DD 302 Ch 9

“How about we do a second round?” I said to Heather, staring at the Dwarven Queen and getting flashbacks to when we had fought together.

“Oh, was that a proposition? Maybe Helen will have to call you daddy after all.” Heather said.

Those words seemed to make Helen throw herself forward. Glowing wings of light sprouted from her back as she launched. She slammed down, creating a golden glowing crater separating the Dwarven Queen from the closest warrior.

“Don’t mind her. She’s just a little shy,” Heather said even as her blue flaming sword ripped through several drones. Unlike her daughter, she didn’t rush forward. Instead she strode casually, swinging her sword from side to side and carving a path. “Do keep up,” she called over, even as I worked to follow her, trading out the batons for short swords that didn’t stop moving.

I didn’t kill the dwarves, for as much as they could be killed, the Queen would simply bring them back. Instead, I found disabling one or both of their legs to be far preferable as I wove between the crowd.

Des on the other hand stuck close to Bellaire, playing the other woman’s guardian, and flung spells as fast as she could, sending dwarves sprawling while layering curses over many.

The thing about Des’s curses was that, rather than a single burst of damage, it would instead weaken them as time went on otherwise known as damage over time abilities. They weren’t considered particularly strong in some contexts, but with a group this large she could throw curses out left and right and stack up her damage near endlessly.

While Des was hard at work, Bellaire was surprisingly steady, especially given I didn’t think she had been in a fight at least not one to this degree before. But it was clear she had trained as she pulled out a familiar sword. It could have been one of many from the Nagato clan’s stores.

The part that made her look like a true warrior was the way she held herself. And as a drone rushed her, she blinded it, only to sidestep and swing in a simple yet practiced strike that was textbook form that I’d seen a thousand times.

“Been training, have you?” I said, slipping behind her and Des to carve up another few drones. [Liminal Speed] lightning began to crackle down my arms.

“Your grandmother offered to train me, and I’ve taken at least a few lessons.” Bellaire held the sword level at the closest drone.

“So Helen’s off losing her cool, and Heather wouldn’t say it, but I’m fairly certain she’s not going to leave her daughter in the thick of it without any help. What’s our plan?” Des asked.

I glanced at Des, then at Bellaire, obvious concern for the latter.

“I can defend myself,” Bellaire prickled.

“We’ll push back the drones. Maybe take on a few of those warriors if we can.” I said as we glanced at where the Harem Queen had already been stalled by three of them. Meanwhile, Helen was barely holding her ground against another warrior, and the dwarven queen.

Des must have had the same thought I did at that moment, because she spoke my mind. “You need to go help the two of them. Bellaire and I can handle this.”

“I could rip open a portal and you two could go to safety,” I offered, even knowing that Des wouldn’t like that idea one bit.

The glare I got from her was confirmation I was right.

“Can’t blame me for trying, can you?” I offered a weak smile, only for Des to huff.

“You have to be careful of him like this,” she warned Bellaire. “He wants to go run off and not play hero.”

“It’s not that I want to play hero,” I corrected her. “I just want you safe.”

“And for yourself?” she offered. She gestured at the dwarves all around us.

“Less concerned about myself, honestly,” I answered, which only gave me a pointedly raised eyebrow. “Not that I don’t think you couldn’t do just as well. It’s just my nature.” I offered with a helpless shrug.

“You’re lucky you’re cute. Bel, we’ve got this, right?” Des said, putting her back to the other woman.

Bellaire mouthed the new nickname “Bel” with a strange look on her face. But I didn’t have time to examine that or anything else, as what Des had said was correct. I needed to get into the middle of the fight and help the other two before they got overwhelmed.

My stacks of [Liminal Speed] weren’t that high, but luckily these dwarves weren’t exactly the strongest I’d seen. So rather than focusing on building up stacks, I used Shadow Ambush to appear beside one of the warriors that Heather was fighting and hamstrung it. Then I used [Absorb], practically ripping the spell out of another warrior’s hand as I spun it back and reflected it at the third.

In the brief moment I had broken the stalemate, Heather swept forward on the dwarf whose spell I had absorbed. Her mane of fiery red hair danced behind her as she smashed into the dwarf, before she drew her blade hip-to-shoulder across the dwarf’s body and hurled him from the immediate fight.

“Now we’re talking, Ken. Don’t you see we make such a lovely pair?” Heather asked. While she bantered, she spun and stabbed the sword into the ground just in front of the dwarf I had hamstrung. A pillar of blue flames smited the dwarf and continued burning even as she lifted her sword and joined me on the third.

