Tik Tik winces, grasping at her stomach. The wasp standing over the kobold cackles, her golden wings fluttering in the darkness of the fortress.
“Oh, little Tik Tik. Aren’t you a fool? You must always make yourself the antagonist of someone else’s story, right? Just sit back and relax, and I’ll dictate how your story progresses.
“That’s… the same… nonsense that Estrasa talked about,” Tik Tik wheezes, doubling over, groaning.
“Oh, I assure you, it’s not nonsense. After all, you hosted a tournament for a collection of voyeuristic deities. Our lives are but a game to them, watching us, cheering for some and booing others.”
“Are you saying that you… are playing their… game?” Tik Tik breathes.
“It’s just good to be aware of their rules, especially when trying to push yourself as far as you can make yourself.”
Vaspaja squats before Tik Tik, patting the kobold on the head. “Estrasa wanted to push past her frail form. I have other limits I want to exceed, which makes me the best at the branch of magic I’m best at.”
Tik Tik’s eyes widen. “You’re trying to overcome…?”
But before Tik Tik could finish her exclamation, the ground beneath their feet rumbles and buckles. Vaspaja takes to the air, snarling as the honeycombed highway collapses. 
“What’s this? Zomb-bees! Grab the kobold!
Tik Tik scrambles and tumbles through the waxy walls of the collapsing colony structure, only for a fuzzy hand to grab her and pull her in close.
She shrieks, kicks, and squirms, but another hand pats her on the nose, and big, lively red compound eyes watch her with a buzzing hum coming from the owner’s mouth.
A living bee?
More break free from underground and crawl out from the honeycombs, their eyes glowing red, but each of them staring anger and disdain at the wasp.
“How is this possible? Zomb-bees! To me! Crush these free thinkers!”
The maddening hum of undead wings fills the air, the bees and their undead counterparts meeting each other in flight, crashing together and smashing into the ground in a melee of buzzing bedlam.
Tik Tik and her insectile companion scurry around in the broken-up honeycombs, and the worker hefts the kobold, shoving her into one of the intact portals.
“Why are you doing this?” Tik Tik asks.
“You helped me,” says the bee. “Now, it’s my time to help you.”
“Queen…?”
The bee spins around, flying off in front of her and intercepting an irregularly buzzing undead before it can get to the kobold.
Vaspaja flutters in the swirling tornado of dogfighting bees, raising her hands and commanding her creations.
“Oh, you’ll be sorry for crossing me when I hatch all those beauties within you-aaah!”
A swift strike to her abdomen bends her to the side. For a split second, the world slows down for the sorceress before she slams into the ground, cratering into the honeycombs.
Descending from where she once was comes the fluttering of the elytra of Cynwrig. The beetle boy crosses his arms over his chest as he lands. “There’s no way I’m allowing you to harm my bro or anyone else!”
Vaspaja’s hand raises from the ground, and she pulls herself from that temporary grave, hunched over with one sticky, envenomed fingertip glistening crimson. “Ooh, if it isn’t the voyeuristic cuckold boy!”
Cynwrig puts up all four dukes, stepping around on the broken ground. “Hey! I may be a cuck, but I’m not a bad friend! But above all of that, I’m a hero!”
She cackles, standing taller than Cynwrig. “A hero. Ha! You’re nothing but a pretender and a coward. You wouldn’t even dare approach me, let alone fight me!”
Cynwrig leaps forward, spreading his elytra, a fist flying toward the wasp.
She grasps the flying fist and sneers. “Oh, you poor, poor boy. You’re cute, but you’re so stupid!”
“Oh yeah?” Cynwrig asks, cupping two hands together. He thrusts them forward, and a blast of energy erupts from his palms, striking her on the stomach with a loud and resounding crack.
“Gah!” she stumbles back, clasping her thorax. When she pulls away, red fluid oozes off from her palm. “You grub! You’ll pay for damaging my beautiful form!
With that, she launches forward, jabbing at the beetle.
Cynwrig dodges the larger insect’s attacks, pulling a fist back and throwing it forward, striking her in the face. A smile spreads across his face before the searing pain hits him on the thigh.
He plants his feet on her shoulders, launching himself away, stumbling back, holding his leg, which burns. “W… what the hell?”
Vaspaja steps forward, flicking the mucus, bug juice, and blood off her poisoned fingertips. “Can you hope to end me when you have such a short reach? I’ll poison your body and corrupt your mind, and you shall be mine before this is over.”
“I’m… okay with that,” he says, huffing.
“Ooh?”
“Because… it doesn’t matter if you control me… if you’re dead, then I’ll have no one to take orders from!”
“Well, well, aren’t you cheeky. Come then, hero. Slay the monster!”