Alora jumped back onto the street from inside the hole in the middle of the road. Glancing over her shoulder while Aella and Apollo gradually resurfaced, she looked back ahead, taking in the bright red sky plastered over her head. Sighing, she shook her head.
"How'd this even happen?"
Apollo approached her from behind. "Atlas never explained his plans thoroughly, so if you're asking for a motive, I can't say. Though I do remember something from before my human self returned," he said.
"I'm listening." Lora started walking down the road, anticipating what the Displacement would say.
"It was a few months before you guys came to the mainland. After Apex Predator attacked and we turned their leaders to our side, Atlas took us to someplace I don't recognize. It was bathed in green with tubes containing human bodies trapped within. But they didn't look human. They were more like the Disastrous in his incarnated form: Monsters."
Aella scratched her chin, walking to the right of her brother. "I see. So Atlas plans to unleash Monsters upon the world and let them slaughter humanity? Baseless genocide?"
"It's not genocide," Apollo corrected. "He said there was something more to his scheme than indiscriminate slaughter. Whatever it is has something to do with those Monsters he's making."
"There's also the matter of the Gate. Look at that thing!"
Lora pointed up at the red-burning beam of Fate blasting from the pylons previously composing the Gate and splitting apart the clouds. She whistled longingly at the scenery above her.
"It's almost as if it's the end of the world…" Aella said.
"But it's not." Apollo glanced at Lora. "We should move quickly. If I remember correctly, there's not much time left. We have to find Atlas and kill him."
Alora chuckled, cracking her knuckles. "Don't gotta tell me twice." She looked at the Displacement siblings standing beside one another and smirked, opening her hand to make a sword appear in the palm. "I'll see you there!"
She flew down the road and vanished around the corner, leaving the two by themselves at the start of the street. Aella chuckled and shrugged, strolling forward with both hands pocketed.
"She's such an idiot sometimes…"
Apollo nodded. "Right. Uh, listen—" He scratched the back of his neck. "I wanted to say sorry. For everything I said the first time we fought. I didn't mean any of it."
"It's okay." Raven looked back over her shoulder at her dear brother following her, beaming at him. "I already forgave you for that."
"H-huh?" Apollo stepped forward. "Why?"
"What do you mean? After all, it's just like you said, right? You weren't in control. I don't blame you for everything Atlas made you say and do. It's his fault. Nothing more, nothing less. Plus, you're my brother. I can't stay mad at you no matter how hard I try. Because…" Aella looked down. "You're the only one left."
He nodded. "I wish I were stronger. If I were like you, I could've broken through the control and worked beside the King!" Stepping back, he rubbed his temples and sighed. "When'd you even get your human memories anyway?"
"A few moments after I incarnated into the physical world. You?"
"Some months back. Back when the whole Apex Predator thing was happening. Had to go through them like a backseat driver watching a film of my childhood. It was trippy," he said.
She chuckled.
Apollo glanced at his sister, raising a brow. "What's funny?"
"Nothing." She covered her mouth and looked up at him, smiling widely. "It's just now that you're here, you can meet everyone else now! Well, properly this time."
"I dunno about that. I haven't changed all that much yet. I still get heated during fights, they might think that's weird. Plus, I helped orchestrate Talen's brother's death. And betrayed Uriel. What makes you think they'll want me near them at all?"
"Cuz Lora and I will be vouching for you."
Apollo didn't have it in him to say anymore. Instead, as Aella stepped forward, about to walk down the length of the road—a hand tugged at her own, preventing her from moving. She glimpsed back with a curious home at her brother's extended arm grabbing onto her own. As he tugged her close, she was pulled into an embrace, allowing him to bury his face in her neck with eyes welling up to be consumed by tears.
Raven chuckled. She rubbed his back, grinning softly.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for killing Samael… and sending his son to die," he said.
"His son?" She raised her head. "He came here to kill Talen, didn't he?"
He pulled back from their hug. "I'd been tracking his signature since entering the City and meeting with Monstrum. It looks like it ended after Amit and he moved their battle."
"It's alright. I think it's better this way," she said.
"Huh?" His head tilted. "W-what do you mean? I technically killed that boy."
She shrugged, raising and dropping her hands with her shoulders. "You didn't kill anything though? He was hellbent on trying to Talen and the Disastrous, I'm pretty sure there was nothing you could've said that would've dissuaded him."
He sighed, looking down. "Still…"
Raven chopped him on the top of the head. "Don't be dumb. Now's not the time to worry about that. We have to meet up with the King and the others!"
Apollo nodded his head and sniffled. "Right. Come on," he said, stepping forward and crouching in front of her.
She clung to his back—wrapping her arms and legs around him. After simultaneously ignoring their auras, a pink and green stream burst through the air, destroying the clouds above them while their bodies rocketed across the sky.
But while they head toward Uriel in the process of fighting Atlas, let's go back in time, to before Apollo and Alora's battle started and what led up to everyone converging.
To when Uriel disappeared from the air and Atlas followed by vanishing from the ground.
But while it seemed they both disappeared simultaneously, in actuality, Atlas leaped from the crater and Uriel flapped his wings. Each way of elevation brought them further into the air, spiraling in a flight around one another until the Progenitor aimed the Sword's tip at the King.
Opening more golden portals while the wings on his back sent him further into the clouds, Uriel looked down, feeling the heat from the Progenitor's projectiles fly past his cheek and explode on the clouds behind his head. Atlas smirked, firing more bursts from the end of the Sword.
