"Thank you for coming, Me''Lantra," Maxine said gratefully while she hovered over the Pacific Ocean and was trying not to look at the hive matriarch in the eye. Why did Me''Lantra have to be a female version of Cthulhu? At least, she arrived early, but her warriors are nightmare fuel. They look like some kind of starfish and octopus crossbreed with armor plating. It really doesn''t help that they have numerous fanged mouths on the underside of each limb on top of that. I''m just glad that she only asked for a short dip in the pacific ocean to rehydrate herself and her warriors. If they were to spend any more time on Earth, someone might see and cause a fucking panic.
"Think nothing of it," Me''Lantra answered in a voice that sounded like dozen people were speaking the same thing at the same time, "Me and my sisters agreed to send aide when we joined the Alliance. To do otherwise, would violate our agreement. Also, when will we be assembling to discuss the defense of your homeworld? The void beasts will take a maximum of another week to arrive."
"I''m aware," Maxine answered, "There is an advisor that has yet to arrive. I asked for this elder specifically from the Alliance since he has experience in facing void beasts and may know some useful tactics to more efficiently face this threat."
"A wise decision," Me''Lantra said, "Please, notify me of his arrival. I need to know where my warriors can be best used."
"Of course," Maxine said with a slight bow of her head and turned to leave.
"OH! One more thing," Me''Lantra said and Maxine looked over her shoulder, "I would greatly appreciate it if you could arrange a face to face chat with Kerrigan for me."
"I''ll see what I can do. She isn''t nearly as mobile as you are," Maxine replied, "Her nest is rather large."
"I understand," Me''Lantra replied, "Perhaps, I can visit her through one of your portals."
"I''ll think about it," Maxine said before flying off. It''s not something that I can allow right away. If any earthlings see Me''Lantra, it could cause a panic.
As she flew, her dimensional ring vibrated. She swiftly pulled out her communication disk without slowing down and answered the call, "Hey, uncle Zeph. What''s going on?"
"I''m just letting you know that Nero Selante has arrived and that I''ll be contacting the mercenary guild''s coordinator, Me''Lantra and everyone else that you mentioned to help plan out our defense," Zephyr answered, "They''ll be assembled in roughly one hour."
"Awesome," Maxine said, "I''ll be there."
"Oh, one more thing," Zephyr said before Maxine could end the call, "It might help morale if you gave another performance before the attack hits."
"Really?" Maxine asked, "I thought it might be a little inappropriate for such a thing."
"Perhaps, but it will give the mercenaries and your fellow earthlings a small reminder why they are fighting," Zephyr pointed out.
"Fine," Maxine said grumpily, "Just give me a list of requested songs and I''ll sort out the ones that I''ll sing."
"Will do," Zephyr said as he ended the call.
Maxine put away her communication disk and altered her course slightly to get to the Kavros clan''s compound. She could create a bubble around herself to teleport herself back, but she wanted to enjoy the feeling of the wind blowing through her hair. Afterall, she had the spare time at the moment to do just that. However, she didn''t have long to enjoy it as Me''Lantra swiftly caught up with Maxine and flew beside her. Of course, she would want to come to the meeting.
Eventually, they arrived at the Kavros compound and were escorted to a conference room. It was already occupied by several familiar faces, except one. It was an older man covered in scars and he only had only one arm. That must be Nero Selante. I wonder why he never got his face and arm restored. It isn''t that expensive to purchase the related potions.
"I''m sorry that I''ve made all of you wait," Maxine apologized, "I was a bit of a distance away and I had to mind the local aircrafts." Unfortunately, they didn''t seem to mind her much. Instead, they were staring at Me''Lantra.
"It''s quite alright," Zephyr said, "We assembled only a few minutes ago."
"Very well, then," Maxine said as she took a seat, "Mr. Selante, could you tell us about your experience with void beasts?"
"As you wish," Nero Selante answered, "The void beasts that I encountered had pill shaped bodies with dozens of spindly arms that will force you towards their massive jaws that can tear through most metals like butter. Their hide is almost as durable as dragon scales and they reproduce exceedingly fast once they''ve found a suitable food source. Fortunately, the vast majority of them are relatively stupid and their bodies rarely get much larger than 15 feet long. The smartest of them can only compare to a small child of five or six years old. This means they rarely, if ever, use tactics or strategy of any kind and prefer to simply swarm an adversary until it''s dead. Sadly, this might not be the case with your swarm. They could be a completely different species of void beasts."
"Is it possible to lure the swarm to a particular location?" Maxine asked.
"Yes, but it would require someone with a insanely potent life force," Nero Selante replied, "For some reason, void beasts of all kinds prefer to attack anything with a powerful life force first such as hydras and other extremely long lived beasts."
"So, if someone were to possess a hydra bloodline, would that make them ideal to be the bait?" Maxine asked.
