Maxine woke up on a luxuriously comfortable bed and felt a weight laying down beside her and lazily opened her eyes. She almost recoiled at seeing Kerrigan so close to her and noticed something that was rather alarming. A insect abdomen was sticking out of Kerrigan's lower back, but quickly calmed down when she noticed several of Kerrigan's drones were soundlessly collecting orbs the size of chicken eggs off of the floor. There had to be a least a thousand of them on the ground.
"I'll be done in a few more moments, mother," Kerrigan said and added in an embarressed tone, "Please stop looking. It's embarressing for me to have you watch me lay eggs." Maxine got out of the bed and averted her gaze. She saw Shemna sleeping peacefully on the floor beside the bed. Although she did notice a small puncture wound on her thigh.
"Sorry, I didn't know that made you uncomfortable," Maxine said apologetically, "Um, how often do you lay eggs?"
"Once a day," Kerrigan replied, "It's to replenish any lost drones and to expand my hive. But I don't expand beyond the limits of the enviroment's capability to support."
"Yeah, it wouldn't be wise to destroy your food source," Maxine said as she nodded her head in agreement, "So, did you finish analyzing Shemna's blood?"
"Yes, I have. I think I can take a more human appearance with a little work, but my eyes won't change," Kerrigan answered.
"I have the same problem," Maxine responded, "It doesn't matter what transformation I've adopted. My eyes always remain the same."
"That's interesting," Kerrigan said and paused for a moment before saying, "Alright, I'm done. You can look now." Maxine turned around and literately saw Kerrigan's insectiod abdomen shrink back into her body. Now that's an interesting trick. It's almost on the level of Silky's body changing technique.
"How did you learn that trick?" Maxine asked.
"Silky helped me develope it. The few humans I interacted with always seemed far more nervous around me before I learned it," Kerrigan explained as she sat up on the bed, "It's almost like they thought I would sting them. Which is ridiculous. How would I get new insect specimens from around the globe if I harmed them?"
"I know it seems odd to you, but you need to remember that human writers made quite a few stories about vicious giant insects," Maxine explained, "And humans have an innate disgust and fear of insects."
"I know, mother," Kerrigan replied, "At least, Jack said I was beautiful." He did what?! Doesn't that perverted asshole already have the arachne twins?! No, wait. Maybe his intentions are harmless. Yeah, he just said that to make her feel better about herself. That makes way more sense. If that isn't the case, I need to beat the shit out of him.
"That's sweet of him," Maxine said.
"Yes, he is very kind," Kerrigan agreed, "But he's far too ugly for my tastes. I've seen dung beetles more appealing than he is." Maxine struggled to keep a grin off of her face at that comment.
"Yeah, I agree, but please don't tell him that. I think he, more than anyone else, is aware of just how ugly he is," Maxine agreed and sighed as she got a signal from her shadow wolves. The four-horned kanzils were mobilizing their warriors into formations.
Kerrigan turned her head slightly and Maxine could've sworn she looked annoyed. "The four-horned kanzils are moving, mother."
"I noticed. I've got a few constructs keeping an eye on them," Maxine said, "After the battle, I'll come back and see you again. Is it alright if I come back to this room through a portal?"
"Yes, feel free," Kerrigan said happily and as Maxine created a portal to the city, Kerrigan added, "Be careful, mother. Both me and Silky would be heartbroken if we became orphans."
"I know and I don't intend to die any time soon. I still need to give you two some younger siblings," Maxine said with a wink and placed Shemna over her shoulder before leaping into her portal to the city.
Once through the portal, Maxine looked around and immediately saw Sandra. Before Maxine could even take three steps towards her, she heard someone yelling just to her right, "You traitor!"
Maxine turned her head to see Aziel charging at her with a ridiculously long sword and a vicious smile on his face. It had to be at least twelve feet long. However she became quickly alarmed at how quickly he was swinging his weapon.
She hastily jumped high into the air. She watched as the weight of Aziel's weapon caused him to loose his balance. He slamed face first into the ground, but he didn't immediately get back on his feet. He groaned in pain as he craddled his nose while rocking back and forth on his back with his sword beside him. She had never seen someone so poorly suited for the battlefield.
