And now we finally get to the confrontation between Nemisa and Jayde. Will this be an easy victory for the Gerudo, or does her target have something up his sleeve...?
"What the hell is going on here?!" shouted a slaver, running up to some others in the caves of the Wyvern's Nest.
"I-It's the Gerudo, they're attacking the Nest!" shouted his comrade.
"They scared off our patrons, and they said they're here to save the prisoners!" said another.
"What?! Well get the prisoners out of here through the secret exits then!" shouted the first slaver.
"We tried, but each exit is being blocked off by more Gerudo, they have us surrounded!" explained another.
"Damnit..." grimaced the slaver, hanging his head down, "This organization is finished..."
The Gerudo were on an all-out assault on the Wyvern's Nest, some slavers were forced to retreat, while those who battled were stricken down by the overwhelming power of the desert tribe.
"Keep away from me!" screamed a Hylian woman as she was escaping from a slaver who chased after her amid all the chaos going on. The slaver grabbed her by her wrist and was about to kill her with his sword, but he was suddenly shot In the forehead by an arrow and impacted to the ground. The lady gasped out, and looked over to see Aviel was lowering her crossbow with her goggles on.
"Told you fate can change!" Aviel grinned. The woman stood in shock, before her eyes teared up, and she went running over hugging Aviel in gratitude.
Meanwhile Sarami stood calmly as she found herself surrounded by slavers, she was holding two of the prisoners protectively in her arms.
"Heh, I hate having to kill a pair of hooters like you, but you crossed the line tonight, lady!" said one of the slavers, slowly approaching her and the prisoners with his sword along with his comrades.
"Fu-fu-fufufu..." Sarami giggled, her glasses giving off a mischievous gleam, "You're the ones who all just crossed a line you'll regret..."
"Huh?" asked the slaver, looking down to see a large circle of yellow goop on the ground, "What's this?"
"Yellow chu jelly, in it's basic form. Yellow chuchus are capable of releasing static discharge at will, but when removed from the nucleus gland, the composition itself can randomly release excess electricity over time..." she explained.
"Huh...?" asked one of the slavers.
"Take care of yourselves..." she whispered to the slavers, pulling the prisoners themselves closer to her for protection, "And thank you in advance for the payment of your medical bills."
With that, the yellow chu jelly released a powerful electric shock, zapping the whole lot of slavers that had surrounded Sarami and the prisoners, and they all fell to the ground unconscious.
"Oh my, this is going to take a while." Sarami sighed, putting a hand to her cheek, as she knelt down and started working on treating the slavers' shock wounds, taking time to help herself to their money as well.
In another area of the Nest, some slavers were frantically trying to get all the black market items they were going to sell at the auction together to escape with, it ranged from weapons and equipment to strange mystical items and treasures.
"Hurry up!" shouted a slaver, "Before those Gerudo bitches show up!"
"What do we do with this thing?" asked another slaver, holding up what was some kind of headdress with a hairy mane and horns sticking out of it.
"Dunno, we swiped it from some weird guy, just put it with the other stuff before they get h-"
"Howdy!" spoke up a voice, causing the slavers to freeze up and look over to see Togau standing at the door with a cheeky wave, and accompanied by other Gerudo soldiers, "You boys need a hand with that stuff?"
"Kill them!" shouted the slaver, rushing at Togau with their weapons, but the rancher and her team took them down with little effort.
"Sister Togau, what should we do with all this?" asked a Gerudo, looking around at the black market items.
"What else?" grinned Togau "We'll take the lot of it! I'll have to organize what's worth selling and what we should get rid of later on." she said, her merchant instincts kicking in.
As the Gerudo went to work gathering everything, Togau took a look around the room herself and saw a strangely empty spot of the room where it looked like a long container used to be. Judging from the look of that area something pretty big had just been moved just before they got there.
"Huh, wonder what that was?" Togau muttered, as her foot kicked something on the ground. She picked it up to see it was the horned headdress one of the slavers had.
"And what the bahooty is this...?"
