A/N: Yeah, indeed, second chapter… Took me awhile to post it, but I want this story to be as well written as possible

A/N: Yeah, indeed, second chapter… Took me awhile to post it, but I want this story to be as well written as possible. It's one of my favorites… It's kinda hard though, coz nobody of us existed at this time, so the descriptions are a little difficult… Anyway! You know the disclaimers, blah blah blah… Warning, it contains violence.

Chapter 2: Serenity Brings Calamity and Vice Versa

Sounds of laughter could be heard far, far away in the forest. Echoing through the foliages and playing with the golden sun, soft taps of running up and down were adorning the previously quiet atmosphere with their playful bliss. An innocent light-browned bird dug its way into the leaves to pass between the two high oaks.

It didn't go too far.

Suddenly, a hand shot up in the air. It seized the bird from its tail's feathers. Around it, five female voices were cheering loudly.

The girl who had caught the bird brought it towards her face, while it was trying desperately to fly away. The girl's brown eyes lit up from happiness for her tour de force. It was considered really difficult to catch a flying bird with bare hands. It showed the person who was able to do so had instinct, reflexes and strength above all the others.

"You allowed me to catch you and honored me with your living warmth." The girl addressed to the bird, ignoring its futile fight to get away. "For that, I thank you and I'll always be grateful to you." She pulled out her sacred double ax. "In exchange, let me take your strength and be my spirit guardian for as long as I'm alive."

With one swift movement, the ax had fallen, and so had the bird's head. It fell on the ground with a simple tap. His body was still withering, and from his neck were erupting small floods of blood. The girl held the edge of the cut neck up into her mouth, and drank eagerly the blood of the bird, missing some droplets and letting them stain her cheeks and neck. They really made no difference between them and her hair. Hair as deep red as the blood she was consuming.

More cheers sounded from around her. "Yes! Yes! Long live our Queen of War, Cassandra! Long live!"

The redhead girl turned and faced them with a smile. "Come on sisters, don't call me like that. You know I like my nickname when we're all together as now!"

Cassandra was coming from an Amazon's nation beyond the Mediterranean Sea, from a world far above, to the North. Her homeland was a small island near a bigger one… Most nations there were Celtic ones. But Amazons had made it so far. She had come to Egypt to join one group of girls from Amazon's nations from all over the world. Their meaning was symbolic, above all. An anthem to the Amazons. Cassandra soon was marked out from the others, and became the Queen of War to the clan. What was making her so special was her own will.

So, her nickname was Will.

"Fine Will, fine." The chestnut haired girl let out a small laugh. "Shall we kneel now or after we wipe the dirt off your royal clothes? Cassy?"

She barely managed to avoid the punch directed at her. She laughed again and ran as Will was following after her. "You know I don't like that! Artemis! Irma!"

"Decide which one of my names you'll be calling me!" The brown-haired girl called at her, and finally, she spotted the lake of the forest. She jumped inside and Will did exactly the same. As she was erupting once again, the waters of the lake matched her sea - green shining, mischievous eyes.

She was half Greek, half Roman. However, she had gotten the Greek Goddess's Artemis name, the Goddess of Hunting. For matching her temper, they had given her the nickname Irma, from the Greek word 'ormi', which means impulse. She just adored the water. The two girls started splashing water to each other between their laughs.

"My, my, look at the Queen of War!" They heard a mocking voice, and they turned to see a tall girl with pale skin, short pitch-black hair and golden eyes staring down at them, smirking. "What would our enemies said if they saw the Amazons now?"

"Orube, give it a rest!" The tall girl received a playful tap on her shoulder. She looked down and saw the Chinese girl of her group smiling at them. "Why don't we join them?"

Orube sighed exasperated. Her origins were going back at the Lost Empire Atlantis, from where she had gotten her strange, yellow eyes. As all the Amazons had second names/nicknames, hers was Electra. That was from the precious stone electron, or amber. It was for her eyes.

And as for the girl that had just spoken to her, she was the only one coming from the depths of the East, beyond the Sinitic Wall. Her true name was Hay Lin, and her nickname Nefelee, which means clouds. It was because she loved art, which was something, prohibited for the Amazons, and she dreamed about random things a lot. She was optimistic…

"And why, pray tell, do we have to?" Orube and Hay Lin heard the voice behind them, and turned to see the last two girls of their group, who had come walking towards Will and Irma and not running. The one who had spoken was blonde, with light azure eyes. She looked serene, but she was very tough and cruel in battle. No emotions were running over her, just cold logic and thoughts for benefit. That's why she was given the name Ariadne, for honoring the God of War, Ares. She was finding the fact that Cassandra was the Queen of War quite annoying.

