672 Inside the ant nest

Alex almost flew through the air, with her dagger aiming at Hera's throat. Thankfully, the Empress was already expecting things to go south and blocked with Nimbus, stopping the assassin's arm and making sure the blades didn't hit her friend. The rest of the court was coming, but they were still not there. When they fell inside the anthill, her blades started following right away. However, even if this wouldn't be a fight where she was alone for a good part of it, like the one against Kadhan, it wouldn't be easier by any means.

Seeing that her initial attack was blocked, Alex kicked Hera's stomach to jump back and pulled her dagger out of the scabbard, sending a large wind blade towards the Empress. The problem with fighting against a friend, aside from the obvious moral implications, was that they would know everything you are capable of. This gave Hera an edge, and the moment she saw Alex pulling her left hand to strike, the Empress turned the corner of the tunnel, letting the attack kill a few of the ants that were still rushing out of the nest.

"Don't you dare run away, you bitch!" Alex yelled and rushed after Hera. Just as she turned the corner, a giant mist tail slapped her face, causing the assassin to stumble back.

Daskka was now in her silver snake form, towering over Hera and growling while staring Alex down. The assassin hesitated for a moment, which was enough so that Lurize appeared from behind, tackling her and trying to pin her down against the wall as he did with Reynara when they were in the Cherry Mantis nest. However, unlike the huntress, Alex quickly slipped away before she was trapped.

"You already have an army of things who cater to your every need. Why do you need more?!" Alex asked as she slashed Lurize's leg. Making a large gash on his armor. That was a surprise to Hera and the Royal Tutor. They got used to fighting against creatures that were weaker and would only damage him like that when they used a stronger attack. Not to say that her attack was weak by any means, but it wasn't something special that she could only use every now and then. Alex spun around on her knees after the first attack, and she was about to deal a second blow when Frost intercepted, blocking her arm with the shaft of the glaive. The assassin glanced back, seeing Core about to hit her leg, and jumped away, evading the attack to get some distance between Hera and her. Now that both of them had a moment to breathe, Alex just stood up to look at the Empress, who was letting Nimbus return to his bipedal form and grabbing Core to fight. A constant stream of ants flowed between them, making it so they couldn't maintain eye contact with each other.

"Alex, I'm not hooking up with Adriel. Fuck, I barely even like the guy. I'm much more into women," Hera explained.

"Yeah, because you would admit this. You are always on your high horse, acting like you only care about others, but I can see now that's just a facade. You only care about yourself," Alex replied, her voice calm and steady, unlike what her actions showed.

"Fine, think whatever you want. Can we deal with this later? We need to get rid of the curse. Then we can deal with this bullshit," Hera sighed. She really didn't want to fight Alex, and having a bigger problem to deal with made this even more awkward.

"Oh no. You are not getting away with this. We are dealing with this now!" Alex yelled, but her body language didn't match, being steady and calm, "You always said that your tiara could see anyone getting close. Let's see if that thing really is that good."

Ooze flew towards the assassin, with the intention of getting close enough to use his scream skill to stun her, but as one of the bigger ants passed by, Alex vanished from sight. Hera, Nimbus, and Lurize stood with their backs to each other.

'What is the plan?' Nimbus asked in their minds. Now that they were fighting against someone that could understand them, the Sentinel wasn't about to risk it letting Alex hear their plans.

'She is clearly not thinking straight. I think the curse is making one final push to try to stop us from destroying it. Let's just try to talk to her and make her see reason,' Hera replied.

'I'm not sure we will have that option. She is much stronger than I expected,' Lurize glanced at his cut leg.

'Then we run, but one way or another, I'm not going to try to kill her. That is an order for everyone. I don't care if she is about to kill me. We are not killing Alex,' Hera glanced at Lurize but knew he wasn't trying to say that.

'We'll keep that in mind, but that is the one thing you can't order your court to do. They will always put your safety above anything else,' Daskka replied as a wind blade flew from the side. Nimbus stepped in front of it to block the attack, he had to trigger his frozen ash aura and the mana barrier, but he managed to stop the spell completely.

'I can't stop many of those. Just this one blade already made my spell all of my mana and a good chunk of the one I have left from you,' Nimbus groaned, his arms feeling the strain of the effort to stop the wind blade.

"Hera! Alex! Where are you?" a voice echoed through the cave, loud enough to be heard even with all the noise the ants were making.

'That came from the tunnel on the left!' Armory announced just as Hera and the others started running there. Alex's aggression started with Adriel and tThat made Hera worry about what would happen if the assassin reached him first.

While dashing through the ants, a dagger appeared out of nowhere, aimed at her eyes, but Lurize and Nimbus pulled the Empress back to make her avoid the attack. Thankfully, that was the only attack that came at them. After about one minute, Hera was able to find Adriel struggling to cross an intersection from where ants didn't stop pouring out.

"Adriel! Alex wants to kill us!" Hera yelled.

"Sammy said that, but why?" Adriel asked.

"Because you are a cheating bastard!" Alex yelled as she lunged at Adriel, stabbing him in the shoulder before vanishing behind the ants again.

"Fuck! What are you talking about? I never cheated on you!" Adriel crouched to avoid being attacked again and started healing his shoulder.

"I've seen you two!" Alex's voice came from everywhere at once.

