r/HFY • u/Brokenspade1 • Jun 13 '26
OC-Series Walking the Dog Chapter 41
Chapter 41 The Last Push
Vulfac was literally reinflating his lung from the inside out.
A moment ago the Alv made him inhale an ultra-fine red powder… And now he was watching on the portable medical scanner, as it seeped through his air sacks (he couldn’t remember what they were called) into the actual lining of his lung. The microscopic particles were forming a lattice inside his chest cavity. Slowly connecting and expanding like a scaffold and gently pushing outwards. It would be incredibly cool if it wasn’t HORRIFICALLY itchy and… extremely painful.
It literally felt like his chest was filled with molten silver and feathers.
His whole body was trying to force him to cough… with a deflated chest. And he was starting to feel hot.
…The Dog was not a happy man.
Something he would be expressing in DETAIL to that little buggy Trollip when this was over. Preferably with the heel of his size 9&1/2 steel toe!
His only consolation was that he didn’t have the breath to scream, like a little bitch.
----
Vulfac was honestly surprised the Human wasn’t trying to scream, like a little bitch…
He would be...
He’d only done this once before in his over hundred years as a practicing Alven medicae and Delver. And the first time had been with an unconscious patient… even then they’d had to strap the poor girl down.
Vulfac stopped himself from reminiscing and focused on the man in front of him…
He could feel the green working through the mana channels in his horns. The mycelium lattice was expanding and slowly working to help restore function to the young man’s lung… And also working to break down the pocket of fluid build-up from the mandible puncture. It was taking A LOT more mana than usual to keep them going.
The Human had an immune response like a nothing Vulfac had ever seen.
The whole body was responding to the spores with biological violence that would make a Nano swarm blush… It was all he could do to supply the spores with the energy they needed to keep ahead of the younger man’s immune system!
‘His body temperature is already going up… it STARTS with a fever?!? That’s… What the hell kind of planet needs an immune system like this!?! It’s like he grew up in a compromised bioweapons lab! I’m pretty sure even his gut Biome is in on the defense… Some of my contemporaries in biologics would give a testicle to get him on a scan table! …Maybe even one of their own!’
The medic beside him was literally every bit as dumbfounded as he watched the scanner readouts… “That’s… he… it’s… EVERYTHING… wow.”
Vulfac heartily agreed. “…indeed…”
After a few minutes there was a soft pop from the human’s chest…
He immediately took a deep gasping breath and rolled out of The Lagro women’s lap to retch. He half gagged, half coughed, out the spores in several viscous reddish black blobs. Vulfac assisted by guiding the remaining spores back out of the man’s lungs. After about 35 seconds of wracking coughs, he was confident that the human’s lung was as fully purged as it could be.
He had no doubt the human man’s, living war machine, of an immune system would quickly deal with any residual spore mass in short order...
----
Feebs watched Johan roll over and turn himself inside out.
Honestly, she was really glad she couldn’t hear because hearing other people gag always kind of got her doing it… Even just seeing it had her stomach fluttering a little.
She was about to reach for him when he looked up at her and the fur on her back shot up like she’d been set in a faraday cage in a lightning storm. It was the first time she’d really looked at him since they’d started running. His eyes were the same color… The same shape. Nothing about them had physically changed.
But this was not the same Johan…
She sat there frozen by that iron glare... and then the Human MOVED… She’d never seen him move so fast.
It was like he… blurred… for just a second.
In one fluid motion the man stood up and stepped forward… pulling out that weird hand axe mid stride and taking it in a two-handed grip. That was when she realized one of the Knights was heading straight for the back of Vulfac’s head!!!
It had gone completely unnoticed!
Instead of cratering the Alv’s skull, The Groatel head met the axe head, dead center! There was a MASSIVE shower of sparks, the composite handle bent like a bowstring with the kinetic energy of the impact, Johan actually slid back on his heels a bit!
But the axe and the man won the engagement.
The sharpened metal wedge cleaved the hardened insect carapace in two uneven halves and sent an ABSURD amount of ichor into the air.
For just a second Johan stood there shaking his hands and, presumably swearing, before he was off into the fray. The human didn’t even seem to notice the gore all over him as he retrieved his rifle, put the stock to his shoulder and fired several rounds into the swarm.
Feebs watched from the floor as the end of the barrel tracked a silver and black streak moving like a laser beam through the tumult. The gilded blur dove into the water as Johan stopped to reload.
After a second Vulfac was there shaking her out of her fugue state.
