Outside Six Flags Discovery Kingdom,

Vallejo

, California

Town:

Claimed by Miscreant:

Sergeant Sting

Region:

Claimed by Miscreant Squad:

The Colony

Current Phase Points:

133545

Current Ascension Tokens Applied:

25

End of Phase Two: 26

D:00H:01M:19S

"I swear, if this thing doesn't actually happen, we're going to the Fight Club and having a brawl so I can get all this energy out," Pinky complained, bouncing back and forth as small bits of pink electricity arced across her body.

"I feel like you'd want to do that even if it does happen," I said, rolling my eyes as I stared out at the ant hill.

"Ooooo is that an offer?" Pinky asked with a laugh.

"Nope, he's all booked up for the night thank you very much," Swansong said and Pinky bumped into her with her shoulder, waggling her eyebrows as a sly grin spread.

"Oh yeah? Care to explain?" she prodded and I noticed a blush pass over Swan's face. Although we had started trying to call each other by our actual names while we figured out whatever it was that we were doing, it was hard to break some habits when we were still in full costume.

"I'm taking her out to dinner," I answered, hoping they could just leave it at that.

"Where are you-"

"Guys, as much as I'd love to talk about Loophole's love life, we've got just a bit more than a minute till the top of the hour, let's maybe save it for later," Jon said.

"Boooo," Pinky booed.

There were the sounds of fanfare that filled the air before the ground began to shake. Small rocks and boulders began rolling down the side of the giant ant hill and several new cave entrances began to open. About two thirds of the way up the hill, the dirt shifted and moved, revealing a massive, oversized screen that logistically shouldn't have been able to just be there. It wasn't even like this was happening on each side of the hill either, with the screen pointed almost exactly in our direction.The entire process of the reveal took, almost unsurprisingly exactly a minute and while I wasn't watching the time like a hawk, I was rather positive we had entered the fifth day.

I was briefly expecting for the nightly highlight reel to start playing when the screen flickered on.

"Huh, you never said she was so… colorful," Swansong murmured as she leaned over toward Pinky.

Standing dead center on the screen, blown up impossibly big on the massive display, was a woman standing in an excessively elegant looking gown and an expression that I could only describe as… delighted?

There were large, puffy sleeves sitting on her shoulders and the dress hugged her curves as she stood with a hand on her hip. The entire outfit was striped in gold and black, which oddly didn't get lost in the almost neon yellow wall in the background. Several giant bees were flying between actual spots on the walls that I was pretty sure were honeycombs. She wore gold lipstick and a pair of giant circular tinted glasses with a thin golden frame. I was even briefly distracted by the way her hair was styled, spiraled up and resting on the top of her head in an almost pointy look.

"Well helloooooo Wildcards!" Hive Queen said, her lips parting in a wide, friendly smile as she lifted one of her hands, covered in a glove that extended up past her elbow, and waved. "I really hope you all are there, otherwise this is super embarrassing!"

"Ummm…" I started to say, slowly turning to look at Pinky.

"First off, thank you for not arresting little Tailstrike, he's still learning and I'd hate to see his potential go to waste, though it was a little bit rude the way you took him down. It's going to take him at least a day to regenerate his tail, but we can just call that a lesson learned the hard way. No use holding a grudge over a severed tail."

"Hey!" someone, presumably Tailstrike, yelled from off screen, his voice echoing with just a bit of feedback from the unseen speakers.

"No one told you to engage honey, now hush, I'm speaking," Hive Queen said, looking off to the side before back at the camera, her smile never wavering. "You know, I really do hope you guys decided to set up somewhere over there… you did it earlier and we kinda took a stab in the dark. This is going to be really embarrassing if you guys aren't here. Oh well, too late to change things now. Anyway, believe it or not, this little hill wasn't going to be where we were going to have our fun tonight, but seeing that you got nosy and decided to poke around, I figured we might as well just pull the trigger, she is ready after all and making her wait would probably end up with way more destruction than any of us really need."

"Told you she'd take it as a challenge," Pinky said, slightly under her breath.

"Yeah but she's a bit… cheery?" I said, reaching up and scratching my head. "Also why's she dressed like a Bond villain from the 60s?"

"Why are you dressed like a traffic cone?"

"I'm not a-" I started to argue back when the ground began to shake yet again. The ant hill started to shake even harder, rocks and boulders rolling down the hill in a sudden makeshift avalanche.

