HELLO MY PEOPLE

Wow, a week, that seems like forever since I've updated. I think it might be a record. Anyway, sorry, but I was on vacay. Actually, I was at Disney World :D I love that place. 

Anyway, have to tell you two really quick stories before you dive into the chapter because if I put them at the end, I feel like you might kill me. 

1. I was on a monorail from Magic Kingdom back to my hotel, and there was a girl sitting next to me who was either thirteen or fourteen and she looked almost precisely like Thea. I'm pretty sure I was staring too much- I was using my author eyes to record everything about her. She was also reading from a Wattpad app on her phone and I wanted to say, hey, good idea, but I didn't. 

2. I was in Epcot, and went inside the Germany pavillion and walked past the Oktoberfest restaurant (spoiler: Germany pavillion smells really good) and in Epcot, there are usually foreign exchange studnets (college age-ish) that work there. ANYWAY, in front of Oktoberfest, there was a guy there and when he raised his head, two things went through my head: 1) OH GOD IT'S VIDEL, RUN, RUN, RUN. 2) Geez, he's hot....           Long story short, I made my parents walk through Germany about two more times that day :D 

Music- Radagast the Brown (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey)         Battle Cry (Imagine Dragons)

Edit- ME ME ME ME ME 

Chapter Fifty-Eight

~Nobody's POV~

 Thea lands roughly on the ground, and immediately scrambles to her feet, her face pale. With anxious eyes, she realizes that she is in a sort of throne room, with high windows and columns and a giant throne.

"You look frightened."

She turns around and sees the same emaciated, regal, feline figure with long blond hair. "Man...Mansar...?" she gasps.

"My son must have told you about me," says the Velah emperor, walking closer to her. Contrary to Videl, he appears calm and collected, although Thea is still scared, "All good things, I hope."

"Um..." says Thea, glancing around the ornate room, "Um..."

She shuts up as Mansar lifts her chin up so that he can look into her petrified eyes.

"Don't be scared, my child. I only ask of you a few things."

"Like...like...wh...what?" Thea stammers.

"Your blood contains a catalyst for our power. In all technicalities, we do not need the Imeldi power, but power is something we crave. I only desire some of your blood. Then, you can be on your merry way."

"You just want my blood?" Thea asks, "That's all? That's all you want?"

Mansar's smile is smug, "But of course. That is all I desire of you."

Thea is attempting to breathe regularly. "I will no longer be of any use to you?"

"Correct."

His smile has grown wider.

Thea takes a step back, "I...I...I don't think s-so."

"Don't look so scared," he says softly, "It will be painless. I promise."

"Don't you want me alive?" Thea stutters, "I can give you more of my blood for a longer period of time! You don't have to kill me!"

"Oh yes, I do," smirks Mansar, taking a step towards Thea, "Now give me your blood, child. It will not be well to anger me further."

"Someone...someone will come for you..." Thea gasps, "M-Max...he'll-"

Mansar snorts, "That brawny human? When I am through with him, the universe will only know that he exists...because of the tiny bits of him I leave behind."

Thea pales.

Mansar gestures to Thea with his fingers so that his hand looks like a frightening sort of tarantula, "Come now," he says in a sing-song voice, "Come along, Thea..."

Thea doesn't move.

Mansar crosses part of the room and raises his hand, wielding a sharp knife. He grabs her arm, prepared to drag her awa-

"Argh!" Mansar grasps his arm in pain as with a slash, Thea brings her dagger out from behind her back.

Thea runs, across the throne room, her feet clanging on the marble floor. She spots a tall staircase leading up and spiraling, and out of blind fright, she takes it. As she flies up the stone, she hears the sound of Mansar's footsteps echoing as he runs after her. Her heart is in her throat and is pounding in her ears.

The staircase, as it turns out, leads up to a turret of the palace, which overlooks the southern mountains. She keeps running across the a stone walkway leading to another turret.

She screams as Mansar appears in front of her in a flurry of smoke.

"Please..." she stammers, holding her arms out defensively, "Please...you already took my sister."

"That was Videl," says Mansar in a lilting voice, "And simply think about it. Your entire family with be eradicated. You don't want to live alone, do you?"

Thea is silent, but then she whimpers as Mansar lunges at her, and she draws her sword in defense.

The air sounds with the rings of the blades.

*
Kyle, Thor, and Archer actually meet up with Natasha, Bruce, and Jack as the first group makes it around a large stone wall that leads to a large (empty) (silent) courtyard.

But that's basically all they have time to do before five slinking shadows appear from the outer corridor connecting to the courtyard.

"Oh, hello," says Jack.

His comment had been purely rhetorical, but one of the figures, the one on the far right, lowers its hood. When this happens, Jack groans.
"Don't look so sad," sneers Leeviah, "We are going to have so much fun!" Her eyes swivel to Kyle's, and she runs her tongue over her teeth slowly, "I see you're in better shape than the last time I saw you. Perfect. More for me."

"Hm." Kyle fake smiles.

"Now we can do this the hard way or the easy way," says Leeviah smoothly.

