Chapter Text
Becoming Night’s Champion is one of the hardest things Melinoë’s ever tried to achieve, but, overall, she is quite satisfied with how well she’s doing in such a Fear-infused night thus far.
Perhaps even the slightest bit proud of herself.
Apart from a few hits from Headmistress after failing to avoid her Twilight Curse as it split into three, tonight is going quite smoothly despite the multitude of vows she’s taken on. Not even Chaos depleting her speed has inconvenienced her much thanks to Lim and Oros’ ample range and cutting edges. It’s almost too good to be true, yet here she is, short moments away from facing Scylla and her horrible Vow of Rivals, still at near-full strength.
At this rate she may even be able to defeat her without spilling half her blood or more this time around. Gods, what a great thought that is.
“Be careful, Big Brother,” she mutters to herself, twirling Lim and Oros to clean the blood from the latest encounter off their silver. “I might give you a run for your gemstones as Security Specialist the way things are going.”
Once her blades shine anew, she pockets the Gold she’s earned from the encounter and heads to Lord Charon’s shop without sparing the other options a second glance in the hope that he will have another boon from Great-Aunt Hera. Anything to make the awful fight up ahead easier.
Unfortunately, the boon on offer is one of Uncle Poseidon’s. Not what she wanted, that’s for certain, but chances are that he and Great-Aunt Hera will offer her their combined strength through it, so she’ll take it anyway.
She won’t say no to Water Fitness, either. Centaur Hearts have been rather sparse this night.
As she approaches the wares, however, she notices something that makes her stomach drop all the way to Tartarus and beyond:
My speed… Oh no…
Chaos’ curse is still active.
But how? They said it would turn into a blessing after five encounters, and it’s been five encounters already, hasn’t it?
She thinks back on each chamber she’s dropped into since meeting with Chaos, from most to least recent: Gold, Pom of Power, Lady Aphrodite’s boon after fighting the King Vermin, some Magick and Psyche from Narcissus, and, lastly, Nectar. That’s five chambers. The curse should be gone—
Wait a moment.
Narcissus.
She visited Narcissus to prove she also values his companionship, not just his gifts, instead of fighting the King Vermin the first time she was offered the opportunity. An encounter though it may have been, it’s not the type Chaos refers to in their exchanges.
After all, Chaos is more interested in skewed fights to the death than in pleasant social calls. That she learnt the first time she fought Headmistress under the Vow of Rivals paired with the Vow of Frenzy at its highest rank after having visted Arachne for a much-needed respite.
Being unable to use her Ω Moves without losing blood each time she did whilst operating Sister Selene’s aspect of Xinth during such a fast-paced fight resulted in a most painful lesson she’s unlikely to forget any time soon.
Except, she did forget, if only to prove a point, and now she must suffer the consequences like the utter fool she is.
Melinoë groans. “Blood and darkness.”
“Hrrrrnnnnghhh?”
“Ah, yes, Lord Charon, I’m fine.” With a strained smile, she buys Uncle Poseidon’s blessing only to find that he is not offering neither Ripple Effect nor Water Fitness. She swallows another swear. “Just… fine…”
How could she have been so careless?
Fighting Scylla under the Vow of Rivals is difficult enough as is, much to her ever-growing chagrin, but having to fight her with diminished speed and the Vow of Frenzy among many others empowering her on top of that?
It’s utter madness.
To think she may well have ruined such a good attempt at O Night’s honorable challenge over such a little mistake. Gods! How infuriating!
Still, Melinoë grits her teeth and approaches the drain to Scylla’s stage with as much poise as she can muster. She’d rather die for good than to show her any trace of weakness, much less fear.
It’s Scylla who should be afraid, not the other way around.
“All right, Scylla… Let’s hear it.”
And so she jumps inside.
Scylla emerges from her shell as soon as Melinoë touches down. Her yellowed eye locks onto her and looks her up and down slowly, very slowly, sending a shudder crawling down her spine that makes her feel like prey, almost.
She grips Lim and Oros tighter.
“Mmm, hmhmhm!” Scylla giggles. “I like your outfit.”