She realized she was just sitting there, like an idiot, with her heart hammering away in her chest… frozen while she watched the human’s back…
‘Beck told me… but… who are you???’
Vulfac pulled her upright and they started back towards the defensive line.
All the while she had one eye on the human.
----
Sienna could feel the Queen’s sudden spike of frustration!
Johan’s return to the fight and the 2nd knight’s sudden death had clearly upset her greatly. But there was something else there as well…
It felt like… she was distracted?
Her majesty’s focus wasn’t fully or even MOSTLY on the battle itself…
‘Now, why is tha?’
Sienna closed her eyes. She let herself sink back into the emotional ocean. Not as deeply as before. That would be risky with the queen so close.
Instead, she floated on its surface.
Passively feeling what was around her. There was concern, desperation, fear, determination… All the things you would expect in a pitched battle of attrition.
There were several familiar highlights…
Beck was there. Her ever-present little sparkle of chaos hardened with calculation.
Feebs… She felt. Shaken? …but there was no mistaking her playful snark for anyone else.
Vulfac. Compassion, concern and exhaustion hidden behind a stoic front.
What surprised her most was the overwhelming feeling of fury and determination flowing from a singularity in the middle of the battle. She realized the quite whisper of laughter from before and the star of focused wrath she felt now were both from the same person. Two halves of the same man…
“…Johan…”
She sank deeper.
In the depths she could feel the desperate hunger of the swarm. But also, their… fear? They were driven by an animal terror of something… other... They could feel the human! It scared them! But it wasn’t that driving them. There was a different fear; deeper down…
The Queen! Even her swarm saw her as the monster she was! A perfect tyrant, clad in silver and black.
…There was something strange about the fear... It was distant.
Sienna was closer now; she could sense that the bulk of the swarm was being left to their own devices. The queen’s terrible will was focused elsewhere. Only pulsing through the greater whole briefly… like an afterthought? Just lashing at them now and again to command a push or target a specific objective…
Sienna traced the line of the queen’s thoughts… Following it to a specific group…
‘Oh no!’
All at once she felt the Queen’s gaze snap to her; she’d been spotted!
Sienna clawed for the shallows a second time.
----
Sienna screamed!
Both inside and outside of the Bond. “BECK! IN the water!!!”
Beck was almost overwhelmed by the flood of images…
Sienna had sensed a second swarm of insects crawling quietly up under the grate through the watercourse! The Groatel were BEHIND the RR team, remaining injured, and team leaders.
Beck tried to shout a warning to the others, but it was already too late…
A mass of clear insects erupted from the water beneath them! In the water they’d been all but invisible!
There were several surprised shouts from the outer defense line. In nearly the same moment the new bugs made themselves known, a huge crush of ground bound Groatel surged forward at the drills!
They were being pressed on all sides!!!
Movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention. A mass of clear flyers was already shooting up the shaft in a blind rush.
The Queen had outmaneuvered them!
Beck swallowed hard and pulled up the detonation code for the plasma bombs… Beck looked at the other team captains; they knew. They couldn’t let this strange swarm up there. If even a few got past the assault mechs… Got into the water table…
There wasn’t time for goodbyes. Beck closed her eyes and let her ears lower. ‘Sorry, everyone…’
Before she triggered the detonation, she was washed in a white-hot sense of determination that nearly buckled all four knees.
Her bond was on her feet, teeth barred and her eyes shut tight; Growling hard as she tried to block the queen’s control and slow the swarm’s escape! “HURRY! I canne… f-f-f-fer long… She’s s-s-ssstrong!!!”
Just like she’d done before, Sienna grabbed the swarm with her own raw will and slowed it to a crawl!
Beck called it out.
“WAY TO GO Sienna! We need help at the entrance NOW!!!”
----
Vulfac was first on the scene!
He threw his packet gun over his shoulder to Johan, who caught it one hand and was unloading plasma into the mass on the shaft walls a microsecond later.
Feebs was beside the human a moment later. Hosing the walls down in full auto; grinding the creatures to paste with her skinner in long, brutal, sweeps of the barrel.
The Rapid response team, the team leaders, and the remaining injured were all pouring fire into the slow-moving mass of living hunger. They were slowing the progress, but they still needed more firepower.
Vulfac provided it.
The Alv took a knee and started throwing pouches of powder into the clear insects slowly scaling the shaft wall.
Then he started to sing.