"Yes, but it would most certainly be a death sentence for that individual," Nero Selante said, "And it''s highly unlikely that the whole swarm will be diverted using that tactic. Thus, I can''t suggest that course of action."
"What would you suggest then?" one of the arachne elders asked.
"Void beasts do not have ranged capability so you should fight them at a distance. Once they get close, they will tear most combatants to pieces," Nero Selante replied, "As you can see, I was one of the unfortunate souls that was forced to engage them up close during the last swarm. The vile thing restrained me and tried to tear me apart with it''s deceptively strong limbs before biting off my arm. It was only thanks to one of my dear friends that I managed to survive. Sadly, he paid for his heroics with his life."
Me''Lantra spoke up, "My warriors are much larger than these void beasts and can engage them in close quarters combat. Kerrigan''s warriors, while have a lower cultivation level and smaller size, possess superior defensive abilities and physical strength to my own. Thus, I doubt they will have much difficulty dispatching the void beasts if they attack two or three to one. Still, we will need the void beasts to be sufficiently thinned out before they get to that point."
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"I purchased five hundred thirty seven silver and four gold defense arrays for that purpose," Maxine stated, "And there are few adept archers, myself included, amongst the cultivators of Earth, and a large amount of our normal fighters have some form of ranged attack. I can''t say for certain how effective they will be since our skill sets are extremely varied."
"Only one in four mercenaries that signed up have a long ranged attack," the mercenary guild''s representative stated, "The rest are mid to close combatants. And we didn''t recruit nearly as many as I would like for this kind of contract, but that''s to be expected considering what we''re going to be facing. No one wants to be eaten alive."
"No one does," Maxine agreed with him, "But we need the numbers."
"Excellent!" Zephyr shouted enthusiastically and caught everyone''s attention as they saw him put away a communication disk.
"What was that about?" Maxine asked.
"I just got a count on the attacking force and what type of void beasts we will be facing," Zephyr said with a smile, "There are about five million unnamed spikey worm-shaped void beasts. Your father has the vast majority of the swarm occupied and only a few are getting past him at a time. So we should only be facing groups no larger than two hundred thousand at a time and each wave will arrive six to eight hours apart. This is doable, but it will require high intensity combat."
"That''s great news!" Maxine said.
"That is it," Nero Selante said.
"It will still be a hard fight," Zephyr reminded them, "But at least this way, it won''t be a nearly impossible one."
"And we still need to discuss proper troop formations for our ranged combatants," Maxine said.
"Agreed," Me''Lantra said.
"I don''t see why we need to," Nero Selante stated, "Just have the iron stage cultivators stay on the ground and support the silver stage cultivators, whom will act as spotters while both groups attack at extreme range. Meanwhile, the gold stage cultivators will handle the gold stage void beasts and once they''ve dispatched those things, they will assist the iron and silver stage cultivators. It''s the most viable tactic that we have."
"That arrangement has a very high chance of friendly fire," Maxine pointed out, "Instead, we should let the iron stage cultivators deal with the few that get past the silver stage cultivators and the silver stagers will attack at extreme range. The gold stagers will be doing the same thing as in your plan and this way the chance of friendly fire is drastically reduced." Not to mention that I''m not sure that the iron stage cultivators can even breach the defenses of the void beasts at greater distances.
"I agree," Me''Lantra said, "Your plan would cause heavy losses to my warriors as well as any silver stage cultivators that were not swift enough to evade in time."
"And many of my people would cancel their contracts, if we go with your plan Mr. Selante," the mercenary guild''s representative stated, "Mercs may be greedy, but very few of us would be dumb enough to stand in the line of fire when it can be avoided."
"So, we going with my battle formation, then?" Maxine asked and saw everyone nod their heads, "Is there any other suggestions?"
"Not at the moment," Zephyr said and when everyone else couldn''t provide one either, they began making their way out of the room. However, Zephyr remained behind. She was about to ask him why when she felt him connect to her via spiritual sense.
[Do not transform into a hydra,] Zephyr told Maxine.
[I don''t intend to unless I absolutely have to,] Maxine admitted, [How did you find out that I could?]
[A wanderer mentioned this strange quilled silvery beastkin that could transform into a hydra. Their description of her lead me to believe that it was you and you just confirmed it,] Zephyr said, [Don''t worry. I paid and threatened him to keep his mouth shut, so you don''t have to worry about him spreading that information.]
[Thanks,] Maxine said.
"I believe you will want to look over this," Zephyr said as he handed Maxine a small datapad and saw a long list of songs on it.
"You got those song requests together awfully fast," Maxine commented as she scrolled through the songs listed, "I''ll let you know which ones I''ll sing as soon as I can."
"Alright, just don''t take too long," Zephyr reminded Maxine, "You''ll be performing two days before the void beasts arrive."