In that instant, Maxine realized something. He's probably never killed anyone before, or even been in a real fight. I doubt he's been in anything more challenging than a sparring match. None of them have. They are going to get slaughtered by the four-horned kanzils simply because they won't be as vicious as they need to be. What the hell are they teaching them at Seton Academy? This is no different than throwing a child into a deep end of a pool to teach them how to swim.
"I was never your real ally to begin with," Maxine said to Aziel, "I always do what's best for me, but regardless, this young woman is my prisoner. I just brought her here for your elder to question out of respect. Not to be called something I'm not."
"I appreciate the thought, but it's not necessary. We discovered long ago that four-horned kanzils rarely ever break under any kind of interrogation, even soul searching isn't effective against them," Elder Miyan said, "These fiends have strange souls that allow them to attack even when they are apparently helpless." Yeah, I found out that the hard way.
"I'm aware, but this one has a severe phobia of humaniod insects," Maxine said, "She was rendered to a weeping mess as soon as my daughter made an appearance. The poor thing passed out before I could begin to question her."
"Wait, did you just say she?" Elder Miyan asked as she quickly approached Maxine.
"Yes, I did," Maxine said cautiously, "Why?"
"Four-horned kanzils don't bring their females into battle unless they possess immense strength," Elder Miyan said and Maxine sensed her probe Shemna with her spiritual sense, "This one is essentially a weak child by their standards. Will you leave her with me?"
"I rather leave her with Sandra. This girl has already shown that she doesn't want to stay with her race indirectly," Maxine stated, "She did several things to make it seem like she was a male, undoubtedly, to avoid getting raped."
"Are you sure?" Elder Miyan asked excitedly.
"Yes," Maxine said firmly and saw that Aziel was still craddling his nose. An indescribably fury assaulted her. That's inexcuseable. Even if he's unsuited for battle, he should've, at least, gotten back on his feet long by now with his sword in hand. He's asking to die with an attitude like that. Time for some correctional discipline.
Maxine handed Shemna to Sandra before walking over to Aziel and kicked him in the gut hard. "If you're going to sneak attack someone, don't roll around on the ground after taking only a small injury. Either run or fight! There is no middle ground. I only spared you because you're still an idiotic child," Maxine roared at him as he flew through the air, "Do you honestly think that those bastards beyond the city walls will give you the same curtesy?! Ugh, you're not even worth the effort."
When Maxine turned around, she saw Elder Miyan giving her a glare, but otherwise did nothing. "He will have difficulty fighting later because yo wounded him," Elder Miyan remarked without a noticable change in her tone.
"Perhaps the pain will make him remember to hold onto his weapon and always keep his eyes on his opponent," Maxine said coldly.
"Perhaps it will, but he is a stubborn one," Elder Miyan said neutrally, "He is very likely to get killed in his first engagement with the enemy. It is why I was hired to watch over him. I've regretted it ever since meeting that brat."
"I could just kill him to get him out of your hair," Maxine said calmly.
"No matter how much I would like that, I'm afraid that's not an option. His family contacted me quite recently and found out about his recent actions and mine. They will put a bounty on my head if he dies while in my care," Elder Miyan said bitterly, "And yours."
"They're idiots if they think I'm easy to threaten," Maxine said coldly and retrieved a sinister looking purple, green and brown potion from her dimensional ring. The three colors within it were constantly swirling amongst each other, but never truely mixing.
Elder Miyan quickly retreated several steps. "You .... Is that a poison?" Elder Miyan asked with a hint of fear in her tone.
"Yes, and a nasty one at that," Maxine lied shamelessly, "It's quite effective on anyone below immortal stage as far as I'm aware. It's not like I've been able to test it on one. Do you mind?" Yeah, it will give anyone who drinks it violent bouts of diahrea, but she doesn't need to know that. Heh, the bonus of having a 'master' of poisons is that you can threaten them with a weak poison like this and they will believe it. I wonder how she would react if she found out this was actually a failed healing potion geared for those with serpentine bloodlines?
"No, thank you," Elder Miyan said quickly, "Please, put it away." Maxine did as she was asked and she turned towards the four-horned kanzils as they assembled.
"How much longer do you think we have before they begin their attack?" Maxine asked.
