"Kick my ass? Seems like you've completely given up on acting like a member of the royal family, sister." Aziza said.
Ayia'liah snapped open her wings and fluttered high above the coliseum. Red scales glittered in the light as they descended down onto the field. At first, they seemed to fall at random, but I noticed that the scales were all collecting around the reanimated corpses while ignoring Aziza. Before she could realize what was going on, the scales erupted into blazing fireballs and engulfed her horde of corpses.
Aziza, trapped in the center of the inferno, screamed and scurried away from the flames. Her Necrolymth quickly took to the skies to avoid being burned up with its thralls. I'm probably thinking that Ayia'liah wasn't that much of a threat as long as you were above it. It was wrong.
Flames shot from Ayia'liah's feet and gave her a burst of speed as she rushed the Necrolymth. More scales flying off her transparent wings only erupt into fireballs a few moments later and flew at Dooie danser. It screeched and evaded desperately, trying not to get hit.
While watching Ayia'liah's aerial ballet and battle, I almost forgot that Jane and Aziza were still in the arena. Glancing down at the battlefield, I saw Jane running head first into the wall of fire that had Aziza trapped. She burst through the flames with only the fringes of her dress getting singed and charged Aziza.
"AZIZA!" Jane bellowed, the guttural battle cry stunning everyone, most of all Aziza. Jane reared a fist back and swung at Aziza's face, hitting her with a haymaker that nearly had her spinning in mid-air. Aziza stumbled back several feet, no longer stunned and blocked the next punch that Jane threw, countering with a swift and elegant combo blows to her chest and face. Jane shrugged off the hits and continued to swing at Aziza, seemingly randomly. Aziza caught her punch and flipped Jane over her shoulder.
"Swinging randomly like that? Your martial arts tutors taught you better, Jane." Aziza taunted then kicked Jane in the face. She held her hand out and started to cast an offensive spell sigil when Jane jumped to her feet and tackled her sister to the ground, breaking the spell sigil.
"I don't care about form! I just want to kick your ass!" Jane snapped as she straddled Aziza and started wailing on her face. Aziza threw her arms up to block. Most of the punches that Jane threw didn't even hit her but the ground around her, but Jane didn't seem to care.
"FUCK OFF YOU BITCH!" Aziza roared as four more crystalline structures fired from her farm crystal and landed around them. Four more reanimated corpses emerged and started to rush Jane. They looked ot be a mix of dead party goers and dead mercenaries.
Jane dove between the legs of one of the nobles and jumped to her feet, quickly jumping back to put some distancs between her and the corpses. Aziza stood and smiled at Jane, the smugness lf it made me want to vomit.
"You know the amazing thing about Necrolymtth's? They control corpses with a parasite that controls the central nervous system. Essentially turning a corpse into a evo. A evo that doesn't need mana to survive so there is no limit on how many you can hold!" Aziza exclaimed as dozens of crystalline structures shot from her farm crystal.
Most of them landed inside the ring of fire with Aziza and Jane but at least two dozen shattered in mid-air reveling they were corpses of flying evos. Ayia'liah and Jane were now vastly outnumbered.
"Ayia! We're changing tactics!" Jane yelled then reached into her satchel and drew her mana-lock and the short sword. Jane channeled mana into the short sword and the mana-lock. An axiom spell sigil formed in front of the sword and black flames engulfed the sword. Jane took a fighting stance that kept the burning blade in front of her and the mana-lock at her
"That stance…it's the one that Sin taught her!" Bo exclaimed.
The first of the corpses rushed Jane and she deftly dodged to the side slashing it across the chest as she did. The corpse erupted into flames and quickly reduced to ash. Ayia'liah flew seemingly frantically around the arena with the corpse evos on her tail but then suddenly dove, spinning and releasing more of those scales from her wings and landed on Jane's shoulder.
A tornado of flames surrounded Jane and burned up the fly evo corpses and obscuring our view. A loud gunshot rang put the fire tornado froze over, creating a pillar of ice. A second gunshot rang out and the frozen tornado exploded, sending ice chunks flying everywhere, even the stands. The ice melted when it came into contact with the ring of fire that surrounded Aziza and Jane and then extinguished the flames. Aziza screamed and ducked for cover while a lot of the three dozen corpses she had remaining were crushed.
