Ria and Maya quickly made their way down the streets of the Underworld's territory; the meeting was about to start soon. Maya led Ria down the abyss of dark, maze-like alleyways. The canopy of the surrounding buildings obscured the already limited light, creating a veil of impenetrable darkness. Maya navigated the winding alleyway like the back of her hand, her quickened footsteps against the damp metal floor echoing around the alley. Ria was right beside Maya, closely following her every move.
After moving around in the darkness for a couple of minutes, Maya stopped, having arrived at a dead end. She then walked up toward the wall and tapped at what appeared to be random spots on the wall. A slight rumble could be felt after she finished tapping on the wall. Light began leaking from the wall, forming the shape of a door. That particular portion of the wall slid backward and opened up, revealing a spiral stairway leading downwards.
Ria then followed Maya down the staircase and into the Underworld's main base. With the path that needed to be taken and the highly odd method required to reveal the entrance, it was no wonder that no one could find their base.
There was barely anybody in the base, as only high-ranking members were even allowed to know the location, much less enter the base. The inside was made of bluish-white metal with lights embedded into the wall. The place was clearly an underground room constructed during the process of turning the planet into an ecumenopolis.
The two headed straight for the conference room where the meeting was set to take place, ignoring everyone on their way there. The pair walked through the facility until they stood in front of a large door. Maya opened the door and entered. Inside was a large circular table with five seats placed at regular intervals around it. There were already two people inside waiting and seated.
"With open arms and hearts aglow, we welcome you, a friend we know. Through years of toil and journeys shared, together, our bond forever bared," a bespectacled man dressed in a suit recited.
"Yan Liu..."
"Even after the passing of many suns and the work we have done together, you are still as cold as ever, I see."
"There is no sun, and there hasn't been one for over 500 years," Maya coldly retorted.
"It's just a figure of speech, my ethereal lady."
Ignoring any further remarks from Yan Liu, Maya briskly walked over to her seat and sat down. She then turned toward the other man already seated and spoke to him.
"Ghana, why is the leader so agitated, to the point he scheduled the meeting so fast?"
"No idea, I am also in the dark about this. A few hours ago, he came back from a meeting absolutely furious, killed a man trying to calm him down too."
"Where did he go?"
"Meeting with the Army, guess it didn't go well."
'Timeline adds up with when we took down Thetis.' Ria wrote a note and presented it in front of Maya's face.
'The Capital works fast...they already notified the Army. This places the timeline of their arrival in 3 days most likely.'
The three heads and their mostly uninvited guest sat there silently and waited for the arrival of the remaining two heads, Amber and Donovan.
'I will wait towards the end of the meeting before striking. I want to use this meeting to gather information.'
The tense silence continued until the doors to the conference room opened up once again. A purple-haired woman dressed in a fairly revealing dress entered alongside a gruff man not wearing a top piece. Without saying much, they walked up to their seats and sat down. After a few moments of silence, the gruff man opened his mouth and began the meeting.
"Now that everyone is here, let the meeting commence!" His voice boomed in the enclosed room. "For the first order of business, I will now reveal what happened last night with the Army. I am aware that most of you had some knowledge that something went down."
After pausing for a moment and looking around the room to make sure that everyone was ready, he continued.
"Yesterday, all our contacts within the Army severed their ties with us."
"Did you not threaten them with the dirt we have on them?" Ghana asked.
"I did, of course, but they still completely shut down all communication channels with us! I even tried to personally visit them but was turned away at the gate!" Donovan shouted, his fist slamming down on the table, causing cracks to form on it.
"Is that why you pushed for this meeting? The moment we could compromise the guards?" Maya asked.
"As expected of Maya to already deduce the purpose of this meeting. I also have to congratulate you for finding such a good pawn for us. They work fast. Now we have two high-ranking members of the Guards in our grasp, we can use them to fill the void that the army leaving has left us."
The meeting then continued on without much more important information being said. They talked about statistics and how well the organization was doing, as well as their future plans, among other things. Such information was now useless and unnecessary, seeing as Ria would not allow them to see the light of a new day.
'I am beginning, please extend the domain to behind their backs. The rest is as discussed.' Ria alerted Maya that she was beginning the operation.
'Done.' Words materialized in front of Ria, which only she could see.
