Medina
When Stella first unleashed the spear, Medina believed the woman to be inept with the weapon, being that it was originally a bow. She was prepared to fight an archer, so on the one hand, her plans crumbled, yet she believed Stella thought less of Medina and Ilia's ability if she was going to not fight at her best.
Turns out Medina was right that Stella had underestimated them but was wrong about her skill with the spear.
Nursing a chin that had Stella's boot kick it a moment ago, Medina watches as Ilia chases down a retreating Stella. The two women taunt the other with twirling weapons as Stella advances up the long staircase from the first floor to the fiftieth. She shakes off the pain and grabs her sword, rejoining her apprentice in the fight. Stella continues to back up, fighting Ilia for the upper ground. Seeing Medina come close, Stella throws out her hand; from it, a black burst shoots out. Medina tries to deflect it with her sword, but the strange art wraps around her blade and heads straight for her arm. Once it reaches, the limb suddenly feels painful, heavy, and unresponsive, no matter what Medina tries. She's lucky to still hold her sword but unable to prevent Stella from kicking her back down the steps.
Jaymes, Kirito, and Asuna said Stella's abilities "separate mind from the body." She thought it was a long way to say she's been paralyzed, but the fact she can still feel her arm and the metal hilt of her sword says otherwise. She can move it a bit, but her thoughts delay the movements. It hurts like hell, too.
"Come on, Medina." Switching her sword to her left hand, Medina calls on the wind arts to propel her up to the second floor, ahead of Ilia and Stella. Stella reacts by using the bladed end of her spear to push Ilia to the side while using the blunted end against an attacking Medina. The young apprentice rejoins her mistress, resuming the two-sided attack by Ilia and Medina. Stella backs up towards the set of stairs that lead to the third floor, holding her spear steady as she glares at Medina and Ilia.
"I must say, I'm impressed with your skills. To stand against an Integrity Knight twice and live is no small feat. Eydis herself was a tough opponent when I encountered her."
"So it was you who captured her?"
"It was." Stella waves her hand, forming eight wind elements under herself that launch her up a couple of floors. Medina and Ilia are right behind her, though it is Medina who joins Stella on the ninth floor of the palace. "It took more of my ability than I expected to put her down, and it seems the same is of you."
Medina hides her smirk as she tests her dominant hand, feeling the response of her muscles return to normal and switches back to it. "Aye. This battle is lost to you, Stella. You'd find me and Ilia are not easy to beat."
Stella scoffs and narrows her eyes as a set of feet land behind her. She fires another blast of the weird power at Ilia, but the girl dodges it and circles around to Medina's side. She shoots another, this time hitting Medina's leg. Like it's sealed to the floor, her legs resist motion with the rest of her body while feeling like a hundred whips struck her at once. Stella takes the time to launch herself higher in the castle.
"Medina!"
"G-go! Don't let her get away!" Ilia obeys Medina's commands, shooting off after Stella. In the meantime, Medina bites her lip as the pain continues to shoot through her, cursing her luck. As boastful as she spoke against the daughter of Terraria, Medina truly hopes she and Ilia can come out with the victory.
That is, if the goddesses are on their side.
It takes a few minutes, but the moment she can feel move her right leg with satisfaction, Medina begins the lengthy series of wind element-assisted leaps towards the fighting Ilia and Stella. She's kept track of the two the entire time, their last location near the top of the castle.
It seemed weird to Medina that she, not Ilia was the target of Stella's power twice, but she had time to think it over. It makes sense to separate the two, it makes sense to want to fight the weaker opponent, but that wouldn't make sense. If Stella had sought to win a fight that gave her and Noxium victory in the dark realm, she would have stayed with Noxium against Jaymes. She had no clue Medina and Ilia would be here, though her original target could have been the Supreme Commander. Yet if that is so, something else is weird.
Stella ascends the castle of her own volition. Iskahn is fighting outside.
Could there be no method to Stella's madness? Or is there something Medina cannot see? If she had to guess, Noxium deliberately keeps Jaymes occupied on the outside, knowing the emperor can't fight on two fronts. Jaymes deliberately takes the fight to Noxium, for his power controls the minions the Dark Army fights. She's certain he knows Stella is in the city.
