From Mortal To Divinity

Azula looks down at her armor on her bed. She had received it three days ago before dinner, around the same time as Ambrosius received his. Her brother, Cupid, had stopped by while she was filling out some paperwork in her office. It would appear that she and Ambrosius were originally supposed to receive a pair of spartan armor each, however Neptune and Venus opposed the idea vehemently. Why? She doesn't know, and frankly she doesn't really care. She does wonder however whether ROB had something to do with this, or if it's just a natural part of really living and affecting whatever world they're in.

Shaking her head free from such distracting thoughts, Azula begins to arrange her hair into a warrior's braid, leaving two bangs to frame her face similar to how she wore it back in her home world. With that done, she begins to put on her armor.

Ambrosius' armor is made up of the skin of a mythical sea creature, coated in a flexible some unknown metal, and charmed with for extra flexibility and durability. Her armor however is made up of the same metal, except it has gone through a forging process instead of just being used as a coating. Like his however, her armor is charmed for extra flexibility and durability.

The first piece to go is the ebony colored battle skirt that covers part of her black padded leggings. The skirt itself ends at her mid thigh, with a purple belt, that slightly glows, to hold it to her waist. Following that are her knee high boots that clack against the wooden floor along with their greaves. The boots themselves are in the exact same design as Ambrosius', with hers being all black.

Next, she puts on her chest plate that is composed of a purple eagle whose wings are spread, under black shoulder pads. Purple padded under shirt comes out from under the b.r.e.a.s.t plate and ends at the wrist, where the dark grey vambraces cover them from her elbow to her wrist.

Then she puts on the helmet that covers the majority of her head while leaving her lips and eyes exposed. Finally she puts on her dark purple cape with highlights that glow purple every few seconds.

Having put her armor on, Azula executes a few of her firebending katas, only to notice that Ambrosius is correct. The armor barely weights anything, feels like a second skin, and doesn't restrict her movement at all. In addition, she can already feel the cape's enchantment at work. According to Cupid, the cape is supposed to help her control the wind better, and to fly.

Once her armor is in place, Azula makes her way out of the praetors' quarters to the Caldecott Tunnel, Camp Jupiter's only official entrance.

Arriving at the entrance, Azula is glad to see the first and second cohort already there, posted just before the entrance and standing in formation.

Not wanting to go through the trouble of having them make a path for her, Azula jumps into the air and uses her powers over the wind to float herself to the front of the formation, her cape heroically blowing in the wind.

Arriving to the front of the formation, Azula gently lands and nods towards the centurions of the first and second.

"Report" she commands.

"Centurion Ramirez sent a message. The fourth and the third's guerilla attacks on the enemy have been successful. She and Lady Lupa have been able to reduce the Titan's forces by about thirty percent at the minimum. They are currently on their way to assist Centurion Grace." reports the Centurion of the first, Michael, as he steps forward and salutes.

Azula nods and turns towards the Centurion of the second.

"Has Centurion Grace sent word of his progress?" she asks.

The centurion of the second, twin brother of Michael, steps forward and salutes before reporting.

"Centurion Ramirez's diversion worked. His troops have bypassed the enemy and have almost made it to Mount Othrys. They should arrive at around noon." says Justin.

"Any word from Praetor Ambrosius yet?" asks Azula.

"No mam. We haven't received word from Praetor Ambrosius ever since he left two days ago to intercept the Carthaginian Serpent." replies the centurion before stepping back into formation alongside his brother.

The plan to defeat the Titan army is a simple one. Ambrosius will intercept the Carthaginian Serpent in the sea before it reaches the shore. Reyna will take the fourth and third cohort to meet up with Lupa and her pack to launch as many guerilla attacks on the enemy as possible, drawing their attention to her. Meanwhile Jason will take his cohort, the fifth, to strike at Mount Othrys in the hopes of destroying Saturn's, also known as Kronos, throne. In the meantime, she will command the first and second in Camp Jupiter's defense. A simple yet adaptable plan.

So far everything has been going according to plan. Even better if she were to be honest. She never expected Reyna to be able to reduce the enemy's forces by thirty percent.

