The Seven Deadly Sins: Missing Pieces to the Puzzle

The group from Amaifi are inside Stormy's perfect cub headed towards the Germanic border. They've gotten little to no sleep since leaving Amalfi but are all fired up non the less. Jasmine's taking a risk by leaving Mt Vesuvius, but hopefully she's calmed it down enough and the three phenixgon, who are very highly resilient to volcanic matter, have stayed behind in Amalfi to protect the area and redirect any activity. They easily agreed to do so because their new friends had fulfilled their promise to reunite them, although Norberta was torn because she's concerned about her new friends. 

Merlin, King, Gelda, and the still unconscious guide are locked down in a mysterious building treating their injuries. For some reason, the limbs aren't reaching them in here, but the eyes and ears of the person identified as Nico Rieka are still stocking them. Merlin has heard the name Nico Rieka before paired along with Nemesis, but they supposedly had a falling out about a year ago. The building they are in is made of sea prism moon stone, and Carmine told them over the telecom to remain there until help arrived. All three Britannians had come up with plans to make desperate escape attempts, but each attempt proved nearly fatal. Not only is this Nico freak still stocking them, but so are dozens of border portal soldiers attired in strange, high tech magical suits are waiting for them.

To make matters worse, the trio are still quite underpowered, and King and Merlin had gotten into an argument, which also contributed to the failed escape attempts. Gelda helps ease the tension, but it's obvious that the fairy king still doesn't completely trust Merlin. The boar sin admits she doesn't blame him. It really frustrates Merlin as she doesn't have nowhere near enough knowledge, or enough magic currently to get out of this situation.

They've been in touch with Carmine twice. They've wondered to close the Germanic borders instead of cutting through the Adriatic Sea as planned. Carmine told them to sit tight as help was on the way, and not to get involved until a certain signal. Sitting around and waiting, however, is difficult for them. King is also very emotional learning Diane has turned up from Japan, but still disappointed that his sister's still stuck there.

Nearby, the teams from Amalfi are in position. Zeldris and Ban's job is to protect Elizabeth and Apolline as they synchronize their powers to locate the presence of the real Nico Reika. Attacking her real body is the key. This is possible since she's a half-demon/half-goddess hybrid, same as Apolline. Elizabeth's goddess powers will enhance Apolline's tenfold. The only true problem is that it may take some time, and they may be detected. The plan is to keep both Nico and the boarder soldiers busy, hoping to keep their focus away from the two cousins. Despite having their own protective shields up, they are still quite vulnerable to attack.

Stormy and Wild are in position, as are Diane, Kagome, Jasmine, and Arwen. Carmine is hiding nearby to turn Diane back to her full size at the last possible second so that their opponents will not catch on to their plan. Jasmine knows that while harming the clone limbs are irrelevant, hurting any limbs produced directly from Nico Reika herself will also harm her real body, and Diane's power will be key at exactly the right moment. They wait tentatively for twenty minutes. Ban and even Zeldris are getting impatient and antsy, but they need to catch the guards changing shifts, which are always changing to throw possible enemies off. That change finally occurs, and Stormy and Wild make the first move, hoping Nico will take the bait with less organized support around her. For several more minutes, nothing happens. Then, a scream is heard. Some hands have grabbed Kagome and are trying to take the half completed Shikon Jewel from around her neck, while a few fully clad soldiers attack Stormy and Wild. Diane immediately strikes. Blood comes from the arms as they disappear, but about a dozen others spring up and grab her, try taking Gideon from her and arch her spine.

Jasmine quickly steps in and manages to prevent the two from suffering any further beatings. However, she must control her own power output, or she'll kill everybody. One arm appears giant size and performs its version of the secret art of Fish Man's Karate, gathering up moisture from the air and turning it into a punch, at this size powerful enough to take out a mountain. However, Jasmine blocks much of the force without causing much damage. The clone hand's fingernails grow into clawlike nails. Diane stays in front of Kagome to protect her and activates heavy metal to take the scratches. Giant arms appear, as do giant female shaped legs and feet. The claws are so sharp that Diane's taking damage through her metal, even Jasmine's suffering injuries to her own body, but they are able to push back the attacks and temporarily prevent anymore limbs from appearing for a few seconds.

