Tik Tik struggles against the strands of silk that tie her up, forcing her to watch the smoldering remains of the Mountain Fortress Bee Colony.
It hadn’t been that long since the kobold had first contacted this fascinating superorganism, a collection of many different individuals all working together to create honey and build magnificent reminders of their ingenuity and determination.
And now, it is all in ruin, burning down with the buzzing of desperate workers seeking to repair the damage, but more disconcertingly, some fan the flames and dance in its destruction.
In an attempt to find what was going on, Tik Tik got herself trapped and now struggles to free herself from the preternaturally powerful web, keeping her from escaping, but more worryingly, holding her right where her captor wants her.
“You’re lucky I’m not free to cast my spells! I’d blast you right here, you stupid spider!”
It is a pitiful act of defiance, but an act of defiance nonetheless. It’s the only thing Tik Tik can do, given the circumstances.
“Now, is that way to treat someone giving you a good time?”
For a moment, Tik Tik readies a retort toward the drooling and staring spider sitting atop the web. But her stomach falls when she notices that the alien voice comes not from the hypnotized arachnid above her but from beneath the balcony.
Tik Tik watches with her scales trembling as a figure rises from the swirling smoke, golden wings beating the soot away, revealing the jade carapace beneath in a display that is both theatrical and, at the same time, effortless.
The creature drapes her wings behind her like a translucent cape. Where her armored hide isn’t black, it is a mesmerizing mix of greens and blues. Azure plates rub between her legs, chittering almost like mandibles. Like other insects of her kind, she has four arms. Two hang low, twitching with the vestige of magical energy in their blackness. The others are smaller and needlier, with blue tips. These grasp an impressive bust of red goop. And nestled within the mounds are writhing round bundles, throbbing with some parody of life.
Those large compound yellow eyes reflect the kobold many times as their owner proceeds with clicking steps toward Tik Tik.
Tik Tik furrows her brow as the creature approaches her. What could she possibly be? Certainly not a beetle like Cynwrig, yet something she’s seen before.
It had been when Tik Tik was reading from her magical tome when she beheld a tiny caterpillar crawling along a tree.
It was such a precious little thing, scrunching up towards some yummy little leaves, but as the kobold watched, another insect zipped by her ears. The jeweled monster landed upon the caterpillar, stinging it, making it writhe and jerk in unnatural motions.
By the time the insect left, the caterpillar was scrunching away from its food, its movements jerky and unnatural.
It was a terrific and fascinating sight to behold, one that made the kobold curious, furious, and disgusted. With magic from her fingertips, she stunned the monster responsible for the crime and captured both the victim and oppressor.
Though both of them had expired by the time she took the jars to an entomologist, the kobold had been surprised, shocked, and repulsed when the one contained multiple, smaller versions of the invading monster and only scraps leftover of what had been the caterpillar.
That was the day she found out about such creatures. The day she learned about “Wasps.” The kobold growls at the newcomer.
“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Tik Tik,” the wasp says with cold professionalism. “I am Vaspaja, and I welcome you to the upper echelon of the magical community. Try not to be so tense. Consider our meeting an initiation of a sort.”
As the wasp gets closer, Tik Tik twitches her fingers. As they move, a spark of magical energy forms about her.
Suddenly, a black hand seizes the kobold by the wrist, pressing a needle-like point upon her palm’s soft scales. The breast-shaped gelatin upon Vaspaja’s chest oozes and deforms, with the hand no longer holding it steady. The goop that covers her fingers burns against the reptilian flesh.
“I wouldn’t try anything funny if I were you,” Vaspaja says. “I may be a master of magic, but I need not use spells to deal with you. Our arachnid acquaintance can testify to the powers I have.”
From the darkness clacks the giant spider, drooling the crimson fluid that drips from Vaspaja’s tits.
 She gulps but snaps her attention back to her captor.
“What do you want from me? Why did you destroy this colony?”
A black hand strokes Tik Tik’s cheek as the wasp clicks. “I was already orchestrating my grand design when you first visited the Insect Kingdoms. You’ll be able to find out what I want from them soon enough. But I enjoy toying with you too much to tell you.”
Vaspaja pulls away, her hand pressing against her chest again, squeezing and shaping the mound back into its former shape. “Our encounter is pure serendipity, and I’ll be a fool not to indulge in my selfish desires for a little bit.”
Her fingers continue to fondle herself, rolling the little orbs within her in their blobby container. “Despite not intending to cross paths with you, it is quite fortunate, especially since you spent so much time attempting to foil my plans.”
Tik Tik sneers. “You’d better hope I don’t get out of here.”
A free hand slides down Vaspaja’s body, moving between her legs. “Oh, please, dear. You can’t leave yet, Tik Tik. Not until I give you the ultimate gift.”
“I don’t want any gifts from you,” the kobold growls.
“I can feel the tension in your body, the fear and uncertainty that freezes you solid. I’ll leave you in suspense no longer. You’re used to laying eggs, are you not?”
________________




Tik Tik gasps. It’s an involuntary thing, tinged with the darkness and the history that comes with the revulsion and disgust that encapsulates her life.
Vaspaja’s wings flutter, a smile forming on her lips as her poisoned claw trails along the kobold’s arm and collar. “Oh, have I struck something, kobold? A deep fear, perhaps?”
“I don’t fear you,” Tik Tik says, a growl in her voice. “I just hate eggs.”
Vaspaja pouts, pulling her claw away. “That’s all too bad,” the insectoid sorceress says, “Because I simply adore every last egg that I produce. I need to share them with the world. I want to make mothers of so many so they can feel my joy.”
“Bullshit.”
“Such language!” The sorceress says, leaning in, her antennae dancing over Tik Tik’s face.
The kobold winces but returns her gaze to Vaspaja’s segmented eye, scowling.
“I’ve heard that kobolds were related to dogs, somehow,” says Vaspaja, “But I didn’t realize they were more bark than they are bite.”
“Do your worst.”
“Oh, is that consent?” Vaspaja spreads her wings, steepling her fingers, and flutters away from the kobold. She crosses a leg over the other, her second pair of hands squeezing her oozy tits, rolling the facsimile of nipples between nipples, those eggs within jostling in the undulating motions of their mother’s ministrations. “I just love it when others submit willingly.”
