Chapter 26: Spawn Camping

The sound of snarls filled the air. Dozens of figures carried wood and water, fodder and food to an encampment much larger than any of the ones we’d found skulking around in my part of the jungle.

Spotting them had been child’s play. The camp was like a wound when seen from above, a gash in the greenery that exposed the red soil of the northern part of the island. It was within easy walking distance of Silverwall, closer even than the lavatube mines that covered the volcanic plains only an hour farther north.

The reason for that was clear.

“That’s a lot of people,” Electra said.

I nodded. “And not just soldiers or mercenaries.” They had people with the look of miners as well, cutting down trees or tending to cages. “It looks like I’ve finally provoked a real response.”

Electra snorted. “Yeah, you think?”

“Still,” I continued, “the thought of all of these monsters stampeding through my town all at once…” From the corner of my eye, I saw Electra shiver.

“Sounds like something you’d pull,” she said.

“Once or twice.”

I made a quick count of the cages. “It looks like they already have at least forty or fifty smaller monsters, like those strongmaws always lurking around the town.”

“Over a dozen mid-sized ones as well.” Electra shrugged. “Probably big enough to tear down a palisade if they get mad enough. Like, idk, if they were all stuck together in boxes for the past month and a half.”

Of course, neither of us had yet mentioned the elephant in the room.

With a bellowing roar, the walled cage at the center of the camp shook. It was made from wood and stone, maybe fifteen or twenty meters high, and I could still see the tips of the monster’s spines as it tried to tear down the walls of its prison.

“I can’t imagine they’re planning to hold that for long,” I said.

“Well, yeah, but this isn’t really enough is it?” Electra looked up and down the valley. The hill we stood on offered a commanding view of the camp, while still keeping us protected from prying eyes by the lush undergrowth.

I turned back to my spy mirror. The skywhale had found this camp right away, but since then, it had circled over a few more sites that looked similar. “This is just the biggest one.”

“Ah…” Electra glanced over at the mirror. “Well, heck.”

“Look at the bright side.” I flicked the case shut. “It looks like only this camp has a monster big enough to tear down a wall if it really gets going.” I shook my head in disbelief. “Dios Mio, how’d they even manage to catch it and keep it in place?”

Electra shaded her eyes. “I see chains.” A small smile flickered over her features. “Not surprised that you missed them, down there.”

“Haha.” I rolled my eyes. “Even from here I can see that’s the same type of monster that chased me across the river when I went to catch that grove of poisonous hummingbirds. This one’s almost as big, and it looks twice as mad.”

I remembered my impressions from back then, all scales and spikes and angry. It was every child’s picture of the biggest, meanest monster in the jungle, and pretty soon, it would be headed right for the town I’d built and all the people inside of it.

“You’d think it could follow you across a river, if it really wanted to.”

“That would have been tricky,” I said. “Fortunately, Llen told us that they’re mostly just territorial. It stopped chasing the moment we got out of its range.”

“Well…” Electra rubbed her chin. “If it’s just territorial, why don’t we let it defend its territory?”

I blinked, turning to look at her. “Electra, is that…your very first villainous scheme I hear?” She fidgeted, turning away even as a smile spread across my face. “Letting it out in the middle of the enemy’s camp, actually quite a good idea.”

“Stop,” she rubbed the back of her neck, “you’re making me blush!”

I reached up to pat her on the shoulder. “We’ll make a proper villainess out of you yet.”

“Like you wouldn’t have thought of it,” she replied.

“Actually,” I said. “I was thinking something more along the lines of starting a forest fire and stampeding yet more monsters into the camp, sort of a poetic justice thing, if you will.” I smiled. “Sometimes, though, simplest is best. How nice of them to build that enclosure at the edge of the camp for us.”

“I mean, it is pretty loud, isn’t it?” As if on cue, the monster roared again.

“It probably doesn’t smell nice either. Still, that’s our plan of action, now just let me check some contingencies.”

Electra smirked as I swapped the spy mirror for my long-distance communication one. “Want me to give you lovebirds some space?”

“If it means you’ll stop being completely insufferable,” I shot back.

She raised her hands in surrender. “I’ll start scouting a way into the camp.”

