Life Of A Nobody - as a Villain

"What are you doing here?" Artemis asked, looking at her daughter's eyes. "I thought you had an exam to attend."

"Mother.." Amy muttered, still reeling from the sudden change, "Is he_ is he really gone?"

Hearing her question Artemis's eyes flickered, just for a second, with something that Amy couldn't decipher. Pain? Anger? Grief? But her response was swift, sharp as a blade. "Don't."

But Amy was too confused to notice the changes in her emotions and still kept speaking. Explaining. Hoping her mother will answer her and help her.

"Please, Mother," she pressed on, her voice rising, desperate. "You have to listen to me. I had a dream—no, it wasn't a dream. It felt real. Rio—he was alive. I saw him. You were there too. I don't know what's happening. My mind—it's all so…" Her voice cracked, and she pressed her hands against her temples, trying to piece together the fragments of memory slipping through her fingers.

Her tone was sometimes high and sometimes low. Sometimes happy and then confused. She was holding her mother's shoulders, and then her own head. It seemed like whatever happened with the memories of her previous flashback, had triggered something, making her already fuzzy 'dream' even more foggy. Making her confused even more.

She was trying hard to make sense of anything, yet failed to do so.

"I was fighting someone, I don't know who, but I was. And then, _then _then I woke up here. Rio isn't dead, right?"

Snapppp

Amy was struggling with her memories when a slap landed on her face. Leaving a stinging red mark on her cheek. Her head snapped to the side, and her wide, tear-filled eyes met Artemis's blazing ones.

"Is this a joke to you?" Artemis spat, her voice shaking with barely contained fury. "First, you begged me to let go. And when you couldn't succeed, you try this?"

"Mother—" Amy stammered, but Artemis's words came like a tidal wave, drowning her.

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"Is this another one of your ways to let me forget him? To put a garland on his frame, light a candle, and mourn him. He's not dead. MY SON, is not dead."

"He isn't. Then where is he?" Amy said subconsciously. Her words making Artemis even more angry.

"Get out." Artemis said and grabbed her hand and pushed her out of Rio's room. "Don't ever, set foot in this room, ever again. You don't deserve it."

"No! Mother, listen to me!" Amy pleaded, her voice breaking. She clung to the doorframe, refusing to leave. "It's not real. None of this is. Brother, he _he's still trapped in that dungeon. He's suffering there. We_ we have to go. We have to get him out."

"Enough." Artemis's roar shook the walls, her aura flaring with anger. The pressure was suffocating, choking the air from Amy's lungs. Stopping the next words in her throat.

"Now you care about his suffering?" Artemis asked coldly as her words couldn't help but mock Amy. Her tone, dripping with disdain. "Where was this concern when you gave up on him?"

"I didn't give up." Amy cried, tears streaming down her face.

Artemis laughed bitterly. "Didn't you? You were the first to call a funeral. The first to tell the others to stop searching. The first to mourn him and move on." Her words were like daggers, each one cutting deeper than the last. "You never believed in him._ You never believed me."

"Mother…"

Hearing the painful words from her mother, Amy trembled as waves of guilt hit her heart. It hurt, cause it wasn't a lie. She did do those things, but she just wanted to… .. She watched her family falling apart, and she just didn't want to lose them too.

But Artemis, who saw her silence, only felt even more angry.

"You never cared about your brother. Whether he's alive or not. Cause the moment you heard the reports you gave up. You cried and cried, and then,_ that was it."

"I told you he was alive. And you called me crazy. So why are you acting now? Is this fun torturing me this way?"

"..."

"Your brother, he loved you. More than anyone else. Yet you didn't care. Hell, if it weren't for you, my son would still be alive."

As Artemis finished speaking, those words fell like a bolt of thunder on Amy's heart. Making her face pale and stagger. She looked up at her mother, her heart breaking in pieces as she met those cold eyes.

She carried this sin, she knew it herself. Perhaps the reason why she gave up was also because of her own guilt. But never, not once, had anyone blamed her for it. Even after everyone learned about their fight and it's consequences.

"I loved him too." Amy spoke, her words raw but barely above a whisper. Yet Artemis, who heard it, only sneered back.

"Did you?" She said with a humph, "Cause if you did, then you wouldn't be so selfish. You were always jealous of him, right?"

"Jealous that he was so good. So talented. And so famous. That's why you teamed up with that bitchy primordial and hurt him like this."

"I DIDN'T." Amy shouted, blocking the baseless accusations. Yet Artemis ignored her and continued.

"No, you did. You wanted to take his place. You even said so yourself when you proposed to be the heir."

Artemis spoke, her words reminding Amy of the joking words she said years ago at the dinner table while fighting with Rio for sweets.

"That was just a joke, mother." Amy said, losing strength in her words.

"Was it?" Artemis spoke coldly while pointing her finger at Amy's face, "Cause while your father and I are doing everything for him even now. Looking everywhere to get him back. You're busy hoarding things that belonged to him. His reputation, his shadow, his maid _ you've literally taken everything. You've been hoarding every piece of him like a vulture, picking at a corpse."

"No! This isn't real. You're not real. Mother _ my mother would never say these things." Amy slapped her mother's hand away and stepped back, pointing her sword at Artemis with trembling hands, "Tell me, who are you? Where's my mother? What did you do with her?"

But Artemis, who saw her actions, ignored her threats and burst out laughing.

"Hahahaha hahaha. Wow. You're still playing the victim, while you're attacking me. (Kakaka) What a white eyed wolf I have raised." Artemis spoke, dodging the sword and grabbing Amy's wrist and throwing her away.

"It would've been better if it was you who died instead."

"..." Those words hurt Amy more than any physical blow. Her knees buckled, and she coughed up blood, her body shaking as she clung to the wall for support. She looked up at Artemis, at the cold, unrecognizable face of the woman who had always been her pillar of strength.

"Mother…" Amy whispered, her voice barely audible. But there was no warmth in Artemis's eyes, no hint of the love she once knew.

Amy staggered to her feet, her heart breaking with every step she took away from the room. To go far from this place of pain.

Amy didn't know where she was going, or how long had it been, but she only stopped walking when someone blocked her path and she bumped into them.

She stepped aside and was leaving further without raising her head, when someone grabbed her hand and pulled back.

"Where are you going, little fella? The sweet shops are on the other side."

The familiar voice made Amy turn around and look up. Right now, her world was blurry and eyes empty without any hope. So when she saw the radiant face and the pretty smile in front of her, she just rushed and hugged her best friend tightly.

Her throat was dry or maybe she was just too tired with tears, so she didn't cry, and just hugged her. Holding her tightly, too afraid to let go, thinking she'll disappear like her brother too.

Rebecca raised her eyebrows seeing her friend's unusual behavior, before patting her back and pulling her to a side. Helping her sit on the chair.

"What happened, Amy?" Rebecca asked, her tone already cold and serious. "Who hurt you?"

##

Author note - Just a little bit more. Tis guilt-trip is kinda important for her journey and the arc that'll come later for her own. She needs it. It's all for the character development.

{Plus Shiva lived for years with her ghost haunting him, blaming himself for her death back on earth, so it's kinda fair, she goes through it a little too. Don't you think so?}