The last words I heard from the dying Yafoot were these: ‘Take it. I won’t be needing it anymore.’ As for what those words meant, it was related to the new presence I sensed deep within my Mind, one in a place so reclusive I hardly paid attention to it.
The place where the Vulch’s Mind lay in stasis.
What exactly had I done? In all honesty, I wasn’t sure if I had even done anything at all. When we ‘killed’ the Vulch all that time ago, Queen and I had essentially consumed his Mind, overtaking it with our own and forcefully removing it from his body thanks to some highly specific circumstances. But I didn’t feel like such a thing happened in this case. Instead, it had felt like Yafoot’s Mind had willingly squeezed itself out of his body and through my Link, settling itself next to the unresponsive old vulture’s Mind.
From the moment I had Linked him, Yafoot felt strange. Even now, with his Mind resting within me, something about him felt… off. Like his Mind was incomplete, mere fragments of what Yafoot actually was. The result was another unresponsive, freeloading Mind taking up space in my tiny brain.
The whole situation had turned to absolute shit. Jill Yemonto had killed Yafoot and all the Linkers he was holding onto, numbering four total. Not including Yafoot’s own, of course. She knew more about us, more about our plans, and confirmed my suspicions that unless we got lucky, covertly Linking the more powerful people in Yiwi was a big no-go. As things were, the rickety stalemate taking place around most of the city had the chance to turn either way.
No way am I sitting around waiting to see who wins this thing. Losing Yafoot was extremely regrettable, considering his surprising competence and ability, but we ultimately had more weapons. I poured out a glass of poisoned river water for good ol’ Mr. Foot, may his Mind rest well. On second thought, if his Mind was in my head, then I am so, so sorry Mr. Foot.
“Wow, it’s like a party in here. But we shouldn’t dwell on it right now. I think something is happening at the city center.”
Queen was right.
“As usual.”
Queen was right this time. I had noticed it at the beginning of the talk with Jill, but sizable forces from both sides had been converging on the city center, where the City Lord’s office lay in ruins. The Rotor, which had slowed considerably since the fighting began, cast ominous shadows on the faces of the mercenaries and civilian Fighters. This was likely where the fate-deciding battle would ultimately take place, as the skirmishes in the streets had slowed to a crawl. Once the winner of the battle in the city center was decided, the leaders of the losing side would probably have no choice but to surrender. Wars were rarely fought to the last man, after all.
Well, perhaps not in this case. Oh, I had no doubt that the losing side would attempt to surrender, but unfortunately, it might not be so simple. If my side won, then that outcome might be likely. Besides certain people, most probably weren’t completely aware of the gritty details of the situation, so they might surrender or turn on the City Lord if he wanted them to keep fighting.
If our side lost?
It was a toss-up. The Fighters might be spared, but the merchants couldn’t be allowed to surrender, simply because if our forces in Yiwi fell, the hive would be vulnerable. I wouldn’t allow our hive to be left open to retaliation from the humans.
I diverted most of my attention to the Rotor battle. It was optimal for me to win there above anywhere else. My strategic view told me that many of the strongest mercenaries were among the enemy there, including…
Yelah. She was going there, along with Dip, Grehn and Vlugh. Even better, Jill was making a beeline (heh) for the Rotor as well. I really needed to bolster our forces there somehow. A good chunk of our allied mercenaries were in the group, but compared to the large number of powerful Hayrey mercs, it wasn’t going to be enough.
Who in the world could I send?
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Red. Brown. Silver. Shiny. Dead. Alive. Hurt.
Ben couldn’t tear his eyes away from the carnage. It. Was. CRAZY. So much violence, so much pain and agony, so much to see. If Ben was a little less good at looking, he might’ve gone crazy!