Before she can sink deeper into her thoughts, Azula feels the enemy enter her domain. Based off of Ambrosius' sensory domain, Azula created a technique that lets her sense anything based on wind currents. Similar to Ambrosius when in the sea, Azula has yet to find a limit to what she can sense. She also can't succ.u.mb to sensory overload since she isn't truly sensing with her traditional senses, but instead with her supernatural sense that lets her control the wind. However she does prefer to set her domain at about three miles when preparing for large scale combat, like the upcoming battle.

"Form up!!!" orders Azula.

Immediately the cohorts lock shields, stand their ground, and prepare to enter a standard phalanx formation.

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Michael is a member of the Legion, a veteran to be exact. As legacies of Mercury, he and his brother, Justin, served New Rome as members of the Legion for the standard ten years of service. After that they were honorably discharged and allowed to reside in New Rome as proud citizens. However, they quickly found that the peaceful life wasn't for them, so when Praetor Ambrosius and Praetor Azula started to recall veterans in preparation for the war, they quickly and excitedly rejoined.

Unfortunately nothing could prepare them for the new Legion. Like the Legion before them, the Legion of New Rome heavily emphasised teamwork and cooperation to defeat the enemy. While this made them a formidable army, it however made them weak individually.

The new Legion however, forced one to work on their individual skills to survive the harsh training. Now one's swordsmanship and spearmanship skills need to be at a certain level. After that it was a constant hunting of monsters to gain real life life and death experiences before the war came.

Eventually the war came in the form of skirmishes, and Michael was more than happy to kill the enemies of New Rome.

Now at the ripe age of twenty three, Michael and his brother Justin stand proudly next to one of their praetors as they prepare for the coming enemy.

Before an order can be given however, the wind starts to pick up, clouds cover the sun, and lightning flashes while accompanied by the roars of thunder.

"Michael, Justin," comes the voice of Praetor Azula from his side "I will personally meet the enemy and attack. Your job is to stay here with your respective cohorts and to kill any monster that I miss. Understand?"

Yes, mam." he and his brother answer.

With a nod Azula launches herself into the air and flies off to meet the enemy.

Michael watches in awe as she disappears into the storm clouds, her purple cape billowing behind her and glowing every few seconds. Soon enough he loses sight of her, with the storm clouds behind the only indication of her continued presence.

Before Michael can ponder about her action, a lightning bolt, the likes of which he has never seen before, strikes the middle of the monster army disintegrating a big part of it.

Michael and Julian can't help but watch in awe as the enemy's forces begin to combust into dust for no reason. It didn't take long for him and his brother to figure out that their Praetor was in fact the giant bolt of lightning that struck the enemy earlier.

Before he can continue to admire her however, he notices some monsters coming towards them and gives the order to prepare for battle.

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Koios is in a bad mood. He has been in a bad mood ever since his return from Tartarus. When he had first been released from Tartarus, Koios had been ecstatic. After all he is no longer suffering in the pit and the Titans were in the process of making a comeback. He expected to return to Mount Othrys and find legions of monsters waiting there for him and his siblings to order and conquer the Olympians with. Unfortunately reality is far more disappointing than fantasy.

When he arrived in Mount Othrys he was met with an army of approximately one thousand two hundred monsters. Voicing his disappointment, Koios had asked why their forces were in such low numbers, only to be informed about a demigod son of Neptune reforming much of the legion and using them to wipe out any monster that has the gall to come to the west coast, forcing them to hide in Mount Othrys.

When Koios heard this, he had been skeptical. After all, what danger could a demigod possibly pose. As it turns out he had been wrong, and the numbers of monsters that joined their forces continued to plummet as less monsters stepped foot in the west coast, and the majority of those who did died at the hands of the Roman legion.

Eventually he was joined by Perses in commanding the army after Atlas returned to holding up the sky. With his help Koios was able to convince Ocean to attack the camp using the river inside as an entrance. Unfortunately that too failed, no matter how hard they tried.

