Ramifications

'Alright Roman,' Saraya thought with a clear read on Roman's ki signal, 'Once I figure out what gave you this crazy idea, I'm going to reintroduce you to why psychics are so dangerous.' She wasn't pleased with Roman running off in the least, as it did nothing but make her job harder and weighed on her nerves. Granted, she could sympathize with the kid for wanting to find the one person her knew could protect them all, but the action that he took was amateurish at best.

Suddenly, a sharp pang of pain rang through her head, so much that the fast running Lamia had to stop and drop to a knee. 'What the!?' Saraya thought as she grasped the sides of her head, doing all she could to ease the scorching heat that was running through her mind. 'This feeling! So much sorrow; so much despair!' As waves and waves of the same and similar feelings flowed through her being, the Lamia looked up to the acropolis in the near distance, where she could only gasp in disbelief from the blinding light that seemed to flash from it for only a few seconds. 'What's going on there?' she wondered, already knowing the true source of the mental pain. With the strong connection she currently retained with the youthful Draco to track him, every feeling that he could feel was hers as well. These dark feelings were coming straight from his mind; Saraya could only wonder what happened that could illicit such feeling from Roman.

'I don't like this,' Saraya thought as she forcefully choked down some bile that was threatening to come out, the dark feeling that she had ever since Alexandria coming back with a force the likes of never before. With that in mind, she expanded her senses to the other warriors on the nearby battlefield. 'Raven! Jasper!' she called out, hoping for a quick response from either of the titanic warriors.

'Saraya?' Jasper called out after a second. Saraya sighed in momentary relief even with feeling Jasper's annoyance at being stuck in his current predicament. 'I didn't know you would be coming here? Rave told me you had to take care of something at the other church.'

'Already taken care of,' Saraya answered with a roll of her eyes. 'Ut Puri led a raid on the church there, only to deter any interest from this place. Once I figured out their intentions I came as fast as I could to help out. They're planning on taking Soulbreaker for themselves.'

Saraya swore she could hear Jasper's annoyed growl even from her distance from him. 'We already figured out that much young star,' Jasper said.'And they want it bad, so bad that they deployed Hezekiah with Excalibur itself. Raven's fighting him as we speak.'

'Ok,' Saraya said. 'That must be why your brother didn't immediately answer. Raven!' After another moment of no response from the Exemplar, Saraya focused her senses even more to contact him,, taking the bright flash of light she had just seen as nothing more than a byproduct of Raven and Hezekiah's unusually hectic battles. 'What in the world?' she thought as something deep in her soul kept trying to warn her that something was horribly wrong. 'I can't feel him... anywhere?'

That was not like Raven; although he somehow was one of the fewSovrumano alive who could consciously resist Saraya's telepathic abilities, he would have at least answered her. 'Jazz!' she called out with an increasingly worried tone. 'Where exactly is your brother right now?'

'Well,' Jasper said. 'Last time I got to see him, he and Hezekiah had themselves an energy clash. I didn't see the results because Julian has me trapped in this 'Umbra Dance', or so he calls it.' Even though Julian had robbed him of his senses in the technique, the equally legendary fighter could still sense the thick feeling of trepidation rolling off of the Lamia Exemplar, and it got him to finally check on Raven himself by extending his senses.

What he felt was something that chilled his soul to the core.

'Rome!?' Jasper thought, unwittingly letting Saraya listen in on his thoughts. 'The hell is he doing here?' After a few more seconds, that worry soared to new heights when he too could not sense Raven... and if anyone could sense Raven, it was Jasper. 'I don't like this, at all,' Jasper thought. 'Saraya, get your a*s up here, and not now, but right now.' Just from knowing Roman was this close to this kind of battle worried Jasper, but not feeling his brother's energy at all struck a deep chord that he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer to. With that in mind, he focused on the true bulk of his power, intending on re-joining the rest of the warriors on the battlefield  'I'll check what seems to be the problem out here.'

'Good,' Saraya answered before cutting off the connection to make it to the acropolis. However, the young woman only took two steps before the pained scream of Roman himself rang out. The sheer amount of emotion in it caused Saraya to falter in her step once again; this time, for much more than just negative feeling.