Diane launches a lighting signal from Gideon, letting Merlin's group know they can come out. King and Diane embrace each other tearfully. It takes a while before King realizes that is wife is dressed extremely differently than usual. Diane's kimono has new sleeves sown on courtesy of Carmine. She's wearing strange wooden sandals with white socks, and her hair is in a ponytail rather than her trademark pigtails. King's perplexed by the look, but Diane's still beautiful whatever she wears. 

Kagome suddenly shouts out that the Shikon Jewel is missing, and the group is suddenly struck with a very strong gas that comes up from the ground. Jasmine and Merlin quickly neutralize the gas, but not before hundreds, maybe thousands of arms and legs, appear around them and create a net like cage. Everybody is grabbed and pulled down by sticky webs, quicker than anybody can responded, and their energy starts to drain. Behind the limb cage, a perfect cube appears, then a goddess shield, both much stronger than the ones produced by either Merlin or Elizabeth. An extra shield of electronic darkness appears both inside and outside the shield layers. These layers of darkness are made up of anti-magic and devil demonic supernatural force, which will block and deflect any anti-magic attacks. 

On the other side of the valley. Stormy and Wild have also been busy. Stormy seems to be unable to eat much power from the limbs and almost none from the attacks of the border soldiers and has to rely much more on her wolves to fight. She isn't exactly weak or helpless physically, although her own natural and trained strength can only go so far in this kind of situation. She's unable to absorb devil fruit powers, which is how Nico Rieka is able to produce clone limbs. However, demon/goddess hybrid powers are still the support system behind the limbs, if only more of that would come through so Stormy could absorb that power. 

So far, no limbs have reached where Elizabeth and Apolline are. However, Ban and Zeldris are busy with three mysterious 'things'. They had easily defeated a few soldiers, but then three weird things show up seemingly out of nowhere. It's a miniature sun, a white cloud, and a sword, each with a face and a mind of its own. The sword first attempts to talk the guys into submission, which fails. Then the cloud was trying to annoy them into submission with corny jokes and quotes. The sun recklessly attacks and is struck by Ban's sacred treasure. All three of these things get angry and transform into much, much bigger, stronger, and dangerous foes. Worst yet, these things just seem to be getting stronger and stronger the more the guys fight them. Zeldris even uses Ominous Nebula. His power holds down the sword, but the other two can break their molecules apart and regroup.

soldiers eventually realizes that these things aren't made of real magic, but are artificial life forms, and can sense a real-life presence nearby. Ban strikes where the demon king directs him and forces a solider out of hiding. He's the one commanding these creatures. His odd, advance suit makes him difficult to injure him, as with the other soldiers earlier, but this guy's suit is far more advanced and actually gathers power from the air around him. The three creatures combine with him and turn him into a monster. He creates several dozen copies of himself, but Ban easily destroys the copies. He them inflates his suit into a bouncing type of balloon, which proves ineffective against the fox sin and the demon king. It's only then that several dozen red limbs arrive to bail this guy out and add to his power immensely, finally proving more of a challenge for his opponents.

As Ban and Zeldris are busy, Elizabeth and Appoline are hard at work trying to locate the real Nico Rieka. She has hundreds of clones, false leads, and barriers. As they concentrate more, their protective shields start to weaken, and a giant red hand appears and smashes their barriers. Zeldris notices this and fights his way towards them. Apolline doesn't want to break concentration, but Elizabeth moves swiftly, infuses Lostvayne with her power, and slices the clone arm herself. Zeldris makes it a fraction of a second later and dissolves it while two more pop up. Elizabeth quickly returns to position and immediately resumes concentration. 

Zeldris and Ban break away from the freakizoids and take positions around the two ladies to protect them. Stormy and Wild also arrive to deal with the mysterious sun ball and thunder cloud. Stormy's wolves are able to eat the power from both of them, giving her a humongous power boost, eventually punching all three of those things out until they retreat. Wild's a bit envious that he didn't get to have more fun with those things, but he turns his attention to the guy in the freaky suit. He teams up with Ban and they pull a combined purgatory style attack that surprises the solider, damaging his suit beyond repair, and forces him to retreat.

A few seconds later, a volcanic explosion blasts through the 5-layer barrier. Zeldris and Ban, leaving Stormy and Wild to guard the cousins, quickly jump on a hill and see a huge cloud of volcanic ash. They rush into it to find Jasmine all fired up. They don't see anybody else with her, but then a huge rock rises from underneath the ground, courtesy of Diane combined with Merlin's magic, containing everybody else. Zeldris sees Gelda, and they embrace tightly. Ban rushes to King and gives his brother-in-law some a playful knock on the head, which King doesn't appreciate. Jasmine's so relieved that the others could go underground away from the danger so she could use her eruption power to blasts the barrier without killing anybody.

