192 – Regicidal Efforts

Yet, she didn’t stop thrashing about - the gemstones in her head began to glow and give off iridescent Fog, as if the arcane substance was being burned to sustain life beyond its natural boundaries. He had attempted to crush her skull, to run it through or shake her brain to mush, but it was as though her head was one huge rock. No amount of stomping or gunshots could pierce it. So it was that he had resolved to ruin the body beyond any possibility of life.

Never did he expect that it could barely be called humanoid by the time it finally died. The Inquisitor hadn’t run out of bullets by now, she had entirely given up on firing at the Sister well before Strolvath was finished with the monstrosity.

But at last, it was done. His right leg was so covered in viscera that he was surprised it hadn’t jammed… And the Sister’s carcass moved no more. Finally, he could focus on helping the others deal with the Queen.

The ground shook and there came a yell.

“Just fucking die already!” the great locust howled, firing harpoons and smashing her arms down on each of the other slayers. He wondered why she hadn’t targeted him, but then he noticed a good half-dozen broken-apart harpoons nearby. The flame-wreathed victory demon grinned. While the Queen was mostly unaffected by his current performance, the harpoons resonated at the same frequency as the Sister’s armor.

Strolvath kept on singing and playing at that frequency as he strode across the chamber towards the Queen, but he used his second voice to throat-sing. He cycled through frequencies to try and find one that would elicit a visible response from the mother-parasite.

“I’ll be your demon, your devil, your bulwark for hate!” sung the Victory Demon, making up the words as he went along. “Spit your accusations at me, I’ll still say Ikesia over all else!”

The Inquisitor was, well… Carving into the Queen’s abdomen in an effort to eventually reach her insides from the bottom. The blue fire of her Aquila Calibur spat and surged with each cut, but it was a real struggle to make even small advances. At least her efforts were rewarded with grunts of pain every time she made a cut.

Her Eight Stars Formation had long run out by now, but she still had firepower ready - she’d made sure to avoid discharging one of her guns, just in case.

“Just fucking die already!” Zel heard the Queen howl as a black-stone arm smashed down onto her.

She’d switched to Slayer Style only moments after the Mantis vanished. To her relief, she found that doing so didn’t just make all the Fulgur she’d built up in Beast Style disappear. It was still there, still leaking out bit by bit.

Although she was able to dodge the attack, Zelsys channeled a brief Siphoning Pulse through the palm of her left hand and simply tagged the Queen’s finger. There was visible loss of velocity, minor though it was, and Zel began to feel pressure behind her left eye as well.

She wasn’t quite foolhardy enough to willingly risk getting crushed by those big ponderous arms. So it was that Zel murmured to herself, “Style: Beast…”

Surprisingly enough the mother-bug had resorted to using her right arm for defense, placing it between her head and wherever she thought Zefaris was. Of them four, it was her that managed to push that monstrosity onto the defensive, despite the Inquisitor’s mutilatory efforts.

“What, just put the gun in my mouth and pull the lever? Are you too lazy to kill me yourself, or what?” Zel teased, slowly closing the distance. Not just so she could strike, but also to get a better look. There was something behind the Queen’s eyes, a foreign glimmer that reminded her of… The puppeteered Locust Nobles. It didn’t feel like the mother-bug was being puppeted herself, but Zel’s gut certainly told her that someone else was watching through the great locust.

“Must really drive you up the wall that an artificial freak like me stands closer to divinity than you ever will, doesn’t it? But y’know what they say, if you were worthy you wouldn’t have turned into a locust,” she continued, intentionally putting on a monologue to seem off-guard. In reality, she was just waiting for a harpoon to siphon for charge.

The Queen’s temper flared readily even at an uninspired provocation. She brought both her arms to bear on Zelsys from either side, trying to crush her in their midst whilst firing a harpoon above to stop her from jumping out of the way.

With an exhalation and a mocking laugh, the slayer jumped directly upwards anyway, reaching up with her left arm and channeling Graze Pulse around it. Three harpoons had been fired in quick sequence, all three of which were led precisely-enough to hit in the absence of extra factors. They were slowed and made brittle by Strolvath’s music, then shattered by the passing of Zel’s arm. She didn’t even have to hit them, just the strain of being made to bounce off her skin was enough to turn them to splinters - splinters that further contributed to charging the Retributive Battery as they fell. Landing on the black-stone constructs moments after they slammed together, she took off running up the right arm to try and reach the Queen.

Zefaris had foreseen what Zel was trying to do, and she’d prepared a handful of coins to use the window of opportunity. She wouldn’t use Concussion Impact through the Philosopher’s Eye unless she had to, instead opting to keep using her bullets as a vector for one simple reason. One of those shining Fog-missiles burned enough Aether to impart Concussion Impact onto three bullets. She was sure the Eye was just as efficient if not more efficient at manifesting the technique as Pentacle, but using her gun she could cause the Queen far more head trauma in this short opening.