Akachi's twin hammers collided with Isadora's shield, knocking her towards Poi both of them falling unconscious.
"I'll let Yara decide what to do with you two."
He stomped down the stairs of the vestibule angrily yelling at the defeated Mal's.
"Pathetic! I guess that's what I get for doing a rush job. Mal5, too weak to be around me."
He stepped over the fallen Mal with a hole in his chest. Xerxes flew up to him. Milo and Naomi felt fear rush into their veins, unable to react to the two daggers flying their way impaling their chest.
"If you were able to become a Mal7, I wonder what they'll become."
"I could have taken them down! They told me not to fight."
"Would've saved me the embarrassment. Test your venom on those two over there. Should be out cold."
Xerxes raced over to Kenash and Apozon.
As Akachi demolished the frozen Mal, he could see a dim yellow light shining from the double doors on the right side of the battlefield. His curiosity swelled, remembering the way to the room him and his brother shared.
I guess J'baki is finally done cooking. Now all of us will be apart of Petya.
As he opened the doors the light grew brighter, beckoning him to continue on. What he found inside of the room was enough to send even a crazed, infected man into hysterics. A deep golden man with forest green accents stood over J'baki and Xena, attempting to pick them up.
"Who are you!"
The man waved a hand, knocking Akachi unconscious. He grabbed Akachi and J'baki into his arms and put Xena on his shoulder. He slowly trudged into the battle field just outside the double doors.
"Oh the mess we've made, all of us." The man spoke softly to himself.
He placed his three packages at the foot of the stairs. He gathered Milo and Naomi to put them with the others and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Xerxes removing his fangs from Kenash's arm.
"What are you doing little one?"
Xerxes turned to face the man, looking at the intricate formation of lines in his milky eyes.
"A monarch! Sir these two should be converted any minute."
"That won't be necessary. There should be two more. Where are they?"
"Master Akachi took care of them, they're knocked out at the top of the stairs."
"Of course he did" the man chuckled as he grabbed the two boys in his arms.
"Dexter isn't going to be happy with this."
Once they were all gathered at the bottom of the stairs, the man began extracting the petyans from them all, taking them into his body leaving them as he ascended the stairs.
"Hey wait! You can't do that! All life belongs to Yara!" Xerxes yelled out.
"Yara. Where is she? If all life belongs to her, why doesn't she take it herself?"
Xerxes floated along as the man reached the top of the stairs.
"Such a mess such a mess."
He walked over to Isadora and gently placed his hand on her shoulder.
"Isadora!! What do you think you're doing! What did we trust you for!" He yelled at the unconscious woman. Slowly blinking she quickly jumped back in astonishment at the man standing before her.
"Adrian! It worked!"
"Of course it did, did you expect us to fail?"
"I didn't have the most faith I'll admit."
"The ones he chose couldn't make it to Yara after all."
"We didn't expect such a large welcome party. Also, there's someone else."
"Yes I know. There was always meant to be one extra. Let's get him up."
Adrian walked towards the rubble where Poi was laying.
"I never guessed another one of Yara's children would rebel against her."
He helped Poi up as he regained consciousness
"This is wrong, this is WRONG! If everyone's out it's up to me to infect you all!" Xerxes yelled he charged at Isadora with his fangs bared. Isadora stood and accepted the attack. Xerxes fangs broke on her shoulder in an instant.
"Xerxes, I'm so sorry that this happened to you. You shouldn't have been infected at all."
"Why didn't you get bitten! Not fair! This is wrong!"
"Xerxes, do you want your petyans taken? I can do that for you."
"No! Yara is the master, my petyans are growing by the second! I never had this much power walking around the sixth level." He furiously flew down to Akachi's unconscious body which was not huddled up in the group. "I won't let you take it from me!"
"Do what you will, Xerxes. I'm not taking it from you if you don't want that. But you will not harm any of my friends."
Xerxes turned into a sickly yellow goop and merged himself into Akachi, who remained unconscious as the augen went silent.
Poi began to open his eyes and looked around the battlefield.
"So much has happened since I came back. One of the twins have finally seen the light." Adrian said, letting Poi stand on his own.
"Brother.. ugh. Wha? I thought you were dead?" Poi managed to get out.
"Alive and well. What happened to Pai?"
"Apparently he's inside with mother. The petyans must have almost taken over the heart at this point?"
"If things went as planned I'd agree, but my vessel did something magnificent that surely set Yara back. Her new catalyst didn't even get a chance to finish incubating."
"That's wonderful! What happened to your vessel?"
Adrian pointed down the stairs at the group he huddled together.
"When J'baki was infected by his brother, my beo activated bringing me back to life. He's alive, just unconscious, and I can say the same thing about the others."
Isadora stared down at the friends she'd made. Completely regretful for the circumstances she felt she'd gotten them into.
"They shouldn't have been apart of this. Let them rest and we'll finish cleaning up this mess." She turned back around to face Adrian "I'm sure you're eager to see him again, lover boy."
Adrians yellow face became flushed.
"He won't want to see me like this. After we're done here, I'll take my leave."