"No more than ten minutes," Elder Miyan said calmly, "And don't bother telling the students. They already know."
Maxine looked back to Sandra and saw that she had laid Shemna down on a formation circle. The formation circle was ten feet across and seemed to form a dome-like barrier around Shemna. Interesting. I wouldn't mind learning a few things about formation arrays, but I'm already swamped with martial training, cultivation and alchemy practice. There's just never enough time for everything.
"I need to be beside my 'future husband's' side for this battle," Sandra complained, "My parents suggested I spend as much time with him as possible on the battlefield, so that we could bond." More like ordered you to. However before Sandra turned to fly away, Maxine saw a strange glint in her eye. She's up to something. I wish I knew what it was. Could she be planning to fake her death? It wouldn't be that hard on a battlefield.
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Maxine shrugged her shoulders since it wasn't her problem anymore and looked for Cassandra. She found her on the city walls and quickly flew over to her. As soon as Maxine landed, Cassandra looked over her shoulder at Maxine briefly before returning her gaze back to the four-horned kanzils, but otherwise said nothing.
Maxine noticed the female leader of the four-horned kanzils looked aggitated and kept glancing in the direction of Kerrigan's hive. Maxine turned her head to the same direction and smiled. There were thousands of tiny dots in the air. Each one of them was an aerial insectiod warrior and there were thousands more traversing the ground. Yeah, I don't blame her for being worried about that. Hell, if Kerrigan wasn't my adopted daughter, I would be terrified of such an army myself.
"My daughter's warriors have arrived," Maxine commented.
"I noticed," Cassandra said plainly, "Their leader looks pissed." Maxine quickly looked at the female leader of the four-horned kanzils to confirm what Cassandra said and she noticed the female leader of the four-horned kanzils was looking directly at her. Why do I feel like she wants to kill me?
Maxine heard her roar something just before every last four-horned kanzil charged forward. "Oh, shit," Maxine said as she flew up to join the defensive formation and transformed into her battleform while retrieving her blades from her dimensional ring. She saw several gold stage draconic warriors fly up beside her, but none of the gold stage students had moved yet. What is wrong with them?! They had literately only a few seconds to get their asses up here! In any case, the four-horned kanzils were practically within striking distance and she had no time to yell at them to move.
The first gold stage four-horned kanzil to attack her wore gauntlets and unleashed a barrage of punches even before he got into range. Maxine slashed out with her blade intent on beheading him, but he punched her blade up before it could reach his neck. I don't have time for this. She immediately turned her head towards him as she opened her mouth and unleashed her acid spray attack at his face.
He raised his uppermost left arm to block it, but some still got on his face anyways. He screamed in agony as his face started to melt while he desperately tried to claw her acid off of his face. With a swift slash, she cut off his arms and head to put him out of his misery.
Before she could even take in a breath, another four-horned kanzil wielding four swords came at her from above with both of his right arms slashing down their swords. Maxine couldn't possibly dodge it so she slashed out her left blade to clash with his swords. The resulting impact caused Maxine to fly backwards a few feet. She fully expected to see some damage to her blade from that clash, but strangely, neither of their weapons was damaged.
Her opponent attacked again with apparent confidence since his attack seemed to track her no matter how she moved, so Maxine was forced to slash out herself to counter him. This is the dumbest way to fight, but I can't dodge it. Since that's the case, I will cut through them! She increased the force of her attack and for a split second before their weapons were about to clash, she saw blade energy coat her weapon. She was surprised, but even more so when her blade cut through his swords before slicing open his neck.
She wanted to understand how it happened, but she didn't have the opportunity. Because she saw one of two four-horned kanzils disengage from a draconic warrior to her right and charge straight at her. They are keeping me occupied, so they can finish off the draconic warriors! I need to take them out faster to lighten the load on them.
She took a moment to check on everyone else and saw that Sandra was feeding a lightly wounded Aziel a potion. I thought she hated him. Wait a second. Is that the gender inversion potion she's giving him? Oh, god. She wouldn't! Unfortunately, Maxine couldn't see what Sandra did since the charging four-horned kanzil arrived to fight her. I will find out if she did it or not later. Still, that's the kind of thing you reserve for those you absolutely hate.