It was a dwarf with a long spear, spinning it back and forth, already on the back foot trying to defend itself and it was doing a good job until Helen cried out.

The Dwarven Queen had made her move and smashed the overconfident paladin into a stone pillar before flashing forward and hammering Helen like a stubborn nail into the massive column.

And with that there was no more hesitation, no more flirty banter. Heather’s strength erupted before she drew the dwarven warrior’s spear to the side with a parry before she leaned back, her leg coming up for a spartan kick as she planted her heel in the dwarf’s chest and sent him flying across the room, freeing herself up to rush to Helen’s aid.

“I’m fine!” Helen shouted, even as she held a shield over her head as the Dwarven Queen smashed down atop it with enough force to buckle the pillar Helen was pinned against.

“They’ll be fine when you stop being a goddamn tank,” Heather snarled, then slammed into the Dwarven Queen and sent the big dwarf stumbling back, only for a flurry of blows from her flaming sword to crack the dark carapace around the queen that healed nearly as fast as she could make new gaps in the armor.

I slipped in underneath Heather’s guard, activating Triple Breach and shattering a good chunk of the queen’s armor, thrusting one of my daggers deep only to slip out of the way as Heather let out a roar of fury. The Harem Queen was a blaze of angry blue fire as she smashed my dagger home and used it as a conduit to cook the inside of the Dwarven Queen with as much blue fire as she could muster.

I was off to the side, expecting the dwarves to once again become listless when their queen died as I glanced over at Helen, “Why you think it’s a good idea to antagonize that woman is beyond me.”

Heather had the Dwarven Queen pinned to the ground. Blue was fire erupting out of the Harem Queen as she did her best to turn the eight-foot-tall dwarven queen into a lump of coal. It was oddly nostalgic, reminding me of camping trips with my grandpa where he’d roast meat in the mountains and often burn it while so engrossed in one of his stories.

“She’s just so ugh!” Helen made a noise of pure frustration.

“I think most mothers are like that to daughters,” Des added as she and Bellaire popped up next to us.

The dwarves had stopped their assault, standing around like puppets with their strings cut, slumped over and aimless. Heather wiped the blazing red hair out of her face and looked up with a bright, brimming smile.

“It’s only natural for daughters to hate their mothers and for mothers to give them shit until they learn to listen.” Heather confirmed.

“Yep, and unfortunately that is beyond my ability to change.” Des chuckled.

Helen crossed her arms and snorted, looking around at the dwarves. “So they’re just done after that?”

“I assume so. The queen essentially controls them all,” I said, not entirely sure what to do next. I glanced over the train station only to see a pile of corpses thrown in the corner and winced. This fight was not without casualties. With how close that was to a UG entrance, which I could only assume led down to the dungeon, I shuddered to think what it would look like inside the dungeon.

But even as we were relaxed and thinking of what to do next, the dwarves suddenly stirred, springing back to life. One nearly surprised me and got his hammer in my skull but Helen’s reaction was lightning quick, perhaps some instinct of a tank to put her shield between DPS and any danger.

“What the fuck? I thought you said they were done!” Helen snarled at me.

However, my attention flipped straight to the queen, whose blackened form suddenly restored as flakes of her previously burnt armor and skin sloughed off her and she threw a surprise fist at the Harem Queen.

Heather, of course, was already on guard from the reactivating drones and managed to get her sword up to block the Dwarven Queen even as the massive dwarf threw herself to her feet.

“Is that supposed to happen?” Bellaire asked as we all stood there stunned.

“Is there a super queen that revives queens?” Des asked.

I went to answer no, as my brain registered a being that I had seen do this kind of regeneration before. “No but there are worms.”

The strange invasion of the surface suddenly made a whole lot more sense. If this Dwarven Queen wasn’t being driven by her usual instincts, it would explain this foray outside of the dungeon. After all, while they had been aggressive in the safe zone, I’d never heard of one leaving the dungeon.

The Dwarven Queen let out a scream as the warriors threw themselves at me, the drones piling on a moment later. Even with my [Liminal Speed] stacks still slightly built, there were simply too many for me to get all of them.

Des threw out several waves of dark magic that gave me enough breathing room.

“Close your eyes!” Bellaire shouted.

Trusting them both, I closed my eyes as the resulting flash was nearly bright enough to blind me even with my eyes closed. I opened them up a moment later to see that the dwarves including the queen were all shielding their faces. The queen let out silent screams as she clawed her eyes, trying to get some sight back in them.