Eventually the day of attack came and they began to march towards the enemy. Unfortunately they were constantly attacked on the road, and lost about four hundred out of one thousand forces. They never caught the Romans who attacked.

Now he watches next to Perses as a lone demigod decimates his forces, and he can't help but want to rip her to shreds. Koios watches in anger as she jumps on a hellhound's head and uses it as a springboard to jump to a cyclops' eye level and decapitate it.

Having had enough, Koios roars in rage and joins the fray. Quickly reaching the demigod, Koios swings his sword at her unsuspecting head, only for her to duck and cut off his sword hand at the wrist as she turns to face him. With a pained yell Koio holds his wrist in his remaining hand and looks at the demigod.

Finally getting a good look at her, Koios admits that she is in fact very beautiful. Between her armor, midnight black hair and eyes that glow with the color of lightning, and the arcs of lightning traveling up and down her form, the demigoddess poses a beautiful and regal figure. As Koios observes Azula he makes the mistake of being caught in a trance, completely missing Azula as she launches herself at him and decapitates him, sending him back to Tartarus.

Azula's actions surprise the rest of the army, as they freeze in shock to process what happened. A fatal mistake, since Azula takes the opportunity to summon a massive bolt of lightning, and using her sword redirects it at the enemies all around her, further cutting the army down in half.

The surviving monsters look around and quickly realize how outmatched they are. With the Telekhines taking the lead, the majority of monsters quickly turn around and run for their lives.

Perses, who had been watching from the very back can't help but snarl in disgust. Making his way to the front of the now hundred or so strong army, Perses grips his spear and runs towards the demigoddess.

Azula, seeing him coming, easily sidesteps his stab, ducks under his swing, and easily redirects his slash.

"Honestly, you are such a horrible lancer. You flail that spear around with a minimal amount of skill and all brute strength" she says as she tilts her head to the right to dodge another stab.

"Who taught you how to swing that spear? A monkey?" she taunts as she redirects another slash.

By now Perses is no longer thinking straight and is completely consumed by rage as he watches Azula dodge and parry his strikes with a minimal amount of movement while taunting him. His judgement is so clouded that he never realizes that she is using his reckless attacks to continue to thin out his forces.

Eventually Azula deems it enough, she sidesteps a stab, using the opportunity to cut the shaft of the spear in half, she then proceeds to step into his guard and impales Crocea Mors between his eyebrows. Realizing what happened, Perses tries to speak, only to go to Tartarus before even making a sound.

"Good riddance" says Azula as she wipes his ichor from her blade.

Before Azula can do anything else, something crashes on the ground in front of her and continues to skid past her.

Turning in the direction of the object, Azula sees Ambrosius with one knee on the ground, his trident impaled on the ground with a trail from where he used it to slow his momentum, and in the sorriest state she has ever seen him in. You can easily tell that he had been in a major battle. For one, his left arm hangs by his side in a limp, on his face he has a deep cut exactly where his scar used to be when they first met, and blood can be seen leaking from his nose.

With a groan he slowly gets up, before coughing out blood once on his feet. Looking up he turns his eyes to something behind Azula with a weary smirk, bringing her attention to the giant sea serpent that's slowly disintegrating into golden dust. Before it completely disintegrates however, Azula gets a good look at what it originally looked like.

The serpent is about one hundred twenty feet long, its skin is a glistening flesh, green and brown ridged with serrated dorsal fins. Its triangular forehead is wide enough to provide parking for about two or three cars, and it's now dead eyes slowly lose their orange glow.

Before Azula can continue to observe the serpent, she hears Ambrosius groan behind her. With urgency she turns to help him only to see a chain wrap around his throat drag him into a doorway before it closes. The doors are clearly elevator doors framed in Stygian Iron, with black and silver doors etched with art deco designs.

With haste Azula sprints to help him, only for the doors to disappear just as they close, leaving her standing there in shock as fear and worry courses through her very being. She remembers those doors from Ambrosius' description, she knows that the only time they came into play in canon was when Gaea started to come back. She knows for a fact that the only place that Gaea would open the Doors of Death to is the pit itself, Tartarus.