The alien had been watching the argument between the Solaris Hero and the Tempest Hero in total silence with the utmost amusement. He, however, understood that Lakshman was plotting something by trying to protect members of that criminal organisation. So, to cause a disturbance, he turned his attention towards Vikram that was crying over the ice-cream that got destroyed before he fully enjoyed it.

Using a persuasive magic without anyone noticing it, he spoke telepathically into Vikram’s mind by saying, “I know how you feel. Your ice-cream was destroyed by them. Make them pay.”

Those words became the trigger that spurred Vikram into rising to his feet and moving to smash the two strangers away. Now he watched in silence, smiling triumphantly as the situation started to escalate in a chaotic direction.

“What the heck was that?” Gram asked, shocked by the severe injuries sustained on the two criminals.

“I beat them up because they ruined my ice-cream!” Vikram said causally, turning to face him with a look as if that was quite obvious.

Gram looked at him disbelief and asked, “What? All of that… over some food?”

“Argh! It’s not just some food goddammit!” Vikram exclaimed, flaring up at him angrily. He started pointing his finger at Gram before saying, “It’s called ice-cream! Ice-cream! Get the name right! Also, it’s not just some food, it’s a food that’s made straight from heaven! It’s so cool, tasty and quite enjoyable! There’s no way anyone would just sit around and ignore when such food is being treated with negativity!”

He heaved his deep breath from the long speech before looking at Gram with a triumph look on his face, expecting to see the other man looked amazed. Unfortunately, all of his logic was lost on Gram as the prince from the other world stared back at him with an incredulous look of disbelief on his face.

This angered the Sonic Hero greatly, and he snorted with disgust before saying, “Damn! Why did I waste my breath on a guy who has no sense of taste, especially when he is so stuck up on himself that he thinks he’s king when he’s not, is he?” As Gram looked shocked, Vikram turned back to him and said with narrowed eyebrows, “He’s just a paper tiger pretending to be wearing high end shoes when, really, he’s wearing the shoes of a beggar for attention!”

The insult drove into Gram like a wedge and it hurt him very badly, especially his high amount of ego. Gram momentarily widened his eyes in shock before exclaiming in a furious voice, “What… did you say…? Ha?! What did you say, you bastard?!”

“Wait! Calm down, you two!” Natsu shouted, getting in between them as the wind around them started to blow quickly as the two warriors began activating their powers.

As everyone watched with fear on their faces at the sudden escalation of the situation, Lakshman was filled with horror at how everything was slipping out of control. He glanced sideways and saw the alien smiling, and when their eyes met, he winked at him while forming a grin on his face.

“Damn him!” Lakshman thought in frustration.

At that moment, the people realising a commotion was happening were starting to approach the scene. Many of them wore looks of surprise, amazement while the remainder looked either alarmed or shocked by the display of two heroes glaring angrily into each other.

“What’s going on? Where did all these people come from?” Lakshman asked, looking confused.

“Indeed. It’s almost like they were forced to leave this place, only to return because of the commotion,” suggested Asura in a quiet voice inside his mind. “Must be the doing of the alien, but… how?”

Lakshman decided to tackle that issue later as the problem at hand was about to go out of control, looking at the enraged Sonic Hero and Tempest Hero glaring menacingly into each other’s faces while Natsu tried to keep them from going at one another.

“Why isn’t anyone else trying to stop them? Maxwell, William, Ward, and even Bolten! They’re all frozen stiff!”

“Lakshman, just stop for a moment and sense the powers these two are emanating, and you’ll understand that it’d be life risking to interfere between them now,” said Asura, understanding clearly what had made everyone decide to not stick their noses in between those two warriors.

“I understand that, but—!” Lakshman began furiously.

At that moment, he was interrupted when a sinisterly familiar voice asked him, “Hello? Can you hear me, mister hero?”

Lakshman instantly recognised the voice to belong to the alien, and widened his eyes at being able to communicate with him telepathically without the use of any kind of verbal incantation or magic circle for activation.

“I know you can hear me, so shut up and listen. If you’re truly the man of honour and whatever crap, then you better act because no one will stop them, not the people, not royalty, and certainly not the heroes that stand around you. Can you do it?”

The Solaris Hero whipped around and glared angrily at Mike, who upon making eye contact with him, smiled smugly and lifted his eyebrows a little as a gesture of challenge. He knew the alien was responsible for the current predicament of them having to witness this scene, especially when surrounded by many witnesses. Soon, word will spread of the fact that the heroes from another world are crazy and uncontrollable and need to be destroyed.