***

A fearfully shaking Roman dropped to his knees, mouth agape at what he had just witnessed. "Dad," he said in a low, weak tone before crawling on all fours towards the downed body of his father. His emotions were running rampant in his mind; fear, anger, worry, disbelief, angst. No words could describe the cold, numb feeling he was experiencing right now as he reached his father, who's eyes were wide open, as if he had been shocked by a bolt of lightning. "Dad?' Roman asked once again, this time more frantic as he stared to shake on his chest. 'No!' he thought, wishing with everything in him that everything was all a bad dream. 'No, no, no, no, no!'

While this was going on, Julian stood with a sickeningly triumphant look on his face as he could nearly taste the despair rolling off of the young Draco. "Ha!" Julian laughed out loud before degenerating into a sinister cackle. "After all these years of Raven Edge being the most feared warrior in the Illuminati, who would have thought that he would fall by my hand?" He took a few moments to relish the feeling of success that he felt. Even where Hezekiah, the Oberst of Ut Puri's most elite of fighting forces had failed, numerous times, with one shot he had felled a legend.

And it was all thanks to the relic he now held in his hands.

Try as he might, nothing Roman could do was enough to help his father now, or anyone else for that matter. Raven Edge had been struck in the heart by Soulberaker itself, the slayer of the far more legendary Achilles, and no amount of healing by anyone, doctors and Angeli included, could bring the most prolific ofDraco Exemplars since Merlin himself back from the realms of death. As Roman lovingly waved his hand over his father's eyes to close them for the final time, it all hit him: his father was dead, killed by the most sinister of all Ut Puri's Justicars, and that man was having the time of his life as he laughed a few feet away.

Roman didn't know what overcame him at that moment, but whatever it was, it felt unlike anything he had ever experienced in his life. All the emotion that flowed through his mind, all the pain he held for having to bear witness to such an event suddenly exploded in his heart. It was like a white hot fire rushing through his veins as he subconsciously channeled his ki¸ far more than he had ever done so in his life. This fact eluded Roman easily; all he had in mind at that one moment, was revenge.

Julian stopped his laughing the second he heard Roman yell to the heavens. "Oh," Julian said with a sickening smirk, oblivious to what was going on biologically inside Roman. "The little whelp is mad? Hurt that his pathetic excuse for a father can no longer protect him from big bad me?" Still unknowing of Roman's real mood, Julian started to make his way towards Roman, even as he made to notch another arrow to Soulbreaker. "Don't soil the ground with your pathetic tears; you'll be joining him shortly in the Nine Hells of Tartarus." Julian smirked as he took aim to fire yet again at Roman, pausing to mess with his mind just a bit more. "Tell him to thank me for sending his son as company!"

That was a mistake that Julian would live the rest of his life to regret.

It was too fast for Julian to even hope to detect, as Roman suddenly buried a fist deep in his gut, Julian's eyes widened both from shock and ungodly pain; it felt as if the boy's fist was literally burning him inside and out. Roman didn't relent; the kid saw red as he rained down hit after dehabilitating hit onto the DaevaJusticar, who couldn't even muster a defense from the enraged assault. "I'm gonna kill you!" Roman roared, his voice taking on a deeper tone, one that Julian would later remember to sound similar to Raven's own voice in Soul Released mode, yet deceptively calm as if he were a cold blooded killer like himself. With a final hit, Roman sent Julian flying into the back wall of the hidden chamber, where the Daeva slumped to the ground in a pained heap.

'How is this possible!?' Julian thought as he struggled to even catch a glimpse of the raging youth. Those hits from Roman in such a short time had inflicted far more damage than he ever dreamed the youth was capable of; it was almost as if Raven himself had gone off on him. Five busted ribs, a ruptured spleen. and a collapsed lung were just a few of the injuries that he had received from Roman's salvo, and that wasn't even mentioning the burning in his gut that felt like Hades himself had scorched him.

'Just a second ago he didn't look as if he could hurt a fly, but now a kid is besting me?' Those thoughts turned into a rage of their own as the manslayer made it to his feet; no child would make a mockery of him, especially after accomplishing a feat nearly all affiliated with Ut Puri thought impossible. "Alright you runt, you had your fun!" Julian yelled, even as Roman continued to scream to the heavens from the pain of ultimate loss. the Daeva manslayer tossed Soulberaker to the side as he cracked his knuckles, intending on killing the brat with his bare hands. For Roman to even touch him was an insult to his honor, but for the kid to injure him so gravely in just a few seconds was bewildering. Julian raised a palm to Roman, who was still screaming in angered mourning, and fully unaware of the danger that Julian personified as the Daeva charged a basketball sized orb of black ki, aimed straight for him. "Dance for me you little-!"

