Lady Aigumo smiles from the outside, her mask an ever-unbreakable pokerface. She knew the expression that Xyaban had. Lust, the rough and selfish one. She saw it in the eyes of so many men who thought their loins were some sort of highly exclusive pleasure-granting miracle, rather than just a filthy sweaty sausage. Men who easily and willingly assumed her to be a thirsty woman who had given enough hints and permission for them to do whatever they wanted. Filthy. Not at all the kind of men, or in this case woman-thing, that she liked. But the easiest kind of men to lure into a false sense of security and poison with her paralytic kiss.
This woman though, her poison immunity might prove a problem. Too risky, too troublesome. She wouldn't risk it, not even maybe. Xyaban kept talking and boasting about herself, clearly not suffering from arachneafobia. Her mutt on the other hand, maybe? Well, they weren't going to attack her, so a lack of fear didn't matter. As Xyaban continued to talk about her child and such, she seemed to be losing patience. She didn't seem too impressed or interested in her new allies abilities either. "
I say, let's kill them all."
"Yes, that would be the overall plan. Though the question of how remains, of course. I appreciate the enthusiasm, though." Lady Aigumo says. "Any idea on how we'll do this?"
Xyaban willingly expositioned her powers, showing her needles and talking about poisons. It didn't impress Lady Aigumo much, they had plenty of poisonous stingers which were proving to be barely effective against this enemy. If it weren't, they could've fought a lot more aggressively. The acid rain on the other hand, that one sounded a lot more dangerous. The thought already made Lady Aigumo's skin crawl, knowing how much it would warp and deteriorate her carapace. And if it affected hers, it should affect the insects too.
"Now that sounds like a wonderful plan! If you could rain acid down upon the ants, then it will corrode their armours and create weak spots. Once the acid stops being too dangerous, my small spiders can swarm them en masse and bite them through those soft spots. Maybe even eat and crawl their way into their bodies. We've got plenty of those spiders, and they're very expendable unlike the bigger ones. The fire seems interesting too, especially if we could force them into more concentrated webbed traps by creating some fire lines around them."
"Yes, that does seem like a very good plan. I'll say, you prepare your acid to rain upon the approaching ants, and we'll retreat from them with all haste once you've cast it. Once they're no longer acidic, my spider swarms will charge in and finish them off. But we shouldn't defend this place, using these fighters in direct combat is such a waste of their potential. We should-"
A large bang goes off, like someone shot up fireworks loud and bright enough to be noticeable even in bright daylight. An alert spell. The one who cast it, no longer bothering to hide with her location given away, steps into the light of the clearing and smiles wickedly. "
Oh, did I do it wrong? I thought we were all listing our powers and tricks, but here I go showing them off properly. My bad."
The
mantis virtuose shrugs casually. "
Although I'd say that it's a much better way to tell people what you can do than just boasting about it, wouldn't you agree? In fact, let me show a few more tricks that I picked up over the years." A red shield begins to shimmer around her, which Lady Aigumo recognised as a fire shield that would burn attackers. One that would unfortunately fry any small spiders trying to attack her before they could as much as get close enough. Troublesome.
"
And no running. We would hate the thought that our dear prodegy would show of her abilities without an attentive audience." An
elite warrior wasp says, hovering above the clearing in full view despite going unnoticed just seconds before. The 'regular'
elite wasps weren't flying. They were entering the clearing from the shadows, some taking flight and immediately filling the air with buzzing where their leader seemed to float without making a sound while others prepared for battle without aerial combat. "
Now do try to put up a good fight, it took us a lot of time and headaches to find you annoying spiders with your cowardly hiding tactics. I'd hate for us to slaughter you all without a challenge."
Lady Aigumo turns pale, not even calm enough to make some quip about the enemy deciding their strategy for them. Instead, her mouth deforms into a spider's and she quickly clicks her commands to the others. Fight, flee, whichever one is available to you! The small spiders stay and fight to the death, swarm them! "And you, Xyaban. Fight or call down that acid rain upon the ants! We'll try to cover you with the latter, but it will be everyone for themselves with the former!"