She licks her lips, “But I love it more when they fight it.”
“The only fight I’d have with you is to see who is on top.”
“Ah, the ritual of an eroarcane duel, how exciting, but only a fool would challenge or accept a sexfight without ample consideration. Don’t think I don’t know your skills. You’re famous, far and wide, after all. But enough fangirling. Come, there’s oh-so-much for me to show you.” She snaps her fingers, spinning around and fluttering down the fortress.
The spider servant’s eight legs pick apart the silk and redistribute it around Tik Tik’s body, rolling her up in a tight bundle. It is a fast process that Tik Tik might enjoy on many other occasions. But with a mindless, perhaps even lifeless, servant, it is nothing short of a bother. Maybe it is much more disturbing than that, should she allow herself more time to consider it.
Once thoroughly packing the kobold, the spider rests Tik Tik upon its back and skitters towards its mistress, following through the ancient chambers of this mysterious building, its secrets so close yet impossible to decode in the wizard’s present state.
Soon, they arrive in an audience chamber, and Tik Tik, her eyes the only things not covered, gasps through the webbing as the final piece falls into place.
“Oh, you recognize the architectural style now, don’t you?” Vaspaja says, fluttering to the throne and sitting upon it, two hands gripping the arms. She sits up, proud and powerful, as purple energy glows about her. “This is one of the seats of power, much like that of Estrasa, Dark Mistress of Transformation.”
The spider’s pedipalps snag the silk around Tik Tik’s mouth, ripping it off. The kobold, through tears of pain, snaps. “You would destroy the colony and take their home just to claim it as your own?”
“My home!” Vaspaja growls, scratching into the arms of the seat, her antennae perked. “AS it should be by my magical heritage!”
But then she sits back, leaning her cheek upon the palm of her hand. “But I’m not against letting others share. In fact, I’m willing to allow those who swear their allegiance to me to continue their happy, busy little bee lives.”
“Where is the queen?” Tik Tik snaps.
“Oh, do you really want to see?” Vaspaja says, her wings buzzing. “I can show you! Oh, your majesty!” Her voice reverberates throughout the darkness as a haunting echo. For a time, the only sounds are the crackling fire's echoes through this horrible place's halls.
But soon, there comes a stomping and a sliding, slick and wet and buzzing with no reason.
From a hall just behind Tik Tik lumbers the giant figure, her eyes devoid of life, glowing with a sickly red. When she opens her mouth, the red ichor flows out of it.
These creatures aren’t real people. They aren’t really people, not in the way you or I would think of them. No, they are individual mindless things part of a greater whole, a whole that is an ultimate joy to corrupt.
Vaspaja flutters up to the queen, cupping her cheek and caressing her head. “She is a beauty, a form of existence only I could create. They look so genuine when they first emerge and efficiently seed the eggs of my rule. You probably could not tell which ones among the many you’ve fucked were the natural children of the hive or actually one of my darling little zombees.”
The zombee queen coughs, vomiting up the red jelly. Vaspaja scoops some of it in her finger and brings it to her lips. “Ah, the delectable taste of venom mixed with the sweetness of honey. It’s a beautiful thing, indeed, coming from a beautiful creature. But alas…” She coos, her two hands on the cheeks. “It all must come to an end sometime, my dear.” She rests her forehead upon the zombee queen’s, shuddering as the blue hands on her tits pull free, dripping in venom. She jabs them into the queen’s carapace and pulls back, licking her fingers as she watches the queen fall to the floor.
“Now then, a ‘zom-bold’ does not have the same ring, does Tik Tik? No, I can’t do that to you and rob the world of such a magnificent mind. We must try something… drastic.”
“And what’s that?” Tik Tik growls.”
“Why, you’re going to help usher in the metamorphosis of the new queen, of course. They should be hatching soon.”
“They?”
“Just a downside of messing with the structure of a hive. You’ll be our referee.”
________________
The spider slings Tik Tik down from a high precipice, sending the kobold tumbling through rotten and desiccated honeycombs. She wriggles against the bindings, growling and grumbling in a futile attempt to escape her current predicament.
Soon, a head pops up from a comb, a worker bee with one antenna missing, buzzing and chittering. She climbs up and approaches the kobold, clicking and tilting her head in a curious gaze.
“Hey, you!” Tik Tik snips. “Release Tik Tik. Let me out of here!”
The worker soundlessly leans in and snips at the strands of silk, breaking enough away for the kobold to get herself free.
“Ah, thanks!” Tik Tik pants, standing tall in the dark corridor. “Where are we?”
“Queens,” says the bee, pointing two hands down the wide corridor.
Tik Tik adjusts her gaze to the dim light, finding enormous mounds that stick out of individual cells in this expansive chamber. “There are so many.”
The bee clicks and digs herself back into one of the cells.
“Hey, wait!” Tik Tik calls out, scrambling over towards the burrowing bee. As she reaches the cell, she stops.
A click. Followed by a crack.
Tik Tik spins around, facing one of the mounds. A hairline fracture traces down the top, expanding exponentially, when it suddenly shatters!
Emerging from the expansive chamber is the jelly-dripping form of a large and imposing bee queen, her eyes glowing red as she stares at the kobold, her wings fluttering the life-giving substance as her antennae rise in a stately crown.
“The queen is dead,” the queen speaks up, her wings dried and widespread as she stands up. “Long live the que-”
The newly emerged queen stands still, her mouth agape, her arms shuddering. She coughs, and jelly, mixed with some unidentifiable effluvia, spills from her mouth before she falls to her knees and then collapses, all life disappearing from her compound gaze.
Standing behind her is another queen, holding a spear in her hands, her eyes blue. Her head tilts from one side to the other as she slowly approaches the kobold, gripping her goo-soaked weapon tightly and stepping on the fallen creature. She pokes her again with the spear, nods in satisfaction, and whispers, “Long live the queen.”
She walks through the field of mounds, plunging the spear into another, unhatched one, a scream rising from the unhatched creature within.