"There's more of us," says Kyle.

In response, Leeviah flicks her dagger in his general direction. Kyle lets out a stifled grunt of pain as he grabs the area on his arm where the blade had grazed his skin.

"Now then," says Leeviah brightly as Jack helps steady Kyle, glaring across at the Velah, "As I was saying, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

"Do what?" Archer's voice is strong, belying his anxious eyes.

 "Ooh, what does the little prince have to say?"

Archer maintains his calm voice, "Leeviah, I order you to stand down."

Leeviah's laugh echoes off of the stone walls diabolically, "I don't take orders from you, Archer! So sorry. But clearly, you don't have the girl, so none of you are useful to me. Oh boooooys!" she calls shrilly.

From the railings above, no less than eight Velah men leap down to the ground.

"This could be problematic," says Jack.

"Back up, back up in a circle!" orders Natasha, pushing Jack behind her. The six of them stand there, arms close to one another, protecting themselves.

At this, the Velah attack.

It's utter chaos as fangs are bared, daggers are slashed, and shouts ring across the courtyard. Natasha kills two Velah in approximately ten seconds, but is slowly pushed up a steep stone embankment by two more.

Jack holds his own against another Velah, one with bright yellow hair to match his yellow eyes. He manages to trip the creature, allowing Thor to silence it with Mjolnir. But then, someone grabs ahold of Jack's shoulder and pulls him back painfully.

"Don't play a grown man's games," mocks Leeviah, then digs her teeth into his neck. Jack cries out and scrabbles madly against her, but her grip is like iron. Jack feels his eyes roll as the fight before him begins to swim in front of his eyes.

Then, Jack hears a shout, and Kyle grabs Leeviah by the hair, yanking the strands back so that she yowls. "Don't you...dare...you....bitch!" growls Kyle as he pushes Leeviah back, away from Jack.

"Well that's not a very nice thing to call a lady," says Leeviah, her eyes wild. Before Kyle can move, her fangs have pierced his neck. Kyle groans and staggers back, dropping the glittering sword he had held in his hand, "That's better," Leeviah's voice is smooth.

Meanwhile, the other four are being backed up by the Velah, although a few of the creatures fall to blades as they go. Natasha is moving so fast, she is a blur. Bruce has backed up to the edge of the room, and he knows that if the Velah antagonize him or the ones he cares about much longer, he is going to lose control. Archer is fighting too, but unlike his comrades, he is not killing. He seizes one of his own kind and knocks him or her unconscious on the stone, but otherwise does nothing. Still, as the fight carries on, it is clear that numbers are not what wins a battle.

But even as the Velah fall more quickly, nobody notices that Kyle is being strangled by Leeviah.

Well, nobody except a skinny British boy with green eyes who, still reeling from the bite on his neck, grabs the fallen sword from the ground and staggers to his feet.

Leeviah screeches as the blade pierces through her back, precisely through her heart. She lets go of Kyle, who falls to the ground, moaning slightly, and turns around, convulsing, to look at Jack with terrible red eyes.

"See, here's the problem," says Jack, who looks furious, his hand shaking on the hilt as he guts it farther into the Velah's heart, "You're not a lady."

With one last scream, Leeviah vanishes into a plume of black smoke, nothing but a ring with a golden, intricate band left behind.

*

Thea is fighting for her life.

Mansar is backing her up slowly across another stone bridge to another stone turret, and she is using all of her energy to combat his blows. Her sword is smaller than his, and less heavy, but quicker. She's fighting on her own right now: no eye dilation, no tightening of the muscles, no nothing. This is purely her own strength and skill that she has been vigorously learning for more than six months.

"You're nothing but a child," sneers Mansar, "Do you think you can defeat me?" His long blond hair is whipping in the wind as he pushes her farther and farther back. She yelps as the tip of his sword catches her arm, and blood begins to flow. Mansar's nostril's tingle at the scent and his eyes turn even more amber. Thea knows that this is very bad.

She wills herself to remember every single thing she learned from Steve, from Max, and from Loki. Use your strengths to play their weaknesses. Don't wait to be attack: attack. Don't be slow and don't be merciful: it could end in your death.

Thea jumps up on a small stone pedestal, remembering something that Peter had once told her: Height is an advantage. She parries Mansar's blows yet again, and her newfound energy allows her to force him backwards.

"Ah, you are better than I expected," says Mansar serenely, for he is still battling as if he hasn't a care in the world, "I may not be as good a swordsman as my sons, but this will not last. I assure you."

Evidently, he's right: with one well-aimed jab, Thea loses her balance and falls from the pedestal. She screams as she hears a crack and feels a resounding pain in her left leg: her ankle is broken.

"Oh, what a shame, what a shame," cackles Mansar as Thea whimpers, trying to suppress tears of pain, "Nobody to help you, nobody to save you. How does that feel?" He leers over her, the tip of his sword at her throat. She grasps for the hilt of her own sword, a worthless attempt at best. "You'll die just like your precious sister, I see."

And there lies Mansar's fatal mistake.

