He didn't give her a voice. Couldn't, though not in a literal sense. He remembered hearing her speak, the tone and pitch of her words. There wouldn't have been much for her to say, in all honesty. What could he imagine her saying, here in this most private of places, other than vent her scorn against his species? Mock him and his people for allowing so obvious a villain into their home? But that was not the true reason. Sintra was not some unattainable idea he had not the wit nor imagination to capture.
The truth was, he didn't need her voice. He had her form, and when she sneered, she was all he needed her to be.
He snapped out his hands and that same black matter filled them both as he moved. A pair of sharp, curved daggers like the one he carried at his hip formed from them. First the outline, rough and rude and shadowy. Then filling out and becoming solid, then sharp, enough to gleam in the suns. The creature he'd formed hissed at the sight of them, massive pincers click-clacking in challenge. Kasoria spat to the side and tensed his fingers around the blades. Ni rain, now. No thunder. No lightning. Both them them under the light of day, in the place he called home, the place she'd worked to destroy and then to save. Kasoria was sure of it, that what Vlu had told him... well... it made sense. The Immortals played their endless games with each other, and even a city was naught but a pawn, an asset, a clever little scenario to be utilized to the greater goal.
So what if millions of the peons die? So what if a generation of children grow remembering their parents screaming as plague and monsters end them? Or a generation of parents wither in memory of their children weeping as their guts turn to slop inside them?
"All jus' a game, innit?" He snarled at the figure. "Fer the likes a you. Always will be, 'til some cunt like me ends yeh."
She hissed again and surged forwards, but this time, Kasoria charged.
Charged and screamed, with the sound of a lifetime's hate.
The creature, the monster, the goddess, was huge and fast, but Kasoria had faced those dimensions before, if not the form. It made them overconfident. He went down to his knees at a full sprint just as a huge pincer swiped out from the side to snip him in half across the torso. Bones creaked and muscles cried out in anguish as he bent backwards, sliding under the colossal appendage-weapon and under the Spider-Queen. He thanked himself briefly for remembering to imagine breeches, or his knees would have been rubbed raw down to the bone. Even now they were tortured, but as the sunlight died under the bulk of the creature he was sliding under-
Ignore it. Focus. This may be your mind, you may not die here, but it'll still fucking hurt. And besides...
The rest of the thought was cut off as he felt both daggers bite into chitin. One sliced the monster across the underside, the other stabbed into one of her legs, Kasoria's momentum pulling it back out as his skidding, sliding body came out from under her, and he tried to turn-
-cursed halfway through the clumsy movement as the beast screeched with a throat no mortal creature could possess-
He knew what she'd do before it happened. Same thing he'd do. Retaliate, and quick. Her size would have worked against her, and the fresh injury to her leg. But he was an old man, with old legs, and he couldn't turn in time. Instead of spinning around to his feet and leaping aside, he only just got up to-
-get knocked clean off them again by a backhanded blow from the other pincer. He didn't even have the breath to shout as he was flung into a wall like a bag of trash. Something broke, somewhere in the middle of his back. Something else cracked as he landed. Several somethings, actually. Kasoria swallowed it. Such a simple thing to say, but it was only pain to him. The severity was of little consequence: only in how it inhibited him. The control of it... that never changed. From his hands and knees he flashed a look of raw hatred at the thing that embodied all he despised in the world. It reared up and the stinger came up. Blotting the sun, coming down-
-evil point smashing into the wall where he'd been as he rolled away. Coming back and trying again as the Spider-Queen hissed in frustration, but again the assassin was too fast, even with broken bones and a spinning head. The blades he held were small, light, yet lethal. He may as well have been barehanded, but for all the lack of reach, it gave him speed. That would be what saved him-
-from yet another might blow aimed at piercing his heart. The assassin span to his side and let the stinger smash into a wall, bury itself in it for a precious second-
-giving him time to stab his daggers into the bulbous tip, bottom and top. The goddess shrieked and Kasoria didn't waste the moment. He yanked the blades out from the side with a great heave of his arms-
-and Sintra drew back the stump of her stinger, poison and blood and foulness spewing from it. Pain and rage and disbelief and yes, the fear he saw flash in her eyes stalled her, but emboldened him and he lunged for her with a barbarian's yell-
Don't get stupid!
He caught himself just in time, but at a cost. One of her pincers lashed out yet Kasoria threw up his daggers. Crossed together, they were enough to stop himself from being sent flying again. Arms and upper body braced behind them, he countered with enough force to halt the clubbing-
-but the shattering pain blinded him, paused him, and again the mistake was played out only it was him who was victim-
-as one of the massive, drooling fangs hanging under Sintra's waist sank deep into his leg. Kasoria roared out in agony, in anguish, yet in the split-trill of that agony, channeled it into killing fury. His leg already afire, he threw his arms to the side, opening up the Spider-Queen's guard by redirecting her pincer away from him-
The daggers moved up and down, back and forth, precise and savage. Thrice he hacked at tendons, easily surmised before by the thick bundles of muscle lining the monster's limbs. Then down, at the legs, stabbing into the middle of one, at the joint, and twisting it out, leaving a semi-severed ruin behind-
-finishing his revenge with a bellow as he lunged upward-
-and the other pincer knocked him back and into the wall.
Kasoria lay there for what seemed like all trial. It was more like a couple of trills, if that. But that delay, that blackness, that irresistible weariness and desire to just stay down, rest... Fates, but it called to him. For a couple of trills. Then the old man's eyes snapped open and Sintra was there. Hideous and beautiful at once, depending what you were looking at. Classical face of sculpted mortal nobility now twisted into a daemon's visage. Two of her legs were nigh-useless under her. One of her pincers twitched and bled and she could barely lift it. Her stinger pumped fluid green and black everywhere, including over her head as it twitched abruptly-
She glared as Kasoria dared to laugh. His own mind made such a thing. Was it inspired, or childish? Either way... it hurt. He shoved himself up the wall and felt nothing in one of his legs. He stamped it, over and over. Until he felt pain. Yes. He could work with that. On a leg on the verge of hemorrhaging, trailing blood as he went, the Raggedy Man spat blood and stepped forwards.
He raised both his daggers, and winked at the queen.
Leg's fucked. Make her come to you. Then... work it out.
"Come on n'ave it, yeh Morty bitch-"
The rest was drowned and washed away by an Immortal's shriek, that seemed to rattle the sky of this impossible place, and the thunder of her feet as she charge cracked stone and promised death.
