The Queen looked around its throne room form atop her birthing sack.
There was an intruder in the hive. A lone human, duelling with her mighty ravager.
He would not last long. No Human ever had.
Peering through the hivemind, she saw through the ravagers mind, even correcting mistakes it's rage-addled mind made.
But for all that, she could not seem to pin anything on the human. The surest blows would simply bounce off, or they'd pass through nothing but empty air as the human moved impossibly fast.
The Queens hive memories informed her that the humans who could perform such feats were a rare and dangerous breed.
The Human's false-claw bobbed around the Ravager's mighty scythe-claws to strike at joints and gaps in the thick carapace of her champion, each strike painful, but somehow undamaging, otherwise she could have simply sprayed it with ichor and been done with it.
But no, this human seemed to oddly enough, have a whole host of abilities, rather than the one, and a whole host of weapons, as it proved with everything from throwing small false-claws to an unusually powerful fire-spitter, to what she could only describe as magic.
And as the fight dragged on, she grew more and more frustrated as the ravager began to weaken.
That was when the final strike came. A strange, glowing fire-spitter half as large as the human was, the device spat a glowing ball of blinding energy before the Queen felt the pain of her ravager dying very suddenly, an experience she had not expected to feel.
As her senses returned to her, she realized with dread that the entire hive had come to it's defence when the humans had attacked and now the last of them were being torn apart by the unusual wealth of abnormally large fire-spitters above.
Her ichor suddenly felt like it had frozen in her veins when she felt the sudden deaths of the praetorians outside her throne chamber.
She hissed and screamed her indignant rage and sorrow as the last of her children died.
When she had calmed down, she saw the Human holding it's giant magic-spitter.
"Sorry 'bout all this, but you have something I happen to need."
It's face shifted
"Game over man, Game over"
The Queen screamed as the orb of burning energy slammed into her and detonated.
"so, Ruby"
"Yeah?"
"I picked up some... interesting loot just now" I told her.
"what is it?"
I removed a pair of limbs bearing a pair of wicked-sharp scything claws.
"I hear these things punch through starship hulls, and I immediately thought of you and getting Crescent Rose to just slide through even the toughest grimm's carapace"
"what- they didn't have a Ravager, did they?" Ruby asked
"they did" I said
"how... I've only heard of three hunters, ever, who took one down"
"Most hunters had, a few teams of four people to get them through several hundred raptors. I had a nearly a dozen six-man teams setting up crossfires and killzones, and just not engaging in melee. That, combined with all the armour-tech I spent good money buying and replicating en-masse means I was able to scrape through with only a few repairs and replacements needed." I said "I also cheated"
"cheated?"
"well, I had the gun. The big gun" I quipped
"the big gun?"
"the B.F.G. 9000... that stands for Big Effing Gun, but with more swearing, and, really, for man-portable firepower, it's hard to go past it." I said, producing said weapon
"whoa."
"It fires exploding balls of plasma. Just point it at anything you want to go away, and you're golden. Walls? Doors? More like dynamic entrypoints. Enemies? What enemies? This thing's sufficiently big I could more than likely slay the Robot Devil with ease." I explained.
"you sound like a commercial"
"using the BFG has been known to induce spontaneous weeping, cheesiness, a propensity for overacting, and ranting and raving about ripping and tearing." I cautioned "It's so goddamned powerful I nearly one-shot the ravager and actually did one-shot the Raptor Queen... I'm probably going to just hang it over the mantlepiece, it's just too powerful... I don't trust me with it."
Ruby took a step back
"It's not loaded" I told her
Ruby still kept her distance, but she visibly relaxed, somewhat.
"I've also got two of the pieces of Astartes as well... but it's still useless. I've got the business end and the outer casing, but the blade just kinda hangs limp on it's little pivot, because it's apparently meant to fold out like a switchblade so I don't accidentally cut things... it also looks like a guandao or glaive, rather than the naginata I had." I added, pulling the piece of enamelled metal from my inventory
True to form, it was basically an overengineered guandao. The 8-foot long shaft was capped on either end with a large, bulky 'housing', the one on the 'front' of the blade was rectangular, one and a half feet long and housed the folded blade, it's pivot and a large hollow that stretched all the way through the 6-foot long, black-wrapped handle to the claw-shaped rear housing that opened up like the wing-casing of an unusually large beetle.
As it was, I could only guess what sort of mechanism fit in there, but it looked promising.
"awesome, I can't wait to see what it's like completed." Ruby said
"Neither can I..." I replied
"well, I'll let you get back to whatever you're doing."
"what're you going to do?"
"Well, I'm looking at a few projects right now. The foremost of those would be finishing up on the shadowfoxes ... uh, speaking of, if I may be a bit... er, unsavoury, You and Crescent Rose-"
I didn't recognize Ruby's expression but I knew I was in dangerous water.
"-are absolutely perfect together, and I really don't have a complaint, beyond scythe's not generally being practical weapons, but you've made it work for you and the issue is irrelevant... my issue is when you two are separated. Say I disarmed you in combat with a lucky hit or a skill, or a particularly vindictive enemy steals 'your baby' from you, what then? Can you fight in hand to hand, or are you kinda boned until you get lucky and get her back?"
Ruby was, understandably, rather off-put by the thought
"You can't throw a solid punch, can you?"