What is the endgame here?
It's a question Medina will have to ask Stella herself as her feet make landfall on the forty-third floor. Stella is five floors higher, and Ilia is hesitant in her approach. No, it seems Ilia may have been caught by Stella's power and is recovering. What holds Stella at bay is a barrier of dark-blue stone between the two women. Ilia cast her sword's Perfect Weapon Control to give her time to recover and a wall of safety.
She keeps her eyes on the women as she sprints up the staircase. She can sense Ilia's exhaustion, yet her apprentice is doing well. Fighting giants all day and Eydis nearly two hours earlier must've taken its toll on the young woman, yet Ilia Ordonia isn't faltering. At the same time, Medina has been trailing behind Ilia all day, first against Eydis, now against Stella. What does that say about Medina as a teacher?
Forty-fifth floor. "Hold on, Ilia. I'm coming."
That's when Medina hears rock breaking apart and a charging yell. Ilia reengages Stella, drawing the older further up the stairs with the speedy strikes of the Orthinanos Style mixed with the power swings of the Norkia Style. Medina can only will her feet to go faster as the pair trek up to the forty-ninth floor. Despite having the low ground, Ilia maintains control of the fight until the pair duel in front of the chained double doors of the fiftieth floor, then Stella starts to control the fight.
Her legs burning, Medina has barely stepped on the forty-eighth level when Stella does something unexpected: She flips away from Ilia, and Medina sees something glint in her off-hand. Before she can warn Ilia, Stella throws a glowing needle at Ilia, and the girl's body freezes. The last thing Medina senses from her apprentice is confusion and fear as Stella springs forward and mercilessly impales Ilia in her abdomen
"NOOOO!" Medina climbs to the forty-ninth level as Ilia's limp body tumbles down. She catches her apprentice, her breath coarse and rapid as she struggles to stay alive. Medina doesn't waste a moment summoning light elements to heal Ilia. "Hang on, Ilia! Stay with me!"
"L-Lady...Medina..."
"Stay with me. You're going to be fine." Tears streaming down her face, Medina didn't know if she was saying that for Ilia, who had lost consciousness, or for herself. All she knows is that the bleeding from Ilia's chest is too much, and it doesn't seem the light elements are helping as they should. If only she were stronger!
"The poor student has fallen, and the master has failed. But it should be something you're used to, Medina Orthinanos. Like a serf is always a serf, no matter how the times change...a defect is always a defect. The daughter of a defect is a defect, and the student to the defect is as defective. You believed you had a chance, but in truth, you had nothing."
Medina's head raises as the familiar adjectives once used to describe her family echo in her head. Her sorrows recess to rage as she takes her apprentice's hand. "System Call. Transfer Human Unit Durability. Right-Hand Self to Right." A glow emits from Medina and Ilia's conjoined hands, causing Medina to wince as her life is sapped and transferred to Ilia's body. Her wound slowly closes up, and her pale features start regaining color. Ilia's breathing starts to normalize, relieving the last of Medina's worries as she rests Ilia with her back against the hallway junction between the stairs and the proper forty-ninth floor. She stands up and faces Stella, her blue eyes incensed. "If you wanted Iskahn, you've long missed him. Something tells me you are targeting Ilia and me for a reason. If I am correct, then you've made two mistakes."
The grey-haired woman narrows her eyes. "Oh? Do tell."
"You're assuming Jaymes will come flying to my aid, don't you? That's why you've put up fighting us. Yet you fail to realize it is not you who has entrapped us, but the other way around. Noxium is fighting against numbers as well. Your first mistake is leaving him alone." Stella doesn't look fazed in the slightest, but Medina can tell her words got to her as the First Child looks away for a moment in the direction of the eastern battle outside Obsidia. Medina has no clue what's progressed in that fight, but she knows Jaymes and Mia can handle it. So she continues her statement as she steps towards Stella until they're level with each other. "Your second mistake...is calling Ilia a defect. She's done more than I have at her age all in one day, and I couldn't be prouder of her. She fought you all the way up here...so I have to honor that by ending this fight."
