Lise instinctively moved back, despite the little chance she had of avoiding them.

A ripple went through the air. The bolts flew to either side of them, thunking into the walls and pinging off metal beams to clatter to the floor. Iron fey shrieked as they were hit, but not one of the half-dozen bolts touched them.

The Thornguards gaped. Ash and Puck stared at them as if they had grown another head.

"Impossible." Virus spun slowly to face them, her face draining of color. She shook her head, as if trying to convince herself. "You cannot be the one. A weakling human girl? Youre not even one of us. Its a mistake, it must be!" She wasn't sure which of them had just done that, but whichever one it was...actually, might as well kill both.

She keeps trying to rip the dress, trying even harder than before. She doesn't know why the arrows missed, but she highly doubts they'll get so lucky a second time.

she figured she was talking to Isiea, based on what she was told before.

Virus started to giggle, sticking a green-tinted nail in her mouth, her laughter growing louder and more hysterical, until she stopped and glared at them with wide, crazy eyes. "No!" she screamed, making even the Thornguards flinch. "It isnt right! I was his second! His power should have been mine!"

Her mouth opened, gaping impossibly wide, and the Thornguards backed away. The air started to vibrate, a terrible buzzing filling the air, and Virus threw her head back. With the droning of a million bees, a huge swarm of metal bugs spiraled up from Viruss mouth, swirling around her in a frantic glittering cloud. Her smile was savage as she looked at them, extending a hand from the center of the buzzing tornado. "Now, my dears," she said, barely audible over the droning of a thousand bugs, "we will end this little game once and for all. I should have done this when I first saw you, but I had no idea you were the one I was searching for all along."

They were thousands of individual bugs, but also a single creature sharing one mind, one goal, one purpose. A hive mind. Control one, control all.

She keeps trying to tear the dress. She has no claws and no knife- her only possible way of defending herself is if she ruins the dress enough to stop the glamour.

She honestly had no idea how any of them would manage to get out of this.

"Go," she screamed, sweeping her arm toward them. "Crawl down their throats and nostrils, into their eyes and ears and every open pore. Burrow into their brains and make them tear out their own hearts!"

The Swarm flew toward them, a furious, buzzing cloud. Puck pressed close; a droning filled their ears as the Swarm approached, glowing bright with iron glamour, melded into a single massive entity. One mind. One creature. Even without tearing the dress, she could see the glamour.

She needs her claws. She tears as hard as she possibly can.

In order to get rid of the swarm they'd need to take out Virus, but theres no way they'd be able to get to her now.