[b]Alexa![/b]

A pale white handkerchief wipes an immaculate brow.

The God of the Dead has unearthed more than a terrified Oratus Adept. His spade has drawn forth geodes and precious ores each time it cuts the soil. The earth where he cuts it is precious, heavy, abundant and utterly lifeless. Not one seed grows from the dirt where has piled it even as the great rainforest growing up all around and through the battle already stands taller than a man.

"You'll be in my [i]debt[/i]!?" shrieks Beljani. "You will owe me a favour!? As what, a bowling ball!? Oh, Artemis," she buries her face in her hands to try and stifle a hysterical giggle. "And to save your girlfriend, which one is she?"

"Princess Epistia, warrior of Ceron," said Hades leaning on his shovel. There are faint creases in his long sleeve shirt and vest but a new hale strength in his slender limbs.

"The berserker!?" said Beljani. "The psychopathic avatar of the murder god who kills everything in her path!?"

"And my daughter," added the God of the Dead.

"Oh, you don't say?" said Beljani, perfect sweetness and light. "You know, my best friend is also a psychopathic avatar of a murder god who kills everything in her path? I'm sure I will get along splendidly with this new one too."

Hades smirked and hefted his shovel over one shoulder. Beljani brushes her robe down as she steps elegantly from the open grave. "But did you say that she is your girlfriend?" she goes on with the chirpy flow of someone who responds to stress by talking more. "Goodness, [i]that's[/i] a bold choice. You'd have to have ovaries of [i]marble[/i] to get into bed with that ball of emotional issues - you know I told Mynx the same thing? I presume that's why you're all," she made a gesture with two fingers, "snip snip?"

[b]Vasilia and Dolce![/b]

She's there, the infinite and the divine, terrible in the storm. She is the night that devours the day, the gravity that devours the planets. She hovers in the air above you, crackling storm of the battle.

"Vasilia?" said Zeus, Daughter of Cronus. "She's been endlessly disappointing, really. Compromised. Failed. Fled. Stewed in misery. Never lifted a finger to correct her mistakes. Never considered turning around and going back home to fix what she did. Flew nihilisticaly into the void for a wish she never articulated because it gave her the possibility of a spiteful death. Hades' girl, through and through."

A true lightning bolt. It cores a nearby sapling, turning it into an incandescent pillar of burning carbon, gouts of plasma leaking from the tree's shattered trunk.

"A disappointment, yes," said Zeus. She went on like a person but she was that lightning bolt too, she was that indescribable sound and the sound of a heaven where such discharges were the sparks of every neuron in her mind. "But I wouldn't say I was offended. Offense I'd deal with myself."

[b]Bella and Redana![/b]

For a moment you work together in a frenzied harmony. You do not see each other, do not speak to each other. One of you fights as a sword and the other as a shield and Sagakhan is at the centre of your bloody web for a few precious moments. Then you're apart, three points on a pyramid, three demigods watering the desert flowers with dripping blood.

"Annh... hrnnn..." Sagakhan presses a hand over her severed jugular, holding her ebbing life with her fingers. "Artemis..." She looks at XIII; at her name carved on that armour. Knows there is no negotiation to be had.  "Zeus..." she looks around at the war, at the little crab hanging from Redana's shoulders, that has a little jolt of electricity pass along its claw every time it snaps. "Aphrodite..." she looks at the two of you, the wordless unity you share, nobility and hatred.

"Demeter," she said with finality.

She rips her robe away, revealing a suit of fine hardened leather armour that already tears off her body as muscles grow underneath it. The sword falls from fingers that have become swords. Her neck sways with the same sinuous grace as her lengthening tail shows, and each time she blinks her pupils are a different shape. Hair widens and hardens and turns as jagged as blades, growing all across her body.

"I wanted to kill you as a hero," she hissed. "in the sight of the gods, in accordance with every rule, beloved champion of Olympus sent to save the galaxy from Hades' monsters. I wanted to give blessings to my servants and mercy to my enemies. I wanted to give wealth to my household and happiness to my daughters. I wanted to live free and wanted to prove that I could rise to the highest station [i]regardless[/i] of what liberties were taken with my DNA."

She spits blood through teeth like razors.

"But if I must I will kill you as a monster," she said. "I will take your names and give them to your replacements. I will raise the two of you anew, properly, as my left and right hands. As I raised this planet from the dead so shall I raise [i]you[/i] from the dead, and let Aphrodite see the love I bear you and give us happiness in that new life."

She raises her hand from her severed neck.

Something grows there from the blood.

Sagakhan grins. Twice.

A second twisted serpentine head rises up alongside her first, swelling to full size. 

"Cut one head," hisses Sagakhan in unison, Master of Assassins, Hydra of Demeter, "and two more shall grow."