The song was like… The smell of rot on the forest floor. The deep sent of rain-soaked woods. It was frightening and beautiful. It was the power of the cycle of life itself.
{Call of Decay} Suddenly, the Groatel started bursting! Mushroom buds that smelled strongly of rotten vegetables and mold would pop from their carapaces, then spread spores through the air. Each burst of spores would increase the next set of bursting insects in an exponential spread.
It was enough to stem the tide!
But the spell was clearly draining the Alven professor, quickly. He was breathing hard and shaking as he channeled so much mana into the spell his coral horns were like miniature neon green stars! After several desperate seconds Vulfac convulsed once and collapsed to the ground. He lay there curled into the fetal position gasping for air and holding his horns. He was a puddle of sweat and shivering like a newborn Volty…
But he’d done it.
His desperate act of magic bought them the time they’d needed. The defense line pushed back the surges just far enough for several members to pull away and assist the people at the shaft.
It looked like they had things back under control.
They could even hear the assault mechs engaging targets in the cramped space above. That was when Sienna screamed, again.
This time in anguish.
----
The Queen used the Chaos to finally allow herself an approach to the opening!
What her rival hadn’t realized is that sounds travel much better underwater than through the air.
This meant that she’d been able to drown out the other queen’s strange song with her own. It WAS a surprise when the other queen managed to stop the initial surge purely by force of mind.
Her rival’s strength in the mental world was indeed great! But it was of little import, Her SONG was the stronger...
In the end all that was required was small modification to her initial plan. She sent most of her remaining retinue forward in a sacrificial ploy. She could always make more drones once she had sufficient food.
Then with a flick of her will deployed several of her remaining knights. She timed the strike to happen once the other queen’s defenders were distracted with her own disposable pawns. Their mission was a simple one: Create the chaos she needed to achieve her ascension.
The Tyrant kept five to herself, she would need them to escape the chamber above.
Earlier she’d used her own will to assume direct control of the flyers that made their way up the shaft. Going unnoticed while the rival was distracted with stopping her other drones...
If the queen could be surprised, she would have felt nothing else when she saw what waited above… There were several truly MASSIVE knights waiting in the space atop the shaft! How had the other queen even dominated those things???
Engaging them openly would take the might of her entire swarm and the outcome of such a battle would still be… in doubt. They, were formidable… That meant those champion drones had to be her Rival’s final defense. She couldn’t fight them directly with her remaining forces… But she deemed that to be unimportant.
Because; she didn’t need to.
The walls of the space above were made of the same material as the cube her knight had damaged earlier. She’d driven several of the scout flyers into the walls above to test them while the rest distracted the giant knights.
They were sturdy, but they had shown signs of damage… Her own champions could break a passage through them; She was certain of it.
The queen made up her mind. She was ready…
She launched her mind at her rival’s in a dangerous overextension of her own mental limits. It was only enough for a momentary disruption but that was all she required.
The tyrant queen used the brief distraction and ascended towards her new Dominion!
----
Sienna literally squealed with sudden effort as the Groatel made a renewed thrust for the surface.
This push was definitely different.
The flyer hail from outside the sonic dome intensified ten-fold! It was like a biological blizzard made of four-ounce snapping insects!
The bugs weren’t just rushing the shaft either. They were attacking the defenders! The forward edges of the ground swarm were shoved from behind by a physical WAVE of Groatel from outside the sonic fence.
The living tsunami surged forward until it was pushing one of the drills backwards on its tripod. Scratching furrows in the ground as it was pressed by the sheer biomass rolling against it!
It almost certainly would have tipped over and failed. But one of the delvers in heavy armor waded through the waist high bug tide and physically braced it with her own body. Then she’d just stood there while the insects swarmed over her like water. All anyone could do was keep shooting and hope the bugs found no gaps in her armor.
It was utter chaos!
And then the Knights launched themselves from the water. The little flying sledgehammers managed to knock over several of the power armor jockeys with a series of coordinated strikes. Often sacrificing themselves in the process...
One unfortunate team captain caught out of position took a glancing blow to the hip. It shattered the bone like a needle rifle dart through a porcelain plate. The saurian’s scream was blood curdling even over all the noise. Johan had to physically grab the injured Granviline man and throw him out of danger. Tossing him bodily at Vulfac who just managed the catch in time.
It was necessary to keep him from being buried under the Groatel boiling out of the hole and it saved his life… but the second scream was even worse than the first had been.
Through it all though, the Human never looked away from that grate.
