Ha! Cleopatra is Jealous of A Cat

Atlas felt like throwing up.

You could say it was air-sickness but it was also the fact that he was going to meet the most dangerous woman in the world (and normal everyday women are already plenty dangerous).

He threw up in the lavatory at the back of the helicopter, his breakfast walking out of his smelly mouth in the least complimenting manner.

"Your highness?" A feeble voice sounded from outside the tiny suffocating room.

They had been flying for two days straight now, betting their lives on the fuel tank and the rations of canned food. The pilot, the sensible one, has suggested that make a pit stop.

The Prince, on the contrary, has refused. He needed to meet that woman, he said. And nothing can delay it. He didn't tell this to the pilot, but they were nearing a deadline.

The invitation had come a week ago from the Sahara Desert. It was in the form of a letter hand written by the woman herself, telling him that she would be waiting for him in the very centre of the Sahara desert. If he failed to show up, then the services she had been providing him would undoubtedly, discontinue.

And today was the last day on the timeline she gave him. The fact that she might be gone by the time they reached the centre, revolted Atlas on the inside. He got only one shot at this. And this woman was the only person in the planet who could help him.

Atlas turned his pale face at the pilot, "Why aren't you manning the cockpit!"

He bowed, "I wanted to check up on your highness, and the copter's on auto pilot."

"I need to know the ETA. Now," he demanded, pulling his royal face back on and stood up to splash water on his face. He wiped his face with his right hand, dragging the water on his face down toward his chin before drying his hands on the towel.

Sleep deprived eyes. Long stranded hair he hadn't cut in more than 40 days. His shoulder bones almost showed through his t-shirt. He pulled at its collar. He had walked out of the palace in these clothes and hadn't bothered to change them.

The palace, he wondered as he stepped out of the lavatory and slipped into the co-pilot seat, a seat above his authority.

'Wonder how Ryoko is handling the Raken cases. Hope I can be back by next week, she can't handle the battle of Wintra alone,' he thought as he studied the view from the window. Except, there was nothing to study. Just sand and dunes and more sand.

The most exciting thing about the Sahara Desert would be how the wind blew off sand from the top of the dunes making it look like they were evaporating.

"ETA. Three hours, your highness," The pilot answered and Atlas leaned back on the seat trying to ignore the taste of bile in his mouth and closed his eyes, "Just…call me when we are there," he mumbled.

Sleep wouldn't allow him to think and not thinking could finally put him at peace.

...

Three hours later, the helicopter was falling. Atlas's eyes flew open as he clutched the seat for dear life, "What is happening, you idiot!" he yelled. His hair flying and legs dangling in air as he stared at the vast blanket of sand getting closer every minute.

No human voice answered. There was only the sound of wooshing in his ears. Atlas looked to the side and found the seat empty. Instead, on the floor was the mangled body of what was the pilot. "What the hell..." Atlas thought for half a second before screaming, "Get up and drive this thing, you bastard!" he screamed at the pilot.

The pilot's dead body shot up, hitting against the ceiling and getting dragged by some unknown force to the back of the helicopter.

"AHHHH! Somebody help!" he screamed to the wind but his voice nothing but a feeble warp in the timeless desert breeze.

But, all things considered, the helicopter started to slow down its fall and as it neared the ground of soft sand, it only landed with a low thud.

Pain crept around his arms as a deafening silence ensued and only the winds strong blows were heard. He turned to look back at the disfigured pilot once and stepped out of the helicopter into the desert sun.

Before his feet could dip into the sand, his head lifted up to see a tall lady in flowing black clothes. Her long sashes whipped with the wind as it danced around her frame that boasted extravagance.

Gold lined her neck and her arms and traced down to her thighs and ankles. The train of her long luscious black dress danced around her that reminded Atlas of a human hurricane.

He limped closer and saw her face, the same color of the sand and eyes that pierced through your skin, "What would Ryoko think if she saw her?" he thought.

"Xalia?" he stuttered in front of her. He felt like his royalty slipped away in front of her. He closed his eyes for a second, "Get a hold of yourself, Atlas. Stand straight. Face her," he re assured himself and focused on her again.

