^^ The Trench Queen ^^

--- Issa-An ---

"Issa! Hold!"

I halted, turning to view who was calling for me. Upon spotting King Arthur swimming towards me, I saluted, waiting for him to be close enough to speak. "My king, what need you of me?"

He stopped, and stood his feet upon the ground needlessly, an evidence of his time amongst the surface dwellers. "We have discovered a possible Nest of The Trench. I'd like you to investigate. It's startlingly close by."

I blinked. "Me? I'm only a Knight, My King, wouldn't a Sorcerer be better suited-"

"It is almost completely devoid of water. They are learning at an annoying rate." He interrupted.

I blinked again slowly. "I see... where is it, My King?"

"To the south, half a mile. It appears as a dome on the sea floor, made of pure salt. It may give you some trouble, getting through, but we're not sure." He nodded.

I saluted again. "Then I will eradicate them, My King."

He was about to speak again when the lights around us simply halted. All the lights. Then, in the darkness, I heard the generators grind to a halt, and cursed softly. The overhead trains screeched, trying to corner, but without the slowed factor of the braking system, they simply flew off the edge of the tracks.

Arthur and I swiftly caught the pieces, setting them aside and hauling the rest back onto the tracks, out of the way. We stopped for breath, and I looked at the King. "A Surface electrical weapon? Disabling our weapons and such?" I asked Arthur.

He nodded. "An EMP... and a powerful one, to reach down here. And the spread pattern... it must've started in Gotham... probably one of The Joker's tricks. Damn. I'll get people on the issue. Arm up and go exterminate that Nest." He ordered, and swam away swiftly.

I swam to my home, and grabbed my spear, deciding against Armor. It would only slow me down, and Trencher's weren't that much of a challenge, if you were faster than them.

I tracked the sun, and nodded, swimming full speed to the south.

---

The dome of salt was actually impressive, from under water. Half a mile tall, almost perfectly spherical, and sturdy.

I mounted the dome, and punched the Salt repeatedly, trying to break through, but only managed to put a few cracks into it, that ran down to the bottom of the dome.

I halted in my smashing when I heard something. A high-pitched keening, like metal being scraped against metal, endlessly.

I dove into the water, and watched the clouds, as a plane fell from the heavens, a few miles away.

I hummed, and then remembered that all Electronics had gone dark, meaning the plane couldn't fly anymore.

I started swimming towards the general area it would hit, to help save some of the survivors, only to stop, as it started correcting itself. It started gliding, and I grinned.

"Interesting... well, I wonder where it's going to-" it skipped off a wave, then another, and I noticed it was going to smack into the Dome. "Oh? Gonna make my work a bit easier... I hope the Trench isn't hungry..."

At the last second, the plane smashed into the water, and skidded up onto the Dome, resting on the top daintily.

"Well I'll be damned." I chuckled, and swam back towards the dome.

A boy leapt out, and began examining the salt. "Salt... not sand... interesting." He murmured in English.

I hummed, and examined the Dome, looking for a structural weakness, but found it totally sound, disappointingly.

Then, the weight shifting in the plane worked a miracle, cracking the Salt, and falling through suddenly.

I stepped onto the dome, and started walking towards the edge, only to halt when the boy climbed back up.

---

The boy dove into the plane, and I smirked. "Of course. This is no place for a weakling, no matter how interesting." I drew my spear, and roared a battle cry, leaping into the swarm of Trenchers.

They fell, one by one, and eventually their Hive Mind decided I was too much of a Threat. Their retreat was almost comical, really, and if I wasn't covered in their innards, I would've laughed.

I gathered a sword and spear for the human, in the case that he wanted to do battle, and went to check on him.

He stood over the body of a single Trencher, holding a surface Firearm, and speaking to himself.

---

I ran back to the Human, finished with his weapons' placement. "All set." I informed him.

He smiled a small, savage smile. "Good. Now let's go get those people out, so we can blow this popsicle stand."

He started climbing down a tunnel, the main Tunnel to the Feeding Grounds, most likely. 

I simply leapt down into the shaft, as they already knew we were here, so stealth was a completely failed notion.