In another area, Link and Nemisa were battling against the slavers. Link struck one down with his sword, while Nemisa smashed another away with a sweeping kick. Some more slavers came to ambush them, but Link and Nemisa stood back-to-back and nodded to each other, before switching places and taking down the opposite slaver. More came at them but the two clashed with their sword and fists, Nemisa flipped over Link's back and kicked a man, while Link brought up his sword and slashed another. It was almost balladic how they moved in sync with each other, like a dance of battle.
Soon the slavers were all taken down, one particular man laid against the wall, groaning out in a daze, as Nemisa knelt down and grabbed him by his shirt.
"Where is your boss, Jayde?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.
The slaver was in a panic at the Gerudo's strength, and told them exactly where Jayde was, even blurting out the location of the lead boss, Master Rassan out of fear for his life.
"Very well." Nemisa said, standing and turning to Link, "I need to confront Jayde and settle matters with him."
"Alright." Link nodded, "Then I'll go take on the big boss, and we'll bring an end to all this."
But just before they split ways, a new voice spoke out.
"Lifeaf! There you are!"
"Oh no." Link said pale faced, as they saw the head guard Burao running up to them.
"I've been looking all over for you! Fear not, I'll protect you from this vile woman, and we'll escape this place and run off together!" he said valiantly, holding his sword out at Nemisa, "Then we can finally run off together and be wed!"
"Uh, I hate to break this to you..." Link said rubbing the back of his head, "But the truth is, I'm a guy."
Burao stood there without a word, as Link and Nemisa both watched and waited for his reaction.
"Ha... haahahaha!" Burao laughed hysterically, "I know you're nervous, but you don't have to make up things like that, my love!"
"No, he really is a guy." Nemisa said flatly.
"Rubbish!" Burao shouted, "I refuse to believe a lie like that! Just look at that perfect slender body, those hips, that long blond hair, those sapphire eyes, that silky feminine voice, there's no way she could possibly be a-!"
That was when Nemisa rolled her eyes and pulled down Link's pants, showing Burao what laid between Link's legs. Link himself was a little mortified at what she did in that moment.
Burao meanwhile stood there blankly, his eyes widened like dinner plates, looking as if his head was lost to the cosmos of space itself.
There was silence in that moment, as Burao chuckled a little, then laughed a bit more...
Before he impacted onto the ground with an audible thud, and fell unconscious in the crater he had created from the impact of his collapse.
Link pulled up his pants as he and Nemisa both stared down at the man. Link thought to himself for a second, before deciding to remove his hood, veil, wig, and chest top, to avoid anymore confusion.
"I... need to go now... and confront Jayde..." Nemisa muttered, blushing red as she tried to avoid staring at Link's body.
"O-Okay.." Link said.
"And, when this is all over..." Nemisa then took a deep breath, and boldly turned to him, gently throwing her arms around his shoulders, "The two of us shall return home, and I'll show you just how strong my love for you is now... all night long, and forever after that..."
"...I'm looking forward to it." Link said with a smile, "Now let's go take down those bosses and finish this!" he added with his fist pumped.
"Right, good luck Link!" Nemisa nodded with a smirk.
"You too Nemisa." Link nodded back to her, and with that the two parted ways.
"Boss, the Gerudo are overwhelming us!" shouted a slaver, bursting into Master Rassan's room, "We tried to evacuate the prisoners, but they got the drop on us there too!"
"Is that so?" Master Rassan asked, looking up from his apple, "Waahahaha!, these girls are something else!" he laughed.
"Boss, this is serious! What should we do?" asked the slaver.
Master Rassan just took a large bite of the apple and paused, before calmly saying "Get as many as our boys out of here as possible, your lives aren't worth losing here."
"But-"
"Go on, get the ones still living out of here..." he repeated, "And collect whatever resources you can, to find a new way to live." Rassan then said in an unusually serious tone for him.
"What about you, boss...?" the slaver asked worriedly.
"I'll wait here for whoever shows up, and fight to the end.." Rassan said with his eyes closed, "As of now, the Wyvern Keepers are finished..."
"...o-okay boss..." the slaver said, he grimaced a bit, before falling to his hands and knees, "Thank you... for everything you've done for us!"
"...waahahahaha, just get out of here." Rassan chuckled, as the slaver left.
