind control ability." The rest of the team tenses up briefly. "Don't overreact like that. It only works when I pour my endo into you. Such a task would only be viable had I already defeated you and planned to recruit you. Which I don't. Today is the day either you all die... or I die."
"You don't sound very confident..." Zia says.
"Then listen well before I wipe that smirk off of your face." Ares says. "That white void they called the theist gate was a... sort of pocket dimension like Siran said earlier. A rift. This rift was created specifically by Gaia though, when she was alive. If I had to guess, Siran has access to it because he holds a shard of Gaia in himself. Ishmael, Inari, Silas... they all do. Had anyone else opened a pocket dimension like that using his foolish method, it would've ended up exploding in their face. Of course, we have the means to travel to Valhalla. Actual Valhalla. Not some void-like prison that Gaia was stuck in. The means, of course, is right here." Ares shows a hexagonal metal trinket that fit in his pocket. It was made out of gold with a silvery metal in the center and a charm carved onto it. The trinket had a loop on the top that had a thin chain connected to it that Ares held it by when he pulled it out of his pocket. Ares put the device back in his pocket as he says "Of course, you can attempt to take it from me. However, if you hadn't known before, the immortal realm is not meant for mortals. Stepping one foot into Valhalla results in instant death. Of course, if you don't believe me, you're free to try. All you have to do it take it from me."
"Wait, you mentioned Gaia being in a prison?" Siran asks.
"Who knows why she was there?" Ares shrugs. "I don't care. I heard she put herself there. I can't help you there." The look on Ares's eyes seemed unusually emotionless as he explained these things. "I'm simply here for my own survival. Nothing more, nothing less."
"You sure have a funny way of surviving." Siran scoffs. "Doing all this, beginning all these fights, sparking all of these wars and then inviting us to kill you? How does that make you survive?"
Ares shakes his head slowly and says "Your ignorance truly makes me envious. If you really think you're capable of killing me, then try it. Because if you don't stop me here, your children are next."
"Right, that settles it!" Rose says as she prepares to fight. "I'm going for the red haired one."
"I'm going to help with Loki." Zia says. "Benjie, you stay back and offer support where you can. Mikoto and Satomi, help protect Benjie and pull anyone out of danger if things look bad."
"Got it." Mikoto agrees.
"You heard them..." Ares says to Loki. "Kill Ishmael and Inari first. I'll handle the rest."
Siran and Zia rush at Loki. Siran released his shapeshift and returned to his cursed appearance to reserve energy. As Siran gets close, Loki throws a strong wind spell that slows down Siran as he braces himself to withstand the wind. Zia gets close to Loki and Loki raises his left hand and fires a quick flash of reactive endo at Zia's head. Zia dodges the attack and grabs Loki's arm, twisting it and jump to plant her right foot directly into Loki's face. Loki grabs her foot with his other hand and then three strong impacts hit Loki in the stomach, causing him to loosen his grip just a little. As he looked over, he saw Siran with his gun drawn before Zia suddenly increases the force from her foot, slams her foot into his face and smashes his head into the ground with an explosive force. However, Loki still got back up. The ground beneath him broken with a hole from where his head landed, but only a little bleeding on the side of Loki's head. Zia jumps back in preparation for Loki's counterattack as Siran rushes to her side. Loki sticks his arms outwards from his sides and as he flexes his arms, the whole ground beneath all of them starts to shake. With it being hard to gain their footing, Siran and Zia struggled to dodge the sudden rock spikes that shot up from the ground one after the other. Siran makes an endo spear as he runs, and when he jumps off of an already still rock spike, he twists his body in mid-air to face Loki and throws the spear right at Loki. Loki dodges the spear by twisting his lower body just a little bit. Zia throws two more endo daggers at Loki, and they land near his feet. Loki causes a rock wall to raise really high, even above treetop level. Just as the reactive endo began to overload, Loki leapt, and the explosion shot out sharp rocks in all directions in this walled-in arena Loki made. Siran and Zia used digital shields to block all of the incoming debris, and when Loki landed, the ground shook in waves like the surface of water. Siran and Zia both fell to the ground from losing their balance, as Loki creates two whips out of fire and swings at the both of them. Siran rolls out of the way of the attack as Zia creates another digital shield which shattered after stopping the flaming whip. Siran and Zia work together to gather the moisture in the air and keep it suspended as it rapidly gathers in the arena, creating a fog. In the fog, both Zia and Siran rush at Loki with reactive endo daggers in their hands and slashed at Loki. Loki was able to sense them coming using a debuff field, dodging each of their attacks, only to end up finding himself backed against the wall. As he felt his back harshly slam into the rock wall from the speed he was moving at, the fog rapidly cleared as it gathered into thousands of tiny and sharp ice spikes that floated in the air. Working together to save up endo, Siran and Zia used both of their endo to rapidly throw the ice at Loki. Loki used his magic to cause a small portion of the rock wall behind him to flip around with him against it, rotating and placing Loki just outside of the walls as the ice slams against the rock wall with an elongated roaring sound. With a power elemental spell, Loki caused all of the rock to tumble and fall into the middle with Siran and Zia inside still. After all of the rock fell and the dust cleared, Loki could see Siran and Zia standing on top of the rubble without a scratch on them. "He may be stronger," Siran says, "but he still has his limits. Wear him out before we go all out."
