Raptors began stepping out from the stone, one after another, their eyes shining in the light as they shifted their gaze across the tree line. Lily stayed crouched behind the thick root, watching as more of them came out.
At first, it was only a few, but that changed quickly. Some came from the larger opening near the bottom, while others slipped out from cracks higher up on the rocky slope. They moved with their heads low, their claws scraping lightly against the stone, letting out those low clicking sounds that seemed to pass between them.
'So the injured one really did warn them.'
It made sense that it would have warned them; that was why she had even allowed it to go in the first place, but she was curious how they knew she had come.
The three Raptorlings stayed near her, their bodies low to the ground as they waited for her command. She could feel their instincts through the Hive, the newness of their bodies, the urge to move, to hunt the things before them.
They were young, not in age, but in purpose. They had never hunted properly before, and now they were being placed in front of a nest filled with the very creatures they were partly made from.
Lily gave the command, and the Raptorlings moved.
They slipped forward through the roots and stones, spreading out naturally as they approached the raptors. They didn't clump together like stupid beasts; they kept enough distance that one attack wouldn't hit all of them at once.
The raptors noticed them quickly, and soon enough, they had begun to gather around them.
The closest raptor snapped its head toward them and screeched, and the others moved almost instantly. They didn't wait for them to get close; they just attacked.
Three charged straight for the Raptorlings, while others moved along the rocks and sides, cutting off space before the Raptorlings could retreat. One leapt down from a higher stone ledge, hitting the ground hard enough to send dirt and loose bones scattering.
The Raptorlings weren't ones to back down either and met them head-on.
One managed to slam into a raptor's side and bite deep into its leg, dragging it off balance. Another slipped low under a claw swipe and tore into the stomach of the one above it, but before it could finish the job, two more raptors crashed into it from the side.
The third Raptorling tried to move around them, but the raptors didn't let it; they swarmed them with sheer numbers.
Lily's eyes narrowed slightly as the fight turned messy almost immediately. The raptors weren't stronger individually, but there were too many of them, and they were used to fighting together. They pushed, snapped, leapt, and threw their bodies into the Raptorlings without caring about taking wounds in return.
One of the Raptorlings was knocked into a pile of bones, the impact snapping ribs and old skulls under its body. Before it could rise, a raptor jumped on its back and dug its claws into the hardened hair, trying to rip through the weak spots between the thicker sections.
Another raptor went for its neck.
'The mutant abilities are working well, but they're still too passive. It would be best to have them fight in larger groups, swarming.'
She let the fight continue for a little longer.
Not because she was unwilling to help them, rather there was no point in making test soldiers if she stepped in the second they struggled. She needed to see what wasn't useful and what was.
From what she had seen, it was pretty obvious; they were great attack-wise, but weren't able to put up a good defense against a group.
That was a problem in the Savage Land, where almost everything either hunted in packs or was large enough to make numbers meaningless.
One Raptorling managed to tear free, dragging a chunk of raptor flesh with it, but it was limping now. Another had one of its front limbs badly wounded, with pieces of flesh missing from the raptors' repeated biting. The third was still fighting, but it had been forced backward toward the root line, exactly where the raptors wanted it.
They were herding them; it was almost impressive to see. But that was enough.
Lily stood, and the raptors noticed her immediately. While not all of them shifted their attention, they could tell she was a threat, and the ones that did rushed her.
Lily lifted her hand, and a barrier formed in front of her just as the first raptor leapt.
Its body smashed against the translucent surface, its claws scraping down the barrier before it dropped to the ground. Before it could recover, she stepped forward and kicked it in the head, hardening her leg as she did.
The skull caved in slightly, and the raptor folded into the dirt, and another came from the side.
She turned, her arm shifting as dark, hardened skin formed over it, the raptor's teeth closed around her forearm, but they couldn't bite down and instead broke apart. It shook its head violently, trying to tear flesh away, so Lily let acid seep through her skin.
The raptor released her with a screech, its mouth smoking as the flesh inside began to melt. She grabbed the side of its head with her other hand and crushed it within her palm.
The nest exploded into sound.
The raptors began screaming, and more answered from inside the openings. She could hear them moving deeper in the cave; they were clearly aware she was here and angry with her for intruding.
'Might be a bit dicey, but I've done worse.'
"Come back."
The three Raptorlings reacted to the mental order and pulled back toward her, injured but alive. The Raptors tried to follow.
Lily raised both hands and released a burst of force outward, telekinetic pressure throwing loose bones, dirt, and two charging raptors backward; some of them outright died from the force slamming them into things, but most survived.
A normal animal would have hesitated after seeing two of its own dropped like that, but these ones were too deep in their territory, too many in number, and too angry to back off.
Lily smiled slightly.
"You're much more entertaining than those shitty criminals from before."
The next few moments became a mess of teeth and claws.
A raptor jumped at her from above, and she caught it with a burst of flame from her palm. The fire didn't fully burn it, but it struck its face and chest, making it crash badly into the ground. Another tried to rush past her toward the injured Raptorling, only for a Raptorling to bite into its neck and drag it sideways.
They stopped acting like separate hunters and started using her as the center of the fight. When the raptors came for her, the Raptorlings attacked them to defend her, and vice versa.
It seemed like they had developed nicely into a small, trained unit; perhaps she should call these three Rap-Unit One and expand them in the future.
One raptor managed to get close enough to slash her side, tearing through her clothing and cutting into her skin just slightly. Lily barely glanced at it before grabbing the creature by the throat, her fingers hardened, then pierced inward.
It died kicking, and she threw it into another one with enough force to knock both into the stone wall.
The wound was already healing, but the others wouldn't let her rest; they attacked her almost instantly.
The nest had more than she thought, a lot more.
The rocky slope was starting to fill with movement, and she could see eyes deeper in the shadows. Some were smaller, likely younger raptors, but others were larger than the ones outside. Their bodies moved behind the first wave, waiting for a chance or waiting for an order.
That last thought made her pause.
'Are they waiting for orders?'
She focused her mind and sent out a mental pulse in the area around her; reading the minds of the normal raptors was pointless, they were too foolish to be thinking anything rational.
But beyond that, she did pick up on a somewhat rational mind within range.
'Something is directing them.'
The next rush didn't come at her directly. Instead, several raptors threw themselves at the wounded Raptorling, forcing Lily to move toward it, while two larger ones rushed from the side at the same time.
They were trying to pull her out of position, but they didn't know that Lily didn't need a position.
She created a barrier over the wounded Raptorling, letting the raptors slam into it while she twisted and released a blast of condensed energy toward the larger ones. The burst struck the first in the chest and sent it tumbling back, but the second managed to keep moving, crashing into her hard.
But she didn't move back; her strength far outclassed theirs, not to mention her durability was enough to tank most damage. Their claws couldn't truly hurt her, nor could their teeth.
Its mouth snapped toward her face, and she caught its upper jaw with one hand and its lower jaw with the other.
For a moment, it pushed against her, muscles straining, hot breath washing over her face.
Then she pulled as the jaw split open with a wet crack. Lily let the body fall and looked toward the nest openings.
She sent another order through the Hive.
The ground under the rocky slope shifted.
The Direworm had been following below, waiting deep enough that the raptors wouldn't feel it through the stone. Now it moved upward, its body grinding through dirt and roots before breaking into the lower part of the slope.
The ground collapsed under one of the openings.
Several raptors fell with it, their screeches cutting off as stone, dirt, and the Direworm's body swallowed them into the broken space. The collapse wasn't large enough to destroy the nest, but it sealed one entrance and caused the others to recoil.
"I'm just going to have to kill them all; this nest is far too close to mine."