"Oh sorry, we forgot!" Irma's mocking voice reached their ears. "You're afraid of the water like cats, don't you, Corny? Are you afraid of wetting your precious trachoma?"

And she surely couldn't stand Artemis.

"Shut up you loudmouth fish!" She barked at her. "What would I do in water, brush your scales?" The truth was, Ariadne didn't know how to swim. She was living far above the Black Sea before she came in Egypt. She was excellent as a horsewoman, but when it came to a lot of water, she'd loose it. Her second name was Cornelia, for her habit digging into the core of things. Even in her victims.

"Come on, stop it! We're supposed to be a team, remember?" The last girl spoke. She was truly an Egyptian, all the way, with deep tanned skin, black hair and brown eyes. Her name was Taranee, and nickname Phoebe, for she was excellent dancing in the traditional Amazon's prayers. She was very quiet, and cared mostly about herself. She didn't give a damn for most things happening. She just wanted to be well.

"Tell that to miss High-and-Mighty, not me!" Irma yelled back. She was ready to come out and bolt towards Cornelia, but Will stopped her.

"I sense something… Something is there."

Silence fell among the six girls for some moments. "Is it good or bad? Coz what I sense is very bad…" Orube held her hand near her chest, which had fallen heavy all of the sudden.

"There!" Hay Lin yelled and indicated towards an enormous rock. "Something is in there! It shines, can you see?"

Will and Irma stepped out of the lake, and Irma ran towards the rock. Orube and Cornelia held her arms and stopped her.

"Don't go, it might be dangerous!" Cornelia whispered. Irma obeyed and lessened up, but Will wouldn't. She moved towards the rock like being hypnotized.

"Hey! Cassandra! Didn't you hear what we just said?" Orube shouted, but Hay Lin followed suit. Irma followed at their steps and, after casting glances towards each other, Cornelia and Orube did the same. Taranee just shrugged and followed as well.

Soon enough, Hay Lin was squealing.

"It's beautiful! Beautiful!"

"Yes, they are, but what are they exactly?" Cornelia raised an eyebrow at her stone. Each of them had taken hold of one stone, of different color. Will had a pink, Irma a blue, Taranee a red, Cornelia a green, Hay Lin a gray, and Orube a purple. They were all glowing and they were all warm.

"We should just take them with us to our current settlement… Ah!" Will hadn't managed to finish her sentence. Her palm absorbed her stone. She looked around shocked, and she realized that the same had happened to everyone around her.

Orube was paler than usually. "Our settlement… Our other sisters! We must go to them, I have a bad feeling, we must…"

"Orube calm down!" Hay Lin rushed to her side. "We will go!" She looked at Will and the redhead nodded yes.

SXIXSXIXSXIXSXI

Settlement?

No.

There wasn't any of it left.

The six girls looked around like they were enchanted. Enchanted by the awe and horror death brings with. All the tents, and in generally all that part of the forest, had been burned down. They smelled the awful, suffocating stink of ashes and burned flesh in the air. They couldn't look down. When they were doing so, they could tear their eyes off the slaughtered bodies of their fellow sisters. Arms, heads, random parts of the body scattered around them, some burned some lying waiting to be devoured by wild animals. The air wouldn't stop smelling blood and ashes.

Before the six girls could mourn, before they could even react, they heard laughing. In no time, soldiers, who were wearing expensive armors, surrounded them. Will wondered if their evil looks were just her imagination, just a dream. All of it had happened too suddenly… It was wrong to have their settlement near a cliff. Their sisters couldn't escape those warriors…

"So those little birds escaped us." The one who looked higher in rank commented, eliciting some laughs from the others. Hay Lin didn't know if it was courage or numbness.

"Why? Why did you do that? Did you kill our sisters? Why?" She stepped ahead, facing the leader of this team, a clear look of desperation in her face.

"Oh! Look at her!" The leader said to his fellows with fake whining. "Isn't she so innocent and adorable?" More laughs. Then he turned and faced Hay Lin, his face contorted with rage. "She would be, if she wasn't an Amazon! The bitch!"

It all happened in a blink of the eyes. Two soldiers seized Hay Lin and lead her to the cliff. She didn't even fight back; she was too shocked, too… numb. Will was the one that shouted, "NO!" But she knew it wouldn't be enough.

Hay Lin was thrown off the cliff moments later, her rich and long black hair flapping with the wind. She didn't scream, her eyes were empty. The soldiers watched in mild amusement the lithe body of the girl breaking and shattering each time it hit the sharp rocks below. It finally rolled the entire whole slope and remained unmoving at the base.

