CRACK

“Oh yeah!”

“Yeah!”

“We dare you to say that again!”

“Well, here we go; you guys are idiots!”

CRACK

“Oh yeah!”

“Yeah!”

“Put them up you!”

“Oh by the 99 Gods, would all you guys stop that?” a spirit said. “We are a hive. You guys can’t fight with each other!”

CRACK

“Doesn’t mean we’re not going to try!”

“Yeah! Put them up you moron!”

CRACK

“Oh, would you idiots give it a rest?” another spirit said. “There’re plenty of dogs to go around.”

Indeed there were. The hive was, as usual, in its’ room on the third floor of the tunnels and all around it were the latest creatures their creatures had brought back. Over 10 dogs were in the room with the hive, and they were kept there because both exits of the room were guarded by a pair of Werewolves.

Ever since the hive had ordered their creatures to attack the humans, their creatures had been coming back with a number of human children and animals. The hive turned the children into one of the Crowman, Harpy, or Angels, rotating them among the flyers, but mostly left the animals alone. The hive had noticed that their creatures had started to name themselves and, despite the complaints of members in the Naming Committee, decided to go along with their decisions so the hive was now calling the flyers by their chosen names.

The problem the hive faced now was two-fold. The first was that humans hadn’t arrived yet. The hive’s plans of having humans come to it for revenge was a failure as it has been many days since the attacks began but…no humans. The majority of the spirits within the hive now had to admit their plan was not working and they need to come up with a better one soon.

That was a problem for later though as their more immediate problem was what to do with all the animals their creatures had brought back. The hive didn’t really have any plans for most of them and told their creatures to cast the animals into the forest of the fifth floor. However, their creatures would occasionally round up and bring the animals back to the hive on the third floor!

The hive didn’t quite understand why their creatures did this at first but when several of the spirits within the hive said that it looked as if their creatures wanted the hive to change the animals, it began to make sense. The hive thought this was a strange expectation for the creatures to have and the spirits within the hive didn’t know quite how to handle it.

What should they create? How skills and power should they give? How would their new creations match up to their old ones? What would happen if their new creatures turned out to be useless like the Giant Ants?

In short, even though they don’t know it, the spirits within the hive were having performance anxiety. They were feeling the pressure to meet the expectations of their creatures!

“Doesn’t matter how many dogs we have,” a spirit fumed. “We need to give all of them wings!”

“Wings?” another spirit shouted back. “Who says we need to give them wings? We already have a bunch of creatures with wings, why do we need another one? We need Dogmen!”

CRACK

“Dogmen? Why do we need Dogmen? We already have the Werewolves, the Ratlings, the Crowman…who came up with that stupid name anyway? Anyway, we don’t need Dogmen! We need more creatures that can fly!”

CRACK

“Why do we need that? We already have…”

“Can’t we do both?” a spirit suggested.

“NO!” the majority of the spirits within the hive shouted.

“Our creatures are expecting big things from us,” one of the spirits helpfully explained. “We can’t disappoint them. Didn’t you hear how they were discussing what great creatures we were going to create next? We need to do something that meets their expectations!”

“Oh please,” another spirit said. “You idiots are making too much of this. Who cares what the Kin thinks? We are their Creator! They listen to us, why should we care what they want?”

CRACK

“Oh you did not just say that, you uncaring idiotic little turd!”

“At least I/we didn’t waste our time worrying about the approval of creatures we created!”

“The Kin?” a spirit said.

“What?”

“Kin,” the spirit said again. “That’s what the creatures call themselves now. They are ‘The Kin’.”

“Are we accepting that name? We never…”

“WHAT!” a spirit exploded in anger. “Now they are naming themselves? That’s our job! That’s what the Naming Committee is for! What’s next? They get to choose their powers? We are not accepting that name!”

“First off, there’s no such thing as a Naming Committee in the hive and secondly, who cares what they name themselves?”

CRACK

“You did not just say that!” a spirit fumed. “You guys asked for our help many times before!”

“Yeah, and you morons always come up with stupid…”

“Great Creator! May this lowly creature ask if you are well?”

The spirit within the hive pulled back from their argument as they registered the question. Focusing their power outwards, the spirits saw the wolfgirl kneeling before it with her head bowed low to the ground. The hive remembered this was another one of those strange marks of respect their creatures had.