Tik Tik snarls.
Another queen emerges, pulling from her home a waxy rapier. She leaps for the older sister, thrusting forward.
The blue queen spins around, parrying the blow, flying through the air and dropping toward her with a plunging attack! The two are nearly silent, parrying, thrusting, dodging, and stinging, save for their buzzing communication.
Tik Tik rushes toward them, throwing her hands forward, thrusting magical energy at them. “Stop!” she roars out, her tiny voice reverberating throughout the hall.
The two queens tumble and fly, catching themselves and facing the kobold momentarily, twitching and flitting about.
“You can’t hurt each other. Your colony is dying. It’s the wasp’s fault.”
“I know!” Shouts the spear-wielding bee.
“Glory to Vaspaja!” shouts the rapier queen, thrusting her weapon again at the other fighter.
Tik Tik covers her head, shaking and shuddering. But she dashes between hatching mounds, where new queens emerge like a veritable army of bees seeking to take over this once-beautiful place's remains. She conjures a disk underneath herself, rushing towards the furthest of the mounds, placing her hand upon it, and letting her arcane energy flow.
The cocoon shatters, and the queen, slightly smaller than the others but nonetheless mature, falls into Tik Tik’s grasp.
Her wings flutter, spilling jelly over the kobold, and she stares up at the kobold, sighing, “Tik… Tik?”
“Pleasure to see a friendly face!” Tik Tik smiles. “You must be a real new queen!”
The queen’s fuzzy body shudders, and she clings to the kobold, sitting on the disk. Her stripes are faded compared to her sisters, a black and white instead of a cheerful yellow. And like some of the others, her eyes are red.
“You must hold the will of the colony,” Tik Tik says, holding close to her. “Tik Tik won’t let you die out. You will be the last queen standing.”
“What? No. I can’t fight against them, look!”
A giant queen rises, raising her hands high into the air. Honey flows up from the ground and swirls around her hands before she launches it forward into a tidal wave of destruction among her siblings.
In response, a horde piles upon her, sending her crashing into the sugary nectar. She sinks into the morass, reaching up and grasping, but soon is covered by the sugary sweetness.
The pale queen whimpers, clutching close to Tik Tik, nuzzling against her side. “It’s not fair. How did we miss this? How did we allow this coup to happen?’
“This is no coup,” Tik Tik says, frowning as her disk rises and travels down one of the many now-empty corridors, “this is sickness, and it killing the colony from the inside.”
Soon, Tik Tik dissipates the disc and motions the queen into one of the cells. “You need to hide out. Tik Tik will find Vaspaja and get back at her.”
“You can’t stop her!” The queen whines. “She’s everywhere. She’s inside us all. She’s… she’s inside me.”
Tik Tik frowns, pressing a hand upon the Queen’s abdomen, squeezing and prodding at her fuzzy exoskeleton.
“You got egg?”
“She stuck it into my cell. I ate it like all the others who look like me.” She says this, her hands running down past her eyes. “Soon, I’ll be one of them, just like my mother. Just like everyone else.”
“Not if Tik Tik can do anything about it.”
“What can you do?”
Tik Tik grabs the queen’s cheeks, and the kobold presses her snout against her mouth. The trembling and sobbing creature wraps her arms around Tik Tik, letting herself melt into that kiss.
And even if it's just for a few moments, the two have a moment to relax in earnest before the battle begins.
________________


When the kobold pulls herself free from the mouth of the queen, she licks her lips, tasting the slightly acidic tone of royal jelly upon her. The queen, meanwhile, watches with those bright red compound eyes, fingers running over her lips.
There’s a moment of silent contemplation between the two as kobold and bee stare at one another. The queen is smaller than the previous one and thinner as well. Tik Tik strokes the fuzzy abdomen, fingers delicately tracing over the insect’s body.
The bee, in response, shudders, sighing softly.
“Tik Tik think we be safe,” the wizard says. “But, in case,” she turns around, tracing her finger over the cell. Energy brims around it, and the ghostly apparition of a filled honeycomb appears in the opening.
“There, now more safe.”
“Thank you,” the queen says, sitting to her knees, hunched over. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” Her antennae twitch and droop, and her gaze stares deeply at nothingness.
The kobold climbs gently along the side of the wall, patting the queen on the head. “No need worry,” Tik Tik says. “Tik Tik find way fight Vaspaja and clean up colony. Then, all be good, okie dokie?”
“Can it really be good again?” The queen says, placing two hands on her abdomen. “I can feel it, writhing around, calling for its mother. I can sense its thoughts and its desires. It wants to control and experience life through me, whether alive or dead. Am I even a bee anymore? Am I even fit to be queen?”
Tik Tik places a hand on the queen’s abdomen, nearly jerking her hand away at the cold jolt that shivers up her arm. She twitches into a smile at the queen and says, “No need worry. Tik Tik will figure out. Always learn new thing, so learn how save you, okie dokie?”
The queen nods, her wings buzzing gently. She curls up in the back of the cell, balling herself up. “Do you know what it’s like, Tik Tik, to have one purpose in your life, only for it to be taken away from you?”
“Is Queen Speaking as part of Colony, or as self?”
“I…” the queen pauses a moment. “There is no individuality here. We are all one, and we are all suffering.”
Tik Tik scoots towards the entrance, wrapping her tail around herself as she watches. In her mind palace, the kobold travels, wanting desperately to write her thoughts into a physical paper—to have the support of any of her friends to get her ideas across.
“Tik Tik?”
“Hm?”
“I remember our time together, well, the time you had with a scout, that is, but. If it’s not too much,” the queen hesitates. “May I ask you to grant me some of that experience so that I know at least once for myself?”
The kobold spins around, crawling to the queen, her eyes half-lidded and a smirk spreading over her mouth. She climbs atop the bee, hands gently caressing her cheeks. “Tik Tik happy to help,” she coos, and so opens her mouth, slipping her tongue inside.
The queen’s wings buzz, her four warms wrapping around the kobold as the tongue dances around her mouth. Not a moment later, the bee flips the kobold around, pinning her arms with two hands to either side of the floor, sitting on the kobold’s lap, her free hands gripping Tik Tik’s top!