"I'm surprised you managed to make it this far! I never would have guessed the Prince who wished to become King of Kismet would leave his empire just to end the life of a single measly man!" Atlas loudly said.
A golden gate swallowed the blast the Progenitor fired. "Don't be ridiculous." Its opposite manifested directly behind Amit's head. "We both know you're not a 'single measly man'."
Without any way to dodge, the beam fell into the Progenitor's skull from the rear, but instead of the heaviness from a punch—it enveloped Atlas in a searing heat, making steam leak from the top of his head while falling forward after the blow. Uriel didn't miss his chance. Instantly carving a divine weapon into his hand before even closing the distance, the New King parted his lips.
"Axe of Seraphim the Great."
King Barron smashed the end of the ax into Atlas's chin, shooting him through the sky like a falling meteor—easily splitting the clouds asunder. The Progenitor, shaken after the blast, batted his eyes at the hazy background his body was uncontrollably flailing through.
'Where… where am I?' His conscience messily queried.
Then, amid the clouds he was soaring through, an otherworldly weight slammed into his back—awakening Atlas to his surroundings and the attack the Supreme King was throwing into the shape of his spine. Bloodshot eyes glaring at his rear and the winged creatures attached to it, Atlas hitched his breath before looking straight below him.
His eyebrow twitched with momentary static as he fell through the roof into an ongoing thunderstorm empowered by sunny electricity. As a thunderclap roared through the sky, a lightning bolt followed that smeared across Atlas, smiting him from the heavens akin to divine retribution from God Himself. Wounded with lightning marks across his skin and an immense amount of steam leaking off of him, the Progenitor fell into a black box. Rising on the flat dark ground inside the domain, Atlas weakly sat up, looking around.
'Barrier Deployment.' He snickered. 'Looks like I can't hold back—'
The ground abruptly caved in from below him. Returned to falling through the sky, now Atlas was in control of his movements, feeling his hair and the coat attached to his body flail with the wind. He glanced back at the rectangular domain still floating in the air behind him.
'Did Uriel do that? It wouldn't make sense to imprison me and then let me go the next second. If not him then…' Atlas looked down.
Despite having lost an ear, an arm, and the fingers on that arm, Marie managed to compensate. Leaving a golden trail of light as she leaped from the ground, she flew through the air, cocking back an arm where a stump should be after Amit cut her. A golden copy made from Fate. His eyes widened.
The spontaneous increase in speed shocked Atlas enough for the princess to close the distance after a single jump and inch by inch, slowly begin to lower her fist into the center of his face, stunned by astonishment. At the same time she was aiming for his front, numerous copies of the New Supreme King flew at Atlas from behind, each holding different weapons with his aura refined by the Crown floating above his head.
Atlas was dead. Or at least, he should have been. The Sword in his hand that hadn't been swung in over a minute due to the barrage of blows Uriel was showering him with flew from his grip. The blade's sharp and curved black steel unhesitantly pierced Atlas in the chest, avoiding all of his vitals to stabbing him directly in the soul.
Though Marie managed to spot the Progenitor's instantaneous movements, her fist was already thrown, and she couldn't yank it back. As for Uriel, however, he was blind to everything that occurred in that split-second. Then, a miracle occurred.
The back of Marie's collar was pulled back by someone's hand. Falling back into the crater, she tumbled out of their grasp and fell first on her face. Rubbing her cheek and popping up from the ground, the princess looked up at her savior, who was none other than the Unconquerable's mother: Valentina Amit.
"Mrs. Amit?"
She looked back at Marie. "Are you okay? I just barely managed to save you."
"I-I'm fine. Where's Uri?"
Purple light falling from her shoulders, Ava stumbled from the sky to land before her mother and drop to her knees, showcasing the King laid in her arms. His face was drenched in blood, his left ear was missing, his right eye was scarred, and both of his arms were gone. The only thing undamaged were his legs, but even then, they were riddled with cuts too shallow to properly mutilate him.
With horror in her eyes and a hand over her mouth, Marie fell beside her brother. "Uri…"
He breathed weakly despite the wounds plaguing him, staring up at his sister behind the hazy cloud his sight was reduced too.
"I can heal him," Ava said, looking at the princess. "You have to fight with Mom."
"W-What? What's the point? I lost a limb and my Restoration technique's not strong enough to regenerate it."
Valentina's hand lowered onto her shoulder, releasing a satisfying hum and applying a green aura. The restorative Fate placed into the princess traveled through her body, healing every single little nick and scrape leaking the blood from within her. Eventually, it reached her missing limb, regenerating the arm from bone and flesh before finalizing with a layer of brown skin over the components trapped below it.
Marie sighed. "I hate how that feels…" She raised from the crater to stand beside Valentina and then, look up at her. "I don't get it. Uri and I didn't manage to beat him. What can we do?"
While staring down at her, Val's eyes rolled. "It's cuz you're focused on beating him. But that was never the plan from the beginning. Uri, even with those three techniques, was incapable of reaching Atlas's level. None of them can. Except for my husband."
Marie's eyes widened. "To be honest…" She lowered her head in shame. "I forgot Eros was inside his sword."
"Don't worry! I did too!" Ava interjected.
Val nodded. "Stall him. Remember, there are other variables too. Don't worry about anything besides fighting and keeping him in the same spot. When the proper time to take the sword he's using comes… I'll reappear and take it from under his nose." Stepping forward, she cracked her knuckles and released the purple-colored Fate from her soul, allowing it to waver around her build. "Got it?"
Marie nodded. "Got it!"