One of Strolvath’s pilebunker kicks ripped a tendon and caused her to fall, but the bugwoman caught herself and started crawling. Even on the ground and crippled she was no slower - if anything, she only grew more savage and pursued the musician with more fervor. Seeing the nearly comical degree of physical trauma that she had withstood, it was clear that Sister’s body was far, far more structurally sound than the Black Swordsman’s.

The ground quaked and an angry groan echoed.

One could hear Pateirian speech and moments later there she was, emerging from the hole in the mega-hive’s roof.

The Queen. The Parasite.

That hateful stare of knowing, pained eyes, the rage behind them equaled only by the great shame and sorrow of being seen as she was. And who could blame her? Her split-jawed, distended, horrifically stretched-out face was the most human part of her. Her skull was a tumorous, bulging thing, iridescent crystalline formations rupturing the bone from within, trickles of half-dried blood still surrounding freshly-emerged crystals.

And her body, oh by the Dead Gods, her body. The tremors of her emergence had collapsed what little of the mega-hive’s left wing remained, exposing her egg-birthing lower portion for all to see.

One could mistake the egg-birthing sac for a second hive in itself, if only it didn’t undulate and squirm all over to the rhythm of the many eggs pushing their way to the egg laying orifice, which piled egg on egg upon egg onto a great pile. A pile that had begun growing at an alarming rate, now that most of the surviving drones that would’ve carried the eggs away had either been ripped apart by sonic resonance or crushed by rubble.

Her upper half, on the other hand, resembled a human woman’s in the vaguest possible sense. Nearly everything was plated in brownish-red chitin, everything was distended to a comical degree. Her torso was girded in a black-stone harness, to which were attached gigantic black-stone arms, each possessing an extra elbow and ending in clawed hands. They were not just long enough to reach the ground, but long enough to reach damn-near a fourth of the way across the chamber, if the Queen put her mind to it. A pair of tiny, atrophied human arms hung from her shoulders.

Looking across the chamber her gaze briefly stopped at each of the slayers in turn, but it finally settled on Zelsys.

“Geh-heh-eh-eh… A homunculus, an Inquisitor, a Victory Demon, and a war criminal walk into a dungeon. Talk about a sad joke,” the queen said with a forced, disbelieving cackle. Her intonation was somehow even more accented than Zelsys remembered. Her voice sounded from the floor and the walls, from everywhere at once, and even still it was barely loud enough to be audible. There was a cracking noise, and a long scorpion-like tail burst through the mega-hive’s roof right behind the Queen. Instead of a poisoned tip it had what looked to be a harpoon-launcher, yet it had no harpoon. The tail undulated upwards and a slimy harpoon pushed its way partway out the tail’s tip.

The appearance of that weapon didn’t make Zelsys fearful. It made her giddy at the prospect of easy charge for Retributive Battery. When the Queen let it rip right at her the beast-slayer just broke into a sprint right at the Red Mantis, who had remained relatively still until now. She was visibly struggling to resist the urge to puke up her own organs that Strolvath’s music instilled in her. One of her hands sat on her stomach, the other held down an armor beetle on her shoulder that seemed eager to jump ship.

channelling much of her breath into Graze Pulse, Zel put her full trust in her comrades to finish the Sister off, and knew she was right to do so. Even as harpoons brushed across her back and she felt the pressure build behind her eye, even as she threw herself at the Mantis with a cry on her lips.

Either the Queen would stop firing at her to avoid hurting the Mantis, or she would foolishly skewer her own servant. Going by the distinct absence of followup projectiles, she seemed to have chosen the former, redirecting her wrath at the Inquisitor.

“Now Butcher, bring me their heads!” laughed the Fog-drunk homunculus as she saw the Mantis’s arm-blades extending into a half-hearted defense. Yellowish liquid began leaking from the bugwoman’s nose and ears, even from the tear duct of her left eye. Zel made it obvious that she intended to meet the clash head-on, and the red one took the bait. She dropped into a slide right when the Mantis lunged, willing the Butcher to change the direction of its sawteeth. It did so just in time with a loud metallic screech, just in time for the saw to rip through the red one’s leg.

The Butcher’s saw reached its end just as it hit bone. Without any better options, Zel dug her heels in and grabbed for the Mantis’ leg, simultaneously dragging her opponent to the ground and stopping herself.

She sprung to her feet. Her chest heaving and her senses ready to defend against an incoming harpoon, she moved back over to the mantis as quickly as she could.

The red one lifted herself with the aid of her wings, hemolymph gushing from the wound in her leg. It frothed and bubbled to the frantic rhythm of Strolvath’s performance as she turned to face Zelsys again. Arm-blades out, held in an almost boxer-like manner, legs wide and weight on the right foot to compensate for the wound. And yet, Zel’s focus was drawn elsewhere.

Even from all the way over here and with most of her attention already taken up, she could clearly see him. So over the top and flashy was the Victory Demon’s ongoing struggle against the Sister that Zel couldn’t help sneaking a peek.

A half-second later, there came a harpoon that would’ve gone right through her head.