The Vespidian

Arc 12

Villainy 101

Chapter 14

I hit the ground with a resounding thud. The crack had not been my carapace but rather the concrete breaking from the impact. Stunned for a moment, I staggered up, lashing out at the fleeting image of Mantia as it melded back into the background. By the time my eyes had refocused, she was gone again, along with my wings. My right hand was missing as well from earlier when she had severed it from pointing at her. The syrupy yellow blood slowed to a stop as my wounds sealed shut, already starting to regrow my missing pieces.

I smelled and peered all about, trying to sense where she had gone. That flowery smell was everywhere, masking her trail from my feelings. Seeing her, well, that was easier said than done. Though where she was could be detected by the slight blur of air, picking up on exactly where was far more complex. The pitter-patter of her tiny claws circled about before pain lashed through my left leg. It slid, and I tilted over like a building getting demolished. My hands slapped down, holding it in place as the tendons and muscles snapped back, reattaching to one another.

"Ara? It seems your regeneration is stronger than I was led to believe. Then again, you are taller, darker, and a lot more wonderful than the reports told me. Let's do some limit testing, shall we?" laughed the crazed mantid woman.

"Who told you about me?" I asked, looking for where that voice had come from.

"Chimera knows much of you. However, her Majesty knows much more about you than you know of yourself."

"What sorts of things does she know?"

The voice crawled up my spine, "Why, everything. What you are. Who you are. Where you came from. How you were made. And of course why you exist."

I shivered, slapping my neck as though to squish the bug scuttling. The dull pain overrode the bristling tension. I replied skeptically, "Where is she?"

"Ara, little one got me distracted. It has been a long while since my target got me to monologue. Too bad for you. You can only meet her if you come with me."

Seeing that she was coming in for a hit, I grasped a tree, yanking it from the ground, and swung it hard in her direction. Nothing but air. A definite miss. I was panicking now. The tree spun full circle around, lashing out in all directions as I attempted to figure out where she was going to come from.

The blur came from above, striking down, and the tree easily chopped in half, the freed half soaring away from my grasp, destroying a car across the street from the park. The following fireball illuminated the trees in long shadows, dying the pink flowers red and orange with the flickering flames. This was, as it turned out, a rather beneficial thing for me. Mantia's shadow swiftly darted between the trees.

I threw the stump at her, demolishing a tree but not hitting the slippery bug. The scattering petals lit up, smoldering through the air. She was fast but compared to Glitter Kitten's breakneck speed; I was getting the hang of her pace. However, gauging the exact distance proved to be an issue due to her camouflage messing with my depth perception.

She was coming from the right- no left. My arm lashed down, smashing the pavement, missing her marginally. Damn, I thought she was closer. I squinted at the blurred air and the long shadow extending from it. Her scythed arms slashed, severing the left arm. Pain throbbed mildly, dulled by my desensitized pain index. I pulled away, leaving the arm where it fell to better defend myself.

She darted, retreating out of my range. This was going to be an issue. My senses were failing me despite being superhuman. If sight and smell were useless, then I would need to use other senses. I closed my eyes, listening. Sure enough, I could hear the scrabbles of her claws stalking to my side. I stepped, circling the open area keeping her at a distance, edging my way over to where Mantia had removed my arm. My clawed toe hit against the carapace, and I bent slightly to lift it up with my smaller arms. Mantia was not content to let me rearm, rushing towards me.

My smaller hands grasped the arm, and I sent a handless right hook at the space above where her claws touched the pavement. I missed. My eyes snapped open, finding Mantia lower than I had thought; scuttling on all six of her limbs, she leaped like a jungle cat pouncing past where I was. The hardened claws scraped at my side, gouging through the thick plates of my exoskeleton. Yellow pouring out from the deep cut. She had changed her trajectory, missing the majority of her blade-like arms. If she had not veered off course, that would have cut me in half.

She landed already scurrying about her kimono waving loosely around her, no longer held in place by the secondary arms that aided in her locomotion. It waved and weaved through the air, and she blurred again, vanishing. So it was the kimono then that made her invisible? Or rather distorted the light around her causing an optical illusion.

My small arms lifted the left arm up to the socket that it had been sheared from. Pressing it lightly, the muscles reattached, holding it in place. I froze as I heard the tell-tale scrabbling of the mantis coming in for another attack. My muscles bristled as I waited until she was close enough, and I swung both arms like a hammer. The full force slapped against something. After a moment, all feeling vanished in my left arm again.

The flop of my arm disconnecting again wetly hit the ground. Not again. She was toying with me. A brute force type like me was not suitable against speed and or illusion types since I can't very well hit them easily. Though I get the feeling, one good hit would take her out. With any luck, she will run out of stamina before my body gives out.

Not having a plan is not good. Maybe I could surprise her? Anything was better than just sitting here like a punching bag. If I could reach farther, then perhaps I could smack her, catch her off guard. But how. Now that, that was the real question.

I glanced down, seeing the lobbed-off arm and a cog turned in my head. I had never really tried that sort of thing before, but fuck it. Sometimes you don't need a hand, but an arm.

I heard her coming in and slumped over, hiding the arm as I pressed my stump of a right hand into the severed shoulder of the left arm on the ground. The flesh melding and tendons and muscles were lashing out like tentacles as they forcefully attached to the arm. There was a strange sensation as the muscles connected. It was off. Reversed, but it would do.