The burly man finished his apple and laid backwards onto a chair, as he gripped the handle of his strange whip, and looked upwards, not so much at the ceiling of his room, but beyond it into the skies,
"I hope I've done you proud up until now, sir..."
In another room, the second-in-command slave leader Jayde was calmly gathering his possessions, packing them up into bags. His room was rather large compared to most areas of the cave, as he liked his space. Among everything in his room the thing that stood out the most was a large wooden platform in the center that was slightly elevated a couple feet above the cave floor, his bed and dining table both set up on it.
He had just been notified of the raid on the Wyvern's Nest, and knowing not even he could fight off so many Gerudo, that it was time to escape through his own private hidden passage.
"I don't know if I have time to get that particular thing..." Jayde pondered to himself, "I'll just have to make due with what I can, and if those guards know what's good for them, they'll come with me..."
"Sir!" shouted one of Jayde's scarf-wearing bodyguards, running into Jayde's room, he was badly injured and bruised. "The... the dancer Gerudo... she struck down all of your men... she's on her wa-"
But the guards' words were cut off permanently by Nemisa coming up from behind and kicking him across the back of the head, sickeningly cracking his neck as he fell to the side dead. Nemisa ran past the guard's body and stood on the wooden platform, staring coldly at the blue-haired handsome man.
"Jayde..." Nemisa muttered.
"Ah, the lovely Madame Scarlet..." Jayde smirked, standing up from gathering his things and whisking a hand through his hair, "So you've come back to me."
"I'm here to end this." Nemisa said coldly, going into a battle pose, "You're going to die here tonight."
"My such a temperament, but with such heated passion." Jayde observed, "You remind me of someone long ago... but I can't quite remember them exactly..."
"Then I'll make you remember." Nemisa said, "...what you did to me those years ago."
"Very well." Jayde said, he pulled off the sais from his outfit and brandished them, doing into a pose himself, "Then let us dance a duel of death on this beautiful night!"
With that, Nemisa and Jayde ran at each other into battle. Jayde swung his sai at Nemisa, but she leaned right to dodge, before throwing a punch straight at his face, but he ducked down and swiped at her stomach, but she managed to dodge by doing a backflip away.
"You dare try to harm my beautiful face?" Jayde said with a smirk, then swung his sais out at her to impale her, but she dodged left and right, before going into a twirl and swinging her leg at him, but he leaped upwards to avoid it. He then swung his sais downwards at her, but Nemisa brought up her wrists and blocked the sais with them, repelling Jayde backwards.
"W-What?" Jayde exclaimed, before Nemisa rushed in and swung at him, but he dodged to the side, "How on earth did you block that without...?"
That was when he saw the sais had ripped at the sashes on her wrists, revealing the steel bands under them.
"Oh... so that's how you do it..." smirked Jayde.
"With these steel bands I can battle any opponent, weapon or not." Nemisa said.
"In that case, I suppose I'll have to deal with that." Jayde said, pulling a small orb out from his pocket and clicking it.
All of a sudden, Nemisa could feel her arms and legs getting heavy, as she was forced down onto the wooden platform, and found her wrists and shins were stuck to the floor.
"W-What is this?!" exclaimed Nemisa, attempting to pull her limbs up, only to see they were immobilized, "My limbs feel attached to the ground..."
"That my dear is the Magnetic Orb beneath this floor." Jayde explained, tapping his foot on the wooden platform, "It creates a force that attracts any iron or steel object and forces it down, just a sample of the treasures we've acquired with our connections to the black market." he spun his sais in his hands and slowly walked towards her.
"Wait... how come your weapons aren't being affected?" Nemisa asked, staring at the sais as she was trying to pull up her limbs.
"These sais are crafted from one-hundred percent pure sapphire and emerald jewels, beautiful but effective and deadly, and not affected by magnetism." smirked Jayde.
"You're got to be kidding me..." Nemisa muttered, and started dragging her wrist across the floor towards her other wrist, as Jayde slowly walked closer and closer to her.
"Now it's time to bring an end to this..." Jayde said standing over her, he brought his sai up into the air, aiming it at her head.