The soldiers let out an enthusiastic scream. The five remaining girls couldn't believe they had just seen that! No… No, Hay Lin was still with them, right? She was… she was there, right?

"Bastards!" Irma was the first to wake up, the pain was immense, the grief was unbearable. Without any further warning, she pulled out a dagger of her zone and dipped it into the one of who had threw Hay Lin down the cliff. The man's smile froze in his lips and his eyes turned upside down, while the blood erupting from his throat was coating Irma's clothes.

Wild screams followed the action and Irma was seized as well, forced to drop the dagger. She was expecting to be thrown just like Hay Lin, but instead, the men holding her forced her head into the waterier for the horses. She kicked frantically; she tried to shove them, but to no avail. Soon enough, her movements weakened, to turn out to spasms. When they pulled her head out, she was drowned, and her lips were blue from the deprived oxygen. They let the body fall down in the dirt, with the gorgeous eyes now a blurry color, staring in nothingness.

It was the turning point.

"AAAAAAH!" The scream of Amazons, their immense grief. The four girls ran, dragging out their weapons, cursing the ones that brought this pain and themselves for not reacting sooner. Someone caught Taranee's waist and threw her into one of the still burning fires. The girl screamed and tried to get up, but she couldn't. By the time the fire was turned off, she was dead.

Someone else grabbed Cornelia's wrist and shoved her into a quicksand. The sand covered its place quickly, swallowing Cornelia's body with gluttony. Orube went to help her, and someone grabbed her neck and crimped it. The tall body fell like a puppet.

Will was already caught, but they weren't killing her, not yet. She watched completely freaked Cornelia's plead, as the sand was covering her to form her grave. "Will! Will! WIIIILL – Ar-." And that was it. The blond head had disappeared.

Will fell to her knees and looked at her hands, refusing to believe what had actually happened. She screamed at the Leader: "WHY? TELL ME WHY!"

"With how many reasons should I start?" He answered, and the soldiers holding her pushed Will at her feet. "You are demons. Heartless harpies that shouldn't exist in this world. Can you count how many villages have you slaughtered? Does it matter to you? No."

Will wouldn't give him the honor of answering. She just stared at him with her brown eyes.

"You are the War Queen, aren't you?" Still no answer. "That's okay, it doesn't make a difference. Since you weren't here, we caught the Queen of Peace. We followed our Pharaoh's orders, and she will be his bride. You stop being an annoyance, and everything is as our Pharaoh wished!"

Will's eyes narrowed. Pharaoh… So you are who caused this…

"Now it's the end of you, Amazon Queen!" The Leader dragged his sword. "DIE!"

She couldn't react, she couldn't think, it was beyond her capabilities at that moment. The blade wasn't painful, it was cold… It passed right through her chest, right through her heart. Her eyes widened in surprise it could be said, her lips parted slightly… And she fell.

The Leader put his sword back. "Wasn't that hard with them." He commented. "Shame though they wouldn't submit to us, they would have been a nice fuck." His eyes traveled the bodies and faces of the girls. The soldiers cheered him and followed him to their nearby camp.

SXIXSXIXSXIXSXI

"So? Mission accomplished?"

"Yes my Lord." The Leader bowed to the Yeoman.

The other man sighed. "Same here. The Queen of Peace left yesterday, before the slaughter began. She doesn't know that her sisters have died. Too bad we didn't get to catch the War Queen, but in a final analysis, it might be better for the Pharaoh to marry the Peace one. She won't try to kill him, at least."

"Everything went according to the High Priest's plan then, didn't they?"

The yeoman looked at the sky outside the tent. "Yeah…"

SXIXSXIXSXIXSXI

It was dark. Wasn't it dark? What was still giving light? Oh… the fires.

Wait… Had they turn on any fires? She didn't remember so.

Suddenly she started coughing. Her chest was in pain… She clenched her fist and felt something crystalline inside it.

Will opened the eyes she hadn't realized she had closed again. Hesitantly, she looked at her palm, only to be greeted with a pink, eerie glow. "Oh…" She whispered, and tried to focus. It was a locket, wasn't it? Yes, it was! It looked like a heart… No, it wasn't a heart! But why was she feeling it to be so?

The pain in her chest had started subsiding. Feeling dizzy, she pulled herself up to gaze around her, and then she remembered… The slaughter! The murders! The Pharaoh…

Before she could fall on her knees and mourn, as an Amazon should, she heard another coughing. She scanned the area with her eyes, and then noticed a body moving. She ran towards it.

"Fuck it… Fuck you all… Damn…"

It was Irma! Yes! The other Amazon flipped her chestnut hair behind her face and her sea – green eyes glowed in the dark, noticing Will. "Will? What happened?"