But Ben was good at looking. Great! Momomoa was really insistent on him looking at stuff right now, and Ben was more than happy to oblige her. Something about the fighting made Ben’s Mind stir; ever since the vultures, he had wanted to fight. But he was a Worker. A tiny one, even. He asked Bedivere for training and the super-Warrior had been happy to teach, but Ben just couldn’t figure it out. Why not?
Looking from the shadow of the Rotor’s blades, Ben began to realize why he couldn’t grasp fighting. He… didn’t like it? But he kinda did? He didn’t really understand, so Ben just kept looking. Looking solved everything, after all.
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Before people even entered the city center, guns started shooting. Ben thought guns were super lame, but also super awesome! Stinger fencing was so much more fun to look at, but guns were super weird, which made looking at them super great. The sudden flash, the smoke, the near-instant effect. It wasn’t Ben’s favorite, but it was pretty neat.
He became much more excited when people on both sides began yelling and charging forward, meeting the gunfire head-on. Well, kinda. He noticed some people hiding in buildings and felt their Minds at work, protecting the people running in the open. But Ben could see the mistakes.
A strange person on the enemy side smirked and fired his long gun—rifle—into the allies, blowing a dude’s head off. The protecting didn’t do anything, and when he fired again, Ben saw that his bullets were shaped like little drills. He didn’t fire often, but when he did, someone always died.
And the chargers still hadn’t clashed. Dozens already lay dead or dying by the time swords began to clash, and Ben kept looking closely. There were fewer gunshots now because the humans didn’t want to shoot their own soldiers like silly people, but the violence only ramped up. Without noticing, Ben began to wave his stinger around in motions similar to the ones Bedivere had tried teaching him, but noticeably less refined. He wanted to go down there and fight, but at the same time, he didn’t.
And so Ben just kept looking.
“Mamo, are we going to win? There’s lots of us, but it feels like the enemy guys are too strong.”
The soothing sound of Momao’s voice touched Ben’s Mind, working as usual to cheer him up. “I’m not sure, Ben. I’m trying to get the merchants to send their last dregs of soldiers to the city center, but you’re right that the enemies have the advantage of pure power. Things might get even worse if Jill Yemonto arrives. At this rate, I’ll have to…”
Ben continued looking as her voice faded away. He cherished the last echoes, even though he couldn’t see Momoao. Actually, he hadn’t looked at her in a while, which made Ben kinda sad. He wan-
Ben’s gaze sharpened. While looking at the enemies, he noticed three familiar faces. Well, three and a bird. Everyone was super mad at Yelah and her crew, but Ben actually wasn’t, at least not that much. Oh, he would totally beat them up with his masterful stinger skills if he fought them, but he wasn’t infuriated like the rest of his family was. After all, he knew that his mamalamadingdong wouldn’t lose to them, no matter what they tried. They had helped Ben look at a ton of cool things, so he would try to forgive them when they got Linked again.
Nobody else shared the sentiment. Even now, he heard Belphegora cursing the humans’ mothers as his sight was relayed to them through Becky, who was in charge of making sure every bee stayed informed. Oh well. If something happened to the former human allies, Ben wouldn’t complain.
He would still look, though.
Speaking of, a subtle shift in the battlefield rippled across Ben’s sight. He could see it in the way the people fought, the way the allies began to slowly get overwhelmed as their numbers were chopped away. The way the movements of the enemies became slightly less lively. The battle had barely started and already the enemies were using their might to make right.
However, Ben’s attention was immediately diverted elsewhere. The shift in the fighting had barely started when he noticed something strange. Ah, a human girl was the source of the odd looking. She was holding a stack of metal boxes and was sneaking into the Rotor building. Funny thing to do in the middle of all this craziness, Ben thought. It didn’t take long for realization to strike him. He had looked at those boxes somewhere before. One of their victims was still spewing smoke somewhere behind him.
Ben buzzed away as fast as he could, not missing the look of recognition land on him from a large man with a sword. Grehn had seen him trying to escape and had paused in confusion. Who cares! Gotta get away from the Rotor.