The Queen’s eyes glow, and a soft hum emerges from her. “Tik Tik,” she growls. “I’m feeling such thoughts the colony has never had before!” Her hands slide under the kobold, touching each ridge and soft scale along her underbelly. “Why wouldn’t I want to live for myself, to be my own creature? To experience life beyond the confines of a hive?”
Tik Tik bites her lip, watching those glowing eyes, the twitching stalks, and the vibrating wings. “Reminds Tik Tik… of Tik Tik,” she admits.
“See, you do understand!” the queen gasps, kissing the kobold on the neck, peppering her with tiny pokes of her tubular tongue, each pinching the kobold, making her squirm and giggle.
An insectoid hand tickles along her smooth scales, those eyes gleaming with that lewd intent, her breath heightening, thorax quivering with the focus and excitement of the novelty of being on top. Another one slinks down, tugging at Tik Tik’s leggings, exposing her delicate and desiring femininity.
The queen dives in, her movements so quick that she’s at the kobold’s neck one moment and between her legs the next, delving into Tik Tik, probing the kobold’s exact G-spot as if it were yesterday that she had tasted her.
Tik Tik clasps her mouth shut, moaning in muffled cries at the feelings rushing through her, tears welling up, and even more so when the cold strikes her again, bringing her down from the edge of bliss.
“Ah... Ah., please, Que-Queen. S-stop!”
The queen’s tongue continues, greedily supping Tik Tik’s inner desires.
The wizard throws her hand forward, a spectral hand gripping the queen’s shoulder, pulling her away. “I said stop!”
The queen falls back, panting, moaning, licking her lips. “Ah… ah… so delightful… please, I need more.” She leaps forward, hands outstretched
Tik Tik hikes up her leggings. “That’s enough from you,” the kobold chastises, pointing downward and stomping the cell ground.
The spectral hand shoves the queen by the crown, knocking her to the waxy floor.
“Tik Tik gave you some fun, but need fix you. Now sit tight, and Tik Tik will go do it now.”
She huffs, adjusting herself, keeping her concentration up as the bee writhes around the floor, groaning and whining, reaching out to the kobold, but the wizard swats her hand away.
She approaches the edge of the cell, where her barrier still holds, but pauses before she steps out.
Out in the chamber beyond, among the other cells, there is one that was once empty but now no longer is.
And in that cell, compound eyes watch, staring, wide, and red.
________________
Tik Tik freezes at the edge of her illusory barrier, noticing the subtle, yet insidious, fracture in the wall she had erected for the first time. The masking spell shimmers at the perfect angle that if she were to drop her guard by being distracted with a kiss, it would go down.
The bee queen whimpers, lying on the inside of the cell. “T… Tik Tik?” she whines.
“Nothing worry about,” Tik Tik responds. However, she flicks her fingers as she presses her other hand to the barrier wall, slowly passing through the fog of magic that keeps their cell separate from the outer chamber.
A flicker off in a nearby cell makes her spin and fling the spell she prepared in its direction, lighting up the chamber and showing off the desiccated tunnels that used to house the buzz of the once industrious bees.
Iridescent reflections alert the kobold of the danger she anticipated. Tik Tik sweeps her arm, the magical blast turning and following the flicker of light from her target.
It’s no bee.
“Vaspaja?” Tik Tik growls just as the attack makes contact.
“Yow!”
The voice echoes through the chamber as its owner falls to the ground with a crack, and Tik Tik gasps.
“Cynwrig?”
“H… hey, Tik…” the beetle groans, rubbing his head. “Found ya, finally.”
The kobold lifts her friend up, dusting off his blue and shiny shell. “Tik Tik thought you caught by wasp!”
She immediately points at the beetle, mana flowing into the point, her voice taking a much more serious tone. “Were you caught by wasp?”
The beetle boy falls on his knees, waving all four hands. “Nuh-nuh-no! I got separated from you, but I never got close to her! I saw the whole thing—how she captured you and threw you into that pit and how you escaped and--”
“So you knew Tik Tik was in trouble and did nothing about it?” the kobold asks, lowering her hand and her gaze. “Tik Tik thought you wanted be her bodyguard.”
“I… I am your bodyguard. I couldn’t have faced her alone. She’s too big. She’s too scary and… where are you going?”
The kobold already heads past the beetle, passing down the corridor. “Tik Tik going find Vaspaja, and Tik Tik will defeat and save Colony.”
“That’s… insane!” Cynwrig flitters in front of her, his hands outstretched. “She’s a powerful necromancer, as strong in her magic as the Dark Queen Estrasa was in hers, and we had an army to fight against her.”
Tik Tik waves her hand, and the magical force shoves Cynwrig aside, allowing her to pass. “It only took powerful friends to face her, and Tik Tik is more powerful now than back then.”
“You can’t know you’re powerful enough!” Cynwrig pleads.
“She make Tik Tik mad.”
“Then, you aren’t thinking straight. Let’s think this over, you and me, and plan this out.”
“If you think you can’t fight Vaspaja, then Tik Tik have job for you you can do easy.”
“W-what’s that.”
Tik Tik points to the cell, covered in her magical illusion. “Protect the Queen. She is key. Once Tik Tik get rid of Vaspaja, then Queen can heal colony.”
“You sure that makes sense?” Cynwrig asks, stepping toward the cell. “After all, everyone’s already under her control and…”
Cynwrig’s words trail off once he sees Tik Tik’s stern gaze leveled at him.
“Just be careful. Okay, Tik Tik?”
Tik Tik nods and conjures her floating disk, flying away and leaving Cynwrig alone.
Frowning, the beetle turns to the hidden cell. “Your majesty?” Cynwrig asks in a soft voice. “I’m here to protect you. Don’t worry.”
The queen wraps her arms around her legs, curling up, pressing her chin to her knees. Her red eyes peek up at the approaching beetle, a soft gasp rising. “You are the one the drones flew with.”
“Excuse me?”
“On the nuptial flight so long ago.”
Cynwrig rubs the back of his head. “Ah, r-right, that… that wasn’t exactly the best experience,” he says, his wings twitching.