Another shudder, this one made even worse by the cold water lapping at her feet, as she casts a quick glance down in surprise. She likes it? She likes it, even when she happily claims it’s from the garbage and it’s the same as—?
Oh.
She still has Arachne’s azure dress on. She forgot about it amid her earlier bout of panic. Right.
Of course Scylla, the uncomplicated creature that she is, would like it, then, its color so much like the sea she so loves to sing about night in and night out.
Melinoë’s heart stutters when she catches a glimpse of Scylla’s teeth nipping at her bottom lip when she looks back up at her, and she knows, she knows, that this has nothing to do with feeling like prey or being ankles-deep in water.
Blood and darkness, no! Not this again!
Against her will, a small and utterly irrational part of her that she’s tried to snuff out time and again to no avail delights in Scylla’s reaction. In her complete and undivided attention. As if Melinoë’s the only one worth looking at once she barges into her stage.
But it doesn’t end there, no.
Of course not.
As if things could ever be that simple for her.
Even now, even as that twisted part of her thrills and hungers for more, it makes her miss and long for Scylla’s normal look. The seagreen hair and the blood-red smile in stark contrast with her pale flesh and the thinner, darker tentacles that hide away her fish-like body. The endlessly aquamarine eyes that haunt her thoughts each time she comes across something that vaguely resembles their hue and while she sails the Rift of Thessaly with such ease Dora would be envious.
Uugh, no! Dammit, Mel, focus! Focus!
Scylla’s normal look is less imposing, is all. Less dangerous. Less monstrous in a way, somehow, even though that isn’t possible because Scylla is a monster inside and out.
That’s all there is and will ever be to it.
Nothing more. Nothing else.
That small part of her that claims otherwise is just… It must be a lingering side-effect from Lady Aphrodite’s blessings from some night or another in which she was more partial to her than any of the other gods, yes. Yes, that’s it.
In fact, come to think of it, she has a few on her at the moment.
That explains it, then.
There is absolutely no way those thoughts, those feelings, could ever come from her all on their own. She refuses.
“Ohh, you keep trying to kill me, lady!” Scylla says all too cheerfully. “The former Sea-Nymph side of me says just forget it and move on! But, I don’t like to listen to her anymore.”
Melinoë scoffs. No-one, immortal or not, is that flippant about someone coming to vanquish them night after night. Not even lighthearted creatures like nymphs. So, it must be another one of Scylla’s lies, then. It’s as unsurprising as it is predictable, really; hoping for Scylla to be truthful for once is like hoping for Eris to not throw her rubbish all over the floor.
Absolutely pointless.
And yet, despite knowing this firsthand, her mind wanders away, unbidden, just like it has ever since she realized Scylla is the other woman depicted on The Enchantress card. Wanders and wonders just who, exactly, she was prior to all this.
What did she like to do other than singing? What did her smile look like without bloodshot eyes and dagger-sharp teeth? Where and how did she meet Madame Circe?
What did she do to garner the ire of such a kind and jovial woman?
A lunar cycle ago, Madame Circe told her, “I grew up underneath the sea, and Scylla I remember from my youth. Always yelping about this or that! Was deafening!” which, judging by what Melinoë knows of her, she has absolutely no trouble believing in.
But, still, there must be more to it than that. It has to.
Madame Circe would never curse someone for a reason as petty and inconsequential as that.
Ultimately, though, none of that matters now, so she brushes her curiosity aside and instead focuses on the more pressing matters at hand.
“That you don’t listen to yourself explains a lot,” Melinoë snipes, formulating a course of action as she eyes Charybdis’ annoying tentacles. “I know better than to try and kill an Oceanid. I just need you to get out of my way.”
“Hear that, gals?” Scylla leans back to shoot Jetty and Roxy a smile. “I distinctly heard the lady say I need you there, hoho! Our art changes lives!” She faces Melinoë again, appearing oddly flushed under the stage’s lights, and points her microphone at her. “What say we change this one right now…?”
Without wasting a single beat, Scylla goes inside her shell and propels forward, slamming right into Melinoë’s middle before she can even blink. Her silk shatters as she is sent careening toward Charybdis.
Ungh, blast… So much for that.
