The crack of dawn signaled the beginning of another day for the colony, the start of another routine of collecting nectar, making into honey, and storing it in the hive

The bees got up and headed out, they didn’t need orders, they didn’t ask question, they knew what they had to do, and they didn’t dally about doing it, every bee had a role and it had to fulfill it to its utmost capacity

One bee in particular was heading toward its usual area, it was one of the areas where they lost contact with a good number of bees, it must mean a predator was near, but that registered to the bee as nothing but a warning, no matter how many bees the hive lost it must continue to store up for winter, they could not be left starving

The bee continued onward, suddenly a shiver ran through its entire being, it’s sensors were going off like sirens, danger was near!

It turned all five of its eyes toward the glimmer in the darkness of trees, spotting a pair of shining deadly eyes, they came closer and closer as they seemed bigger and bigger, eventually triggering the bee’s survival instincts to flee back and alert the colony, it had to warn them, warn them of the approaching calamity

********************

“Good job, I’ll send you back now, we will take care of the rest”

The white snake nodded before being unsummoned, its hexagram disappearing was followed by the appearance of another hexagram, from which came the wolf, now named Lyra, full of vigor for the upcoming war

“Are you ready” “WU!” “Then it’s time for payback”

Lyra jumped onto a thick branch while Yu hopped on the handmade costume swing/propeller under said branch then they waited…

…zzz…zzz…. BizzzZZZZZZBIZZZBIZZ BAAM!

That was their signal, Lyra held a piece of rope in her mouth and leaped over the branches moving from one stringed bunch of branches to the other before finally jumping over the crazy swarm under her

Yu, wasn’t as fortunate on the other hand, as he was sent flying by the swing/propeller he had made using elastic spider threads, he was sent flying enough just high enough to get past the horrible sight of bee swarm that almost made him cry beyond tears

‘Heights and bees, my favorite’

The wolf cushioned his fall just in time then they both sped off into the hive in the distance, just now they had alarmed the entire colony to come to them and then got them stuck in the trap the spider set up in the night, it was one massive trap, so massive that it caused the poor spider to look like it had its blood seeped dry, hopefully they wouldn’t need it anymore for a while, it really deserved some rest

The bees noticed the enemy had gotten behind them thus they turned to chase, but only a minimal part of them did so, since most believed a predator much scarier to be lurking behind the terrible threads

Yu wasn’t fast but the bees were even slower, their size came at a heavy price, so they didn’t have much trouble outpacing their pursuers, while the wolf made short work of any bee that came their way from the front, soon they would reach the bees that stayed behind by the hive

“Break through the middle I’ll clear the sides”

Taking out two copper bottles Yu stabbed them and threw them as close as he could to the hive, they made a trail of pink smoke on their way, that was whatever left of the Buzz Killer he had left after being divided into two bottles

BIZZ BIZZZ

It kept most of the bees out, not out of fear, but because it messed their sensors too much, some happened to get through and were spinning in circles

The hives guards came out to confront the duo at the hives entrance, these guards weren’t much different from other bees except that they were a bit larger

‘Only nine? Well this bee hive’s new, they don’t have many older generations’

Guard bees are typically old worker bees, when their life span is close to an end they become guards, since there is nothing to lose by dying. All bees turn into guards when an emergency is at hand, but the worker bees of this hive were pretty young and easy to fend off, well, if you didn’t get swarmed to death

BIZZZZZZ!

A loud buzz came from the guard, which gave Yu a bad feeling, and sure enough when he turned around he saw all the bees rushing back, the guards seemed to have recognized him and Lyra as the priority danger

“Tch, ignore them just blast your way to the entrance, once were inside I’ll keep everyone out” He said throwing a rope to Lyra

Lyra nodded taking the rope and sped up, half the guards blockaded the entrance while the other half dived toward them

“NOW!” Lyra used her momentum to make a massive leap over the coming bees, which Yu flowed by throwing the net he bought from the city, catching the bees in it, who were then swung by the wolf into the barricade breaking it momentarily, enough for Lyra to jump in

‘Shit, there getting up’

He tried to get in before they reoriented but they were a tad bit faster than he thought, two stingers were heading straight toward him just a few steps away from the entrance

‘Not yet!’ He couldn’t deploy the shield here, he had to get close enough to close it fully. Twisting his body to the left he barely avoided one of them, the other he knew he couldn’t avoid

Clank-

The bee’s stinger met his Grimoire midair, it couldn’t pierce through it so he used it to take on the attack although the feedback from it still pushed him back, but the direction was toward the entrance, thus he finely made it, and a shield covered it the next moment, keeping almost all the hives bees at bay for ten minutes