“He’s set the trap for us pretty nicely,” admitted Asura in a quiet voice. “With this, the people will lose the will to trust the Nine Heroes of Legends and will start fearing them, which in turn causes them to revolt or do something so stupid that they normally wouldn’t have done under any normal circumstances.”

Lakshman remained silent as the energies gathered by the two men were starting to intensify and no amount of persuading Natsu tried worked on them. They were just too angry at one another to even care about their surroundings, let alone listen to the pleadings of a single man in an attempt to stop them from fighting.

“Isn’t your plan simply to get me caught up in all this, right?” Lakshman asked, knowing that the alien was still connected to him through telepathy.

The alien laughed and telepathically replied, “You think small, human. My grand plan is just getting started!”

“Whatever your plan is, it will fail!” Lakshman replied in a firm voice, only to be responded with laughter from his enemy. Once the telepathy link was disconnected, he sighed to himself and thought, “Damn. Now I’m in a bind.”

“Well, I suppose we should go and stop them,” said Asura in a frank voice. “Just look around you at all the fear circulating around. Even Bolten is shaking even though he is hiding it with sheer will power.”

Lakshman noticed that as well when he took a glance at the first prince and saw that he wore a serious look on his face, but his hands were shaking. He had clenched them into fists, but he could not control the fear he felt that channelled themselves all the way into his hands. This made Lakshman smile sadly before turning back to face the two warriors, reading to smash into each other.

“If I act now and bring either one of them down, the world will view me differently,” admitted Lakshman in a quiet voice inside his own head. “Maybe, they’ll view me the same way they did back then.”

He was referring in the ancient times when he, the first Phoenix Titan, ruled over the world with an iron fist. This, in turn, caused everyone to become afraid of him and plot assassinations and other organised crime to bring him down. However, Asura was not fazed by it and, instead, welcomed the challenge with open arms.

“I know you can handle them because you already did once before,” replied Asura in a reassuring voice when he suddenly said, “but let me handle this situation now. I really want to let off some steam since I got the chance.”

“What’re you going to do?” Lakshman asked, but Asura would not answer so easily.

The first Phoenix Titan merely laughed and replied with, “Just watch.”

As they switched hold over Lakshman’s body, Gram shouted at Vikram, “You’re on, dammit! I’ve become sick and tired of your continuous annoying attitude. Blah blah this! Blah blah that! Hell! I suppose this is why your parents are dead!”

Vikram became so shocked that his mouth fell open in the process, but he quickly recovered and shouted, “Take that back!”

“I don’t care!” Gram bellowed, surging with power and sending a wild blowing wind in all directions.

Vikram also began to surge with power, and the two squared off against one another as they readied to do battle. However, interruption came in form of Asura, now in control over Lakshman’s body, tapping Gram on the shoulder from behind.

“What?!” The Tempest Hero demanded angrily, glancing around just enough to see that Asura had pulled his fist back with a wild expression on his face.

“Go to sleep,” said Asura, and he unleashed his fist straight at the Tempest Hero’s face.

Gram was shocked at first, but with the power of his instincts, he managed to move his hand up and caught the fist that was very close to reaching his head. As he did, he felt a powerful force unleash into his hand, causing wild wind to blow in all directions while causing him to feel as though his hand came very close to being broken.

“What the hell?!” He shouted, staring at Lakshman in disbelief.

“Oh! You’re good. You caught me,” stated Asura, sounding surprise, but then he smiled and said, “but this isn’t enough to stop… me!”

He exclaimed the last word before unleashing an enormous amount of power that startled Gram. While everyone was watching, Asura forced his fist forward and smashed the Tempest Hero’s hand back against his face. There was a loud cracking sound as both the bones in his hand and nose broke. At the same time, a powerful shock wave occurred that buffeted everyone in the vicinity and made a few lose balance and fall down.

As the dust settled and the wind returned to normal, everyone watched in shock at what just happened. Gram was slowly falling backwards with his mouth gaping open while his eyes rolled back inside of his head. Before he could fall, however, Asura grabbed him by his shirt front and slowly lowered him to the ground. Everyone stared at that scene with great fear due to the fact, shocked that he was able to knock out the Tempest Hero with a single punch. They were not aware that Gram’s hand and nose were broken, otherwise, they would have backed away from his attacker.

“That felt good,” muttered Asura in satisfaction.

