At the altar beneath the city of Eden, Eleven human figures gathered around a massive platinum armor with a ring-shaped crown above its head and uttered a a dark and ominous chant.
From under the ground, light orange lines emerged from the depths of earth. Beside them on an empty spot was a purple circle which lit up the moment their voices echoed in the hall.
Far away by the united forces of the Guadians and a few of the beasts who sided with them were in an uproar when a strange orange light slowly emerged from the body of a woman right at the front of this army.
"What?" Artemis, noticed the strange orange glow on her skin and had a bad premonition. They just gathered a total of three thousand people and were on their way to attack Eden when this glow began to gather in her body.
All color was drained out of her face the second she noticed her control over her body had been lost. A type of force seemed to be attracting her over to the island in the distance, and no matter what she tried, this feeling only grew as well as her body slowly rose before shutting itself towards the island leaving everyone else without understanding what has happened at that instant.
"Artemis!" "Artemis!" Nerys, her brother, the remnant forces of the human race Eden lost all color on their faces. Moments before they saw a purple circle form around her, but never would they have guessed she would vanish just like that.
As stunned as they were, they couldn't do anything other than what Artemis father and farther away. In instants, human figures slowly appeared flying over to them followed by several dozen airships armed to their teeth.
"Fuck, it looks like we won't be able to interfere with Artemis. Men, prepare to fight!" Nerys had slid onto her clothes and pulled a weapon out of it, a piece of brownish metal that upon contact with her hand, suddenly grew a 74 inch long bar with two glowing orbs on the tip of each side.
Swirl! The second the enemy elemental kings attacked, the glowing orbs on the tip of her staff shot two rays in oposite sides, one upwards and one downwards, together the two light rays grew farther and farther away before developing all the elemental masters from both sides in a perfect water sphere.
The others on her side understood the signal and immediately unleashed similar weapons, these were the weapons made with the help of the blueprints and data left by the Flame Union. With the help of alchemy, the glowing orbs on each staff would store a full six elemental arts for instant use and increase both the speed for casting arts that are not stored in the orbs.
BoooooM! The men sent by Sky saw the mass of countless arts heading towards them and paled. Since the truth about Eden was exposed, some still maintained their loyalty to Eden and the Guardians despite them being only puppets of Sky like the rest of their race.
Massive pieces of stone emerged out of nowhere, forming a massive stone platform floating within the water sphere, and giving a land for those who couldn't fly to stand.
Pang! Out of nowhere, a massive stone fist came flying towards Nerys, who responded swiftly by melting into a puddle of water and returning to human form soon after.
"Brother!" Her eyes searched through the crowd and stopped with a man using a huge Warhammer to strike down six of the enemy elemental masters.
"Yes, I know!" Gaius replied before moving towards her. As an elemental king of the earth element, his defense was one of the strongest, and in terms of close combat, he was one of the most powerful, only losing to Instructor Mystic.
Heading towards his sister position, both joined hands to unleash one of the fusion arts.
"Water and Earth Fusion Art: Dual Fury!" Two hands pressed against their weapon before two huge glowing palms burst into a beam upwards.
"Not bad." A voice resounded in the sky before an elegant woman dressed in white robes appeared. "It's a pity we ended up on opposite sides, but I have no reason to extend your lives any further."
"Lady Athena!" One of the men in dark armors exclaimed with satisfaction. They already lost one third of their men on this fight, but now with Lady Athena with their victory was theirs.
"You fucking bitch!" Mystic, the old agent of the Divine Guardians cursed out loud the moment she saw it was Athena of the Divine Guardians who appeared. When the truth was first revealed it was Athena, who carried out all of Sky's orders and headed to kill Ares and them who were at the headquarters at the time, luckily Ares, Neptune and the others could buy enough time for them to sneak Artemis out of the island in time. The incident with the Death Hazard Lightning also had her hand in it.
Before the allied forces could even attack, Athena pressed something on a red device on her wrist and a strange invisible air spread to every corner before strong vibrations were felt on the earth.
"This is... Everybody be careful! This device can nullify..." Mystic, who had insider information about some of the guardian's secret projects seemed to have realized something shot a glance at Nerys.
Shaaak! Whoooosh!
Interrupting her words, all the stone platform and the giant water sphere shattered at the same time, and the elemental masters and kings all fell down to the ocean.
"Hehe." The men from Sky's side all laughed when revealing a small silver device on their back that kept them in the air unlike the others who could use their elemental powers to keep themselves in the air.
Not being able to feel the existence of their elemental powers, Nerys and everyone else were terrified for the first time. It was a strange sensation having something you always had with you vanish out of sudden.
Kraa, kraa!
"Men, go and take them to the cells, I'm returning to the ship. He? What is this sound?" Seeing them fall, there was no change in her expression as she ordered the others to go down there pick up those unfortunate men and women. Yet, as she was about to head back to her particular cabin on the airship, and she was taken aback by what she saw.
"Birds, Crows?" The Divine Guardians agents exclaimed in surprise. In truth birds were not that rare, but what stood before them was an enormous flock of crows feathers as red as blood.
Those birds shot out a barrage of crimson spears that succeeded in diverging most of their attention, giving enough time for the blood-red crows to dive in the direction of the falling people, each grabbing a person and flying away.
If everyone else wasn't stupefied enough, the crows all spoke in unison with the same male voice: "Haha! Mystic, Nerys, Gaius. Don't make that face, you already know how I am. Hey Gaius, you look like you need a hug, but you won't get one from me."
"R-Roderick?!" Athena from the other side also recognized the voice which this time sounded exactly like Roderick's, and the discovery made this attractive woman as pale as a ghost.
"Of course, did you miss me? I guess not if you had the time to betray my father and Old Ares." Roderick's voice sounded pretty toxic as he spoke to Athene, and soon he directed his voice to Mystic. "Mystic, I'll be seeding you guys to help the others. Leave this traitor to me."
Flying away with the Mystic and the others, a thousand Roderick Crows encircled Athena and the dozen airships.
"You know, I really wanted this reunion to be in person, but this is a good change to test this trick of mine." Roderick spoke with a voice filled with bloodlust.