The spiders and arachnea-creatures run into all directions in an everyone for themselves tactic that resulted in some devastating brutalities when the elite wasps swipe and attack those trying to get past them. But compared to the casualties that they would suffer if they were to stand and fight, the amount of spiderlings dying was paltry and a good tactical sacrifice for the rest to survive. Really, it were only the cowards and dumb ones that began to run away before Lady Aigumo gave the order that were slaughtered with a high probability. Anyone with enough of a brain to wait for their very expendable small spiders to swarm the wasps and cover them in a wriggling black cocoon could easily slip past the blinded and wildly moving wasps.

With a small inkling of pride, Lady Aigumo sees how some spiders don't immediately go for the flight option and choose to attack the wasps. The wasps, blinded by spiders on their eyes and spiders everywhere else too, did make a defeatable target after all. Some spiders, ettercaps and fomorians tackled the wriggling black cocoons to the ground and began to viciously attack them. Many small spiders were crushed when they were caught in between the wasps backs and the ground, and many more were killed as they unintentionally provided protection against their spider brother's attacks. Especially with the fomorians it didn't matter much though, their clubs would strike the wasps just as hard even when there were a few squishier spiders splattered between the weapon and the wasp's face.

Most spiders fled, though. As they should, because these elites would mercilessly tear them apart. These elites were so much more powerful that their sacrifices would amount to virtually nothing. Maybe buy her a second at most.

Lady Aigumo's attention was much more focussed on her new and less predictable ally however. Xyaban had tensed up, with the exception of just one of her eyes twitching. She seemed to be conjuring up a storm of raw rage and madness inside of her, just seconds away from unleashing it in an uncontrollable frenzy that was little more than a savage beast wreaking havoc against anything that moved and-
"Cover me."
Or not. Okay, maybe she just looked a lot more like a madwoman about to go completely beserk than she really was. And if she wasn't going to lose herself completely, then she-

Xyaban raises her hands up into the air and roars, causing the sky to reply in kind by darkening.

"Wait a minute! What are you- Are you going to cast the acid rain spell here? Not from a safe distance, but right onto our camp? Onto US!? Are you insane!?!"

"…"
"Don't answer that."

Lady Aigumo turned to run away herself, get away from this soon to be acidic wasteland as fast as she could. If she was lucky, she wouldn't be caught in the brunt of the attack and wouldn't be maimed to fomorian-levels of deformity by the acid rain. A few drops were already falling from the sky and causing little plumes of smoke to well up where they landed. She would have to hurry, real fast.

She feels the hand of the crazy madwoman on her back, and Lady Aigumo quickly looks behind her to see if the dragoness was planning to stop her from fleeing. It seemed like she might not even have the power, Xyaban looked exhausted and perhaps even nearing a fainting spell. Lady Aigumo feels some kind of magic flow from Xyaban's touch and run over her like a warm silken robe. A drop of acid falls onto her shoulder without immediately corroding into her flesh, suggesting that this was some sort of protection from acid spell.

Xyaban herself was also being struck by her rain, and Lady Aigumo could tell that the acid hurt her. Not too much, it was definately not as deadly as it was to her poor spiderlings and the remaining arachnean forces that quickly began to retreat or retreat faster when they felt the painful touch of these first few drops. The wasp elites were also looking up at the sky with the worry clear from their body language. They instinctively knew just like all the others here what acidic madness was to come, but their hive mind prevented them from fleeing until they were given the permission to do so.

The dragoness seemed vulnerable and weak for a moment. In need of someone to prevent the wasps from completely tearing her apart.

"Damn it, fine. But don't expect me to be a frontliner, I'm definately not built for it. You better not be physically exhausted too, else you've completely lost your value. I'll just abandon you if that's the case." Lady Aigumo says while she takes out her Lyrebow. While it could serve as a quick bow if she needed to fight physically, her intentions were of a more magically manipulating way."I hope this works on these elites too."