Sensing all eyes on him, he glanced around at the people and seeing the familiar fear coloured on their faces made him smile reminiscently.

“I have to admit; I kind of missed this look,” admitted Asura in a quiet voice so that only he heard him. Then he glanced towards the alien and telepathically said, “I hope you’re satisfied now, alien, but you don’t know what I’m capable of.”

The sudden strength in his voice, and the power he had displayed by not holding back against his ally, surprised the alien. Mike had expected that the Solaris Hero would engage both warriors in a heated battle that would cause damage to the surroundings and dirt the name of the Nine Heroes of Legends. However, he did not expect that his enemy would solve this matter simply by beating the day lights out of the Tempest Hero.

Asura smirked at him before turning his attention back to Gram, whom he was supporting with his hand. Not willing to hold him there forever, he turned towards Maxwell and called to him.

“Maxwell.”

“Yeah?”

“Catch,” said Asura, and he tossed the Gram’s limp body towards the Gundas Hero.

“Ah?!” Maxwell said, startled at first before reacting and catching his limp body.

Nodding once at him, Asura turned back to face Vikram, who was looking unsure about what just happened. When he turned to him, the Sonic Hero flinched and quickly brought his hands up to guard himself with the fear that he might face the same fate as Gram.

“Vikram, I’ll buy you a dozen ice-creams, so please calm down. Alright?” Asura asked as politely as he could muster because he did not like the idea of going around punching everyone.

At first, Vikram was surprised, but he slowly calmed down and said quietly, “Okay.” As he cooled down, he also realised what he had caused and looked down in embarrassment while saying, “Um… Sorry.”

“For, you know, hitting them and… um… starting this mess with him,” he said, indicating the two members from the criminal organisation and then at Gram, whose limp body was being hoisted over Maxwell’s shoulder.

Asura looked amazed as he said, “You realised, ah? That’s good. Better this way than the end of my fist, don’t you think?”

Vikram immediately nodded his head glumly in agreement and became silent. Moving on from him, Asura turned towards Bolten and asked, “Bolten, would you mind coming over here? I’d like to have a word.”

“Huh?” Bolten asked, looking surprised. “S-Sure. I guess.”

While feeling a little worried, he broke from the ranks and walked over to stand next to Asura, who began whispering to him a plan of action that he wanted the first prince to take after this. At first, Bolten seemed to be surprised by the plan, but he quickly nodded with a determined expression on his face.

“Sure thing, Lucky. I’ll arrange it,” replied Bolten, smiling confidently at him.

“I appreciate it,” replied Asura with a smile of his own.

Watching them from the side, everyone was wondering what it was that the two had discussed so secretively. Even the alien was feeling puzzled because he could not catch anything they said, and his magic also failed to activate on them for some reason. He reasoned that the king from another world placed a barrier around him and Gram to ensure that their conversation remained a secret.

A few minutes later, several Royal Guards arrived in different vehicles and enclosed the area to ensure everyone’s safety. They arrested the two knocked out men from the criminal organisation known as the Raven’s Guild. After that, the royal siblings, the Nine Heroes of Legends, Raze, and Mike departed for the castle in order to report the situation to the king.

“Okay. We’ll head to meet with the king while you head on over to the hospital to get patched up,” said Bolten to them before he, Santa, and Erza departed.

As they set off, the mood was glum as Maxwell carried the unconscious Gram over his shoulders while the rest followed behind him. Mike and Lakshman avoided making eye contact, although, they often glanced at each other with curiosity.

Not liking the silence, Martin plucked up his courage and started a conversation by saying, “There is never a dull moment, is there?”

“I wish there was,” said Ward telepathically much to their surprise. He looked at them and said telepathically, “I want to read historical documents about this world and learn a thing or two.”

“How useful is that?” Fred asked with curiosity on his face.

“I don’t know, but I may find something useful for late use. Maybe a reference,” said Ward telepathically, then he added, “Knowledge is power.”

“Yeah. That certainly is true,” admitted Maxwell, who placed both of his hands behind his head with a weak smile on his face. “During war, information is critical to success or failure, and knowledge can easily turn the tide of any battle. I often wished we had enough information about our enemy so we didn’t suffer major losses in wars.”

Fred blinked in surprise and asked, “Do your world engages in war all the time?”

“In the past, yes, but recently it’s an ongoing struggle of Cold War,” replied the Gundas Hero. When they looked confused, he elaborated by saying, “Cold War. Basically, they threaten to do this and do that in a show of strength and force, mostly to gain something as they feel it’s necessary to show off their superiority.”