"Good, I was worried that you would ask me to perform the day before," Maxine replied, "OH! And make sure there''s a large supply of meat goods available before they arrive. I recover much faster on a full stomach."
"I''m well aware of the effect of eating large quantities of meat has on you," Zephyr said as he smiled knowingly, "And I agree with you. It''ll save us some money."
"Don''t I know it," Maxine said in agreement.
Before Zephyr replied, he glanced to the side for a moment, "Well, I don''t need to talk to you about anything else today and you should head out. Emily''s waiting for you in the lobby."
"Thanks for letting me know," Maxine said gratefully as she walked passed Zephyr and made her way towards the lobby while wondering why Emily came to visit. I thought she was working today.
She spotted Emily as soon as she reached the lobby and paused for a moment when she saw Emily was wearing a nice dress that showed off her figure. What the hell is going on? Emily''s even went all out on her cosmetics.
"Hey, Emily," Maxine said happily, "What''s going on? And why are you dressed up so nice?"
"I wanted to dress up nice today," Emily said with a smile and twirled around to show off her outfit, "Do you like it?"
"I love it," Maxine said happily, "And I would love to take you out to eat."
"Then, let''s go," Emily said as she grabbed Maxine''s hand and practically dragged her along, "I''ve got the perfect place in mind." Okay, Emily''s up to something. She''s rarely ever this forceful, but I won''t complain. I actually like it when she''s takes charge.
"Alright," Maxine said and let Emily drag her to where she wanted to.
Emily took flight shortly after leaving the building and dragged Maxine to an upscale restaurant. She wasn''t surprised when they were immediately seated inside. Yeah, Emily definitely planned this. Otherwise, there is no way we would''ve been seated so fast.
"Ahh, miss Herst, welcome," the waiter said happily and Maxine saw him glance at her, "Will you be ordering the usual?"
"No, I would like to have your herbal chicken soup today along with some red wine," Emily said.
"I think I''ll have some of that soup as well, and I would like a water for my drink," Maxine said with a smile.
"I''ll let the chef know and bring it to you when it''s ready, ladies," the waiter said before walking away.
"So, are you going to tell me what''s going on or do I have to guess?" Maxine asked with a raised eyebrow and saw the waiter preparing a small candelabra.
"Maybe, I just wanted to have a really nice meal with you," Emily said.
"I know you better than that," Maxine said, "Now tell me what''s bothering you."
"Alright," Emily paused for a moment to gather her thoughts before she started, "I''m afraid that you''ll die fighting those void beasts and I don''t understand why you have to fight them yourself. Can''t you let you let someone else do it?"
"I have to fight," Maxine said, "A leader always has to be on the battlefield to inspire their troops. If I don''t, they will believe this fight is hopeless."
"I still wish you didn''t have to fight them," Emily complained.
"I don''t want to fight either. I really wish they weren''t coming at all, but it is what it is," Maxine said, "The most we can do is enjoy the time we have before they arrive."
"You''re right," Emily acquiesced and it looked like she was contemplating something before she spoke up, "I know I said that we should wait, but I''ve changed my mind. Let''s have a baby."
"What?!" Maxine asked in surprise, "Are you sure about this?"
"You could die in the next few weeks, and I know that you won''t abandon Earth, if things take a turn for the worst, like you would in any other situation," Emily said, "So, yes, I''m sure." She may look calm, but I can still see fear and worry in her eyes.
Maxine didn''t answer as she stood up, walked over to Emily and lowered herself to Emily''s eye level. "I can send in one of my clones rather than fight myself," Maxine offered.
"No, you won''t," Emily said in an unconvinced tone, "Your clones do not have exactly the same physical abilities of your main body and that will lower our chances of survival."
"I can''t get one past you, can I?" Maxine asked.
"Not a chance," Emily said with a smile. Maxine smiled back and kissed Emily before taking her seat again.
"You''re not leaving me much choice in the matter," Maxine said.
"It''s not like I''ll get pregnant with the time we have left," Emily said offhandedly, "Both of our cultivations are way too high."
"You really like tempting fate, don''t you?" Maxine asked as she pinched the bridge of her nose, "You''re practically asking for it after saying that."
"You can''t be serious," Emily said as she gave Maxine a flat look.
"I''m completely serious," Maxine answered.
"But it''s a stupid superstition," Emily said.
"Maybe to you, but to me, tempting fate is not wise," Maxine said honestly. Emily just rolled her eyes as their dinner arrived.
"Let''s talk about that later," Emily said firmly, "For now, let''s enjoy this meal."
"As you wish," Maxine said with a smile and dug in. While I''m happy that Emily changed her mind, I''m not happy about why she changed her mind. But she is right, there is a decent chance that I''ll die in the following weeks, so I should enjoy what time I have with Emily until they arrive.