'If this is where monsters go when they're dispelled, I can't blame them for wanting to break out again...and get revenge on the demigod that deported them here.'

Such were the thoughts on one Naruto Uzumaki as he and his two companions made their way along the side of the Phlegethon. Finding it had been easy, seeing as Naruto could sense the flames, and now they were going downriver along the shore of it...or at least the cliff that dropped more than eighty feet. At the bottom stretched a nightmarish version of the Grand Canyon: a river of fire cutting a path through a jagged obsidian crevasse, the glowing red current casting horrible shadows across the cliff faces that was on the side of it.

He knew how the dominant color in a flame changed with temperature. Seeing as Sasuke was so boastful about his family's proficiency in Fire-style jutsu, it was hard not to get that kind of information

The temperature range from Red to White was that:

Red flame

Just visible: 525 °C (980 °F)

Dull: 700 °C (1,300 °F)

Cherry, dull: 800 °C (1,500 °F)

Cherry, full: 900 °C (1,700 °F)

Cherry, clear: 1,000 °C (1,800 °F)

Orange flame

Deep: 1,100 °C (2,000 °F)

Clear: 1,200 °C (2,200 °F)

White flame

Whitish: 1,300 °C (2,400 °F)

Bright: 1,400 °C (2,600 °F)

Dazzling: 1,500 °C (2,700 °F)

The difference between red-hot and white-hot was about 1000 degrees. But what about blue-hot? Blue in a fire was hotter than white. The range was between 2,600 and 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit and was the most oxygen-rich type of flame.

Naruto knew fire was dangerous, so he stuck with using normal, red/orange/yellow-colored fire...best to go with what he knew. No need to test his limits in an uncontrolled environment if he could help it. He just hoped he wouldn't need to bust out the blue flames. But looking things over, the choice wouldn't be up to him. The thought made him wince. He wasn't sure of his limits with his flames yet, either. So if he ever lost control, it would be pretty bad. He didn't know how hot he could make his flames without it being too dangerous yet, otherwise he could easily go nova from being unable to maintain control and make them as hot as the surface of the sun and kill EVERYTHING.

If he was alone, he felt he could have afforded the risk, considering where he was. But with Desma and Robert there...

Yeah...he wasn't going to try it.

Tartarus was a barren land with black soil. There were no monsters roaming the land, and the only light came from the River of Fire. For miles and miles, Naruto could only see the same thing, which was nothing. There was no wall encasing them, no giant boulders, and no creepy gods glaring down at them. Naruto had to wonder what happened when you killed a monster in Tartarus. Did they really vanish, or did they just hidden in some other part of the Underworld?

He hoped they could get out of here all alive, and all of them sane. Then the ninja grimaced, bad thought, don't go there. Do not jinx it!

"How did you set up that temple anyways?" he suddenly asked Robert.

The son of Hecate looked at him like he'd lost his mind.

"Something else to think about." Naruto said with a shrug upon seeing the look he was being given, causing Robert to grunt in agreement. Something other than where they were to think about...THAT was mandatory solely due to fact.

"Conjuration magic, after that, I had the skeletons I used against you build it after I summoned the materials. Cheap labor." he said.

Naruto nodded. "So why'd you do that? Change everyone into animals and nymphs, I mean?"

Robert shook his head, twirling Naruto's bronze hunting knife he'd been lent. "That's easy: I was sick of it all. Humans are always saying how civilized they are, yet kill one another for the slightest reasons, and calling one another beasts for it. Stupid thing is, animals know it's better to know how to fight, but not constantly do so. It's idiotic, hypocritical and self-lionizing. So I decided to change things. Make them into creatures that actually understand coexistence and not doing things unless they're actually necessary."

Naruto nodded at that as the three of them followed the River Phlegethon, stumbling over the glassy black terrain, jumping crevices, and keeping an eye out for monsters that would doubtlessly devour demigods with the gusto, which wasn't easy through the dark hazy air. The heat from the river baked their skin. Every breath was like inhaling sulfur-scented fiberglass. When they needed a drink, the best they could do was sip some refreshing liquid fire since Naruto couldn't risk conjuring meals with his own flames in case the smell alerted the monsters here. Time was impossible to judge as they trudged along, following the river as it cut through the harsh landscape. When the trio stopped, it was because they found themselves at the edge of another massive cliff. The River Phlegethon spilled over the side in jagged tiers of fiery waterfalls.