Twenty minutes later, Maxine was panting as she killed another gold stage four-horned kanzil. How many does that make? Twelve or thirteen? God, that last one took forever. It was almost as if he could read my mind and avoided almost every attack I made. He had to have been through way more combat than I have. Still, I have about half my strength left. As long as the rest of my opponents are inferior to him, I should be fine.
She didn't have time to catch her breath as she suddenly felt a deathly chill run up her spin and immediately flew backwards rapidly just before a huge warhammer passed through the space she was just in. She felt afraid when she saw that the head of the warhammer was easily bigger than a barrel. She looked at her opponent and it took her a moment ot realize it was the female leader of the four-horned kanzils due to her being covered in heavy armor. And she was using all four of her arms to wield the massive warhammer that almost killed her.
"I will kill you!" the female four-horned kanzil leader roared with fury as she swung her weapon at Maxine violently. Maxine had no choice but to dodge it. She knew she would probably die if she got hit.
The massive warhammer grazed one of the other four-horned kanzils in the back of the head causing it's head to explode. Holy shit! That's some serious destructive force she's packing and what's worse is she's fast. I need to come up with something before I get too tired to dodge it. Unfortunately, each swing of that warhammer prevented Maxine from closing the distance without getting hit by the spike on the back end of the warhammer's head. My draconic essence armor won't help. It boosts my strength and flying speed, but not enough to make it so I can hit her before she hits me. Spatial energy might help, but she has clad her whole weapon and body in her energies. She has it thick enough that I don't think I have enough strength to cut through it. I don't see her giving me time pull off any of my trump cards. And it doesn't help that she's not revealing any blind spots in her defense. I should run from her, but I can't. There are not any shadows nearby and she doesn't look like she's going to let me make one.
Maxine kept desperately dodging the vicious assault of the female four-horned kanzil and finally noticed the warhammer was completely made of metal. She flew backwards suddenly and extended her right blade forward before unleashing a bolt of lightning through the tip of her blade into the warhammer. By doing this, her attack bypassed the female four-horned kanzil's defense. Her attack stunned the female four-horned kanzil and Maxine charged in to attack before her opponent could recover. Gotcha!
However before Maxine could strike, she saw a greyish blurr to her left before something hit her on the left side of her face and was thrown back a short distance before she was able to halt mid-air herself. Maxine looked up and saw the female four-horned kanzil shaking her upper right hand a couple times before grabbing back onto the massive warhammer. Shit, she has me beat in the experience department too. At mid range, she fends me off with the warhammer and if I manage to get close, she uses hand to hand to push me back. I can only hope she isn't very good at defending against long range attacks. Otherwise I'm completely screwed.
Maxine retreated as she returned her twighlight iron blades back to her dimensional ring and spread her arms out to either side of her while the female four-horned kanzil was in pursuit. With a thought, Maxine created hundreds of energy darts all around her and unleashed them at the female four-horned kanzil.
Maxine couldn't believe her eyes when her energy darts bounced harmlessly off of the female four-horned kanzil's armor, even when it hit the openings for her eyes, but she still had one more move to play. She redirected them into the joints of the female four-horned kanzil's amor and detonated them. Please, tell me that worked.
Unfortunately, the explosion did no damage to the female four-horned kanzil and to make matters worse, Maxine saw too late that the female four-horned kanzil used a burst of speed to close the distance as she swinged her weapon. Maxine couldn't see her self dodge it in time. Fine! Let's share the pain!
Maxine instantly coated herself in electrical arcs thicker than a broom stick and did her best to shield herself just before the warhammer slammed into her left arm. Additionally, she borrowed the force of the strike to hurl herself away from the female four-horned kanzil to both escape and minimize her injuries. She still ended up getting her left arm broken in several spots and her ribs on her left side hurt horribly.
She noticed within moments that she would impact the ground at her current angle and tried to keep herself aloft. But she was carrying too much momentum and moments later she deflected off of the ground like a skipping stone for several miles before ended up in the forest. Unfortunately, her impact with the ground knocked most of the trees away from her.
She immediately knew something was terribly wrong with her body once she finally stopped ploughing through the forest. Her ribs on the left side of her chest had caved in and it was getting difficult for her to breathe. Fuck! I'm out of this fight. I just hope that bitch believes that attack killed me. Anyone else would've died from that attack. Unfortunately, Maxine's luck wasn't that good.