Behind her, Jetty and Roxy play the opening notes of tonight’s song, sending forth their own attacks to the rhythm of the song.
Her lips twist in disappointment when she notices, rather belatedly, that it’s Coral Crown and not—
I said no, dammit, she chastises herself as she staggers to her feet. I really ought to stay away from Lady Aphrodite’s blessings for a while after this.
With a strangled groan, she manages to avoid Charybdis’ flurry of mini bombs moments before they start to explode all over. Then come Roxy’s sonic circles and Scylla’s spiked orbs from afar, which she dashes across at the same time. Jetty slides toward her next, wielding her keytar like a spear, and the headstock clashes against the silver belt around with her middle with a loud clang.
“Back,” she snarls, slashing up the length of the arm closest to her as best as she can with Oros, “off!”
Snickering, Jetty slithers towards the edge of the stage and dips into the pool below. She emerges from the opposite end.
If only Scylla listened to me like that, she thinks wryly. Now then. To the death.
Twirling her blades, she turns and rushes toward one of the tentacles closest to Charybdis’ head to get the most dangerous ones out of the way first. Or so she tries, anyway.
Gods, she’s moving so infuriatingly slow.
Faintly, very faintly, she hears Chaos chuckle in the darkest ends of her mind.
At least they’re not playing I Am Gonna Claw, she muses, pouncing from tentacle to tentacle with her Ω Attacks and unleashing her hidden knives to apply Hitch to them as she goes. Great-Aunt Hera’s blessings truly are a godsend for this fight. This is going to be frustrating enough as is without having to listen to Scylla’s petulant insults for gods know how long.
And what a gross understatement that assessment turns out to be.
Frustrating? More like agonizing.
It’s only thanks to her familiarity with everyone’s attack patterns that she manages to put up a fight even with Chaos’ mark holding her back. The Vow of Frenzy makes it harder to dodge every so often, though, causing her to lose more blood than she’d like.
At one point, Scylla thrusts her microphone at her and hits Melinoë’s neck brace, shattering part of it thanks to the strength that’s been granted to her by the Vow of Pain. Tears well up in her eyes as she clutches her now half-exposed throat in pain.
She knows of a few Shades who died from blows like this, sure, but she attributed it to the fragility of mortal bodies.
Blood and darkness, she didn’t expect it to hurt nearly as much as this.
“Aw, what’s wrong, lady?” Scylla taunts her during Jetty and Roxy’s solo. “You’re so slow tonight. Did that funny slow motion trick of yours backfire on you or something?”
“Shut up,” Melinoë snarls hoarsely through the saliva pooling inside her mouth. “Don’t you have a song to sing?”
“See?” Scylla bats her eyelashes almost coyly. “I knew you were a fan!”
Melinoë suppresses the urge to do something as crass as spitting on Scylla’s face and, instead, spits onto her stage. Same thing. Clots of blood dye it a gross shade of pink.
“A fan of the silence that follows after I beat you, more like.”
Scylla laughs, the sound harmonizing effortlessly with the next part of the song, “Make yourself at home, my darling.” Then, with an arrogant smile that incenses Melinoë to no end, “Take a dip and stay a while!”
Great, she thinks. And here I thought she couldn’t mock me through Coral Crown.
Eventually, after what feels like aeons, she manages to drive Charybdis away and knock Scylla and her Sirens for the moment, and, in the process, learns that they re-start the song if they finish it before she beats them.
As she watches them get back to their feet—or, erm, back to their tails, maybe?—Melinoë can’t help but find that terribly disappointing and lackluster.
Scylla being the Featured Artist during the second half of the fight complicates and facilitates things at the same time. Charybdis and Roxy are even more of a pain to deal with than Scylla when they’re in this state, so it could be worse.
If only it’d been Jetty, she thinks just as Scylla charges at her in her shell and collides head-on against one of her legs before she can fully jump away. Jetty is… ughh, blast… the least annoying during this part…!
Regardless, Melinoë sticks to her original plan lest she loses her wits and ruins all her hard-earned progress in one fell swoop. Slow and steady wins the fight, as Odysseus would say.
First she takes down Charybdis to clear the stage and be rid of her bombs and harpoons, then Roxy to put an end to her sonic circles, then Jetty before she can slide toward her and create a shockwave around them, and, lastly, Scylla herself.