Naruto felt his heart crept into his throat. Even if they reached the bottom of the cliff alive, they didn't have much to look forward to. The landscape below them was a bleak, ash-gray plain bristling with black trees, like insect hair. The ground was pocked with blisters. Every once in a while, a bubble would swell and burst, disgorging a monster like a larva from an egg.

Out of how grossed out all three of them were, Robert looked the most sick at seeing that. "To think I sped up that..." he shuttered, muttering that he'd swear off monster-summoning.

All the newly formed monsters were crawling and hobbling in the same direction toward a bank of black fog that swallowed the horizon like a storm front. The Phlegethon flowed in the same direction until about halfway across the plain, where it met another river of black water-maybe the Cocytus? The two floods combined in a steaming, boiling cataract and flowed on as one toward the black fog. The longer Naruto looked into that storm of darkness, the less he wanted to go there. It could be hiding anything. An ocean, a bottomless pit, an army of monsters. But if the monsters were going in that direction, it was their chance to get home. After all, monsters had to escape into the mortal world from this place somehow, right?

He peered over the edge of the cliff...sheer drop. And he kept glancing up nervously as above them, dark winged shapes spiraled in and out of the blood-red clouds.

It was clear where the demigods needed to go, though none of the trio liked it. Like all the maggot monsters crawling over the plains of Tartarus, they should head toward the dark horizon. Naruto was just brimming with enthusiasm for that.

First thing was first, had to get down this cliff first. Thanks the gods he was capable of using chakra. He picked up Desma bridal style out of necessity, then crouched down in front of Robert, "Get on."

"Quantum-defiable action?" he asked, "you have a trick up your sleeve that most would call magic because they can't explain it?"

Naruto nodded, and felt Robert get on his back and wrap his arms around his neck, "This is only out of necessity and is never going to be spoken of. Gods forbid that this get into the hands of someone that would blow this out of proportion..." the spellcaster said.

"Hey, what happens in Tartarus, stays in Tartarus." Desma said. Sheesh, while she knew what why he was doing this: to get them down, this would be so much less awkward for her if demigods weren't all interrelated on the Olympion side!

Naruto made the others yelp as he walked forward and seemingly off the edge of the cliff before planting his soles on the side of the cliff face and started to walk down it as easily as a horizontal surface. As he started down the cliff with his fellow demigods clinging to him for dear life, Naruto concentrated on the challenges at hand: keeping his footing, avoiding rockslides that would alert the monsters bellow to their presence, and of course making sure he, Desma and Robert didn't plummet to their deaths.

From the view he had as he went down, Naruto gazed across the ashen plains. After what felt like a billion years later, Naruto reached the bottom. He set his comrades down, and he felt his legs give out under him and he sat down. Damn the fact that chakra was combination of molded together physical and mental energy, sometimes. Using it for that long climb down had left him exhausted. To top matters off, he didn't like what he had seen on the way to the lower level: Ahead of them now stretched miles of wasteland, bubbling with monstrous larvae and big insect-hair trees. To their right, the Phlegethon split into branches that etched the plain, widening into a delta of smoke and fire. To the north, along the main route of the river, the ground was riddled with cave entrances. Here and there, spires of rock jutted up like exclamation points. Under Naruto's hand, the soil felt alarmingly warm and smooth. He tried to grab a handful, then realized that under a thin layer of dirt and debris, the ground was a single vast membrane-like skin. Naruto started to feel like something was watching them...something vast and malevolent. He couldn't zero in on it, because the presence was all around them. Watching was the wrong word, too. That implied eyes, and this thing was simply aware of them. The ridges above them now looked less like steps and more like rows of massive teeth. The spires of rock looked like broken ribs. And if the ground was skin...

Naruto forced those thoughts aside. This place was just freaking him out. That was all. He hoped that was all. And the demigods had worse problems because the group of three was going to be completely exposed, crossing this plain. About a hundred yards ahead of them, a blister burst on the ground. A monster clawed its way out-a glistening telkhine with slick fur, a seal-like body, and stunted human limbs. It managed to crawl a few yards before something shot out of the nearest cave, so fast that Naruto could only register a dark green reptilian head. The monster snatched the squealing telkhine in its jaws and would have dragged it away, but the monster that had the sea demon suddenly yelped in pain as a fireball crashed into it, making it release it's prey and retract back into whatever crevice it had come from.

