Chapter 41 - Cave Exploration Pt. 1

*“Jack leaped over the gate, his sword aflame. To vanquish his foe and rescue his love.” ― Melissa de la Cruz, The Van Alen Legacy*

***Third Person POV***

Four pairs of footsteps echoed across the rough groundwork of the cave. Darkness swallowed the avatars from all directions, held back only by the piercing rays of their florescent flashlights. The scent of dank earth wafted through the tense air, marking their trail as they traversed deeper into the cave and into the cavern system.

Enemies lurked in the caves, but their allies and friends were hidden within.

“I wish we had a map for this place,” Violetta grumbled from the back. “Who knows how vast this cave system is?”

“Sadly, caverns don’t come with maps unless it’s a tourist attraction,” Phoebe replied, gripping the handle of her flashlight tight. “But the vastness is necessary for Jonathan to do his evil bidding. This is as close as he can get to the core of the earth, thus strengthen his connection with Apophis.”

Kiya ground her teeth behind her lips, inhaling deeply as her foot crushed a group of pebbles. “They’re around here, somewhere. We wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“Keep your eyes ahead, ladies,” Asim called out, his voice carrying his heavy accent. “We’re coming to some light.”

The aforementioned light the hybrid spoke of were lit torches pierced into the craggy walls several feet above the group, a strong orange glow sliced in halves by their flashlights. Stalagmites hung from the rocks above, pointing at the tops of their heads. A droplet of water caught on Phoebe’s cheek, paralleling a tear.

The further they went, the stronger the whispers of the darkness became. Goosebumps rose on the avatars’ exposed skin, their spines stiff as steel from the sensation of being watched. As if a higher power spoke to them through the air, the group sped up their walking but were cautious enough not to draw attention to themselves.

“I think I see a clearing up ahead,” Asim announced. “I see more torchlight in the distance.”

“Oh, thank Goddess.” Kiya sighed. “I haven’t been able to pick up on scents yet, so the clearing should give me a better chance to.”

“Progress!” Violetta cheered, pumping a fist in the air. “We’re going to get to the Johansen family in no time.” A sudden chill encompassed her back, forcing her silence. Not from the darkness, but from a set of powerful eyes thrusting icicles. She halted and shined her flashlight behind her to find nothing but endless black.

“*What*…” She thought to herself. Shaking her head, she swallowed a gulp of air and caught up with the group. Violetta could’ve sworn she felt someone watching her…

“Is everything okay, Vi?” Phoebe asked when she caught up to her side. Violetta sighed and nodded, hoping her smile would mask the mass of anxiety now settling in the pit of her stomach.

“I’m good. I just thought I felt something weird back there.”

Phoebe looked back and shined her flashlight left and right, only to be met with rocks, rocks, and more rocks. Kiya and Asim picked up on what was said and slowed their pace while looking back at the two women. “I see nothing and I’m not picking up on any energies of our enemies. I admit I am concerned.”

“It’s probably nothing.” Violetta shook her head, her curls swinging. “We’re in the clear, so we should just keep going. I don’t want us to get any surprises.”

The group resumed walking, only to be stopped when a huge explosion behind them nearly knocked them off their feet. Whispering slowly transformed to malignant hissing as the torches shrunk into white smoky wisps. The four avatars huddled close together and shined their lights into the dusty swirl before them, alert and ready to act in case of an attack.

“*It wouldn’t be wise to tread further*. *You’ve caused enough trouble trespassing into our space with your disgusting energies*.”

All but one bristled in their spots. Violetta’s entire body froze as soon as the mysterious voice spoke, dread dropping like a stone into a pond in the pit of her belly. It was the voice she hadn’t heard in years. A voice she thought she purged from her mind when she left her oppressive life for the one she has now. A voice that served as the constant reminder of how and why her true self was never accepted.

Fear encased the mermaid’s stomach, but disappointment with a touch of anger flowed in her veins like a running river. The person was coming closer. She looked at her three avatars from the corner of her eyes and bit down on the flesh of her bottom lip, an idea running in her mind solidifying her decision.

“I’ll handle this. You three go ahead.”

Three heads jerked in her direction. Kiya was the first to speak up. “Vi, I don’t know about this. You don’t know who you’re up against.”

“I do.” She ground her teeth behind her lips, straightening her stance. “I know exactly who I am up against. If I handle this here, it’s one less obstacle we have to deal with.”

“Vi…”

“Kiya, Asim, Phoebe, I’m asking you to trust me.” Violetta took her spot in front of the three, holding her flashlight steady in front of her. “Go ahead. Get the Johansen family and I’ll meet up with you guys as soon as I can.”

“Are you sure about this?” Phoebe asked.