Lady Aigumo begins to play a tune, a tune of fear and fright. A tune that urged for retreat. No sound was being produced by the lyre though, as the sound was being converted by very complicated and experimental magic into scent instead. Scent similar to the pheromones that the insects used to give their hive mind commands. They were imitations, and the insects could tell, but they were imitations that could help the insects override the absolute mental control of their standing commands. And with these wasp elites knowing that they were going to have a real bad time if they'd stay here waiting for the acid rain to hit them, even a cheap knock-off order to retreat might be enough for them to break their elite warrior's command to stay put.

"What are you doing? Oh no, you don't! Your kind cannot possibly hope to override MY perfect control over my own men!" The wasp leader shouts angrily, and she quickly begins to rub her legs together to release her command pheromones in overwhelmingly powerful quantities. Some wasps were persuaded quickly to flee away and were already retreating when their matron began to give the counter-command, and others tense up to complete paralysis as their matron's unnuanced command to STAY! overwhelmed their senses to unnatural degrees. The command was enforced in their mind to extremely unnegotiable ways, to the point where one retreating wasp stopped moving all his muscles mid-flight and crashed down. They didn't even try to break their fall or remain upright as they struck the ground, as the command didn't allow for any movement at all. The matron, seeing the effects of her actions and immediately growing even more enraged, seems conflicted on whether to attack Lady Aigumo herself or fix this situation quickly.

"There, that might buy us a few seconds against the troops. But I can't do much about her." Lady Aigumo says, nodding at the Locust Virtuose. "So I hope you're ready to fight, because I can't stop her spells for even a second."

Estelle didn't seem happy to have to protect the dragoness, then again she wasn't happy with Xyaban calling down the acid rain when she had either. But already the rain was starting to do its job and distract and hurt the insects, including the spiders, a bit of collateral damage to Xyaban's spell work, but it was, in her mind, a necessary risk to have taken. Xy shielded Estelle as best she could from the rain, using the last of her magic to form the spell, but that left Xy with no protection and feeling exhausted from it all.

Xyaban smiled sideways to Estelle. ”Do what you have to.” She replied while she watched Estelle draw out some kind of instrument. Xyaban couldn't hear anything as Estelle started to play, but she smell something in the air that made her nose wrinkle at it, but Xy had no idea what it might be otherwise. She watched with interesting while heaving for breath to get her strength back, as the insects started to react to the 'song' that was being played.

As this was happening Xyaban reached into her robe and drew a ring out, in fact she had forgotten about it until now, but smiled as she remembered. It was an anima ring, a ring that held a soul of some fool that Xyaban had killed a while ago, trapping the soul in the ring's gem. She slipped the ring onto her finger and drew the magic from the ring, destroying the soul within as a result, this would not get to the Soul Stream.

That was a good boost to Xy's magic reserves, she wasn't topped back up but that had certainly helped. By the time Xyaban was finished this she was in time to see the effects of what Estelle's song had done to the insects, interesting. Smiling Xyaban got back up to her feet again and stepped up beside Estelle as she spoke of the Mantis before them and her magic. ”I can take her.” Xyaban giggled and walked forward, her insanity blocking any notion of fear at the moment, no, she just wanted to kill this Mantis, and every insect that she saw.

”Come, little bug, I'll squish you under my foot.” She taunted and it seemed that made up the mantis' mind and she turned to face Xyaban's head on. From her cloak Xyaban pulled a sword's hilt and with a flick a blade of light appeared from it, glowing a sickly poisonous green like Xyaban's eyes. Xy drew up some of the magic from the soul she had taken power from and used it create shadow fiends around the mantis. That caught the mantis off guard and as she fought them off Xyaban continued to get closer until a drone wasp dropped in front of her and tried to stab her with its spear.

The dragoness opened a portal in front of her and the spear went through it, the exit portal was at the wasp's back, so it stabbed itself. But not enough to kill it, as it dropped the weapon and screeched in surprise Xyaban swung her blade and slashed it across the chest twice and took off part of its one arm. With it reeling the dragoness smiled as she reached up and grabbed it by its face and growled as she focused her more evil magic into it.

After a moment she started to pull her hand back and with it a line of black magic was linking insect and reptile as Xyaban drew the wasp's energy. This power she added to her magic as well topping herself up, wincing as the rain started to come down harder and touch her skin. The wasp screeched one last time before Xy ran it through with her sword and allowed it to drop to the ground, the acid rain starting to eat it already.