The female four-horned kanzil was approaching her fast and Maxine wasn't able to drag herself into a shadow to shadow step away in time. Damn it. I never dreamed she would be this powerful as a gold stage rank 9. It's almost as if she is somewhere between that and immortal stage. Now, I've got no choice, but to play dead. And hope she falls for it.
Maxine quickly withdrew her energies within herself as if to make it appear as if she were dying. It helped that she didn't have to fake bloody foam coming out of her mouth with each breath due to a punctured lung. However she had no fear of dying from her wounds. Her hydra bloodline's regenerative powers would ensure that she lived regardless of her wounds as long as her head and heart were intact.
The female four-horned kanzil landed heavily a few feet away. "Did you think I wouldn't know what you did? Or do you think I'm stupid?" the female four horned kanzil asked angrily, but Maxine could only look at her in confusion, "Don't act dumb. You killed my daughter, or your pet hive did. Either way, it's your fault that I will never see my baby girl again and now I'm going to enjoy slowly killing you." So, that's why she's on the war path. She thinks I killed Shemna. Time to clear up that misunderstanding.
"Shemna isn't dead," Maxine said very weakly, "Captured."
"What?!" the female four-horned kanzil said in disbelief and picked up Maxine with her upper left arm to bring Maxine to her eye level before roaring, "Where is my baby!?" Maxine moved her gaze from the female four-horned kanzil to the city. She could feel the female four-horned kanzil spreading out her spiritual sense towards the city.
"My baby's alive," the female four-horned kanzil said in relief, but her stance became one of aggitation, "If this continues, they may kill her out of spite and I need to bargain with them for her safe return before that happens. I will need to exchange prisoners to get her back." Before things could go further, dozens of insects the size of buffalos attacked the female four-horned kanzil. One of them snatch Maxine out of her hand and covered her in a silken cocoon as it raced away. Dozens more appeared in the air around the giant insect that saved her with cocoons of their own as they split off in multiple directions. Oddly just as the cocoon finished forming, she couldn't see much of anything with her spiritual sense outside of it. However she knew it wouldn't take the female four-horned kanzil long to find her.
[Please don't die,] Kerrigan begged Maxine in near panic via spiritual sense, [Just try to hold on.]
[I'm not going to die so listen to me very closely. I don't have the strength to create a portal to your hive. I only have enough to transport myself a mile directly east of your hive. Find me and try to locate some purple fruit that look like this,] Maxine said as she sent a mental image of a purple snake fruit to Kerrigan, [And feed it to me in whatever way you can. It will help me heal faster.] I wish I had thought to grab more of those, but I only have seeds left in my dimensional ring. And it sucks that shadow step has a limited range.
[I will, mother. I promise,] Kerrigan replied with fear and worry in her tone.
[Don't worry. I'll be fine even if you can't find them. It'll just take longer for me to heal,] Maxine soothed her as she reverted to her shadow queen form and shadow stepped to the forest to the east of Kerrigan's hive. She only waited for a few seconds before she heard the buzzing of wings and for a gentle pair of chitinous hands to pick her up off of the ground. A part of her mind finally relaxed. She had been worried that Kerrigan had been putting up an act to lull her into a false sense of security, but that fear had vanished due to Kerrigan's gentle care.
"Drink this, mother," Kerrigan said gently and Maxine detected the familiar scent of a purple snake fruit. She opened her mouth and began drinking it. Maxine's eyes jerked open at the amazing taste as she drank it greedily and she could feel her ribs slowly shift back into their proper place. And it quickly became easier to breathe. She must've mixed essence honey with it. There is no other reason for it to be this effective. Smart. Unfortunately the mixture did little for her left arm other than stop her bleeding. Still, it was better than nothing, but after the short burst of healing, she felt incredibly tired as sleep threatened to claim her. It drained what little strength she had left.
"I'll take care of you, mother, and I'm glad that the others were wrong about you," Kerrigan said lovingly as she carried Maxine to her hive, "Now sleep. I will have more of that mixture when you awaken." Others? Who is she talking about? Unfortunately, Maxine couldn't contemplate on that any further as sleep forcibly claimed her.