Tilting her head, the queen asks. “Why not? Did we not have fun impregnating that other queen?”
“Huh?”
She taps her forehead. “The memories we shared are in here,” she says, another hand upon her chest. “And here.”
“Oh, so, I guess they all didn’t die in horrific dick explosions.”
The queen giggles.
“What’s so funny?”
“Maybe it’s perspective,” she shrugs.
“How’s that?”
 “So many drones can die, but as long as their memory remains and they do what they were born for, they support the colony.” She strokes her abdomen.
“But this we’re facing… that I’m facing, it’s an actual death. If this… thing inside me is born… it’ll destroy me… destroy our only way to produce more queens, and we’ll fall.
“Y… you’re falling into despair!” Cynwrig shouts, grabbing the queen by the shoulders. “You can’t do that!”
“W.. What?”
“You and Tik Tik were here together, figuring out your trauma. Bu.. But you have to fight it. You can’t let it win! It’s… just like me.”
“Wait, you heard us. You… saw us?” The queen gasps, cupping her face, her antennae swaying back and forth.
“Of course, I… oh, r-right. Y-yeah, I kinda… uh…”
“It’s okay,” The queen says, patting him on the head. “We banged that queen together. You’re my bro, bro!”
“B… bro…? Tik Tik’s our bro, too! We need to do something to help her!”
“You’re right,” the queen says, stumbling. “But what can we do?”
Cynwrig hops up, supporting her over his shoulder. “I have an idea if you think you can keep up, bro!”
She nods. “Then let’s go, bro.”
And so the two leave the safety of the cell, traveling deeper into the dark and charred hive structure, the beetle carrying the queen.
Further back the way they came, Tik Tik approaches the buried mountain fortress, taking a deep breath, cupping her hands over her cheeks, and then bellowing out, “Vaspaja! I challenge you to a duel! Let the pact be sealed!”
________________


Tik Tik stands in the shadow of the ancient fortress, the scent of burning wax and the flickering light of fire casting more sinister shades across the field of cells upon which she stands. Other than the evidence of conflagration around here, there is no response to her declaration of a duel for a few moments. But soon, she catches the buzzing of wings.
It starts off as a speck from the top of the building. Soon, Vaspaja flies in front of Tik Tik, two hands out to the side while two more cup her chest, a sinister sneer and a glimmer in her compound eyes as she lands before the kobold wizard.
“Aren’t you a tenacious little bug,” the wasp says, her wings folding into their more regal form.
“It takes more than what you have to get rid of me,” Tik Tik says, magic crackling on her fingers. “And now, you are facing me in a duel—exactly what you feared.”
Vaspaja doubles over, holding her side, covering her mouth, unleashing the loudest, most disrespectful snort. “Oh, fuck, are you serious?”
“Something the matter?’ Tik Tik says, stepping closer.
“Yeah, you take what people say at face value, ya stupid little minion! You think I fear you, and I’d fight fairly!”
Erupting from the broken and charred cells are arms that grab Tik Tik’s ankles, tripping her and causing her to fall on her face as more clawing, grasping insectile hands snatch her by the horns and go for her arms.
“Silly little bug,” the wasp says, walking up toward Tik Tik, hands on her hips, “You could have left me to my devices and escaped with your pride… and your life… intact.”
The hands grip Tik Tik’s top and leggings, tugging, pulling, tearing, shredding, and scratching. So many hands are all over her, keeping her from moving and escaping.
Meanwhile, the wasp kneels in front of the downed kobold, placing a hand on her head and patting her. “Now, you were expecting some kind of epic clash, weren’t you? You wanted to be the big hero for your ‘friends,’ hm? Well, you won’t be saving them, Tik Tik. You’ll be joining them. How does that feel?”
Tik Tik thrashes and gnashes, pulling against the clawing undead hands to get to her knees. “I invite you to do your worst!”
“Oooh, consent! How wonderful!” Vaspaja ttiters.
More hands erupt behind her, cupping the sorceress’s ass as she props herself, her crotch right before Tik Tik’s face. Between her legs, her chitinous plates skitter almost like mandibles, drooling the same red venom that lumps at her chest. They squelch and grow and form into a phallic length. At the same time, Vaspaja kneads at her tits, the eggs within slipping downward from the deposits and dangling from beneath the long ovipositing tube.
Tik Tik shudders, closing her eyes and gulping. “I’ll get you for this.”
“Oh, really?” Vaspaja says, grabbing the kobold by the cheek and slamming her onto her back against the honeycombed floor, her ovipositor dripping onto the kobold’s stomach. “And how do you plan to do that?”
“I’ll think of a way!” Tik Tik says, even as the arms pin her down, gripping her wrists, ankles, and throat.
“Yes, we’ll see about that. Now, you can write about how wonderful it feels to be so pumped full of eggs between being my incubation chamber!”
The wasp inserts her ovipositing stinger into the kobold, spreading Tik Tik out and filling her quickly.
Zombee hands let go of Tik Tik’s ankles, allowing their mistress to grab her to lift her legs over her head. Vaspaja leans over Tik Tik, bending so far over her antennae that they run over the kobold’s head and horns.
“Aah… you’ll be a mother, Tik Tik… to a great and powerful wasp. It’s the miracle of life, and that’s wonderful, right?”
Tik TIk grits her teeth, turning away from the wasp. She cannot escape Vaspaja’s huffing breaths, the abandon that the wasp falls into as she thrusts, and the pure domination that comes with the wasp's desire to follow her nature. She experiences all of it.
“Ha… y-you’re so wet, T-Tik!” Vaspaja breathes. “Y-you really are enjoying this! See? I told you! Ha!”
“S… shut up and… and fuck me!” Tik Tik cries, her toes curling.
The wasp’s body shudders, and she picks up her pace. The ribbing of the ovipositor sends waves of delight with each thrust and pull, so familiar to the kobold and yet very much different.
Tik Tik cannot help but let out her huffing gasps, tilting her head back as her body bulges from the insertion, rocking against the ruins of her friend’s home.
“And here… I thought I’d.. Have to… give you… venom!” The wasp says, lifting her blue hands off her tits and running the venom-drenched things over the kobold’s underbelly.