"I do hope you all will show my baby here the same restraint you showed to Tailstrike, though something tells me the cleanup around here is not going to be fun. Have some fun tonight Wildcards, I'm sure after that show you put on in New York this will be cakewalk, though I will be interested to see just what you all can do. Toodles!" Hive Queen said, waving one more time before the screen clicked off. Only a few seconds later as the ant hill started to crumble into nothing, the entire screen shimmered and dematerialized in a flash of light.

"Did you let Brain know your hunch was right?" I asked, following Swan's lead as I lifted up and off the ground. I kept my attention firmly on the almost collapsed ant hill, dozens of ants and beetles pouring out from it in all directions.

"Oh he's giddy as can be. We really need to increase the range on these comms but he and Duskbreaker should be here soon. Brain's just about to activate the array," she explained. "Should we uh… should we do some exterminating?"

"Ummm… isn't that something we should be worried about?" Swansong asked, pointing toward the large white object that was as the rocks spread and rolled out around it. It was the same egg-like object I had seen before I rewound things, though there were noticeable cracks and tears as the entire thing pulsated that weren't there before.

"Your description of it was all wrong by the way," Pinky said, all of us ignoring the small horde of bugs that seemed to be charging right in our direction. "I'm pretty sure that's a cocoon."

"Egg, cocoon, it's gonna spawn something regardless of what we call it," I said with a shrug. It hadn't actually opened just yet, though it was swelling at a steady rate. "I think Pinky's on the right track, let's do some exterminating. Save as much stamina as you can. Swan, get up high and give us Hercules but keep your eyes on the cocoon. You're our lowest level here, we want it to equalize to you the moment it comes out."

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"Let's smash some bugs!" Pinky howled and without waiting for any further confirmation, she leapt, a pink arc following her as she soared up and into the middle of the horde of ants.

"I wish I had half her enthusiasm…" Swansong said, meeting my eyes briefly before nodding her head toward the fight. "Well go get em tiger."

I eyed the cocoon one more time before picking a spot filled with bugs and accelerating toward it. I put on as much height as I could as fast as I could, making sure I'd hit the biggest concentration that I could.

"These things are even weaker than usual," Pinky announced before she let out a noticeable groan. "Though they might be packed with even more goo… it's so gross… Hey Codex, remind us to add an extra bathroom to the base eventually. We need more than one shower so no one complains when I stand in one for an hour."

"The water does always maintain its heat, I second that," Swansong offered as her Song of Hercules started to echo across the field. Things quieted down again and I finally picked my target, activating Earthbound Impact and starting my plummet toward the ground.

I could see at least a dozen ants swarming in the direction of Pinky now that she was on the field, none of which seemed to recognize the danger as I picked up speed. I was just about 15 feet above the ground when I was smacked in the side by a wide band of sharp green energy. The strike hit me hard enough that it managed to interrupt my ability, sending me tumbling off to the side as my health dropped by nearly a third.

As quickly as I righted myself, I searched the field and found Saint Mantid flying my way, her black cloak flared around her as her translucent wings beat rapidly. Her bladed arms were glowing a vibrant, dangerous looking green and I wasn't about to find out what she was planning to do as I dipped into my freshly replenished Time Bank and rewound by 15 seconds.

"These things are even weaker than usual," Pinky announced before she let out a noticeable groan. "Though they-"

"Saint Mantid is here," I interrupted, looking toward where I had last seen her. Sure enough from right near the base of the collapsing cocoon, Saint Mantid was taking off. I wasn't quite sure how I had missed her initially, but I wasn't about to let her get the drop on me again. "I might have to use a bit more Stamina than I want too…"

"That's what the injectors are for," Jon said. While he wasn't wrong, I rather preferred saving those just in case I needed to stack an extremely powerful hit, especially knowing something big was going to have to come out of the giant cocoon. But when facing down someone who still had 6 levels on me, I wasn't about to pull punches either.

"I'll take care of Mantid, Pinky keep clearing the bugs," I ordered. I wasn't sure if Saint Mantid had realized I had noticed her just yet and I wanted to keep it that way if that was the case. She was still way outside of my local area and until she was closer, I couldn't properly counter attack.

That wasn't to say I didn't have a plan, though to be fair, maybe it was more me ripping off a general concept. I took a deep breath in and began focusing as I continued to fly, trying to pretend I was still deciding where to attack. It didn't take Saint Mantid long to close in on me, though she didn't need to get into my local area to attack. She was still at least 50 feet away from me when one of her arms whipped forward, launching a blade of green energy my way.

