[b]Redana![/b]

Sagakhan looks down at the sword you hold against her throat.

She smiles.

And she steps into it.

The blade cuts through her skin. You feel a brief resistance as it hits the spine but she keeps coming and it pushes through that too. She looms over you with a grandmotherly smile and the only thing that stops her coming closer is when the hilt of your blade touches her neck. 

"Ah, Imperial Princess," said Sagakhan in a hideous rasp, breath escaping through a nicked windpipe. "My daring Bella deserves so much better than you. Don't you see how fragile her sanity is? How stressful her life is with all the burdens and responsibilities you pile upon her? You've been nothing but a curse for her and now she's finally freed from your shackles."

She should be dead. Should be [i]dying[/i], at least. Molech stood as a testament to the greatest genetic alchemy that can be wrought and he barely survived decapitation after months of work by the Order of Hermes. And yet, to Sagakhan, this seems like it is [i]nothing[/i].

"And if you care for her at all, you can content yourself with that. I am, after all, not cruel. When the battle is done and the names are erased, darling Mynx will approach Bella. She will fulfill her purpose and talk her back from the space beyond the brink. They will fall into each others arms, released from my service, and live happy lives together. Such is my sacrifice to the God of Love who has helped me through so many hardships. Don't you see? You have nothing here worth fighting for."

And then she moves at last. With incredible violence she punches into your chest. Tears through your ribs. And raises up in her bloodsoaked left hand your still beating heart.

"Don't feel bad, Imperial Princess," said Sagakhan as she kicked your body down the tumbling steps of the black pyramid. "This technically counts as a draw."

[b]Alexa![/b]

While you do not, in fact, gotta hand it to Emperor Molech, butcher of the galaxy, the man is decisive if nothing else. You had barely opened your mouth to tell him no when he started his lunge and enormous sweeping axe-blow to take your head himself. He doesn't hesitate, doesn't flinch, isn't confused or surprised at your betrayal. This is just one more step he has to take before he Wins.

"Who broke you?" he snarled, laying about with whirling overhand strokes. "The Princess? I will gut her and burn Tellus around her wretched mother. The Azura? Wretched animals, I should have ended their civilization centuries ago. The Hermetics? I will hunt their Order to the ends of the galaxy. O, Zeus! O, Athena! [b]Where[/b]!" his blows are hammer-hard, falling down like meteors. "[b]Is[/b]!" His power is a monstrous thing, all strength and reach, long limbs and insensate to pain or injury. "[b]My[/b]!" 

He has no phalanx. He fights alone.

"[b][i]Daughter!?[/i][/b]" screams the loneliest man in the galaxy.