“As sure as I can breathe underwater.” The woman gave her friends a wink and a finger gun. “I know we don’t have the freaky telepathy thing that werewolves do—”

“Mind-linking.” Kiya corrected.

“Yeah, that. But we’ll know if something happens to one another. Our presences won’t be that hard to miss if we suddenly disappear.” She waved her hand. “Go. I’ll be fine.”

The three hesitated, more so with the two women. Asim sighed and looked down at them with his warm purple eyes. “I trust Violetta will emerge victorious, and so should the two of you. Let us proceed before any more damage is done to the captives.”

Phoebe and Kiya sighed in defeat, nodding reluctantly. Giving their well-wishes to the sea goddess’ avatar, the three ran down the rocky path toward the clearing, fleeing from view. Violetta, now a one-woman army, huffed and clenched her free hand into a fist.

The presence was so close it was too hard to ignore. Violetta could smell the familiar sea-salt scent she knew this person always had.

“The bar is literally in hell.” Unclenching her fingers, sparks of lightning zipped around her fingertips. “How did you manage to disappoint me even further?”

Violetta directed tiny bolts of lightning to the burned-out torches, igniting the flame that had died earlier. Deep orange light filled the rocky space, unveiling the woman buried under the cloak of black. The avatar grimaced at the snake emblem coiled around her left arm, the head of the black cobra resting on the back of her pale hand. The lack of wind in the cave forced the long black, wavy hair of the opposing woman to still, but her beauty couldn’t hide the disgust hidden in her sea-green eyes bordered with crimson.

The avatar had to fight the urge to wince.

“Do not speak to me as if you know me, woman.” The woman snapped, narrowing her eyes at Violetta. “However, I cannot neglect the fact that you look familiar.”

“I should. I’m your child. You’re my mother.”

“You lie. I don’t have a daughter.”

“You do! It’s me! How many times have I told you that throughout my childhood? How many times have you ignored me?”

Violetta swallowed the painfully sharp mass of emotions building up in her throat. Her mind muddled into slush with seeing her mother, Katalina, for the first time in many years. In a normal sense, a mother should open her arms wide for her child to run into her embrace. A mother’s touch was often a tool of unbelievable magic; for her fingers can heal all aches and ills. But this wasn’t normal. Violetta shouldn’t be looking at her mother armed in black and crimson as a lackey to not only Jonathan but Apophis.

She hasn’t felt a mother’s touch in so long that she has forgotten what it felt like.

“Foolish girl.” Katalina snarled. “Is this your vain attempt at mind-games to get me to lower my guard? I won’t allow you to ruin our plans.”

“Our? Or you meant Jonathan’s?” Violetta scoffed, crossing her arms. “You don’t have to work for him, and you didn’t have to sell your soul to the devil. You can redeem yourself, Mom—”

“I am not your mother! I don’t know who you are!”

“*So that’s it*.” Violetta thought to herself, pulling her bottom lip by the teeth. “*She doesn’t recognize me because I’ve fully transitioned*. *Ain’t that sad*?” Disappointment and sadness amalgamated together in her heart. “*I don’t think Mom will ever see me as her daughter*.”

“I’m not in the mood to play your games, trespasser.” Katalina raised her hand toward the avatar. Violetta watched black crackle in between her fingers like sparks of electricity and visibly gulped. A perfect matched to her power. She didn’t want to fight her mother, but did she have much of a choice? “You have the aura of the sea’s matron goddess. I refuse to believe that someone like you is worthy enough to be my former goddess’ avatar.”

“Too bad. She chose me.”

“And I’ll rectify her choice. The only one worthy enough to watch over the pods is me! Once the pod elders see their mistake, they’ll understand why I did what I had to do!”

“*Oh, dear Amphitrite*.” Violetta groaned to herself. “I don’t want to fight you, Mom.”

“That’s alright with me. Once you’re dead and the two brats take care of the other three trespassers, there won’t be any more inhibitions to the plans in place.”

The avatar thought back to the three ahead of her. If she could hold her mother off long enough for them to retrieve the Johansen family, they won’t have to fight her. She didn’t want to hurt Katalina or for anyone to do so for her.

This was what she had to do, no matter how much it hurt her.

Violetta inhaled and exhaled slowly, feeling the hum of her powers flow into her palms. “Come at me then, mother.”

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

Asim, Phoebe, and Kiya arrived at a clearing that was larger than life. Lit by numerous torches spanning across the circular dome, the trio stood at the center of a rugged platform with deep grooves encircling it, leading a pathway down to the obscured, deeper earth. The three stared at two large entrances eclipsed by pitch-black, splitting their original pathway into two.

Kiya’s jaw dropped as she threw her hands up. “This place is a fucking maze!”

