The queen bee fluttered to Kyrad’s level while Kyrad readied himself to fight it and end the nest’s reign of terror.

Kyrad’s bracelet, the same one every First Hunter was equipped with, began to envelop his left hand in a wreath of flame, burning him but embuing Crystalline with the element of fire. The magma stone was his last resort, but in a scenario like this, it felt inappropriate to even flinch from the burning pain it wreaked on him.

The queen bee charged at Kyrad with a screech, so he leaped into the chamber, unafraid of the bees inside. Before any of them could sting him, he burst through the swarm, landing on what would have been the room’s domed ceiling, then used his knife to stay balanced on the steep slope as he continued to run from the swarm of bees, which chased him down the moment he left the repellent’s effective range.

He threw Crystalline at their queen, who had hit the hive’s wall in her change, and was recovering, aiming for the antenna lodged into her skull. All his time practicing with the weapon had given him a good understanding of when exactly on its path through the air that it broke into three copies of itself, hence why he had run further from the queen before aiming.

He chucked the knife at the queen, the crystal dagger burning with the magma stone’s power, but just before it hit her horn, she tried to weave out of the way. In the sound of a crystal cracking, the dagger split into three, one managing to lodge itself into the queen’s eye.

Another guttural scream came from the beast, then its stinger shot at Kyrad. He rolled to the side as it hit the hive behind him, then continued into a run, thousands of bees chasing him. His thick, obsidian-plated clothes may have given him decent protection against stings, but he wasn’t about to let them swarm him, nor was he going to give their queen free reign to take potshots at him.

As he ran on the hive’s floor, the queen bee’s stinger magically regrew every few seconds, and it shot at him while it flew around the room in unpredictable patterns, forcing the hunter to dodge each time.

For a few, agonizingly long seconds, the queen was outside Crystaline’s range, but the instant the bee fluttered just far enough away, Kyrad ripped his weapon from the wall, leaped closer to the viscous liquid and rampant fire at the bottom of the room, and threw Crystalline at the queen with haphazard aim. The weapon split into three just as she tried to turn, causing two of the replicated daggers to lodge themselves into the bee’s torso.

It screeched once more as Kyrad recovered from his jump, prompting another giant bee to fly out one of the other entrances to the main hive. It charged Kyrad the moment it had the chance, but the hunter wouldn’t let himself be taken off-gaurd again. The instant it flew down at him, he used his right hand to chuck a repellent on the ground while throwing his dagger at his foe.

Just as he did, though, a tremor, the likes of which he’d never experienced before, made him lose his footing and aim, causing him to trip and slip into the inferno of burning beeswax below him.

Though he slipped past the giant bee’s change, its queen wasn’t too keen on giving him the opportunity to rest. She quickly shot another stinger at the hunter, so he flipped over just as it lodged into the hive just between his arm and torso, giving him an unneeded reminder of his mortality.

He flipped up just as the giant bee braved the flames and charged at him again, its stinger held out to kill. Kyrad, panicking, braced himself for its impact with a risky maneuver he had never needed to use before. In a rush of death-defying clarity, he perfectly stabbed and gripped the bee’s abdomen once it got into range, holding on as hard as he could. The stinger barely failed to pierce the obsidian studs lining his clothes as the hunter was sent tumbling to the other side of the room with the bee, right to the shallows of the poisoned honey. The two continued to struggle against each other, with Kyrad backed against a burning wall as his adversary tried to plunge its stinger into him.

He had the advantage, however, as the fire hardly hurt him from beneath his enchanted obsidian clothes, while the giant bee was burning both inside and out, losing strength as its fluttering wings were singed.

Then, Kyrad saw a stinger pointed right at him, just above his current adversary’s head. With no way to dodge, he desperately kicked the other creature away, then dragged it just a little to the right, gripping Crystalline with two hands. As he feared, the giant bee took the opportunity to snap at his face with its mandibles.

Then, a giant stinger impaled it. Kyrad quickly threw the bee to the side, uncaring for the guts that had splattered on him, and quickly threw his dagger at the queen. Immediately, it flew to the side, dodging, then circled the chamber, right above the ground, ready to outright squish the hunter with its sheer size.

Kyrad stood his ground and smirked, thinking he was just a few steps from winning.

However, his life was surely in danger.

Outside, Mage was in a panic. While she had, indeed, incinerated the plaguebringers, the main one had escaped the explosion just before it happened, apparently betting she’d be distracted.

It was still alive, though wires, pipes, and plagued organic matter were visible on its side, blown apart by the eruption of hellish energy. The problem was that instead of attacking Mage it had used the explosion as a smokescreen to sneak away and protect its hive.

Ethir, still trapped in Mage’s body, wasn’t ready to leave quite yet. He had to protect his friends. His fear for them drove Mage forward at incredible speed while the girl herself prepared an attack.

They met the bee’s pace, still a half-mile behind it as it soared across the ground, raising a storm of loose dirt and trees as it moved almost as fast as sound, weaving side to side for some reason.

Mage unleashed a medium-sized attack at it, sending a laser protruding from her hands, but the bee, which had been looking back at her with its wide range of sight, easily moved to the side as she did so, avoiding the explosions that erupted afterward with little difficulty.