A few significant things stopped Julian from completing his sentence. The most glaring of those was the sudden explosion that rocked the acropolis itself, as Julian's enclosed Umbra Dance had finally met its match, The squared off black box that he had trapped Jasper in shattered with the sound of glass shattering, as a fully released Jasper stood in the middle. His eyes blazed a royal blue as he took on a similar look as his brother's released form, substituting the long whip like hair for small red and black ridges along his scalp that could have been mistaken for cornrows from a distance, along with massive red and gold wings that looked to belong to Tiamat herself.

Another was the sudden appearance of yet another Exemplar, with Saraya suddenly appearing behind Roman, only to lightly touch his temples with glowing red hands. Roman's raging instantly stopped, with the young kid falling to the ground asleep in blissful unconsciousness. The Lamia Exemplar seemed to have already figured out what had happened, as she leveled Julian with a glare that would have forced the likes of Victoria and Hezekiah to second guess themselves in front of her, even as a stream of freely flowing tears flowed from her eyes.

Even with these two additions, Julian's true reasoning for stopping his assault, was what he had seen in the eyes of Roman. Something didn't add up in Julian's mind; right before Saraya had done whatever she did to subdue to pained youth, the Daeva had caught a glimpse of Roman's eyes. They were glowing all right, as all Sovrumano's do when they actively channel ki, but Roman's eyes, they were... different, somehow. 'A rainbow?' Julian thought, too stunned to move just from that sight alone. 'No way. No f*****g way!'

Julian was drawn from his thoughts by the heavy landing of Jasper, who had touched down, taking an offensive position between Saraya and Julian with his gaze trained on his earlier opponent. 'Raven,' Jasper thought as he cast a momentary glance at the body of his slain brother. That one glance ignited Jasper's own rage, but unlike the youthful Roman, Jasper knew how to control his rage. After all, he didn't want to end up in the same position as his fallen kin. "They haven't invented the words capable of describing what I'm about to do to you," Jasper said in a menacing voice, trembling as he held onto the small amount of restraint he had left. "I'm going to kill you Julian Draven, and I'm gonna do it nice and slow. No one hurts my family and gets away alive."

Julian looked at his options as he was already forming a plan of escape. He knew that he couldn't take on Jasper in a hand to hand fight now; he had sustained too much damage from both his and Roman's earlier assaults. On top of that, Julian had learned something about Soulbreaker in the singular time that he had used it. The weapon, as legendary as it was, was incredibly draining. As soon as he fired the first shot, it felt as if the bow itself took the bulk of the ki remaining in his reserves just to get the job done. Judging from the amount of ki taken in regards to the amount he still had left, and he had his reservations on using it again, at least right now. Another shot might have ended either one of his foes, but in the same token, that was akin to choosing death by electric chair or by firing squad.

"You'll have to wait in line," Julian said with a smirk clearly in Saraya's direction, knowing that the Lamia was already locked onto his thoughts. "I have a schedule to keep!" Julian quickly sunk into the shadows just as Jasper had fired off a ball of lightning, protecting himself from both warriors in one motion.

"Jasper!" Saraya yelled, springing in a mad dash towards the legendary artifact, trying her best to grab the loose Soulbreaker before Julian could. "He's trying to escape!"

"No!" Jasper roared, himself next to the Exemplar as they reached out for Soulbreaker. It was a futile attempt, as they watched the weapon sink into the shadows a second away from their grasp. 'Rome!' he thought as he doubled back, swearing on everything he loved that the kid wouldn't be the next victim of Julian's bloodthirst. Luckily for him, Roman had been scratched from Julian's agenda, with the Justicar preferring to reappear next to Hezekiah, only to rescue his defeated commander from his and the Exemplar's wrath. Jasper fired off one more shot at a taunting Julian, who simply waved with the hand that held the goal to their mission before disappearing once more.

"Oh God!' Saraya yelled, both from anger in Julian's hasty, if cowardly, retreat, and from the full weight of everything that had happened finally falling on her. The Lamia hesitantly made her way over to Raven's body, collapsing in a heap as she cradled the now ex-Exemplar's head. "Raven!" she yelled as her emotions came pouring out of her in a wave. "Look at what they've done to you!" The female couldn't say anymore as she broke down into tears, grasping onto the body of her fellow Exemplar and personal mentor as if that could bring him back to the land of the living.