“M-maybe I still do!” she snickers, gripping Tik Tik’s chest. “You’re such a small thing… so frail, yet so tricky. Nngh… let’s worry about your… potential betrayal… later!”
Vaspaja’s forehead presses to Tik Tik’s as she thrusts deeper than ever, Tik Tik’s stomach all filled up with fake cock. The thing pulses and undulates inside her as one of the eggs loads into it, widening the tube and slowly traveling down from the base.
When it reaches Tik Tik’s lips, the kobold coughs, raising her hips. The “cock” nearly doubles in size as the egg is pushed by pneumatic action, stretching the ovipositor and Tik Tik herself.
Tik Tik’s eyes roll, and her mouth hangs open, wheezing breaths escaping her until finally, with a final “pop,” the egg situates itself inside her, deep into the deepest recesses of her, leaving the kobold wide-eyed, tingling, and filled with a warmth she had never had before.
“And now,” the wasp says, catching her own breath, her hands running up Tik Tik’s chest, fingers poised to sting right at her neck, “We seal ourselves together, once and for all, my darling incubator.
________________
Tik Tik lays on the honeycombed ground of the fortress, her eyes rolling back. The kobold never felt as filled as she had now, with the rolling, pulsating egg buried deep within her. There is a warmth in there, unlike the satisfied heat of a man’s spent load, but more something else-something she can’t quite put her mind upon.
Vaspaja strokes the kobold’s cheek with her envenomed hand, snickering as she does. “Oh, my dear Tik Tik, is something the matter? Never had an egg in you that was viable?”
The kobold gasps, but she has little time to react or respond. Just as she tilts her head up, the wasp grabs her by the horns and forces her head back down.
Vaspaja skitters along the floor, facing her from the other way, her ovipositor dripping that red venomous liquid right on top of the kobold’s forehead. “You won’t have to worry about it too much longer, Tik Tik,” she says. “My venom is extraordinary, and once it’s in you, you’ll be more than happy to be the surrogate for my unborn child or the undead host for my will. Either way works for me. Now, open up, dear.”
The wasp slides a hand over the kobold’s underbelly and up along her collar, resting there. She pinches at the flesh with her pointed claws, needle tips that inject the crimson control fluid into their victim.
Tik Tik gasps, her mouth opening wide. The air in this place has shifted. The aura of control that once enveloped Vaspaja now dissipates.
Does the wasp have a weakness?
A moment later, that thick, ribbed ovipositor slides into the kobold’s mouth.
The once elegant-seeming Vaspaja throws her head back, thrusting her hips forward, shoving her goo-soaked femcock into the kobold’s mouth hole. Her cries fill the hall, the unhinged delight of someone who has no guard up and lives only for the pleasure of the moment and delights in everything she does.
The ovipositor rubs itself between Tik Tik’s cheeks, puffing the kobold’s mouth with each thrust. She cannot move her head and can hardly breathe as the fake cock rubs over her tongue, filling her tastebuds with the acrid aroma of the accumulated sweat and the musky taste of insectile sweat.
She forces the air in and out through her nostrils, though they are nearly closed off from the awkward positioning. But she does not cough nor gag and instead lets out her little gulping gasps.
While her throat bulges from each thrust going into her, the kobold lays passive underneath the wasp. Vaspaja laughs, her mouth wide in excitement, cackling at the feeling of the juicy insides of the kobold’s mouth and the tight passages of her throat massaging the stinger.
She lifts a leg, pressing it further ahead of Tik Tik, down by the kobold’s leg, giving herself more of an angle, allowing her to plow deeper.
“Ha… ah… ah… fuck…T … Tik, b… be my… my surrogate!”
Through more and more of that sick slapping against her face, bopping against her nose, the kobold’s mind and body reel in disbelief at the discomposure of the necromancer, but even more so, she cannot believe it when she feels the base of that femcock expanding, forcing her mouth more and more open.
A second egg.
Vaspaja pins her down, a foot on Tik Tik’s hip, two hands holding down her shoulders, two more at her horns. She ruts forward in a much less controlled state than the previous laying, letting that egg expand her dong and open the kobold’s mouth, forcing it down further until it pops out of the tip of the ovipositor and finds itself in Tik Tik’s throat.
Tik Tik coughs as the cock slips out of her mouth, a floppy thing oozing with venom, tracing itself down the kobold’s snout and then dripping to the ground.
Vaspaja clamps the kobold’s mouth shut, other hands massaging Tik Tik’s throat.
Tik Tik coughs, small spurts of the juicy stuff oozing out between her teeth, but she cannot remove that egg. Instead, the attention the wasp gives forces her to swallow it, to make it go down to her stomach, to sit there, so close to her womb.
The twin eggs pulse within her, bulging her body and making her pregnant with the dark spawn of the dark mistress of necromancy.
Huffing a few times, Vaspaja soon wipes her mouth and stumbles to her feet, her ovipositor dangling and drooling between her legs, her wings twitching, her smile widening. “Fuck… Tik Tik… there is something special about you.
The kobold gurgles, coughs, and rolls on her side. “Is that… all you got?” she groans, clawing at the ground, rolling over, and pushing herself up to her knees, puddles of venomous goop pooling all around her as she coughs. Her voice is hoarse, and her body shakes as it feels the toxins pumping through her.
“You are resilient, aren’t you? Perhaps there’s something about that kobold tenacity I’ve heard so much about?” Vaspaja says, tapping her cheek. “Of course, now that my eggs are within you, they’ll soon take over your mind. So, enjoy your last moments of reflecting your opinions, and get ready to spill all your secrets. We can start with where you told the elemental spirits that make up your old book where to go.”
Tik Tik blinks. “The old… spellbook? It’s lost, nngh… scattered and spread.”
She squats before Tik Tik and pats her on the head. “Oh, my dear little kobold,” the wasp says. “Knowledge that is lost can be rediscovered. It’s just much easier when the one who lost it in the first place finds it. They’ll be much more likely to poke their heads out of their hiding place if you search for them.”
“That’s why… you want me…” Tik Tik asks, holding her swollen stomach.
