Snow whipped from the open granite doors as the Winter Queen strode into the chamber. Instantly, Zoe recognized the feeling of the chill creeping over her. This aura, this sense of fear, the dark and probing presence as frost formed on her skin. How could she forget this feeling?
This mantis froze the plane on the first day of the apocalypse. It gazed down at her with insectile eyes. Pale blue light played beneath subtly translucent chitin. Her cruel scythes remained folded in prayer as she stepped out of the snow. Each long claw was almost twice the height of a human, the sharp barbs glinting like moonlit icicles, and a visible wind eddying around them as the very air severed itself on the blades. The inhuman stare landed on Zoe like a physical blow. Her legs tensed to shoulder the weight.
There was no doubt in her mind that if she fled the plane on that first day — if she braved the forest rather than the dungeon — then this creature would have killed her. Plucked and eaten like so many others doomed to be on this island.
The Winter Queen studied them all. Her head almost brushed the shadowy ceiling, easily standing two stories tall, but the mantis beside her was the opposite. The Winter Queen was the epitome of Winter — clearly over level 50 — but the creature beside her burned like a hearth. It stood only 9 feet tall. Red chitin glinting with the white-orange glow of healthy coals. Where the Winter Queen strode, this red Mantis swaggered. Heat roiled from its four feet as they stepped and sizzled the snow. Zoe felt no overwhelming presence from the Mantis of Fire, the so-called Queen’s consort, but she felt as though it was hidden, rather than small.
Something about it tickled her mind with irritating familiarity or familiar irritation, but she couldn’t put her finger on why.
As the Winter Queen stood silent and imperious, the flame mantis peeled its harsh mandibles back to reveal human teeth.
“Ah, I see that scum truly sticks around.”
Zoe frowned at the words but stepped forward. She refused to be cowed. These creatures had only been in the apocalypse for as long as her. The fight with the Ambassador had only bolstered her confidence. With Bella at her side, and Skidmark and Anton providing support, she knew she could take anything.
“You’ll pay for what you did to those people!”
The red mantis laughed, an irritating, booming chitter.
“I feel as though I am at a restaurant and the waitress is presenting me with the bill. Do you truly think revenge is anything profound?”
The words sent Zoe’s mind into a spin. None of the other mantises had spoken in such a casual and human manner. What could cause this? Another experiment perhaps?
As the thoughts distracted Zoe, the red mantis raised its barbs and ignited the air. A pillar of fire swirled out from its claws and danced toward her. Zoe’s eyes widened, and she leaped aside. Her group scattered as the pillar burned its way past them and slammed into the tall marble walls. A molten welt smeared the ground where the burning twister touched. The heat reduced the marble tiles to slag as steam rose from vaporized snow.
Another burning pillar raced toward them.
Bella’s sword howled in response and a vortex raced out as Bella slashed across the distance. The two attacks met and detonated. Heat blasted the area, but Zoe refused to let herself be distracted again. Feet cracking tiles with each stride, she charged forward. Mirror coated her body as she dove fist-first through the fragments of wind-torn flame.
The red mantis raised a claw to defend, but Zoe’s fist struck hard as a meteorite. With a colossal impact, the red bug flew backward through the open doors and into the open room behind it. As the burning insect flew away, it vaporized the swirling snow, and Zoe could see the set of doors she knew to be the last.
The rock was chipped and bloodied, and through the holes, Zoe could see a room that resembled a laboratory. That must be where the ship was located. She only had a moment to glimpse, however, before the Winter Queen moved.
A pale blue spear thrust toward her face and only the barking instincts in her blood helped her move in time. Tile shattered as the Winter Queen stabbed the ground. What Zoe thought was a spear was actually her foot. Instantly, another sharp kick was aimed at her heart. Zoe leaped away, trying to create as much distance as possible, but the Winter Queen followed. The gigantic monster swayed, hands tucked up in prayer, as it charged toward Zoe. Its movements were graceful, every kick like a stabbing toward her until Zoe’s nerves were frayed from the effort it took to dodge.
The Winter Queen moved like her, she realized. Not that it was faster, or more dexterous, like Bella with her Water essence, but it had tremendous Might, and these powerful muscles launched each attack like a cannonball.
Bella charged in, her sword howling, but a well-timed kick descended on her head. With a twist of her sword, Bella parried, but another leg came down and contemptuously kicked her away. With a crash, Bella slammed into one of the marble walls.
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Zoe hoped her friend was alright. She knew the runeblade would keep her together, and she had no time to go and check because Bella’s attack distracted the Winter Queen and Zoe couldn’t let the opportunity vanish.
While its head twisted away, Zoe charged along the ground. Her feet shattered tiles and kicked up snow. She had never moved so fast, and each footstep resonated with the ground. Her path took her in a crescent arc as she kept in the mantis’s narrow blind spot and charged around to its rear. Reality tore in her wake as she leaped the final twenty feet and launched a punch at the gigantic mantis.
It spun, faster than she expected, and slashed at her. Zoe grinned as her Mirrored fist crashed into the upswept claw. Mirror met Ice in a thrumming vibration. Zoe could feel the power in the hit as her arm creaked, but before the blow flung her away, she collapsed the harmony.
A portal opened up on the mantis’s claw, and Zoe vanished.