Ria walked behind Ghana and raised Gehenna into the air before swinging it down onto his neck. Before Ghana could even react, his head separated from the rest of his body, blood slowly spurting out in every direction from the bisected arteries. Ria then quickly teleported behind Yan Liu and Amber and did the same, sending their heads flying from their bodies. It took less than a second, and three of the heads had their heads removed from their bodies.
With the three dead, Maya immediately took action.
"Let the world of dreams interlace with our own...by royal decree, the gates to the Faerie Kingdom now stand open! A Midsummer's Night Dream 《Invitation to the Dreamlike Kingdom》!"
The surrounding space cracked and shattered, revealing a whole different world. Under a serene and dark starless sky, the world seemed to hold its breath. A velvety expanse stretched overhead, blanketing everything in a calm, obsidian embrace. Stone monoliths stood unmoving in the air, towering over the dark, glass-like surface beneath them.
After deploying her domain, Maya immediately escaped, concealing herself with the abilities of the domain. Within the center of this calm and serene battlefield stood Donovan and Ria, facing each other.
"Who are you, and what do you want?"
"That's for me to know and you to find out."
"Not willing to talk, eh? Well, we'll see about it once I bash your pretty little face in."
Without giving any time to spare, Donovan charged toward Ria with a speed almost akin to teleporting, leaving afterimages in his wake. Already aware of his capabilities, Ria did not panic and simply swiped Gehenna in front of her, parrying the strike that Donovan had sent her way.
As Gehenna made contact with Donovan's skin, there was a metallic clang along with the release of sparks; her attack did not leave a scratch upon his skin.
Despite having his first hit parried, Donovan continued releasing a flurry of punches and kicks towards Ria, which, in turn, were completely parried by her.
"You have some good moves, don't you, young lady! But you should just give up now; your scythe won't leave a scratch on me!" Donovan exclaimed, sending an even more powerful straight punch. The shockwave from it being parried pushed away Ria and Donovan from each other.
"Doner already? Didn't take you for the sort to finish quickly," Ria taunted.
"I will make you regret those words..." Donovan annoyedly threatened, clearly provoked by Ria's taunt.
Before Donovan had a chance to mount an offense once again, Ria teleported directly in front of Donovan and slashed at him with Gehenna. The attack, despite being a surprise, was ineffective. Without allowing Donovan to counterattack, Ria repeated her attacks, teleporting around Donovan and attacking, making sure to vary her speed, location, and rhythm of her attacks.
"I told you already, you can't hurt me!"
Within her onslaught, Ria changed up her attack pattern. She teleported in front of Donovan, making sure that he was aware that she was right in front of him. She then swung Gehenna down, but before the attack struck, she relocated once again and struck his back.
But unlike the previous attempts, Gehenna pierced his skin and flesh, drawing blood. The flames of Gehenna immediately ignited on the wound of his back, causing Donovan to scream in pain.
"Gahh! Impossible! To think you can damage me...you are too dangerous to be left alive...I will kill you!"
"Heh! Try to catch me if you can."
Ria teleported onto one of the floating stone monoliths, clinging to its edge as she stared down towards Donovan.
Donovan jumped after Ria, a shockwave originating from his jump point. He flew like a bullet towards Ria, his arm drawn back and ready to strike. Right before his punch connected, Ria simply teleported away to another monolith. The impact caused by his strike completely shattered the monolith. The broken fragments of the monolith slowly fell from the skies towards the ground below.
Donovan stepped onto one of the large chunks of debris from the falling monolith before pursuing Ria once again.
The two repeated this constantly, more and more monoliths being destroyed until there were none left. The two then landed back in the center of the arena, where they had originally started. But while their positions were the same, their physical states couldn't be further apart.
"No more...of those floating stones...for you to hide in now, little mosquito..." Donovan was breathing heavily, beads of sweat trickling down his face and body, as he stared down at Ria.
"You seem pretty tired there. Should we take a break?"
Unlike Donovan, Ria was completely fine, barely expending any of her stamina throughout the entire duration of combat. While Ria was just casually teleporting around the stone monoliths, Donovan had to spend tons of his stamina in order to pursue Ria. Since Donovan was also on the offensive, he had to spend even more stamina attempting to attack her, but Ria could simply evade the attack, wasting his precious energy.