By the time she was finished the mantis caster was finished getting rid of the fiends Xy had created before and turned back to face the dragoness. But the acid rain continued to come down harder forcing the mantis to create a shield, and Xyaban did somewhat the same, but instead of her whole body she protected her head and face, but that was it. The rain drops still touched her skin and Xy shivered with the pain, seemingly enjoying it. ”What are you!? The mantis asked as she threw a ball of fire at Xyaban.

The dragones giggled and threw her own fire ball at the incoming one. ”Insane.” She giggled and charged up some more magic and threw a lightning bolt at the mantis, who brought up a wall of earth to block it, damn she was fast! Xyaban smiled, she loved a good magic fight! She would enjoy this and worry about Estelle later on, but for now hoped that the spider woman wasn't having too hard a time of it with the rest of the insects and the acid rain.

The spiders and arache-esk creatures were all long gone, with the exception of the dead and dying. Even the small spiders had retreated to shelter and cover to weather the acid rain, abandoning their previous mission and the suicidal tone it had. Lady Aigumo sees no more allies of hers around, except for the unpredictable and increasingly more problematic ally that she had found in the mad dragoness. The elite wasps were no longer in full strength either, most chasing after the spiders and one flying off in the direction of the ant batallion. The messenger was the only one flying, considering the vulnerable thinness of their wings and the amount of acid that they caught per square foot when these wings buzzed around for flying. While he would probably never fly again by the end of it, the wasp might make it to the ants before crashing, though. Troublesome. Very troublesome.

Only three elite wasps were left to aid their matron, and most would focus on defending Xyaban and defending the mantis. Well, two were left. Portals and brute force would result in such math. But if those two would manage to keep their mage safe from a close-combat assaillant, it would still be very problematic. As complicated as spellcasters were, the strategy to take them out before they could cast too much spells was dreadfully simple. As was the counter-tactic to keep them safe. And with both wasps focussing on Xyaban and moving in from the flanks to stop her, they did stand a chance to pull it off long enough. Neither wasp seemed to care much for Lady Aigumo, as their matron was much better armoured and Lady Aigumo was far from a heavy hitter. Really, she'd have some mayor troubles against one of the elite wasps in a direct fight, let alone their boss lady.

Not that she would've had better odds against the mantis, far from it. As impulsive and mad as the dragoness appeared, it was a simple yet undeniably effective strategy. Send the heavy hitter with the magical resistance and a surprisingly vast amount of magical abilities against the spellcaster. Even the simplest brute could just charge and tackle a spellcaster to the ground if they had the resistance or constitution to survive reaching the mage, and once pinned it was a matter of raw strength. Guess who won that battle nine out of eight times?

Lady Aigumo focusses her attention solely on the matron wasp, hoping that no other insectoids would join the fray or attack her. If they would, she was done for regardless of whether she saw them coming or not. The matron was focussing her attention on Lady Aigumo as well, clearly still angry about the scent trick and not inclined to let her escape. She drew four short swords and twirled them around her hands to show off her skill. Then she sneered and dropped two of them upon seeing how the acid rain corroded them and turned the sharp weapons into pudgy cudgels quickly. The upper two swords seemed to be unaffected, probably magically enhanced. She didn't seem too affected by the rain herself, while her body hair melted off her carapace seemed resistant enough. But, Lady Aigumo knew that the acid protection spell granted her an advantage over the matron. Any wound through the carapace could prove fatal, and the matron's flight was restricted or perhaps completely off-limits. Unless she was willing to sacrifice her wings to the rain, of course.

As her pretty kimono melts and slowly begins to show more and more of Lady Aigumo's bare skin, apparently the protection spell didn't transfer to her clothes, she begins to transform into her spider form. It was more sturdy and maneuvrable, and her humanoid form's social skills would prove worthless in this fight. As the melting kimono loses too much of its structure and falls off, Lady Aigumo is fully exposed in her elven form for a few seconds before she warps and twists back into her true form. Her lyrebow still in hand, fortunately it was made out of crystals on which acid had no effect, and her form now more battle-worthy, Lady Aigumo prepares for battle.

