Aphrodite's Sphere**Edited**

chapter 28

I felt the cold dew of the morning soak my pants, and I was pushed by the force of the vortex onto Endridian land once more. I covered my eyes as an orange ray of the ascending sun disturbed my vision.

"Everyone is here?" Navid questioned as he looked at his scattered team on the carpet of odd vegetation.

I placed my hand over my eyes to block the orange rays of the ascending sun from disturbing my vision. I heard a soft groan from beside me, and from the corner of my eye I saw Dion role his eyes and help Aethusa stand up.

She arranged her neatly braided hair to the side and dusted her petite figure from the dirt that clung to her clothes.

Obasis came to stand beside me, his eyes still filled with sorrow and emptiness. He was still clearly hurting from the shocking events that took place few days ago. Actually we were all still shocked by the unbelievable confession that was laid in front of us. We were all served with a card none of us exacted.

"I am pregnant" her words echoed in my head as strongly as they did the first time they were heard, three days ago. Her story however was even more shocking. It turned out that she has been in love with a soldier for the past few years and refused to make it public due to her constant try to keep up her tough warrior facade. She simply did not want to be publically labeled with a soft feeling due to being afraid of losing her title of best in combat. After all she was also a woman and she could easily lose that. However since she found out that she has been carrying the fruit of her secret love, she has decided that her career was worth risking. But given that she has been one of the chosen ones for this important mission, I strongly believed that it would have been hard to simply get rid of that label.

"Does anyone know from where to start?" Dion said, as he ran a hand through his messy strands of hair and looked around the mass area waiting to be explored.

"Well logically thinking and putting some of the pieces of a huge puzzle together, a phoenix bird is known for its purity and its possession of the whitest of souls, so given that the sun rises from the east where there is the thinness line between Olympus and this realm I believe that it would likely build its nest there." Navid said, his words holding a thick aura of wisdom and logic.

"That sounds good enough." I said with a light shrug.

"Did you guy hear that?" Aethusa suddenly said. God, how I hated her voice, God how I wished someone else would have replaced Xena.

However shrugging the hate that tagged at my very core of my heart, I tried to focus and identify the foreign sound heard. However as the seconds passed and we all tried to investigate the area we began to relax again, and believe that it was simply the wind or a passing forest animal.

"It was probably a squirrel."Dion said.

"Okay, but we have to be careful because we are officially in the danger zone once again." Obasis said, his eyes now shining with concern.

We all silently walked through the trees, no one spoke a word. Actually, no topic seemed fitted for being opened under such an awkward and tensed atmosphere.

"How are you today?" Dion suddenly said, taken by surprised I looked at him and then at Aethusa that was eying me and surely throwing mental daggers in my direction.

"Not so good, for some reason I have this major headache." I honestly said.

"Well, you really do look like a zombie as well." He joked and looked me up and down with a disgusted face.

"Shut up." I giggled and lightly punched him.

"Oh no, that will surely leave a bruise." He said with exaggeration and a fake painful face.

"Love can we rest for a while." Aethusa suddenly showed up and clung to his arm. Dion gave me a sad and apologetic face and looked at her afterwards.

"Yea, she is right we have been walking for a long time." I said, earning a scowl from her due to my intervention.

Clenching my fists I was ready to mentally punch her and give her a blue eye as a new accessory. However my plans were quickly ended.

"Well, well, well...look what we have here." A manly voice filled the atmosphere as soon as five huge men, with a muscular frame and scarred faces appeared in front of us. Their aged faces revealed about forty years of existence however their eyes held an evil aura that seemed to be older than that.

"Who are you?" Obasis said in a very deep and serious voice.

"Why are you so tense? Loosen up man; we are only here to take our ticket to fortune." The one in the middle said.

Looking around at the others I saw that they have all already called their swords, so following their actions I did that as well. My sword was in my hand within seconds, and the adrenalin and anxiousness flooded through my blood.

"You have two choices either get out of the way, or suffer the consequences." Dion said. He came closer to me and defensively placed a hand in front of me, as if afraid that they could somehow immediately get to me.

However, no direct response was given to his proposal; on the contrary without any other word spoken the men attacked us with all their might.

The men attacked whoever stood in their way, their target was obvious. Me.

One was lucky enough to get past my guardians and personally fight with me. He was the one that did the talk a few minutes before.

His black cape flew in the air every time he came forward and tried to pin me to the ground. It was somehow easy to keep up, because it was obvious that he hardly tried not to fatally injure me.

With all my might I tried to remember Ares' lessons. And the many advice he had gave me. At some point I even found myself silently praying that he would help me. And believe it or not, after that silent prayer was sent his voice penetrated my head, lowly whispering advice and tips on how to dodge the other move. Usually a voice inside your head would have easily distracted you from the task at hand, but this time on the contrary, it made me focus and feel that I had the situation under control.

After a few minutes of dodging and trying hardly to aim a fatal part of his body I managed to make him kneel. His sword resting a few feet away, and from the corner of my eye I observed the others silently watching me, waiting for my move. I saw as the other cadavers laid lifeless and bloody on the ground, and suddenly I was aware of what I had to do.

"Who sent you?" I said, trying to look as serious and scary as possible.

When the man began laughing I pushed my sword a little further into the skin of his throat making a drop of blood leak through the wound and down his neck.

"Hades. Actually his demons but by his order of course." He said. A sly smile plastered on his lips. "He has a very high amount of gold offered as a reward to whoever will bring you to him. Thus making almost everyone on this realm search these ground after you." He continued, licking his sleazy lips. "So I would watch out if I were..." He did not get the chance to continue. Before he knew it, or even I, my sword found its way deep inside his throat.

With shaking hands and a horrified face I looked at the man I killed, tears falling down my cheek without a stop.

"It's okay. We all feel this way the first time." Welcoming Dion's arms and his soothing words I found myself sinking in his hug for a minute. Before pulling back and shyly smiling.

"We need to be careful from now on. We are in more danger than ever."