Jasper was another story entirely. Instead of bawling in tears like Saraya, he was busy beating himself up mentally as he thought about now the battle had gone. 'If only I stopped playing around with that brat sooner,' he thought, enraged at himself. Truthfully, the only reason he had let the fight drag out so long was because he loved seeing anyone Ut Puri related feel despair once they realized that they couldn't beat him.  He could have beaten Julian ten times over, but for once, his personal pride had gotten in the way. 'This is going to be bad,' he thought as he though about Raven's other half. 'This might break her; she loved you Rave.' Jasper looked to the darkened sky, which had quickly clouded over to where the moon's light couldn't reach them. As rain stared to fall on his face ever so softly, he couldn't help but give a saddened smile. 'Look,' he thought. 'Even the heavens cry for you; imagine her.'

Jasper let out a shaky breath as he controlled his own emotions; sad as he was, he refused to cry, especially here. Raven had went down on the battlefield like a true warrior, protecting his son like a true father. He wouldn't shame Raven's memory by letting go here, no, that he would do privately, after he did his best to calm the coming storm ahead.

"Come on Saraya," Jasper said as he let go of his released form, kneeling down to rub her back. It hurt him to see all of this; his brother, dead on the ground, and Saraya weeping for his loss. Sharon was no doubt the closest woman in Raven's life, but Saraya came in as a close second. The two had a relationship one could say was like father and daughter; Raven had personally made sure the young woman was ready to take up the mantle of Exemplar in a way none of the other Exemplar's had, and Saraya had looked up to him every since. "I know how you feel," he said as he helped her to stand. "The pain of loosing someone dear is so much to bear, especially a man like my brother. Mourn for him, remember him, but don't let this break you down."

"But," Saraya said, choking up due to the tears and emotion she still was feeling. "He- he's-he's gone! What about Sharon? What about his kids, his friends, his family?" Saraya suddenly screamed out loud, unwittingly launching a telekinetic blast into the side of the crater in her despair. "It isn't fair!"

"I know," Jasper said as he took her into a soothing hug, where she stayed for a few moments before she too succumbed into unconsciousness from the weight of it all. A loud crack finally brought him back to his senses as he looked up, where both Ricardo and Jericho were standing at the crater's lip with looks of concern on their faces.

"Jasper?" Jericho asked with an already wavering voice, only needing to take a quick glance at Raven's body to realize what had happened.

Jasper sighed; they all knew what had happened, but saying the words was so much harder. "They won this one," Jasper said in a somber tone, feeling the urge to light up a blunt just to numb the pain somewhat. "They got everything; Soulbreaker, this island... even Raven." Jasper cleared his throat quickly to stop himself from choking up, hard as it was. Now that Raven was gone and Saraya unconscious, he knew that it fell to him to call the shots. "You two get down here and grab them," Jasper handed Saraya to Jericho while Ricardo made to pick up Raven. That one maneuver almost cost him, as Jasper suddenly blurred to cut him off. "No," he said with a stern voice, motioning with his head to the still unconscious Roman. "You take my neph; let me be the one to carry my little brother home."

"Jazz," Jericho said softly. "What happens now?"

Jasper looked to his two fellow warriors with an unsure gaze. "I don't know," he said as he knelt down to pick up Raven's body, handling it with the tenderest of touches for such a powerful individual. "We go home, make our report, and see what Skylar has planned for some kind of countermeasure." Jasper looked at Raven's face, almost as if he was looking to the dead warrior for some kind of answer. "Trust me on this: the Illuminati will not take this lying down, and neither will I. This I swear."

***

On one good note, Skylar indeed had a plan in place. After Saraya had departed from Alexandria, Victoria had informed the High Exemplar of the Lamia's concerns. That had prompted the High Exemplar to send an emergency force of some of the best the Illuminati had to offer to Rhodes, as well as Siobhan sending a contingent of Angeli healers from her own church. With the support of the other eleven churches in Rio De Janiero, Bombay, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Brisbane, St. Petersburg, Johannesburg, San Francisco and London, the Illuminati had descended on Rhodes like a cleansing light, contesting the large force that Ut Puri's Oberst had sent to plunder the isle. Though they were successful in forcing out the mass invasion, none could locate Julian or Hezekiah, who had already escaped the island to go back to their home base in Rome.