She appeared back down on the ground amidst her path as a massive blade of ice stabbed out through the air where she had been. Unlike the raw elemental attacks of the other mantis she fought, this one was shaped like a sword. It hung in the air, a crystal of ethereal white, before dissipating in a flurry of snow.
The Winter Queen examined her claw. A deep crack ran along the length of the pale blue chitin. Her mandibles peeled back as she laughed.
“In the early days, I fought often, and I fought hard. There were many princesses, but no Queen, not then.” The mantis queen spread 27 wings like gossamer blades behind her back. “It is good to be challenged again, and so I thank you.”
“I don’t care!”
Zoe stepped through a portal and appeared back in the air beside the Queen. She hurled a bell-tipped mace at the Queen’s head. The Queen reared back, and the bell passed harmlessly through the air, but Zoe yanked the chain and the bell rang out.
In that harmony, she collapsed a portal and traveled through. The mantis laughed as Zoe appeared within range and struck. A Mirror-coated fist struck a chitinous throat. The reflected force hit again and cracks ran through the armor.
The Winter Queen swung her blades. The motions seemed as effortless as the wind. Zoe vanished through a portal, but a blue spearlike leg descended toward her on the ground. She skipped through her portals to avoid the attacks that came.
“You would make a powerful Mantis,” the Queen said as Zoe dodged her attacks. “Too bad you carry the cores of my children.”
Anton’s eyes floated through the room. One of them raced beside her ear, though her friend was hidden somewhere.
“She’s distracting you,” he said. “Prepare for an attack from above.”
Zoe glanced up as she dove through a portal.
A gigantic blade of ice formed in the air. The Winter Queen’s technique crystalized with a subtle chime. An enigmatic perfume filled the air like frost crystals racing through sweet berries. The sword split into seven blades that shot down toward Zoe.
She stepped through portals to avoid them, but they shattered against the ground and sent out a spray of crystals. Zoe shielded her face with her Mirrored arms, and though she deflected most of them, one shard sliced through the Mirror on her cheek.
The Mantis inhaled the scent of Zoe’s blood.
“I remember you… the cowering meat in that metal tube. To think you would grow so strong.”
Zoe lowered her guard and wiped the blood from her cheek. It smeared across her Mirrored skin.
“To think I was once afraid of you,” she said with scorn.
A chittering laugh responded from the other room.
“You were never good at thinking, Zoe Chambers.”
Zoe’s eyes widened. How did that bug know her name? Why was that laugh so familiar?
Anton’s silver eyes glowed.
“Attack incoming, get behind the mantis.”
Zoe moved before Anton finished speaking. Heat licked her skin as a wave of fire burst through the open doors to the next room. A mantis rode the flames as they crashed upon the marble floor. Fire poured like liquid and reduced the stone to slag. Zoe outpaced the fire, leaping, using the last of her portals as they dissipated.
But she needed to get off the ground, so she tensed her legs and sprung at the Winter Queen. She formed a bell of Mirror and crashed it into the Winter Queen’s scythes. Reverberations rolled, and she collapsed them. She fell into her portal, struck again, and collapsed the next blow’s harmony. The Winter Queen’s Skein was too strong to be destroyed by portals, her Willpower too great, but still the portals appeared and gave Zoe the chance to strike again. Even as the Winter Queen swayed and sliced, Zoe continued to attack and teleport back toward the mantis’s inhuman face. Her blows grew louder. Reality curved around her strikes as she channeled the [Bell at the Center of the World].
As Zoe sustained her aerial attack, the sea of flame dissipated. The stone glowed red hot in places, and ripples passed across the molten rock from the colossal impacts.
Zoe’s shoulders ached from the effort of fighting with all her Might, but the pain was worth it. Even though the Winter Queen deflected most blows, the ringing nature caused cracks to run along her armor. Each blow rang out and rippled the air. The molten stone flowed and rippled in peaks and waves from the shock. The devastating force unleashed scattered Anton’s eyes.
But exhaustion caused a sloppy strike, and Zoe popped through a portal at an awkward angle, and was caught by the gigantic scythes. The Winter Queen held her there as though she were a butterfly. Mandibles chattered above Zoe’s head like the jaw of life.
“Such savagery,” the Winter Queen said. “But all wild animals are predictable.”
“Predict this!” Bella shouted as she leaped through the air.
Black energy dripped from her sword and her body. She looked as though she had been dug up from a tar pit, but she flew like a cannonball and slammed her howling blade into the Winter Queen’s claw.
The blow shook the air like thunder, and a shockwave rippled out. Molten stone curled in waves from the force and the Winter Queen staggered back. Zoe dropped as the scythe holding her was almost severed. It hung from a thread and she fell to the ground between the gigantic blue spears that were the Winter Queen’s feet.
The black energy from Bella’s sword wrapped around the damaged arm. The tentacles of ichor stretched down to the floor like a series of midnight anchors. A hissing shriek came from the Winter Queen as she struggled to free her arm from the grip of Bella’s body path.
Zoe met Bella’s eyes, and they exchanged a nod. Now was their moment.
Bella sliced through the air before her and created a black portal. Zoe charged toward it, bounding around the spots of molten rock. Heat licked at her Mirrored skin, but she ignored the pain and dove through Bella’s portal.
In a blink, she appeared in the shadowy air high above. Below her, the Winter Queen continued pulling at her arm. Her momentum sustained from her sprinting, Zoe fell fist first like the judgment of the heavens.