Before Will could answer, she saw Orube standing up. Then Taranee, who was stirring above some spills.

"Anybody up there?" They heard Hay Lin's voice coming from the base of the cliff, but it was too dark to see her. It didn't matter they were Amazons, they were used to it. The darkness.

Will couldn't believe in her eyes and her happiness! They were all alive and well! She looked at the Crystal in her hand; the stones that had found earlier must have saved their lives. In each of the others hand was glowing the color of their stone, but they didn't have crystals. Instead, they had some weird scars in their wrists.

"Where is Corny?" Irma asked, and immediately after that, the spot were the sand had swallowed Cornelia started to glow green. Then it exploded.

The girls had to protect their faces with their hands, because the dust was flying to each direction. In the end, there was a giant hole in the ground, in which base was an infuriated Cornelia. "Let me at the bastards!" She was breathing heavily. She hadn't forgot…

…None of them had. They would never, ever forget!

"Look at me! Look at me!" Was it their imagination, or Hay Lin's voice was closer now? Heck! She was right above their heads! "I'm flying! I'm flying, whoohoo!" She made a swirl in the air, and some more rounds before she landed. Despite the tragedy that had found them, she was beaming happiness for her newfound powers.

Powers!

Soon enough, flames erupted from Taranee's hands, without burning them. Irma was making twists while the water she was controlling surrounded her. Orube was jumping from tree to tree like a cat! Cornelia had made the ground lift her up, outside the hole.

Will understood. It was all explained now. They found the stones; they got the powers of nature in exchange. Their lives were spared. She lifted the crystal, smiling. She knew she would control it. All the power was there, and she would control it.

Guess where first…

SXIXSXIXSXIXSXI

"Oh… that was a heck of a nice dinner!" The Leader said and pushed the now empty plate away of him. He should go to sleep, because tomorrow they would have to wake up too early to go in Thebes. He was sure he would get a generous prize for accomplishing his mission… Why was the yeoman so thoughtful, he was wondering.

Before he knew it, screams were all over the place. He shot himself up, and grabbed his sword. To no avail.

She stepped inside his tent. At her sight, he could drag his sword out. Hair like blood, lips like blood…

"Now it's the end for you."

Eyes so dark… He couldn't scream.

"Die."

It was a mere whisper.

In the meanwhile, the rest of the men were running around the camp in blind panic. They couldn't fight, their weapons were useless. Just running for their lives was the only thing that they could do. How futile, and how did they know it! Some of them burned, the Earth swallowed others, the wind crimped some others, and some felt claws in their back before they fell in the abyss.

Irma wasn't participating in the slaughter. She didn't care for those pathetic sidekicks, she wanted the cause of all this. If she didn't kill the cause, she wouldn't find peace. Never. EVER.

Soon she found the yeoman. "YOU!" She screamed, and fell on him from her mania. He didn't resist. He knew what would happen from when they destroyed the settlement. Irma was in the edge of hysteria. She straddled him and caught his neck with her dagger. "You were behind all this, weren't you! TALK!"

"I was the real leader of this arm, yes." He spoke weakly. He didn't care how coward or pathetic he was sounding. He had the right to be, as he wanted in his death.

Irma's eyes narrowed. And her breath started coming out a little more normally. "What do you mean?" She pressed the dagger more closely to the human flesh.

"I was sent there from the High Priest to stop the Amazons…" He responded… He was more scared now, as she wasn't killing him, he was regaining hope and that hurt much more…

Irma grasped that. "The High Priest? What High Priest?" But now the yeoman wouldn't talk.

"What High Priest, DAMN IT?" She pushed the edge of the dagger and the blood started trickling out. The yeoman let out a painful cry. "Talk damn it, fucking talk, otherwise I'll make you wish I killed you in an instant. Give me his name!"

"B-But…" The man tried, no such luck.

"HIS NAME!" She twisted the dagger. "Give me his fucking name! Who ordered you to come here, give me his name!"

"The name of… of…" He was in so much pain…

"The man who tasked you with the mission! Give me his damn name!" Come on, crack already…

"H-High Priest Seto ordered me to come…"

She stilled her movements. She had it. "So, High Priest Seto?"

The man nodded, his neck was burning.

She gave him a wicked smile. Evil smile. "So, High Priest Seto it is."

The movement of the dagger that cut the head out of the rest body was just a flash. Irma got up, looking at the remaining body with cold eyes. "Wouldn't have lasted long either way." She huffed and turned away.

A/N: So? Good, bad? Don't worry; Seto makes his appearance in the next chapter, as does Atem. REVIEW ME PEOPLE! Ja ne!