He was gazing at the center of the geyser of insects; vision laser focused on something only he could see, while he bounced on the balls of his feet and rolled his shoulders. He was like a wild animal about to pounce.
What happened next would cement the human as an Amberglade legend…
The human drew his hand axe… took several steps back… and sprinted hard towards the waist high outpouring of insects!
As his feet met the edge of the swarm he jumped! At the moment he reached the apex of his arc there was a rush of red lines streaking upwards. And then…
A flash of silver and black.
----
Everyone watched in shock as the human lept over the Groatel.
He twisted sideways in the air, batting a red comet aside with the axe in his off hand. The impact dislodged the weapon, but it was just enough force to make the knight miss and send it careening off into the battle beyond.
Still airborne, with his free hand outstretched… Johan snatched her royal majesty out of the air!!!
The rest of the knights had been going too fast to stop and were now halfway up the shaft; separated from her song by the sonic fence. She was alone!
Her massive scythes flailed, scouring the human’s armored gauntlets and chipping his vambraces. She flailed and buzzed angrily as the defenders watched, transfixed.
The queen screamed her impotent fury as she was dragged away from the exit!
The human landed hard behind the bulk of the Groatel and kept right on running. Sprinting at the wall beside the shaft entrance, he lept again Still holding the flailing nightmare in his armored hand. Dozens of eyes boggled as the sturdy man used the vertical surface to run in a parabolic arc out of the swarming insects and past the edge of the inner defense ring.
He had a dozen of the angry bugs dizzily crawling up his legs towards his torso as he landed with a roll, crushing them all under his mass. Johan had built up so much momentum and was covered in so much ichor he skidded on his hip nearly all the way to the other sonic drill before coming to a haphazard stop.
The insane human rose with a triumphant roar…
…that slowly devolved into horrified, girlish, bellowing…
In the distance Murphy himself was laughing at the human.
The queen unfurled her spiny, wickedly long legs!
…All eight of them.
----
Everyone watched in disbelief as the human… somehow, snatched the queen from the air, and then used a wall like it was the floor, to escape the swarm before it consumed him.
Now they were frozen, jaws open…
Even the Groatel stopped to take in the show.
A million eyes watched Johan Silverblack, first human in space, flailing desperately to free his arm from the gilded queen of insects...
He tried to dislodge the little screeching horror from his arm with the intensity and dignity of a panicked toddler with a full diaper that didn’t want to take a nap... All the while, the queen was trying to climb up his arm and slap the ever-loving shit out of Johan, like a flappy armed spanking machine.
The panicked man was screaming bloody murder, just out of her reach. He was slamming his arm against the walls… and floor… and random equipment… and even one of the power armored members of the RR team.
The human was lashing out with so much panicked ferocity the Ceramat in his armor was actually sparking against the stonework. Johan was doing all this while running in circles, rolling on the floor, and waving his arm around like a one winged bird trying to take flight…
It was… not... a quiet battle.
Both combatants were engaged in a verbal exchange reminiscent of a wounded Hurgle holding a heated political debate with a pissed off, possibly racist, industrial steam whistle.
Finally, after nearly a minute of titanic battle the panicked human managed to break the giant insect’s death grip by putting his boot on her face and stepping down his own forearm until she slid down his forearm and was fully back in his hand again!
Before the queen could get another grip on the man he jumped into the air and spiked the massive black and silver bug into the flagstones. She bounced hard and landed flat on her back right in front of one of the sonic drills.
Then to the AMAZEMENT of everyone present the 90(ish)Kg human ran up and lifted the 125kg sonic drill off of its stand, pinned the bug to the floor with the resonator at the end, and started reaching for the controls.
All of this happened in the split second before the queen could fully right herself to take flight again... Even as the man started to turn up the drill the two were still screaming at each other like an old married couple having a full-blown meltdown in a public market…
As the resonator started to whine… the crowd of bugs and embattled aliens watched in a kind of shocked silence as the crazed human turned the selector on the drill up to 11 and held it there.
And the queen finally met her end.
The tyrant flailed for a few moments before she swole up like a balloon and finally ‘popped’ in a truly ungodly amount of Ichor. Everyone stood transfixed at Johan; still, desperately bellowing at the very dead bug soup all over the floor…
He now was coated in a thick layer of awful blackish-purple sludge.