The telkhine looked to where the blast of fire had come from an it's eyes widened and its jaw dropped before it bolted to it's flippers, fangs bared and webbed, claws raised, ready to fight. But as it did so, it winced and gripped its sides, hissing in pain.

"Desma...we have any gauze wrappings?" Naruto asked.

The girl nodded "I do but why would..." she stopped and turned to Naruto, stunned. "Oh, no way...you cannot be that crazy! You want me to...?!"

"Look, I fail to see why we can't be civil. This one hurt, and outnumbered as it is, so they can't pull anything. As long as this seal-thing doesn't give us a reason to be hostile to them, we won't be. You can't defend without first being attacked, so what happens next all depends on if We're given a reason to call them an enemy."

The sea demon stared at him, eyes huge with shock. Obviously, monsters and demigods had never come to that sort of an understanding before. Then it winced as it felt bandages wrap around it's wounds. Looking at the aquatic being, the demigods raised eyebrows when it spoke.

"Fine, I'll agree to that...My name's Smithaz, means "skilled worker". Seeing as we Telekihnes are good smiths, I'm proud of my name being that. Matter of fact, call me "Smith" for short—most do." the telkhine said in a male voice.

At that, Desma sighed and pulled a roll of bandages from her pocket, then went over and strarted wrapping up the track marks the other monster's fangs had left in his sides. As she did, Naruto got to his feet, shaking a little. while he was, he thought he heard an uneven series of sounds—scrap, clump, scrap, clump. The noise was familiar, and it followed a kind of pattern...almost like...

Naruto tensed, smoke starting to rise off his hands at the thought. Almost like footsteps. Uneven footsteps. Then once they got closer to the group's position, they heard a voice, gravelly and ancient, muttering to itself.

Naruto looked to the other two, his hand starting to glow clear bright orange like hot iron on a blacksmith's forge. He'd take care of this. Desma was busy, and it was obvious Robert didn't know how to fight all that well without magic.

As the steps got closer, Naruto leap at the source of them and he and the monster that he had jumped on top of were a blur of slashing claws, fangs, limbs, curses and blasts of fire until Naruto pinned the creature by the neck to the ground, hand raised and ready to incinerate the threat, but his eyes widened.

He was holding a monster by the neck, pinned to the ground, all right. A female one with pale skin, fiery hair that burned across her shoulders and the ground like a miniature Phlegethon, she was wearing a Greek dress, and her mismatched bronze and donkey legs pinned under his own limbs.

"Serephone!" Naruto and Desma said in unison, surprised to see the empousai again. Naruto extinguished his flames and got off her, helping her stand, all the while apologizing furiously. "Oh geez! I'm sorry! Didn't know it was you or I wouldn't have...!"

The demon clamped a hand over his mouth. "Relax." she said. She removed her hand and stood, dusting herself off. "Don't apologize, you NEED to be that way here. I would say it is good to see you two again, but with where we all are..." she shook her head grimly.

"Glad to see you're all right, Serephone. After that banishment spell got you, we were worried." the blond said, Desma nodding.

Serephone looked completely shocked at that. Demigods feeling worried for a monster? That was something that had never happened before. Usually it was them being worried about monsters...in a bad way, seeing as they'd be fighting for survival against one another.

"Care to enplane that? I'm only obeying the will of my mistress, Hecate." she said.

Naruto rolled his eyes, "Orders or not, fact is you helped us and we feel we can trust you because of it. Choices have consequences, whether good or bad. You help us, so we feel we can trust you."

The vampiric woman stared...then burst out laughing.

"True! Choices do have consequential results. As a servant of the Goddess of Magic, the Mist, and Crossroads, that's something you don't need to tell me!" she said, grinning.

Naruto smirked and raised his hands in front of him and flames shot out of them, hitting the ground and making the air shimmer with heat. When the flames faded, there was a blanket laid out in front of the group of five. A plate of various sandwiches and potato chips appeared on it, along with a six-pack of coke. Sure it was risky, but there weren't any places to hide in the completely exposed plain anyways, and it wouldn't do to have him of his friends starving and so weak from hunger that if they ran across any less-than-reasonable monsters, they were too weak to fight back.

"Well then, how about we celebrate that we're all together again?" he asked.

