บท 20: Chapter 20. Persephone

[2024: Images & GIFs]

(Before Diana's demice)

The two women I had put down before engaging with Diana had stood to their feet, deciding their next move.

"We've got to do something." Aresia nudged as she itched to slice me in two.

"Relax." Persephone dusted the blue clothe surrounding her armor as she calmed Aresia down. "Diana said she's got this. You've got to trust her. She was the one that put him down the first time."

"Why are you always defending her, even when she's being reckless?" Aresia complained with jealousy and anger in her voice.

"Because she's out princess and I trust her." Persephone replied confidently. "And she has several advantages that we can only get if we combine our efforts."

"You shouldn't be letting her risk her life for the rest of us." Aresia said bitterly. "That is not the Amazon way."

"Open your eyes and look around you." Persephone nearly shouted. "How can you fight what you can't see? Only few of us remain, and who is to say that he can't wipe us out with a flick of his wrist?"

"I say we come up with a different way other than brute force." Persephone calmed a bit. "Holding him down or succeeding in a fight against him doesn't look promising."

Cough.

Aresia spit blood from the cough as her insides felt as though they were crashing in on her.

"That punch must have really hit you had." Persephone sounded concerned, but she too was experiencing an internal turmoil.

"Whatever. But I'm not going to sit this one out." Aresia resolved. "It might look like Diana will win, but it will look even better when that man is dead. I'm going in."

"I said. Look around you!" Persephone grabbed Aresia by the neck, showing domination. "Do you know why they are all lying lifeless, unconscious, and pale?"

"Do you know what did this to our sisters?" She glared into her eyes, her own reflecting the sorrow and fear she was fighting so hard not to let out.

Her heart was beating with desire to kill, but she knew they were fighting against something on a whole other level, and only Diana stood a chance. The mysterious attacks that kept on happening whenever they fought against this man were nothing short of frightening and extraordinary, even for the Amazons.

Aresia was however coping with things in her own special way. She never liked Wan, even from the first time they came across each other in the outskirts of the city. She shot an arrow through his artery, and the sight around her only proved that she was right to do it. She however regretted her hesitance to aim for the neck.

He was dangerous, and she wanted him deader than dead. Instead of feeling like crying for the fallen Amazons, Aresia only felt rage pumping in her system. She didn't care about the mysterious attacks. She only needed an opening to gut his throat.

"That's why we have to kill him this minute!" Aresia argued assertively.

"What are the two of us going to do? What will we accomplish when he hits us just like he did to our sisters?" Persephone asked. "We only survived because Diana could fight it off."

"And that's why we are trusting her?" Aresia sounded as if she was about to touch a nerve, and she did. "Or is it because of your hesitance to do what's necessary, fallen general of the Amazons?"

Persephone breathed and let go of Aresia. The mockery hit her hard, but this was not the time for battering.

"You've seen how powerful he can be, even without the need of his dark power." Persephone started.

"The only tactical advantage we might have now is Diana. Even the queen agrees." She added. "She threw the Lasso at her seeing that Diana can see whatever we are fighting against."

"I think of we put our minds together, we can adapt and find his weak spot." Persephone continued.

"We can round up the remaining women and combine a clever attack that will help Diana defeat him." Persephone added, shedding some light to the situation.

"If we try to intervene for now, we'll both just die in vain, and put Diana in a desperate situation as she tries to save us." Persephone reasoned. "There's a high possibility that we will become a liability."

But Aresia wasn't paying attention. Her eyes were set on Wan, and her mind only replayed what his head would look like separated from his body.

"I don't care about what you do." Aresia shouted as she charged. "All I want is to see that man D.E.A.D."

Persephone had already seen a battle in which the Amazons had been overpowered my some mysterious power. Then there was the scenario where many more had been put down by the same mysterious power. She knew that Aresia didn't stand a chance, if she dared to join the fight between Wan and Diana. At least, not by herself.

She would only get herself killed.

"I'm sorry." Persephone moved faster, before Aresia could charge away and knocked her out.

"This is for your own good. I can't allow another to fall on my watch. It would continue to be a shame as your superior." She sympathized as Aresia's body fell on her stretched hands, unconscious. She moved her to a nearby tree shade and rested her on the bark.

At least that way, she could use the remaining Amazons skillfully to attack, before Diana ran out of her mojo, If she could run out of it. Even in this dire situation, Persephone didn't understand why Diana was still holding back. She still restrained from using her maximum power, but Persephone reasoned that she had her own reason.

A distance to where the alter had been, she could hear as the queen organized her risen warriors in preparation for a counter-attack. She was already thinking of a way that they could smoke out Wan's power, and hit him hard at his weak point.

She looked back as Diana and Wan separated from their intense clash and took a break from hitting each other so hard.

"He can get tired." She observed. "He isn't totally immune. I hope Diana can hold off much longer before everyone gets here, enlightened on what I have inferred."

"Good luck." She genuinely whispered those words, as she gave Diana a hopeful glance, before turning to leave.

Her face turned away from Diana in just her second, her eyes recorded something that brought about several mixed feelings in her body. Her heart literally skipped a bit as her mind stopped to think for just a second.

W-wha-?

Before her, jerked upwards like a united army saluting were the hands of the lifeless women on the ground. Their eyes were still pure white, but she had ruled out their death, since she had discovered a pulse in every body she had investigated. They were not corpses, but something was strange about them.

For some, she had seen strange markings on their bodies, while others remained unmarked and unscarred. She didn't understand it, but she was glad that they were still alive, and that meant that they could be saved.

The hands raised before her didn't comfort her a bit, because they looked so weird. Especially as they all came down in unison again. She stopped to observe if anything else off would happen, but nothing did for sometime, and she was beginning to think trust she had maybe imagined it.

But she dismissed that thought as soon as she saw what she could only describe as good news. The bodies of her sisters stirring up as if they had all just come out of a deep slumber. Although, not everyone was waking up, some still lay unconscious on the ground.

She didn't feel scared as she walked up to one of them. She felt joyful as she hugged one, two, and more as she sighed a relief. "Thank heavens you are alright!"

"Nothing bad had happened after all." She remarked as she secretly wiped a tear of relief escaping her eye.

"W-what happened?" They mumbled that question as they either yawned, stretched, or complained about their backs.

"I'm exhausted!" One would say, and another would pitch in about how their neck felt cramped.

"My head is burning up." Another symptom that showed among random Amazonians.

"You'll all be fine." Persephone assured them, only acknowledging the fact that they were all well. She dismissed their symptoms to be a small side effect of being out for several minutes.

Then the horrific happened.

Closest to her was a woman who was complaining about a giant headache. Before long, she was sobbing and then screaming, just as an enormous tumor bulged from her left side of the face and grew rapidly and massively.

Persephone was petrified as she watched the deformity, before it exploded and split her face, leaving a giant hole on the once symmetrical marvel. It splashed all over her clothes and blonde hair as blood rained from the pressurized vessels with gusto.

Her body plummeted down to the side. Those who had seen it didn't even have the strength or respite to scream as more was already happening around them.

It was becoming damn massacre.

5 chapters Early Access in patreon.com/CursedMillennial. Filler chapter, but glad you read any way. Comment and vote for me to cheer me up.