But how? This creature would tear her apart in a direct confrontation, and she had no idea how to prevent such a quick, agile and powerful opponent from turning this situation into anything but that. The advantage of the acid could give her the upper hand somehow, but Lady Aigumo had no idea how to make that happen. And even if she were to enhance the strength of her lyrebow's arrows with her own magic and her special yokai quiver, they would still be barely stronger than the average arrow. Not strong enough to harm this wasp with anything but a close-range critical hit.

Damn it. Lady Aigumo would have to do something she hated; take a risk. The scent was already risky, but it didn't have a big penalty had it failed. Not with Xyaban there to intercept a counter-attack and the insectoids not yet attacking. But this plan would leave her wide open for an attack if it wouldn't work, and the magic was just as experimental and unfamiliar to her as the scent had been.

But as she had no better idea…

Lady Aigumo draws from the death around her, drawing the remnants of her former soldiers and prays that they are as loyal in death as they said they were in life. There was no pretending and obligation for soul fragments after all, things like lying and biding their time were foreign thoughts to raw souls. But if enough of them were truly loyal to her in heart, then perhaps there were enough fragments around to form one ragdoll soul to create a wraith spider with. ([raise death]+[invoke darkness elemental])

The matron wasp began to move, feeling that Lady Aigumo had began to cast her spells and not waiting for them to be finished before she'd go on the offensive herself. With a big smile filled with rage and the envisioned glee she'd feel when tearing Lady Aigumo apart, the wasp charges. Then she topples, screaming in rage when a spider husk oozing with dark ichor grabs her by the ankle and tries to crawl onto her. Acid splashes around as the matron falls into one of the already quite sizeable puddles that were forming, and the wraith spider crawls its way onto her to keep her occupied. In its undead state, the spider wasn't bothered by the corrosion and didn't even seem to notice it.

Lady Aigumo quickly turns to Xyaban and her enemies, and fires a volley of arrows at the wasps. Her arrows stood a much better chance piercing through their corroding carapaces, and the mantis was probably too occupied with other defensive measurements to have any kind of magic missile protection. Flanking these unaware and occupied enemies had a much more likely success rate, was much more her style, and every second that she subtracted from Xyaban's fight was one that she wouldn't have to stall the matron. Because even with her wraith and the acid, the final blow would have to be so powerful that the dragoness was probably the only one who could deal it. 

At least one of her arrows stuck true because she heard one of the wasps scream loudly, but Lady Aigumo didn't have the luxury to watch what she had done. Her attention was already on the matron again, who had rolled to be pinning down the wraith spider instead and was now fervently slashing into it with her swords. Being undead, the wraith was still clinging on to her and attacking right back, but it was only a matter of time before the damage would become too great for it to continue existing. Lady Aigumo curses and prepares a more powerful magical arrow. She'd only get one shot for this. The matron gave her a good target this way, at least. And if this arrow would pierce through, then the paralysing agent would take care of the rest.

"Well, here goes nothing…"

The two casters jousted with magic for a bit, throwing spells at each other only to have the other counter it somehow. Xyaban was looking very pleased by all of this, a large crazed smile on her face the whole time, while the mantis was starting to look more and more panicked as time went on and Xyaban continued to advance. The dragoness was rather unaware of what else was going on around with Estelle and any wasps that were still around. But what no one else knew was that Xyaban had telepathically called in her backup, crazy, yes, but not stupid. Mostly.

As the acid rain started tapered off, the magic holding the spell together burning out, Xyaban decided it was time to stop toying around with the mantis and finish the fight before the ants could get here. With a grin Xyaban teleported from view and the mantis spun around expecting Xy to appear behind her, but Xy appeared instead to the mantis' left and in a very close position. Xyaban reached out and grabbed the mantis' wrist and pulled the mantis closer as she threw a hard right into the mantis' jaw sending the caster reeling with the pain. Xy giggled. ”Too much magical practice, nothing up close I take it.” In answer the mantis moved swiftly and spines snapped up along her arms while each of her four arms snapped out with blade of their own. ”Oh, much better.” Xyaban smiled.