"N- No." Ruby said
"Oh jeez... sorry, I'm not trying to be mean or anything... just... I was offering to hand you a Karate manual or something so you've got more options in a fight than crescent rose or support from your teammates... I carry around a dozen different weapons because I've adopted the philosophy that there's no 'perfect' or 'best weapon', and each has upsides and downsides, and as a person expecting to fight regularly and often, I need to be prepared for everything to some degree or another, and have a toold to use for everything, whether it be a packet of balloons or a set of lockpicks"
"Balloons?" Ruby asked
"They're basically the ideal tool for 'hearts and minds' tactics: you can pack a lot of them into a small space, kids love them, and they eventually pop, so they're back and asking for more soon... and, of course, you slowly become that 'nice person the kids like', and it's hard to stay gloomy and melancholy if you can see the kids are happy... and if the townsfolk are happy, that means fewer Grimm at the walls whilst you and your team clear them out. It's genius, really, if it works... and, I mean, who doesn't like balloons?" I explained.
"that's... wow... you really spend a lot of time thinking about this, don't you?"
"Not really. One day I remembered reading that in a book of anecdotes a guy who had been a soldier, police officer and more wrote, and promptly bought myself a few packs for a couple of lien." I told her "Then I promptly spent the whole packet playing with them myself and not doing anything productive for the day... so I kicked myself in the arse and bought another pack"
Ruby giggled at that.
"I have too much free time." I added "and worst of all, I can't seem to hold myself still long enough to play videogames any more."
"Videogames?"
"yeah. I got a bunch."
"Can I see?"
"what're you doing there?"
"just some homework"
"mind if I take a gander? I've memorized the textbooks."
"sure"
"Come on! Just keep moving for another three seconds and- watch out!"
*roar*
"NO!" Ruby and I both shouted as the flying wyvern on the screen knocked out her character, sending us over the maximum KO count and failing the mission for the whole party
"goddamnit, we nearly had him that time."
"you weren't kidding when you said this game was hard"
"but it's oh-so rewarding to finally slay these things isn't it?"
"oh yeah."
"Speaking of. I've got loot, and Lisica should be around here for the big unveiling soon..."
As I finished speaking, Lisica entered the commons
Lisica paused, studied my face, and reached the obvious conclusion
"I'll just stay standing, then."
I opened the system message
Raid Complete: Raptor hive of the Grassy Plains
Gross XP gained: 16,027,590
XP shared between party
Net XP Gained: 1,600,000
Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up, Level Up
Your growing strength has advanced the power of your familiar!
Your growing strength has advanced the power of your familiar!
For achieving level 80, your familiar as achieved the maximum strength available to her species.
Lisica and I exchanged a glance, our emotions a mix of joy, excitement, and dread during the brief moment before the tails split as they gathered the power to do so.
Lisca's tails split again, two at once, giving her a fan of nine.
As they settled into place, something 'clicked' inside Lisica, like the last gear in a mechanism had just found it's place in the greater whole.
The floodgates cracked slightly, before they shattered
Ruby and I felt the wave of energy as a physical force, my greatcoat and Ruby's cape flapping about in the 'wind' and a lot of small objects around the room were blown about and into the far walls
I noted with some amusement that Ray, who had been in the middle of one of his more successful sneak attacks, had been blown across the room by the sudden gale.
Lisica was lifted by the swirling cosmic forces.
"I see everything... I know everything... I am everything! I. am. the Kyuubi no Kitsune!"
And with that proclamation, the whirlwind stopped... and was replaced by the sudden appearance of Aurum
"Jesus fuck, what the hell? We just got energy readings off the charts!"
"Lisica just became a Kyuubi" I explained
Aurum 'blinked' (if her eyebrow ridge was anything to go by) and nodded slowly.
"what's a Kyuubi?" Ruby asked
"the word itself means 'nine tails'. Kyuubi no Kitsune literally translates to 'Nine-Tailed Fox', and they're supposed to be ultra-rare and super-powerful, since they're so old. They're also messengers for the Shinto god Inari Okami, who governs... well, in a word, Prosperity... and people pray to the foxes at shrines and that, asking for boons and that in exchange for gifts, typicall money and food."
"You studied Shinto?" Aurum asked
"I studied Kitsune after I got the internet and realized Lisica was one so I knew what I was in for... which lead to Inari Okami, which, interestingly, led to sushi"
"Sushi?"
"Specifically Inarizushi, and I'm sure you can guess who it's named for, which is a pouch of fried tofu filled with rice... see it's believed to be a Kitsune's favourite food and Inari himself is supposed to have a fondness for Tofu... so I was saving it for a treat."
"For Lisica?"
"well, Lisica did leave some 'relics' behind when she shapechanged me. What's the bet that this is, to me, what cookies are to you?"
Ruby laughed a little bit
"Liz, do you have any connection to Inari?" I asked
"You should know the answer to that." Lisica replied
"Just asking in case you know something I don't... any new spells coming to mind for your Ki?"
"I'm looking now, I'll let you know if I find something" Lisica said, scrolling through what I knew to be a status screen even if I couldn't see it.
"I was thinking we could make this a bit of a 'coming of age party'. Invite some of the gang around, have a little fun, enjoy some music, all that good stuff."
"Shall I prepare the commons, sir?" Charles asked
"If you could, Charles." I replied "Get some help if you need it, but we'll keep this low-key, just some friends, a cake, maybe something fun to do if it gets that far"
"As you wish, sir."
"...I am still not used to having a Butler... or being called sir... it's... odd."
I feel like I got lost and dawdled slightly in this one but... I can't really help it.
On that note, I just re-checked a bunch of sources, and when googling about Kitsune as trickster gods, I stumbled across the Pathfinder Race, which, of course, has a much more structured design than my freehand stuff, given what skills Kitsune can learn...
...and I've found some interesting points that might turn up during the party.
edit: Holy fuck, I thought this was a good chapter? what was I thinking?
note to self: ensure minimum alertness before attempting to write chapters.
I'm kinda glad I'm rewriting this story now... I've been stonewalled on chapter 3 which is being just... difficult... but I hope to make some progress soon.