Chapter Twenty
Erinys and Gaia attacked first and Minerva was more than prepared for it. She spun her body opposite of Erinys' direction, swung one blade up to defend herself from the attack and struck at Gaia with the other. After that, she twirled her body again to be centered between them before kicking Erinys back hard enough for her to be thrown a visible distance away from Minerva and Gaia. Then Minerva turned around and slashed in all directions at Gaia, who barely managed to defend and attack with her zhaboka.
Minerva made another jump back at Erinys and briefly attacked her by spinning her blades before turning the opposite direction to fight Gaia again. She made repeated attempts to trip Gaia by kicking her knee but to no avail although she did succeed when Erinys returned and she kicked at her ankle. But Erinys grabbed her through the Force and through her into a nearby wall hard enough to knock the blades out of her hands. Being a quick healer, Minerva came to within a matter of seconds and was just in time to see Erinys and Gaia raise their blades for a killing move.
Kycina saw Deimos arise from their home with the zhaboka and the vibroblade in tow as well as the Ice Gauntlet on his person. "Good job Deimos, are the boys still down in the basement as we instructed?" she asked. He nodded and she was about to tell him to get ready to fight when she turned around and saw that Talzin had almost gained on her. The abnormally long katana was almost poking at her when Deimos threw his vibrosword and she took it to fight Talzin.
"Go, she wants me more than she does you!" she told him. Nodding, he left in the knowledge that there was nothing he could do to help her. If she survived then she survived but if she didn't, he would have to make do without her aid but with the Ice Gauntlet and the powers it can call to it. "I'm not afraid of you anymore Talzin and yes, I dare call you by your name instead of your title," Kycina stated when her husband left.
"It matters not that you call me by my name seeing as you are no longer a sister of the clan. You must perish in order for the clan's honor to be restored," Talzin replied with a snarl. After that, a brief exchange of deflected blows followed and each of the women fought with the skill and passion of the monster that is within all living things thanks be to the Force. The first of several fights between mother and daughter had begun and its outcome was to determine the course of events in the galaxy.
At first, Minerva was stuck in a defensive stance with Erinys and Gaia's blades. Then she saw the way Gaia's knee protruded towards her and was within kicking range. So she kicked hard enough to bend her leg backward in a painful manner, a scream ushering from Gaia's throat in acknowledgement. Then the agile Minerva slid under the sword and severed her left arm before turning around and cutting off both of Erinys' legs.
Both sisters screamed in agony and though Minerva had them in a very vulnerable spot, she sensed that Kycina was in trouble. So instead of finishing off her rivals (and figuring Talzin would do it herself later) Minerva made like a speed demon and followed the trail she had seen her true enemy walk on. Erinys lied on the ground in pain and Gaia screamed agony but tried her best to pick her sister up and piggyback ride her out of the caves. She had to save her friend and fulfill the life-debt she owed first and only then could she hope to return and finish off her rivals but only if she survived the wrath of Mother Talzin.
Though Kycina fought well against Talzin, the ancient hag was proving too powerful even for her. "You are weak Kycina and you will fall before my sword," Talzin stated. The enthusiasm and the desire to kill Kycina filled her voice as she prepared a final assault for the traitor. "Like hell I will," Kycina replied before spitting some blood at her from a hit her mouth had received from the pommel of Talzin's incredible sword.
"Even now, as you face your doom, you continue to defy me? No matter, your little accomplice will be dealt with if the sisters have failed to destroy her soon enough," Talzin stated calmly. "You're right about your slaves failing you, grotesque hag," replied the voice of Minerva. The Mother heard the voice and the visual on Minerva confirmed it to her, her anger swelling to a boiling point but not yet showing on her face.
"I'll be right with you after I finish your mistress, filthy snake," Talzin replied. "No, you either finish us both or we finish you. The choice is yours," Minerva demanded. Kycina and Talzin were both speechless by Minerva's words but Kycina understood the implications much quicker than Talzin could.
So without waiting too long, Kycina and Minerva launched an aggressive attack against Talzin in near simultaneity. Minerva attacked from behind with her agile and quick movements with the two small blades she wielded while Kycina took her directly with strength and power in her strokes. While it was a terrific fight they managed to put up, they were ultimately no match for Talzin's near-infinite power and her skill with the massive sword. "Now you die treasonous scum!" Talzin shouted, her anger at last slipping out of her control.
She raised the sword to gut Kycina and it was at that one moment that time seemed to slow down. While Talzin made her launch, Minerva looked on and during the slowed-down she realized she was making a choice. If she stood aside, she would fail her life-debt and probably face the worst criminal penalties beside execution but if she made the leap, she would most likely die and never see her daughter again. But Minerva had always been willing to help out someone who had saved her life and had defended her honor when she was forced to give up her daughter to the pirates.
She knew in that moment that if her daughter was anything like her, she would still be alive and still fighting to stay alive. A fight she was about to give up now in the name of a friend who had been there for most of her life. While time was still slowed, Minerva leapt to Kycina, shoved her out of the way and stood up in her place just in time to receive the death blow from Talzin's sword. The blade pierced into her abdomen, and extended out her back until she could feel the crest on her belly and more than three fourths of the blade sticking out of her back with her blood on it.