The mantis attacked using magic to augment her speed and Xyaban did the same to herself, as her own wrist blade snapped out from her right wrist. Xy's blades blocked two of the mantis' blade and she was forced to jump back before the bottom two arms of the mantis were able to attack with their own blades. The mantis pressed forward, using her upper arms to attack with blades and her bottom two to throw more fire at Xyaban.

In reply Xyaban used her blades to block with while allowing herself to take the brunt of the fire. Her robes started to burn and her skin turned red but she only giggled through the pain as this happened. ”Mm, nice and warm.” The dragoness moaned with a smile. The one problem with fighting Xyaban is that, since she didn't feel pain in the same way most did, it wasn't something that slowed her down really. As her robes burned Xyaban pushed forward instead of away this time, since the mantis didn't have her lower arms up from casting the spell.

The fire on Xy's robes made the mantis want to back away from the heat, but Xy pressed forward each time. The mantis finally got her lower arms up and stabbing at Xyaban who dodged backwards. As the same time she drew her wrist blade back into herself and twisted out of her burning robes. These she threw at the mantis and when the mantis brought up her arms and magical shield to block it, Xy's portal opened in front of the mantis and opened behind her, taking the robes with. The mantis cried out when the burning material struck her from behind suddenly, having only created a frontal shield to stop it.

Her defences down to get the burning robes off of her Xyaban moved in again, her wrist blade back out. She got right up to the mantis in time for the mantis to have gotten the burning robes off of her and Xy's blades sank into the mantis' flesh causing another scream of pain. But Xy's attack wasn't fatal, just disabling two of the four arms. Those other two arms came up but with how close Xy was the mantis had to use the spines on the back of her arms to stab down a now naked Xyaban.

Those spines sunk into Xy's skin but failed to penetrate some of her thicker scaled areas. But instead of crying out in pain Xyaban shivered in pleasure. ”Oh, that feels good, you're getting me aroused.” She commented with a giggle.

Just as she did a roar echoed from high above, a loud one at that.

All of this set the mantis on edge even more and Xyaban took that moment to inhale and then exhale a blob of acidic spit into the mantis' face. The insect reeled back as her eyes were burned and then Xyaban thrust out a hand and a grease like substance came forth and splattered the ground around the mantis. She slipped and fell on it, trying to claw the spit away from her face getting more of slick grease on her body. The naked dragoness smiled and tossed a small fireball into the grease and it went up instantly in hot flames. The mantis screamed in pain as the fire engulfed her, burning with the grease and then her flesh. A horrible way to go.

As the fight finished and Xyaban watched the burning insect another roar, now closer, echoed and she smiled and looked to the sky. From above the trees and crashing sound could be heard as a huge forty foot grey scaled dragon dropped the ground with a deafening roar. The huge beast looked around and, at Xy's unheard telepathic instruction, breathed fire into the forest around them, careful of Estelle the whole time.

Xyaban ran over to him and looked to Estelle if she was alright. ”Climb on, he'll get us to safety. This is my mate, Hacesh.” She smiled and placed a hand on his snout as he finished breathing fire to look at her, nudging her and make a huffing nose. Xy giggled and bopped him playfully. ”Yes, I'm naked, and no, not now, later.” She replied as she scrambled to climb on Hacesh's back, waiting for Estelle if the spider woman wanted to get a ride out of the area and to some place a little safer. The ants weren't that far away, Hacesh had had to take a route around them to avoid getting targeted from below.

The way the big dragon moved though showed that he wasn't all there either, and it was another twisted little tale to add to Xy's history of she and Hacesh had got to where they were. But, for now, the huge dragon was there to get her and, if she wanted, Estelle, to safety.

[OOC: Up to you, but with event over figured we may as well start to finish up. We could do a post war follow up if you want :)]

The wasp matron was having none of this any more. With quick strikes she was pummeling Lady Aigumo, or at least trying to. While the humpback spider's large body didn't exactly make for good dodging, having eight arms that were all longer than the wasp's made it really difficult for her to not be shoved back in many directions as she tried to punch. But with raw force and ferocity, Lady Aigumo knew that every hit that the wasp managed to land could be a turn for the worst.