*We are well*

The spirits with the hive sensed relief flooding through the wolfgirl, and not only from her. The sense of relief was coming from several other creatures in the room as well. This was when the spirits noticed that their room on the third floor was now filled with the Kin. They had no idea what was going on, so they gathered their energy and asked.

*Why are all of you here?*

The wolfgirl hesitated for a moment but then asked. ““Great Creator, we were worried. You are cracking!”

The spirits with the hive refocused their energy and saw themselves. Yes, the wolfgirl was right! Cracks had appeared on the crystal that was housing the spirits. Unlike their creatures however, the spirits were not worried. Though this was the first time they could see physical evidence of cracks, they had noticed the cracking sound long before today. Honestly, the spirits were kind of curious about the cracks themselves but that was something for later. Right now, the spirits need to settle the sense of unease the Kin had.

*No need to worry about the cracks. We are fine.*

That was the wrong thing to say as the hive could sense the unease increasing. Noticing this, a spirit within the hive suggested they try to move the conversation t something else. This in turn got the spirits into another argument on what to move to. It was just one of those days for the hive. Then one of the spirits noticed something, which meant all the spirits within the hive noticed it as well.

*What is that?*

The sense of unease in the room turned to puzzlement as no one knew what the hive was talking about. Rather than waste time and energy talking, the hive focused on the piece of cloth that was in the hand of one of the Werewolves. The picture on it intrigued the spirits and for the first time in days, everyone agreed on something.

Power surged inside the room and the spirits selected one of the dogs at random. The hive concentrated its power on the head of the dog, and immediately noticed its mistake. There was too much power. The dog was going to explode! The spirits immediately cut off the power but they were too late. The energy was already on the dog and it was screaming. The spirits within the hive actually felt kind of sorry for the dog as it rolled on the floor in pain. It’s head was glowing and then…it happened!

The head of the dog spilt apart!

It didn’t explode as the hive had feared but instead its head spilt into 3! One head had magically become 3 and as if to accommodate the multiple heads, the dog became noticeably bigger. It was now the size of a human and all three of the heads now sport sharp canines. It wasn’t what the hive wanted, the spirits were going for just 2 heads, but the spirits considered the 3-headed creature a success as it was pretty much what they were trying to do.

“Hey, there’s still a lot of energy in the room” One of the Fire spirits said. “Mind if we did something with it?”

Before the rest of the hive could respond, the Fire spirits took control of the energy in the room and focused them on one of the other dogs. Instead of just the head, the energy flowed all over the dog. A red glow immediately appeared over the dog and as the glow got brighter, red lines appeared on it. The glow dimmed and just as it disappeared, the dog burst into flames!

The creatures within the room moved back in shock but the flaming dog appeared unaffected by the flames. Instead, it looked kind of pleased with it. The Fire spirits within the hive rejoiced. They created something completely on their own, without the help of the other spirits. The hound even had horns on it! It was perfect!

CRACK

The rest of the spirits were less than pleased. In fact, they were furious! The hive cared little when some of the spirits use a little energy for individual projects, but this was not the case here. The Fire spirits had hijacked the power the hive had gathered together and used them for their own purpose. This was not how the hive operated!

CRACK

CRACK

CRACK

CRACK

…

Before the spirits could do anything, they noticed the shock of their creatures. Shock; surprise; worry; all these feelings overwhelmed the room. The spirits did not understand what was going on. They did not understand why their creatures were suddenly so worried. Then the hive sensed it; there was another presence within the room, one the hive had not noticed before.

The spirits gathered their energy and focused on the unknown presence. It was surprisingly right beside it. Right beside the crystal that was the hive was yet another crystal; this one was red in colour and was only about the size of a human finger.

*…hive?*

The hive sensed the energy and realized the energy was forming a word. A word that was coming from the red crystal! More importantly, the spirits within the hive recognized the energy. How could they not? They had been living with them for years!

*…Fire Sprits?*

A shout of joy echoed within the room. The spirits within the hive then noticed that several of their creatures were now jumping. They sensed the words from their creatures and a lot of them were saying words like; Two; More; and Creators!

They were happy. The creatures were happy that there were now two of them! As the creatures were shouting in joy, the Fire…Hive whispered to the hive.

*What do we do now?*

The spirits within the hive stayed silent. None of them had any idea.

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