"I have more where that came from!" Donovan charged Ria, his speed drastically slower than before. Ria effortlessly deflected the attack before countering back, leaving a massive wound on his upper torso.
Blood spilled onto the ground from the massive gaping wound on his chest. Through the flames of Gehenna that were burning on the wound, you could see his completely shattered rib bones. His lungs rapidly inflating and deflating as his breathing rate increased from the pain, his heart in his chest beating faster by the second.
"To think, everything I have built over the past 20 years will come crumbling down within a matter of minutes...damn you, Maya...I know you are listening to me from somewhere...so...answer me!"
"Not looking too well there, Donovan..." Maya reappeared behind Ria and walked out in front of the kneeling Donovan.
Maya reached into her cloak and brought out a knife, its blade coated in dried blood.
"Recognize this?" Maya waved the knife in front of Donovan.
"That knife! Why do you have it?!"
Maya pulled down her hood and removed the mask that she always wears, revealing her face to Donovan.
"That blue hair...I see you are his daughter!"
"Yes, that day when you killed my father...I swore that I would one day have my revenge on you!" Maya exclaimed coldly, her eyes burning with hatred.
"So you are gonna kill me?! Well, do your worst!"
"If you had asked me that question yesterday, I would have said yes. But I recently found a better way to have my revenge. It won't be by my hand, but I prefer it this way." Maya then walked off towards the side, allowing Ria to take the stage.
Earlier, before the meeting, Maya had properly talked to Ria about her true intentions in trying to kill the Underworld heads.
Before the formation of the current Underworld, its previous iteration as an organization to support refugees was led by Maya's father, Cole, and Donovan at that time was his assistant. The Underworld at the time was very much at the mercy of external powers, especially the Army, relying on them for basically all their daily needs. The Army would regularly send food, water, and medicine to the Underworld for their distribution to the refugees. At this point, the Army had yet to become the elitist group of its current self and was more akin to that of a standard military army.
Without going into the little details, Cole and Donovan had differences in opinion on how to handle the matter. Cole wanted to maintain the friendly relationship they had with the Army and the Guards and continue receiving their regular aid, keeping to the status quo. However, on the other hand, Donovan wanted to be more aggressive and sever the relationship they had with the Army and Guards, as he perceived that they were belittling them. Donovan planned to use the awakened they had to expand their power and become a third major power within the Haven.
Cole was vehemently against the idea, as he knew that the awakened they had wouldn't be enough to take on the Army and the Guards. Cole and Donovan argued about the issue without resolution. Donovan then gathered other awakened and attacked Cole, taking over the Underworld in the process.
On the night of her father's murder, Maya saw the entire scene unfold from behind a hidden room. Afterwards, she swore vengeance on the awakened who killed her father: Donovan, Yan Liu, Ghana, and Amber.
After hearing Maya's story, Ria offered her an alternate method of dealing with Donovan.
Ria walked forward and dug her hand into Donovan's chest, carefully removing his heart. The blood vessels were still connected to it. Donovan's heart in her hands, she directly injected the flames of Gehenna into his heart, letting the flames spread through his entire body using his blood vessels as a medium.
In response, Donovan screamed and flailed wildly in pain, his screams filling the entire area. His limbs contorted weirdly as Donovan struggled against the immense pain that flooded his entire body.
Maya stood on the side, blankly watching the scene unfold.
With her job done, Ria tossed the still-beating heart back into Donovan's chest cavity and walked towards Maya.
"So, how do you feel?"
Maya didn't respond immediately. Her gaze remained fixed on Donovan's still-squirming body, her emotions hidden behind her mask.
"This isn't something I can celebrate," she finally spoke, her voice carrying a mixture of sadness and relief. "But it's over now. I will deal with my feelings later. For now, there is still more to do."
The two women left the domain, stepping back into the real world. The serene darkness of the Domain gave way to the reality of the dimly lit underground chamber.
"It's time to set the rest of our plan in motion," Ria said, breaking the silence. "With the heads gone, we'll need to ensure that the Underworld doesn't descend into chaos, especially their private armies."
Maya nodded. "I have my forces ready to spread misinformation about the Army's attack. We'll make it seem like they were all taken down in a confrontation with assassins sent by the army."