If the wasp would continue this berserk barrage of rage though, perhaps she could pull through. Using every trick in her arsenal turned into touch spells to wear out the wasp, from pain spikes to corpse skin and from paralyse to drain essence, perhaps she could eventually best this foe through attrition. And in between the arrow that was still sticking out from the wasps shoulder, the acid rain that was dripping into her body through this wound, her stamina slowly being drained from her and her overly aggressive assault, this attrition shouldn't take too long to take effect.

Acid water splashes up as a fist strikes not centimeters away from lady Aigumo's head, a strike that she had barely managed to dodge. While the strike didn't seem too impressive when it was followed by a dry 'plump' sound as the wasp pulled her arm wrist-deep from the mud, Lady Aigumo knew that the strike could've shattered her exo-skull. Damn it, that was close.

Thing were happening elsewhere too. Lady Aigumo had no idea what had happened to the other elite wasps, but they seemed to be gone and/or dead. And there was something on fire nearby, though she couldn't tell who was casting and who was burning. Her best guess was that both spellcasters were on fire. Her instinctive guess was that the crazy dragoness had set herself on fire and moved in for a bear hug. Something along the lines of 'Haha, you can't punch me when I'm on fire!'. She knew Xyaban for less than an hour, but she already expected the madwoman to pull a stunt like that.

A loud roar sounds from above, and a much lesser roar follows it. The first one sounded like something very big, and the latter sounded like it was in a lot of pain. The mantis, presumably. Perhaps the Dragoness had distracted her opponent with an illusionary sound, and then dealt a vital blow? Lady Aigumo hadn't sought that kind of cunni-

The sudden rumble through the ground and a large shadow landing made it clear that it was most certainly not an illusion. The column of fire suddenly appearing in the distance to block the ant's path made it clear that this was no weak monster either. And the way that the wasp matron's eyes dilated in surprise suggested that it was far from a regular creature too. No, the sheer amount of ground shaking already made that much clear. Heck, it sounded like a freaking dragon.

Unlike her overconfident and/or easily distracted opponent, Lady Aigumo did not look to see what just happened and instead conjured one of her yokai arrows in her hand. Aiming more carefully than she had the luxury of doing before, she rams it through one of the matron's weak spots. The wasp screams in pain and Lady Aigumo quickly throws her off of her. Good, the spider eggs that she had coated the arrow with would now burrow into the wasp's body and ensure that she would die very slow and painfully. But mostly that she was assured to die, given enough time. Time to get out of here, and make sure that the wasp couldn't kill her before she croaked. The wasp tries to grabs her arms and body, but Lady Aigumo quickly turning into her humanoid form solves that problem. The wasps's slippery acid-stained fingers slip right off her slippery and muddy naked body as Lady Aigumo wrestles herself away and gives the wasp a backwards kick in the face for good measure.

Hearing that her enemy was already hot on her tail and that the ants wouldn't be stopped by the inferno of fire for too long, Lady Aigumo sprints at the dragon while clutching her most important belongings to her bare bossom. "Go! Just go, we don't have much time!" Lady Aigumo quickly strings some web threads over her belongings to stick them to herself like a makeshift sack, and then puts some silk on her hands. Thank the spider queen that the silk counted as part of her body and was thus not corroding away because of the acid. She jumps onto the dragon, a freaking dragon, because apparently that mad dragoness could've summoned a dragon all along but didn't right away, and quickly sticks to his leg with her silk'd hands and feet.

"Fly! Fly! Just go! I'll climb up while we get the hells out of here!"

Ants were already pouring out of the forest into the clearing and the wasp matron was already upon them when the dragon takes off. Lady Aigumo looks down upon the bodyridden post-apocalyptic wasteland caused by the acid rain and the battle as she is quickly taken away from that dreadful place. Once she can tell for sure that the wasp wasn't chasing them and that there were no other flying pursuers, she begins to carefully climb up the dragon's leg to the, apparently also naked, Xyaban.

"*Pant* *Pant* That wasn't fun at all. I can honestly say that I hope to never be in a situation like that ever again. Anyway, feel free to drop me off somewhere safe once you're sure that they're no longer following us. And stop staring, my eyes are up here." Lady Aigumo says, trying to cover her breasts with her long black hair. In the strong winds caused by the dragon's flight though, that was proving very difficult to do.