Suddenly, a giant something seems to rise out of the earth. It's the giant human female body glowing white. This body is around 100 ft tall. The giant form has an unknown trick for everybody as she creates dozens of arms bigger than anything before. The large, white hands release overpowered spider webs and traps everybody.

"Is that her?" ask Zeldris. Elizabeth and Apolline almost believe the giant body is the real deal, but something's still off.

"Wait, that's a clone!" shouts Elizabeth. However, Ban's already attacking it. Stormy and Wild follow in pursuit. Arwen, who's remained mostly hidden this whole time, is about to jump in, but she hears her sister's warning to stay put.

Ban attacks at least a couple dozen times with Courechouse, and there's a number of soldiers surrounding the body to keep the others busy. This body's nearly as tough as that of the Supreme Deity's, but this body's also taking a lot of damage and even showing blood. Stormy's giant wolf breaks through the other soldiers and it swallows power directly from the clone and along with Ban, she punches the body directly the forehead. The giant falls backward and dissipates. The border soldiers also fall back. 

Unfortunately, there's no time to for anybody to catch their breath. Another giant body quickly appears, except this time the body's dark red with a very scary face and black devil wings on her back. Nico Reika has gone full demon mode. While her most powerful and violent form, she also loses most of her rational sense when in this form and not as aware of her surroundings. Elizabeth and Apolline finally nail down Nico's true body, and it's this one! Jasmine and the daughters of Artimes had been hoping for this and know it's time for the secret plan.

A pair of red demon female legs and feet appear and tries to stomp everybody. Zeldris and Ban jump into front of everybody to take the hits and actually end up with some broken bones. Jasmine releases her power and creates a lava pool right where Nico Rieka is standing, as well as a lava wall as more border soldiers attack. Ban, Zeldris, Stormy, Wild, Merlin, King, Gelda, and even Kagome keep them at bay while Carmine turns Diane into her full size. The giant starts her special battle dance out of sight. Nico senses the power and starts to walk through the lava wall. Jasmine's about to turn it up a notch when a perfect cube suddenly appears around Diane. It didn't come from Apolline or Stormy, but from Merlin. She's miraculously back to full power. Kagome immediately realizes that something's off, however. Merlin has the same intense look on her face as somebody who's being possessed by the Shikon Jewel or it's shareds, and Merlin has the jewel in her hand, looking at it as if in a trance. Kagome shots a spirit arrow at her. Merlin swifts out of the way right before getting a direct hit.

Elizabeth and Apolline arrive on the scene and Apolline confirms that they must get that thing away from Merlin as quickly as possible. The plan to defeat Nico is in full swing as the red demon giant grabs the full-size Diane and attempts to break her spine, but the group provides enough distractions to keep the red demon busy. King also helps enhance Diane's powers, as does Carmine and Arwen, who's elf powers are natural nature base, lend the giant their powers as she continues to power up. Most everybody else is now concentrates on Merlin, who hasn't yet stopped staring at the jewel in her hand. Her eyes finally turn dark purple, and she starts to attack everybody. Elizabeth's first attempt of her Light There be Light ability doesn't work, and that rarely fails. Although Merlin hits some of her comrades, Elizabeth looks right into her eyes, which causes Merlin to regain enough sense to realizes what she's doing and aims an attack at Nico, injuring her arm. Kagome asks Elizabeth to enhance her spirit arrow with her Let There Be Light power and shoots it at Merlin, this time hitting the mage straight through the chest. The arrow itself doesn't harm Merlin physically, but it ejects most, if not all, of the jewel power she had absorbed. Ban quickly uses his magical power Snatch to get the jewel away from Merlin. Kagome quickly picks it up.

Simultaneously, Jasmine has created a lava circle wall around herself, Nico, and Diane. The serpent sin finally finishes her dance and raises Gideon, releasing her forbidden technique, Lighting Rod. While capable of massive destruction on the surface, the lava wall contains the massive lightening, hitting Nico and finally knocking her out.

