King Rodriguez and his court had made their decision. Even though several cities would be attacked by the bug-people, they knew that if they lost the capital of their nation, Madrid, it would all be over. It didn’t matter if a few other cities fell, so long as the shining jewel that was the city of Madrid endured.

If Kain had seen where this version of Madrid was in their nation, he might have been confused. This Madrid was not where the one in Spain was, instead being somewhere near where Gibraltar would be. This city was heavily fortified and even without the nation state of emergency in effect it housed a vast amount of men and equipment. Those stationed here had the finest arms and armor, but despite what their outward appearance suggested these troops were not ready for what was to come.

Then again, even if they had experienced numerous battles and had actually participated in conflicts, they would not be anywhere near ready enough to deal with the nightmare-fuel that was going to arrive in a very short while. The Siempre Dorado Kingdom’s military was a bit like that of the People’s Republic of China back on Earth. Sure, it had the forces and equipment to show off, but it was filled to the brim with soldiers and commanders who had never set foot on a battlefield outside of mere simulations.

After roughly 1000 years of peaceful rule, the ‘Forever Golden’ Kingdom’s soldiers were more for show than for actual combat; they had never had to fight for their lives, and thus the situation they were in was entirely foreign. While it was true that their navy was more seasoned, they had only ever fought pirates and smugglers. They were unprepared for the double whammy that was about to take them by surprise. Because, you see, the final battle was not just between the Siempre Dorado Kingdom and the monster-people borne from Alexis’ powers.

The Dracones house and the mortal, air-breathing cultists who worshipped those from Atlanti’lyeh were on their way with ships aplenty to help take control of the Mediterranean Sea. Finally, the Dracones house could cut loose and show the world what a cross between a vampire, a Viking and a knight could do, all while the mad cultists that worshipped Zalga used their ‘gift’ given to them by their goddess to make the battle all the more interesting.

The stage was nearly set, and after two weeks of gathering forces, all the pieces were in place. The time for the ‘Forever Golden’ Kingdom to be destroyed had arrived.

…

It was night and the air was unseasonably chilly, and the civilians huddled together near their hearths to keep warm. This was the day when the monsters would arrive, but the men and women in the capital were unconcerned. How could any foe managed to destroy or scale the walls and enter into their fair city? No navy could assault the harbor and live to tell the tale, and even if the monsters did manage to get inside, they would be cut down to the last by the brave soldiers that had gathered here.

They had been instructed to stay indoors and bar anyone and anything from entry. However, in their eyes this was all much ado about nothing. At worst there would be a siege, maybe an attempt at a blockade and maybe there would be a few monsters that got on top of the walls, but nothing bad besides that would happen.

Then the bells began to ring and a horrible and mind-shattering crazed mix of an insect’s chittering and a woman’s scream caused all inside the city to second guess their own defenses. And right they were to do so, for the Swarm had arrived. Those on the wall nearest to where the cry came from rushed to make ready…

And promptly ran like scared little children at the sight of the Swarm Queen. In just a few moments, an entire section of the wall had been abandoned without a single blow being struck. The colossal monstrosity pulled itself towards the wall on its innumerable insectoid legs as its bloated and glowing red abdomen dragged across the ground. The Swarm Queen raised one of its massive claws to the air and brought it down on the wall, the force of the impact sending cracks through the entire area near the impact site.

While masonry, metal nails and wood went flying with that single strike, the wall still stood. This was a testament to the master masons who had designed and constructed it, but it was not going to be enough. The insect-woman monster raised one of its other limbs and brought it down onto roughly the same area. The wall buckled but did not break despite the cracks growing in number and looking like the branches of a bush. The monster howled in fury and, rather than striking with its massive claws again, simply dragged itself forward and began to attempt to scale the wall.

That, not the two talon-edged smacks, was the blow needed to crack open the wall. The hairline-fracture filled wall could not endure the colossal weight of the Swarm Queen and crumbled to bits as the massive beast pushed all of its form against it. With the wall now out of the way, the Swarm Queen moved on like a miniature mountain of death into the city itself. Houses were crushed as it dragged itself along, either flattened by its mass or shredded by the movement of its countless appendages. Behind the monster, the Swarm proper surged forwards, clambering over the rubble and using its inhuman forms to enter houses and feast on the blood and flesh within.

The Swarm Queen reached the halfway point between the inner and outer walls and shrieked in an inhuman voice. The chitin on the back of its abdomen lifted up, and swarms of fist-sized mosquitoes and ticks emerged to collect blood for their mistress to feast upon. Realizing that the outer city was lost, the smart people began to flee to the inner city, hoping to escape to the far more heavily fortified space behind the inner wall.

No such luck was theirs, as the drawbridges that led to that safe-space were already raised and the moat surrounding the ‘Noble/ Royal Quarter’ was flowing too quickly for any to cross. That marvel of magical engineering that was the moat would drag down any who sought to cross on boat or raft, let alone if someone was swimming. With no other option, the civilians fled to the docks where they hoped to commandeer a ship of their own to escape the hell that was reigning within their section. Those who arrived first saw, to their horror, that the navy had already requisitioned every ship, big and small, and had gone out to sea to face a foe that lurked in the fog on this dark and cold night.

As the civilians stood in stunned horror and silence, they could hear the sounds of the rampaging monsters growing ever closer, as was the drone of tens of thousands of giant parasitic bugs that reaped their bloody harvest for their Queen. The civilians realized now that the illusion that their capital city was unassailable was just that, an illusion. Roughly a thousand years of peace did not mean that there was no threat that could destroy their city, it just meant that there had not been a threat capable of such a thing until now.

“You should refuse to die without a fight. Do you all wish to go to Lumina as cowards who tried to run from oblivion rather than face it and triumph over impossible odds?”

A lone voice was heard like a warrior saint’s call to arms.

“Yeah! They are just monsters! We can deal with them!”

“Fight! Fight for our right to live!”

“For the Goddess! For the Light!”

All it took for the mix of soldiers and civilians that had fled the onslaught to galvanize for their potentially last fight ever were the words of an unknown woman. No one saw the face or form of this woman, but her angelic voice called out to them and drove them into a frenzy.

“Take up your blades, take up your tools, take up anything you can and rush headlong into the face of death. Let the world see what the people of the Siempre Dorado Kingdom really are!”

“Yes! Yes! Death to the enemy!”

“Take up anything you can use! If the King won’t help us, then we will help ourselves!”

“To victory! Viva la Diosa!”

The civilians, now overcome with fervor, made an about face and ran back towards the carnage. Alexis, meanwhile, watched the people fall for her trick with a malicious sense of twisted joy.

“Too easy. Now they all will die.” she said with a smirk before flying off into the night. She had a king to deal with, among other things. Still, there were far fewer knights inside the Noble/ Royal Quarter than she expected. It was almost as if the king had realized how outmatched he was and had…

“FUCKING KAIN DAMNIT!” Alexis howled as she realized that she had been outmaneuvered. Turning around and rocketing off towards the naval battle that raged in the fog, she hoped that she could find that rat bastard in time and claim her total, final victory over the ruined Kingdom. She would teach that coward of a king a lesson in how a monarch should behave in the face of oblivion.

She would drill into that man’s head what the members of the Dracones house were always so very fond of saying, “A Captain always goes down with his ship! Refusal to do so is the height of cowardice! You got your ship into this mess, so you have a duty to see it through to the end, no matter what that end may be!” Only then would he be allowed to die, and he would die on her terms.