I wasn't entirely sure if this was going to work, especially since I hadn't actually used these particular skills in tandem all that often, or as in rapid succession. I activated Echo Step, dodging past the green blade just before it could hit me as I teleported to the very edge of my local area as close as I could get to Saint Mantid. She was still outside of my range though and without waiting to let myself get completely reoriented with the world around me, I activated Echo Step again.

With the second leap, though she wasn't within arms reach of me, Saint Mantid was within my local area. I was just able to catch a look of surprise as her eyes grew wide with my rapid repositioning before I finally let out the breath I had been holding since I had started to charge. A surge of electricity when barreling outward from my body as I finally activated the Shockwave Pulse I had been charging for the last few seconds.

Saint Mantid waved her arms, briefly creating a wide green shield in front of her body. Unfortunately for her, the attack didn't give a damn about the shield, especially when it was only protecting her from a single angle. The electricity surged around her barrier, smacking into the woman from several angles as she immediately seized up.

Her body began to convulse and her wings crumpled, immediately stopping their motion as her arms pulled to her side. It was almost like a cartoon and it took an entire second before the lack of motion made her start to plummet down and toward the ground. The attack hadn't done that much damage to her, but the stunning effect was more than pulling its weight.

"Shit," I said, realizing she was plummeting toward the ground with no way of slowing herself down. A brief image of Tailstrike's crumpled form passed through my mind and while Saint Mantid's health bar wasn't that depleted, I still wanted to cover my bases. I went chasing after, grabbing the flowing edges of her cloak as I slowed us as much as possible.

Saint Mantid, though she was still stunned, seemed to realize what I was doing and her eyes narrowed. Though I couldn't see her mouth, I was positive her jaw clenched too as she tried to unsuccessfully get control of her body. Once we were only about 20 feet above the ground, I let go. Knowing I had already used up a good portion of my Stamina just from using Echo Step and Shockwave Pulse and knowing I was definitely going to end up using one of the injectors, I decided to go for broke. I unloaded almost all of my remaining Stamina into Mass Driver, aiming directly downward.

The strike rippled through the air as Saint Mantid went hurtling downward once again, smashing into several ants and smushing them from the force as she hit the ground with a heavy THUD. I immediately materialized my last Perfect Stamina Injector, slamming it into my arm as I put on as much speed as I could, flying up and into the sky. Once I was high enough, I activated Earthbound Impact, quickly dropping back down toward the still convulsing form.

I hadn't meant to do it, but I ended up landing directly down on top of Saint Mantid, a loud OOF escaping her lips as the shockwave echoed out and struck all of the ants that seemed to be scrambling in response to the sudden beat down. I stood over Saint Mantid, her body slowly settling down as the last of the after effects of Shockwave Pulse finally dropped off her status bar.

"Hey you know what happens when you strike a praying mantis with lightning?" Jon said, unable to contain his snickers.

"Oh shut up," I said, rolling my eyes as I looked down at Saint Mantid. "I'm just glad that worked," I add before dropping down and punching her one last time in the chest, releasing at 15% Gravity Punch and depleting the last of her health as she was left with a KO. There was a small bit of fanfare and I was surprised as a notification window opened up, especially since they mostly stayed to the side when there was still an active battlefield.

"Congratulations! You have reached Level 22, please return to your Safe House or Squad Base to assign stat points and additional attributes!"

"I told you level difference really only matters when you are similar types, someone without the toughness to take your attacks was bound to get beat down really fast, especially with that Giant Slayer Belt of yours," Angie said, almost smug.

"Yeah yeah, you were right," I said, looking down at her prone body. If I could do anything about it tonight, I'd make sure this one actually was brought to a prison. Unfortunately, until I took care of the matter at hand, I couldn't risk trying to move her either.

I struck a few of the ants that had the courage of coming up to me before the ground started to shake even more violently than before. There was a loud screech that filled the air making it impossible to miss where the sound was coming from. All of the ants that had been briefly trying to make their move on me began scurrying as fast as they could away from the collapsing white walls of the cocoon. As they collapsed, there was another round of fanfare, yet another window opening up in my vision.

Though these would normally be read out by Angie, it was Axio's voice that rang in my ears.

"New Mission! A Promise is a Promise. What did I tell you all when we were really starting to get into the thick of this new wave? What very specific type of threat did I tell you was coming? Sure, sure, you guys had a little taste before everyone else because that overeager asshole Clockwork Tyrant couldn't follow the simplest of directions, but Hive Queen is one of the good ones. You have two hours before this Kaiju reaches the nearest populated city. Reward: You will receive a reward based on the outcome of this encounter. Good luck."

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