With sharp, cracking thuds, Sarah and Carrie fired their mag-rifles and the heads of the Cerberouses exploded into chunks. It would be pretty gruesome to watch the shards of skull and the wet, meaty bits of the brain flying everywhere, if I wasn't already moving to engage the strange Scourge that had appeared. Almost as soon as I moved, I heard another two thuds ring out and I was splattered with the Rampager's gray matter. Before I could care about that, I was swinging my sword at the target Scourge I had assigned myself.

Hissing at me, the strange Scourge ducked beneath my sword and lashed out with its tail before following up with a slash from its clawed hand almost too fast for me to see and react. As I ducked beneath its arm and kicked out at its knee, I realized that it was moving at a speed that was just faster than me. So long as I could keep up until Carrie was able to help me, I'd be okay. The problem was, I didn't know how long it would take her to finish off the Queen and the remaining Guardians, even with backup from Bunny and Sarah.

Lashing its tail, the Scourge chased after me as I gave ground to its wild, brutal slashing attacks. Eventually, I saw an opening and I took it to move around behind it and thrust my sword at its back. With a harsh skittering noise, my sword scraped off the side of the armor plate I'd hit and the Scourge's tail swung toward me, impacting my side and throwing me away from the Scourge.

Rolling to a stop, I thanked whoever was watching over me as I sprang to my feet and swung an explosive hatchet toward the Scourge. Unfortunately, it ducked beneath my swing and swung its claws into my side, penetrating my armor and making me cry out in pain. Before it could remove its hand and claws, I hacked downward with my hatchet again and cracked through the armor and into its skin. Having learned my lesson from many years ago, I pulled away from the Scourge as quickly as I could and kicked the Scourge away from me.

Faster than I could follow, the Scourge ripped the hatchet out of its arm and threw it away from it. The hatchet exploded just after leaving its hand and blew half-way to the elbow to pieces; it didn't put the Scourge out of the fight and only pissed it off even more though. Cursing and grimacing behind my helmet, I raised my sword again and moved to engage the Scourge. Screeching, it moved to meet me.

Slashing with its remaining arm, the Scourge swiped at me and forced me onto the defensive; pressing me back and advancing aggressively. I moved to keep its missing claw facing me as best I could, but the Scourge used its superior speed to keep its uninjured side facing me. Kicking, I attempted to open space between us and swung my longsword around in a maneuver I'd learned long ago was perfect for forcing an opponent with arms to sacrifice one or risk losing their head. Hopefully, this would force the Scourge to retreat or give up its last arm.

The Scourge jumped and flared its wings out to either side, flaunting aerial superiority as it avoided my attempt to remove its last arm. I still slashed a leg pretty deeply, but it wasn't the wound I had hoped for. Screeching at me in a taunting manner, the Scourge used its wings to ascend beyond what I could hope to reach with my throwing hatchets, much less my sword. I looked up at it as it flapped its wings and grinned, knowing it couldn't see me. My Seraph Drive flared around me and I rose rapidly to meet the Scourge in mid-air.

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Hissing, the Scourge dove to meet me as I ascended and just before we met, flipped around and scratched at me with its taloned feet. I blocked with my sword and watched as sparks flew from where my blade met Scourge claws before I swung another hatchet around and buried it into the wound I'd already managed to open on the Scourge's leg. Screaming, the Scourge disengaged from me and swiped futilely at the hatchet in its leg before it detonated and the Scourge lost everything below its waist. Dead at last.

"Good riddance," I panted. "Cai, what's left alive?"

"The Queen," he answered. I dove down to the ground to see that the Queen was indeed the only Scourge left alive. Just in time to watch as Bunny jumped up and drove her twin shortswords into the base of the neck where it met the shoulders, ending the fight.

"Good job, Bunny," I said over the comm line. "Sarah, grab the Scourge I fought, it needs to be studied. Carrie, Bunny, take a lookout position real quick. Cai send word to the Phoenix, I want Screechers sent down for our plan to open up the entire area to a FOB being built here."

As they all acknowledged my orders, I rose further into the air and looked around searching for wherever the Fireflys had gone. Bombadiers would kamikaze whatever aircraft or avian creature they saw, but Fireflys were the real Scourge artillery power. They were capable of producing and expelling a superheated bioplasma that would melt through almost anything with extreme speed. If we didn't take out the Fireflys, either with the Screechers or by ourselves, we wouldn't be getting reinforcements anytime soon.

To my right, I saw some Vultures wheeling around, hunting I guess. To the left, were more of them, again hunting. Straight ahead of me I saw the area that the Bombadiers were gathered in and I knew I wouldn't find Fireflys there. If a Bombadier exploded accidentally, then it could cause a chain reaction that would destroy the other Bombadiers and any other Scourge caught in the area. Most of the time they avoided gathering close enough together to cause that, but I'd seen it happen. Behind me, the direction that the unknown Scourge had come from, was unexplored as far as I knew. That seemed the most likely candidate for where the Fireflys were.

"We'll take the unknown back to camp," I said as I landed on the ground. "From there, we'll make our way toward the direction it came from to get here. Cai mark that for me, will you?"

"Can we take a break when we get back?" Sarah asked. "I know we're trying to go quickly with this, but another few hours won't hurt after the last four days will it?"

"I second the idea for a break," Carrie said. "We've all been moving since go when we landed. Now that the Queen's gone, we can risk taking a moment to catch our breath."

"Alright," I agreed. "No more than an hour when we get back though. Don't want to spend more time without help than we need to."

"The Screechers are being dropped nearby to camp," Cai told me. "Taking a short rest to gather them together will be very helpful."

"Let's go," I said. "I'll carry the corpse, Sarah. You lead the way. Carrie-"

"I've got the rear," she said before I could tell her. "Bunny, help Rickshaw if he needs it."

"Got it," Bunny answered brightly. "Do I get the Queen's Bounty since I was the one to kill it?"

"Normally," I told her as we began to move. "Since you're in my squad and we routinely go after Queens, you won't though. It's a little unfair if a Knight that was plucked out of the academy became Wing in her first two combat encounters just because she was in a Demigod's personal squad."

"Oh," she said with much less enthusiasm.