“Roxie! That human has disappeared, the watch says he was heading to the skinner nest” The spider huffs out the report as fast as he possible can.

Roxie nearly throws her book and herself out of bed “What! Where’s my dad?”

The spider huffs and recovers enough to speak “He's dealing with the Haliberts”

Roxie stands and starts walking out “Is my barding ready, do we have those swords”

“I got Jessie to get them” The spider follows behind her.

Roxie bashes open the doors out of the warehouse, startling the harpy outside who quickly presents the gear which Roxie dons as the onlookers start to talk and murmur.

“Jessie, Runner, deal with the crowd, get a force ready in case I don’t return. Drag Gelga out as well, tell her to be ready to save a dead man” Roxie doesn’t bother attaching the sheath to her belt and instead crouches down and bursts into a full sprint through the village in the direction of the nest.

With a beat of her wings she leaps atop the wooden palisade surrounding the town to then kick off onto the ground and continue her sprint. She eventually stops to catch her breath, her new body failing to perform and slowing her down as she's now forced to jog to the nest.

She reaches the cave entrance and is bombarded by the oppressive heat and smell of raw meat emanating from it as she enters, eventually finding the start of the skinners matron as the cave walls are switched for a hallway of pale and veined flesh.

It’s not far inside that she finds the first evidence of Ox's foolhardy quest, a leecher lying bisected with the mouthed tendrils hanging from its chest torn off. Roxie continues to find more leechers inside, then a group of the mantis like slashers and armoured bugs called 'Pillars’. Dead and smashed aside, all their claws and plates broken apart and in the process of being recovered by the matron. She continues to find more bodies and a couple broken rib traps with their acid long neutralised by the matron until she reaches the heart of the nest.

In the massive chamber rests the heart of the matron, a large mix of beating muscle and brain matter whilst below it is the alpha, a massive hairless dog creature with oversized fangs and claws standing across from a man in dull, pockmarked full plate wielding an axe the same size as him with a light blue glow emanating from underneath the armour.

The alpha charges and so does Roxie who intercepts it halfway to slash at the tendon on its front right leg, she buries her sword half way before the flesh catches it and the sword is pulled from her hand as her momentum carries her on, however the alphas tendon audibly snaps leaving it to trip and skid across the ground letting Ox to tiredly rush out of the way.

Ox desperately calls out “Roxie?!”

Roxie Ignores Ox's call and leaps up with her wings and latches onto the pulsating matron heart, then stabs her stinger into its centre and injects her poison into it, causing the heart to succumb to the rapid necrosis.

She drops down and bluntly addresses Ox “This thing's gonna call for backup, hit its throat when it does”

Ox nods and shakily stands ready as the alpha itself rises and casts a glance at the matron whilst backing off. After the short stalemate the alpha howls, trying to keep its head as low as possible as it does so but Ox charges anyways with Roxie following behind him. Roxie splits off and retrieves her sword before circling around the other way; the alpha stops howling and watches Ox and Roxie with separate eyes until Ox moves in with an underhanded swing to which the alpha snaps at him.

Roxie dashes in as the alpha turns, causing it to rethink and stop to address her whilst she launches up into the air; the alpha looks up to follow her, forgetting Ox below it who's body begins to arc with blue energy as he makes a wide swing with his axe that digs deep into the alpha's neck, burying into its spine with a loud crack and spilling blood in litres. Roxie crests and drops down onto the alphas head as it silently screams. She catches on with her claws and stabs her tail into the back of its neck for stability, with her sword in both hands she thrusts it into its skull.

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The sword cuts in deep but doesn’t kill the alpha forcing Roxie to quickly jump off as it starts to thrash and spin around, nearly kicking Ox as he retreats away with Roxie in tow to the nearest tunnel out of the room. The alpha continues to buck and spin in pain, even slamming its head into the walls, breaking the sword as it does so all until it snaps its head backwards unnaturally, the reverberating crack and exposed spine being clear indicators to the cause of death.

The alphas corpse doesn’t move after its death, the entire monstrosity is frozen still by its own muscles whilst its head hangs on by a sheet of skin.