The events at Rhodes were too large to be pushed aside from the eyes of the world, at least in a way that could be totally hidden. To that end, the United Nations had called a secret meeting between the leaders of the world affiliated with themselves and the Illuminati to offer up some kind of explanation for what had happened. The end product was a story that depicted an unknown terrorist group that tried to forge their own kingdom using Rhodes itself, and the battle that had followed between the Illuminati's forces and Ut Puri's was explained as one where the United Nations had deployed a coalition of troops to quell the threat before it got out of hand.

For the majority of the world, the 'story; did it's job to hide the real truth, but there were those who knew better than to believe that kind of crap.

"Oh man," Riley thought, pulling at the purple tie that he was wearing in nervousness of what he, Jordan, and the others were about to do. It had been four days since the events of Rhodes, and he and the rest of the Sovrumano students had decided to pay Raven's widow a visit to offer their condolences. They were thoroughly shocked when they were joined by a fair number of other students, allSovrumano themselves, all students that had their lives touched by Raven in some way, shape or form. "This suit is hot as hell," he said, referring to the all black church suit that Selena had forced him to wear for the occasion. "I'm dying in this heat!"

"Dude!" Jordan yelled, although it was obvious that he too was suffering in the similar colored suit, although he got a reprieve by wearing a white dress shirt. "Not exactly the best thing to yell on Mrs. Edge's front step."

"You know what I meant," Riley retorted with a roll of his eyes before giving a pleading gaze to Selena, who along with Ashley was wearing a medium length black dress with their hair pinned up in a similar fashions. "Can I just lose the jacket?" he asked as he fanned himself with said jacket. "Please?"

"Respect, Riley," Selena said sternly. Being Santana's twin sister had the fortunate (or unfortunate, given the case) benefit of her having a better understanding of what exactly had happened to the prolific Exemplar. "And fix your contacts why don't you."

Riley growled as he got to his task. Knowing just who Raven's killer was had Selena give Riley the helpful suggestion to wear brown contacts to their former professor's home. It certainly wouldn't do well for Raven's widow to look into the eyes of a member of the Daeva Supremo race, especially this soon. "Fine," he said with a thumbs up once he was certain his contacts would hold up. "Let's get this over with; I respect the guy and all, but I hate this feeling of depression and death."

With that Riley raised his hand to knock on the oak door, but he, as well as the rest of the college kids, were taken aback when the door swung open on its own, exposing a haggard looking Sharon behind it. The woman looked as if she had already expected the group, but didn't look to be in any mood to have company. Her eyes had dark rings under them from hours of nonstop crying, and she looked to have lost quite a bit of weight in the last few days. Tis' was the effect of losing someone so close to your heart; it was as if someone had ripped her heart out and beat it with a slegehammer repeatedly.

"What," Sharon said in an angered hiss that no one expected. "Do. You. Want?"

'And she's definitely taking this hard,' Jeet thought as he backed away, hoping to hide himself in the throng of Sovrumano mourners. There was no need for a telepath here; everyone present could tell that Sharon was not in the best state of mind.

"Yeah," Riley said nervously after being 'lightly' pushed into the widow's direct line of sight by one of the other students. "Uh, I'm Riley O' Connor."

"Congratulations," Sharon said, not amused in the least. "Here's your prize Riley." With that, the woman suddenly lashed out by smacking the taste out of his mouth before emphatically slamming the door in all of their faces. "Get the hell away from here, the lot of you!"

"Riley," Selena warned, already seeing the flash of rage in Riley's eyes, but the physicality, although it amounted to the force of a flea bite to him, had snapped whatever control he had. With a furious roll of his eyes, Riley beat on the door once again, intent on bringing the woman back out, regardless of her mood.

"Yo!" Riley yelled, too far gone from being angered to care about whatSharon thought. "I know you're hurting lady but all we wanted to do was offer our condolences!"