"Shit!" Nemisa panicked, finally getting her hand close enough to her other wrist to undo the steel band, then undid the other one, just as Jayde brought down his sai. Nemisa quickly sat up to avoid the sai coming down, before undoing the bands on her shins and back-flipping to get some distance from him.
'This is bad...' thought Nemisa, 'I could fight him easily before with my bands... but without them I have no way to defend myself...'
Jayde stood and stared at her, noticing something unusual on her now exposed wrist, specifically the red scar on it.
"My, that's quite a nasty wound you have there..." Jayde pondered, "...you said we've met before this...?"
Nemisa didn't say a word but glared at him.
"Wait... now I remember you..." Jayde realized with a smirk, "You're the graceful shining jewel from three years ago... the one I captured back at that old tavern in Hyrule..." he then narrowed his eyes coldly, "Nemisa, the one who caused our great organization to fall apart all that time ago..."
"I'm glad you finally remember..." Nemisa said, glaring back at him as well, "And I intend to finish the job tonight."
"Is that so...? Just try it." Jayde said with a smirk.
With that, Nemisa rushed at Jayde and the two went into battle again. Nemisa found it harder to fight though without her steel bands. She couldn't defend herself and relied fully on dodging his sais. He managed to fake her out and get a swipe at her arm, but she took a breath before bringing up her leg and kneeing him in the stomach, causing him to stagger back, though he quickly shook it off.
"There's one question I need answered from you..." Nemisa said, backing up a bit, planning her next move as she spoke, "Back when I was captured by that slaver three years ago, I could hear you calling out for me. You sounded so concerned and scared for me... even though you were the one that set all that up. Why was that?"
"Heh, it's simple, my dear." Jayde said, spinning his sai, "This beautiful face of mine, is a blessing from the goddess, but also carries a curse; you wouldn't believe how many women practically throw themselves at me just from a kind glance. At first it was problematic, but over time I understood what I could do with my looks and charm, and I became a powerful part of the Wyvern Keepers. The more women I charmed, the more I took a liking to it, and I ultimately realized that I could charm just about any woman's heart."
Nemisa took a breath, and the two rushed at each other, she threw punches while Jayde thrust his sais. Both sides were quick to dodge each attack, though came dangerously close to hitting each other.
Jayde continued as he attacked, "When I enslave a woman, I don't just capture her, I imprison her heart. I tell her words that make her believe even after they're captured and sold into slavery, that I love her to the bitter end. The thought that she's longing for me, the thought that she's hoping for the day we reunite and come together again..." he let a relieved sigh, "It fills me with pure ecstasy."
"You're insane..." Nemisa said in shock of his attitude, dodging an attack, then managing to get a jab on him, but he recovered quickly.
"Perhaps I am, my dear Nemisa." smirked Jayde, swinging his sai and getting a good slash across Nemisa's side, making her scream out and fall to her knee, "But knowing there's so many slave women are out there pining for me... wanting to be free and become one with me... I just savor the thought."
He started slowly waking up to her, "And you my dear are just the same, I've captivated your heart more then any other. You would go to this length to confront me, and for what? Petty revenge? Do you really think that's all it will take to relieve you of your obsession with me? Say you hate me as much as you want, but I own you."
"...no... you don't own me..." Nemisa said, swinging her leg up and kicking him in the chest, sending him backwards in surprise. She got up and glared at Jayde, "The man who my heart belongs to is the one who truly cares for me, who I protect with all my strength... the one who treats me with kindness despite how badly I've treated him... and the one who will become the great King of The Gerudo... that man's name is Link."
"Link...?" muttered Jayde, "Where have I heard that name before...?"
"I have to admit, in some small ways, Link reminds me much of you... one in particular is he has a way with women... but the difference between him and you in that way is he doesn't lie to them or play with their hearts for personal gain. He won their hearts with his kindness and valor, and that includes myself. Some day I intend to marry him and bear his children, alongside the others that he's forged such close bonds with in their own special ways, and defeating you is part of my resolve to do so!"
"You're kidding me..." Jayde said, but then smirked lightly and stood up straight, "And again, you truly think revenge against me will allow you to achieve this resolve? Will that truly relieve you of your melancholic pain?"
