My weapon was perfect - perfect for everything - except...fighting the bugs. They didn't sting each other, which was good, but...

It left me in a predicament because I needed both hands to deal with the bugs, to climb, and I couldn't bring my weapon into my inventory. And I didn't want to leave it behind, not when it made me feel so much better -

I compromised - opening my backpack, I stuck the weapon in buggy side down, and tied it to the hanger loop with some cloth forming a loose sheath.

And I returned again, going much faster. The bugs only had one attack, and their numbers were already diminished, and I felt confident I'd seen all their moves, there were no more surprises.

*Smack*

With my backpack tied up I used two textbooks - I brought them together, crushing, waiting for a clink, and scooped up the body.

Over and over again, getting a bit closer each time before another attacked, when finally, I was there. The base of the tree.

I can still hear the buzzing. Not quite as loud as when they flew, but I couldn't lower my guard. There were definitely more bugs up there, even if it was just a few.

But there was something else that was stealing my attention, even as I reached to climb.

The bones.

There was a horde of them. Mounds over mounds. I started digging, kicking away dried skin and loose grass, sucking them in. All in various states of decay, I couldn't believe how many there were. Skulls and ribs, leg bones and arms - spines still all attached. Hooves and claws. Teeth.

I tried moving them around in my mind, seeing if I could make sense of the animals that it use to be, but I realized I wasn't very good at how bones fit together. Some were obvious. But I wasn't sure if they were all one animal type, or I had combined some.

Did animals here have six legs? Eight?

I could make something that looked like a dog, but a neck like a giraffe. But the more I looked, the more everything just looked like a dog. Different sizes of dogs, really. Besides the teeth and tail, hooves or claws.

And if I made them stand up -

I shivered.

It was like somebody had taken the same thing and just sort of stretched parts of it out, I stopped trying to make sense of the halloween decorations because they were useless like that. But bone armor?

I got tired of bending down and just sucked in my shoes and walked, digging my toes into the earth until they felt something hard and taking it in. Sucking it in.

It wasn't quite loot. It wasn't quite treasure.

It was more valuable then a bar of gold though, to me. If I could make something out of it. Even if it felt dull inside me - probably since I didn't kill it myself, or maybe it was just my harvesting ability didn't work on something already dead?

I sucked it all up - feeling the strength of them inside me - the hard smoothness of the weatherworn, or the tackiness of those where dried matter still clung or crumbled - my feet dug and slurped away.

And I noticed my inventory filling - not full, not even close yet - but I felt that it wasn't bottomless. Like it was a bucket I sensed the bottom layer had been covered - things didn't rattle around as much if I shook it,

I was understanding it better too. I know I can't suck in something that's too big to fit. I can't have an accident, say - and suck in a whole tree only to explode.

*Chomp!*

"Oh!" I shouted - and heard flinching against an angry buzz that didn't come - something had bitten my foot...I jerked it out, the beast followed it - still attached.

And I should have known - of course,

It was a baby monster - a baby Enemy-Friend!

And it bit down just as fiercely as the first - clamped against my foot, sawing into my toes - teeth grinding against bone, all chihuahua in its fierceness. Then two others emerged, climbing out of the nest of bones I'd sunk my foot in. Hissing! Scratching! Sniffing...sniffing my armor...

The little one pulled back from my foot and looked up at me, no longer attacking.

I was surprised at how hideously cute they were as babies. Little monsters, and quickly my neck whipped as I searched for the adult, the protective den mother that was likely sneaking up behind me -

Protection.

But of course it wasn't - I realized.

The parent was already here.

I was wearing her.

I sensed it, knew it was true. That last strip of leather I harvested after her death, it had felt different inside of me. I felt how it wanted to protect - that when I added it to the armor, that's when it became Armor.

Enemy-Friend hadn't been a bastard at all, but a bitch!

"Shit." I swore. I felt so good. So powerful. "Shit!"

Why did they have to be a buzz kill. I wanted to be the buzz-kill. So I started climbing.

A low branch I pulled up - chinned up, then I was above it. I pulled my weight up as easily as if I was swimming up the tree, one arm was all it took to pull myself up, like climbing a ladder without needing the strength of my legs.