“You do that.” I still waited until she was out of earshot to flip the communication mirror open. It was annoying that I had to carry so many, but I just hadn’t had the time to set up a call center—or the manpower, for that matter. After I got back to Lady’s Port, and we had enough mirrors for it to actually matter, however…

I left that train of thought behind as the mirror lightened, showing Rel’s face. “Mistress!”

“Rel.” I felt my lips pull into a soft smile, unbidden, before I schooled my expression. “I wish I had time for a social call, but I need to check in. Did you march some of our men into the jungle this morning like I asked?”

Rel nodded, a pleased smile spreading across her features. “We even found a small group sent to spy on us and took them out.” She leaned a little closer to the mirror. “I made sure to miss the one who was running away with my knives.”

“Excellent.” My answering smile was just as sharp. “They saw who was with you, though?” If Seneschal Hawkwright and the rest of Silverwall thought I was still in Lady’s Port, I’d have to limit the skills I used in our attack.

“Actually, Mistress, we had someone dressed up as you.”

“What?” I blinked. “Who?”

“Oh, I’m sure you know her,” Rel said. “It was my little helper, Elaine. Once we dressed her up as you, no one could tell the difference.”

For a moment my mind stalled, before I remembered the little girl Rel had running errands for her, complete with a copy of Rel’s distinctive hat. A little girl who couldn’t have been more than fourteen years old and ninety pounds soaking wet.

Completely unacceptable.

“Rel.” I fixed my minion and maybe more with my sharpest, sternest glare. “I do not approve of using children in that manner at all. In fact, I am very disappointed in you!”

Rel immediately tried to backpedal. “Mistress, she was completely safe, in fact we had—”

But it was too late.

“No!” I slashed a hand through the air. “This was beyond the pale, Rel.” It took all I was to hold back from stomping my foot like a petulant child. “I’m not that short!”

“—guarding her and.” Rel stopped speaking mid sentence. “What was that?”

I was not pouting. It was a glare, I was very good at glares. “You heard me. I’m not that short! You shouldn’t have to get a child to pretend to be me.”

“She…has a class for it?” Rel said.

That was enough to make me pause. “She does?”

Rel nodded. “It’s called Mini-me, and comes with a variety of disguise options.” She flicked her eyes to the side, lips curling. “Though, when she pretended to be you, it wasn’t very mini at all. So…”

“Relia!” This time I did stomp. “I’ll get you for this.”

Her smile widened. “I look forward to it, My Via.”

I stopped again.

This time, Rel’s panic was even more palpable, as her cheeks went bright red. “Ah, uh, only if such a title is…um, a-a-acceptable for you, My Lady. If not—”

“Rel,” I said.

“Yes, Lady Via.”

“Just…give me a moment.” I took a deep breath. “I won’t lie, my first response was to tell you never to call me that again.” It had been a knee jerk reaction, but after seeing Rel start to wilt, I was glad I’d crushed it. “But we’re trying new things here. Aaaaall about trying new things.” I flashed her a smirk. “Preferably when I’m not about to assault an enemy base in the middle of the jungle. Understand?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Good.” I nodded. “You can try the nickname out again tonight, sound good?”

“Yes, Mistress.”

“Excellent.” I winked at her, feeling a little bubble of giddiness as her blush deepened. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Aren’t you about to assault an enemy camp, Lady Via?” Despite everything we’d just discussed, her voice held more than a little bit of trepidation.

“Ah, Rel.” I shook my head. “You should know by now, this is the last time I would ever say ‘goodbye’.”

At that, she smiled again. “I understand. I’ll…see you tonight, My lady.”

With one last nod, I closed the mirror.

“Man, if I’d have known you were this cute, I would have seduced you to the side of justice ages ago.”

I snapped the mirror behind my back, glaring at Electra. She had the gall to laugh at me.

“You’re not my type,” I said. “And anyway, I clearly would have seduced you to the side of evil, like I’ve done right now.”

“We’re attacking an enemy base to stop their evil plan by releasing a caged monster they keep in a box,” Electra replied. “Every part of that sounds pretty heroic to me.”

I huffed. “The devil, as always, is in the details.”

Electra laughed. “That’s your job, Em, I’m just the muscle.”

“At least we’re all on the same page, El.” I rolled my eyes. “Tell me you found us an approach and you weren’t spotted at least.”