“You better not miss the fucking next one, witch. Their lives are on the line!”

“I will absolutely not!” Mage responded before sending smaller bolts of brimfire at the bee. It moved out of the way of each, but this time, Mage was on the offensive. “To the left!”

Ethir wordlessly moved them to the left, giving Mage a new angle to shoot at. Her next bolt forced the bee to curve further to the right, sidetracking it from its rush to the hive.

“Forward!”

Mage moved forward, then cut the mechanical bee off once more with another dart of brimflame, keeping it flying far from the hive. Mage continued to pelt it with zoning bolts of brimfire, but the bee slowly made progress towards its destination, circling towards the hive.

“You better think of something fast, lady!” Ethir thought, growing impatient

“Ok, then get us as close as we can get!”

Mage kept pelting the bee with bolts but quickly caught up to it with Ethir’s help.

“Give me the reigns, now!”

“All yours, sis.”

Mage clenched her hands together, raised them, then surged forward and slammed them into the bee’s abdomen.

“SYSTEM OVERWRITE, DEATH IMPENDING, SELF-DESTRUCTIVE ATTACK AUTHORIZED.”

Its abdomen fell off, thudding to the ground.

Then, the bee instantly turned around and charged Mage at the speed of sound.

It sent her sprawling far away with its charge, now lightened enough to outspeed them, and gave her no respite.

Ethir moved them to the left just as it flew to bury them in the ground, but the bee swerved just as quickly and continued to chase the witch.

“We need to destroy its abdomen,” Mage thought.

“That seems to be of a lower priority right now, witch!” Ethir said back, annoyed at her idiocy.

“Project Plague is equipped with a self-destruction mechanism used to defend the Greater Hive against dangerous opponents. In case of emergency, the radiation lock on the corrodium located in its abdomen will be unlocked, causing it to self-destruct in roughly 34 seconds,” Mage said robotically.

Ethir sent them careening away from the charging bee and towards the fallen abdomen. “I don’t know what the fuck you are, to know that, but if that’s the case...”

“let’s goooo!” Mage yelled aloud, charging a dart of brimflame.

“WHO THE FUCK MADE THIS STUPID MACHINE ANYWAY, HUH?! WHO THE HELL EQUIPS THEIR MACHINES WITH DAMNED SELF-DESTRUCTION SEQUENCES!?” Ethir yelled in turn, turning the woman’s smile into a scowl.

They burst forward, barely outran by the plaguebringer’s jet-powered charge, but during their escape, Mage shot at what remained of the creature, forcing it to swerve away before it could pounce on them. If it managed to, they may not have had time to stop the bomb.

When they finally made it to the titanium-shelled abdomen, they crashed into it, punching into the hard titanium armor as fire enveloped Mage’s arm. She strained her whole body as quickly as she could, magic surging below her skin, then swung it around just as the bee was going to hit them. She sent it and the bee flying a mile away with a point-blank hellish explosion, then even as it flew away, she struck it with another dart, and then a third for good measure.

Then, just as the bee managed to escape from its fallen body’s clutches, it detonated.

Kyrad, meanwhile, met the queen bee’s charge. He jumped as high as he could and bared the pain as the massive bee hit him head-first. He lurched in pain as he heard a sharp, blood-curdling crack in his body.

Despite that, he still stabbed down at the creature’s mechanical antennae. With the sound of crystal hitting metal, the horn-like protrusion shook and moved down a little, but it wasn’t enough to break or hit it out.

Just as the bee stopped to let him fly away into the wall, Kyrad grabbed its real, organic antennae with his other arm. He slid down it as it halted, barely hanging on, then threw Crystalline at its horn again, budging it just a little more. The bee began to move him towards the swarm of bees while flinging him about in an attempt to knock him off.

Seeing only one way to escape the queen, he swung off the antennae and into its burning pollen coat, where the bees would be smoked out, and he could grip on to the fur.

He was rattled by more pain when his ribcage hit the coat, but he’d endured more than enough pain in his life. He focused on the burning pain from his magma stone and hung on to his thoughts through that meditative technique.

The queen bit down at him with her mandibles, but he took the opportunity to kick off its coat, then plunge Crystalline into its already damaged eye. The bee’s head writhed about in an attempt to chuck him off, but it only made Kyrad flip over towards its horn. In a last-ditch effort to put the hive into chaos, Kyrad let go of his weapon as he was flung over the bee’s head and instead gripped its horn with both.

He tugged as hard as he could as the swarm began to descend on him once more, unabated by any fire, but just as he thought their stingers would end his life, poisoning him with the plague, the queen bee began to flail about in a rampage, afraid he would tear out its horn.

It began to smack itself against the wall in a self-destructive attempt to kill Kyrad, slamming him over and over in unpredictable surges. However, the First Hunter refused to let go, and no matter how many times he hit the wall, he held on.

Then, it sent him flying.

Pop!

When he slammed against the wall for the last time, flung away, he nearly lost hope.

Before he realized what he yet still held between his hands. He hadn’t let go of the horn, the queen had.