Ben zigzagged from side to side as he looked back, Momaroora screaming for him to escape.
“Don’t worry! I looked! Just need to look where it falls…”
Just as Ben thought those words, a bright light flashed through the city center. In the next instant, the loudest sound Ben had ever heard exploded, and he looked on as the Rotor groaned.
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“Fucking madmen!”
“Fucking humen!”
I ignored Queen’s odd new saying and watched in horror as the bombs went off, tearing the base of the Rotor to scrap metal. The gigantic construct groaned, emitting smoke and noise as the fighting was forcefully stopped by the explosion and ensuing shockwave. Thankfully, Ben was nowhere near the explosion and just got yanked around by the shockwave; if the Rotor fell, he would be able to dodge the fuckass huge blades of the thing.
What the hell were these bombs?! I rapidly scanned the merchants’ memories and found nothing useful, only seeing that one of them had bought the boxes from a long-time contact of his who sold weapons. Were weapons like these just a run-of-the-mill, everyday occurrence for this world’s inhabitants?! The fuck?
I watched through Ben’s eyes as the groaning Rotor suddenly lurched, the weakened base crumpling under the weight of the massive thing. People on both sides ran away screaming, provided that they hadn’t been injured or killed by the explosion. Which many surely had been. In a way, it was mesmerizing. This thing that had pretty much been a constant for the city of Yiwi, had acted as a beacon of progress and brought prosperity to the people, was collapsing before their very eyes. Poetic. I could only watch with morbid fascination as the thing began to tip over, one of its huge blades soon crashing into buildings and crushing bodies beneath it.
Windows that were lucky enough to survive the explosion and shockwave stood no chance against the Rotor’s blades falling on them. The metal screamed and warped, cracking only slightly as the shaft smashed down on the ground. The sounds of fighting in most parts of the city - hell, the entire city - died down completely as people looked up at the sky and failed to see the comforting sight of their Rotor spinning lazily above them. It was like a signal had gone off for a time-out, and nobody seemed willing to break the silence.
Smoke and fires began to rise from parts of the city, though I expected that the fire wouldn’t actually do much damage to the city as a whole. It did paint a grisly scene, though. Thunder rumbled over the Vultuous forest as the rain clouds that had actually begun raining steadily crept towards the now ruined city of Yiwi. I could see people crying and dying, saw a pair of legs sticking out from under the Rotor’s shaft. Dust that had been blown up by the collapse clouded the streets, making vision all but useless unless you had eyes like my bees.
I had to do something. Now. Both sides were looking at both ally and enemy in shock at what had just happened. Surely none of the Fighters had been expecting a move like this to come from one of their own. The merchants had it as a secret emergency plan, but they hadn’t given the order, naturally. From what I could tell at a glance, the act had been done by some rogue Fighter commander who sent in a young girl to destroy the entire Rotor, killing her and hundreds more in the process.
What was I supposed to do about this? Should I force the combatants to pick themselves up and keep fighting? Even if I could, was that even possible? Everyone was so shell-shocked that they weren’t moving, even people who hadn’t been close to the explosion itself. People were gasping for air, crushed by rubble, or straight up dead. Ben saw Yelah and her team also standing, unmoving, staring at the giant cylinder of metal that had fallen in the general direction of the enemy mercenaries. In fact, the Rotor’s shaft was so large that the two small armies in the city center couldn’t properly see each other. So what were they supposed to do?
The city that, once upon a time, had never stood still now sat frozen. As if waiting to wake up from a dream.
Well. I would be glad to play the role of alarm clock. Belial, whose team had only just reached the city, joined Belphegora on the city’s rooftops. I had already been ordering Belphegora’s team (excluding Beckham, Becky, and some warriors) to move towards the Rotor to interfere somehow, but now Belial and his contingent of bees had also arrived. The two groups combined into a decently sized swarm and flew to the city center with haste.
Like Miss Yemonto had said. Advantage should bee taken.