The demoness shook her head, helplessly amused. Naruto truly was an odd one—even by demigod standards. Three demigods, a Telekhine and an Empousai all together and having a picnic in Tartrus? That was a first. Then again, in Tartarus, any good news at all was to be celebrated.

As the now-group-of-five sat down, Naruto looked embarrassed. "Would give a proper sit-down meal with a table and all, but with where we are..." Naruto said, trailing off sheepishly.

"Keep it so that it's eat-on-the-go." Smith nodded, already halfway through inhaling a Philly cheese steak sandwich.

"Damn...breathing, have you heard of it?" Robert smirked at the sea demon.

"Got any more? I admit I have a bit of a...well, addiction seems the only word strong enough...to Philly cheese steaks." the dog/seal hybrid said, somewhat embarrassed once he finished his sandwich.

"Son of Hestia...I can conjure as many as you like." the blond laughed.

Smith beamed. "Thanks!"

"You're a kind one...fitting, considering your mother." Serephone said, grinning.

Naruto sighed. Suddenly, Tartrus wasn't the most depressing thing on his mind.

"Kind mother, huh? Then why didn't she stay and raise me? Didn't she want me?" he asked miserably.

Robert, Desma, and even the two monsters winced.

"She couldn't be allowed to, none of the gods with kids are. All the gods except Hera hate that one of the Ancient Laws in particular...especially your mother. No matter how much the gods want to stick around and be there for their kids, they can't. Interfering doesn't work otherwise things get worse. The Fates make sure of that. Hardest part of being a god is having to let their demigod children walk their own paths and watch them from far away...Hestia's been utterly against that law since it was first made." Serephone said, shaking her head.

Naruto gulped. He was starting to learn that for a demigod, they were forced to accept that this crazy messed-up world of gods and monsters was their reality. Which pretty much sucked. Monsters trying to kill you all the time, people not able to see them would think you were just insane, and if you learned your parent was a god or goddess, you'd want to know why they didn't use their powers to protect you, or at least stick around, and then there were the feelings of abandonment and how it left a person bitter, then if they learned they were related to beings that felt the constant need to be admired, looked up to, held in awe and admiration, even if they were wrong and felt that their children were to be seen and not even visited...

He shuttered before recalling a few lines of the letter his mom had left him, 'After your birth and by law of my family I was not allowed to see you... I would like you to know that I love you, and you are the most important thing in the world to me...When we meet I understand if you will want nothing to do with me so I wanted you to know that I Love You Naruto. I Love You with everything I am, and would burn this world if it meant that I could be with you as your mother like I should have been.' He growled. He completely understood his mother's feelings on a law that made being there for your family illegal. And whoever Hera was, if she approved of that kind of law, he could honestly say he didn't like her all that much for it.

"I understand why mom hates that law so much." he said grimly.

Smith grunted at that, "And Olympus has plenty of enemies too—most of them due to the times of the Romans, bunch of egotistical psychos that they were, but still...the kind of bitterness something like that would leave demigod kids with, very easy to manipulate."

Naruto, Robert, and Desma all cringed. Whoever got the idea of doing that would have it so that Ancient Law about how the Olympians weren't allowed to be there for their children would have a gift-wrapped army handed to them on a silver platter.

And if Smith was honest about these Olympian gods had a lot of enemies...

Yeah, that was even worse than he tried thinking about!

"What's a Roman?" Naruto asked, feeling stupid.

As he suspected, he got the whole 'Are-you-stupid' look from the other two demigods, but Smith grunted. "Not surprised you didn't want to learn about those Turkish immigrants that ran to Italy after the Trojan War. Rome was full of nuts. For example, they once had an emperor declare war on Poseidon, then have his troops stab the ocean. That's all kinds of crazy!" Smith said.

Naruto imagined it: a lunatic ordering armed soldiers to stand in the ocean and try stabbing water to death to kill an unkillable immortal, screaming "In the name of Rome, die water, die!" while all they were doing was splashing around in the surf for how effective that was.

He couldn't help but shake his head. Ridiculous!

The word "Roman" must have translated to "Crazy Idiot" if they did things like that. At least that was Naruto's thoughts on the matter. But to be fair, he didn't even know what a Roman was. And according to Serephone when they'd met earlier, this wasn't even his own dimension or reality!