“We have to split up,” Phoebe suggested. “Two can go in one direction while one goes in the other.”

“I’ve seen too many American horror movies to know that splitting up is a terrible idea,” Asim commented. “We don’t know of the dangers that lurk within. We can get ambushed or worse.”

“It’s a risk we must take.” The witch retorted, lowering her flashlight to her side. “If we split, not only do we cover more ground, but it increases the likelihood of getting to the missing family. It’s one hell of a leap from the original plan, but—”

“Let’s do it.” Kiya pointed to the rightmost hole, inhaling sharply through her nose. “Neron is down there. The mate bond…I can feel…I can feel him deep in there.”

Phoebe inhaled and looked to the leftmost hole, hoping to connect to her mate bond with Nuria. But, when she saw a tuff of strawberry-blond hair disappear into the blackness, she knew that the fate of her and Nuria rested beyond the entrance. Her hand tightened around her flashlight again, her powers humming underneath her skin with her flaring emotions.

“I’ll go by myself.” She announced. “Nuria is mine to recover.”

Asim knitted his eyebrows together. “Miss Violetta is back in the tunnel on her own and now you’re opting to proceed the same way.”

“I appreciate your concern, Asim, but I can handle myself. I have been for most of my life, and this is no different.”

“You *all* can handle yourselves. I’ve seen it firsthand.” He chuckled before turning to Kiya. “We’ll rescue Neron together. Jonathan could be with him right now, so having extra manpower behind you can and will be beneficial.”

Kiya blew out a sigh, her fringe flying skyward. “You’re right. And if we need to carry Neron out, you’ll do it. I’m not carrying his big ass out of this cavern.”

Asim grinned. “If I can carry my wife and children all at once, carrying Neron won’t be an issue.”

“Stay safe, Phoebe, please. I need you and my best friend to be okay. With any luck, Aunt Essie might be with either her or Neron.”

“If Celeste is with Nuria, I’ll protect them with my life. You can count on me.”

The trio separated, with Phoebe going in one direction, and Asim and Kiya disappeared into another. Phoebe steeled her resolve, inhaling in a breath of pure confidence, and followed the path she knew her older twin took. The tuff of hair she saw earlier wasn’t shown to her on accident; Rhea wanted her to follow.

“*What are you up to, sister*?” Phoebe asked herself as she stepped over larger rocks intended to trip her. Her skin prickled with goosebumps, and a droplet of sweat slid down the back of her neck. However, the faint flutter of the mate bond attached to her heart reminded her of her purpose. Nuria was further down the tunnel. But she couldn’t neglect the fact that Rhea could plan on ambushing her when she least expected it.

Phoebe could still feel the sting in her chest when she first learned that Nuria went missing. Dark thoughts of self-blame and hatred riddled her mind, as she knew she was the reason Nuria stepped off the territory in the first place. Nuria unknowingly walked into danger and, if only Phoebe was honest from the beginning…

The witch shook her head to rid herself of those thoughts. Her primary focus is to get Nuria and Celeste, who she could feel from the distance. She’ll be damned if she gets distracted.

A couple of minutes later, she spotted faint light spilling through an opening. Her heart soared and the mate bond roared to life. Nuria was here. She picked up the pace and entered the space, but before she could get a look at either her mate or her mother, a brutal force hit her on her back, tackling her to the dirtied ground where she and the giggling weight rolled and tumbled.

When stopped, Phoebe was flipped onto her back and straddled by an exact mirror image of herself, except with rich plum eyes rimmed with red and a snake tattooed on her right arm.

“Just like old times, right, Bee?”

“Don’t call me that!” Phoebe shouted, pivoting her strength in her arms, forcing her twin off her body. The witch scrambled on her feet as Rhea did the same, the menacing smile plastered onto her face like glue.

“Babe!” A sweet voice called out to her. Phoebe glanced beside Rhea to see Nuria chained up to a wall, looking exhausted, but shining the smile that made her heart pound. Celeste looked beside her at the witch and back at her daughter, smiling warmly while leaning her head back against the wall.

“I’ll get you out, Nuri. Be patient with me.”

“I don’t have much of a choice.”

Phoebe turned back to Rhea. “How dare you! What, in that mind of yours, made you think that taking Nuria from me was a good idea?”

Rhea shrugged her shoulders. “It was fun.” She cocked her head to the side. “Tell me how you felt, Bee! Did you feel pain? Oh, I hope you did, because I’m going to give you more!”

“I don’t want to fight you, Rhea.” Phoebe gritted her teeth. “Why are you working with Jonathan? Don’t you know he offers nothing but lies?”

