The Phoenix's Legion

Spirits have been at an all-time low among the surviving members of the hellboken crew, the death of Johnathan weighs heavy on them. While the others were down, prince Helios with Kill-shot have been trying to devise a plan to find Acheron before he slipped into the shadows, they returned to Gilgamesh so as to use his resources to aid in the man hunt but what they had found was beyond shocking. Gilgamesh's entire community was in complete chaos, homes had been destroyed and countless men and women had been injured and killed. Kill-shot rushed to Gilgamesh, hoping to find his friend unharmed, unfortunately Kill-shot would have no such luck for what he found was Gilgamesh on a hospital bed, using all his strength just to maintain his breathing.

Kill-shot: "what happened here? don't tell me the shoguns managed to find their way here. no, they were other men who loured them deep into the caves and slaughtered them, without the aid of a breeder there's no way they could have found their way up here".

Gilgamesh: "this creature was no shogun but who were the other men?"

Kill-shot: "it doesn't matter, tell me Gilgamesh, did Acheron do this to you?"

Gilgamesh: "Acheron? you found him?"

Kill-shot: "yes, he…. Wait, that bastard didn't do this to you?"

Gilgamesh: "no Kill-shot, it wasn't Acheron, you see my friend we had been visited by a stranger. He wore a black cloak that completely hooded his face, he claimed that he was injured and needed to be healed, he asked for our dear Rose to help him."

Kill-shot: "why Rose?"

Gilgamesh: "she is famed for her healing abilities, it only made sense for the stranger to ask for her. The two had been left in the healing room alone, for a while nothing seemed out of the ordinary until a large scream came from the room. Boremont rushed to the healing room to see what had happened, what he found in there was beyond shocking."

Kill-shot: "tell me, what did he see."

Gilgamesh: "it was a man whose body was completely made of shadows."

Kill-shot: "what? That's not possible, are you sure Gilgamesh?"

Gilgamesh: "yes, Kill-shot, am sure, Boremont was locked in a vicious battle with that creature, the destruction you see around us is the result of that battle. Boremont fought as hard as he could but he was no match for the shadow creature. The creature took Rose and opened something that looked like a gate made completely out of snakes, with Rose on its shoulders it went through the gate and disappeared. Boremont was absolutely crushed by his failure to protect Rose, he left the silver caves and headed for the holy mountain in hopes that the heavens may help him find Rose."

Kill-shot: "well that was a stupid thing to do."

Gilgamesh: "my thoughts exactly, I sent a few scouts to retrieve him but they claim that when they reached the summit of the holy mountains they saw Boremont being taken by a ray of light from the sky that broke through the dark cloud."

Kill-shot: "your scouts wouldn't be by any chance retarded?"

Gilgamesh: "this isn't a joke Kill-shot!!! Something beyond strange as happened here and I…. wait, you said you found Acheron, didn't you?"

Kill-shot: "yes, we…..."

Gilgamesh: "my daughter!!! Where is my daughter Kill-shot?"

Kill-shot: "calm down Gilgamesh, kiva's fine, she just needs to spend some time with the others but we did lose Johnathan, Acheron killed him as he tried to save Vanessa."

Gilgamesh: "so, that bastard is still on Rovahn."

Kill-shot: "yes, me and prince Helios hoped to use your scouts to help us track him."

Gilgamesh: "did you just say prince…."

Helios: "Helios of the phoenix's legion, at your service lord Gilgamesh."

Gilgamesh: "so, I can only assume that Dante and Kazuya are the other men you were referring to Kill-shot."

Kill-shot: "yes, we aren't for off from Acheron, that's why we're hoping you could..."

Unknown: "I didn't know we were going to be visited by royalty."

Kill-shot: "who the hell are you?"

A woman had entered the room, she was very old and she had this strange sinister smile on her face, it was as if she enjoyed to see Gilgamesh in pain, she walked in the room so casually, ignoring all the calamity around her.