He wondered about that still. Why was he sent here? He didn't get it. If it was to know his mother, he would have agreed to that in a heartbeat, but that outdated law made it so they couldn't be together as a family, so what else was he here for? His arranged marriage? Possibly, but she seemed too spirited to accept simply becoming someone's bride, after all... and from what he'd heard at his claiming, she was the Goddess of Virginity of all things, so he failed to see how marrying and having a family with someone that was supposed to epitomize the state of a person who had never engaged in intercourse would work. So why was he even sent here in this dimension?

He didn't get it.

Standing, he walked over to stand next to the Phlegethon and stared at the flames as if looking for answers. Picking up one of the glass-like obsidian chips off the ground and tossing it, making it skip across the flaming river halfway before sinking and, to his surprise, he heard an almost metallic pinging sound over the sound of the roar of flames where the chip sunk. He tried again. Same thing.

Naruto narrowed his eyes, something was under the river's flames? Ok, that didn't seem possible, but then again, the word impossible meant little to a demigod. It meant even less to Naruto.

Looking at the river, a crazy idea struck him. He wondered...

"Guys..." he said, getting his four companions to look at him oddly, "gonna do something crazy, don't freak out." the blond told them. After the warning, he dove into the Phlegethon.

As soon as he opened his eyes after touching the bottom of the river, the strangest thought occurred to Naruto: He was breathing. He was surrounded by the flames, and was breathing normally. As if it were normal air. Weird! Not that Naruto was going to complain that he wasn't burning up alive.

He could feel the heat of the fire. But when he touched his own skin, it felt perfectly fine. What was more was that he was seeing things in the infrared radiation wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation spectrum. the colors making him dizzy as he felt he was trapped in a giant blot of sixties paint and had to squint ans shake his head to focus.

Weird!

Now, what was it hat had gotten his attention? Looking around with his eyes as slits wasn't easy, but he spotted what he was looking for. Picking up the pieces, he tossed them out of the river and then followed.

As he pulled himself out onto the riverbank (being sure to use fire to melt the glass chips into a smoothed over surface to spare his hands) the blond son of Hestia noticed the aquatic magician-smith was already looking over the discovered armor.

As he got out of the Phlegethon, he took a minute for his eyes to readjust to the dim light after the insane level of bright color his infrared vision hand left him with, and once he had, he got a good look at his discovery: a black, tight-fitting armor with dark red short sleeves, a red cloth collar, a pleated black metal girdle attached to a red cloth and the insignia on the cuiras displayed the symbol of a red diamond in the middle of the chest. There was also a set of folded metal greaves that could be attached to protect the front of the leg, while still providing a range of mobility, stretching from the ankle to the knee. Along with all that, there were vambraces made of the same metal that were attached to black soft leather bracers.

"The style of the armor looks like what was used by the Praetorian Guard from Imperial Rome." Smith said, looking it over critically. "Black part is Stygian Iron. Metal's attached to the leather to make wearing comfortable as well as functional. Lightweight too, not bad."

Naruto however, looked at the armor in a different way. Why had it been there at the bottom of a river of flames? How had it survived that anyways when it should have melted?

it was like it had been...waiting for him.

"Interesting way to think of things." a male voice said suddenly.

Naruto and the others cried out and backed away as a geyser of fire suddenly shot up from the riven and as they watched, it took on the shape of a man's upper body at the top of it.

"Greetings," the being said.

"No way...the primordial of the River Phlegethon?! Wha-what are you doing awake, you primordials are supposed to barely be concuss right now!" Smith yelped.

"Well, I had a reason to awaken." Phlegethon said, then turned to Naruto, "Son of Hestia, I would ask a favor of you." the entity of fire said.

"Fire away, what's this favor?" the blond asked.

"Very funny," Phlegethon said, clearly amused at the wording, before the primordial sighed wistfully, clearly this topic was one he didn't like, "You see, the primordial goddess Styx and I are in love with one another, but she was inadvertently consumed by my flames and sent to the underworld. Hades allows her river to flow through his realm. As much as we both wish our rivers to run together and can never be distinct again, we cannot." he sighed, then looked at Naruto pleadingly. "If you can, can you at least take some of my flame waters to Styx? You can do that easily due to your pyrokinesis."