A silence followed for a few moments before Sharon finally re-emerged, this time with a family photo in hand. "Do you see this?" Sharon asked sternly, raising the medium sized picture for all to see. "This war, this conflict between you all and those phenoms! Look what they took for me!" She emphatically pointed to the pictures of Raven, Roman, and Quinton to prove her point. "My husband is dead! My oldest son is in a coma, and my youngest refuses to leave his room because he's scared that Ut Puri will somehow come in here to finish the job!" She screamed in Riley's face, finally letting the frustration that she had built up vent, regardless if the teenager deserved to be on the business end of it. "And yet all of you Sovrumano!" Just with the disdain that she said the word Sovrumano showed everyone present whom the woman blamed for Raven's untimely demise, if but partially.

The problem; she was far from finished with her rant.

"You all say you're sad, that you're sorry for my loss!" She rolled her eyes in clear disdain as she spoke. "For the better part of his life my husband fought for all of you, representing you all at the highest of stations as your beloved Exemplar. Where were you all when he got taken from his family?" Some of the teens present had the state of mind to turn away in guilt from the woman's abrasive words. "Probably out, enjoying the lives that my husband helped make possible for you. But what do we get in return? What do my kids get in return; how am I supposed to tell them their father's not coming back!" Sharon suddenly grabbed Riley by the jacket and brought him down to her eye level. "And your kind," she said with such a venom in her voice that even Riley started to fear for his well being. "You're one of the ones who actually took him from me! You didn't think I would notice the contacts did you?" Riley opened his mouth to try and offer a rebuttal, but the enraged woman was having none of it. "Until you can bring my husband back to me, I don't want to see any of your kind again."

"M'am," Ashley said meekly, almost regretting doing so once the angered woman leveled a gaze on her. "That's not possible; what about your sons? No matter how you feel, they're always going to be what they are. Even if you never want to see us again, you have no choice but to see your sons."

Sharon for a moment looked to actually be contemplating Ashley's words. 'True,' she thought. 'But knowledge is power; Raven taught me that. What's aSovrumano without knowledge?' Suddenly, Sharon's eyes widened as if she had suddenly been given the secret to immortality, surprising everyone present with the change in mood. "You know what?" Sharon said with a small smile, although said smile gave Ashley and the rest present an uneasy feeling in their gut. "Thank you for that," Sharon said with a point in Ashley's direction. "Not get off my step!" With that, Sharon slammed the door once again, everyone knowing that there wouldn't be a third opening.

Ashley and Jeet gave each other questioning looks of concern, the two being the only ones to discern the glint of inspiration in the widow's eyes. "Why do I feel like I just made everything worse?"

"Only time will tell," Jeet said, shaking his head. "People deal with pain in different ways; I just hope that whichever way she does, doesn't involve doing something she'll regret later in the long run."

"I hope so too," Ashley said, giving Riley a nod to signal for their departure, as the throng of Sovrumano students were already milling out in despair of their own. "But somehow, I'm not sure she's gonna think like that."

***

"No."

As Jasper said that word for the fiftieth time in the last twenty minutes, Skylar rubbed his temples in frustration of his current situation. As far as everything went in the Illuminati, everything was back to normal save for one glaring issue: they needed a new Draco Exemplar. The problem with that, was that there only a few Draco alive whose strength could hope to come close to Raven's, and none with the same level of notoriety save for Jasper. It wouldn't have been so bad if Jasper would just accept Skylar's proposal, but the jaded Draco would have no parts of it.

'Come on Jasper," Justinian said, in a similar state as his fellow AngeliExemplar. "You know how Skylar is when it comes to the rules of advancement: if he's willing to bend them just this once to make you Exemplar, why not take it?" Justinian shook his head, aggravated at the stubbornness that Jasper was currently displaying, "If anything, do it to honor Raven's memory. We need you as Exemplar Jasper; it's the only way we can be sure Ut Puri won't try to capitalize on their advantage now that your brother had passed on!"

Jasper only raised a curious eyebrow in response, continuing with his usual task in the Pharos, that of giving Victoria a death glare that made said Exemplar far more uncomfortable than usual. "And that," Jasper said, wagging a finger for emphasis. "Is why I won't take it." Truth be told, Jasper never wanted the position, but would have taken it if Raven himself asked him to. 
Anything else was an insult to his brother's memory in Jasper's eyes. "If you need an extra hand in muscle, I'll help out. That much I will give in this time, but as far as that seat," Jasper said, emphatically pointing at the empty pedestal that used to belong to Raven. "Being the Draco Exemplar would weigh me down; I would always seek to live up to his name rather than my own legacy. I can't do that to my brother. I want him, and his legacy, to rest in peace."

