Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

In his sleep, Raven found himself walking down a dark path. There was nothing in front of him and yet he felt drawn to finish that journey. Wandering like a hermit, he felt days, weeks and years pass, and only then did he arrive at the cliff that peered down into insanity. Reaching from the darkness was a pair of dark hands that melted into the background and were barely visible to him.

Following the outline of the limbs, he tried to leap back but couldn't. Reaching for him the hands dragged into the dark pit and there he felt cold and saw a pair of silver eyes peering back at him.

"How curious…" The commanding voice of a female muttered out to him. Her eyes glittered like glaciers under the sun while peering into Raven's eyes. "I thought you were Nightsilver when you first touched my great-great granddaughter's rifle."

Heaving a cold sigh as she was forced out of Raven's mind, the woman squinted her eyes and peered into the mana-fused eye. Slowly turned dark with a red iris, the eyes reflected the image of the dark fairy mother. Umbra had pushed her out–something the woman could've never expected.

"A true fairy?" Her eyes grew slightly distant with those words before moving much closer to Raven than before. Staring at the entirety of the man in front of her, the dead of the abyssal whispered a warning. "Put a single finger on my daughter and I'll freeze the world with you and everything you love being crushed by ice…"

Raven tried to open his mouth, but a golden glimmer behind him cut his words short. Turning his head, he noticed a winged angel descending from a golden portal and making its way towards him and the woman reaching from the dark. Following the female angel, Raven froze at the sight of the withered figure holding him.

Sunken cheeks with dark skin like ashes of charr as well as bony fingers that should only ever belong to a skeleton, not a person ever. What unnerved him the most was how her body melted into the darkness as a strand of flesh barely holding her body upright. Her breasts were sagging and flat, her belly inverted and her ribs visible from under the skin. The woman was far from her prime and it showed, however, even then Raven knew better than to go against her just yet.

"Pardon my intrusion, but the hero has been summoned by my goddess supreme!" Conjuring a golden spear in her hand, the radiant angel stomped it in thin air. Its reverberations echoed through the darkness and forced Raven and the lurking presence to cover their ears.

Held floating in the air by a golden hand that had appeared behind him, Raven was flown away into the portal while the angel kept an eye on the presence in the land between. Once the hero was taken away, the angelic woman opened her mouth to briefly talk to the presence.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Purgatory hasn't been nice to you, I hope it gets better, Honored Lady," while bowing to the presence, the angel was shrugged with a swing of the woman's hand–but no offence was taken and the angel continued to smile before returning to Athenia's prison through the golden portal.

Arriving on the other end, the angel closed the portal and knelt on the ground. Keeping her head lowered, the radiant beauty dared not look upon her goddess without her permission.

"You've done well," Athenia's voice echoed inside the prison and a smile fluttered onto the angel's lips. "But go, I need to talk to him."

Washing the smile away just as quickly as it had appeared, she opened yet another portal and disappeared into the heavens. As for Raven, he was still a bit disoriented from what had just happened and every time he tried to look at Athenia–all he saw was a bright bulb of radiance. The mortal mind was incapable of conceiving the true form of gods without proper preparations and in his dazed state, he was far from prepared.

"What the hell was that?" He asked, leaning forward on the chair he was seated in and grabbing his aching head. Letting himself experience it without forcing the stimulus to stop, he allowed the aching and the sensory overload to slowly begin disappearing.

"I wished it hadn't come to this, but…" Taking a pause, Athenia glanced sideways at the fairy floating beside her and listening in on the conversation. She wanted her to take a hint and disappear, but being dense Cassiopea didn't understand the hint. "The person you met just now, she used to be one of Nightsilver's party members and apparently she's also related to that witch hunter you've caught yourself."

"W-what are you talking about?" Slowly looking up again and blinking a few times to adjust his eyes a little, Raven could finally see Athenia sitting on her throne with a fierce expression.

Stretching her hand forward, the goddess continued her explanation.

"From what I've gathered, she mistook you for Nightsilver and pulled you into that nightmare."

"Why would she mistake me for him?" He asked right back, and a moment of hesitance took over Athenia's lips.

She wanted to say something but wasn't sure if it was yet time for her to reveal that truth. Amedith was soon to learn about his mother's death from Mino and throwing concerns for Raven in the mix was bound to create chaos in the party's workings.

"You don't need to worry about that for now, what you do need to worry for–"

"I don't need to worry about it?" Interjecting in the middle of the goddess' sentence, Raven's eyes frowned as he looked at her. "More secrets? Did you forget what happened the last time you kept secrets? We all lost faith!"

His screaming echoed inside the prison, but it aided him none. Seeing the situation as hopeless, Athenia swayed her hand in the air and sent Raven back into his body where he would find him with Erika trying to wake him up with her healing.