Rose and Vivi kept attacking Ares from a distance as Finn and Alex tried to fight him hand to hand. Rose knew it would be too dangerous to use blinding techniques with her friends nearby, so she focused on using throwing knives with armament magic and her gun. Vivi also used many of her guns any time Ares tried to gain his distance from Finn and Alex. Finn would attack with his bare hands, landing very light attacks which confused Ares as he prepared for heavier strikes from Finn. Just as he's being caught off-guard, Finn uses illusion magic to slightly mask Alex's attacks as Alex strikes with distortion magic. Ares took a few hits, but he was starting to learn their pattern of attack. Ares let Finn hit him with an attack to the chin, barely flinching and turning around and utterly overpowering Alex. Ares grabs Alex's wrist before he could strike with the distortion attack and yanks his arm as he plants his knee into Alex's face. The ground around him starts to gain heat quickly as it burns Alex's hands trying to get up. Then they saw fire starting to spew up from cracks forming in the rocky ground below them. Everyone got their distance from Ares as the fire rapidly expands and shoots up from the ground. Now walking in his own fire, unfazed, as he slowly approaches the rest of the crew. "You didn't think you could stop me with such weak attacks, did you?" Ares asks.
"How do you supposed we attack next?" Finn asks.
"Draw your guns and fire as much as we can?" Vivi asks.
"He's an elemental user." Alex says. "He likely has a way to block us after a while. But there has to be some sort of weakness he has?"
"What usually trumps elemental magic?" Rose asks.
"Well, we can't exhaust him." Vivi says.
"I have an idea." Finn says. "Benjie has inhibitor gadgets, right?"
"Right, and he can be drained." Benjie says. "But my inhibitors have a limit and they'll definitely be at max capacity before it'll make any difference."
"Any chance we can turn one into a bomb?" Finn asks.
"Wait, that's not a bad plan." Vivi says. "A bit extreme, but with someone like Ares here, we'll need something extreme."
"Then we'll need someone to place these around him." Benjie says as he hands three gadgets over.
"I'll handle placing them." Finn says as he grabs them.
"But we'll need someone to retrieve them when they're full too." Benjie adds.
"Mikoto and I can do that, so long as you all keep him busy for us." Satomi says.
"Just be careful." Benjie replies. "If he notices we started making a move, he'll know something is up."
"Leave that up to us." Rose says. "Finn and I can work together to veil the area when the plan is ready to move forward."
"Then we need to work hard on keeping him busy." Alex adds. "Is everybody ready?"
"Ready as I'll ever be." Vivi replies.
Finn was the first to rush in to attack Ares, hiding the gadgets in his pockets. "This again?" Ares asks. "You certainly don't know when to quit." Finn uses a buff spell and lands a strong punch in Ares's stomach, causing him to lean forward in shock and then Finn punches him in the nose and makes Ares take a few steps back. "Okay... time to get serious then." Ares says as he wipes his face. Finn prepares another punch but feints his attack at Alex comes from behind with his gun and shoots Ares in the back. Ares stumbles forward as Rose rushes up to attack and drop kicks Ares in the chest with armament magic. Ares was sent flying backwards from the attack, as Finn rushed and placed one of the devices in the ground and hid it with illusion magic. As Ares stumbles backwards, Vivi gets behind Ares and takes out a few more guns and fires rapidly into his back as Finn runs around him and plants the second device in the ground and immediately rushes Ares after covering the second inhibitor device with magic. Finn shoulder bashes Ares as Ares braces himself for impact, then lifts Finn up and turns to face Alex who was now rushing at Ares with a distortion spell. Ares throws Finn at Alex and causes to two of them to fall to the ground. Rose runs up to Ares and does a flip to leap over Ares as she throws a knife straight down at Ares from above. Ares narrowly dodges the knife and punches Rose in the stomach, Rose stops in mid-air, balanced on Ares's fist as he throws her at Finn as well. "You all certainly have surprises. That actually hurt. Pretty exciting..." Ares says.
"One more..." Finn says quietly as he stumbles back to his feet. "I don't plan on letting this fight go on so long that we lose body parts again."
"I definitely don't want to find out what it's like to have a metal arm..." Alex says as he stumbles to his feet as well.
"You okay, hun?" Finn asks Rose as he helps her stand up.
"Y-yeah..." Rose replies. "Just... out of breath... hard to breathe."
"We'll make this quick." Vivi says as she walks near the others, keeping her eyes on Ares. "Just one more push, let's go."