The Clandestine Six- The Denouement

Chapter 28- Her

**AIDEN'S POV**

Oh my God. I'm sorry Aphrodite, but when I say she was beautiful, I mean it. To be honest, I haven't thought of girls as beautiful earlier, or if I become brutally honest, I don't find any human beautiful anymore after seeing these beautiful God-like creatures and hot villains. And she has raised my standards even higher.
The calm and tranquil aura she had, made me feel like I was at peace again.
She was sitting on a colorful coral reef with fishes swimming around her. We were sitting on the ocean bed with crabs surrounding us to take a look at our weird selves. A protective shield like thing could be visible above us, while behind the lady I could see a vast regime of coral reefs, rocks and plants budding with life as fishes went in and out of the greenery. It was like Atlantis, to be precise.

"You all made it, that's amazing!" She exclaimed, her sweet voice filling my ears like honey.
"Oh my my. Pretty lady, who are you?" Ace asked.
"I thought I was the only pretty one for you." Miri muttered and rolled her eyes.
"No man, if I were Ace, I'd totally fall for her." Roselle said.
"Hold up, you still love me right?" Eric asked.
"Yes sir, here's your hourly validation: you are still mine so take your eyes off her." Roselle said.

"Oh you all are cheesy but so sweet. Amazing lot of young heroes." Pretty Lady said.
"What are you?" Jane asked.
"Hey let's not talk to her like that." Mark said.
"You too? Gods, y'all are smitten by her." Jane rolled her eyes.
"The Clandestine Six and The Chosen Five? That's legendary. What went so wrong that you had to come together?" Miss Astoundingly Breathtaking Person asked.
"Well, nothing much. The world's ending. That's all, honestly." Leo said.
"And also I know it's not much of a big deal but it's just that the Portal has been doing some weird stuff after getting in control of Duke and we are going to be under attack by Keres pretty soon." I said.
"Wow, that's new. So the world is coming to end after all? That's nice. Rest finally." She sighed with a dreamy smile on her face.

"Miss, I don't know what you've gone through to think like that but currently we are all going through some real shit and we need to meet Serene to get help because apparently, we cannot let the world end or else the Underworld will be flooded with souls and Hades will kill us." Roselle said.
"Serene? Oh that will be me." The woman smiled.
"What? You are Serene? And you are standing right before us? Or rather, sitting but whatever?" Jacob said, the confusion in his voice was quite audible.
"So that's that then? We're here?" Cherry asked.
"The mission's over? You'll come with us?" Rose frowned.

Well, I get all the confusion. I was confused too. This was a little too easy to be true. Like come on, we don't get things easy, do we?

"Who said, dear? Who said I'm coming with you?" Serene said sweetly.
"Well we are here to pick you up and the world is obviously ending, you need to come with us." Roselle said.
"No Aphrodite's daughter, I have absolutely no obligations to go with you right now. And frankly, I shouldn't be even caring about what is happening to Quartz Core Realm right now because I'm in exile." Serene spoke.
"I prefer to be called Roselle, thank you." She sighed.
"Why... why are you in exile?" I asked.
"You don't want to know, sweetheart." She replied. AHHHHH SHE CALLED ME SWEETHEART.

"You're simping." Areum's voice echoed in my head.
"No I'm not, shut up." I said.
"Accept the facts duh." Areum spoke.
"I have officially taken a break from these materialistic things like "love", "simping" and "beautiful women". I don't intend to follow the path down to my destruction by love." I said in a very saintly manner.
"Stop gaslighting yourself." I said.
I decided to ignore him. Obviously, I have become an expert in ignoring Areum.

"I don't know why you are here, Serene but we need you there. We really really really need you there. This Portal problem is disrupting the balance between the Three Worlds which is absolutely worst, please give this world just one more chance. Please?" Jane said.
"I can't fix the Portal alone anyway, I'm of no use." Serene said.
"We have our friends who went to Blaze. Together, we know you can do it. Please help us?" Roselle asked. Suddenly, Serene's expression became smug as her smile dropped.
"If he is there, I'm not coming. Do whatever you want, I will not come." She said.
"Serene, listen, I know the world is cruel. Whatever they did to you--" Before I could continue, Serene rose up on her feet, her face now had an angry expression. Her skin began glowing and she raised her hand, suddenly a spurt of water erupted from the ground and paced towards us. It hit me in the face, I was taken aback so I gasped for breath. The others were not drenched as well.