"No..." Nemisa said, she was about to reach down to squeeze her scarred wrist, but stopped herself and looked up at him, "This isn't about revenge, at least not anymore. You hurt me greatly in the past... you scarred me in ways I thought could never heal, but I've come to remember I'm not the only one you've hurt with your ways."
Her mind went back to the three girls captured at the canyon, the one who managed to escape and cry out for help, the girls she overheard in the prisoner chambers in the Wyvern's Nest earlier... then her mind flashed back to the far past, the slaves held in Monsieur Adulph's control, the poor waitress that Jayde had taken away at Kakariko Village.
And most importantly, Erien, the girl who helped her find happiness even in the worst times, and recalled the words she told her...
"Nemisa... someday you'll know what it feels to truly be happy..."
"This isn't about revenge, this is about defeating you, and putting an end to the Wyvern Keepers. So that no other person has to suffer like me or any of them did. That is my resolve, and that's what will help me truly become who I want to be, and find that happiness I sought!" Nemisa shouted, "And that happiness is to be with my beloved Link!"
Nemisa then lunged at Jayde with a punch, but he ducked and swiped at her, to which she back-flipped. Jayde's sai managed to swipe at her hair though, which caused the hair-bun she made to loosen and unravel, causing her beautiful long hair she typically kept concealed to flow out. She then lunged forward and punched him hard in the stomach, causing him to stagger backwards.
"So... that's it then... huh...?" Jayde muttered, hanging his head low, Nemisa stared at him for a brief moment, and it was then that the blue-haired handsome man brought his head up and glared coldly at her.
"I... will not... allow it." Jayde thrust out his sai and pointed it at her, "Your heart is one of my most beautiful trophies, and that man shall never claim my property! When this is over, I'll slay this Link person myself!"
"Hmph, you can never harm him, he's too strong for the likes of you." Nemisa said, she then sported a smirk, "And for that matter he's not a coward."
"What.. did you just imply...?" Jayde asked, his eye twitching ever so slightly.
"Something had been bothering me for a while about you..." she said, "But I've come to realize you're afraid, paranoid even. When you threatened me at the sushi restaurant you said you had half the restaurant full of your men... and even earlier today you threw away your wine without even knowing whether it was tainted or not."
"Is that all you have to say to assume that?" shrugged Jayde, "I'm just cautious."
"Maybe if that was all it was to it, but then I realized something else." as Nemisa reached back and pulled out the slave bomb collar that he had put on her earlier, "The reason your guards wear those scarves is because they all have slave collars like this on them as well." she then removed the scarf from the body of the dead guard, showing that indeed the scarf had been covering a bomb collar, "And you have this magnetic orb underneath your own personal bedroom. You didn't have it here with me in mind, since you didn't know I had my steel bands until just a moment ago. You had this here for anyone that happens to come in to try to attack you."
"Hmph... the observant type, are we...?" Jayde muttered.
"The truth is, you've become afraid of everything, more then likely after what happened to the Wyvern Keepers three years ago. You can't trust anyone anymore, not even your own bodyguards." Nemisa accused.
"I don't need trust, I just need complacency," Jayde scowled, "All others do is backstab and hurt you."
"That's how I used to think, because of what you did to me... but Link showed me otherwise. Unlike you with your own bodyguards, Link completely trusts his life to me, and I feel the same with him. It's that mutual trust that keeps us together, and whenever I tried to break that trust, I would only end up getting hurt... "
Her mind thought back to times like those, such as the slaver battle in the canyon, and when she was captured a little while ago by Jayde himself, and Link saving her each time.
"...but then Link would just come right back and protect me. I can't help but love him, and I want to be by his side forever. So I plan to seal our bond of trust together permanently, by becoming his beloved wife, now and forever!" Nemisa said firmly with her arms folded..
Jayde paused and stood, not saying a word in reaction to Nemisa for the longest time. It was then at that moment his smirk seemed to creep upwards, and become much more chilling and sinister.
"This Link... so he truly has taken your heart..." Jayde chuckled darkly, "Once I've killed the both of you and split apart that 'bond of trust' you rant on so much about... I'll come back here and claim it for myself..."
He then reached into the bag he was stuffing with possessions earlier and held up a sealed bottle. What Nemisa saw in the bottle outright shocked and repulsed her.