"What is this insolence! Why have you sacrificed yourself for this traitor!?" Talzin demanded the moment she noticed who was stuck on her blade. "You took away my daughter, the accumulation of all I had stridden for in this life. Now I take away a chance for you to achieve something you have been striving for, at least, for now," Minerva said before spat blood that nearly clogged her throat unto Talzin's face.
"You are a foolish girl just as your mother and sisters all were!" Talzin boomed with rage. At that point, she yanked the sword out but Minerva grabbed it with one hand before it was halfway through. With her free hand, she pulled out a crystal ball with energy in it that Talzin looked upon with horror. "You recognize this, don't you?" Minerva asked mockingly.
"Where did you get that?" Talzin answered, her tone confirming her recognition. "My mother gave it to me before we were forced to separate under tradition. I've never used it before so I don't know how long its effects will last on you," Minerva answered calmly. She smiled as she said this and as she raised the arm that had the crystal ball high enough for a shattering press on Talzin's breastplate.
And when the ball did shatter against her spiky armor, the energy turned electric and put her in excruciating pain. She yanked the rest of her blade out of Minerva, cleaned out the blood with the swords magic, and then absorbed it back into her being. After that, the purple lightning electrocuted her before the eyes of the traitors and Deimos who had returned to check on the fugitive duo. Minerva did not immediately fall to the ground but simply dropped to her knees and clutched her stomach where she had been stabbed by her enemy.
Then, with Deimos to help, Kycina carried her friend away from the scene of the duel and retreated while Talzin's head was still aching from the magic forced into her body by the shattering of the crystal. "We have to find a place where even Talzin won't know to look, we have to get out of here Deimos!" Kycina shouted. "I know just the place and it isn't far away either," he shouted back to her. With Deimos leading, Kycina watched as the caves around her metamorphosed from the dark, black pit-like mouths into white, freezing catacombs of ice.
"You're leading us into a mountain?" she asked him. "No, I'm leading us to the Fortress of Medusa herself!" he answered. "But Minerva won't make it there," she said. "With the gauntlet, yes she will," he replied. Then he tapped it into the ground and stated that he and two others needed to go to Medusa's fortress.
And just like that, they were in the throne room of Medusa as it had been before Deimos took over. After that, Deimos hurried them to a spare bed he had available while there was still a surprising amount of life left in Minerva. Once she was laid upon this bed and covered in blankets, Deimos returned to the throne room to keep vigilance for any who might have followed them through the ice portal. Meanwhile, the sisters shared what both knew would be their last conversation together out of the many they had had in the course of nearly two decades.
Talzin knew Kycina, Deimos and Minerva had escaped by the time she finally recovered from the spell Minerva put upon her. Drawing upon the strength of her anger, her hatred, and absorbing the magic of her armor and sword back into her being thus restoring the robes of Motherhood. By the time all that was finished, she witnessed Gaia carrying her legless sister on her back while missing an arm herself. "Mother, are you all right?" Gaia asked her.
"Besides anger for your failure to kill Minerva, I'm fine. Look at you two, you're useless now and all because you allowed one little girl you hate to do this to you!" Talzin shouted. "With due respect, we had her on the edge. Victory was within our grasp and somehow, she found a way out of what we put her in," Erinys stated desperately.
"You incompetent idiots, of course Minerva is going to find a way out of any pin you have her under if you let your ego get the better of you as you surely did. The two of you have failed me for the last time and now you pay for your failure in full," Talzin replied. After saying that, she conjured the sword she used once again and ran them both through. They are still useful to me but not as they are Talzin said to herself as she watched them die from the stab in combination to the trauma of losing their limbs.
When she saw the life fade completely out of them, she pulled out the sword, cleaned the blood with some green fire, and then absorbed it back into her being. Then she took them by the heads and teleported back to the coven's homeland but she made sure to take the bodies to a part of the temple that none of the other sisters knew about. Only Old Daka knew about this passage because Talzin trusted her to know about her darkest secrets and her most cruel experiments on Nightbrothers and, in this case, dead Nightsisters. "Daka, I need you to conduct a resurrection spell but don't restore the memory of these sisters," she said when she saw the grizzled old woman.
Old Daka looked at them and asked if Talzin would be able to take care of restoring their lost limbs if she managed to resurrect them. Talzin nodded and decided to do that before Daka conducted her resurrection spell so that when they were revived, what Talzin did to restore their limbs would put them under her influence. Together, they conducted their separate spells with Talzin giving them limbs that would transform them into demons and Daka resurrecting them in a manner that would allow Talzin to have complete control over them. With the magic fires of resurrection and the restoration of their limbs, soon, the dead Nightsisters became the monstrous demons that Talzin had once overcome in her youth.
Then, when the spell was completed and the sisters were breathing (as much as they could since they were now encased in an orange reptilian skin and only had two nose-holes on their face), Talzin awakened them. "Arise reborn daughters of Dathomir," Talzin said as she poked a finger on each of their foreheads. Daka watched as both came to life, roared in agony, and then tested their returned weapons on each other. Talzin smiled in the full knowledge that the resurrected sisters were ready from claws on their hands and feet, to weapons to wield, to powers normally associated with Demons of the Old Days.