“Whew that was close”

His back was full of cold sweat, if he had to shield up earlier then both he and Lyra would be in big trouble, but thankfully he thought of the book at the last moment

‘Thankfully a Grimoire is something no one has ever been able to destroy’

“Wuu” “It’s okay I’m not hurt, you go in and kill the queen, I’ll kill as much as I could in here”

Lyra hesitated for a moment, she looked at the sides of the shield that gave some space for some of the smallest bees to get in and looked back at Yu

“Don’t worry, I can get in the shield and they can’t, but I will only be safe until the shield expires, the sooner you kill the queen and come back the safer I will be”

Finely she consented and rushed deeper into the hive, while Yu turned around and started to load the crossbow with poison arrows

“It’s time for me to show off a bit, can’t keep asking for help every time right?”

He had a smirk on his face as he let loose his arrows toward the raging bees, need the wolf to come back? No he would finish all of the off before it finished the queen

Back on the Lyra’s side things weren’t as good, it had taken it three minutes to take care of the bees on the way, which left it plenty of time to kill the queen and go back to help its master, but the situation at the larva area where the queen was residing didn’t look too good

Buzz Buzz Buzz

There were four drone bees surrounding the queen, drone bees should have no stingers, they were only there to mate with the queen, they didn’t work nor did they contribute to the hive, they could only mate and then would die after doing so, when intruders came all they could do would be hover above them and buzz to distract them

But these four drones, they had nothing in common with the aforementioned ones, they were slimmer and longer, much longer than the worker bees outside, their height had clearly reached that of a human, they were entirely black from head to toe, save for one yellow stripe on their back, instead of having four wings on their back they had two sturdy wings which made the drop in agility because of their size disappear, but the most dangerous part of them was their massive stinger that took a quarter of their entire length

Lyra’s eyes sharpened, this wouldn’t be as easy as she had thought but she had to finish quick, thus she didn’t dally and rushed toward the enemy

Three of them came to meet her, they made a triangular formation, tight enough to be able to sting her if she entangled one of them, and large enough to have maneuvering space

Lyra’s usual tricks wouldn’t work here, but she didn’t care, for she never depended on them in a true fight, it was just the cool factor that made them appealing to use

Once the drones were close enough she made a leap, the two at the side moved to intercept her fall while the one in the middle slowed down to try and stab her

The corners of Lyra’s mouth rose into a sneer, she didn’t want to leap over them, no she wanted to land on them, normally she would be met with a stinger to her face, but with the extra-long stinger comes and extra weight, centering the weight to the bottom which ended up making lifting the stinger to the top impossible

CRUNCH!

“Pu!”

Spitting out the nastier taste of flesh Lyra jumps back off the drone and circles around the last two planning to make the same leap after gaining enough momentum

Buzz

The buzzing came from an unexpected direction this time, the drone that was protecting the queen intercepted Lyra from the right forcing her to go left, where the other drone was waiting to which she responded with another steep turn

She started running again but the drone that didn’t join the interception headed toward her in a suicidal manner, forcing Lyra once again to switch directions

Thus the game of tag began, with Lyra being faster than the drones she could always maneuver to escape but their numbers and suicidal attacks put her in an awkward position where she too couldn’t kill them

……..

While Lyra was in a stalemate Yu had finely run out of bolts, he was now within the shield stabbing his poison coated knife through from time to time, and letting the dead bodies of the bees go through the shield so he could take the bolts out and reuse them, he would also extract the poison since he ran out pretty quickly

‘How many are left? I already killed more than two hundred’

It took him two and a half seconds to load aim and shoot a bolt, it was already eight minutes since the shield was out, and he could still see more than a hundred bees alive

He turned to look at the back and saw that all the small ones that passed through were gone, he didn’t worry since they would die from the poison before reaching the queens lair

“Escape path clear, time for plan B”

Untying the jar at his waist he opens the lid carefully while covering his nose

“You know what this is? This little jar here has one of the most flammable materials in Denatro city, Hell Hoatzin piss, this jar alone costed me twenty silver”

Yu proceeded to pour the foul smelling flammable piss on the bodies of the bees and the living and dead ones covering the shield before he stepped out of the shield and threw a lit matchstick inside, causing a burst of flames to gush out, swallowing the raging bees whole and spreading out

‘There is enough vegetation around here to keep the fire going’

He started running through the tunnel, skipping the bodies he encountered after only taking two bolts

‘Heh, guess I’ll be the one to protect you this time’ He smirked as he ran