Stella clicks her tongue and raises her hand to her neck. A red light emits from a necklace hanging there, which has some effect on the chains holding the doors to the fiftieth floor. As far as Medina knows, the Chains of Sealing only open when the emperor is within the castle, which Jaymes is not. Noxium (a clone of Noxium, that is) got inside once before, and this must be how. In any case, the doors unseal, allowing Stella to pass through. "Finish this, we shall, then, Medina Orthinanos."
Medina snarls and throws herself at Stella. She tries to go for low strikes, but Stella counters and attempts to knock Medina's head off with quick, high strokes. Medina blocks them both from behind and in front of her head, then presses the offensive as the battle continues down the candlelit corridor to the throne room. As the fight rages, so does the speed of their attacks, the only difference being that Medina is used to speedy swings while Stella is thrown off balance. Medina notices it and takes advantage of it. Hiding nine fire elements behind her back, Medina performs a spin attack that throws Stella off guard, then launches the pure, unrefined elements at the women, causing them to burst in front of Stella. The propulsion sends the First Child into the throne room, though she manages to recover mid-air and land on sliding feet.
Medina doesn't give Stella a chance to think as the Mirage Blade glows orange with the initiation of the skill known as Tsumujiguruma. She spins through the air in a fiery wheel. Medina's best sword skill lands a burning hit on Stella's shoulder, which she largely ignores as the duel resumes at the same pace in the throne room. Thinking the wound will affect Stella before long, Medina seeks to end the fight here and now, hammering down on the spear. Stella drops to her knees, and Medina sees victory on the horizon.
Then her right leg becomes heavy as stone with the pain of being crushed by stone. "Ahhhhhh!" Her body hurts all over, and her mind focuses only on that as she drops to a kneel, her sword clattering against the ground. Her hands trying to move her leg, Medina looks up to Stella. The spear's blade emits a dark aura, and Stella places it on Medina's cheek, pulling back slightly to create a cut. Stella's power seeps into the wound, dishing out more pain for Medina as her entire body slowly becomes less responsive.
She wants to yell, but her mouth muffles her voice. She wants to move, yet all she can muster are the slightest of twitches. She's at the complete mercy of Stella, who chuckles as she paces around the fallen warrior, the bladed tip making an ear-curdling shriek as it glides against the floor.
"As I said, once a defect, always a defect. It's not just you; it's this entire world. We will correct it." Medina can't verbally say anything, but her fierce eyes mark her words. Stella seems to understand them. "You think those outsiders will win? No, they will not. No matter what, they won't have the guts to save the world in the end; else, they betray all they've created. We have that resolve because this is not the world the gods made. Primus, Noxium, Eva, and myself, our victory is secured. As the mothers and father will it."
Medina sees Stella's shadow hoist up the spear over her body as it goes for the killing blow... So this is how she dies a second time. Not on her feet, as she did against Administrator, but on her belly, unable to move. But given she gave some of her life to save Ilia's, it retains the same honor as she did when she died to give Jaymes a fighting chance. If her death accomplishes the same thing, then so be it. Medina Orthinanos has died once...and she will die again eventually. Her second life wasn't wasted in the slightest. Her family's honor was regained, her homeland was protected from wars, and a new regime was enacted to ensure the Underworld's future. It all is due to her deeds.
If there are any regrets...no, there is one, and it is the last thing Medina would have thought she'd have regrets over at this moment. She expected her dying thoughts to be on her unrequited love for Jaymes, of her failures with Ilia, or her family, yet her single thought is on Eydis. What Medina would give to have another conversation with the knight, to tell her how sorry she is, to relive their days of laziness in the cathedral, to spend another evening bathing in the onsen, to take another perilous mission and see the Dark Slash Sword in action...the things Medina would give to spend one more moment with her so-called sister.
With that thought, she expects to hear the tearing of flesh as her life is dropped to zero. All she hears is an echoing clang and a voice that doesn't belong to Stella, Ilia, or the unlikely hero Jaymes. "You leave Meddie alone."