"Something is not right…" Bo said. Iris and I both glanced over at him.
"You mean the fact that she had Yurkid's corpse stuffed in her Farm crystal?" Iris asked.
"Yeah…how did she…" Bo started but he was interrupted by a loud explosion that commanded everyone's attention in the arena.
Jane and Ayia'liah were rushing towards Aziza. Jane hacking and shooting any corpse that tried to stop her, Ayia'liah watching her back and charring any corpse that tried to attack from behind. The two were in perfect sync, swapping between attacking and defending each other so effortlessly it almost seemed like they'd been fighting together for years.
"Wow…!" Bo breathed and shook his head. "…something has changed about her."
"She's not fighting for herself anymore…." I said softly then smirked.
"You're trying to hard sister! I can see the crown means so much to you!" Aziza yelled as she cast a offensive spell sigil and fired a lightning bolt at Jane.
Ayia'liah flew in front of Jane and spread a cloud of her scales in front of her. The scales turned into a wall of ice that deflected the bolt.
"NO!" Jane bellowed and rushed around the ice wall. Aziza fired another lightning bolt but Jane fired a lightning bullet at Aziza at the same time. Aziza's aim was a little off and missed but Jane's wasn't. The bullet flew right past Aziza and struck her Necrolymth square in the face.
It let out a pained screech as it was electrocuted. Aziza turned around in time to see her Necrolymth fall to the ground in a shocking heap. Not dead yet but close.
"Dooie danser!" Aziza screamed.
Ayia'liah took that moment and dashed around Jane and past Aziza, her body wrapped in electricity and moving so fast your eye could barely track it. Ayia'liah landed on top of the Necrolymth and covered it in its scales then jumped away. Violent lighting sparked from the Necrolymth, lightning so strong it turned the sand of the arena glass around the Necrolymth corpse.
"Fun fact about the Necrolymth! Once it dies, it's parasites die and the corpses cease being evos!" Jane yelled. Aziza's eyes widened before she let out a blood curdling scream and gripped her farm crystal on her forearm.
Dozens of crystalline structures poured out of her farm crystal. Showing just how many corpses she'd amassed waiting for the chance to kill her family. There had to be more than two hundred reanimated corpses stowed away in Aziza's farm crystal. Aziza collapsed on the ground holding her arm like it was broken and then looked up at her sister with distain.
"Does it feel good causing me so much pain sister?" Aziza growled. Jane gritted her teeth and marched towards her.
"DON'T SPEAK AS IF YOU KNOW PAIN!" Jane bellowed. She grabbed her sister by the collar and and yanked her to her knees. "Neither of us has a right to speak about pain! We've had people acting as shields for us our entire lives! Iris knows pain, Chase knows pain, Jurirai, Ultia, and Iscara know pain! All we know are slights!"
"Slights?" Aziza snapped. She slapped Jane's hands away and punched her hard enough to send her stumbling back. "You think growing up without a mother is a slight! You think being called the bastard daughter, hearing maids and butlers snicker about you behind your back a slight?! You think being denied your birthright simply because your mother wasn't married to your father when he fucked her is a slight?!"
Aziza lunged at Jane, hitting her with a flurry of well placed and disciplined blows Jane however shrugged them off and hit Aziza with uppercut to the jaw that made Iris and I both wince. She then spun on her heel and slammed her elbow into Aziza's face.
"It's not justification to kill who you please!" Jane snapped tjen kicked Aziza in the gut, knocking her back. "Chase grew up in a country where everyone was against him, everyone beat him, insulted him, told him to kill himself, treated him like he was trash! If anyone in the world earned the right to be a murdering psychopath its him! But he isn't! He's stronger, kinder, more thoughtful and giving than anyone I know!"
"Well that's fucking good for him! I'm not him!" Aziza snapped and cast a offensive spell sigil. A sonic boom shot from her hand, only it wasn't aimed at Jane. It was aimed at Ayia'liah who was perched on a charred corpse slightly in front of Jane and to the right.
