Chapter 48

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

Dungeon Factory, CQ's Boss Room.

Alexandra opened her mouth, then closed it. Finally, after a few seconds of stunned surprised, she finally managed to force some words out.

"You...You can speak?"

CQ smiled, nodding.

"Yes! I can! I always memorized the weird sounds you and mommy always did! Then, when you did the thingy, I suddenly understood them! It was like a puzzle!"

Alexandra looked at Emilia, who simply shrugged, evidently as surprised as the Earth-born. Alexandra sighed, and turned back towards CQ.

"Well this is a pleasant surprise. Hey CQ. It's good meet you."

"What do you mean mom? We met a long time ago!"

Alexandra closed her eyes.

"Right, sorry. Let me reformulate. It's nice to be finally able to talk to you."

"It's nice to be able to understand what you're saying as well mom! Although you do seem to argue a lot with mommy about stuff. But I loved when you talked to me, even when I couldn't understand! And now I can!"

Alexandra chuckled, while a part of her mind made a note of the use of 'mommy'. Did CQ mean Emilia?

"Well, it's nice to know I wasn't speaking to the void at least. And that you appreciated my, well, monologues. Sorry if I seem a bit stiff, this, uh, isn't exactly a situation I'm used to."

CQ tilted her head, then nodded seriously.

"Right, because you're not from here, right? So you're not used to bosses." She smiled. "It's okay mom, we can learn together now!"

Alexandra blinked. That...had been weird. For a second she looked so...serious. In fact, the boss reminded her a lot of...well, her younger self. Yet she was also so energetic and bubbly.

"Yes, we can. Well, uh...I assume you remember Emilia?"

"Of course I remember mommy! She taught me lots of stuff! But very formal. And elegant." She tilted her head. "I think that's the term, right? Elegant?"

"Yes, yes it is." Said Alexandra with a smile as Emilia huffed, and made a note that indeed Emilia was 'mommy' to CQ. Oh this could get very weird. "Contrary to what I taught you, which was-"

"How to fight like the dirtiest, scummiest dock worker on Vesta station. I remember."

Alexandra laughed outright. Looked like the boss did indeed remember her monologues/lectures. Including the ones about not fighting fair.

"Good." She said, doing her best to ignore Emilia's attempt to glare holes in her skull. "That's excellent. Well, we have...much to talk about, but I believe you asked a question, correct?"

"Yes! I wanted to know what was going on!"

"Right. Well, in short? We don't know ourselves. We're trying to figure it out. Come on." Alexandra stepped to the side, and gestured for the boss to stand between her and Emilia, which she promptly did. "Usually when the humans on the surface do this it means there's something bad going on. Mostly attacks."

"Attacks? By us?"

"No. We don't send golems above the surface. Well, not to attack them anyway. They're usually attacked by other surface people, or monsters."

"Monsters?"

"Like...animals. But bigger. And usually meaner."

"Bigger animals? Like a big pet? Can I have one? Please? Pretty please?"

Whatever the reaction Alexandra had been expecting, that wasn't it. She looked at the boss' puppy dog eyes, then at Emilia, who simply stuck her tongue out at her.

"Uh...Sure! If we can." She said as she did her best to glare at Emilia, who was quietly laughing, before smiling evily. "In fact, ask mommy if she can help you catch one so we can tame it!"

Emilia's laughter ended abruptly as CQ turned those ever so effective puppy dog eyes upon her, to Alexandra's satisfaction. Let 'mommy' deal with that, and get some karmic justice with how often she had used the same tactic on her dungeon core.

"Mommy?"

"U-Uh, sure! I'll help. You'll need to chose one you want to get however."

"How about that one?"

They turned back towards the screen CQ was helpfully pointing at.

Where what looked like an actual freaking manticore was attacking one of the airships that had managed to take off.

Oh great, thought Alexandra. She looked to the side to CQ, to tell her that trying to capture, or even absorb it, would be a bad idea, but the words died on her lips as she looked at the boss' hopeful, excited expression. She just couldn't bring herself to do it. She sighed. She was pretty sure a giant flying lion-scorpion...thing wasn't good pet material, but she was a dungeon, she could make this work...Maybe. Besides, it would give her as good of an excuse to test her army as she was going to get, especially since Emilia wouldn't be willing to question anything and risk CQ's disappointment.

"Alright. I'll charge some of the reserve golems for out of influence operations, and load up some thumpers and scorpios. CQ get your Royal Guard in order, we're going to need them. Emilia, ideas for taking it alive?"

The vampire girl winced as she looked at the screen.

"I have a few spells. I don't know if I'll manage to get it alive though, so you might have to absorb it and create a new one."

Given her tone it was pretty obvious she wasn't expecting the former to happen.

"Fair enough. Well, let's get started then!"

*****

Allya panted as she stabbed the sand spirit, and the creature staggered back, shrieking. It might not be alive in the common sense of the term, but it did feel pain, and it could be killed if you hit it hard, or often, enough. Which was about the only good thing that could be said for these things, as they didn't even had weak points, you just had to hack away at them until whatever arcane processes that held them together run out of energy or became too damaged to keep them in one piece. Magic disruption helped immensely against them, but she had only a single vial of magic disruption coating for her daggers, and she dared not use it so early in what promised to be a long and grueling battle, especially as the damned stuff only lasted for a minute or so before becoming ineffective.

She readied herself for another attack, before relaxing as an arrow flew by her side, hitting the spirit dead center, and the creature screeched, before collapsing in a pile of sands and rocks. Pyn's shortbow was proving as reliable as ever, although Allya was starting to have a sneaking suspicion that it's enchantments were a bit more than just shield penetration, given how effective it was against the creatures.