Victoria was the one who spoke next, to the surprise of all currently present. "Edge," she said, using his last name just to pick at him for his glare, but for once meaning nothing behind it. "We have our issues, that much is already documented. Right now though, I'm willing to put it aside for the good of the Illuminati and everyone else. Can't you at least do that?"

Jasper had to admit, even he was stunned at the humility that Victoria had just shown. Granted, she was still in a way sucking up on a political note, but it took a lot for Victoria to put anything aside. "You guys are desperate, aren't you?" he asked, although the answer need not have been said. "Even still, my answer is no."

'Jazz,' Saraya voice rung in his mind. The Lamia Exemplar, who until this point in the meeting had been silent, sounded removed even in her telepathy. She too was taking the loss of Raven hard; she was all but withdrawn from the would, putting her focus only into the bare minimum of things she had to do. It showed even in her attire, the woman being blacked out in far more conservative slacks that she was known for wearing and an equally dark tank top. 'What's the real reason you don't want to be Exemplar? You know how much of an honored position it is; you have status just because of your brother.'

Saraya could hear Jasper sigh even in his mind, sounding tired well beyond his natural limit. 'I'm not Exemplar material Saraya,' Jasper said. Saraya could have sworn that she could detect a bit of regret in his mental tone, but it was gone before she could delve into it any further. 'Raven was something different. He had a quality about him that I don't, the ability to deal. He could tangle with the politics and be him at the same time. He had a heart big enough for everyone that he met, and dedicated himself to love and protect them all with everything. Me; I'm a bit too jaded to ever truly succeed. Not to the expectations of everyone here, mind you, but to my expectations. I'm always going to be the Nycest, ever; I don't need to be Exemplar too.'

'Ok then Jazz,' Saraya said, her mood lightening up just a bit. She had her own objections to Jasper's reasoning, as Jasper to her was almost as much a mentor as Raven, but she had enough respect for him that she didn't push any further. Even if she was going to, she would have been forced to stop, due to the sudden appearance of a hazy orb in the center of the Pharos' floor. 'Who could this be?' she wondered, recognizing the phenomenon as an outsider's arrival into the Pharos from their point of view. She wore a look of confusion as the light started to dim, not recalling the Exemplars having any other meetings scheduled.

Once the person totally appeared into plain view, however, she, as well as the rest of the Pharos' occupants' confusion turned into slight hesitance. It had been none other than Sharon Edge, with a saddened yet determined look on her face. As she took a turn to level each of the Exemplars with an equally intense glare, the feeling in the revered structure turned to one of trepidation, with no one having a good feeling about her arrival.

"Lady Edge," Skylar said as he descended from his seat to welcome Sharon with a courteous salute before being just a little more personal with a hug. In a twist from her actions towards Raven's students, Sharon returned the hug briefly before separating herself emphatically. What is it I can do for you today?" As a personal friend to Raven, not as a superior or a co worker, Skylar had made it a point to make sure Sharon was going to be taken care of, monetarily or otherwise. It was his way of saying that the Illuminati would never forget Raven's sacrifice; he knew that he wouldn't.

"It's not what you can do for me Skylar," Sharon said before suddenly snapping her head in Saraya's direction, emphatically signaling at the Exemplar with a point as she raised her voice. "It's what she can do to make my family safe, once and for all." As the two women stared each other down, the tenseness that was in the air seemed to thicken. Even the aurora like wisps that usually wafted through the air seemed to have stilled, as if time itself had stopped. Saraya suddenly gasped with a look of horror on her face, in the same instant as a particular grin came to the widow's face. "I see you already know what I'm going to say," Sharon said, seeming to relish in the fact that Saraya already knew what thoughts were running through her mind. "So I might as well take this opportunity to announce this myself." Sharon glanced over to Jasper, who still looked as if he was trying to discern her reasoning for suddenly appearing in the Pharos.

He didn't have to wait long.

"I don't want my boys involved in this," Sharon said with clear resolution in her tone. "Any of this. So to that end," She closed her eyes and nodded to push herself on: this was truly the hardest decision that she ever had to make in her life, but for the good and protection of her children, she would do anything. "I want any memory they have ever had of the Sovrumano, the Illuminati, and of Raven, gone... forever."