“Oh, there are so many things I want you for,” Vaspaja says, her hands outstretched.
“With my eggs in you, though, it just means that we can begin my marvelous uses soon.”
________________
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!”
________________


Cynwrig stares down the intimidating wasp, the beetle boy gritting his teeth and clenching his fists. He steps slowly through the broken hiveway, noting every twitch of her wings and every swing of her antennae, looking for the moment to strike. All the while, an all-out war between the horde of zombees and the remaining colony members serves as the backdrop for their final encounter.
The beetle spots his moment and launches forward, throwing a punch at the wasp, powered by all his heroic energy.
The wasp grasps him by the wrist, bringing up her knee straight into his stomach and then throwing him down to the ground. She spins and lifts her leg, axe-kicking down at him for a follow-up!
But the beetle bounces from the throw, fluttering his wings and moving just out of the way for her foot to crack at the ground. He jumps from the ground, launching right up to her, connecting his fist straight to her chin with a loud and definitive “CRACK!”
Stumbling back, Vaspaja rubs her chin, spitting a green goo between her teeth. “You won’t be able to take enough punishment to get through to me, boy.”
He stands his ground, puffing out his cheeks, readying his fists.
This time, it’s Vaspaja’s turn to launch herself forward, her pointed stingertips ready to dig right into him.
Cynwrig deflects one and follows up with his own strike to her chest, but she deflects that back, punching at his stomach.
Cynwrig rises into the air, and Vaspaja takes the momentum to stab at his neck!
The beetle hero screams out as the red-hot venom pumps into his veins, his body twitching, his eyes glowing a sickly crimson.
“I told you that your attempt to stop me was foolish, you little perverted pest. Now, you’ll be waiting on me, hand and foot, for all your unnatural days.”
She pulls the stinger fingers free from him and drops him like a corpse to the ground, but Cynwrig crawls up to his hands and knees, grasping at his throat and coughing.
“Just a matter of time before you’re fully mine, and when you are, I’ll let you in on a little secret.”
With that, she leans in and whispers, “All my living subjects are aware of what they are doing, and they can do nothing about it. Some even beg me to turn them into undead husks.” She strokes his chin. “I wonder, little flea, which one you’ll be.”
Cynwrig chuckles, muttering something under his breath.
The wasp pokes his chin, lifting his head. “Speak up, slave. I can’t hear you over the roar of the fires!”
“Funny…” he says, a smirk spreading over his face, even as his eyes glow that dull dark possessed color. “Because it suddenly got a lot quieter in here.”
The wasp’s antennae perk up. Yes, there is the crackling of the colony burning to the ground, but there is nothing else. Not the drone of any of her zombified followers nor the clashing of wax weapons.
She spreads her wings and shoots up into the air, but the trap is already sprung. Bees, from all directions, leap up at her, grabbing her by the legs and pinning her. Securing her arms and sticking her stingers with globs of wax and honey. Others pin her wings, spreading them out, halting her flight.
Vaspaja crashes to the ground, landing face-toward Cynwrig, growling and snarling as she fights to get the bees off her. “You damned wretch! Get them off me.”
“Sorry, mistress!” He says, his body pinned down by a half-dozen warrior bees, “I’m all tied up!”
“Where are my minions!? They’ll rend you all! Flay you alive!”
“Not gonna happen!” A bee says as she lands upon the wasp’s head, keeping her down but tilting the head up so she can see the flight of many bees heading her way.
“We’re all a part of the colony,” another says, hopping on top of one of her sisters.
“But we’re also individuals,” another says, landing at Vaspaja’s stinger.
“Because of that, we can remember everything.”
“We can feel everything,”
“And,” says the queen, landing right before Vaspaja’s face. She cups it, staring at her, “We can fight your mind control.
Vaspaja smirks. “Oh, you think you’re so clever, do you? Tricking me to get my guard down, to feel like I’ve won so you can sneak in and take a victory? Well, that’s too bad! Because there will be no victory for you. There shall only be-mmph!”
Her conversation is caught off as a nurse bee plants her mouth upon Vaspaja’s, transferring into her the gooey sweetness of her honey. The queen stands tall, snapping her fingers. As she does, more and more bees crawl out of the ruins, each bearing the scars of battle as they climb atop the pile, their humming and buzzing getting louder and louder as they form that swarming ball around Vaspaja, the wasp’s cries of protest muffled as more and more weight falls upon her.
So close to them all, Cynwrig can feel the heat of their bodies even from where he is, and the beetle gulps, averting his gaze from the vibrating mass before him.
As the bee stands before the mound of her subjects, she finally sighs and turns to face the beetle. “How are you feeling, bro?”
Cynwrig’s antennae twitch, and he says. “I think… I’m a little sick.”
“I can’t hear her anymore,” the queen says, stepping up to the beetle and embracing him, “But I’m so sorry you got hurt because of me.”
“H-hey, no problem, bro!” He winces. “J… just don’t hug me so tight.”
The queen pulls herself away, taking a deep breath. “Right. We need to find Tik Tik and ensure she’s safe. To me, my sisters!”
The warriors holding down Cynwrig let go of him and follow their queen. The mound covering Vaspaja, however, remains where it is, undulating in the angered and frantic screams of the one entombed within.
________________
Tik Tik stirs to wakefulness, groaning. Her whole body hurts, but her stomach rumbles the most as she climbs out of the cell.
As the kobold stumbles forward, a worker bee catches her, supporting her and buzzing out to another of her kind.
That’s when a larger worker arrives, thrusting her spear toward the kobold, just short of stabbing her snout. Angry buzzes and gesticulations have the wizard backing up away from the guard, her hands up high.
“Oh, dang, Tik Tik!” gasps the voice of Cynwrig, who flutters beside the soldier, lowering the weapon with a steady hand. He rushes to the cell and sits beside her. “How are you feeling? Are you, ya know, you?”
Tik Tik’s head throbs, and the kobold rubs it. “Ugh… Tik Tik feel like had bad drink day.”