Thea's eyes dilate. Her muscles tighten. She seizes her sword from the ground, uses her right leg to kick his away, flips up and slams Mansar to the ground and holds him there with all of the greatest techniques of jiu-jitsu.

He hardly has time to move before she raises the sword and without hesitation, drives it into his heart.

Mansar gasps, his eyes blinking rapidly, and Thea removes the sword and rolls off of him, panting, for her vindictiveness is wearing off at the expense of realizing that she has just fatally wounded someone.

"Please..." rasps Mansar, fiddling with something on his neck: two brass necklaces in the shapes of a cross, "Give...to...my...sons..."

Thea almost refuses, but pity stirs inside her, not for Mansar and not for Videl, but for Archer, who is about to lose his father. She kneels down and snatches the chains from his neck, causing him to cry out in pain.

"...give to...Videl...before....he kills you..." Mansar's chest is heaving.

Thea's hand shakes as she holds the crosses in her hand. She's furious, furious with Mansar and furious with herself.

Mansar takes one last, shattering breath, and then lies still, his amber eyes still open.

Thea waits, but nothing happens. No plume of smoke, no nothing, but it is clear that Mansar is dead.

She doesn't get a chance to reflect on this further, because from in front of her, a column of black mist erupts, and Thea's heart catches in her throat.

"...Father?"

Videl's voice shakes.

Seemingly not even paying attention to Thea, Videl lunges forward, falling to his knees in front of his father's corpse. "Father!"

Videl runs his fingers over Mansar's face, then his neck, then the place where the blade had pierced his father's heart.

His shoulders are shaking.

Videl is sobbing.

Thea knows what it's like to lose a parent, to lose both actually, for both she and Videl are now parentless. And she realizes now that Videl had been a monster partially because it is just in his bloodthirsty nature, something that will probably never change, but mostly because he cared about his family and wanted them brought back him. Including his brother.

But Thea knows what's coming. Unsteadily, she staggers to her feet, using the sword to support her broken ankle. Videl is still crying over his father's body.

She hesitantly backs away, but hardly makes it a couple of feet before Videl slowly raises his head, the tears streaming from his eyes magnified frighteningly by the furious amber in his eyes. "Did you kill him?"

"I-I-I-" stammers Thea, her heart knocking in her chest, "I-He was going to- I couldn't-" She holds the sword in front of her defensively.

He stares at her for a moment, panting. Thea is panting too. She's terrified.

Videl screams at her, his amber eyes dilated and wild, his golden hair flying about in the wind, his sharp fangs bared.

He looks like an animal, an animal in grief, an animal in pain.

Thea begins to shake and tries to back up as Videl gets to his feet, but it is all for naught. In three strides or less, he has reached her, and knocks the sword from her hand with barely a passing blow. She tries to get away from him, but then wails as her ankle protests strongly, and as Videl seizes her arm.

"You. Are. Going. To. Pay. For. This." Videl spits at her.

"Please," she gasps, "Please, please, I didn't mean to kill-"

"YOU DIDN'T MEAN TO?" shrieks Videl. "YOU DIDN'T MEAN TO DRIVE A SWORD THROUGH MY FATHER'S HEART?"

"I-I'm sorry!" She is trying to pull away from him, but fails miserably, "Pl-please let me g-o-o!"

"I'll TEACH you what sorry means, you bitch!" he screams at her. He is panting in fury, his bared teeth close to her face. Tears are still trickling from his anguished amber eyes.

Before she can move, the two of them are enveloped in black smoke. When she stumbles to her feet, she looks around her and her heart fails her.

They are in the same darkened, barred room she had passed through earlier. The same shelves with the sharp instruments. The same sinister drains with faded stains. The same chair with the chains.

"N-no p-p-p-please," begs Thea, but Videl throws her into the chair and before she can attempt to get away, he has chained her ankles- including the swollen broken one- and her wrists. With a furious thrust of a lever from Videl, the front of the chair falls backwards, so that it resembles some sort of morbid dentist's chair.

Thea begins to sob as she hears the sound of metal behind her. Then, Videl turns her left wrist over and she whimpers as he plunges a sort of needle connected to a clear white tube into it. Her blood begins to fill the tube, which leads to a clear bag below her. He is taking her blood.

Thea is not the only one sobbing, but Videl grasps the table beside her and takes several deep breaths in an effort to calm himself. He ignores Thea as she scrabbles in the chair, fumbling with the chains madly.

Then, Videl turns around and grabs something like a fine-pointed silver knife from the shelf. His eyes narrowed in vindictive fury, he flips up a couple inches of Thea's shirt, exposing her pale stomach. She writhes on the chair, pleading, sobbing. Ignoring her once again, Videl glares at the knife in his hand, which shakes slightly as does the golden band on his finger, before he lowers the knife.

Thea screams.

------------------------------

Oh dear. 

Okay, I'm sorry, but I like writing Videl. Besides, he's not TOTALLY bad, right?

(right?) 

Anyway. Hope you liked this chapter. Please VOTE and COMMENT! :D