The Beginning to the End
"You will not win this battle, Stacia," the woman screamed into the whirling black clouds. Torrents of wind pounded her body, threatening to pull her into the forming cyclone barely feet away. "No single body can hold your spirit. You will never be immortal! You will not win."
Lightning lashed out from the sky hitting the ground beneath her feet. A shock shot up her body, but the woman stayed standing. The wind grew faster as the spiral of clouds pushed her direction, engulfing her small frame. She could hear thousands of screams rushing around her and she threw her head up in agony. So many were suffering because of her lack of timely propriety. There was no room left for stalling. She reached up towards her neck, taking hold of her necklace, and pulling the small lightning bolt pendant off of its chain.
Suddenly she was in the eye of the storm. Looking up, she could see the mortal goddess responsible for the wreaking of so much havoc hovering above her. Slowly the evil mistress floated down towards the earth.
Stacia's voice cut through the tortured voices, "You hear their cries, Erasmus?" She smiled, her black eyes dancing with pleasure. "It is of your hands that they shall die," she paused and raised her arms gleefully, "And soon you will join them."
"I will," the woman replied, "but only through your demise." She pushed out her arms pointing the lightning bolt towards Stacia. "Hades will have two knew souls before the sun rises!" Looking out at the writing on the emblem she began to read out her last words of the living world. Her god-given name.
"Anthea," she said softly. The muscles in her arms tensed as power surged through them into her gift from the gods that was squeezed between her hands.
Stacia flinched at the sound of the woman's first name.
"Classida." The name rolled off her tongue as another surge of power rushed out of her body.
The goddess' face filled with horror and realization. "No…"
"Kalyca!" the woman yelled. She felt her body draining what once she thought was an endless reservoir.
"No…" was all Stacia could muster as she took one step back from the enchantress that would most certainly end her life.
"Nysa!" Everything was going hazy, her body at the mercy of her own power.
"NOOO!" Lunging forward towards the woman, Stacia's scream echoed through the countryside.
The woman's body went limp, the lightning bolt in her hand now hovering on its own accord. The small piece of gold now shined brightly, radiating more heat and light than the sun itself. Slowly, her body rose and drifted towards the little trinket.
Stacia stopped in mid air as if caught by some invisible arms, her attempt at survival thwarted by the enchantress in front of her. She watched helplessly as the orb of light connected with Erasmus's body and dissolved into her very core, disappearing from sight.
Her eyes locked with the woman's. Though barely audible to the normal ear, her voice thrummed in Stacia's mind with her final name. "Atropos." Inevitable.
It was the end.