Buoyed by Kyouya’s tailwind, Praxidike zoomed through the hive, a queen on a mission. Moving mostly on instinct, following the scent of the rival queen, she had to focus to keep a level head. Every one of her biological markers was screaming at her to run away, mixing with the thrill of the fight and inherent queen aggression, making for a volatile cocktail of fight-or-flight.

Kyouya’s voice makes her lash out and decimate a section of comb, sending sticky fragments sliding across the floor of the hive hall.

Shut. Up.

Sibella was using her body to funnel the Combee into Gabe’s Flamethrower, flying in intricate spirals around them, turning them into a tornado of bees. If any part of the mass would shift out of order, she’d flambe them herself.

They have a lovely crunch, she trilled over the sound of buzzing and fire, having the time of her life, and they are very sweet. You should try one, sometime.

Praxidike pulled to a sudden stop. The hall they were in opened into a wide, central cavern, filled with floor-to-ceiling comb like structures of other halls.

This is it, she said, scanning for the queen. She’s in here somewhere.

---------

Memo physically jumps when Alex nudges him, so focused on worrying that he’s zoned out for a minute.

“I-- don’t want to jinx it,” he said, rubbing sheepishly at his tricep. “I really, really don’t.”

Alexei Ivanov

☉

Alex runs a soft hand over the line of his shoulder and Memo forces himself to exhale. He really, really, really did not like this sort of hands off op, he was coming to find. He leans into the touch, only slightly, eyes still watching the bursts of flame where Gabe and Sibella are working their magic.

The next thing Alex says has him frowning, and he turns to look at the other man with a curious look. “Yeah, how are you not worried? Mr. ‘I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders at all times?'” Because it was kind of funny, that out of all the times that Alex wouldn’t be an anxious wreck was when Memo was.

Praxidike takes to the hair, hovering for a moment, before diving down, eyes scanning the various hallway openings, searching for her-- the other queen. She’s about two seconds from bashing everything down around her when a well-aimed poison sting shoots through the air in front of her face, missing her mandibles by inches. She turns in the direction of the projectile and watches as the giant, Primal Energy infused Queen unfurls from across the cavern, huge, at least twice as tall as Praxidike, with glowering red eyes.

Her golden mandibles snap snap as she twists her massive body and launches another poison sting.

Sibella lands briefly on the side of the hive, forcing a burst of fire down a hallway to smoke out any lingering bees.

Well, I wouldn’t suggest eating these bees, she says with a haughty sniff, launching into the air again. She does a loop around him. Gabriel, what, exactly, do you think Combee are made of? She asks, lashing her tail and cracking one out of the sky, crushing it against the side of the hive.

There’s a sudden uptick in activity where the Combee switch from attacking to defending, beginning to whirl back towards the hive. Sibella tries to head them off with more fire, lighting the side of the hive up like paper. Superheated honey explodes and spits, like bacon fat.

Alexei Ivanov

☉