Unknown woman: "oh, were are my manners, my name is Catalina, I just so happen to be this old fool's wife."

Kill-shot: "am sorry what? Gilgamesh, I didn't know you were married."

Gilgamesh: "this isn't the time for your foolishness woman."

Catalina: "thank god I convinced my children to leave this place before you robbed them of their youth like you did with me. If only you just gave up on your damn beliefs, we would have lived our lives to the fullest, not spending our time waiting for a rose to sing and…."

Gilgamesh: "enough!!!! This isn't the time for this, Acheron has been seen, this is no time for bickering, now leave this place at once!!!!"

Catalina smiled at Gilgamesh and left the room in a slow and joyful manner, prince Helios who is desperately hungering the chance to face Acheron chooses to ignore the old couple's moment and focus on the issue at hand. With the aid of Kill-shot, Helios began devising a plan with Gilgamesh on how they may find Acheron. Back at the hellboken, an injured Ragna sits outside in a state of deep depression, he had recently eased dropped on a conversation between Thomas and Vanessa. Thomas was attempting to comfort Vanessa by trying to relate with her situation, he knew that he had no way of telling her that the pain would pass, how could he? When he himself has failed to let go of the pain that Acheron had inflicted on him many years ago. The conversation went like so:

Vanessa: "I was too weak, the moment my brother needed me the most and I was too damn weak to do anything, now his gone and it's all my fault I…..."

Thomas: "no Vanessa, there was nothing you could do against a vampire by yourself."

Vanessa: "don't talk to me like you have a clue what am feeling, you don't even feel anything!!!!"

Thomas: "I do know what you're going through Vanessa, there was a time when I to had a brother, a son, three beautiful daughters, and a wife whose beauty made me truly believe that she fell from heaven. At that time, I was nothing more than a black smith, just a simple black smith providing for his family, that was my life until I met… him."

Vanessa: "Acheron? I remember now, he kept calling you black smith."

Thomas: "we first crossed paths about two hundred ago."

Vanessa: "how? Are you one of the silver hunters?"

Thomas: "no, you see the stone on my c.h.e.s.t has kept me from turning into something that deserves to be dead, something that should have never existed."

Vanessa: "Thomas, what did Acheron do to you and your family?"

Thomas: "my daughters as usual were playing outside, the noise they made was beyond irritating, it drove the whole house hold crazy but we did get used to it. Then mysteriously, they had become completely silent, when I went to go check on them I saw a man speaking to them. To this day I have wandered what he whispered to my little girls, they drew closer to his lips to hear what he whispered, they giggled at his words and then there was a silence. What followed the silence was the sound of my daughter's screams. I charged towards them as fast as I could but before I knew it the strange man was standing wright in front of me, far from my daughters who now rested on the ground covered in blood. His eyes whereas red as the blood that dripped from his mouth and skin as pale as a corps, he smiled and said to me, "this is the price of your existence"."

Vanessa: "why would he do something like that?"

Thomas: "I guess he did it simply because he could, he just smiled at me with his mouth dripping with blood, I suppose he just felt like destroying my whole world."

Vanessa: "so he did to you what he did to me."

Thomas: "yes, he seems to like to leave his victims helpless to the horrors he shows them, I watched as he locked the rest of my family in our once beautiful home and set it ablaze, I heard the screams of my brother, my son and my wife, I heard how the flames feasted on the flesh of my family until there was nothing left of them, nothing but the black ashes of their bodies. I wanted to stop him, I wanted to save my family but Acheron had compelled me to stand still and listen, he wanted me to hear my family's screams until there was nothing but silence. I had hoped that he would kill me, so that I could be reunited with my family but he smiled and said "no, death would be an act of mercy, who would carry my little story if you died" he said, so he bite's me and he injects his venom in my neck. He wanted to turn me into a vampire so that I could forever live with my pain but he had no intentions of allowing me to join the immortal family, instead he threw me in a deep canyon with my legs and arms broken."

