Ikko raised an eyebrow then smirked. "I forgot I grew down." After a moment I noticed that the crew had fell silent and looked over to the front of the ship ahead of us. My mouth dropped. Everyone noticed my attention was elsewhere and turned to see what I was looking at.
They then froze along with me seeing what I could only assume was Atlantis floating high in the air as a golden dome in the distance. We were all frozen in shock as we slowly came closer to the flying city above the sea, with a large staircase made of gold leading to Lothor's ship. At this moment, different thoughts went through our minds at the same time. "It's flying!" I said in surprise. "It's huge!" Said Ikko. "It's real!" Said Arine. "It's so much GOLD!" Said Johnathan. Expectedly.
After a moment he turned around to me excitedly. "What's the plan?" I was surprised that he would ask me that and hesitated. "Me, Ikko and Arine will go up and find Cienar, and if it's not too much trouble I'd like it if you and you're men would hold off the guards." Johnathan nodded. "No problem! Just as long as I get the chance to set foot on that beautiful staircase!" His smile faded realizing something and he raised an eyebrow. "What about Lothor?" Sythyon answered him. "Leave him to me." He then looked down at me with no expression. "You just focus on finding your friend."
*
Cienar was still looking over the ocean when something caught his eye. He looked over and saw Johnathan Gold's ship getting closer to the city. 'What's he doing here? ...He probably saw the gold and came running.' He thought, rolling his eyes. But after a moment of looking, he noticed that a large dark demon was on his ship as well. 'Is that... Sythyon..?' His eyes widened realizing that Silvera and the others were coming towards the island.
Out of instinct he tried to get up, but the chain that was on his wrist quickly pulled him back to the ground. He looked at it then back to the ship worried. A second later Dagger came out of the city and noticed the ship too. "Hey Lothor! Who's that?"
Lothor exited after Dagger called him and leaned on the side frame of the gateway following Daggers line of sight. Unlike Cienar, Lothor noticed who was on the ship right away. "Looks like our distraction fell through." Dagger turned to him. "Do you think Sythyon killed Crucifix?" Lothor didn't take his eyes off the ship. "Not likely, especially with that celestial bow he has. The demon poison arrows would've made it extremely difficult to kill him."
Dagger's expression started to slowly fill with anger. "You're not suggesting a double-cross are you?" Lothor turned away emotionless. "What I'm suggesting is that Crucifix is unpredictable. Make him regret it." The last part of what he said had a completely different tone. It sounded furious and demonic even though his voice had stayed the same. Dagger turned back to the ship with a more obvious anger after Lother had gone. "He will."
*
When the distance between the island and Johnathan's ship was closing more and more, Crucifix walked up next to Ikko speaking privately with him. "Hey. So back on that island, what I said... I was wondering what you're response was to that." Ikko gave him a confused look. "Response?"
Crucifix looked away. "Yeah. You seemed to only accept that information and not really react to it." Ikko's expression didn't change. "You're bringing this up now? What do you want to know?" Crucifix shrugged. "I don't know... You know how I feel about you... How, do you feel about me?"
Ikko waited a moment then met his eyes serious. "I hated you for killing her. But now that I know why, I see you as my friend again... But. A friend is all you will ever be." Crucifix was silent and his face was emotionless. Finally he looked away again with a sad smile. "I don't know what I was expecting. I never deserved you anyway." Ikko felt guilty and tried to reassure him, but before he could, a light surrounded Crucifix.
"Hey! Wait! Don't leave!" Ikko shouted but Crucifix had an expression of worry as he started to disappear. "I'm not doing this! Oh no..." Before Ikko could respond, the light had gone along with Crucifix. He had completely vanished without a trace. I saw what happened and ran over to Ikko. "What happened?" Ikko then turned to me glancing to the city in the sky. "It looks like just you and Arine will be finding Cienar. I have a bone to pick with Dagger."
I nodded and a second after, the ship had come to a stop. I turned and saw that we were right next to Lothor's ship; which had no one on it, and in front of it was the golden staircase. I turned around and started to fly towards it. "Come'on!"
Without looking back I was the first one to land on the stairs. Seeing them from up close made me realize just how large it was, and how far up the island it led to was. Arine and Ikko landed on them behind me along with Sythyon. Meanwhile Johnathan swung onto Lothor's ship in order to step onto the staircase easier along with a few members of his crew.
We then started to walk up, Johnathan lagging behind our fast pace because of how mesmerized he was by all the gold. I was a little nervous, and didn't fly up the rest of the flight out of fear of being seen, even though it was likely that we already were. When we finally reached the top, Arine let out a breath of relief.
"Holy crap that was a lot of stairs! Is anyone else tired?!" He put a hand on his chest and suddenly I heard a voice right next to us. "Guys!" I turned and saw Cienar sitting against the wall of the entrance with a chain attaching his wrist to the stone. "Cienar!" I ran to him, but before I could get there a hand came from out of the wall behind him and grabbed his mouth, pulling him back into the wall.
I stopped horrified. "No!" Arine then pointed up. "Look!" I followed his line of sight and saw Lothor standing on top of the dome looking down at us. He didn't say anything, his eyes looking over Sythyon and a smile crossed his lips. He then turned away and disappeared into smoke. My attention was then drawn back to the entrance of the city as the gate opened to reveal the streets inside.
Without thinking I started to run towards it but was pulled back at the last moment. "Gah-!" I looked back and saw Ikko behind me. "Wait, don't you think it's a little suspicious that Lothor seems to want us to go in there and find Cienar?" I tried my best to be determined as I answered him. "I don't care. Unless you can think of any other way to rescue him, we don't have a choice!"