"Seriously? You couldn't climb down?" The human hissed softly.

I just grinned, and darted down the main tunnel, finding and dismembering as many enemies as I could so he wouldn't have to deal with as many.

I said I couldn't handle this, but it's actually pretty simple. Hack, slash, duck. If there was a good amount of distance between me and the human, and only a small chance that the enemies would get past me in the first place, it was relatively easy to protect him.

He drew his weapon finally, and stepped into the tunnel. I darted over, and handed him the sword. "You'll need this. That weapon isn't very efficient for creatures like this."

He sheathed it warily, and held the sword. "Hmm... I'm more familiar with the gun than the sword... and I'm barely trained with the gun."

I laughed. "This'll be a good learning lesson, then! Just don't die. I think King Arthur will like you!" With that, I leapt back into the darkness, maiming and dismembering some of my enemies, letting the slow, near-dear enemies past me, so he could practice.

The rest were simply slaughtered, like the Cannon fodder they were.

I needed to find the Queen, and whatever had caught the Plane. I'd seen the handprints under it. It was likely a Berserker, which would be a slight challenge, but nothing I hadn't handled before.

He handled himself well, his biggest challenge being the Light. He couldn't see very well, which confused me, until I realized that Surface Dwellers couldn't see in the dark at all, and therefore this level of darkness was insane for him.

"Good thing they're loud and their weapons are white!" He growled, making me chuckle.

I reached the main Antechamber, and tsk'ed. The humans were already dead. Shredded and ground, being fed to the Queen.

She leaned against the wall, her vaguely humanoid form propped wearily against the stone. Her long, snake-like neck was limp, leaving her looking rather pathetic, even when her body was massive, like two Elephants stacked on top of each other, with an Anaconda/Piranha for a head/neck.

The human's grip on his sword wavered, his palm sweaty. "What... is that?" He asked quietly.

Just then, she birthed a new brood, her sole mammalian feature working vividly, something I had always thought disgusting, but the human simply couldn't take it, and vomited off to the side.

The sound attracted the Queen's attention, as she recovered, and she weakly keened, sending her soldiers at us.

"After she gives birth is the biggest opportunity to kill her. Hold off the Cannon Fodder, while I take out the Queen!" I snapped, leaping above the Trenchers.

He recovered just in time, and parried a sword to his chest, knocking his opponent back. He roared a challenge, and I grinned, turning my attention to the Queen.

Just before I stabbed her in the heart, the Berserker appeared, driving his shoulder into me, and launching me into the wall. I peeled myself out, mostly unharmed, and dodged his next feral attack, trying to get back to the Queen.

He might've been stupid, but he knew what I was doing, and wouldn't allow me to get close enough to kill the Queen.

She was regaining strength, her womb un-stretching, returning to normal proportions, and soon she would be just as powerful, if not more, than the Berserker.

This wasn't good at all.

The Human appeared in front of me, surprising me, and rolled between the Berserker's feet, slicing the tendons in his knees. When it fell, he leapt onto its back, and rammed his sword through the Berserker's heart.

I blinked in shock, and looked at the Human, then turned to look behind me. The ten or so Trencher's he'd been fighting were all dead, or close enough to be called so, and he was only lightly wounded, a cut on his chest.

I grinned. "Well done, human. Now let's kill the Queen, and get the hell out-"

My vision shivered, as if a giant impact had jarred me, and I suddenly found myself across the cavern, embedded into the wall.

The Queen was up and about, and clearly pissed off.

She roared, unhinging her jaw, and the Human did the stupidest thing I'd ever seen someone do.

He taunted a Trencher Queen.

"OI QUEEN BITCH!!! YEAH!!! YOU!!! YOU LOOKIN' FOR ME?!? I'M THE ONE WHO KILLED YOUR STUPID, UGLY, INBRED, DISGUSTING SPAWN! COME ON!!! HAVE A TASTE YOU STRETCHED CUNT!" He screamed at her, and then threw his sword.

It arced, and she snatched it out of the air with her jaws, crunching down on it to make a point. The point being, She was Sentient, and she hadn't liked what he'd said.