Vanessa: "wait, if he did that then doesn't that make you a vampire?"

Thomas: "no, I am what you call a vampire in transition, a would need to drink human blood in order to turn into an actual vampire but the stone in my c.h.e.s.t seems to have maintained my humanity. It's because of this why I choose to keep as much distance from you all as well as hide the stone from sight. If it were to run out of energy I would be a threat to you all but so far the stones power appears to be limitless, I should be comfortable but I just can't overcome the fear of this stone dying on me."

Vanessa: "so without blood you couldn't have climbed out of the canyon, so how did you leave the canyon?"

Thomas: "well it's like you just said, without blood I couldn't heal, without blood I would go completely mad with hunger and grief, with the vampire venom within me I would remain in the great eastern canyon forever. I had stayed down there for twenty years, I had relived the horror of losing my family over and over again, Acheron's face forever haunting me, then a day had come when the ground began to shake. An earth quake had occurred, it caused the canyon to collapse and as a result I was buried by the large boulders that fell. I thought the boulders would end my misery by crushing me but instead it only prolonged it, one of the small pointed rocks had stabbed my heart and the rest knocked me out, I thought I had finally died, I thought it was finally over. I woke up and found myself on a grass field far from the eastern canyon, I had lost the hunger for blood and had regained my thirst for water as well as my hunger for food. As I felt the warmth of my flesh I found this red stone on the right side of my c.h.e.s.t."

Vanessa: "what is that thing on your c.h.e.s.t, I have seen glimpses of it but I never really had an idea of what it was."

Thomas: "to be honest I don't know, I just woke up and found it stuck on me, it started to pore knowledge into me, it's how I gained the knowledge to build the hellboken and everything else. I built all this in hopes that one day I would wrap my hands around Acheron's neck and squeeze the very life out of him but that proved to be harder than I thought, I wasn't ready to face him."

Vanessa: "so that's why you don't feel anything, you feel nothing because all you feel is hatred and pain."

Thomas: "listen, we all made mistakes out there, Ragna choosing to attack the queen and provoking the hive without…."

Vanessa: "Ragna did this."

Thomas: "don't jump to conclusions he…."

Vanessa: "he killed my brother!!! If he didn't provoke the hive we wouldn't have been attacked, I wouldn't have faced Acheron alone, I will never forgive him for this. First he kills Luke and now he kills my brother, if that boy gets back on this train I'll kill him, that boy has been a curse to us from day one, he can't be one of us, not anymore."

Ragna heard the hatred that fell from Vanessa mouth, he knew he was the one who provoked the shogun hive, it was because of this that he felt that he needed to leave the hellboken crew. He packed up his things and silently made his way out of the silver caves on foot. As he walked in complete darkness he began to hear a strange laughter, it grew louder and louder as he progressed, he finally began to see a man wearing a sleeveless robe, his arms were completely covered in tattoos. He's robe hooded his face but it exposed enough to see that like his arms his face to was tattooed, immediately Ragna picked a bad vibe from the man so he chose to simply ignore him and keep walking but as he crossed paths with him the tattooed man began to speak to Ragna.

Tattooed man: "hello my child, my name is Michael, I am the serpent priest and you my child seem to be in great distress."

Ragna: "look mate I don't know what kind of religion your trying to sell me but am really not interested so..."

Michael: "religion? Oh no my child, am not here to force feed you a religion, am here to demonstrate the serpent God's power to you."

Ragna: "excuse me?"

Michael: "allow me to elaborate, I serve a god that has existed long before the birth of the immortal family in fact, long before the birth of the imperialists."

Ragna: "what the hell is an imperialist?"

Michael: "don't concern yourself with something that is beneath our god."

Ragna: "our god?"

Michael: "where are my manners? You can't except a god you don't know. You see my boy in my hand are three black seeds from the serpent God, Solomon."

Ragna: "and this Solomon has given you these seeds because?"

Michael: "because my child, he has heard the peoples cry, he has felt their desperation and he has seen all you have lost."