"NOW ARWEN!" shouts Jasmine as she lowers the lava wall and allows the elf to fly in with her wind powers. Arwen pulls her secret weapon out, a very small bottle that she suddenly enlarges to 30 ft. Stormy jumps up and burst the bottle, which dumps water all over Nico Reika. Apolline and Carmine also add a bunch of shiny dust, weakening her even further. Nico screams out in pain as her power fades and she shrinks in size, finally revealing that her true, normal form. She looks just like an ordinary, somewhat petite size human woman around 30. She's covered in blood, sweat, many cuts of various sizes and depth, and many bruises. Her clothes, resembling Indonesian attire, seem intact but are soaked with blood. Stormy quickly puts sea prism moon stone cuffs on her, rendering her powerless. Ban and Diane can't help themselves and both knock her out cold. Any remaining border soldiers seem to have retreated, but it won't take long for the main military body to arrive. Elizabeth, out of compassion, heals all of Nico's wounds, as well as everybody else's.

Still needing to recover their sacred treasures, Merlin can sense Aldan and follows its energy to a nearby cave. She calls Aldan to her, and it comes. Chastiefol also comes straight to King. Inside the cave, they find tons of different treasures and items, even devices, everything from simple child's toys and books to magic items, potions and medicines, and very expensive treasures.

"Jez, talk about a hoarder;" says King.

Elizabeth, Apolline, Arwin, and Stormy also enter the cave with a dripping wet Nico Rieka, who's already come to.

"Ok, where is it?" Stormy demands aiming a bottle of water at Nico.

"Forget the bracelet, Stormy;" says Apolline; "The army will be here any second."

"You know that bracelet is the only thing I have of my birth mother. Not to mention we must recover my logbook too."

Stormy gets aggressive, but Elizabeth urges her to back down and to remember the deal. Nico Rieka silently digs through her "collection" and finds both the bracelet and logbook, handing them to Stormy with a stoic face. Stormy can't help but be happy and thanks Nico, who responds by holding up her cuffed wrists. Stormy reluctantly removes the cuffs as it's part of the deal Elizabeth worked out, and they now have 10 seconds to flee before Nico will start attacking again. She crosses her arms into position to activate her powers again as the daughters of Artimes and King hightail it out of there.

Nico calls out Elizabeth's name and says she has something to give her. Merlin waits out of both curiosity and protective instinct, and Nico Reika hands what looks like a small silver stick to Elizabeth, saying it that Nemesis previously had it, but she could never get it to work properly. Maybe Elizabeth herself could use it, and the stick glows as the princess takes it. Limbs appear once again around Nico, and Elizabeth and Merlin rush out.

Once the group is sure they're safe, Diane and King embrace and kiss like there's no tomorrow. Zeldris and Gelda embrace each other even tighter and start to get a little too intimate before remembering they are in public and tone it down. Four-year-old Hana slips out from underneath Carmine's cloak, so happy to be let out of that hot, stuffy space, and eagerly runs to Diane as she's comfortable with her.

After cracking a couple of embarrassing jokes towards his brother-in-law, Ban asks Diane about Elaine. The serpent sin assures the fox sin that she's with good people. All that can be promise about Elaine is that Carmine and Uba, as well as Jasmine could try to open the gate on their ends, but the risks might be too high. The gates are showing strong signs of possible convergence, which should happen any day now. This doesn't sit well with Ban at all, and King even reminds Ban of his promise to Elaine to never rescue her again at such drastic cost or sacrifice ever again. Elizabeth sits next to Merlin and hugs her. Jasmine also noticed Merlin and welcomes her, as does Stormy. Kagome doesn't give the mage a friendly look and glares at her. Merlin admits that she's the one who took the Shikon Jewel, unable to resist the temptation of its power. She's still interested in it, but Kagome refuses to answer any questions about it.

Carmine demands to know why Stormy wanted her logbook back so badly, but Stormy seems reluctant to answer, even though Arwin thinks maybe they should share the information it contains. Apolline is completely against it. Ban, however, snatches the logbook with his power Snatch and hands it to Jasmine. Apolline demands that they give it back, but Stormy relents and tells her which page to look at. What Jasmine finds is a passcode spell of some kind. Stormy believes it's time to stop hiding things from them and decides to corporate with Jasmine's group, especially since they believe their mother might be in danger. Arwin agrees, leaving Apolline upset as they promised their mother they wouldn't involve outside help, and especially not to get the De Santes sisters or Azareth involved. The demon/goddess hybrid feels her frustration build up, and immediately moves away from the group and levitates into a meditative poss. 