"As any other woman that dared defy me... I shall take your heart as my reward... just like this one..." he said with a slow and eerie voice.
"You truly are insane..." Nemisa muttered, stepping back.
"Now die, my graceful shining jewel!" Jyade exclaimed lunging at her, he brought up his sais to slash her, and Nemisa impulsively tried to block with her arms, but remembered her steel bands were undone, so she tried to dodge out of the way, but got slashed across her arms. She staggered back as Jayde came at her again, this time aiming his sais at her chest.
In that moment Nemisa closed her eyes, and thought about what her karate master Tuldon told her, about maintaining a calm mind and a calm body. Her thoughts drifted to Link, and everyone else she was fighting for, remembering the dancing she practiced with her friend Erien back at the mansion, and when she danced with Link at the night club, and in that moment, she could hear the gentle tune of the music box, without even holding the green jewel.
She took a deep breath, and gracefully swayed her body to the side to avoid it, catching Jayde off guard, as she kicked him across the back. He turned and swiped at her again, but she leaped up and kicked him backwards, before running forward and landing a powerful punch to Jayde's face, sending him flailing back.
Jayde was in shock, his glasses were damaged by the punch, with one lens cracked, obscuring his eyesight. He slowly drew his hand to his face and saw blood coming from it.
"You... blemished my... beautiful face..." he whispered, as he slowly licked at the blood on his fingers, and it was then the normally calm and collected man looked at her with outright fury, "I'LL KILL YOU, YOU LITTLE BITCH!"
Jayde rushed at her with his saus and swung them wildly, but Nemisa ducked and dodged each one with her graceful dancing moves, before bring up her fist and punching him, causing him to fall back into a daze, before she ran forward and started pummeling him with rapid but perfectly placed kicks and punches. He couldn't even begin to fight back, but held up his sais in defense of his face. Nemisa responded however by delivering one powerful punch through the sais, causing them to break apart into shards and impaling into Jayde's face, before her fist connected right into it, making him scream out in pain before falling backwards to the ground.
"No... this can't be happening..." muttered Jayde, blood pouring out from the shard wounds, "How could I lose to... a weak-hearted woman like you...?"
Nemisa simply ignored his words, took the small orb that had activated the magnetic device which was holding her steel bands down, and deactivated it, causing the magnetism field around the room to go away, allowing Nemisa to walk over and start to pick her bands up.
It was then that Jayde smirked, forcing himself up, and rushed at her with his broken sais, intending to impale her with what was left of them. Nemisa saw Jayde out of the corner of her eye, and then saw the bomb collar she had dropped beside her. Nemisa then grabbed it, and second before Jayde could stab her, threw it around his neck, clamping it on and surprising him, giving her the chance to thrust her head up and headbutt Jayde in the nose, breaking it and causing him to fall backwards to the ground once more.
"And stay down." Nemisa said. She clamped the steel bands back on to her limbs and stood up.
"Give... back that orb..." hissed Jayde weakly, referring to the magnetism orb, "If I don't have that... they'll kill me... they'll all kill me!" he shouted out, affirming Nemisa's belief of how truly paranoid he was now.
"You mean this orb?" Nemisa asked lightly as she instead held up the bomb collar activation orb for the collar he was now wearing, "With pleasure." and tossed it into the air.
Jayde's face paled white at the sight of the orb she tossed, recognizing it, and his eyes widened while his pupils shrank down, as he saw the collar orb fall and impact to the ground, activating it's mechanism.
Nemisa slowly walked away, her long flowing hair swayed left and right while she moved, as a powerful explosion went off behind her. She stopped in her tracks and sported a small smirk, not even bothering to take a look behind her, before she left out of the room of the late blue-haired handsome slaver leader.
"Thank you for the dance, Jayde." Nemisa said, closing the door behind her.
And that ends the chapter, while Jayde may be dealt with, things aren't over. Next chapter, Link takes on the slaver leader himself, Master Rassan. Stay tuned for chapter 29!
Ees, 29 chapters so far, this is easily the longest story I've ever written, and it's been a lot of fun to do! As usual, leave a like, follow or review if you enjoyed it!