I tested the branches - bouncing, I was definitely no lighter, I tried to use the bend to spring - to jump!

I caught the next branch, higher and higher I climbed. But my Armor held me back. Ungainly and gross, I had to be careful not to pull it up or let it sag. It overlapped like a gastric bypass patient. But even then - halfway up, I realized I was having fun.

I looked down and saw the long fall - felt my stomach gurgle with a reminder that whatever else had changed, wings wasn't one of them. But I felt confident - that unless I landed on my head, and maybe even then - I wouldn't die.

So I looked up - branches parted, as I neared my goal.

Buzz! Buzz!

And I got my first peek at the house of pain. Thirty feet above me - it hung twisted amongst the limbs, a scaly mass of wax, or paper, about the size of a beach volleyball. At least that's what I thought it was.

I was much closer before I realized the truth, this wasn't a hive made of wax or paper at all - it was a body. Or what was left of one. Just the husk. Stuck frozen on the branch, long dried past leather, was the mummified remains of what had been a monkey.

The humanness of the face made me shiver - the twisted mouth was open in an immortal scream, pure agony, where yellowed teeth protruded out like mountains of pain. The final moments of its life, frozen forever after succumbing to the horrible pain of the sting.

I went closer.

Its eyes had long been hollowed out, dried and rotted away, and I saw that in death the eyelids had dried and retracted - leaving the gaping sockets forever locked in surprise - shocked horror.

And I saw two green bugs moving across it - different from the others I'd seen, been attacked by. Their carapace was laced with blue instead of green alone.

They wandered over the hive moving their pinchers, waving long front legs and buffeting their wings. Like they were praying over small mounds of caked mud that made tiny volcanos on the matted fur.

Larva, or eggs. They're taking care of the baby bugs.

Just two...I decided to risk it, I found a good spot and twisted my feet into the branches, catching my balance, securing myself - and I waved my books at them -

"Woo hoo! Here bug, bug, bug, bug!"

They ignored me - not even looking, I realized why they didn't attack as I stared waiting...they couldn't fly! The wings were different, wide and twisted down, swooped back instead of out like a fan blade, and they used then as such, moving air over the cocooned caldera, but could they sting?

I moved even closer, and from a tear in the skin of the monkey, I caught my first true flash of color in the jungle - even the flowers I saw had been borrowed greens and cupped yellows, but this?

This wasn't green laced with blue - she was sapphire, glittering in the dark of her nest, hidden behind the cracked folds of dried skin - magnificent.

The Queen.

I don't know why it was the first thing I thought of, maybe it was because I was on a tree. That I wanted to take this territory from her, that she had claimed herself.

Maybe I was still looking for a way to shame Derek, that didn't harm him - I wanted to hurt him. It was different, how he hurt me.

I didn't want things even - I wanted to be better.

I wanted to show them -

That not only had they attacked the wrong dude.

They'd pissed me off.

I licked my lips - I needed to get rid of the others first - and get closer. But since they couldn't fly? I just slowly extended my scissors -

*Snip-Snip*

*Snip-Snip*

Brood Tender - 4 Coins

Noises came from the hive, a chittering and rustling - it moved, shuddering. The hardened skin rumbled and flexed, and from the small tears I saw the blue sapphire body pressing against the dead walls of the monkey belly, bowing them.

I pulled back wearily as I realized - she was huge, much bigger then these other bugs. I could hear her moving, rustling in there - and if she was strong enough to push against the walls?

Except -

She was stuck! I laughed, standing up -

She'd climbed down that monkeys throat after it died! She'd been small, like the others! She'd stung it, then after it died made a nest out of it!

Then she got fat, and now she can't get out!

Laughter.

I climbed up, standing at attention at the base of the branch, then I sucked my armor into me. And I whipped myself out.

"So you want to meet the 'little guy?'

I introduced her - and the trickle became a stream, then the flood that followed right down into the hive, down that dead monkeys throat - all across her throne room - noise.

I didn't know - bug can scream. They didn't have throats - it was like a cricket with an electric violin and Beethoven sheet music, all that fury!

So of course I lurched back -

And of course I got piss on myself -

And of course the next sound I heard, over the screeching -

*Craaaaack*

"Fuck."