Might of the Hive

Not only are you on a tight clock to meet with Razz, somehow help him overthrow the Golden Hive's monarchy, and save your two companions...but it's now at the extended tax of this Ariados' barrage that's left you poisoned and weaker. If you were just a minute faster, you'd have your belongings and be out of this workshop; it is as if fate had this encounter in store for you were it not just poor bad luck.

Fortunes aside, you grasp at the wall to keep yourself in whatever you call an upright position at this point to catch your breath; but it was not to be a long-given grace. Valentina struts forward with claws now outstretched and open at her hips, as if to showcase the devices she means to defeat you with. "It is over for you, disgusting, revolting...mammalian...male... hmhmnh ha ha haaahh...~" She sighs as if it was a confession to get off her chest. Your destruction would satisfy her to no end, and it remains obvious to you that she tells herself anything she needs to feel semblance of self-validity. Her heart races with excitement as yours pounds with anxiety.

Still, you had something she does not. You still have your wits about you. If she wants to charge you in a blind rage, you'll use it against her.

"And here I thought I was the dog..." You begin to say with a sudden wry smirk now deceiving along your face, "But you're all bark and no bite. You yap about me ruining your place, but I'm still standing." You remind her of this fact even as you look tuckered; and in an act of defiance, you pivot a hindpaw in place at the wax workshop floor. The pads tap in place as you give a dry scoff, "...And I'll keep tainting your shop, your hive, and step down on your queen to squash her royal bugginess as long as you're all talk."

A pause in her step immediately locks her in place; the manic look burning at her eyes simply intensifies. Her face at first shows an instance of fear when you threaten her queen, but it easily twists into a storm of rage, instantly reacting with a snarl.

For a trapsmith, she forgot a good tool for any decent trap. Decent bait. And she feasted on the line immediately.

In a red-glimmer, she unleashes forward with a sharpened arm, drilling her hand to where your face is. Or at least, where your face would have been, had you not ducked in place with your ears splaying out, feeling the air cut just above the fur of your head to have her chopped hand stab directly into the wall. Valentina snarls at the miss, going for another swing--

"Hnkh?!" She grunts, finding her right hand not retrieving for a following stab. In a straightening of her arm, the spider finds her right arm buried elbow-deep into the honeycomb wall, trapping it in place.

You smirk from before which irritates her all the more. Focused on hurting you more than simply prying her arm free, the left limb aims for its turn to stab you. Another swing you see coming, it too sinks into the sticky wall to lodge both of her arms inside of it. "Whgk? Wh--! Why, you little--!" Valentina screeches as her hinds kick in place and her back arches harshly. The honeycomb begins to crunch and give way, but it's far too late for her now.

Already preparing your leg back and up, you pivot a mighty roundhouse kick to the back of her left leg, smashing the spider into kneeling instantly with a crack of an impact. She's brought low with her submerged arms now awkwardly lifted above her head, and as such, your right palm surges with burning aura. For this palm strike, you'd be certain it connects fully this go-around. It easily catches the back of her head as your roar aloud, slamming with all your might to bash the spider face-first into the wall itself, rupturing your aura to explode simultaneously. The blue explosion shakes the entire workshop, rattling the tossed or destroyed tables, wobbling the webs of the ceiling and those binding the three victims of the spider, while billowing your vision with smoke for a moment. Your hand can still feel her head gripping into it, leaving you to release it as the honeycomb wall comes crumbling apart. The chunks clatter to the floor, bleeding with honey-sap as a crater is leftover where the Ariados had once been stuck. Cracks like a lightning storm line the wall, thankfully a harder surface the deeper the wall went without creating some new opening for Golden Hive to come peering through. Still, it was a lot for one attack, but a decisive finish was necessary in your condition.

Thankfully, the spider's figure thuds onto her back in a loose sprawl, with her red aura dissipating from her body. The sharp dance before finally ceases its effect, and now, so too the danger--

"Chouahk...cghk, gh..." Valentina coughs, very much consciously as she groans from the floor. The smoke completely clears to reveal her once glossy and smooth body now smudged with soot and scrapes, all thanks to your effort, but even that wasn't enough to knock the daylights out of the spider. You'd applaud such a feat were it not a problem for you still. But close inspection shows her laying flat and remaining in place; her eyes blink just to regain some amount of focus.

You swallow, having been ready to be done with this brawl, but you'll have to finish it with a final touch. With air fuming out of your mouth, you tiredly acknowledge your disappointments with the woman. "...To think, with all that strength, you capture people and ruin their lives, when you could be trapping Infected and save people's lives instead."

Valentina sputters with venomous spit, delirious...but able-headed enough to hear you. "Lhgk...gh, you have no right to judge me, vile dog... I protect my queen. She is the only person who matters. The Infected, hghk, the Golden Hive... hff, 'people' hah, they mean nothing to me as long as my Vexna is safe within these walls, within my web..." The spider's eyes finally meet your own, at first showing a moment of honest truth. Was it unconditional love? You lacked enough time to truly contemplate it, but what you did understand is that both women were evil, in a system that wouldn't end even if it meant the Golden Hive itself suffers. This resolve shows in your unchanged face, which dissolves Valentina's expression into disgust at the end again.

Her ample chest struggles in its breaths, shuddering in a break of her inhales to keep her red breasts spilt out with a wincing stomach. Her legs shift about at the floor, but any moment to get up, and you'd simply retaliate. It is as clear as day that you've won this encounter. You simply had to finish it.

Your hindpaw drifts over, nudging at her face to pin it underneath your big pads. She grunts, blinded at first, but it was to roll her head onto its side. The spider's head cannot resist, flattening one cheek to the smoldered floor as you gently peel the pink cushions off to lift the paw up, hovering in preparation to stomp without worry of her crested horn now. "...Then we'll never see eye-to-eye. But I'll still save people. I'm getting these men and my own out of here. Without you."

You go to deliver the final blow, as passively as you muster within the moment, only to hear someone cry out.

"D-Doooooon't!"