The Goddessy: Hestia's Revenge

Chapter Nineteen

"Uh, can we run through this all again?" Artemis cocked her head. "I'm still lost."

Somehow, Sunset had been attacked by Hestia, started the whole geode-destroying thing since Hestia broke hers, and now had to destroy some crystal she's never heard of using arrows.

"I just told you, I have to go and destroy this crystal I've never seen before with arrows but literally no one else can do it," Sunset said again for the fifth time.

"Yeah, but don't you suck at archery?" Rainbow Dash asked.

"Wait, you don't know how?" Artemis asked.

"It's been established for a year that I literally can hit everywhere else but the target," Sunset sighed.

"Then there's gotta be another way," Athena said.

"There isn't," Sunset said. "So either I learn quickly or we just let Hestia get more power."

Athena gave Artemis a look. Artemis groaned, but she knew it was the only way.

"Follow me," Artemis picked up her bow and quiver.

"Ooh! I know how to help!" Aphrodite chirped.

"Just hold it tightly, pull back the arrow, focus," Artemis said as Sunset shakily held the arrow strung against the bow, a target a good fifteen feet away. And Aphrodite also got her way, which was why she found herself in a glossy red tunic and black pants, the black boots laced up to her knees, her hair pulled back in an intricate ponytail (Aphrodite again), with fingerless gloves rubbing against the bow. The bow itself was made of hand-carved wood, glossed over and covered in delicate detailing, the arrows made of the same wood, with similar markings, the feather shaped like a phoenix wing.

"Just a little higher," Artemis said. Sunset could feel her anxiety rising as it usually did as she released the arrow, the tip flying through the sky and hitting the edge of the target, meeting its twenty-five other siblings.

"I still don't get why Cronus said only me," she sighed, trying not to give away that she was losing faith in this mission.

"Because I heard Athena reading about this once," said Artemis, despite that she claimed to never hear about it. "The first person to break their geode may lose their magic, but they also gain a secret power not even Hestia is aware of: only you will be able to find the crystal. We may only see a simple crystal or something, but you will see the magic hidden inside. That's why only you can destroy it."

"I guess it makes sense," said Sunset, a part of her still lost as she strung another arrow. For a moment, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, then saw a vision of a teardrop-shaped crystal embedded in a silver diadem, swirls of color inside. The diadem crown was nestled among flaming hair as devil-red eyes came into view. Hestia came together in her vision, and Sunset fired, imagining the arrow tip causing the crystal to shatter, the swirls of mist rising away from her.

"Uh, what did you do?" Artemis wondered, and Sunset finally noticed that the arrow she had just fired was sitting straight at the center of the target.

"I'm not sure," Sunset said. "All I remember was seeing a vision of Hestia wearing this diadem with this crystal in the center of it, with colors of the rainbow swirled together, and I knew at that moment that it was what I was after."

"Dang, and you only learned in a couple hours," Rainbow said as she went up to them, with Ares, Hermes, Apollo, Heracles (for some reason), Athena, Aphrodite, Rarity, and Zeus right behind her. "Perfect timing as well."

"What do you mean?" asked Artemis.

"We're getting that carnation back and Hestia isn't going to stop us," Heracles said.