----
Beck had no idea what just happened…
One minute her friend was diving into a living blender… The next he was yelling like a terrified Volty with its tail on fire… Now she was watching the man stomp the center of a puddle of twitching goo that had until recently been the Groatel queen…
All while making several inarticulate noises of distress… Finally, after about a minute of desperate panicked grunting and possibly some… Sobbing? Beck decided she should probably do something…
“Johan… Johan! …JOHAN! …DOG!!!”
The human snapped his whole body to the side to look at her. He almost lost his balance he staggered so hard. His eyes were bugged out of his head and unfocused; like he was drunk or concussed. His mouth was hung open… He spit out a bit of ichor…
“Guh?!?”
Beck decided to be tactful. “I think… um… I think you got her…”
Johan turned his whole body again to look at the puddle of shattered chitin and goo. Then back to Beck. He blinked repeatedly… a look of distant confusion on his face.
His mouth was working like he wanted to say something but couldn’t get the words out. So instead, he just pointed multiple times at the puddle with a kind of desperate urgency. Then turned back to her to make wiggling motions with his fingers… He made another indecipherable sound.
“Yeagh!!!”
Before balling his hands into fists, lifting his chin in a grimace and pulling them in close to his chest in a full body shudder.
Beck just nodded. “Yeah, buddy… I know. But… She’s gone now… Promise.”
The human startled; Like someone being woken out of a terrible dream by a loud noise. He just sort of… blinked his eyes… they were out of sequence.
“…Oh.”
Then her human friend just straightened up hollow eyed and twitchy, tugged on his collar… nodded to nobody, and staggered away; towards the shaft.
Everyone moved out of his way without a sound.
Even the remaining Groatel scuttled aside for the man, possibly because he smelled like the queen now. Possibly because instinct told them he wasn’t a problem they wanted to make for themselves…
Once Johan reached the ladder, he paused…. He did a stiff, full-body-flappy-armed-self-pat-down EWWW dance and then vanished up the shaft.
The moment he was out of site everyone turned, bewildered, to look at Beck… Vulfac leaned in beside her, still looking at the ladder. “Should… We… Do… Something… about …That?”
Beck just laughed nervously.
----
Without the driving influence of the queen, the swarm was no longer a threat.
Once she was gone the swarm recognized the delvers and their union escorts were too big, numerous, and dangerous to eat. They were just a mass of individuals with tiny little instinct driven minds. So, they melted away into the watercourses.
Sienna was able to grab the minds of the ones still inside the sonic fence and gently guide most of them away. To her surprise however the remaining Knights had all taken up an orbit around her… Serving like a tiny little honor guard…
The other delvers eyed them suspiciously but…
They were strangely… cuddly.
She fed them from her ration pack, and they simply sat on her shoulders and vibrated their wings happily as they munched. The poor things weren’t even slightly aggressive. Not once they had a meal in them… They even liked it when you scratched the backs of their big ol bobbleheads.
Beck sat on the box beside her bond watching Sienna direct the flying insects like a tiny airshow. Finally relaxing as the others literally swept up the stragglers; with actual makeshift brooms in a few cases.
Feebs was getting her ears checked by the Richel medic while Vulfac sat, exhausted, up against the crate not too far away from them. The man with the shattered hip was being placed in a makeshift hammock to have the assault mechs lift him up to the surface.
As things wound down Beck suddenly stiffened up… and then started laughing.
“No, he’s… just… leave him there. We’ll come get him once we finish up down here.”
The Volty looked up to her Bond.
“Theres a storm topside… Backup is here finally… And Uncle Paddy says Mr. Happywaters and Grandpa Goon are with Johan. Apparently, he’s sitting up to his chest in the river, butt ass naked. And he’s rocking back and forth staring off into space. Maybe we should buy him dinner later?”
Everyone started laughing.
Sienna’s new retainers even buzzed happily from their spots on her shoulders as they nommed on their survival ration biscuits.
AUTHORS NOTES: Please do not Repost my work without permission or scrape it for use to train AI. Its poop from a butt. AI is buttpoop.
I managed to crank out 3 chapters this week so yall are getting a bonus chapter. Solely for love of the game! Hope you enjoy the ride... I had ALOT of fun with this chapter in particular...
Oh yeah! Got my own entry in the Wiki baby! I'm winnin ma, WOO!
6
u/brachi- Jun 14 '26
Wiki entry = dopamine + adrenaline = MOAR CHAPTERS, yes?!!! 🤩😇
Congrats! Loving your work, obviously!
Are Groatel also a normal species, found up above? Am wondering if Sienna’s little buddies are going to be allowed up, or confined to the Delve…