Jane moved almost without thinking and jumped in front of the blast. It slammed into her and knocked her straight into the air and sent her tumbling more than fifty yards away.
"JANE!" Bo, Iris and I all screamed.
"Did you seriously pretend to learn from your mother's lesson and try to protect yo…"
Whatever words Aziza was going to say were drowned out by the whirling of winds as a mighty tempest began to form around Ayia'liah. She snapped her clear wings opened and hissed vengefully at Aziza as a large tornado began to form around the two of them.
"HOW DARE YOU!" Ayia'liah hissed. I was stunned to hear Ayia'Leah's voice. Mostly because I thought she could only communicate through telepathy, obviously I was wrong.
"Ayia!" Jane bellowed as she stood up, admittedly a lot slower than I would have liked. Ayia'liah froze and the tornado quickly subsided, she turned to look at the woman she now saw as her mistress once again. "I'm kicking her ass! Don't waste the mana on her!"
Jane ran across the field towards Aziza mana-lock in hand. Aziza started casting a offensive spell sigil but Jane fired a shadow bullet that struck the spell sigil. The moment it did the whole thing shattered and knocked Aziza off her feet from the shockwave.
"YOU STUCK UP BITCH!" Aziza bellowed as she scrambled to get to her feet. Jane pounced on her and smacked her across the face with the but of the gun.
"RIGHT BACK AT YOU, WHORE!" Jane barked back. Aizia swung wildly, blood pouring from her nose but Jane countered with the short sword I gave her, jabbing it right through her hand and pinning it down to the ground.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Aziza cried out but Jane didn't let up. Let up. She straddled Aziza's chest again and grabbed her by her face.
"WHY? WAS THE CROWN REALLY WORTH KILLING THE ONE PERSON WHO WOULD GIVE HIS LIFE TO PROTECT YOU?!" Jane demanded.
"It wasn't about the crown! It was about respect! The respect that none of you gave me!" Aziza spat.
"You thought killing your way to the crown would get you respect!" Jane snapped. Aziza chuckled and shook her head.
"It worked for our ancestors." She said plainly. Jane gritted her teeth and pointed the mana-lock against Aziza's forehead.
"Yield…or I promise you the pain of that blade in your hand will pale in comparison to what Ayia can to you." Jane said coldly. Aziza glared at Jane.
"So you'll torture me unless I yield? How very royal of you sister…." Aziza dodn't even get to finish the sentence before Ayia'liah pounced on her leg and bit into it tearing it at the Achilles heel. Aziza screamed bloody murder but Jane pistol whipped her again and then shoved the barrel of the mana-lock into her mouth
"YIELD! You have another leg Aziza!" Jane demanded.
"I wrild! I wrild!" Aziza cried out.
"FUCK YEAH!" Bo and I both bellowed at the top of our lungs. Jane pulled the mana-lock out of her sister's mouth and stood up, Ayia'liah jumped onto her shoulder and chattered happily.
"WINNER! Princess Jane Solomon…unfortunately…" Rowad announced ominously.
A loud gunshot rang out inside the coliseum. Jane suddenly jerked to the side, she stumbled a little and grabbed her side. I saw blood beginning to pool where she grabbed before she suddenly collapsed on the ground.
"JANE!" Bo, Iris, Turak'Kahn, Viola, and I all bellowed.
My eyes immediately turned to where the gunshot had originated and I saw Rowad standing at the side of the arena with a handgun in his hand, the barrel still smoking from the shot.
"HOW DARE Y…!" Ayia'liah started racing towards Rowad only to be silenced by three gunshots in rapid succession. Her body skidded to a stop only five feet away from Jane.
"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" I bellowed, feeling an unprecedented amount of rage well up inside me as I started to jump out of the stands.
"NOBODY MOVE OR THE PHARAOH DIES!" Rowad bellowed then pointed a finger up at the 'emperor box' that Turak'Kahn and the others were sitting in.