Ox begins frantically switching between the two exits to the tunnel as Roxie focuses her watchers sense outwards, finding that the monster have awoken but are avoiding the main chamber by quite a ways.

Roxie sighs in relief “We have some time to rest before anything tries to come after us”

“Are you sure, they were coming out of the walls” Ox asks, his exhaustion clear in his voice.

“Yeah. With the matron dead, they're gonna be fighting each other instead” Roxie starts walking back into the main chamber.

Ox let’s his shoulders sag and his breathing to become heavy but keeps a tight grip on his axe as he follows behind.

Roxie scans the room to find a large indentation in the wall the same shape as the alpha. She jogs over then starts tearing out large chunks of the flesh inside and devours it.

Ox makes a gagging sound and turns away “Is that a delicacy here?”

“No” Roxie swallows the chunk “But it’s got everything it need right now, minerals, vitamins” she bites into another large chunk “Tough though” Roxie eats a couple more chunks before turning to Ox “Right, now what the fuck were you doing here?”

“I. I was” Ox hangs his head as the answer escapes him.

Roxie bares her teeth and heckles her spines “Seriously, I had to fucking sprint from the village to here, and even then, I barely saved your ass. Why did you think you could take on a nest solo?”

“It was a fault on my part. Apologies” he nods to her.

Roxie thrusts a finger at Ox “I don’t want apologies; I want a reason”

Ox pauses and turns away “When I told Elder and the other village leaders what requested resources I approved, they laughed when I informed them that the ‘large army' they asked for will be replaced with a large ‘squad' of experienced monster hunters, they laughed and said that they would die in their first hunt”

Roxie huffs and puts her hands on her hips “And you thought that by getting yourself killed, you'd prove them wrong”

Ox doesn’t look to face her “I didn’t know the monsters here are worse”

Roxie throws her hands up “I bet you didn’t even hear of skinners before coming here”

“No” Ox pauses before adding “We don’t get them”

Roxie starts strutting towards Ox “That’s because you get the babies, the soulless outcasts and weaklings, all desperate for some kind of power whilst, we, get the real monsters because we are an actual threat to them” she pauses for breath and spits on the ground “We can reach their home worlds. We can kill them whilst none of you know how the fuck the portals your fucking tree makes works. It’s a mixed matter reconstitution and acceleration enchantment, by the way. Yeah. We did fucking research on that shit whilst you lot are too fucking scared to even look behind the fucking opening” Roxie stops a few steps away and looks around.

Ox fiddles with the straps on his helmet and takes it off to reveal his blistered skin.

“Rib traps got ya huh” Roxie spots a Slasher moving down a tunnel “Wondered if they did” she jogs to the end of the tunnel and roars loud enough that it echoes.

The Slasher turns around and skitters off much faster than it came.

Roxie stomps back and idly says “Gelga can patch you up. Probably fix the scarring too”

Ox stoppers his water skin and puts it under his breastplate “Thank you”

“Don’t thank me yet, we’re not out of here” Roxie focuses her watchers’ sense again “Also, thank Gelga after she fixes you. Now c'mon, I think our time is up”

Roxie leads Ox through the tubes and hallways that make the nest, avoiding the skinners they can whilst swiftly killing those they must confront until they reach the end and the cool dusk air reaches them and blows away the smell of flesh for a moment.

“Casted, you stink” Roxie comments whilst waving in front of her face.

“Sorry” Ox's voice rings hollow out of his helmet.

“Lighten up. We got nice baths, and someone will clean your armoooff” Roxie is interrupted by being tackled to the ground.

Roxie looks up to find her mom, looking down at her with streams of tears rolling down her cheeks “Kitten are you ok? Where did all this blood come from?”

“I’m fine. It's not mine, it’s from alpha placenta” Roxie pushes herself to a sitting position where her mom then picks her up by the collar with her teeth and carries her off. Roxie struggles and tries to get out “let me go mom” but does nothing other than sway a little.

Ox follows behind “Miss Meladon, my sincerest—" and immediately stops talking as Meladon. Turns and glares at him with wide eyes that carry enough malice to silence him for the entire journey back.