Chapter 10: The Queen

Closing on the lotus, E.L.H. charges straight ahead into the creature. Lance forward, E.L.H. slams into the chitin. The chitin cracks, shattered apart from the impact. Peeling the broken chitin aside, the inside appears to be the soft guts of the Devours. There is no response from the wolves or the lotus. E.L.H. puts the cannon right next to the inner walls and fire. The fermenting charged blast has at least 6 hours' worth of charged impact ammunition packed within it. E.L.H. opens up the barrel of the cannon to be wider in order to achieve maximum coverage of the lotus. In a direction towards the center of the beast, E.L.H. fires a mighty blow. Flesh upon flesh is torn apart and from E.L.H.'s cannon, steam is blasted outwards causing a loud whistling noise from E.L.H.'s cannon. The blast itself was so concentrated that it showed a physical form made from pure energy and emitting a blue hue. From inside out, the walls of flesh poured out and the chitin walls, starting from the impact site, cracked and crumbled.

Several wolves inside the lotus are caught inside the blast. Those closest to the blast are obliterated, ripping them to shreds. Those further away are missing several legs and some even their heads. Deeper in the lotus opens up a chamber and several eggs fall down, with plenty already being melted apart by E.L.H.'s blast. Some wolves survive the impact, but are surprised and stunned. E.L.H. takes this moment to break their heads in. A few manage to fight back, pouncing instantly into E.L.H., but E.L.H. swats them easily aside with its short blade and rams into them with the lance. Pinned against the flesh, the remaining wolves are dispatched easily as E.L.H. kill them individually with stomps, stabs, or pierces to the head. One attempts a lunging bite at E.L.H., but E.L.H. grabs it by the mouth by the edge and pulls it away before placing the lance right under the shoulder and piercing through the chitin into the head from the shoulder. Deeply in the wolf, E.L.H. triggers a lance blast, finishing the wolf with a flashy explosion of chitin and guts.

E.L.H. stands tall and takes a scan of the lotus and of its battery left. E.L.H.'s battery is at 52% due to the blast and the lotus is missing at least 70% of it body. At the very least, the lotus is disabled. The remaining 10% is still intact flesh, with 20% being a chitin covered area. Anna tells E.L.H. to be on its guard against the final part. Outside of the chitin covered area has several eggs hanging around the still stable walls of flesh. On the chitin covered area is a large "hatch". It would be better to call the area, a room with a door. E.L.H. approaches the entrance but stops as the "hatch" opens. A large skinny insectoid appendage opens the hatch and out pops a 20 feet tall, 25 feet wide Devour.

"GET BACK E.L.H."

Anna shouts in an alerting tone. E.L.H., hearing her, starts backing up. Just as it starts moving, the large Devour swings and hit E.L.H. into the air. E.L.H. smashes into the flesh wall, which cushioned his impact. A massive dent is made into E.L.H.'s outer hull. It has 3 major parts of it. The front contains the head and the mouth and is the highest part of the body. It is the smallest part of the body and has 8 eyes, but is still incredibly big compared to E.L.H. The second part has 8 arms, 4 behind the body and 4 in the front. The ones in the front are smaller and skinnier than those in the back. The back arms are at least double the size of the front ones. The last and back part is the largest. It is covered by layer chitin and there are 4 sets of fat armored legs.

"E.L.H. that is a true Devour. It isn't based on our Earth lifeforms. This is a Queen."

While getting on its feet and preparing to face the Queen, Anna explains,

"Queens are Devours used to push heavily fortified areas with number and are the smallest of the Titan-sized Devours. We're short on time but here's the rundown. If we let her live, she'll be sure to send information back to her hive and start spawning Devours here. We'll never survive in America with her alive. You must land a decisive blow to the head. Anything else and she'll shrug it off with time. I suggest that you grapple onto her to deal your fatal strike."