Cynwrig offers a quick, sad smile, patting the back of her hand“The nurses did what they could for ya, but, well…”
“No problem,” Tik Tik fills in the awkward gap, picking herself up, standing on the edge of the cell, and narrowing her eyes at the guard. “Tik Tik is fine. Want see Queen. Want know what happen!”
—
Through the burnt corridors, Tik Tik regains her footing, holding onto a bloated stomach and leaning on her bodyguard. Everywhere, bees stop carrying off chunks of wax and the broken bodies of the undead and the false queens. Despite the general buzz of activity, it is dull, dark, and dangerous.
“Well, here it is,” says Cynwrig, stepping up to the scene of the battle. There, the jeweled exoskeleton of Vaspaja dangles upon a stand of wax, propped up and defaced by the weight of a thousand bees.
Tik Tik shudders, stepping back. “This bit morbid.”
Cynwrig stares at the corpse, the thing dangling there like an empty suit of armor, clenching his fist.
“You alright?” asks Tik Tik.
“This death is better than she deserves. After what she did to you, I–”
“It’s okay,” Says Tik Tik. “Really.”
“If it’s any solace,” Cynwrig offers, “the Queen’s retribution was not swift.”
“And neither is it over,” hums the voice of the newest queen, still holding her abdomen. “Do you feel her, too, Tik TIk?”
Tik Tik holds onto her stomach and turns toward the grim reminder of the fight. “Vaguely,” she admits. “Tik Tik need to research. Have magic and medicine at home. Probably get rid of eggs and poison.”
“That’s what I was hoping,” says the queen. “I also hope that perhaps some of us could return with the hive who traveled to Anteronia.”
Tik frowns. “Some?”
The queen steps past the kobold, hands upon her hips, and stares up at the fortress the wasp excavated. “What Vaspaja uncovered about our home has me intrigued. What do you know about the fonts of magic?”
“Tik Tik would have to research it back home.”
“And you plan to use your magic to travel there?”
“Of course.” The kobold says, her hand rubbing at her wrist where her device rests.
The queen looks over her shoulder. “Is something the matter, Tik Tik?”
“No, just think it time Tik Tik get going,” the kobold licks her lips, takes a deep breath, and holds up her arm.
Nothing happens.
The queen’s crimson eyes focus on the kobold as she turns around. “You aren’t leaving?”
Tik Tik unattaches her wristband, inspecting her transportation device. “Tik Tik doesn’t understand. It not working!”
The queen steps forward, looming over Tik Tik, her eyes glowing red as she growls, “You mean none of us can escape from this accursed place!?”
A flash of memory hits the kobold, and Tik Tik stumbles backward, catching her heel upon a broken cell, and falls back.
For a moment, she sees not the queen but focuses her gaze upon the lifeless exoskeleton, staring its crimson gaze at her.
“You mustn’t lie to me, Tik Tik. Are you keeping your power from us?”
“No!” The kobold shouts. “I can’t teleport! I’m stuck here!”
The queen reaches out, a hand grasping the device. “Then, perhaps your magic isn’t strong enough. I’ll use it!”
“Hold on, Bro!” Cynwrig shouts, jumping between the queen and the kobold, grasping her arm and keeping her at bay. “This is not bro behavior!”
The queen buzzes and twitches but soon relaxes. “I’m sorry, bro… it’s the voices. They still linger. They still tell me what to do and think, and… it’s unsafe here for you or Tik Tik. You need to go. Go, and don’t come back!”
“I can’t leave you,” Cynwrig gestures all around, “Whatever is happening to you! I’m your bro, and bros stick together!”
During this, Tik Tik wraps the device around her wrist and draws a magical circle through the air. She clambers onto the energy disk she forms and smiles back at Cynwrig. “Then, you don’t have to go.”
Cynwrig whirls around. “Wait… seriously?”
“You found a place to be a hero, Cynwrig, and they may need you again.”
“But Tik Tik, you… need me.”
She shakes her head. “No, Cynwrig, you needed me.” She floats up to him and places a kiss on his cheek. “But realizing you didn’t anymore makes you a hero.”
“I just wish we could reward you properly for saving us,” the queen hums, slumping slightly.
Tik Tik snickers and flies off to the exoskeleton of the wasp. There, she grabs its skull, yanking it off with a hefty tug. “Tik Tik think she’ll take this trophy!”
Cynwrig flutters up beside Tik Tik. “Wow, uh, you really keeping that?”
Tik Tik holds the skull in both hands, lifting it in front of Cynwrig. “Lots magical power. Plus, if place is curse, then this might be font of curse. Tik Tik take it and use it for magic. Keep it far away from bees.”
The queen collapses to her knees, grasping her head.
“B-bro?” He asks, zipping back over to her.
“I… I’m fine,” she says. “Whatever Tik Tik thinks… it’s close to the truth.”
“Then, that means…?
“Tik Tik better leave now, before evil spooky undead get angry.” She says, winking and flying off on her magical conveyance, leaving her friend behind, but with a new purpose.
—
Tik Tik zips through the floral forest, sitting on her saucer and jotting down notes in her journal. “Oh, I can feel you, but you’re so weak. How is this for your immortality, eh?” She giggles. “I wonder, what sort of lingering will resides within your shell? Oh, we’re going to have so much fun together, ghosty Vapy.
The skull of the wasp stares up at her with an expressionless stare but with all the seething in the world.
“Oh, this will be the beginning of a new friendship,” the kobold giggles, only to double over. “Ghn… just need… ngh… to get rid of these… eggs somehow.
—
Under the cover of night and rain, two figures arrive at the roadside inn. The pair keep their wet cloaks on, drawing the attention of the other patrons, who quickly turn back to the drinks.
They make it to the bench where the man in the suit waits for them, quirking an eyebrow as the two slide into their seats.
One of the figures produces a small case, patting a mechanical hand upon it. “Got it right here—the so-called Stick of Champions.”
“I’m intrigued by how you accomplished the task,” says the man in the suit.
The second figure sighs, shaking their head. “Now that, sir, is a story.”
“What will you do with it?” asks the first figure.
The man in the suit places a pouch on the table, and they exchange trinkets. “The gods had their fun last time,” says the man. “This time, it’s time for mortals to organize their own competition, don’t you think?”