Ragna: "yeah right, listen this has all been interesting but I need to...."

Michael: "find a way to make the vampires pay without the aid of your crew."

Ragna: "what? Have you been following me?"

Michael: "I can see this has made you upset, so here's what am going to do, am going to leave these three seeds for you and give you some information that may help you."

Ragna: "and you're going to do this why?"

Michael: "to prove to you that the power of Solomon is real my child, Ragna I swear to you, the only thing Solomon wants is to give his children the power to reclaim this world."

Ragna: "where was Solomon when my mother and my father were being butchered by shoguns."

Michael: "Solomon has been weakened from the countless wars he has experienced but time and patience has made him wise and strong and now, now my child, he is preparing his children to reclaim this world. Take the seeds Ragna and you will see the gift that your father wishes to give you."

Ragna: "how do you know my name?"

Michael: "in time Ragna, in time you will know, when you have taken the last seed, I will return. Ow, I almost forgot, go back to the hellboken crew, it is through them that you will get your vengeance, fare well my child, I look forward to seeing you reclaim your throne."

The serpent priest literally vanished right before Ragna's eyes, all that was left of him was the three black seeds that he held. Ragna picked the seeds and actually ate one of them, with all that had happened he thought that there would be nothing in this world that could possibly make his day any worse, so what the hell. When Ragna had eaten the black seed he felt this massive force unleashed within himself, his sense's had been heightened, so s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e that he could hear the steps of the soldier ants passing beneath him so clearly that the noise actually irritated him. All his fears, doubts and guilt completely disappeared, the only thing he felt was rage, this rage soon sunk and turned into hatred. This hatred began to trigger Ragna's ears and before he knew it he could hear Vanessa's voice still cursing his existence, as he took time to focus on his hearing he began to hear a conversation between soldiers outside the silver caves, they were speaking about a source that claimed they had seen Acheron with a large convoy full of children. Ragna looked to the direction the soldiers were claiming Acheron had been seen and focused his hearing there.

As he focused he could hear a calm voice boasting about killing a young archer without lifting a finger, he never saw or heard Acheron but somehow he knew, he knew who he was, his rage had surfaced and it had compelled him to roar like a wild beast. From the distance Acheron could feel a strong presence looking at him, he could feel a deep rage far from the silver caves he had left, he stood with a deep smile on his face and looked to the direction the angered presence was coming from.

Acheron: "do you hate me? Well then, I think it's time to stop being rude then, don't you think? If you are so eager to face the river of sorrow then come, come and face me mortal, I look forward to meeting the fool that believes he is worthy enough to face me, come mortal fool, come!!!!"

The invitation had been made, Acheron had challenged Ragna's rage and Ragna was ready to except it, Ragna charged out of the silver caves and began to advance to the vampire's location, the black seed had turned him into the perfect fighting machine, a machine so powerful that it believed it could face Acheron. Ragna believed that he was ready to face this monster head on without the aid of the hellboken crew as Michael had suggested. All the suffering, all the despair, it would all end if Ragna could accomplish this impossible task, such an opponent shouldn't be charged after without preparations but with his new found strength Ragna believed. Ragna believed that despite his inexperience that you could do it, he could face Acheron, he could defeat the odds, he could avenge Johnathan, he could win.

Michaels thoughts: "well, well, well, his is a lot stronger than I thought, usually the first taste makes you go berserk but this boy seemed to have gain an abnormal amount of physical power as well as focus. Am not sure what the boy is but his definitely not an ordinary human being, that roar he unleashed is proof of that, his body will make a beautiful addition to lord Solomon's underworld army, so go Ragna, go and show the world your new found power. Such power, such confidence, such a gift that we are beyond unworthy of. You were so involved in your guilt that you were incapable of realizing the great gift Solomon has given to you. Oh but be warned young Ragna, as generous as the black serpent may be, a price must be paid for receiving such an amazing gift, a price that all who except his gift, must pay."