Soon, the Germanic army is outside of its borders looking for them, treating the attack like an invasion. They quickly put up a perfect cube and float away near ground level. Carmine is also able to cast an invisible spell, so they won't be visible, at least temporarily. Once they are a good distance away, Jasmine suddenly passes out from exhaustion. Ban and Zeldris really don't blame her and are on the verge of passing out themselves. As everyone takes a sit to rest, Zeldris suddenly ask Arwen about that stuff they dumped on Nico Rieka.

"Oh that;" replies Arwen; "That was salt water from the Dead Sea. Salt water weakens devil fruit users, especially Dead Sea water."

"They also can't swim in any water, even fresh water;" adds Stormy; "they just sink like rocks. Ironic since most devil fruit users tend to live near the coast, and a good number of them have taken to the seas as pirates. They're not all bad pirates though, they just love the freedom of the sea and adventure. The stuff that Apolline and Carmine dumped on her was sea prism moon stone dust, the only known material that disrupts and blocks devil fruit abilities."

"Hey!" says Apolline; "Don't tell them that stuff. Those are trade secrets."

"What trade secrets?" asks Arwen; "None of us have ever eaten a devil fruit and we know all that."

"This is all fascinating and all;" King interrupts; "But can we figure out how to get Elaine and the captain back?"

"And Inuyasha!" shouts Kagome.

"And Mild and Melidy!" adds Wild.

The first perfect cube suddenly starts to shake. Apolline is exhausted (and severely malnourish) and is struggling to maintain the cube. Merlin's ok for now as the Shikon Jewel restored much of her energy and magic and the cube doesn't take too much of her energy at one time. Stormy takes over from Apolline. "I'll also need to borrow energy form everybody to maintain it until we get to the fortress."

"Fortress!" a few said in unison.

"We were supposed to return to Amalfi;" says Zeldris sternly.

"If we go to the fortress;" explains Arwen; "You'll be reunited with your piglet friends. And we should be able to teleport to Luxor from there. Maybe we can teleport to Japan too. Not to mention Gangkhar Puensum."

"How?" asks Apolline; "With transport salt? The full moon has already passed. Japan's far from our teleportation range."

"Quit being so negative all the time Apolline;" says Stormy as the sun peaks over the horizon. "If we hurry, we may even make it in time for church!"

"I think God will forgive us for not attending considering the circumstances;" informs Apolline. "We'll just get our Bibles out and worship here."

As Stormy borrows energy from everybody, most start to fall asleep one by one. Gelda and Zeldris, as well as King and Diane, snuggle with each as they drift off to sleep. Hana puts her head on Diane's lap. Merlin relaxes a little as she takes her medicine for her sickness and thanks everyone, that is those who are still awake. 

Carmine soon asks to be let out at a nearby spot. After reading what's in Stormy's logbook, the priestess feels she must return home and get prepared. She is close enough that her transport spell will return her to Tibet. She takes the travel guide with her as well and tells the group to please stay in touch. 

As they talk, Elizabeth glazes at the view ahead. She gets yet another odd feeling. She feels as if Meliodas is literally waiting for her in that direction. That's odd since he's supposed to be in Egypt, but Elizabeth's feelings have never been wrong before. She then hears Apolline say that she fears she has felt the presence of Caelestis at the fortress. Elizabeth really hopes that's not true, hoping her intuition isn't right this time.

Elizabeth then looks at the silver stick that was given to her. Arwin, who has an interest in weapons and craftsmanship, says she recognizes the weapon from her mother's collection and mentions that it was stolen by Nemesis just about a year ago. Artimes never could get it to work for her, and when Elizabeth is informed that Nemesis's true identity is Lucy, she gasps. Elizabeth can't believe that her old nemesis is still around. Looking at the weapon, the princess feels a sort of spiritual connection to it, as if it was made just for her. Artemis explains that the weapon was originally made 2,000 years ago by the original Hephaestus for the goddess Athena, but she lost interest in it and never claimed it.

The daughters of Artimes also show interest in Lostvayne and don't recognize the craftsmanship. Elizabeth explains that it was crafted by Dubs the great Britannian craftsmen, and also that only Meliodas can release the sacred treasure's true abilities. All three sisters take a good look at Lostvayne but aren't impressed that its special ability is cloning. Plus, after examining it, they believe that Lostvayne's true and full potential powers have yet to be released. This both surprises and intrigues Elizabeth, wondering what both of these weapons she's holding could possibly have in store.