“And miss the chance to not see my baby sister again and make her pay? It was worth the price.” Rhea giggled, her body trembling with the flow of dark power emanating from her skin. “You were always the favorite sister, and you never appreciated what Mama and Papa did for us. Always crying and whining about how *everything hurts too much*!”

“What they did to us was wrong! They never showed us love, Rhea. What relevance do they have now?!”

“Because it matters, Phoebe. Did you feel good when you killed me? When you killed *them*?”

Phoebe bristled in her spot.

Rhea noticed, and her grin stretched wider. “You did, didn’t you? Our parents worked hard to make us come to our power, and you repaid us by taking our lives. If they saw you now, what would they think?”

“I promised myself that I would never become what they wanted me to be,” Phoebe spoke, her voice slightly trembling with her anger. “They warped our minds to make us believe that what they’re doing was right.”

“It was. That’s why you’re as powerful as you are today.”

“No. I became powerful on my own. Not with their help.”

“Oh, the things you say to yourself to make you sleep easier at night.” Rhea turned to Nuria on the ground. “I told you! Are you sure you want to bind yourself to life with a monster?”

“Quit calling her that!”

“Damn. Love truly is blind, huh?”

“I know what I’ve done, Rhea.” Phoebe started, huffing out a violent breath. “Believe me, I know exactly what I did. But you have no right to stand there and judge me when you’re the one who sold your soul to a demented god. You want to hurt me, Rhea?”

“You have no idea how much I want to.” The older twin licked her bottom lip in glee. “Pain is love, after all. I hate you, but I love you as well and I want to show you that in the best way I know how.”

“Your mind is gone.”

“And life is so much more fun without it! Say, once you die, I hope you don’t mind me keeping Nuria for myself. She’s like a pretty little doll and I want to keep her!”

A drop in temperature was a universal indicator of an abrupt and unexpected change in dynamics. Instead, the temperature flared several degrees to where the prison became a sweltering chamber. Rhea’s eyes expanded like plates and her hands flew to her neck. Gasping and choking, her plums followed the streaks of black delineated in violet, misting like the essence of the apparitions from the underworld. Her eyes settled on her younger twin, glowering at her with the fury of Hekate herself.

Strawberry-blond strands were rapidly shifting to jet black.

Glowing amethyst faded into frightening silver.

“You will not touch her!” Phoebe’s thick and echoey voice declared. “Nuria is mine to protect!”

The area was bathed in a flash of vivid violet light along with a violent crash and crumbling of an adjacent wall. Celeste and Nuria winced at Rhea’s scream, but the latter was in awe at her mate’s declaration. Jaw dropped wide open, her heart thudded to the beat of a drum behind her ribcage, overflowing with profound longing and love. It took a mountain of willpower to not run to and kiss the hell out of her superpowered soulmate.

“Phoebe…” Nuria whispered before smirking. “…you look hot.”

Rhea’s giggling filled the air and Phoebe whipped her head around to the women. “You both are free. Staying here is too dangerous. When you get out of here, take a right and you’ll run into Violetta.”

“But Jonathan…” Celeste reminded. “And Neron!”

“Kiya and Asim are on their way to Neron.” Phoebe waved her hand in the air. Glimmering sparks of purple energy rained on the both of them, sinking into their pores. “This is temporary protection. Jonathan won’t touch you, not while I’m still breathing, but it doesn’t mean he won’t try. You must get to Violetta so she can protect you.”

“Phoebe, I can’t leave you here alone.” Nuria insisted. “Let me help you.”

Rhea shrieked, launching herself into her twin. Phoebe stretched her arms forward and grasped her hands, deadlocked hand-in-hand. “No. I know you want to, Nuria, but I cannot allow you to get hurt.”

She turned her head and locked her silvers with her blues. “Forgive me for pushing you away. Allow me to make it up to you by protecting you like I should have.”

Without giving her a chance to argue, Phoebe tossed her sister away and bolted after her. Nuria moved her wrists and realized that she was no longer chained to the wall. Her cuffs shattered and fell to the ground in a noiseless heap.

“Mom!” She shouted. Celeste brought her arms up and pulled her daughter into her arms when she leaped forward on her knees. “Mommy…”

“It’s going to be okay, *skatten min*.” Celeste whispered into her hair, rubbing her back. Her heart ached at the memory of her ex-husband slapping her moments earlier. “Let us listen to Phoebe and leave this hellhole. Jonathan will pay for what he has done to us.”

The mother-daughter duo rose to their feet. Nuria turned back to the spot Phoebe formerly stood, listening to the sounds of battle from the distance. She sighed heavily, feeling Angelika’s reassurance filling her chest.

“*You better come back to me, Phoebe*.” She thought to herself. “*Or I’m coming for you myself*.”

Both women turned on their heels and ran out of the prison, following the pathway given to them.