"You saw what? We never did anything!" Adriel yelled back.

"So now I'm crazy?"

"No, but you are acting crazy!"

'Bro…' Hera said in her mind. Even if Alex was acting crazy, which she was, saying it out loud was one of the worst things you could possibly do.

Alex also seemed to agree and started attacking him with more anger, slashing at his limbs and stabbing parts of his body. Thankfully, she was either trying to avoid going for a vital spot or she was playing with her food, which meant that while the elf was suffering a lot, he didn't seem to be in danger of being killed. Hera pushed forward, shoving some of the ants in front of her away, and managed to reach the man, who was now bleeding on the ground.

"What are you doing? We need to stop her," Hera asked. She noticed how Adriel wasn't fighting back and only trying to dodge.

"I'm not going to hit my girlfriend. This is not her. It is something else. I know," the elf stood up and opened both his arms, "Alex. I know you are still there. Please, stop this. I love you with all my heart, and I trust you with everything I have. If you really think I would hurt you like that, we can talk about this later. But now, we need to finish this and go home. Please."

There was a moment of silence, and for that brief window, Hera even believed that Adriel's rushed speech worked. But that idea was quickly proven wrong when a massive jade-colored blade of wind flew by and cut the elf's right arm clean off. He fell to the ground yelling with the pain and trying to hold his now missing arm. The Empress rushed to his side, trying to see what she could do to help. Her heels would never be strong enough to stop something like this, and even Edge would barely do anything to help. Alex appeared a few meters in front of her with a smile on her face, setting up for another strike with the dagger in her scabbard, but she stopped when seeing the elf on the ground. There was a brief moment of hesitation that Nimbus and Lurize took advantage of. They tackled her and pinned her to the wall. This time between their strength and Nimbus' auras, they were able to hold her down.

While that was going on, Hera looked down at Adriel and how he was bleeding profusely. Thinking quickly, she did the only thing that came to her mind. She pressed her hand on the stump where his arm previously was and used a fire spray to cauterize the wound and stop him from bleeding out. He yelled again and passed out, going limp on the ground.

"Adriel?" Alex called, her voice now sounding like her usual self, "What did I…" she groaned and closed her eyes in pain, only to look up with anger again. But her struggle didn't stop. She yelled, started crying, tried pushing Nimbus and Lurize away, and tried to reach Adriel as if there were two parts of her struggling for control over her body.

During all that time, Hera wasn't sure what to do. If she attacked her friend now, even if her idea was just to knock her out, and failed, that might tip the scales in the curse's favor, but if she stalled for too long and Alex lost that struggle, then the Empress would've missed a great opportunity to end this stupid fight. Time seemed to slow down as all the possible outcomes went through Hera's mind, and before she made a decision, Alex went limp.

"Alex?" Hera called.

"I'm sorry," the assassin replied, tears running down her face.

"Apologies won't do much now. Especially for me. Can we stop this and go deal with the curse?" Hera asked.

"Yeah… NO! I… Can't. I'm struggling to keep control. I need…" Alex groaned.

"What? What do you need?"

"Can you blind me? Do you have a poison for that? I'm going to run inside the ant nest as far as I can, and I can't know the way back."

'We have one that makes someone extremely dizzy,' Armory replied. They wouldn't be able to do that as an enchantment to one of the blades, but Hera could use her poison control to replicate it.

"I can make something similar, but that won't do much. All you need is to stop moving and follow the ants."

"I don't have any better ideas. Just do that. I'll run and get lost in here. You take Adriel out and help the others. Please. I don't know how long I can hold on," Alex groaned again. It was clear that she was struggling a lot.

"Fine," Hera created a poison needle and tossed it at Alex. The poison didn't take at first, and the Empress tried again and again until it worked. It took her ten tries, but eventually, she was able to make the assassin dizzy enough that she couldn't tell what was up and what was down.

Nimbus and Lurize carefully let Alex go and pointed her to a tunnel that had a few ants passing by. She stumbled forward like a drunk but refused to look back and forced herself to push forward. Seeing that, Hera moved fast. She told Nimbus to turn into his griffon form and Lurize to help her place Adriel on top of the Sentinel. With everything ready, they ran outside, following the stream of ants that still opened a path for them to pass. Only when they were about to reach the outside did the crowd stop moving away from them. Still, they were able to get outside in less than a minute. Hera told Nimbus to take Adriel to a nearby tree and place him in one of the branches. They were large enough that even if the elf moved, he wouldn't fall off.

Looking to the side, Hera saw Helena on top of the ant queen holding a dozen ropes made out of shadows and holding the monster in place while Bonnie, Shane, and Mylo wailed on the beast. Before the Empress was even able to join, they managed to cut the creature's head off and turned to the left, where Reynara was watching them. Or at least Hera assumed that was Reynara. It had a bipedal body that was completely purple, as if it was a living ooze. The face still resembled the huntress but was also completely purple, with lighter veins glowing to frame the eyes, nose, and mouth. The only thing that was still Reynara were the eyes—completely black eyes with red irises.

"Sammy, is that it?" Hera asked.

"Yeah, that is the curse, and now that the ant queen is dead, it is the only piece that is left," Sammy replied, hoping that they were able to finish this in time. Now that Reynara was using the curse to control Alex, it was just a matter of time until it realized that this wasn't the past, but just a memory.