Her gums started bleeding purple blood, and I blinked. "Don't let her blood touch you, human! It's filled with Venom and a copy of her DNA! You get bitten, you turn into a Berserker!"

He jumped out of the way of her first strike, and laughed. "COME ON, IS THAT REALLY ALL YOU'VE GOT?!? YOU LAZY BITCH!"

"Taunting her really isn't a good idea!" I grunted, pulling myself out of the wall fully, and picking up my spear.

"I POSTURE WHEN I'M SCARED, OKAY!?!" He replied in the same tone, and dodged again, picking up another sword, cutting her left ankle.

I threw my spear while she was distracted, and impaled her, but I growled in annoyance when I saw I'd missed. My spear traveled through her, leaving her heart open to the air.

She screeched, and re-focused on me, abandoning the Human.

He growled and picked up my spear, ignoring the blood all over it, and jabbed it through her Achilles' Tendon.

She screamed again, then kicked him in the chest full-strength, and I heard his ribcage shatter.

I growled and dove forward, retrieving my spear, and leapt up to throw the spear through her left eye.

She screamed, swatting me out of the air, and I landed on my feet, picking up a trencher weapon.

I looked over at the Human, and gasped.

The cut on his chest was spattered with her blood, and his skin was turning black already, as the Berserker Venom worked its way into his DNA.

I made a split-second decision, and cut my hand, splashing my blood across his cut as I darted past him, avoiding the Queen's claws.

That done, I refocused on the Queen, just as I heard the detonation of the Bombs that I'd set.

She flinched, looking up, and I grabbed the Human, sprinting up the Exit shaft as fire flooded the tunnels behind me.

I felt my skin heat up slightly, and pulled out all the stops, sprinting even faster, the Human over my shoulder, then leapt out onto the small patch of land that was the exit for the tunnel, just as the final detonation triggered.

The tunnels cracked, then started sinking into themselves, though the cracked and broken dome remained, with nine giant holes in the sides, and one in the top.

The fire was still burning, even underwater, and the ocean looked like it was made of blood and fire, like an old painting of hell.

"What in Hades' name did you do to the Ocean?!?" I asked, horrified.

"Magnesium fire... it'll... it'll burn for a little while longer." He answered softly, cracking his neck, and sitting up.

His body was bigger now, fully matured and bulked out like a warrior... or a Berserker. Though not fully black, his skin was slightly darker. His eyes, previously Emerald Green, were now black, with small pieces of silver in the depths.

"Why... I thought the fire would go out after it drowned itself!" I exclaimed.

He clutched his head, likely in pain from sensory overload, and sighed. "No... it'll burn until the main component, the Jet Fuel and Orange Juice, is gone."

"Orange Juice?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Oranges have massive amounts of Magnesium in their makeup, so when you mix it with fuel, you get flames that don't go out until they burn through their fuel reserves. Don't worry, fish won't be poisoned or anything. As long as they stay away from the fire, they'll be fine." He assured me. "Now... what happened?"

I sighed. "You got Berserker Venom in your bloodstream, so I counteracted it with my blood. Atlantean's are largely immune to poisons, so I hoped it would help. It did. Otherwise, you'd look like that other guy. Speaking of, well done." I grinned.

He chuckled softly, and stood, stretching his body slowly. Cracks emanated from his spine and hands, and then he relaxed. "Well, my ribs are healed, so that's a welcome find... what's up with my neck?" He touched his new gills, and hissed in pain at the raw flesh.

"Gills... that'll sting, breathing through those." I nodded.

He hummed. "Gills, huh? Interesting... so what am I? Atlantean? Human? Mutt?"

I shrugged. "Mutt seems appropriate, but really, you're Human, you just have a Poison and my DNA inside you. You rested enough to swim?" I gestured north.

He sighed, and nodded. "Let's get the hell out of here... wait." He opened his tattered jacket, and laughed in relief at an object in his pocket still being intact. "Thought I'd lost it... perfect." He re-sealed it, and looked at me. "Now, let's get the hell out of here."