“I’ll do you one better.” She grinned. “They only had one sentry at the north side of camp, and I already knocked him out.” She held up a finger, a silent burst of electricity showering down around her. “I’ve got some cool new skills too! Though, not like, summon six billion demons cool, or anything.”

“Hopefully we won’t need quite that many,” I said. “Still, excellent work. You’d think they would keep a better eye on that thing.”

“It looks like most of their people are watching the south.”

That made me smile. “So my distraction is already bearing fruit? This day just keeps getting better and better. Lead the way.”

With one last nod, Electra and I switched into business mode, quickly working our way down the slope. For those who’ve never been in a battle between supers, there’s just a level of focus, of understanding, that comes with familiar territory. Electra and I had clashed dozens, if not hundreds of times during my reign as the most successful—and glamorous—supervillainess in the Continental United States. We knew each other’s tricks, how we moved, how we struck.

It was almost easy to infiltrate the camp. My own armor made subduing wandering mercenaries practically easy. I grabbed them, Electra knocked them out, and before we knew it, we were already crouching behind a couple of messy tents and lean-tos, only a few meters away from the gate to Mr. Spiney’s enclosure.

Electra and I shared a glance as we got a closer look at the guards in front of the massive steel portcullis. There were four of them, all armed, with an open area in front of the gate itself. No way for us to sneak up on them.

This close, we could also get a closer look at the monster itself, something I hadn’t been able to do thus far.

What struck me was how long and sinewy it looked. The beast had a long, sharp muzzle, like an alligator’s, with wicked serrated teeth poking down over its lower jaw. Big amber eyes with slitted pupils glared at its captors, and spines nearly as long as I was tall (which was, as I’d discussed with Rel, very long) ran the entire length of its spine, to an absolutely wicked-looking thagomizer on its tail.

In case it wasn’t clear, that meant it had even more spikes on its tail to slam people with.

After taking in the scene, Electra jerked her thumb towards the guards. I raised an eyebrow, pointing at the gate. She thought about it for a moment, before nodding.

Well, guess it was my turn then. How nice of Rel to provide me with an alibi of why I was so far from home at exactly this moment.

With a wave of my hand, I summoned a small army of hobblefiends. “Fly my pretties!” I saw the guards turning to look towards me just in time for the first wave of hobblefiends to crash through the tents and jump on top of them.

The guards managed to hold off most of them, just like Delilah had managed, even as the rest of my demons started wreaking havoc in the camp itself. That being said, if our goal was the monster, just my tiny lumpy sacks of anger and teeth wouldn’t be quite enough.

Luckily, as I’d grown in levels and in strength, I’d increased the size of my mana pool and the number of demons I had access to.

Lucky for me, I mean. Not for the guards, as the second wave of hobblefiends, with a few gryphons mixed in, managed to overrun the gate before spreading to cause chaos in the rest of the camp. I’d be a bit more worried about the screams, but once a bandit, always a bandit. The miners and laborers, who’d been confined to the edges of the camp, had already fled into the jungle.

That was one way to deal with a monster attack.

“Free the other monsters!” I commanded them. Meanwhile, Electra and I quickly gained the gate, just in time for a small band of mercenaries, bedraggled and looking for orders, to stumble into a whip of magic lightning that sent them twitching across the ground.

“You know,” she said, “this used to be a lot harder.”

“Sometimes,” I replied, “the hard part is in the preparation. The doing is what’s easy."

“I feel like that explains so much about you.” Putting one hand to the gate, she drew on her actual power, quickly magnetizing the portcullis in a way that would never occur in nature. With a keening whine, the metal spikes buckled, then shattered in an ear-rending screech. With a flick of her wrist and a burst of lightning, she deflected the metal fragments harmlessly.

“And that,” I said, “is why I always hated fighting you.”

Electra grinned at me as I tried to figure out how to undo the chains holding Mr. Spiney down without getting eaten.

Then, Mr. Spiney lunged forward into the hole where the gate had been. Its long neck stretched out into the open, chains groaning and creaking before snapping like twigs, first one at a time and then faster and faster as it gained more room to maneuver its massive bulk and—

“I think we should run now.”

Electra nodded. “Got a ride?”

“Yes.” I reached over, picking her up. “It’s called power armor.”

We made it to the jungle just as Mr. Spiney ripped off the last of the chains and made his displeasure very clear to anyone and everyone who’d decided to stick around.