I Spun around to face down my attacker. The fused arms slapped out as one reaching out double the regular length. She was surprised by the sudden increase in my attack range. With a powerful backhand, I swatted Mantia like the bug she was sending her smashing through an apartment building.

I struck her so hard the crudely joined limbs broke apart. I panted, lifting it up a final time and setting it back to the correct shoulder. It felt right. Much better than the twisted inversion. I shook my head; getting out any odd thoughts, I focused on the matter at hand. I swiftly pursued bounding over parked cars to capture the mantid. A sting would render her helpless, and I had many questions that needed answering.

Slamming through the wall of the ruined apartment building, I found her curled up, well uncurling. She must have balled up to protect herself. I moved in to finish the job my stinger sliding out as I grasped her. Just as my abdomen started to move, I felt- Danger—a very unsettling feeling. Eyes were watching me. I could see the glint and feel the saliva dribbling down onto me from above.

My reflexes kicked in before my mind even registered what had happened. My arms and legs thrust, throwing my mass backward out into the open, away from the fanged maw that snapped shut where I had been.

The building rumbled, and the wall cracked, revealing a long segmented body that emerged from below the pavement. Insect legs with three-fingered hands were attached to each of the armored segments. Slowly, methodically the form emerged from the dust of the destroyed building.

My carapace crawled, watching all of those legs moving in unison, the fingers flexing and balling at the massive creature reared up. The underbelly faced me, and below the insect head, a humanoid stuck out. Like a tumor, a growth from the chitin. There was a torso, head, and arms halfway emerged from the underbelly of the centipede.

Two sets of antennae emerged, waving in the glow of the burning park—one from the six-eyed face of the humanoid and the other from the massive insect head above.

I knew what this thing was simply by the process of elimination. It must be Centi. It blinked at me, slowly lazily. I could see it looking between the downed mantis and me. One of the many hands reached out, helping the wobbly Mantia up. Ah, shit, now I gotta fight two at once?

"My, my~ you are stronger than you look nee-chan." Said Mantia already recovering from the blow, "Perhaps I should get serious?" Her antennae perked, shifting, pointing up; she mumbled to herself, "Are you sure? I see, but what if I just- a little- yes, yes. As you wish, your Majesty."

Mantia pointed at me, "Still not ready yet. Come Centi, this fruit still needs to ripen. Before the harvest."

"Fruit? What are you weirdo's talking about?"

"Don't worry little one. Get stronger before we meet again or else I might just take you for myself."

I tapped my lip, "I feel like I should be concerned about that statement."

Centi stared at me, antennae waving in my direction. As it turned out, Centi was not looking for a fight. Quizzically it looked me up and down with the many, many eyes upon its body. The legs moved as one in an unsettlingly synchronized motion. Centi burrowed down into the street, leaving a massive hole.

"Don't die, little one. We have high expectations." Smiled Mantia as she vanished into the hole that Centi had made.

I let out a sigh of relief that it did not want to tussle as well. If Centi had been here the whole time, I wonder why they didn't double-team me, give me the old Grand Slam wombo combo on the pain train. It would have been easy, too I get the feeling Centi is about as strong as I am, so it could have held me down and let Mantia wail on me. I guess Mantia was just testing me. Well, of course, she was. If she had been serious, my head would have been severed first. At any rate, I wasn't sticking around to find out. I picked up the hand left on the ground and quickly scaled up the nearest building.

As I arrived at the roof I found a Neon Nurse waiting for me, well not just one; there were ten here, all of them were armed and had set up a sniping position. Looking back down, I could see the hole clearly from this vantage point.

"Was the air fresh?" Asked the Xava before me with crossed arms.

I replied, "I think I have had enough fresh air for a while."

Xava scanned me up and down, patting at the claw marks in my carapace, "It is a good thing Mantia is cocky, and Centi is very shy or else things would have escalated very quickly there."

"It is shy?" I asked, a little bewildered.

"Yes, Centi is known for ambushing her prey. She doesn't like extended fights."

"I see," I rubbed my chin.

"So, care to tell me what that was all about?" Xava eyed me.

I tapped my fingers together, "Well, remember when we first ran into Mantia? She said some disturbing things to me, so I wanted answers."

"And did you get any answers?"

I shook my head, "Only more questions and a headache. Have you ever head of a Her Majesty?"

Xava's eyes flashed for a moment as she processed my request, "In what context?"

"Spore Spawn? I don't know from the sounds of it even the bugs are following her. And she wants something from me."

"That is concerning. No more unsupervised outings until this hero business have been sorted out."

I nodded reluctantly.

"Don't go running off alone again. You are lucky I followed you. Who knows what would have happened if those two had been seriously attacking you."

"You are right. Hey, at least I didn't follow the strange bug lady with candy."

Xava nodded, patting my antennae, "True. You did not follow this time."

"This time? When have I ever fallen for the candy?" I Crossed my arms, puffing up as I looked away from her.

"Vesper, how many times has food manipulated you?"

"I can't help it. I have hypermetabolism. I mean fuck, I could probably eat a school bus of meat at this point in one sitting. That is like 50 meat bicycles."

"My point still stands."

"Ok, ok, I won't go out without you anymore."

"Good. Now let's go home, love."

I stared down at the hole in the ground, "If they are not here for me, then what the hell are they after?"

"Now that Vesper, that is a good question. Hopefully, we will find the answer before they become a problem."