Medina's head whips up, seeing a grey fluttering in front of her, grey hair flowing from the top of that head, and a black bow at the apex. Only one person in the world calls her "Meddie," and it's the only person who wields a blade that is black as the darkest night. The Knight of the Abyss...and, one day, the Dark Territory's Empress. "E-Eydis?"
"You-Geh!" Stella is kicked back towards the entrance to the throne room, bouncing off the wall to the floor. As she gets up, Stella snarls, twirls her spear, and runs towards Eydis.
Eydis holds her off-hand up, using thoughts to invoke the spell words for the dark element beams she fires at Stella. The knight deflects them all and swings for the approaching Eydis, who dodges at the final moment with finesse. Her opponent stunned, Eydis raises the Dark Slash Sword for a downward vertical slice. Stella tries to block it, but it proves futile as Eydis' sword phases through it and cuts Stella in the face. Stella steps back, almost in disbelief she's been touched, shakes her hand, and throws dart-like projectiles at Eydis.
The tenth knight deflects four of those darts, catching a fifth throw her fingers and throwing it back at Stella. It hits the First Child in the leg, immediately dropping her down. Those darts were laced with Stella's power, and now she's got a taste of her own medicine. As Medina forces herself to stand, she hears the sound of breaking earth rushing into the throne room, and Stella's launched into the air by a blue stone. The cause of it: Her apprentice's Perfect Weapon Control.
"Lycoris..." Medina's sword glows red as petals sword it, and she jumps with all her strength toward Stella. She thrusts her sword, sending a swirl of fire and sharp petals at the woman, somewhat relishing her screams as she hits a wall again.
"Enhance Armament." Darkness pools out of Eydis' sword, swallowing the half of the room that Stella occupies along with Eydis. Medina can't see what's going on as she backs away from the encroaching void, but she hears Eydis's voice from within the darkness. "You made me a traitor, made me fight the man I love and my second sister. You made me hurt those cute apprentices... But most of all, you made me hurt Alice's sister and her hometown. For that alone, you and every single one of your siblings will know my wrath..."
Medina did not need to see it happen nor hear the final cries of the First Child. The moment she felt Stella's presence fade, she knew the woman was slain. The darkness fades after a second, and Eydis stands over a still corpse. Sheathing her weapon, Eydis sighs and turns around, facing the master-apprentice pair of Medina and Ilia. Medina doesn't know what to say, not that she ever prepared for this moment, and she somewhat said her piece back in the northern kingdom. She just stares at Eydis and vice versa.
Thankfully, Ilia breaks the silence. "...Lady Eydis, why help us? Jaymes... I mean, Emperor Jaymes, you must've passed him to get here, so..."
"...Still so formal, huh, Ilia? That's so cute. And calling him 'Emperor?' Don't give him that title, even if it's true. Mr. Mage Knight can handle himself, even though I wanted to help him...but someone just as important to me is here. After all, Ilia..." Eydis looks back at Medina, a tearful smile growing on her face. "There are many guys in the world to love, but you'll not meet many girls you can call a sister... and I owe her so much."
Medina puts her sword back in its sheath, facing Eydis with tears and smiles of her own. "You tried killing me twice, you know. And so many other things before that. You owe me plenty."
"Yes. Once this is over, Meddie, I'll...find a suitable way to repay you. But for now..." Eydis walks up and wraps her arms around Medina, "just let me hold you." Medina is surprised by the hug and looks at Ilia. The youngest woman in the room smiles and nods at Medina as if pushing her master to hug the knight back.
Then a pressing sensation alarms Medina's mind, and not just hers, for the hug ends abruptly. Three pairs of eyes look towards the window facing the End Mountains...and a second later, the middle of Obsidia is rocked by an explosion.
"What the hell..." Medina begins to say...and then senses something moving behind them. Instinctively she places herself between it and Eydis, grunting as a sharp pain fires from her abdomen. Wincing, her head moves upward, and her eyes widen in shock. "H-How?" That's the last thing Medina says before her body is slammed into a wall, and her mind goes blank...