All of the guards had guns or spell sigils pointed directly at Turak'Kahn, Viola, Jurirai, and Ultia. The three were surrounded and outgunned. While Viola could have overpowered them all on a average day she was weak from trying to heal as many of the wounded as possible.
Bo, Iris, andkI all gritted our teeth and glared at Rowad. We couldn't make a move to even go to heal Jane since the guards aroujd the Pharaoh would kill him. Luckily from our position we could see Jane and Ayia'liah clearly. They were both still alive and Jane was moving, slowly but surely.
Aziza then started laughing manically. She pushed herself up onto a sitting position and waited until Rowad walked over to help her stand.
"I can't believe you actually fell for it! I can't believe you couldn't see the trap I laid out for you. All of you?!" Aziza cackled.
"That's the problem with people who have everything, they fail to see what's in front of them." Rowad said as he helped Aziza stand.
"YOU WERE IN ON THIS?!" Turak'Kahn roared.
"From the very beginning." Rowad confirmed.
"Why? His majesty took you off the street! Gave you a home! A purpose!" Jurirai exclaimed
"You ask me why, after seeing him defend the murder of your own son. You? Jurirai? His oldest and most trusted companion!" Rowad snapped. "He claims to care for the kingdom but how many of our nations cities have rancid slums that even cockroaches deem too disgusting to live in?"
"You honestly think that SHE will change all that?" Jurirai replied.
"I'd rather take a chance on something new rather than let our country decay any further!" Rowad snapped.
"Oh cut the self righteous bullshit!" I snapped and pointed a finger at Rowad. "What did Aziza really offer you? A spot in government? A title? Land? Or was it just a simple roll in the hay that made you betray everyone. How many men under your command die in that attack?"
"None! The only guards that died in the attack were the ones that were truly loyal to the royal family!" Rowad replied.
"That's how the mercenaries were able to get in and out of the palace! He stationed his men where they could let them in and out!" Bo exclaimed.
"Exactly, even that duel against you was meant to weaken security. Honestly I expected you to lose but your evos were stronger than I anticipated." Rowad said with a chuckle
"The guards that used evos in the duel were loyal to the crown….I also spared his Anebu…." I gasped.
"Which brings us here! In an underground coliseum, cut off from the rest of the world." Aziza exclaimed. "The perfect place to stage an execution. Of course this was plan B. After everyone survived the ballroom attack we needed a way to get all of the major players in on solitary location. Easy enough when your father is a perpetual softie and sister a self righteous bitch."
"Self-righteous bitch and…future queen of Egypt…" Jane gasped from her position on the ground.
She'd been lying face down on the ground, her upper body covering the satchel that she'd been wearing the entire fight. Jane sat up and reveled that she was now wearing the eye of Ammuhnset and casting an axiom spell sigil. Before Rowad, Aziza, or any of the other guards could react the second axiom spell sigil formed around the first and a green cube shaped crystal formed in Jane's hand.
"CRYSTAL GENESIS ACTIVATE!" Jane bellowed as she crashed the cube.
A shockwave of mana shot from the cube and knocked Aziza and Rowad away stopping when it struck Ayia'liah and lifting her into the air. As her body turned into green crystal her voice echoed throughout the entire arena.
"AYIA'LIAH CRYSTAL MERGE TOOOOOOOOOOOO…:"
Her crystal body suddenly shattered into a crystal dust that swarmed around Jane, lifting her up several meters into the air before being absorbed by her and turning Jane's body into crystal. Her body elongated and a second set of arms sprouted from her torso under the first. Large butterfly wings sprouted from her back as her figure became fuller. Vines and flowers made of crystal covered her body as her crystal hair grew until it was past her waist. Horns sprouted from her head as a crown of roses and thorns circled it.
The crystal suddenly shattered, reveling skin, flowers, and hair were now all real. She started to fall to the ground, twirling elegantly through the air for several feet before snapping her see-through wings open and landing gracefully in the center of the arena. Her eyes were still closed as she landed, further accentuated by the raccoon coloring that now covered her skin.
"…TITANIA, WE ARE UNITED!"