Thank the Fates that she didn’t take on the Vow of Time to its fullest capacity.
Even now, as she approaches Scylla to deliver the last blows and emerge victorious once and for all, both wary of and relieved at the lack of swarming pinheads, she can feel the invisible timer running out like fine grains of sand slipping through her fingers with each passing second.
But, at last, this maddening fight is over.
She’s won.
Sister Artemis, Great-Aunt Hera, please guide my hand and help me put an end to this once and for all.
Grunting, she throws Oros at Scylla with all the strength she can muster and hopes against hope that it will strike true—
“Nuh-uh!”
—and gapes in indignation and anger as Scylla snatches it mid-air by the hilt and gives it a twirl like she has any damn right to.
“Oh, hey, lady, I think you dropped this.”
Melinoë bristles. “Put it down. Now.”
Scylla raises Oros, taps one of its sides against her ever-smiling lips, vain and overconfident even in the face of incoming defeat. Its downward curve only accentuates her wide grin further.
“I have a better idea,” Scylla says, her voice rough and raw in a way that has Melinoë’s skin breaking out in goosebumps. “Why don’t you come and get it instead, huh?”
Melinoë’s grip on Lim tightens, and she feels the blessing from Lord Ares empowering its edge. Powerful, brutal, unforgiving. Eager to claim another victory.
One good strike up-close and she’ll send Scylla to wherever hellhole she goes after losing.
“Fine,” Melinoë says. “You asked for it.”
And with that, she pounces.
Scylla still has some fight in her, though, for she parries her attacks with frustrating precision. And not just once or twice, no. Each and every time. Strike for blasted strike.
What is that thing made of? Just break already, dammit!
Then, to her surprise and horror, Scylla throws Oros off the stage and does something she’s never done in the countless times they have faced each other like this:
She shoots her tentacles forward, ensnaring her limbs and bringing her to her eye-level with one harsh yank. Her smile grows even further.
“Let me go!” Melinoë yells, flailing as hard as she can despite knowing how futile that is. Her kicks connect, and a sizzling sound fills the air between them. “Let me go, I said!”
“You know, lady, I may not be able to win, not like this, not with my gals out of commission for the night, but you still can lose.”
Melinoë kicks out again. “Curse you!”
“Oh, I’m already cursed.” With a shrill laugh, Scylla inches her face closer to Melinoë’s until their noses touch and their breaths mingle. “Save your breath now, lady, ‘cause tonight you’re gonna drown.”
Then, then, Scylla sinks her teeth into her throat through the patch of skin she exposed when she skewered through her neck brace with her microphone.
A sickening crunch follows, and then a gurgle as Melinoë chokes on her own blood.
Her vision blurs and darkens, her body grows limp, and the air no longer reaches her lungs as it did short moments ago. The incantation to return to shadow drowns in her throat before it can reach her lips.
The Styx calls to her louder and clearer than it’s ever had.
She’s dying. Well and truly dying.
And yet, perhaps out of spite or perhaps thanks to Lord Ares’ Mutual Destruction boon spurring her on, she drives Lim as hard as she can into Scylla’s side before her strength fades away entirely.
Scylla’s grunt of pain is music to her ears.
The tentacles loosen their hold on her limbs, and Scylla slumps against her. Her teeth are still buried, sunken, deep inside her bleeding throat, her ragged breaths grazing the sensitive skin around it as she succumbs to her wounds with her.
“It seems my mark has had an undesirable effect,” Chaos’ voice reverberates within her head. “Life is ever-capable of folly, is it not?”
As Melinoë’s world melts into shadows, that small and irrational and twisted and irrevocably insane part of her makes her slowing heart skip a painful, weak beat over the position she and Scylla are in.
Almost like…
“How interesting.”
Like…
“Perhaps I can offer you some compensation, in exchange for the entertainment you have given me this night, Spawn of Hades.”
Like the echo of an embrace…
“Take this new mark, then, and allow me to observe you for a while longer as you sink into waters far more turbulent than the god Poseidon could ever control. Whatever shall transpire, I shall be curious to see.”