"Yes, Prince Atlas, it's nice to finally meet you."

"It's nice to me-"

"Come," she beckoned and turned around. Atlas swallowed down his last words and followed her. She raised her hands and the sand rose too, along with her movements. As the sand started to move away, it revealed the tips of a castle buried into the ground.

She led him down a dark staircase which appeared from nowhere.

"Why did you take down the helicopter?" Atlas asked, knowing perfectly well that she was the only person around here who was powerful enough to do it.

She shrugged as she led him down a long winding tunnel illuminated only by fireflies. He stared at them buzz around him. There were fire flies just like these back in the Lost Library weren't there? he remembered from the times he visited it to spin energy.

"I cannot risk any human outside my services to know anything, even my location. You however, I can trust. Your soul is under me hold. That's leverage enough," she said with a smirk.

Atlas's heart clenched. He was Xalia's puppet now. She could kill him any second just by a snap because the Life Threads of the living can be accessed easily by Advanced Dark Magic, the magic Xalia wielded.

Dark Magic comes from black holes, and on the contrary True Magic was the one which came from transformed stars, like in the case of Brooklyn and the bearer of the Dragon Stone.

Retrieving the Life Thread of the Dead however, was the challenge. As long as she did what he told her to do, and he did what she told her to do, everything goes well.

The tunnel opened into a large room littered with never ending creepers and and shining bottles filled with liquids of different colors. Atlas's eyes fluttered towards a corner of the dark ancient room and sensed movement in one of the creepers.

He looked closer and saw it curl and slither along the shelves. He realized with a start that it wasn't a creeper after all, it was a snake. It's head was triangular, like the tip of a spear.

The woman, Xalia, caught him looking and caressed the snake. It curled around her arm and her neck like an obedient doll, "You see their triangular heads? It shows they bite," she ran her hand through its scales, "everyone, except me, of course."

Atlas was silent, captivated by the symbol of death slithering right in front of him.

"Did you do as I said? Did you plant the saplings I gave you?" she asked, calmly.

He nodded, remembering the ten saplings she had given him the first time he had met her. She had told him to plant it in the highly populated areas of the city and just wait until something out of the blue happens and then contact her.

Something out of the blue did happen. People started dying.

But Atlas had come to know about it only until very late (Ryoko...), but he was here now, all ready for the next phase of his mission.

"So the Raken, I mean monsters," he corrected, realizing that Raken were only a nickname given by the citizens,"were born from those saplings?"

She nodded and remained calm while Atlas, who was new to all this, worked his head up, "I created them so they can harvest at least a little bit of energy to start our proceedings. I told you there would be a lair...did you find it? That's we need. The monsters keep their harvests there."

Atlas shook his head. Harvest? Did she mean...human hearts? The only things missing from the victims at discovery. "But I did tell my secretary to look out for it and block it if she finds it."

The woman whipped her head at him while she poured out a sparkling yellow colored drink into two glasses. Her eyes were rimmed with thick liner that winged so perfectly that even Cleopatra's jaw would drop.

"A person outside us two knows? Does she know everything?" she asked, sliding the glass across the marble, stopping right before it almost fell of the edge.

Atlas gulped. He had told her everything, even after she hid facts from him. Why had he done that?

Some people grow to be so special that you have no choice but to trust them, knowing that they may break your trust but choosing to ignore it because trusting them makes you feel...okay. Because it just feels...right.

"Yeah, she knows," Atlas finally said.

"Do you trust her?"

Atlas couldn't answer immediately. A few seconds later, he was shocked by the words that escaped him.

"Yeah, more than anything," he rasped, realizing that she was the only person he did trust.

The woman sighed and stood up straight and walked to the wall of the room which was draped with a huge red curtain. She clutched the strings and pulled it, drawing back the red veil so Atlas could finally see what was on the wall.

His eyes shot wide and unconsciously, his jaw slightly dropped in stupefaction. "What- What is this?"

The woman smirked, her eyeliner narrowing and giving her a cat-like appearance. A cat draped in gold. "This, my darling prince, is phase two."