E.L.H. readies up for the fight of its future and the future of the world. The Queen does another swipe with its large back arm. Dodging it, E.L.H. tries to shoot a grappling hook near the Queen's head, but the Queen brushes it away with her smaller arms. The Queen starts swinging all 4 of its back arms at E.L.H. and E.L.H. is finding it harder to dodge them. E.L.H.'s batter is also being burned quite fast and it needs to finish this fight quickly. Dodging another swing at it, E.L.H. instead grapples to a wall behind the queen and gets behind her. The Queen is slow to turn but is still swinging at E.L.H. Behind the Queen, E.L.H. grapples upwards and then launches itself onto the queen's back. The queen, smart enough to understand the danger, opts to crash into a wall with its backside. E.L.H. slides off to the side to avoid behind crushed and climbs up the back arms. The Queen, reeling from the crashing, starts trying to grab E.L.H., but fails to grab anything. E.L.H. grabs onto one of the arms, much to the queen's surprise and horror, and starts twisting it off. A sickening crunch is heard as E.L.H. snaps off the first arm. The Queen quickens her pace and is also stomping around to get E.L.H. off. E.L.H. rips off the second arm, but is then grabbed by the leg. E.L.H. is yanked away from the Queen's back. With the force of the pull, Anna is knocked out from E.L.H.'s torso contained and is sent flying away. An audible able yell could be heard as Anna is thrown away from E.L.H's sight. E.L.H. itself is hanging upside down and then smashed into the floor, which is made of chitin. The Queen closes in with her second remaining arm and intends to crush E.L.H., but E.L.H. swings its lance into it. The force of impact breaks the lance, smashing the sides inward as the impact hit the side of the lance. At the same time, the Queen's second arm is also crushed. E.L.H. pop shots the queen's face with impact blasts, causing it to release and throw E.L.H. Again E.L.H. smashes against something, but it is the outside floor this time.

Getting up from the impact, E.L.H.'s outer hull is entirely smashed and some of the inner armor is dented. Ripping off the outer hull armor, E.L.H. witnesses the queen crawl out from the blown up lotus and charges at E.L.H. with its entire body. E.L.H. quickly gets out of the way, but realizes that there is no way to kill the Queen without the lance. Charging up another blast great enough to guarantee a kill on the Queen will definitely use up all of E.L.H.'s battery or enough to weaken itself greatly. Running from the charging Queen, E.L.H. comes up with a plan and runs to the side and then back towards the bay. The Queen follows, gaining speed as it chases down E.L.H. Getting closer to the edge, E.L.H. turns around to face the gigantic Devour. The Queen seeing that E.L.H. stopped, attempts to flatten it at the edge as it has nowhere to go but the sea. Using the moment that the queen leans to flatten it, E.L.H. grapples onto the head of the Queen. The Queen is startled and starts to shake in order to remove E.L.H. E.L.H. successfully grabs onto the head, but does not attack with any weaponry but instead wraps the grapple wire along the Queen's neck. The Queen's remaining back arm is trying to tear off the wire, but E.L.H. jumps down and crushes off the last arm with its feet and body weight. With no usable back arms, the Queen panics and shakes violently before being dragged down. E.L.H. pulls the Queen down into the edge of the bay and enters it. The bay is located next to a cement wharf that is at least 50 feet deep after the cement sidewalk. Entering the water, E.L.H. keeps pulling the wire along and with it, the Queen. The Queen can't do anything as its remaining 4 smaller front arms are both too weak to break the wires and aren't long enough to reach the Queen's neck. The Queen's head and soon the 2nd part of the body is submerged into the water. In desperate attempts, the Queen thrashes around and tries to pull out of the water by using its legs, but discovers that it cannot. E.L.H. had positioned itself to grab ahold of underwater debris. There were plenty of building rubbles under the waves. Slowly but surely the Queen drowns. To ensure that the queen is dead, E.L.H. stays underwater a while longer until a worried Anna comes diving into the water. Seeing Anna, E.L.H. breaks off its grappling hook and swims ashore.