"God you're an idiot. I hope you didn't rub off too much on J'baki... actually come to think of it that boy is twice as dense as you."
"Don't give him too much trouble, I was piloting most of the time. Not to mention, it seems he's lost the will to live. His spores are slowly going away."
"The infection must have been too much for him."
"The infection was definitely a factor, but his brother being the one to infect him, then revealing himself against him, were the cause."
"His brother?"
"The man with two hammers? Akachi."
"That's his brother?! I just met the kid but he can't die here."
"We have more pressing matters Isadora. Yara may have been set back but we should reach Dexter as soon as possible."
"But.."
"We'll leave Poi to look after them. We have to go, now!"
"It's fine by me, I don't think I could face mother right now." Poi chimed in.
"Then it's settled, look after them and make sure no one dies."
Isadora and Adrian turned to the center of the five doors. With a slow creak the door opened its massive maw allowing the pair to traverse the yellow fog that seeped from its depths.
Inside of the Duo Poculum's main stadium, yellow fog permeated the air. In the seats of the inner arena sat petrified people suspended in animation. The scene of chaos and panic was over grown with small mushroom trees.
At the center of the arena sat a scaled down model of the Vivabor tree. At the center of its trunk sat a crystallized spore that glistened with oranges and whites.
The Empress could be seen floating in a suspended state between Yara and the trees core. Yara continually injected petyans into The Empress as they went through a change before hitting the trees core.
Adrian and Isadora huddled in the back row next to a petrified attendee and discussed their plan.
"Yara is using The Empress to strengthen her petyans so that they can take over the heart." Adrian started. "If the empress completes this ritual, her death will soon follow."
"That's your vessel's friend. We let her die."
"And we won't. If Yara succeeds, this will all have been for nothing. I will dash towards Yara while you sneak around and grab The Empress. Knowing mother, she has a backup plan. We just need to exhaust her."
"Wait a minute. Didn't Poi say that his brother was here with her?"
"Pai! I forgot about him. Crap. He's tricky we need to look out for him."
"Riiight. I'm gonna go get in position and wait for your signal."
Isadora snuck through the aisles until she had a straight line to The Empress. Adrian walked over to the main aisle and began walking down past petrified people running towards the exit. He didn't notice one of the statues cracking behind him. The sound made his head whip around to find the statue turn into a aqueous blob and charge at him. His success in dodging ended as two more statues turned to water encasing him in a cocoon of water.
From the shadows Pai emerged snarking laughing at Adrian.
"Ah brother. I thought you said my tricks wouldn't work again?"
Adrian fought to get out of the bubbling water, screaming unheard screams.
"No no no, you can't get out. Mother made these statues from my water. You couldn't undo her work if you tried. Just sit back and enjoy the show, the girl who came with you is next."
Pai soared into the air right to Isadora's location. Isadora was huddled between two rows when Pain swooped down landing perfectly on the back of the seats.
"Sup Izzy." Pai crouched. "We never got to spend time together all those years ago. How've you been?"
"Really? Don't act like we're friends."
"You're right." Pai laughed. "We should just get started then. As you can see you won't have any assistance in your plot to ruin mother's plans. I don't even need to exert energy on fighting you. Go on, I'll even give you a head start."
Isadora rose into an uppercut, knocking Pai off of his perch.
"Is this all some kind of joke to you?" Isadora's anger flared like a band of solar energy. "People have died! Look around you! Look at what your mother has done!"
"These people didn't want a life with mother. That is why they died."
Isadora jumped over the seats, Pai stood himself up and brushed himself off.
"You're pathetic. Forcing a connection onto innocent people. Connections they aren't ready to make."
"Ahh now that sounds familiar. But that's not what we do now is it? Girl from Cela Sula."
Isadora's face did not change. The anger still violently brushed across it as she landed a blow square on his cheek. Pai looked with disdain at Isadora, he produced chains of murky water from this arms. They floated along his body shaking, tempting Isadora as she stood ready to face her foe.
The chains whipped and struck at Isadora with a flurry of hits breaking against her skin, the petyans having no affect on her. The chains kept up an impenetrable defense for Pai leaving Isadora on the outside.
Not wanting to waste time any longer she broke down the aisle to the center of the arena. Running to reach The Empress, in the midst of dodging Pai's pursuing chains, she noticed that Yara's trance left her unaware of the situation happening around her. She leaped over the barrier of the arena landing a short sprint from The Empress.
What met her in the next few steps was a giant sigil that covered half of the arena. The intricate lines designed from the petyan infused water. Chains rose from the sigil causing a whole new obstacle for Isadora to evade. Pai floated above the chaos looking down at Isadora.
"Oh, it's not going to be that simple beautiful. My wonderful array will keep you busy."
What was there to do now? The Enpress was right there, yet one move would send the chains after her. Knowing full well the price, she took a gamble. She darted directly for The Empress seamlessly evading the vicious lines of the sigil. Eluding every chain that whizzed by her head. Right in her sights now, she reached both arms out tackling The Empress out between the heart and Yara. With the link broken, Yara broke out of her trance as she angrily surveyed the area.