Naruto looked at the figure of fire and he felt his heart go out to the god. Phlegethon and Styx...they both flowed through the underworld, so close, yet couldn't touch or speak to one another. It was worse than any long-distance relationship. It was a way to go insane, having the person you loved be so close, yet not able to be with them. And this poor guy had to deal with that kind of heartache for eons!

As someone who valued his bonds with others, Naruto understood how being unable to be there for the ones you cared about could make a person crazy. That could not stand. Would not stand.

"Sure, you have my word that no matter how long it takes me, I'll get some of your flames to her." he said with a slight smile.

The man of flames flared brighter and whooped before beaming at the ninja joyously. "THANK YOU! One thing my beloved knows about you is that you don't need to invoke her role as an oath-keeper to know that you'll see it through to the end once you've given your word. The fact that you've wasted three years of your life chasing down someone that wanted to follow the advice of the one he hated most in the world for butchering his family like pigs at slaughter and murder the person he had the strongest bond with in cold blood all for the sake of enhancing his ocular abilities with the intention of rescuing them when they don't WANT to be saved...and all because you gave your word to someone who cared for him that you'd bring them back to them."

"Wait a sec...how do you know about...?!" Naruto said, wide-eyed with shock.

Phlegethon shrugged, still smiling like a loon. "Been around since the dawn of existence itself, hard NOT to hear things. The point is, you have integrity and I know you'll follow through on your promise. "

Naruto took out the canteen he'd conjured with his flames and stuck it in the river of fire, once it was full to the brim, he capped it and slung it around his shoulder and saluted the entity of the river of fire.

"Thank you again! Keep the armor as payment!" the primordial said with a laugh. Then he frowned at something thoughtfully "Say...that ring of yours. There's a woman with a similar aura to the one your ring has...but not exactly down her." he said, "been here a while too, and she's a gentle one...someone that shouldn't be here at all, but Hera dumped her in here like a sack of garbage back in the Ancient Days of Greece. Been tormented by Otus, Ephialtes, AND Python since she got here."

Desma gasped at the last name, but looking at her, Naruto realized that something was wrong with his cousin: she looked pale and sickly, and she had suddenly started to shake as if she had hypothermia.

"Wha...Where is this woman? What's her name?!" Desma demanded, suddenly looking fanatically desperate.

"Deeper in the pits, all I can tell you about her location, seeing as it's in one of the places my river doesn't go. As for her name..." the fire deity said, "Leto."

At that, Desma seemed to lose her nerve as something in her shattered. She howled like a wounded animal and collapsed, starting to sob uncontrollably, pulling at her hair, clawing at herself, so lost in her utter despair that she'd taken complete leave of her senses.

"Mother of the Twins, Artemis and Apollo. Zeus married Hera while Leto was pregnant. While the pregnancy started before the marriage, Hera was still jealous and spiteful towards Leto. For the duration of Leto's pregnancy, Hera created problems. She cursed Leto not to find a solid ground or island on Earth to give birth to her children. Leto frantically went from place to place, but found no welcome anywhere, since everyone feared incurring the wrath of Hera and the goddess would commit genocide against them in retaliation for their kindness. On top of that, Hera sent the great serpent dragon Python devour her, thereby killing Leto AND her unborn children. Finally, the unanchored, desolate, rocky island of Delos, which had nothing to lose, accepted her. The other goddesses gathered there to help Leto during the labor. Hera managed to detain Eileithyiai, who, at the time was the only goddess of childbirth, but Iris eventually succeeded in bringing her to the island. After that, the twins were born. This wasn't the end of Leto's woes, however. She and her children were constantly harassed by creatures sent by Hera. Some say that's why Artemis became a huntress, slay the monsters that tormented her and her family in retribution."

Robert shook his head. "According to some, Leto faded away to nothingness, but Tartarus...she'd been here in Tartarus for at least three thousand years!"

Naruto looked at Desma, all of it making perfect sense as to why she was so distraught: she was a daughter of Apollo, this Leto woman was her grandmother! A family torn apart for three millennia...the sheer wrongness of it settled over him like a funeral shroud. Then his eyes hardened and he snarled defiantly. That could not stand, would not stand! He wouldn't allow it!

"Well then..." Naruto said, strapping on the armor over his clothes and once he was done, his hands were enveloped in sapphire blue flames, "...this just means that whoever those three stooges are, let them just TRY and stop us, we have one more person to get out of here with us!" he said resolutely.