Helen apparently had a bone to pick with this queen. She leapt up and swung for the fences with her mace, clocking the Dwarven Queen hard across the face and sending the massive dwarf stumbling backwards.

“Do you remember when you used to play T-ball?” the Harem Queen asked, riding up with her blazing blue sword like she was a batter going for a home run.

“Not now,” Helen growled.

“If not now, then when? You’re always so resistant.” Heather swung for the fences, her blazing blue fire slicing through the air and hitting the Dwarven Queen center mass before hurling her across the room and nailing her into the stone wall.

I didn’t think she was going to be getting out anytime soon.

“You always bring up T-ball,” Helen growled, as if there was some offensive story behind her playing the sport.

“It was a very formative time,” Heather said, drawing her sword back and preparing what I could tell was a finishing hit.

I bought her time, because whatever she was about to do was still building.

The air around Heather smoldered and I could smell ozone with how much heat she was putting out. The air around her rippled and created enough lift that her dress and hair danced on end.

“You see, that was when we first determined that Helen wasn’t going to be a healer or a DPS.” Heather sighed. “Helen was certainly going to be a tank and my baby girl was going to be the one getting punched in the face by monsters deep in the dungeon.”

“Not now!” Helen shouted and flew on those glowing wings once again to block a drone who had his arm cocked back, ready to throw his hammer at her mother as Heather still braced, building up what was definitely going to be one hell of an ability.

“No, we are here for this story. Please continue.” Des leaned over, eager for more story.

“Well, she wasn’t a pitcher or a great batter. Even in the outfield she was just so-so.” Heather waffled her head as her ability notched up another gear.

The Dwarf Queen was pulling herself out of the wall and I couldn’t stand around, flowing through the crowd of dwarves hamstringing them at first before my short swords began sliding through necks and vital arteries as I put them down, hoping the queen wouldn’t have time to bring them back up.

“I know they say that you can’t tell what they’ll be until they step foot in the dungeon, but it was clear she’d be a tank when she pissed another girl off so much running her mouth that she stopped trying to hit a home run and just tried to hit Helen on second base.” The Harem Queen continued.

“Mom!” Helen shouted. “There are more important things to do right now.” She blocked a dwarf’s hammer and smashed another in the kneecap, only for the tough drone to only flinch.

“Wait, just the once?” Des asked, sounding more surprised that it only happened once.

“Oh no. That girl had her whole team throwing the game to try and hit Helen. Who took it like a champ and got several of them out. Technically Helen won them that game single handedly. But it was then that we knew she was always going to drawing and holding aggro.” Heather sighed.

“It was ONE game.” Helen shouted as a beam of light landed with her next strike and smote the dwarf.

“Honey, that happened no less than four times.” Heather said with the infinite patience of a mother who was currently about to absolutely wreck a Dwarven Queen with an ability that could likely one-shot a fair many bosses. “We were worried we were going to have to bribe the other parents because they were getting so upset at what was happening. Thankfully, you lost interest in softball and I was relieved you were straight. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it would be okay if you weren’t, but I have to admit I had hoped for a girly girl.”

“Well I’m not sure that happened.” Helen shouted even as I wove up behind her and sliced half a dozen dwarves to shreds before they could overwhelm her. “I never really liked you dressing me up.”

“That’s fine. I dressed you up for myself, I can admit that. When you have your own, you’ll understand how much fun it is to have a cute little girl.” Heather continued.

“Mom.” Helen grumbled.

“Yes?” Her mother asked, still building up the ability.

“Please, shut up and stop embarrassing me in front of my classmates.” Helen sighed in defeat.

“Fine, fine. Ken likes you anyway.” Heather turned towards the dwarven queen. Whatever ability she was building up hit a peak by the way heat stopped being contained and blasted out in every direction.

“Wait, he wha--” Helen’s words were lost as the world exploded in a blue fire eruption.

A massive spear of fire wrapped around all of us, not even hot. However, the dwarves were far less lucky, most of them turning to ash on contact before Heather thrust her sword forward and blew out half of Grand Central Station, along with the wall the Dwarven Queen had been stuck in.

As for the Dwarven Queen, she was simply gone. If there was a worm inside of her, it was gone along with everything else.

My ears were still ringing as a few pieces of stone trickled down and smoke rose in the air all around us.

“Well then, you were saying Helen?” Heather turned back to her daughter.