The baroness turned around, and nodded gratefully at her girlfriend, who simply nodded back. Pyn...looked the worse for wear. And to be fair, Allya was pretty sure she looked like shit as well. Scratches, cuts and sand littered their bodies, and their clothes and armor were being steadily demolished by the unrelenting onslaught of wasteland monsters.

"We're nearly there!" Called out Dominique as she pointed down a street, where they could hear a great deal of fighting. "The barracks and guard wagons should be right around this corner!"

Allya nodded, before wincing as the roar of cannon fire filled the air. She couldn't see it from the choked sea of tents she was currently in, but the Sakura had apparently taken to the air, and found something to shoot at. Unfortunately, that target probably was the damned manticore that had flown over the camp a few minutes ago. What the hell was that kind of monster doing here anyway? She knew wasteland monsters sometime combined forces to attack caravans, but manticores were supposed to be solo predators, and didn't associate themselves with other wasteland monsters for these kind of mass raids. Clearly, the situation must have been worst than they'd thought, for a manticore to be close enough to see the mess and fly in to take advantage of the opportunity.

Which also meant that there was a good chance even more monsters would pour in as the essence started flowing, and their feeding frenzy began to kick in. Wonderful.

"Okay. Back in formation."

They formed back up, the various piles of sands scattered around the only thing remaining of the sand spirits that had been barring their way, and moved towards the sounds of fighting. They rounded the corner...and Allya almost dropped her daggers.

In the center of the sort of clearing of tents, their back to some heavily reinforced wagons, was a few dozen armed people, guards, adventurers and survivors alike. And in front of them...

In front of them was the hulking form of a sand demon. The beast version of a sand spirit.

Fuck my life.

*****

"Are you sure this is a good idea?"

Alexandra shrugged as she watched the column of golems marching past her.

"Honestly? No. But I can't muster the heart to tell her no, and honestly this is as good a time as any to demonstrate some goodwill."

"What do you mean?"

Alexandra sighed.

"Emilia, these people on the surface are in danger. They're being attacked by monsters and Gods know what else. Anyone even halfway decent would help. And no one will be able to argue that we are interfering in mortal affairs. After all, we're here to help them against mindless monsters, not other humans."

Emilia seemed on the border of protesting, before sighing and nodding.

"Fair enough. So, we just barge in and save the day?"

"Pretty much. I've just pulled up every crossbow, spell tome and thumper we have in storage for this. It should be enough."

Emilia looked up at her, and Alexandra hesitated.

"It will be enough, right?"

"You have no idea how deadly a manticore is, have you?"

"Not really, no?"

"Well...Let's just say I hope it's enough."

"Oh."

Alexandra looked at the screen...and gave the order for her remaining reserve golems to start their charge cycle and be on stand-by for deployment, and start pulling the scorpios out of the arsenal, as well as arm her praetorian guard with shredders. She wouldn't just throw them in the battle outright -the shredders were one of her aces up her sleeves after all-, but it paid to be prepared. Plus...the manticore looked really large. The scorpios would probably make sense if she could mass them enough, despite the surprising swiftness of the monster, being able to avoid entire cannon volleys from the ship it was fighting. She also sent the order to pull the spider tank and it's replacement out and prepare them for battle. Worse comes to worse she had her own 'monsters' to keep it occupied, if only by taking some time to slice and chew to pieces.

"Alright." She looked up and smiled at CQ, who was energically leading her own royal guard to the surface. "Let's get this manticore."

*****

"Uh....Allya, what do we do?"

Allya looked to her side at Pyn, who was almost shaking with fear, before going back to the demon.

"We can't get around it." She'd considered the option almost immediately, and rejected it. They couldn't afford to engage the smaller ones and get distracted to get hit in the back by the demon. On the other hand, sand spirits and demons weren't organized pack hunters, they banded together purely for opportunity's sake, and didn't actually coordinate their actions like harpies would. Well, as much as harpies coordinated anything anyway. That also meant that the demon would pretty much kill any spirit that tried to steal it's prey and essence, hence why the spirits were keeping a good distance away from it. "But we can engage it. The smaller ones won't dare get involved. We might be able to rush to the other side as we attack him, and failing that..." She shrugged. "We can try to kill it."

She could practically feel Pyn's and Dominique's incredulous looks, but Éclair was just grimly scowling at the monster. Allya shrugged.

"Remember, there is the rest of the survivors on the other side, they'll help." Okay, they might help. She knew she wouldn't have stuck out her neck to engage that thing before she became the lady of this area, and even now she'd rather have send her soldiers than engage it directly, but those were adventurers and wasteland security personnel, they knew that letting it feed and kill more people without trying to whittle it down would be a very bad idea. Fortunately her companions (with the exception of Pyn, who still looked dubious) weren't that cynical, and nodded.

"That's a fair point. Well, what are we waiting for then?" Said Dominique.

"A plan?" Pyn shook her head, before looking hopefully at Allya, who nodded.

"Éclair, grab its attention with your lightning. Once you have it, focus purely on defense and keeping its attention, don't do anything else, we can't afford having it retarget. Pyn, the small ones probably won't dare to step in, but a few still might, keep an eye out for them, but otherwise just pepper the big guy with arrows. Dominique, you're the one that is going to make or break this. I need you to slow it down. Ice, sonic spells, whatever you can use to make it loose cohesion, force it to spend time and energy pulling itself back together, use it. I'll try to inflict some damage with my daggers, I have some magic disrupting coating for dealing with golems, hopefully it'll be useful. Any questions?"

Everyone shook their heads, and Allya took a deep breath.

"Well, in that case let's move! Charge!"