“That kind of attitude always leads to destruction,” commented Natsu coldly. “I’m sorry to say this but your world’s politicians are fools, always putting their own self-interests first before the priority of the safety of their people. I mean, what could a common man or woman or child ask for? War or peace? Be killed or be able to live?”

“You’ve got a point, Natsu,” admitted Maxwell with a sad smile on his face. “I just wish they’d be able to think like you.”

“No world runs like that, Maxwell. It’s the way of life,” stated Ward telepathically, to which none of them said anything to.

Asura, on the other hand, chuckled to himself and heard Lakshman say inside his mind, “I guess a soldier has it tough when he’s got no choice but to fight for his country, his men, and his family even if he doesn’t like the choice he makes. I still don’t think what we did was right though.”

“But it’s not wrong either,” replied Asura to Lakshman’s hesitant words. “If we had stayed that way, the world would have been split into pieces, with each being ruled by a powerful clan that are each bent on world domination. Never once have they considered joining hands, joining forces for the good of the people or for the future. That’s why I made the choice that no man can make, and achieved what no man had been able to.”

“Yes, but… the backlash of it is that our clan faces great enmity amongst the other races,” said Lakshman in a sad voice.

Asura nodded his head in agreement and thought, “You’re right. Anyway, what is done is done. We can’t fix the past, but we can fix the future.”

“Yes. Let’s work towards it,” replied Lakshman in an eager voice.

“Uh, Lucky,” said Raze, coming to his side and speaking to him in a quiet voice. “I was wondering… why did you knock Gram out, especially in such a forceful way?”

Asura looked at her and thought, “Um… What can I say? Because I wanted to let off some steam?”

He heard his current-self sigh and say, “Just tell her you did it because it was easier to reason with Vikram than it was with Gram.”

Nodding in agreement, Asura repeated what Lakshman told him to Raze, and she nodded her head in understanding.

“That makes sense, but I’m still puzzled over one thing; why were you supporting those two criminals? Any particular reason?” He asked him in a curious voice.

“Any particular reason, you ask?” Asura asked, making a thinking pose before smiling as he said, “That… is a secret,” and he winked at her.

She tiled her head as a sign of surprise while they and everyone else headed towards the hospital located in the castle.

***

A while later, the two members of the Raven’s Guild woke up after being treated for their injuries and found themselves sitting behind bars.

“Man, boss. We came to talk and this is what happens to us?” The shorter man asked the taller man indignantly.

The taller man sighed and said, “Oh well. It’s my first-time spending time behind bars. Let’s see how fun it is.”

“There’s nothing fun about this place,” the other man said, indicating the damp gloomy they were in.

They sat there, sighing to themselves as they awaited the news of what their fate would be from there onwards. The guards noticed them being awake and quickly notified the first prince about it. Bolten arrived several minutes later to stand in front of their cell door looking into where they sat, and he brought along Lakshman with him.

The shorter man was the first to look at their visitors, and widened his eyes in shock before exclaiming, “Boss! Look! It’s the Solaris Hero.”

Upon mentioning the hero’s title, the taller man looked up and appeared to be amazed to see him there. As the first prince and the Solaris Hero entered once the guards opened the door, they rose to their feet respectfully.

“Surprised to see me?” Lakshman, who was actually Asura in control, asked the man with a small smile on his face.

“A little,” the taller man admitted honestly. “I thought we’d be carted off to the central prison to pay for the crimes of my organisation.”

“That would’ve been the case, but the hero here decided to grant you some leeway if you cooperate with him,” announced Bolten with a serious look on his face.

“Cooperate how?” The shorter man asked suspiciously.

“Information,” said Lakshman curtly, looking seriously at them. “If you give me a bit of your time, I’ll let you go.”

At first, the two men did not believe their ears and asked in unison, “You’ll… let us go?”

When Lakshman nodded and Bolten nodded reluctantly, the two men looked at them in a stunned disbelief.

Bolten ignored their state and went to ask, “Do you accept this offer or—?”

“Of course, sir!” The younger man responded quickly.

“Absolutely, sir!” The taller man said quickly. “This is far better than going to jail!”

While they looked excited, Bolten and Asura turned to each other before nodding in agreement with the proceedings. The guards brought in chairs that Bolten and Asura used to sit on while the other two men sat back down on the beds provided in their room. Thus, they all turned to look expectantly at Asura, who smiled as he prepared to initiate his plan to take the alien down.